Prose 2022

She spoke about a wheelbarrow full of unrelated incidents that twisted the town. A tornado, for example, a petty theft, a high school graduation, feathers littering the shelves below the mountaintop. The inhabitants of the burg perspired respective recollections that might unify them but did not. Our narrator perceived notational ingredients, one of which was murder that failed to escape notice. It happened fast enough to leisure past the row of green visors occupying the landscape free of general surprise. Why not offer a glib interpretation in the form of objectivity to twirl a new idea in their midst?

They announced their engagement, to the dazzlement of lookers on, all of whom desired to bring that word to life in their workplaces. The seeming envy of the listeners surprised the couple, who simply were officializing their love. As if to share, without supposing love could be contagious. The idea of engagement was to coerce reciprocity. "May I have your hand," not literally, but "Would you join me," versus "You must appear at 9:00 a.m. and commence to conform with someone else's thought." On the precipice of leaving, individuals look long and hard in the mirror and decide not to freshen up. Best practices suggest the possibility of not replicating something where it does not fit. 

She is speaking about gender and advancement. I am listening to a moderator tell us several people cannot hear. I cannot see the chat box.  Most of the visages are still shots; only two presenters show animation. Again the moderator poses a question meant to broaden the discussion while avoiding what was found. Various elaborate explanations attribute inconclusive findings to a locational gap. Handmade barriers show promise for demolition. 

"Something that has already happened unhappens," quotes one of the people locked into a virtual two-dimensional cubicle. He's titillated by a referenced 15-minute YouTube offering he foists on unsuspecting fellow flat cubists. The moderator does not say anything until the speaker not the appointed presenter threatens to wind down. His hair is white, in contrast to fellow inhabitants of this fleeting would-be community. Someone introduces the word "bootstrapping," perhaps in the hope of disrupting the monologue. We have together left behind the slides of arrows, boxes, variants of gray and generally tidy appearance for a smoother railroad leading through the woods. 

The body keeps us artificially indistinct. For a moment I forget that I am not you. Beginning with the way the eyes upon you change your skin. I watch your skin, the liquid in your eyes, the softness you allow around you. I follow my own limbs, your limbs, the motion as you flex and keepsake how intention melds with what is felt and seen. A field of mercy spontaneously appears. I resist the urge to sever history from what appears to mean the quiet and revealing now. 

Wendy is cheerful and fails to pronounce the letter "g" in "recognize." Her voice seems goosed by some unexplained external prod. Her topic is change readiness in the context of a wiggly environment few have yet pinned down. She advances one color slide with rounded font to the next, potentially to soothe and cool the emotions. Everybody's elbow room needs three or more dimensions, that we may coast forward as a collective. We approach our shared fate in the form of a concluding slide sans visual, save the letters "Q" and "A." 

I fell in love. At last, a quiet, orderly place where humans could be humans, take time to talk, do what felt important, read books, go swimming, make art, remain game for a drive to the Superstition Mountains or Sedona. As if some giant magic pink eraser came and swept away the glut of obligations, unhappy marriages and children, and restrictions. All of a sudden, logic's taking hold and making what the heart wants. We had been taught this was a boring place because its inhabitants were old. In my teen years, I was old, too, and found myself at home here, as though someone had made a wish and then bestowed on me a reality I never dreamed could be true. 

We watched a show about a man who was brushed off by his paramour who called him dull as dishwater and refused to love him. Sensing that her view derived from his premature baldness, he ventured to a wig maker to transform the way he looked in the hope of becoming interesting. Our hero began to capture the attention of an even more compelling woman who found him spectacular, especially as a person skilled in sailing, as his allowed her to believe over a series of drinks. Problems ensued as he found himself purchasing a sailboat he had no idea how to navigate. As we watched the story, suddenly a text arrived on my phone showing Jim Gaffigan sharing the near-universal tendency of people to associate good looks with goodness itself, including talent, prospects, and a positive track record. After this full evening, we viewers grabbed at mirrors littering the room and told ourselves we had won what Warren Buffet terms "the ovarian lottery."  

She thumbed her nose at fellow members of the committee who neglected to embrace her view. She began to work herself up into a frenzy as she considered various demerits of each individual. The chair, for instance, constantly turned to his left and leaned toward to hear ideas from arguably the loudest member of the group, allowing this person to hold forth at great length, while failing to turn right or look ahead to include other versions of presumed reality. Our star, we'll call her Marjorie, seethed as she felt silenced more and more as the clock nudged toward agreed on closing time for the regular session. "Why are we here?" she asked herself. Further lathered up, she mused, "Why in particular am I wasting my valuable time being sidelined by inferior minds who oust my brilliance?"  

Burgess the burgher seemed an intended individual whose family raised peacocks and dispersed them to scattered towns otherwise deemed light on color. The mayors of such burgs secretly perceived the need to reciprocate even as they questioned what this lofty family was trying to achieve by this brash gift. But what gift in return would match the spread of feathers that exceeded their pale weight with color and flash? For Burgess himself, a self-proclaimed critical thinker, there were some observable facts related to the proliferation of peacocks around the countryside. The denizens of such places began to change the colors of their clothing to chime with illustrious purple green and brown-toned array of feathers spread like an imagination. Was this pertinent to the motive of the family of Burgess who reflexively gave these birds away? *With gratitude to Henry Stack Sullivan