It's an engine of
creation.
If it works, don’t fix it. If
it’s broken, don’t fix it.
I was resigned to
carrying a weapon and join the service. Hearing I was to be drafted anyway I
did myself the favor, got real drunk in the classic off-to-war type of way and
headed off. In training I learned I was to wear a white uniform with red
diagrams on it. I didn’t understand if I was to be read as information or stand
out as a target. Before I could ask WT, I was sent back — back to exact
locations leaving notes to people known and not. The letters were pretty little
things wrapped in rags explaining ominous timing, farewell, and intent. The
receivers where to recognize and examine the kismet, or not.
---
“Well then, how DO you work?
I mean, in general.”
“Generally,” Kim answered
honestly, “I agree to whatever the client likes, and then I go and do what I
want to,” she rolled her eyes and shrugged, “You know, in general.”
They both climbed up on the
tailgate and looked into the cooler. Kim discarded her thigh high lace-up
sandals and rubbed at the tattoo marks left by the leather straps.
Les handed her
lunch, and she immediately ripped open the hoagie and began digging through the
sandwich to discard what she would not eat.
“Ill take that,”
he interrupted her arm in mid-air.
“Here, they make
my teeth squeak.”
Ignoring a jeweled
winking shine from a bit off in the distance, he tossed the pickle into his
mouth and continued the idea he wanted to get across. “Like I was saying, that
Buick/Opel ’76 is an ugly car, I mean 2 for 1 ugly. Ahead-of-it’s-time ugly.” His mood was all pink and baby blue, teetering
on the fun Sagittarian/Gemini nightmare that he embodied.
Tiring of this
extended conversation she sang out, “Got it!” extending the vowels. “Don’t you
just love the way the desert is so VERY quiet.”
He smirked and
communed with the sandwich, his jaw popping.
---
It is all happenstance
without much insight. There were neither names nor address on the small
bundles. I began to wonder if the idea, the fact, of synchronicity came into
play. Does it have a pause button? What happens when he receiver is not looking
or listening? On altered levels? What is an altered level? Are all levels
altered to individuals? Are these, too, synchronized? I was feeling like I was
back at a middle school, puffing and theorizing walking through walls.
Interesting questions without practical experience. That’s the problem with
this job, too much time to think. Better to dwell on those impossible koans
instead of the thwart factor. Working
fast in the dimensions and conditions they gave me, spraying a mouthwash of
note constellations across a vast area. I Hurried to get finished, but also
felt dread in getting back to home base.
---
Thinking of
nothing in particular but hoping for a thought to catch hold, Les hummed Canon
alla Ottava slowly, a
short fugue he had known since he was 7 years old. His fingers absent-mindedly
moved to hit cords on an invisible harpsichord.
Kim was reminded
of her earlier chapters. Processing her life in five minutes the way our brains
do because they can. It read like a Herman Hesse novel, edited with a multitude
of breakfasts and trips to the bathroom. An interesting full life, one she
could count on throwing a curve at the right time — but there was always the
whiff of anxiety just before a shift. The doubting that something will fall
into her lap, just before something falls in her lap.
A piece of trash
looking strangely like a rag spat out of no-where on no-wind and gently settled
on red metal, like a burned paper scrap from a far off fire.
“Why DO you like
the desert?”
“Well,” she
simplified, “It’s a large blank canvas or blank sheet of paper to me.”
He arranged
another smirk imagining a pressure cooker. Picking up on this mental image she
added,
“Okay, a hot canvas. Anything can
happen. It’s a white screen that at any time anything will burst through and
reveal itself. Something you didn’t notice before.”
“You’re are
scarring me.” Les mocked, “Anita,
white is for babies!’”
He loved her, but loved to
tease her more, keeping her from spinning out completely. Her triple Scorpio
nature always lurked.
Kim palmed her chin and
splayed her fingers, “Ha! You came with your mouth open. It’s immaterial. But it’s
usually something cool, nothing scary about it.”
“Touché.”
---
Delivering fate
is like connecting the dots. A shattering and replacing of stars. It became an
aerial view of a city with manhole covers, bright circles of a primary colored
twister carpet connected line-to-line. Of the million delusions maybe there’s
only one copied over and over. This was all beyond my threshold of adventure.
Mars in Cancer. But, who would be brave enough to say so? Not me.
---
Les fell patient waiting for the wide white screen to crack open with a missing piece.
Patiently waiting for a possibility of
Godot.
“Ever feel like
your looking for gold in a copper mine?” he offered. They both looked out,
their gaze following a meandering gully left by a recent flash flood.
A yellow balloon
drifted past them high up in the atmosphere along an escape route from an
amusement park 74 miles away.
After another long pause, Kim seceded the campaign.
“Okay, let s get
going, I’m not finding what I came here for.”
Jumping down, she
stretched sideways with her hands on her head. She followed him into the truck.
“And, on the way
back please, don’t desecrate Motown.”
He raised an
eyebrow, “Didn’t I show you my hall-pass?”
A piece of rag
flew off the top of the cab as they U-turned and peeled away.
-30-
