The hyenas laughed

The hyenas laughed.

Man kind stepped from cave and looked to the star with prideful defiance. They collected sticks and stones and smashed them together until swords hung from their belts and castle walls built borders between them.

They hyenas laughed.

Man kind toiled over scrolls and numbers until trade routes crisscrossed from coast to coast, business flourished, and city spread over the land, losing their boards.

The hyenas laughed.

Man built machines that built better machines and steam power turned humanity into cogs in the great clockworks of industrialization.

The hyenas laughed.

Man master the forces of electricity and the new gods, Tesla and Edison, battled on the ever approaching horizon of technology.

The hyenas laughed.

Man reveled in physics and chemistry and sent their brothers to float amongst the stars, travel to the moon, and return home as champions of what the species could accomplish.

The hyenas laughed.

Man created a network of synthetic human interaction that changed individuals into the center of their own universes, enlightenment and freedom on a scale never before seen outside of buddhist monasteries.

The hyenas laughed.

Man mastered the atomic arts and used them to such effect that they willingly poisoned the world, coating it in a thousand years of mutagenic radiation.

The walls came down. The cities became the new wilderness. The clock came to a grinding halt. Edison and Tesla were joined by the rest. The champions scraped low. Enlightenment was cast aside, replaced by the urge to survive. The arts were lost.

The hyenas ate well.

The hyenas laughed.

Starlight befallen The Son

He came to them without a disguise. His horns were boldly polished to a mirror like finish. His cloven hooves were unadorned and his red skin was not masked or covered in any way.

After the earthquakes, lightning storms, and ravaging fires humanity quivered and prepared for the end.

Then he spoke. A smooth calmness descended over the catastrophe and soothed the fearful hearts of man.

He promised peace, then delivered it to the first to follow. The garden from which humanity was born, recreated with the slightest gesture from his elongated fingers. Those that dwelled there prospered beyond imagining, and so others were quick to join.

The fearful remained behind the threshold for worshipful fortifications and suffered meager supplies of flesh and blood, while denying himself the readily available bread and wine.

He promised servants and with a twitch of his tongue summoned the worshipful blood drinks to wait on his followers, hand and foot.

The flesh eaters pressed their boney knees against rough hewn floors and scrapped low at the feet of a tortured prophet, spiked through with iron.

He promised them unending life and they thrived for six hundred years, their children multiplying like the cheers that chanted his name.

Then judgement was passed.

The blood became wine. The flesh became bread. The first became last. The last became first. He left his follower behind and filled the only place left for a servant.

Eye of the Needle

Quick flashes of diamond split light strobed through the darkness as the precious stones were thrown to one side.

“Diamonds? Mere rocks. The planet is chalk full of the things. More common than a proper handshake.” The old man said, his jaw a hard line.

The bowed figure that had presented the diamonds retreated with stooping backward steps. The old man’s servant ushered the next in line to the foot of the crudely formed thrown.

“I present to you a gift, in hopes of gaining passage through your gate.” The man was young, his features pale and flawless. His spine was perfectly straight and his posture spoke of nobility. He extended his offering the the old man’s servant, who in turn presented it to the old man.

The gift came wrapped in a small velvet bag. The old man unlaced the bags tie strings and upturned its contents on to his wide palm, the fingers of his other hand discarding the bad and descended on the gift like overly muscled talons.

The old man held up two small metal objects, stared at them for a moment then turned to the young noble. “What have we? Two used bullet yes… but used on who?”

The young noble looked pleased with the old mans reaction and bowed with a flourish while saying, “They were used to kill Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth.” As if sensing the next question the noble answered preemptively, “The tragedy lays in the fact that no one knows which of the two bullets killed which of the mean. They have rested together in my families vaults for more than 10 thousand years, and I have always found them to be the most significant of my families holding.”

In the dim light of the old mans chamber, sitting upon his rough granite thrown, the old man held the bullets up to what light there was. His eyes, looking through more than distance, held on the peculiar treasures for nearly a minute.

“A fine piece of history. A fine puzzle. Well and good that they find their final resting place here…” The old man closed his eyes and slowly placed the bullets into his mouth and swallowed.

The noble nearly shivered with thanks as the old man’s servant lead the young noble through a red door behind a black curtain.

The Alter

The stones of the church stood with a solidity that is seldom found in steel. The keystones locked into their places at the tops of arches in a way that seemed to promise unending permanence, not by the weight of them but by their stillness, as if they had always been there. It was easy to imagine that after the sun had died and the planets spiraled away from the galaxies dark center that the church would remain, adrift on on it’s lonely path, on an ice encrusted earth, unfazed, and unchanged.

In contrast the worshipers gathered beneath the stone arches appeared little more the shadows cast by a wavering flame, momentary illusions dancing for a brief second across the stone.

Like a flame they were wrapped in red. Their robes robes were dark and tattered, the brightest of red gathered over their cowls, then descended to the lower hems, dusty and dragging along the floor. They swept into the church, faces hidden under cowls and behind shadows cast by brazzers fastened to the stone.

The altar was a simple thing while remaining impressive. It was made from a single piece of cold hammered iron. It’s surface was texture by the hammers forming strikes, round indentations counted in the thousands. Over it’s surface lay three deathly still objects.

The first of three was a yearling goat lain on the left of the alter. It’s coat was brilliant white, unmarked, pure, and clean. It’s hooves were filed flat and sanded, then buffed to a dull, even uniformity. It’s nose and ears were pale pink and showed no spots or scarring.

The second was sheep lain on the right side of the alter. It’s coat, ears, and hooves, equally pristine. It’s eyes however were sewn shut with tightly spaced stitches of red cord.

The last of three was a child, cold and still, lain in the center. It was sickly and pocked, it’s limb too narrow and thin. It lay on a black cloth that trailed from the altar out into the dark emptiness beyond the firelights reach.

The Dangerous Place

The snowy white field is both dangerous and the most alluring playground. The best of us, we veteran few that have survive it’s invisible trappings, fall to it’s hazards from time to time. The novice looks out over it’s massive face with both wonder and horror but seldom ever venture into it.

Many may see it, expanding into infinite dimensions, and wonder what the use would be to try and leave a mark. Along it’s gray borders stand the legendary adventurers; Steinbeck, Dickens, Joyce, Orwell, and if you believe in magic, Tolkien.

Compared to these, what chance does a new adventurer have? Though you might wade into the unknown, weapon in hand, what tactic could you possible apply that the great adventures did not already put to excellent use?

The nearly inevitable fate of the novice is dreadful. To venture forth, armed with the arsenals of the long dead legends only to have their weight drag you below the snowy field. Some march out into the blinding void with their heads held high, never to be seen again. Others pace it’s periphery, darting in with well practiced attacks, resupplying after every step, never making progress.

The novices thrash there, then sucome to that worst of ends, anonymity; their cold lifes work consumed by the white void.

Most just stand on it borders. Never fully recovering from the the sight of it.

How does one survive in that space, that bright emptiness lined and framed by the battlefields of those that survived, their violence marked by black glyphs that summon entire cultures to a high plane?

How did they survive it’s negative pressure, it’s disorientating lack of reference points?

I dare say they didn’t.

I think they are still out there in the snowy field. I think they still swim under that milk white trap.

So do not survive it. Do not fight it. Give yourself to it, so that your life might be consumed by it, and thereby, your headstone be a mile marker that all others may use to find their way.

The Average Man

Tom lives in a small apartment. A near perfect square containing all of his worldly possessions. It’s a single room. A loft, that’s what this type of apartment is called. Tom’s bike hang on the wall near the door over a entry way table that also serves as a T.V. stand and book case.

His bed is pressed against the far wall to the left of the small kitchenette, which is comprised of a single oven burner and a half sized refrigerator built into the wall.

The single window in the apartment has never been washed from the outside and the light that passes through it is gray. The view through this window is filled by the apartment building across the street, an identical building with dirty windows full of hofts.

Tom walks to work down a busy street. People on the street don’t talk to each other, they simply gaze into cell phone displays that flash and sparkle brightly colored nothings.

Once at work Tom sits in a black swivel chair and stares at a computer screen. He doesn’t actually do anything. He doesn’t type or click, or move much for that matter. He simply sits.

He used to type and click but he grew tired of it and slowed down over time. Eventually he noticed that he no longer did anything but stare at his screen and for a moment was concerned that he would lose his job, and so tried to click and type again but found that he had forgotten what he did at the job. He counted back the days and weeks since he had clicked or typed and found that it had been years.

Tom stood up and looked around the office. He couldn’t remember the last time he had done so, but he remembered it being different. The office was dusty and spider webs hung from the light fixtures. His co-workers, strangers really, sat motionless and stared at their own screens. They did not click or type, they sat and they stared.

Tom became nervous and asked the director of operations if he could go home early.

“Hello director. Can I go home early?”

“Hello. Did you get your work done?”

Tom paused. “Yes.”

“Sign the time off request and adjust…” The director trailed off until he too sat motionless, staring into his screen.

Tom left the office and looked around the street outside of his office building. All the cars were yellow taxis and none of them moved. They sat idling along the curb, their drivers watching the flashes and sparkles of their cell phone displays.

The sound of the street was different once he paused to listen. The absence of voices surprised Tom. All that could be heard was the steps of people going to and coming from work, the sound of the taxis idling along the curb, and loudest of all, the doors of buildings opening and closing.

Then somewhere far of in the distance came a new sound. Tom walked toward the sound. He passed several tall buildings and worried he would become lost. He approach the mouth of an ally and followed the sound, coming to a small green door.

The sound was strange and Tom didn’t feel safe. He looked up and down the ally, checking to see if anyone was watching.

Beyond the door was darkness mixed with multi colored flashes, rhythmic bodies contorted in sexul osillations, black leather reflected glowing fog, bassy impact vibrated his chest and his muscle twitch with the desire to dance through the masses of free souls that cheered as a band of barbarian youth hammered out elaborate tones. Long black hair whipped through the air and white teeth flashed in freely displayed smiles. Sweat form glowing beads on muscular bodies. Old men raised their hands as if in worship and laughing children ran through the crowd like wild animals with their mothers chasing after, miming dreamscape monsters. Quiet men played chess at furious speeds and cheer to their victories and losses, throwing their glasses into the air. Sculptor joined the chorus with jackhammers, carving out masterpieces to the rhythm of the song. Priests blessed the dancers with holy water, spinning like dervishes deep in a blissful trance.

Tom closed the door and walked home. He slept. The next morning he went to work.

Spiders Surprise

The spiders extended their narrow legs in a stilted fashion, reaching from one point to another, partial pushing and partially pulling their weight. They came from behind curtains of heavy web, descended on nearly invisible strands of silver light, floated on the breeze below long trailing webs. They came to that low place in the earth, sheltered by the gozzy canopy of dusty silk. They huddled close to each other, their black polished bodies gleaming like breads made from a starless night. Their mass collected spec by spec until the lot of them appears as one obsidian armored entity.

The sound came as a whisper at first. The scratching of one spider fang against the body of another. The tapping of a leg on the soft dry earth filling in the space between the sound of silk twisting in a spinneret. Countless movements and their audible consequences built until words wavered in the air like smoke.

“You.” The spiders fidgeted in a frenzy.

Samuels eyes were slits of white and black between flex sockets. His hands wide to his sides as if he may lose balance. His shoulders rolled forward, poised to push away anything that would come near.

“Have.” The sound was full of scraping, shrill vibrations of exoskeletal friction.

“Come.” The black mass oscillated against the ground, effortfully creating the low sounds of the word.

“Why?” The wetness of the word emitted by countless blinking eyes.

Samuel crouched low, his fingers pressing into the dry, lifeless earth. “I… I… This is so strange, I… I wanted to know. To find out.” His mouth felt dry despite his need to swallow his nervous salivation.

“Know?” The polished beads flexed, revealing a hint of their collective strength; the sound of spiders silk being pulled over soft abdomens.

“Yes.” Samuel’s eyes blinked repeatedly in an attempt to clear away any tick of light that may be afflicting them. “I’ve seen you, or your kind, in the trees. I’ve seen you in the webs and… You move… You’re always… If one moves one way another… there’s a pattern to how your kind moves. It’s connected. And…” Samuel surrendered to his stammering.

“Many words. Use few.” The black beads skittered apart, their mass dispersing before rejoining.

Samuel stood, ready to move. “Aware.”

The black, glass like collection jittered. A vibration of all its part. The sound that followed seemed to come from every distant point of the old dark wood. A distant thunderstorm made of infinite parts. “And so we have been. Does your kind not know this?”

The Thing Inside Charles Bukowski

May words roll out of me with the sly pacing of a sociopath. The black snakes that live between my teeth work endlessly to emulate the speech of men.

I mimic the self control of the thing hiding inside Joseph Stalin.

My blinks have become mechanically linked to my nervous system so that my eyes close and open at 7/10 the speed of other people because if I were to blink the way my spine tells me to, I’d be one step closer to lethal injection for my collective slander.

I move hunched over and I stretch entirely more than my muscle deem useful because if I move at full speed I would be locked away for mania, or come just that much nearer to ripping the jaw off of the next person that complains about something that is their own fault.

I’m proud of the endless improvisation that no one sees through.

The life like mask I wear over my burned and dead face looks so honest and sincere that no one suspects the fractured, twitching of exposed tendons and paper thin skin underneath.

The white powder I spread over my cold grey flesh is just within the borders of believeable. My fangs are filed down with impossible precision. My horns are split along their individual fibers, to form hair, with sledge hammers that smash my face into a socially pleasing arrangement.

I don’t kill them. I don’t hold them down in my unhinged jaws. I don’t claw their flesh away from their bones with iron nails that hold my form together. I move slow. I blink long.

Why? Why do I hold back? Why don’t I thrash against the world and watch it fall to ruin under the waves of my tireless violence?

I want to watch them do it to themselves.

(written from the point of view of the thing living inside Charles Bukowski)

Scientific Conclusion

“Well we tried, lads.” The bushy gray brows of his face pinched close, appearing as one. “We almost made the singularity, but…” He paused to look out the observatory window, over a landscape of arid land that once comprised the southern slopes of a once equatorial jungle.

His tie was removed with one hand as his other smoothed back thinning hair. “But we failed. We took the masses, told them they were the driving force to nirvana, then took their money and gave them what? Toys. Doodads. Pocket computer, cell phones, cameras, futuristic pieces of plastic.”

He pulled his cell phone from his pockets and roughly tossed it onto the aluminium desk. “But they didn’t NEED that… did they? No! They didn’t need car’s the size of elephants. They didn’t NEED supercomputers in their homes, on which they could watch high definition drivel produced by intelligent men forced to hid their stories under… dick and fart jokes.”

He chuckled to himself one indigent chuckle. “They didn’t need any of it. We knew that. Of course we did, but how else we would continue our funding? Governments?! Ha!”

“No we had to suck at the teet of economic. We had to conduct that lowest of conversations, business. We sold the world piece by piece in hopes that we would outpace the greed and gluttony of the world. America ensured our failure.”

“And even as we told them to stop; even as we stopped ourselves, the world was too pregnant with our creation. We gave the masses science, engineering, chemistry, and they picked it up in very much the way the first apes hoisted their feces. They flung it about with celebratory abandon until the earth was sickened with the smell.”

“We armed them with magic! These burger eating, reality show watching, spring break viagra fueled fools. We handed it over… Sold it really. And then we wonder how it all got so out of control.”

“We’ll burn with the rest of them.” He turned up his chin and stared out over the horizon. “When the fires begin, and with so little ozone left, we’ll burn with them. We in our lab coats and they in their designer underwear, we’ll burn.”

Pure Math and Sympathy

The mushrooms take effect. The ripples in the little creek no longer appearing as twinkling textures reflecting the early summer light, but layers of liquid pressure reorganizing themselves in accordance with gravity and surface tension. Those countless echelons of moving and expanding geometry redividing and shattering through endless collisions and absorptions, and lock my mind. I freeze. My vision a cloud of physical features evolving into raw mathematical permutations, until these numbers overwhelm me… and I laugh.

Bemused by my limitations and the finite resolution of my internal computations, I breath deep, pulling in scented currents of air that wash over my tongue.

A small black bird lands near by and his glossy black eyes look into mine. He seems to see something there. His sclera the color of unconsciousness hide his pupils, until I hold his gaze and I realize that he doesn’t suffer sclera but rather, his eye, the entirety of is his pupil. The small black bird nods and I feel like I have learn a truth that will somehow serve me well for the rest of my life.

A man on a bicycle, bubbles his way down a path that he is uncomfortable riding down, comes into view. His bicycle shorts at too small for the shifting cargo, those layers of long earned flesh, at the small of his back. His helmet is ill fitting and jostles as his wheels shift over uneven ground. His face is near purple with effort and his mouth billows air as if feeding the furnace of determination he has installed in his chest. His legs a pale in a way the conveys wide swaths of winter sleep and disdain for the cold days. His arms twitch to keep the bicycle balanced the muscles wrapping around them look small and strained under liver spotted skin.

I look to the blackbird who turns to me and laughs. I don’t joint him. He shrugs and flies away. A lesson for another day.

The Futures Yesterdays

Cities lay in ruin. The once indestructible towers of man now lay low in sheaths of vines and mossy over growth. The decadent hotels reclaimed by nature, their rooms now serving as dens for packs of wolves.

Bear sleep in the abandoned subways. Hawks build nests in satellite dishes and hunt the forested streets between the skyscrapers. Alligators line the riverside were business men and women once  lounged during their lunches.

Humanity persisted in a form. Now hunched, searching the low growing shrubs on the cities edge searching for mushrooms and wild berries. Their skin is dark now. The endless search for food has pulled them from their buildings and out into the sun. The men have faces covered in beards and their hair in long and tangles, forming their mats of protective padding that cover their necks.

They are faster than their ancestors, thick legs with larger longer feet. When forced to hunt they chase game down the highways, those wide flat places that lace through the open fields. They are thinner than their ancestors too, forced to move 14 hours out of the day, venturing into the wilderness of the cities to forage for tools, gather herbs to heal their sick, and the endless collection of edible plant life.

All things are not lost for them though. To the contrary, many things mankind had lost along their technological advancement have been reclaimed.

In the dead of night, around slowly burning fires, families gather. Tribes join to share the spoils of the day. They come together to eat, drink, tell stories of the strangeness they have seen in the city.

The wise men gather and collect the picture stones scavenged for the fallen ancestors. They press the “power button” and through means of magic they can not unweave, are show the world of yesterday. The artists render the pictures seen in the picture stones with charcoal on animal hides, and the scribes write the ancient runes of the long dead language. The musicians note the music that plays on alien instruments, recreating their rhythms and melodies on reed flutes and buck skin drums.

And then the “Batteries” die mankind thanks the heavens for the glimpse back in time, to that horror filled world when man had to live in the cities.

Duality

It’s all contained in the upswing and the down swing. The circular motion that can’t be stopped or seen whilst participating. To we sweet fools it’s gentle curve appears as flat as the horizon, not perfect but close enough that we can ignore it.

Economy, beauty, life and death. It all suffers and rejoices the same.

The wide hips and the hanging breast, lapped over a rounds stomach was the epitome of beauty. The hard times and absent edibles left the common woman thin and muscular, which today, amongst our towering stores of widely varied foods is considered the ideal.

The first cars were small and light, powered by tiny efficient engine that traveled amazing distances on very little fuel. These gave way to faster and faster engineering wonders weighting multiple times their diminutive ancestors. A thousand horsepower rolling off the manufacturing line. More power than the common man can manage or have use for. Then came the downswing. Small cars, smart cars. Lithe menos that sipped at fuel and took corners faster than their brutish predecessors.

Perhaps the butterfly, light on the wings of nature is free from the confines of duality. They flapped along through time until one mutated to carry poison. The poisonous flourish and nature agrees after trial and error that creatures with the colors of the poisonous are better left uneaten. Then those colored in vibrant yellow and red stop producing poison and out bread the poisonous due to the fading need to actually produce the murderous liquide that allowed their advancement.

Likewise fashion, an abstract trend, worships at the feet of duality, the up and down of it all. The simple cottons of the field remain plain for generations until of cracked barry picker walks into town, his clothes stained with the blue of his crop. To the plain he appears bright and vivid. The color spreads through the town and they raise their noses at the poor, poor plainly clothed fools in the next town. This continues until the world is clothed in blue. The turnip farmer spread the next craze, a world in red. The rainbow is exhausted and the clean virginal white returns, this time with a contrast to add to it’s meaning.

Shakespeare wore capris, then came pants, then American settlers wore capris, then pants, then techno rave goers in German brought back the carpi. My next sentence greaves me: meditate on bellbottoms.

To believe in duality is believing in nothing then? No. If you believes in nothing then one must believe in something…being...nothing. Then it is believing everything? If you believed in everything then one can not believe in nothing. Nihilism is a joke only Nihilists don’t get… not that they would care.

Math is a beautiful thing. Does it fall prey to the up and down swing, the endless circle of duality? For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Bugger. Is math even real? If man were not around, would two of something be counted as two? Would a dog or a deer count two then subtract as one were removed? No. Math is only an idea, that we made.

But nature understands more or less, greater or less than, left alligator or right alligator. This is not math but value.

Value is subjective, like all things. Shot in the head is dead. Shot twice in the head is not more dead.

So it comes down to that lonely truth. All that matters is what you want, and not in the future dear friend, because that can change. A man in the desert dying of thirst dreams of water, until he is held under it.

What you want right now is all that you can know. Primitive beasts that we are delude ourselves otherwise.

“I will work hard and earn a fortune and live in a big house. Haza!”

“My friends are all pompous fools that care only for money, and the honest workmen that built my house won't quote poetry with me.”

Pretend I’m reading this next section quickly for the proper effect. The freedom of youth brings offspring. A baby, new life, that will be the death of me. Athletic pursuits bring damaged joints and sedentary decay. Drinking brings a morning full of the harshest realities. One’s prosperity is always due to others misfortune. Supply and demand. Action reaction.

So, I ask you what do you want? No matter what you get… it’s not going to be the thing you want next.

Philosophy is dangerous. Don’t be a fool, and please stop thinking.

Aldo

Aldo

The forest  floor was carpeted with thick moss, droplets of dew holding in their fibers. Soft bird songs thrummed in unison high over head. A canopy made from layers of oak leaves swayed in a breeze not felt under its shadowy cover. Ferns clung to an area of broken earth that sloped away from the crest of a rolling hill.

Aldo Leopold sat in the shadow of a large oak musing that it might have been the source from which the rest of the forest had sprouted. From acorn to sprawling woodland Aldo followed the possible proliferation of the great oaks blood line. His deeply recessed eyes peered out from his under bushy gray brow absorbing each tree and fern cluster, every shrub and vine. In his mind the ancient landscape reversed through time. Trees un-growing and sealing themselves into their acorns which lept to the boughs of larger trees only for the acorn to be pulled back into shrinking branches. Years and generations of oak shrank away with time until all that was left were dusty foothills and the father oak.

Aldo adjusted his position with satisfaction, braced against the father oaks trunk. “This is a fine place to spend the next few days.” Removing his thin traveling boots Aldo burrowed his feet into the moss and deep layers of fallen leaves. His hands mounding the detritus of the forest over his legs, making note of beetles and spiders that scurried to find new homes. Aldo’s hand, now muddied, smeared damp earth over his exposed skin, then burrowed into surrounding leaves.

Aldos eyes looked past the particles hanging from his lashes and out into the forest, letting the patterns of the woodland arrange in his mind. His eyes became vacant and unfocused. He could feel his heart slowing. The damp earth on his feet felt welcoming, the moisture seeping through his skin. His hands, now lethargic, groped around a surface root, compacting the earth as he did so. Once satisfactorily tangled his fingers went limp. His mask of mud was drying into his pores, making a comfortable tightness spread slowly. Ants, stimulated by the movement of the forest floor, marched from the oak and onto Aldo’s torso. Their orderly column dividing repeatedly until the ants reached the upturned leafy dander, disappearing into the complex structure. Aldo’s eyes closed and a breath left his parted lips. His head lulled gently forward. His unkempt hair falling over his face. The displaced spiders anchoring their new webs in his hair, on his earth toned clothes. By nightfall the forest had engulfed Aldo. He would appear as little more than a lump of leaves and stone, just another contour of the forest.

One Block

One Block

The taxi cab jostled it’s way down 2nd Avenue under the dense over hang of sycamore branches crowned with their brittle golden brown leave. Squeaks and rattles sang softly through the plastic flooring that had replaced the standard carpet. The cab was a retired police cruiser. The plastic floor, put there to making cleaning easier as well as preventing the absorption of bodily fluids, was not the only evidence that the cab had once had a career in law enforcement. The center console had holes in it where police info terminal had been screwed in place. The a-pillars, those sections of the cars body to either side of the windshield, were cut open to allow the fitment of searchlights. I often wished the cab company had left these searchlights intact as it would make finding address numbers much easier at night.

The stop sign at the corner of 2nd Avenue and Warner Street wobbled in the afternoons chill breeze. I paused there for a moment in a daydream, watching the reflections of guttered  water move across the stop signs surface. I moved on. The passengers in the back seats of course would not have seen the simple light display or understood me if I pointed it out. They thought they had places to go and things to do.

That’s one of the first things I realized when I started this job. People are in a rush to live their lives. They are fearful that if they slow down they will miss some opportunity. I also realized that in this frenzied and self important rush that they cast off those things that hold them back, chiefly manners.

I don’t know how many times I have picked up a pair of customers to hear them verbally laying waste to a common acquaintance or friend. Then realize we are stopping to pick up the very person that, moments ago, they spoke so ill of. Then next stop one of the three disembarks leaving the remaining two, one of whom spoke ill of the other, to talk about the absent individual as if he were a sworn enemy. This sort of thing happens every day.

The cab was now glideing on the newly resurfaced Warner Street. The cab seemed to relax. The squeaks and rattles flattening out along with the road. There were several manhole covers and utility access points, their metal surfaces nearly flush with the roads, but these could be avoided with a series of gentle turns that would go unnoticed by the passengers. Certainly they wouldn’t have cared if I had simply held the wheel true and run the metal covers over, creating bumps and squeaks, but I found it satisfying to negotiate the gauntlet. I also found it satisfying to do so without the passengers noticing.

The passengers… I wondered what they were talking about. I had long ago learned to shut the conversations of passengers out of my mind to near completion, only leaving enough unoccupied attention to hear the change in tone and pitch created when some one in a back seat was addressing a person in the front seat. This skill developed as a direct result of my plummeting opinion of the general population and the topics that occupied their minds. But as I glided my way down the smooth surface of Warner Street, passing the manholes and utility access points in gentle arcs, and watched the golden brown leaves of the sycamore trees dancing through the air I found myself to be the proud owner of the magical substance known as “hope for humanity”. So I cleared my mind and directed my attention to the conversation in the back of the cab.

“I don’t even care if they turn my power off! I’m never there anyway!” The tone was flat and the words were heavy in her chest.

“Yeah! Let them worry about it. Who do they think they are anyways! Such jerks, turning peoples power off in the middle of winter! It’s not like turning your power off is going to give you the money to pay them. They gotta pay a guy to come out and turn it off too! They’re stupid. Let them worry about it.” The responding voice was nasal and with each word came the faint smell of stale cigarettes.

With my “hope for humanity” spent in an instant I shut the conversation out of my mind and returned my attention to the road, the leaves, the feel of the wind softly pressing my cab to the right. On the side of the road a pool of water had collected. Even with the breeze its surface was smooth enough to reflect the pale blue sky. In that reflected image I saw an airplane high over head. As I moved parallel to the long puddle the plane seemed to keep pace with me. This brought back childhood memories of watching the moon follow my fathers car. I remember telling my father, “Dad, I think the moon is following us.” He smiled in a way I would only understand much later and said, “Oh, yeah?! Lets see how fast he can go.” He then punched the gas just enough to make the car surge forward then maintained normal speed. But he had raised his shoulder into a tense position and glanced back and forth between the rearview mirror and the road. We were playing. “Go dad. Go!” I called out bouncing in my seat, copying my fathers glancing at the moon. Without rehearsal we both made the sound of skidding tires as we took a left hand turn at conservative speed. To me, in my state of childhood play, we were racing through the streets, skidding around corners, narrowly missing other vehicles. But to the other motorists we must have looked like a hunchbacked father with a nervous tic and a child in need of attention deficit medication. As the memory faded it left a smile on my face.

My attention returned to the plane overhead and how it appeared to follow me. The puddle had narrowed to a thin line in the gutter and I was left with poetic thoughts about how distance changes your understanding, these slowly morphed into physics equations revolving around distance and angular changes over time divided by the speed of two objects in the their directional relation to each other. Running the numbers through my head soon led me to distraction, I had to brake harder than I normally do to come to a stop at the corner of Warner and 1st. I check if the passengers have noticed.

“Yeah, he’ll come over with the booze but then he’ll want to stay! He’s such a creep.”