13. Random Chaos

The way things happen sometimes sets a mind to wondering about the how’s why’s whichways and wherefores. Eversince seeing Rachel in the hall that day in school I’ve been hoping (wishing, praying) to bump into her again soon. Just about any old time would have been fine – any time at all really - except for the one that presented itself.

Synchronicity.

            I still worry that she’ll tell everybody about my ‘pre-test upchuck-fest’ and I’ll never be allowed to live it down. The Most Embarrassing Moment of My Life - I could throw a pity-party for myself. Fear lingers. Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate my belief in Random-Chaos theory.

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Took my driving test a few days ago.

Have I mentioned the You-Gotta-Try-Some-thing-New-Everyday kick Dad’s been on for the last week? No? Well, remind me to tell you about it some time. Anyway, the night before my test, Jack brought home Indian food and was slightly miffed that I wouldn’t eat with him. Even though I insisted I’d already eaten and wasn’t hungry, he kept telling me to ‘tuck in’ as he couldn’t eat it all by himself. He made a valiant attempt though, notwithstanding the profuse burning and streaming of his eyes and nose. There were leftovers, bad luck, and much later that night, unable to sleep and a little like Pooh Bear - rumbly in my tumbly – I found myself standing stark-naked in the kitchen before the microwave, nuking a plastic plate of unnameable brownish food. To my amazement, it tasted wonderful and I wolfed down the lot in a few short minutes. Crawling back onto cool sheet, I fell headlong into a spicy sleep, dreaming of the scent of cilantro and cumin and tumeric – envisioning spice girls currying me with the delightful flavors of their delectible favors. Posh-ginger-scary-sporty-baby sugarplum fairies swaying palpably singing seductively. So totally gone was I to this world that when Judy’s alarm-clock radio went off I slept on like a deaf man overcome by exhaustion. When finally persuaded round by a voice growling at me from the radio, I sprang up and out of bed alarmed by the numbers on the clock’s face.

Riddle-me-ree: What has digits but no hands? A digital clock. Dig it!

A 1, a 3, and two 0’s - harmless numerals you’d normally think, but viewed from the context of my current predicament, more asphyxiating than a scene from a Hitchcock flick. Like a nightmare… in the daytime!

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10:30! Late, late, and not just late, but very late, for a very important date. The gravelly voice spat out raspy words that seemed to sum everything up: Overworked and underpaid, a dollar short and a day late… Christ, I got my lips around a bottle and my fingers on the throttle… I pulled on clothes like a man in a house on fire (where’s my other shoe?) I beat myself up for sleeping late, metaphorically speaking (or is it metaphysically?), and continued to do so for the duration of my headlong run in the direction of the bus. I paid particular attention to the traffic as I ran, not wanting to find myself standing in the middle of a dead dog.

With only minutes to spare, I arrived, doubled over, gasping for oxygen, acute cramp in belly, brain disorientated like a punctured football. Eustachian tubes clicked and popped as leaking air pressured its way up through them. I stumbled around a long hall with a highly polished floor, banging off walls, holding my gut as though I’d just taken a slug, feeling like that tragic character in the gangster flick I saw the other night. I felt like that now – as though I’d been caught in the grip of a psychogenic fugue or something just as inexplicable - vaguely feeling my way towards the restrooms. All sense of Time and Space was lost to me. Dots duplicated in quick succession destroying my field of vision. All I knew was this: the Large White Telephone was Ringing. And God was on the Other End. In my turbid search for the Ringing Telephone, I ran out of gas, sputtered to a halt, slumped back against what I imagined was a wall, and fell backwards through a yielding door. Horizontal upon cold floor, ears filled with muffled buzz, stunned, surprised, and no longer in possession of the slightest idea where I was, I sang the title line from a They Might Be Giants song, over and over: Someone… keeps moving… my chair.

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.

A voice - pleasant, female – one I thought I recognized - filtered through the effluvium, finding me, stopping my fall into the abyss, dragging me closer to my disembodied presence of mind. Her voice came to me down the long twisty wire I was pulling myself up with, saying something that sounded like: Ukelele.

U-O-K L-E-O?

You’re breaking up, I thought. In jerky slo-mo, I went about decoding the meaning of these six letters, all the while struggling to open my eyes and sit up. Aeons later, I managed it, finding myself staring up and into an orbiting oval - a face I was sure I recognized. Rachel Ferguson?

Who else?!

She repeated the six letters, and this time, reading her lips, I understood. She wanted to know if I was okay. Scrambled to feet and grabbed  butt with both hands to check for a new crack as the sharp pain gave me to believe I’d broken it. Jeez Louise - I can just see it: Pete, Mikey and Troy all chortling and guffawing as I scuttle like a pair of ragged claws into Maggie’s Pub with my butt in plaster of Paris. And I can hear them, voices jeering me. Pete: Hey, look at the freak, would’joo! – He cracked his ass and now it’s in a cast! – Mikey: That’s his story, but the way I heard it, he was fiddling with his wooden soldier and broke it! – Troy: Yeah, that’d explain it: they put the cast on his ass because they couldn’t find his Johnson – Pete: I’d kick your ass, Mac, but I’d be afraid to break my foot! 

Those guys… what can you say? So witty. So shitty.

‘Leo, are you all right?’ Rachel again, more concerned now.

‘I’m okay,’ I lied, expecting to drop dead any second.

‘Are you positive?’

‘HIV!’ Three letters I immediately wished I hadn’t said. What the hell was I thinking? Where had that come from? And where the hell was I anyway?

Rachel closed in on me for closer inspection. ‘Well, you sure don’t look okay.’

‘I’m fine,’ I said testily, ‘but thanks for asking.’ I wasn’t fine at all, and I knew I had to get away from her - before the inevitable came to pass. In the back of my mind I worked out the odds:

Fall over on face: 5-1.

Head explodes: 3-1.

Disappear up my own ass: 2-1.

Upchuck all over her: Odds on favorite!

‘No really,’ she persisted, alarm revealing itself in the dilating holes of her pupils. ‘You don’t look well at all – you’re so pale. You’re just nervous about the test, that’s all. Don’t worry. You’ll be right as rain in a minute. Here, drink some water.’ She took my elbow and led me to a sink. I took heart: at least I’ve made it to the bathroom.

‘What’re you doing here?’ I asked.

‘I’m taking my driving test. Aren’t you?’

‘Yeah.’ I wince as a crew of miniature men in bigboots and hardhats mill about in the hollow pit of my gut. Whatever it is they’re putting together, they’re nearly finished, and I sense something’s about to blow. I can feel it in my throat. When it goes off it’ll be messy – not a smart move for a guy to make in front of the girl he’s planning to ask out on a date. What are they building down there? 

Damn – I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that Indian food.

‘Wow. What a coincidence.’

Ah – that’s it! They’re building a rocket. And they’re finished. The countdown’s

begun. 10. 9.

‘I’m not nervous,’ I insisted.

Rachel pursed her lips and knitted her brow. ‘But you must be nervous.’ With a hand on my nape she pushed me forward and told me to drink!

8…

I lapped like a puppy at the cold water in the cup of her hand.

‘It’s just pre-test nerves is all, no big deal. You shouldn’t feel embarrassed.’

7. 6.

‘It’s not nerves.’ Water leaked from my mouth as I strained to stand straight and force my lips into a semblance of a smile. For some reason her accusation hit me funny and I took exception. This wasn’t a good way for me to be perceived (nervous and embarrassed) by the girl I had designs on. Don’t want her to get the wrong idea about me. I mean, if anything, I’m pretty laid back. I’m cool.

5…

‘I’m not nervous,’ I assured her again, but she just smiled back, insisting that I must be.

4.

Along with my temperature, my stomach was rising. My mouth dried up - saliva sticky, stringy and salty. The toilet bowl rang out

getting louder

3…

How do you confuse an Irish laborer? My Uncle Brian likes to ask on occasion. Stand him in front of a row of shovels and tell him to take his pick! That one always cracks me up. But I wasn’t confused. I wasn’t nervous or embarrassed or confused. I knew exactly what was happening. And I knew that after what was about to happen that I’d no longer be in a position to ask Rachel out, ever again, and that if I somehow managed to muster the balls to do so, she’d decline my offer. And her bare, tanned skin – I’d never get to touch. Ha! How close can you get without it touching it? as Dad likes to ask. In this case… well, this was it, right here, right now – this was as close as I was going to get: her left hand on the back of my neck, my tongue dipping into the bowl of the other. And that’s kind of sad, when you think about it.

I grew more frustrated by the second. In the mirror I caught a glimpse of a face whiter than a blank page staring back at me.

‘No,’ I emphasize one last time, ‘I’m not nervous.’ My head’s like a tea-pot, short and stout, billowy steam whistling from the spout. Tip me over, pour me out…

2…

‘Well… if you’re not nervous’ she purred distractedly, and stuck the tip of a fingernail into her mouth, ‘then…’ clicking it against her teeth, and asked, ‘what’re you doing in the Ladie’s?’

1!

A yell. Or was it a howl? Oh no. Must’ve been me.

Right hand slipped over open mouth. Then I was on the ground, on knees in a cubicle, in the posture of someone taking one of those facial steam-bath things. The coagulated remnants of last night’s nuked leftovers issued forth in a spectacular projectile fashion, slapping the water like the ass of a fat guy doing a cannon-ball in a shallow pool. Now I was embarrassed: the splashing sound, the sight of me in this compromised position, the smell that quickly filled the air with poison-green gas – hard pressed to say which one is the cause.

Baby-shit-brown and green gunge entered the bowl with a sploosh, followed by a gargled retching that sounds like aaarrghhoyakkkh. The noise reverberated off tiled walls – the sad song of a stumblebum after a few bottles of cheap wine. When the worst of it had subsided, when I was in the final death-throes of the dry-heaves, I experienced two opposing feelings simultaneously: Relief (from upchucking the glop in my stomach and all the pain that was chuckedup with it) – that was wonderful, but negated by Disappointment at the fact that I had forever blown any slim chance I may have had with the gorgeous Rachel Ferguson.

Embarrassment gave way to a sense of feeling sorry for myself. As ears began to clear, I noticed how quiet it was out there. Maybe she’s gone! Yeah. I listened harder, hopefully. Maybe she’d left before the blast. In the hunched position of a man looking down a well, I reached for some paper to wipe my mouth.

Shit! Unsurprisingly, there’s none. Murphy’s Law, Uncle Brian would say. Or is it Sod’s Law? Whatever. It’s the law: What can go wrong will go wrong.

‘Here.’ Rachel was standing over me, offering a wad of lipstick-stained Kleenex.

‘Thanks,’ I mumbled, taking it. ‘Sorry.’

‘For what? Don’t be silly. Like I said, just pre-test jitters. Butterflies in your stomach. Everybody gets ‘em. When I do, I try to get ‘em to fly in formation – like it’s more bearable that way, you know?’ She laughed and slapped my back. ‘I think you managed to do that – get them to fly in formation, I mean – to fly out of your mouth in one straight shot. Amazing.’

‘Amazing,’ I repeated, dabbing at the cold wet dots on my forehead, staring listlessly at her shiny black shoes.

Amazing-mazing-azing-zing-ing-ng echoed through the empty stalls.

‘Hey, listen, I gotta go. You’ll be all right now, now you’ve got the butterflies out of your system.’ She slapped my back again. ‘Take your time, get your head together, and don’t come out till you’re good and ready. Okay?’

‘Okay. Thanks again.’ I hung my head in the bowl and considered flushing it. Goodbye, cruel world.

I don’t remember taking the test, but incredibly, I passed somehow. And like a baseball card clicking in the spokes of the wheels of my bike, Rachel’s been stuck in my mind ever since. Seeing her, I mean the way she is now - is mind-bending. To me, she was always just that metal-mouthed, pigtailed kid living in the mustard colored house at the end of our street: the beanpole sissy girl with the weird, older hippy brother - what was his name? oh yeah - Dwayne. A name that cracks Judy up every time she hears it.

A couple of years ago Judy and I happened to find ourselves in the Ferguson household one summer afternoon at feeding time. Dwayne, who was so skinny and oily looking that he bore a striking resemblance to his pets, invited us into his rank smelling bedroom to watch his snakes do dinner. As trepidation gave way to a kind of grossed-out morbid fascination, we entered, what Judy would everafter call, Dwayne’s Den of Death. Our eyes grew wide and horrified as we watched live mice and rats dangled slowly by their tails, lowered into the glass case and fed into the blackholes of half a dozen open mouths.

.

.

I remember Judy scrunching her nose up as we left the hot, fetid room (six mice and two rats later), whispering from behind cupped hands of how it smelled like bad tomatoes – or old spilled ketchup. Wow! Funny the things that stay with you.

Seeing Rachel has got me thinking about How Fast Things Change. I don’t know exactly who she is now and all, who she’s turned into, I mean, but she isn’t the skinny beanpole kid down the street anymore, that’s for sure. She’s all grown up – all filled out! I’m enthused (and somewhat bemused) to find that strange things start to happen when I daydream about her. For one, a compulsion to write poetry overwhelms me. For another, the desire to stroll in the woods raises me to my feet. The simplest, stupidest things send my train of thought down tracks that always and finally lead to her.

Yesterday morning for instance: from a vertical position upon the lawn in the backyard, quietly minding my own business, gazing up at the tree, considering the way it proudly displayed its harvest of just-ripe apples – snap! -  there she was, Rachel F, on my mind. 

Today, in the woods down by the drying-up stream, a doe stepped out of the underbrush and sloped into my field of vision. In her beauty and grace, I fancied I saw Rachel’s face, as youthful and vital as it would ever be. She’s like a brand new person to me. The result of a spellbinding metamorphosis: from a common-or-garden-variety caterpillar she has emerged an exquisite butterfly.

At school guy’s heads in the halls turn to stare when she glides by. My head mostly, I guess, like it’d been cut off and placed on a well-oiled Lazy Suzanne.

The sight of her – her smell – her smile - takes my breath away. Thinking about her does my brain in. Could it be love?

Jack’s calling up from the foot of the stairs. Dinner’s ready.

I’m going. I’m starving.

PS: Would I really want to eat if this was love? I read something in Reader’s Digest to suggest not. Ha! It’s probably nothing more than a bad case of lust. A good case of lust!’

2. Roadkill

Barking. Oh please, for shit sake, not again! Incessant and persistent, as though it’s been taped and looped.

Maybe there is no dog.

Maybe I’m dyslexic and there is no god!

What if the barking is not out there in the neighborhood, but in here – in your head?

What if I’m really fast asleep and only dreaming that I’m awake? Dreaming and can’t wake up, or awake and can’t fall asleep? Or lost. Somewhere in between.

Stuck in a moment that you can’t get out of…

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… late. In a panic. Hair sticking out wildly from my half-asleep head. Late again. Moving swiftly, passing through kitchen door, swiping brown bag-lunch from countertop as I go, tripping over sneaker’s loose laces hurriedly falling out into acrid Miami morning air, headlong, beneath baking sun, catching myself from falling, straightening up, increasing pace, hurtling into the oppressive embrace of hot dead air. Late, late, for an important date. A test. Oh jeez, please… can’t be late again. If I run… if I just run as fast as I can… it’ll be okay. Everything will turn out fine. Just have to keep running.

… faster… sshh-sshh-sshh-sshh whisper Nike Air’s gliding along the pavement like skimming-stones... Whoosh of cars passing on right, smell of carbon-monoxide making head feel light, varied shades of green (hedges, leaves, lawns) blurring by on left, chest getting tight, and somewhere up ahead in the distance, the sound of a dog barking. Relentlessly.
Running faster still. Unexpected turn right and I find myself beside myself at odds with one another. Being aware of them both brings back the feeling of being In Between. Middle of the road. In the midst of honking horns-screeching brakes-skidding tires. Mist fogging brain. Like the green lawns and manicured hedges that featured a moment ago
... moment? felt like a day!
everything’s a blur.
Running again. Blindly. Breathing hardfast: lungs aflame. Each inhalation fanning the fire, depriving me of oxygen.
Just like that
! – in less time than it takes to print an exclamation mark – everything stops. Abrupt halt. Period. Including me. It’s as if the sun-heated concrete has melted the soles of my sneakers, sticking me to the spot. Wind, traffic noise, barking dog, my own heavy breathing – all swallowed up in the shock of suddenly showed-up silence
Stuck in a moment you can’t get out of
a dusty needle stuck in a scratched groove on a warped record. Looping. Why can’t I move? What’s holding me? Who’s been messing with the controls? Turning down sound. Adjusting contrast: intensifying color and brightness, zooming in for closer inspection, pushing pause button killing movement. Gazing into the luminous blue sky for answers. Something – a feeling – suggests I look down, and looking down is the last thing I want to do, but the stomach-churning dollop of fear hooked to this idea isn’t strong enough to stop me. Unable to help myself, I lower head and cannot believe the sight in front of me.
Judy! Is it? Could it be? Judy, my 15-year old baby sister and only sibling, standing before me in her pyjamas, shimmering like an oasis in the scorching heat, defiant and indignant with hands on hips and legs akimbo, her big furry Betty Boop slippers on her feet… no. Frantic, I wonder – this bizarre hallucination – where it’s come from and why. And the look in her open-wide eyes: blame or forgiveness, love or hate? The light’s so bright I can’t really see eyes winking wildly in the sun
and in the blink of an eye, it's done, she’s gone.
Eyes wander lower. Feet, way down below me miles away distant wear her slippers. Only, I gather on a second, closer look, that it isn’t Betty Boop’s shiny black hair at all: its fur, and it’s not black either, but a saturated shade of red, the deep color of a pool of blood. Other glistening wet colors stimulate my rods and cones – purple, yellow, green, beige, black – and I’m beginning to understand that I’m not standing in Judy’s slippers at all, but something else entirely.
Heart sinks as gorge rises: I’m standing in the middle of a dead dog.
It’s all too bright and vivid.
Eyes smart and slide shut.
Head shakes to scatter the dream, but eyes open to find me still here, in the middle of the street, stuck in place.
The dog my feet are buried in is a young Golden Retriever, lying on its side, ribcage squashed flat against cement. The imprint - a tattoo of the deep-treaded tires responsible - is plainly and horrifically visible.
A twisted, steaming mess of entrails spill out through popped-open stomach and ooze from broken-jawed snout.
Attempt to lift feet but nothing happens. Scream but no sound comes out. Try to look away from the dog’s broken body, but can't stop staring into its bulging eye.
Oh Jesus, Mary and Holy St. Joseph, I say to myself, it’s looking back at me.
But you said it was dead… my self (or a voice purporting to be my self, or the me-beside-myself) counters.
I know I know but look, see, it’s turning its head. Its pop-eye is peering into me - and did you see that? Its mouth moving?
But you said –
I know I said its jaw’s broken and it is - but its mouth is moving. Black lips, pinkredyellow tongue, talking to me without words, in my head, saying its all my fault, I can read its lips - if I hadn’t been late, if I hadn’t run out into the road causing that car to brake, skid and swerve out of control, that this dog wouldn’t be like this.
‘Look at me,’ it says, its one good eye a hernia ready to burst, ‘look at me would you? I’m not supposed to be like this. I’m not supposed to be dead. It should’ve been you. You’re the one!’
Teeth dripping blood and bile, its shrieking howl tearing the silence apart, the dog lunges for my throat.

.

.

Must've woken up then. Popped up like burnt toast.
Still hear barking.

1. Sad Mr Stevens

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Awake again. No idea what time it is. Clock flashes. Accidentally unplugged it when tripping over it earlier. Didn’t reset it as I can’t be bothered. What’d be the point?

Dark and silent inside. Outside, too, no traffic (not even a barking dog – out there, or in here), so it must be very late. Or very early. Same thing. See, Time can be tricky when it’s dark outside. And I’m beside myself again. Above, actually.

high up

Me-Above
looking down
at Me-Below on bed. Gazing down at shadowy lump sitting hunched over the bright burst of a circle of light punched like a hole in the surrounding darkness, scribbling in the journal. Gone word-fishing.
Not knowing how or when or why I got here.
There.
Now, then.
I’m getting a bite here and there. Words are nibbling.

Hello down there! Could you reach up a hand and help me down please, a little help?

Me-Below, wrapped in blanket, swaddled in night, drowning in a waterfall of words, witnessing. Watersurge more like – coming up fast… a fountain (pen) spraying linked-letters from unknown depths. Words surfacing so fast they’re suffering from the bends. 

Slow down. Calm down. Count down.

999. 998. 997…

Deeeeep breath.

Come down.

Is this what Judy was talking about? Am I travelling astrally? Has spirit separated from flesh and left my body behind? If so, how did I do it? And scarier still, how do I get back in?

Gather thoughts.

Is this what being dead will be like? Floating about like an idea in the ether, waiting to enter the neural-network of a passing-by head?

Sink like a stone. 

Can you feel the silence… 

Damn that dog. Barking again. Oh for a gun – I could shoot it out of my misery. What time is it? The digits 03:49 glow in the dark. I should be fast asleep inhaling sweet dreams not suffocating in clammy crawling humidity thinking how strange it is, the way it envelops you in its sweaty leather glove and grabs hold of Time like a sponge, squeezing each and every second out of it.

Swapped sweating in bed for staring out open bedroom window and playing I Spy.
I spy with my little eye… something beginning with… S.

My next-door neighbor, Mr Stevens. What’s he doing up so late? The damn barking, probably. And why is he standing perfectly still in the middle of his backyard in boxershorts and flipflops? Squinting to I see, I think I make out a Frisbee in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. Behind him, a long, skinny shadow stretches across the lawn like a narrow grave: above, a fingernail moon looking like an incomplete question mark hangs over his bowed head.

Now he’s bending an arm, saying a word - (straining to listen)… I can’t… quite… make out… (but guess to be: Ready) - tossing the disc gently into empty space.

A quick glance over shoulder at bed makes sure I’m not in it and dreaming all this. I mean, come on, what’s going on? What’s the story with Mr Stevens thesedays? I suppose that’s the question on everyone’s lips. Who really knows? I sure as hell don’t.

Gossip around town (tunes on the Devil’s Radio) has it that he’s ‘gone off the deep end’ ever since his beautiful young wife of five years just up and hit the road one day last Christmas, without hint or warning, reason or trace. Made like a banana and split, is how Jack put it. Sadder still, she took their one and only child. A pretty blonde-headed girl of four - four and half maybe. The light of her daddy’s life: the apple of his eye.

Stevens’ moving again, walking dazedly towards the spot where the Frisbee lays, bends over with a grunt, spilling a splash of suds on his feet, picks it up, gazes at it dumbly.

A conspicuously quiet couple were the Stevens’, kind of hard to get to know you could say. Kept themselves pretty much to themselves most of the time. Now that he’s alone, he keeps pretty much to himself all of the time, practically a recluse. Works from home, it’s whispered. Internet related activities, some voices say: drug-running, others counter. There’s a lot of traffic at his door, I suppose - he gets all his groceries and beer and videos and pizzas delivered. He used to be a manager in some bank down the mall. He used to be a husband and a father. I wonder if he knows who he is now.

.

.

Look: He’s putting the bottle down, throwing the plastic saucer again. Soft. Low. Its sailing steady on the still night air… soaring… 10, 12, 14 feet… hitting the grass like a pebble on water… skipping three times. Coming to a halt.

‘Great catch!’ he calls aloud, clapping with a delighted and approving smile.

What’s that? Run that by me again. A sad, strange idea bubbles up and surfaces while a shuddery feeling like a feather-duster brushes my insides as I watch him retrace his steps.

‘Who’s favorite little girl are you?’ he seems to be asking the Frisbee. ‘Daddy’s. Yes, that’s right. And who loves you the most in the whole wide world?’ He smiles and nods his head. ‘Yes. Daddy does. Daddy loves his little girl so very much.’

A neurological pathway lights up, drawing a line that connects my idea to my intuition to what I’ve just seen and heard and Understanding, like a jet, comes in to land. I understand now. Take a nauseating turn for the worse and feel so bad for him. So very sad. Poor sod. He’s playing make-believe, the way a child does, making out as if it’s not today but another, a happier one from the recent past: his little girl on the lawn with him, tossing the Frisbee back and forth, laughing and clapping and being silly. Just like a children’s game.

On knees now. Shoulders rising and falling, head slumping, face falling into cradled hands. Skin on back slides up and down ribcage.

Can’t hear him but I know he’s crying. A shiver runs through me, leaving a trail of deeper feelings: helplessness, horrible hopelessness. But are those my feelings, or am I somehow picking up on his, like a radio picking up soundwaves?

As though receiving orders from outer space, my hands go into motion, tear a page from the back of this book, and on it print ten simple words in purple magic-marker. Folding it quickly into an airplane, my right hand pushes the window open wider. My left, taking care to get the aim right, like a master darts player propels it

… and just look at her go…

                                        on a mission to deliver a spur of the moment message that I hope will help Sad Mr Stevens as it has me in recent times:

TO WEEP IS TO MAKE LESS THE DEPTH OF GRIEF.

Shit!

Aim’s a little off. The plane is going to hit him square on the back of his conk…

but no… wait - 
                      a gust of breeze picks it up, steers it with an invisible hand over the fence and – plonk - into next yard’s swimming pool. Stevens doesn’t notice a thing. I go to make another, but stop before I start. It was a spontaneous action, an off-the-cuff gesture. Doing it again, I feel, somehow, wouldn’t be sincere.

.

.

Try to sleep now… let mind wander…

Wonder if the plane will eventually become sodden and sink to the bottom of the pool, ink trailing behind like purple smoke. And what if it somehow survived and Old Ms Izzard (a skinny, 70-year old spinster who used to be my kindergarten teacher and taught me how to remember the colors of the rainbow in the correct order) found it there in the morning – what would she make of those words?