Desert

 

There can be no mistakes

When the prairie remains dry

Again.

Returning to the dust of my childhood.

To the dust of bible times.

Coating everything with a thin film.

Choking out the lesser creatures with grit and haze and heat and the volcanic stare of the sun.

Fine sand caught between my toes.

Lodged in the space where I can only taste the hint of something, but feel the rough paper texture in my mouth.

We do not get a mulligan.

Each action has a cost

And there are a finite number of choices

Each dwindling based on the previous one.

The sand whirls in a tight circle,

Climbing a little higher each gust

Slow in its ascension

To a titan

To a god.

As it blots out the light and the wind’s screech moves from background to center stage.

I look up and face it.

The inevitable conclusion

Before the curtain

And the applause.

Old Lang Sign

They’ll play that damn song I can’t spell to signal the year is over. 

As if that’s going to power wash away the resentment I’ve splattered on the siding of my house all year. 

Well-wishers are pigeons and chickens, fighting to claim scraps. Squawking and warbling encouragement to me as they pass by, honking their horns as I grab another handful of resentment and let it fly true.

I’m tempted to scream their noises back at them-loud voice, unblinking eyes. I’m not trying to make a scene, though. No, I’m working on a monument. 

A monument that says, “Right now is actually the best it’s going to be.” 

The birds will say, “it’s a reset.” Also, “chirp, yodelolodoodleadaddaday”

The monument responds, “the turning of the calendar is not a reset.”

The birds will say, “arroookacoo” and extend their streamers and drink sparkling cider in celebration. Tut-tutting away from the monument.

I will stand next to my work. We will own the message and the intent. And, despite the chirps, we know that one of us is telling the truth.

Flash

 

In the space of the flash

We see them all

Wrenching open their mouths

Clutching the sides of their faces. Revealing the whites of their eyes, streaked with freshly broken blood vessels. Straightening up to their apex or folding into themselves.

Movements in minor shuffling and jagged step patterns become

Falling all over themselves.

Dissolving into the light

Absent a whisper

Or the clicking of a clock’s second hand.

Or the screams of every molecule in existence 

while being blended in the whirring jaws of a Vita-mix.

Not a word or a speck of noise

Then the light gives way in a cascading wave of sharp contrast

Until it passes

And the only noise left

is the color seeping back into the frame.

A Classic Tale Retold in Time at an Inappropriate Time Slot

Another Saturday, another entry. Tell your friends. I’d tell mine but then I would be less mysterious.

I have seen the Hero die, clicked rewind to see the moment where the betrayal moves from wind to solid ice chunk. Sharpened to a point. Forward and backward. Living and dead. Absorbing the knife. Rejecting it and regrowing the skin.

The past and future are a ball on a tether. Sliding between the void and the majesty of existence, based on the angle of the end points.

Puppets in the hand of an old VCR and the cumbersome remote, the one that feasts on double A batteries, a gnawing savage with a deeper hunger. Knowing only one direction-more.

All my helpless victims. Believers of free-will: the beginning and end are always guaranteed. How and when, are entirely up for interpretation.

I play dress up as God, but really I am the magnifying glass in the hand of a child on a summer day, scorching ants on the front steps. Feeling important, but just leaving a small message to the other ants. Really though, the ants will just think the ones who got burnt had it coming. Stupid. Careless. Deserving.

The point enters. The point exits. Nothing changes for the victims or the bystanders.

Eventually, I’ll put down my toys and make something of my life. I hope whoever is watching gets some kind of satisfaction. Likely though, they won’t even press rewind.

They’ll just think I had it coming too. An ant with a VCR and a remote with dead batteries.