The workweek has passed like a stone in the night. Happy reading & writing, everybody.
Category: prose
Dark liquid, as if derived from near Earth’s core. Bitter, hard-hitting high notes, lingering long after, like an aroma carried by smoke.
Categories
Bird Man
The Bird Man is on the move. He’s wearing a sweat jacket and a ball cap because it’s cold. It’s 38 degrees this morning, and typically, such as during summer, the Bird Man will wear only an old white T-shirt that you and I might demote to rag status, as well as jeans that no longer can stay put around his pot belly.
Today the Bird Man looks more dressed up than usual due to his navy blue jacket. It seems to be in fine condition and looks warm.
The Bird Man is removing the rocks from the small plastic Tupperware lining his cement wall like battlements. He is emptying the backwash and refilling the vessels with a cheap plastic pitcher of water.
Sugar-coated almonds at a wedding. You bury the bride in her white dress. While they are nice to look at, you cannot bite on pearls. For instance, I do not need to see an ivory piano on which Mozart played. Or if the piano were situated in a jewelry box, raised up as if on a dais, the otherwise dreamy notes would sound contorted, as if reflected in a funhouse mirror.
I’ve always thought it would be nice to be placed under anesthesia before a plane ride. That way, you don’t have to fret over the prospect of crashing or face the slow-moving hours of flight.
Before you know it, you’re in Thailand.
Flying is like having surgery, anyway. After liftoff, the matter is out of your hands. You must rely on a tiny crew, with a single soul at the helm, and you must pray that they know what they’re doing.
You feel woozy at first (when gaining altitude), but then you just go numb, due in part to boredom — and maybe also desensitization. Meanwhile, the wings cut through the air like blades.
Hours later, you descend from the clouds and back to cold reality. Most likely you are feeling groggy and hungry. Or perhaps nauseous. As soon as you land, you call friends and loved ones to announce that you’ve made it through.
Schubert’s notes softly coexist. Variations like an energy field. Potentiality, then sonata eighth notes. Piano — universal life field. Bionetwork notes. I am a C major w/ tendencies of D minor. Do C major and D minor exist beyond the piano or any other instrument. If a note rang out in the forest and no one was there to listen.
My favorite blue towels hang to dry, and I see they are next to threadbare. Over the rack, they seem to have personality (or at least life.) The upshot is there’s still some drying left in them.
After a shower, I get dressed and go to work. I walk across the long street to my office, tired. Back at home, the towels dangle over the rack.
I had mused earlier that the scattered, solitary threads clung to the fabric like jungle animals avoiding a fatal tumble. The threads reminded me of monkey tails. There was also the more disquieting notion of worms on a membrane.
For the longest time, there was construction @ the Jones Blvd./Russell Rd intersection, but t’was a mystery as to who the new tenant would be. Time wore on, and work trucks pushed around the cat litter that is characteristic of vacant lots in Las Vegas. Eventually, the structure began taking shape.
A car wash, I thought? A Jack in the Box? My less cynical side considered the possibility of professional offices, since there were pockets of those in the vicinity.
Finally, a sign recently announced the new occupant in large letters: 7-Eleven COMING SOON! So after countless months of waiting, everyone was pleased to know that there really is a Godot.
JS Bach piano sonatas, where the dance across the keys is a carefree & confident one; where notes are like bubbles in champagne during gala conversation. I am happiest with Bach, where nothing could go wrong, tho I do fancy being happily drunk on mimosas to Chopin’s piano impromptu No. 1 in A-flat major, Op. 29.
***
Speaking of which, today’s theme has been oranges, or in general, citrus. I spotted images of oranges all day, and then there was talk of rainfall and orange groves with a friend over a lunch of Thai food, after which orange wedges were served as dessert.
The restaurant host (I assume this was his role) was a very formal man and was well-dressed (in all black) but had the pallid air of a mortician. I was reminded of Peter Lorre, where no matter how amiable he behaved, he still came off as if he were plotting gruesome murder. The waitresses, meanwhile, wore cheerful maroon jumpsuits with golden-yellow flourishes and spoke to each other in their native language.
