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the man's face cracked into a grin. "yeah, i get that a lot. i think it's the crippled deal. and the hair. makes people project angelic. name's boog."
"but... but... then how did you know my name?" mike stammered.
"it's embroidered right there on your jacket. hell of a uniform you got there. say, by the way, i'm a winter too. though for some reason i can't do purple. sydney?"
"yeah. guy's a fuckin' genuis. hey-- do you know where the hell everybody is? it's like empty around here. i mean i know it's early and all-- but i haven't seen anybody hardly all morning. gives me the creeps. that's why i said that, about the rapture. i know it sounded crazy-- but the empty
streets, then you coming out of nowhere--"
"nah, it wasn't nowhere. i was down at 'nena's house of beauty and terror'-- there's a big nude poetry reading mudfest happening-- quite a crowd, let me tell you. you never heard of it? sort of northwest burning man, but without all the fires, dehydration, and pachouli. i just took off to get some air."
it turned out not to be such an exciting fire.
there was no "involvement", as ella had hinted; in fact, with the exception of a good excuse for a kitchen remodel, it looked like the bungalow would remain pretty much unchanged. mike packed it up, looked around, still uneasy about the lack of human activity. usually a fire call brought out the neighbors. there was an evil looking guy glaring from across the street, but that was about it.
except for a long haired, skinny fellow with an lilting, unsteady gait who seemed to appear out of nowhere.
the man, bearded and mustached, with a beautific smile and piercing eyes, was heading right for him.
"hello, mike," said the man.
"oh, jesus. it _is_ the rapture", mike said.
well, damn. he was going to clash, he was going to look washed out, and he'd probably be an emotional wreck the rest of the day, but he had to go in. duty before beauty. he sighed. the fire was beginning to poke fingers through the kitchen window. where the hell was everybody else? the whole street was deserted. come to think of it, he hadn't seen anyone else in the station but ella, and the traffic coming in was nearly non-existant. it was EERIE. shit,
maybe this is the rapture, he thought out loud. and i had a date tonight with that cute christian girl from 9-A. just my fucking luck.
our hero is worried
(stine in--)
Times like these require split second decisions.Orange or Yellow?
Quicker than he can think, he opts for the pink jacket,
complementary purple helmet and oh so sassy black boots. When he first came to the station, it was all yellow and black, yellow and black, blah blah blah. He'd had a hard time getting the other guys to have their colors done, but once they did, things really picked up around there,
and work was a much more attractive place.
Mike is a delicate winter. Unless he wants to look washed out, that yellow will never work for him.
His mother took him and one of his girlfriends to have their colors done back when he was 20. He thought it was a joke, but when Sidney, the colorist spoke, he'd found certain universal truths that couldn't be denied.
"No matter where you are, or when," Sidney paused and bestowed his final wisdom in a heavy sigh "you must look fabulous."
Sure, Sidney was a guy's guy and man among men, but he had a point, and Mike started to realize that, darnit, he just felt better in his proper colors.
As the truck rounds the corner, Mike sees that 923 1/2 Jefferson is the chartreuse bungalow with goldenrod trim.
Our hero is worried.
(my turn)
ella files a nail, looks at the clock, considers leaning out the window for a cigarette. the phone ings. "dispatch", she says dispassionately. "address?" she says, somewhat more interested.
"hey guys" she yells down. "some wingnut just blew up yogurt in her microwave. the whole 900 block of jefferson may be involved!".
mike, who had been studying a march 2001 issue of playboy, quickly exits the toilet and hurries for the gear wall.
and morgen started it---
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mary ellen winces.
she'd meant to be generous to all living things
but not to this virus inflating her throat.
david sends a christmas card.
it's been five years today since i let you down.
in the meantime i've learned to juggle.
do you think that you could love me now?
sara dinsmore decides to be domestic in order to win the heart of denys duffy. she begins by emptying a carton of blueberry yogurt into a large aluminum bowl.
she places it in the microwave oven, sets the timer for ten minutes and goes out to call the fire department.
it's been raining so long everything has lost its color. people wonder around gray and drowsy. the streams leak into the fields which leak into the streets.
at an estate sale i happened on the remnents of someone's stained glass hobby. i'm better at breaking things than intricate craftwerk. smashed them into bits and am in the process of recreating lurid nude mosaics.
i need a story--
a riff off a much more hopeful poem by the eloquent jeff taylor. it's been raining for a long long long time...
Inside the relentless hush of grey sky on grey ground
And wet that winds inside and out
There is a shout as the drying drown
A plethora of a winter's doubt
Than all will tell
Of mossiness and damp, the liquid end
Of others who have come this way before
To sloosh long miles round endless bend
Where they sought shelter with a friend.
wet, wet that sky that hides a sun
So long gone it almost cannot be;
But it is there. How long have we awaited in this dark
To see that Sun!
How many pale have joined our bloating ranks . . .
And yet these weeks of treading endless mud
Between my waking and reaching back to sleep
Have shown me how to pretend there is such a thing as time,
When by all accounts one hour bleeds
Darkly into the others
To know the dark's own dark, and call it home,
To believe, O Sun, that you had forsaken me.
gave blood yesterday. always hesitate and turn them down two or three times before i get up the nerve. always dread it, and worry neurotically before and after-- it'll be bad, they'll reject it, i'll faint. and always the staffers are uniformly calm and friendly and welcoming.
i give blood because of ansel, my 18 year old poet buddy who gets a big transfusion of blood product every month, and who wouldn't be here otherwise. i know my blood doesn't end up in that poet's veins-- i doubt it anyway, since he's 6000some miles away-- but some other poet might like it. and i'm a sucker for poets.
speaking of which i have uncovered a lovely dead turk-- orhan veli-- whilst searching for a new poet game poem. which led to discovery of some lively living american geniuses who are translating him and putting him to music, as he well deserves. i like our tiny world. we are a tribe of lost folks speaking some weird language, and when we run into each other and can speak in our native tongue,
it's one long happy sigh.
1) some new-agey woman is "scanning chakras" and tells me my solar plexus one is "enshadowed or enshrouded". "a lot of times people assume this means they are dying, like cancer or something. but in this case it's some roles you are abandoning or need to abandon."
2) i am on the shore of a body of water, and in the water i can see african animals. there are people on a boat, including children, a few hundred yards off the shore. a hyena swims up to the boat and begins eating them. the hyena gulps whole parts down such that he can barely move from being glutted. i don't understand why the people don't kill him. it would be a simple matter to clobber him with an oar--
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went to a Hollis lecture the other night about the Psyche and the Story. lots of complexities-- it was a gourmet casserole of a talk-- but the bottom line is we are all in service to stories we didn't create most of the time, and even those we helped weave are usually unconscious and just repetition and conflict avoiding. the unconscious gets a little peeved we don't pay her any mind, and throws these little pebbles in our shoe and boulders in our path.
we are more than a body but our body is necessary for our work. we are more than our thoughts with all their yakketyyakkety but we need them as this is the best representation we can get for what Is. we are more than our behaviors which repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat and sometimes in their repetition remind us who we are.
soul brothers and sisters--
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