Surgical Chores

While compiling a to-do list for the day, I ran across a story coming from the radio. A woman spoke in cautionary tones of her childhood relationship with her grandmother, who was now deceased. By her description, theirs was a love unmatched by the ages, rarer than pickled velvet. During an afternoon muscle soaking in the little room off of the parlor, the grandmother passed a tale down to her cherished companion of which the moral was lost forever. When the program ended, I began working through my list by squatting on the floor and picking pebbles from a bowl of rinsed lentils.

The Foods of Olympia

There are an alarming amount of mountain trails which names begin with "The Devil's ...". But this fact isn't nearly as alarming as the moment I walked onto my second floor porch to water the fuchsia, and found a large black bear sitting, waiting for me. And the presence of this bear wasn't nearly as alarming as the words he spoke to me in a hushed and reassuring tone. And the words themselves, with their idyllic complexities and rich evidence of this animal's ability to think in abstractions, weren't nearly as alarming as the fact that this bear was indeed speaking at all, and to me, on my second floor porch.

The Difficult Swing

In forgetting about a train ride this past winter, I took the time to remember the first time I walked with the Lady Margaret down the berm of loose shale leading to her father's salt enclosures at the mouth of the Sadent River. Her youngest brother trailed behind us wearing a Who t shirt a size too large, being a gift from the next brother up. When we'd all reached the retaining gate, I produced a flint nodule from deep within the folds of my baffling cloak and broke it wide open with one swift motion. Everything that spilled forth now exists in a museum.

Slave Sandwich

I was never looking for something. And that's exactly what I got. It wasn't until the over-realm that I was saved in seven ways to the future. A future that forgot everything, and at the same moment sent it all straight back to nothing. That is where the hands clamped upon my wrists...that's where the love went. All that clamoring into the well of the fantastic never-ending carnival, where the dying are covered in clouds, and the exhausted wait it out, too shy to feel, but happier than the starving.

The Glazing of the Hens

Once upon a time there was a highway. It went on for hundreds of miles through an arid land. The people whose lives the highway impacted were too poor to afford automobiles. Because of this, half of the population was enraged and took to destroying vast sections of the road whenever they could summon the energy. The other half devoted their lives to restoring the road and beautifying the surrounding landscape with dry weeds. A hero rose out of this situation and he is said to live among us, but he always needs a ride.

The Devil and the Farmer

Today I was compelled to climb the mountain near my home. During the ascent, I discovered footsteps in the snow joining the trail at an impossible location. Before continuing upward, I ate half of the cheese sandwich I'd brought and double checked my supply of lithium batteries for my headlamp. In the moments that followed, it occurred to me that I had neglected to leave a tip for the oil man.

An Accurate Misconception

I've spent a fortune on optics, and when batteries die too quickly, I look to the skilled minds of elite operators in the world of micro technologies. It is only through their instinctive mastery of a little known, ancient and unconventional art form, that I know my family will be safe.