After a decade Bill called. He reached a level of intoxication where lunacy required an audience. He also had a list of unforgivable people and wanted to go over it with me. Admittedly I’ve messed things up, plenty, but I was surprised to find my name on his list.
After an hour I told Bill I could hook him up with a good shrink or an exorcist if he preferred. That worked. He hung up.
A week later I called him back. Bill was sober and I was tactful. We joked some before I brought up the exorcist.
Stanley presented his theory of causality explaining how point A met point B in a new dimension where infinitely many things occurred. He drew illustrations to make his point. Around point A there were lines and circles which he called causes. He decorated point B with more lines and circles and called all of that the effect happening like the popping of a bubble.
Then Stanley looked at me for encouragement.
I wondered what would be the easiest way to tell him without embarrassing myself or frustrating him that I had no clue what he was talking about.
While walking through the neighborhood overcast by a blur of rainclouds Charles passed a young girl urging her two brothers half her size to keep up with her.
One said, “It’s gonna rain,” but she answered, “No.” Then the other said, “It’s gonna rain,” and she repeated, “No.”
Charles also thought it was going to rain. He hadn’t brought an umbrella, but after hearing the girl’s words he slowed the pace of his walking convinced in spite of the clouds that it wouldn’t rain.
Whether to fulfill a child’s prophecy or to give Charles something to think about it in fact did not rain, at least not until both he and those three children reached the shelter of their homes.
Red bougainvillea made a splash against a white wall as Tom wondered where he was.
When his mind wandered he’d sometimes get lost in imagined disasters he could do nothing about. Fortunately, although they seemed determined to mess with him to the extent they still could, he had enough sense to reject dark demonic misdirection.
Then Tom saw Phyllis wave to him in the distance. He hadn’t seen her in a decade, not since the funeral. Her smile and the joyful brilliance of the bougainvillea told him his journey was finally over and a new, better one had just begun.
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Denise offers the prompt word “mess” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
They sat outside our dorm singing the Moon Song. It was his favorite. Even she knew it. He sang, “Yadda yadda goo goo.” She responded, “Doodoo doodoo wah wah.” This would go on and on.
I imagined them singing the Moon Song for decades even after a long day of fighting and making up. When they grew old I imagined them singing it to each other in their hearts.
Indeed I hope so.
But we didn’t have air conditioning. My window was open. This was exam week. And that’s my lame excuse for shouting, “Shut up!”
Stanley didn’t like to swim but living near the ocean he didn’t mind, should the Spirit lead him, to take a sunrise stroll along the water’s edge.
The huge quantity of water brought Noah to mind. “That’s where all the water went,” he told himself. Then he provided the explanation that mountains rose while deep sea basins formed to collect the runoff which carved canyons along the way.
When Stanley told others the story of the water no one believed him (except those who did). Perhaps to taunt him for telling the tale of its failure to drown the remnant in that boat, or perhaps to merely remind him what it could still do, the water lapped its waves upon the sandy shore licking off any trace of Stanley’s footprints.
It didn’t require a visa to get where Pete went only a willingness that none of us had to go through that unpromising hole-in-the-wall. Perhaps some of us should have gone with him to point the way back, but we didn’t care that much what happened to him so long as whatever it was didn’t happen to us.
Today decades later and buried in memories our delightful destinations reached their dead-ends. Admittedly we knew this would happen, but we didn’t think it would happen in next to no time.
Pete told us to come along, but were we still welcome in spite of demonic reminders that we were not? Was the breath that coughed its way through our lungs evidence that there was still a bit of mercy left even for the likes of us?
In an attempt to make conversation, or perhaps scare away snakes that might be sunning themselves on the trail, Stephen said to Dale, “What makes deception work is all that true enough sky-is-blue stuff that serves as the delivery vehicle for the poison we don’t know we’re being fed.” He then added the next thing that popped into his head, “Of course, we only think others can be fooled so we happily open our mouths.”
Unwilling to follow just any non-sequitur where it leads, but also unwilling to remain unsociably silent, Dale countered, “Things haven’t changed much since that snake messed with Eve.”
Meeting the challenge Stephen observed, “You can tell by the cautious way the snake phrased its words that it was worried Eve was going to bite its head off if it made a wrong move.”
While pointing out the direction where the trail forked Dale noted, “She did want that lame excuse to eat forbidden fruit.”
Since this was Stephen’s first time on this twisted trail he only added by way of conclusion, “But after they took those bites—surprise!—they and that snake had plenty of other things to worry about.”
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Denise offers the prompt word “Surprise” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. Associated with these prompts is a YouTube Channel, Two Guys and a Girlie, discussing the writing of these stories featuring Clark, Nick and Denise streaming live on Sundays at 2:30 PM EST.
If you want to read the brief dialogue between Eve and the serpent to see how far I’ve gone off the trail see Genesis 3:
Scrooge, the knot tier, saw threads come apart and got busy. Unfortunately the threads didn’t like the way he thought best to tie them together so they slipped through even the toughest knot Scrooge knew how to tie.
Meanwhile a prophet passed by and told Scrooge that he wasn’t anointed to tie knots. Frustrated with the threads this further bit of abuse pushed Scrooge over the edge triggering him to ask the prophet what exactly did anointed mean and what exactly does this prophet think Scrooge was supposed to be doing anyway instead of his own job tying knots?
Considering the unraveling state of the world prophets are very busy nowadays. He had no time to waste giving Scrooge any further word than “Merry Christmas!”
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Denise offers the prompt word “knot” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. Associated with these prompts is a YouTube Channel, Two Guys and a Girlie, discussing the writing of these stories featuring Clark, Nick and Denise streaming live on Sundays at 2:30 PM EST. The next episode will be on January 1st, 2023.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 