The Loneliest Picture

March 13, 2025

Over 50 years ago

One man, Michael Collins,

With one camera

Took a selfie of all humanity

With the Eagle in the foreground

And Earth in the background

Every human in the universe

All in one shot

Worth the effort

Worth the risk

Worth the cost

Worth doing again and again

For the Inner Emily D in all of Us

March 12, 2025

Because I could not decide on colors

The colors decide for me

They gave me choices for red to blue

And divisions to infinity

My paddling went so slowly

My vision grew to wide

I collided with the frozen water

Reconfirming all of divinity

I passed the shades, I passed the tints

The tinctures and the hues

I passed on the chance to depart this place

An action that just would not do

So I spent my hour, I spent my day

Astonished at all I see

No other kaleidoscopic main event

Defines sanguinity

Behind the Curtain

March 11, 2025

Tis not Oz

You can indeed scrutinize

If, and only if,

You know where to look

What lies beyond

Is it the stuff of imagination?

Or is it based in a yet to be discovered reality?

Would you know if it looked back at you?

Behind the curtain, one might encounter

Something so horrific, it was not meant

For conceptualization a meager

Human brain offers

However, one might rendezvous

With another of similar ilk

Curious and cautious by nature

Yet intrepid enough to continue even alone

What lies behind the curtain?

The answer is at your feet

Lift the veil and enter if you dare

You may never wish to return if you do

My Backyard of Dreams

March 08, 2025

My imagination has no bounds

I can run forever

Following the Sun

Never seeing night

I have no limits

Placed upon me

Placed by me

In my backyard of dreams, I am free forever

Here, I am an astronaut

A cowboy

A scientist

An occupation even I cannot pronounce

In my backyard of dreams

Forever is forever

Time stands still

Until I say otherwise

I can remain in backyard

Alone

But, I prefer to share my backyard

If I had a friend to share it with

So, please be my friend

If only for today

You might like my backyard

I would like it if you did

My Monster

March 07, 2025

I can’t sleep.

I lie awake at night thinking about the monster in my room. I have seen what he eats and how he eats. He torments all within close proximity. He yells and screams expecting the world to be at his beck and call. He lies. He makes weird noises. But, most of all, he smells. I know he has the ability to clean his body, but he won’t. The only thing worse than that odor is his breath. My monster’s breath smells of death. It smells of the carrion he recently consumed before entering my room. His breath smells of the putrid, fetid, remains of a rotten corpse. He breathes hard so everyone has to smell his breath. There must be a cure for this. There must be a way to remove my monster from my room. What is worse than all of this, is that no one believes me that my monster even exists. I am the only one who has seen him. I tell everyone I know to be aware of him. Yet, no one seems to care.

Tonight, he will gurgle and drool. This is all too much to bear. He won’t let me sleep. I am not brave enough to leave. I am too terrified to stay. I have to find a solution.

Until then, I will plug my ears and remain under the bed where it is safe from my monster above.

What if?

March 06, 2025

My mother came into my room to wake me. She told me it was nearly 5am and I had to get ready for work. She depended on my income since father died during the war. I try not to remind her of that day, so I get up and get ready without complaint.

The work in the fields is brutal on the best of days. I spend sun up to sun down there picking the cotton, beans, and potatoes. By law, I am to do this until my first retirement age of thirty. Then, I can apply to a county school to begin education, so I might get to work in one of the factories or mills in the North. If I am good, I will get my second retirement at age sixty.

I will need it by then.

My mother’s property is hers because the treaty that ended the war said so. If I could read, I would find out exactly where. She is “grandfathered” because she was born in Georgia and lived here all of her life. I, however, was born in Georgia, but lived with my aunt in Pennsylvania. That makes me tainted and subject to the reparations clause. In that, I must pay a fine or work five years for every year I lived on enemy soil. This is how the regional governors raised money to pay off war debts. Those in the North would have done the same if it had not been for the pollution and invasions from the British and the Germans. The colonies of New London and New Berlin (formerly Boston and New York) drained much needed resources from the final year of the war. The North succumbed to the pressures from the South and the blockades from the hostile European fleets, resulting in their surrender. Perhaps it was all for the best, since the death toll began to exceed ten million, leaving the entirety of America vulnerable.

Mother tells me the South was craftier, so the South won. I see it differently, but I don’t speak of it because in doing so adds another five years working the fields.

I can keep my mouth shut. I have to keep my mouth shut.

Sometime around noon, we all break for lunch. Then, I might get to thinking about other places I heard about last summer. My best friend tells of his time out west in California, now New Osaka. He would have remained if the Russians had not invaded from Alaska. I don’t believe everything he says, but I want to.

Why? Because any place else, doing anything else, is better than what I have right now. And as soon as I retire, I might be able to prove it.

Selling Insurance for Fun and Profit

March 04, 2025

“Tell me again why you did what you did.”

The detective was simple in his approach. And even though I had explained to him my purpose three times previously, he still wanted me to repeat myself. Perhaps he had a cadre of new people behind the glass in this interview room. Perhaps he was hard of hearing.

Smart money was on the former.

“I got into this business just to make some extra money. The initial classes were easy. The licensing requirements were even easier. I answered an online ad and began work the same month I applied. It only took a few days to locate my first client. He was the oldest of four brothers, all needing life insurance. It took some convincing, but I sold the oldest a $250,000 term policy for a premium of $120 per month. He signed the application and I took his check. The next day, I turned in both. That is when I decided to kill him two days later.”

“But why? I mean, you went through your entire sales pitch. Your commission was less than $50. Why would you kill someone for less than $50?”

The detective had not encountered the likes of someone like me before. I took a sip of coffee before I decided to answer his question.

“I did not kill my client out of spite or any animosity. I killed my client for advertising. For once he died, I hand delivered a cashier’s check for the cash value of the policy. In fact, I delivered the check to his brothers before each brother knew of the passing of their oldest. They remembered my punctuality. Their wives took note of the importance of life insurance. By the end of the next week, I sold six new term life insurance policies for one million each (they now had the money). With each brother and wife retelling the story of the caring life insurance agent to their friends and distant family, my business grew exponentially. As you know, by the conclusion of my first month, I sold more than four million dollars of policies. In essence, I became the salesman of the month and quite a rich man in my own right.”

The detective looked somewhat surprised. He took a sip of his coffee. I followed suit.

“Did you come up with this plan by yourself or did someone teach this to you?”

Some questions never get answered. Some coffee never gets finished. I left the good detective hanging on the former. With my last gulp, I asked for seconds on the latter. Because of my sentencing, I will have lots of time to enjoy each sip.

Reflecting Pool

March 03, 3025

She was with me for half of my life

Now that she is dead, I have half a life without her

But, on a reflecting pool,

I can be with two of her for all eternity

The math works in my favor

That is all that does

If I really wanted to cause chaos

March 01, 2025

Someone once asked me, if you had three genie wishes, what would you wish for?

Usually, any answer causes disruptions in the wisher’s life. So, my answer should spread the misery and cause disruptions in everyone’s life.

For my first wish, I wish that everyone’s life expectancy would proportionally double.

If you are 50, you would be as you are now at 100. Retirement would come at 130. Imagine fertility from (previously) age 16 to 45, not between 32 and 90. Everyone would have all the time in the world.

This would be great! Right!

Or, there could be another POV.

A thirty year mortgage would be nothing to a man who could live to 200. Life insurance mortality tables would need to be recalculated. Premiums would have to double. This would shake the fiscal foundations of every country and business world wide.

There would be other repercussions.

Imagine going to school for 24 years and not 12.

Imagine all prison sentences doubling.

Car loans of 14 years when the car wouldn’t even last 10 years.

You would have to save twice as much for twice as long to pay for everything once.

People could have 5, 6, or more marriages.

Trophy wives could be 100 younger than their husbands.

Til death do us part might become more laughable than some already take it to mean.

Most employment is predicated on a predictable quantity of people leaving the workforce, thus opening up positions to people entering the workforce.

If no one retires for the next 40 years, what will all of the young people do?

The terrible twos will become the terrible fours.

Puberty could last into your thirties.

Teens would live with their parents for decades more than they currently do.

A gap year would become gap years.

Bad hair days would morph into bad hair weekends.

30 something becomes 60 something.

You could have 6 or 7 generations living in the same house.

Athletic records would fall.

Politicians would never leave.

All of this from a single wish.

And I still have two more remaining.