March 31, 2017: Clearly a lion day. The wind knocked over two trucks with a gust near 84 mph at St. Rose Parkway.
***
“You should live in Vermont.”
“Why would I want that?”
“Vermont is a nice place for wildness.”
“Nine months of snow, two months of mosquitoes, and only two tolerant months.”
“There’s all the maple syrup you can eat.”
“I don’t even like pancakes.”
“Maybe you should try a stack with some real maple syrup.”
“You know what I do with my syrup now?”
“No.”
“I buy a bottle every three years just so I can throw it away.”
“You don’t like maple syrup?”
“Oh, I love it already mixed into my oatmeal.“
“So, you do like maple.”
“You can make maple oatmeal even better by pouring maple syrup on it.”
“Sounds like you need to eat more oatmeal.”
***
The voices in my head compete to be heard.
***
The phone alarm directing him to take his medicine went off every two hours. If he forgot, the alarm grew insistent and demanded he satisfy its need. He put the alarm on snooze. Sometimes he couldn’t take care of the plea. The pills sat in a drawer while he sat around a conference table. The alarm made him ashamed; a grown man tethered to a pill bottle. He tapped his phone. It alarmed nine minutes later. A reminder of the reminder of the first alarm. He put it on snooze again. He looked at the speaker then his phone. He could see the dust falling around his wrist. The speaker’s mouth became a painful slow motion movie of round vowels and hard consonants. The clock hand grew larger beating out every deliberate second. It went off again. The medicine would have to wait.
***
A dead pop star on a doubledecker bus
His ghostly image promising a real experience
Circus performers moon dancing through Pepsi fire
So real you can touch his face
Like visiting Madame Tussauds to touch wax.
***
Tally Ho, the leader seemed to cry as he led his besty and their girls on a forced march of The Strip. The map on his phone showed only two blocks of walking. Two miles later and the girls needed a drink. Bring on the party, we’re finally here.
***
Enough looking at the window watching the mindless tourists; time to get to work.
© 2017, Michael Shawn Sommermeyer. All rights reserved.
