Charlie’s Angel

I’ve been in this bed for too long.
Please don’t let me go like Charlie.
My friend Charlie.
He got bad cancer and was in a bed for months.
I made the visits when I could,
bringing his favorite contraband.
His chewing tobacco and a couple cans of Molson’s
in a cold pack.
Charlie started getting these bad sores in different places.
They put on bandages, but the bandages made it worse.
He got a little more sad, each time I came.
At last, I stopped coming.
Crying a lot.  Coward. You coward.

I have no cancer, unless it be of the spirit.
I think I am like all of us.
We so need the human touch, the warmth and need of another.
And I do not know, really, why this bed has become such a refuge.
A refuge from what?  Human touch and warmth?
How will I become worthy of these things, and of the whole of love?
Get me up, dammit, I must get up.
As I lie staring, motionless, I feel I am effervescing.
Particles of me drifting upwards, like motes of light.
Soon I will be gone, like Charlie.
But, for now, I spread my arms and legs on these neat white sheets.
And all that will be left, when they come, is a snow angel.

Bedroom eyes

There’s a mirror on my dresser.
The kind that folds.

Each night,
as I sit on sleep’s edge,
I cast a covert glance
to a conscience that looks back at me.

On any night,
I might see
what age and regret have done.
Or, there may be the saving grace
of a wistful smile.
Remembrance of a fleeting love.

Dream birds of the night before
come to roost.
To set sleep’s mood.

Visions, often, of perilous depths.
Miles of mist,
bottomed by devilish waters calling.
A plummet, appalling and unredeemed.
A waking with hammering heart.

And next, divided by night or chapter,
a buoyant flight, away and up,
above the rolling green.
So simple.  So natural.
With one who has been, too.
We hover over clover,
and, in my stupid innocence,
I ask
Are my feet off the ground?

 

 

Apparition 

In the dark of your room
Something cold from the tomb
Awakes you with feelings of dread
Seems to float and to hover
Then pulls on your cover
And sidles up next to your bed

Its image is fearsome
A face without eyes
An energy making you swoon
It radiates outward
Your hair it will rise
Like you feel when you rub on a balloon

Paralysis grips you
You cannot but shout
Your face feels as if it will smother
Someone turns on the light
And, there in the bright,
Stands (in costume)
Your wee little brother.

You missed Halloween, you dope.

Hey Joe

hey Joe

better take that shower this morning, huh?
people are gonna see you today.
careful, don’t move too quickly in there
you’ll make your old head spin
and after all, those are glass doors.
hey, how come that shave didn’t hurt this morning
as it did yesterday?
same blade, same hot water, same shavin’ cream
but, boy, yesterday, you were rippin’ those whiskers out one by one.
watch that shaky hand, eh?
we don’t want no blood

hey Joe

didn’t that cuppa coffee taste spiritually fine this morning?
you forgot to take those stomach pills first
but you lived through it, haha.
were those real birds you heard singing this morning?
spring in February?
looks like you’re gonna see another one, Joe.
but, like those foolish crocuses that are poking their heads up
be careful what you wish for
ol’ man winter just might beat you down yet

hey Joe

where’d you get that burst of energy this morning?
can’t be that coffeefee , you make it same every day
hey, do you think, do you think we could….
strap on that Fitbit and go for a stroll?
maybe take your putter with you
so you can level that playing field
between you and those loose dogs

hey Joe

nah, let’s do the laundry instead.
it’s pretty cold out there.
make sure you look down at your toes
before you start down the stairs.
it’s not automatic anymore, is it?
geez, that sun is shining, Joe
come on, put on those long johns,
lace up those oxfords.
why do they make the damn laces so long?

forget your troubles, come on be happy

at least you haven’t graduated to Velcro yet.

Lilac Hill

This imaginative piece from Tara Caribou…

tara caribou's avatarRaw Earth Ink

Journal Entry:

Named for the mega-volcano that graces this tiny world, Lilac Hill is as desolate as it is beautiful. The giant volcano has a long history of eruption and is still active to this day, with a near constant flow. At nearly 18 kilometers above the surface, it rises above the upper atmosphere and of course creates the weather for this moon. It also happens to be one of the largest mountains in the traveled universe.

Lilac Hill holds its place as one of six small worlds orbiting the gorgeous and colorful gas giant of Planar, in and of itself a planet worth mention. But here I want to chronicle this lovely little moon that I have physically walked across and spent some time getting to know.

From far across the plains, the massive volcano rises and rises… and rises. It is a rare day that one can see…

View original post 595 more words

Time after Time. (2)

I’m inside the capsule. I have only two controls. A Jump button which allows me to exit any given situation, and a signal button that requests a return to home base. They wish me well. There’s no need to be strapped in, but I fasten the belt anyway. Taking a breath, I hit JUMP. Within two seconds, a low frequency electric thrum is felt, and blackness descends over me like a hood.

This is unexpected, and I’m alarmed. But so is everything on this excursion. The thrumming grows louder, gains in frequency, then stops. Complete silence, then almost blinding light. The light of day. What I see are the dreary remains of a forest, all beige and grey deadwood leaning this way and that. Central to the scene is a narrow stream, over which a teenage girl is squatting to pee. Her long nightgown is soiled, stained, soaked. She has her head down, and pees through the gown. The stream, in the full sunlight, is multicoloured, as if fed from a fluorescent paint factory. She straightens up, stands oddly. She is missing a foot. I am disturbed by her face. She has a maniacal grin, and blue eyes without whites. She spreads her arms, upturns her face, and lets out a howl of utter misery and desolation. I cannot help. She cannot see me…..JUMP.

I am on a green plateau far above a wide lowland.  It is twilight.  The scene has an aspect of ancientness.  In the land below me, I see many many small fires being lit (campfires of an army?)  As I watch, there are more and more, in the hundreds or thousands.  Twilight deepens.  Along the faint line of the horizon, I see black shapes approaching in the sky.  From my point of view, they are triangles flying in formation, each with faint dotted lights on its underside.  They are closer now, almost over the encampment below me, and they move more slowly.  They begin to tumble, but do not lose their position relative to one another.  I think of dice being rolled in very slow motion, and I see that they are not triangles, but pyramids.  They have ceased their forward progress over the valley, and I now hear a growing swell of adulation or celebration from the throngs around the fires.  This scene has held me enthralled, but I grow anxious about this first trial of our theories.  JUMP….

Twilight once again.  I am on the edge of a dusty dirt road.  Dozens of people (prisoners?) are being led naked by black robed figures with electric prods.  The road ends abruptly in a drop off to a large pit, from which smoke or fumes is rising.  There are cries and moans from the people.  One of them breaks ranks with the group.  He makes a run for it, coming in my direction.  Several of the black figures are still standing in the roadway, and, with one stroke, one of them cuts him in half with a beam from the prod.  I hear and feel the thumps as the body lands.  I think perhaps he was the lucky one.

I CALL FOR HOME.

The thrum begins anew, and the hood of darkness descends.  In no time, I am back in the brightness of our shop.  Tom and Jerry approach me with looks of anticipation, but I am quite dazed and cannot answer questions right away.  Tom walks over to the monkey’s cage, and brings him out.  I am still sitting in the machine, but preparing to stand up.  Tom says “Rod, you said there was something a little different about our little guy here.  Can you tell what it is?”  I think back, and recall that Mickey the Monkey, whom we had rescued from a bad environment,  had been missing part of a paw and also had an injury to one of his eyes.  Mickey now had the same injuries, but they were reversed, left to right.

They do not ask me about my trip, but glance covertly at one another.  I notice the sun coming through the small curtained window is a shade of blue, as if shone through a lens filter.  They move toward me, and Jerry says You’re not Rod……….JUMP.

 

Time after Time

Einstein and Tesla were on its trail.  Many more speculated.  H. G. Wells brought it to the public imagination.  I’m asking you to suspend disbelief in favour of entertainment, and to go along with my story about  a trio of garage engineers who think they are one of the first to have accomplished it.  The unraveling of time.  The capability to view, but not influence, short scenes from the past and from the future.

My name is Rod, and my partners are two nerdy guys named Thomas and Jerry (yes, Tom & Jerry).  We are bachelors, and probably with good reason.  From a secluded underground room in the Hydro plant where Jerry works as an engineer, we have built a machine that made a monkey disappear, and, within minutes, come back to us in an altered state.  The room was part of a network of storage vaults for tools, equipment and the like.  We had access to it because Jerry had some pretty damaging life-changing information about one of the security guards.

Three years it has taken us to come to this point.  What we really wanted was to have control over where and when the machine would go, but so far it is random and without control.  The traveler has no way of knowing the time or place of his visions, and, as mentioned, cannot influence things in any way.  We nicknamed it Galadriel’s Mirror.
The only thing we can do from this end is to bring it back.  The unfortunate monkey could not have known he was making history.

I am certainly not going to tell you how this works, or regale you with imaginative stories of golden levers with glass handles, flashing lights, and the world going by at fast forward as the stupefied traveler sits in his comfy seat.
Our simplified concept sees time as if it were contained in the grooves on a long-playing record of infinite size.  These grooves hold the information of what has been since the beginning, and what will be in the Ever.  The record is there to be seen.  Jumping the grooves is what no one (as far as we know) has been able to do.  To send the machine on its way requires a great amount of energy that must be sustained until its return.  Hence, our life saving deal with the security guard.

After the first shock of seeing our little passenger leave and return, we observed him closely before removing him from his plastic cage.  He was breathing rapidly and looked a little nervous and pale as his glance darted from place to place.  He was unwilling at first, but we coaxed him out.  I picked him up and checked his vitals which were alright aside from the pulse and respiration.  These were calming down quickly.  We let him loose.  He was still a little agitated, jumping from place to place and peering nervously in all directions.  But, there was something a little different about him that I could not put my finger on.

The others noted nothing, and declared our work a success.

And now, it was time for me to go.

To be continued…

Time after Time. (2)