On Time For The Last Time

The ambulance pulled up slowly without lights flashing or sirens blaring. A kind looking young gentleman in an EMT uniform stepped down from the driver’s seat and shut the door of the cab, sighing.

Inside the house, the old woman died. There was a 911 call in a calm and iridescent voice, floating through telephone wires on grumbly vibrations to alert the world of its weight loss. Twenty-one grams lighter, the body felt like a thousand pounds as the EMT picked up her stone cold stiffness. Her eyes remained open like black sea-shell marbles. Her chest was still wet with her husband’s tears as he watched from the corner of the yellowed living room with his elbow connecting to a hand hovering over his eyes. He wept.

They were married for forty-one years and never had a baby. Their house was a grandfather clock in the neighborhood as they exited and entered the garage in a blue 1984 Cadillac Seville. They would return with groceries in brown paper bags, silently lifting them with spindly arms. He opened the knob, she went through the door, and it clicked shut behind them. They wouldn’t come out again until the clock donged next.

She left the house for the last time on squeaky wheels under a white sheet. The Seville hovered closely behind her as they went soundlessly in the direction of the hospital. And the neighborhood was five minutes late forever after.

I paid good money for you, but you're priceless.

Oh, little muse. If I want to see you, I have to look in the mirror backwards. We've only been friends for a little over a week and you're starting to itch already. I know not to scratch because you will fade away and need attention later if I do. Ever since you've been under my skin, I have sensed a new found inspiration. It's amazing to me how the smallest people in our lives can sometimes be the biggest. I know you will hide under layers of sweaters, scarves and coats this winter, but fear not; you will be set free once seventy degrees makes a come back! Even though you're in black and white, I might some day add neighbors with a little color. You look so good backwards. I think I'll take off my shirt while the radiator ticks and look again, for fear of forgetting what you're like. I never want to forget your form, oh you of inky darkness. Now that we're friends for life, we're just going to have to get used to each other. Let's make the best of it.

I'm Just A Little Person

Sometimes, I like the window seat so I can scoot across and feel where cute butts have warmed the plastic and fabric underneath. I don’t know what they were thinking when they put fabric on those seats, but because they collect little prickly ions of warmth from little people with infinite possibilities, I know it was the right decision.

I try not to be obvious as I scan for a face I can trust. Every time a new body walks on with a morning coffee, I can sense a phantom tinge of caffeinated bitterness on the base of my tongue. I wonder if he grinds that coffee himself. French press? I wonder if he is growing his beard out for the winter or just too lazy to shave. Either way, it’s very attractive. Scratchy soft.

My pin-up red fingernails extend a little further than usual from the book about spirituality that I so meticulously covered with bright paper as not to get dirty looks from anyone who might think I’m crazy for liking those kinds of books. A dirty look is like a laser; if you happen to catch the direct line of light, it can cause major damage. If anything, they should think I’m crazy for liking to feel a warm seat after another little person gets up and walks away.

If you happen to feel my butt-warmed seat, may you absorb my burned kilojoules with joy.

The Pact

We were just kids. We said when we were 15 that if we weren't married by 30, we would marry one another. And now, there you are - and here I am - in two completely different places in life. We're just as distant as we ever were, even when your face was on my chest. I haven't seen you in years, but I feel your security. If you're not there in marriage already, you're getting there; you were always very determined to be with someone special.

I have no idea where you are on the road of life, but my guess is you're even more complex and becoming more like your Dad by the day. I'll always care about you, no matter how crazy I acted over the years while I was still using. You never loved me because you knew I was batshit. Smart man.

Sometimes, I look over my shoulder when I'm riding in the bike lane and I imagine you and your girl pulling up next to me without recognizing me. I hide behind my sunnies and helmet, and I move on to the next daydream of the man in my life who will be more inspiring and cooler than you were back then. I will feel that muse come alive again. It's been far, far too long. 10 years of fog lifting now...watch me grow.

Missed Connections

We used to think human connections were being thwarted by the age of iPods and cell phone time-wastage (reading a book doesn't have as much clout with that idea because someone can always strike up a conversation about how good a Calvino novel is). Aren't moments of fleeting glances, temporary wanton lust and what-might-have-been questionable in the age of technology turning people into ants?

The Missed Connections section on Craigslist marries use of personal technology with getting lost in the human moment. It actually requires true effort to type and post something like, "I saw you in the Trader Joe's yesterday with a Broken Social Scene shirt and you had a lot of strawberries in your cart...I wonder if you were making pies..." This means those moments are still alive and very real. Missed Connections reminds us that people still fall in love for 45 seconds and then watch that world-within-a-world step off the train and walk in the opposite direction of a stranger's captivation. We love it, too.

It's a girl!

She used to be somebody. She used to walk into a room and people would look to her to find out what was going to happen next. She was loved by everyone who knew her and she was the prettiest and smartest person in the place. The sincerity of her importance would make you look twice at her deep painted face and three times at her clever droll jokes. She could stare you down and drag you around for days. She was the last person up with a bottle of warm straight in one hand and a long ashy cigarette in the other inviting whoever and whatever to early morning parties where we hated when those birds would chirp.

And then her brain exploded and colorful bits of flesh splattered all over the walls of her tiny universe leaving trinkets of suicide for everyone to remember fondly like ski trips and beach vacations on mantles all over the Norman Rockwell nation. She died at the end of the summer when people were still wiping sweat from their brows and their balls and hanging on to Indian days like it was the last season of life on Earth. For her, it was the last season of death.

She came flying out of the vagina of stark raving sobriety like a blue baby without crying or gasping for air. The doctor with the head mirror and the cigar held her by her feet, slapped her on the ass and said this one’s gonna take a minute to catch up with the rest of us. She coughed up the blood of her mother and took a breath, screaming into the night for hours, days, weeks, months. She woke up from the nightmare of being the center of the universe and something clicked. Click.