Calculating Thunder

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In pairs, we sprawled on a white sectional, arms and legs entwined. A plate glass window framed the grid of city streets. It was one of those sticky summer days that make you want to take a hundred showers. Relieved to drink something cold and watch daylight turn to dusk, our murmurs subsided to whispers. Our eyes closed. Despite the air conditioner’s hum, it smelled like rain.

A bolt of lightning cracked the sky. We counted, and when the thunder clapped, we calculated our distance from the storm, wondering when the elements would come together and the heavens would open.

Wear Flats

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In grade school, we played out of boredom, shooting spitballs at the ceiling from straws. A sodden mess, the glop hit tables, never lights. I was the tallest.

I’m a long sip now, a Margarita.  Tall as most college guys. My superpower is passing. As in basketball scholarship. Now that I’ve learned chess, nerds get nervous. I trot out opening gambits, spiking pieces across the board at lightening speed. Checkmate.

They call me “Show-off.” I say, “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did backwards, wearing high heels. She didn’t make as much, though.”

I wear flats. I dance straight ahead.

Aardvark

via Daily Prompt: Awkward

Is there anything more awkward than “aardvark”? Not the alliteration, that’s elegant. So is having two “a’s” at the beginning, like in Finnish. Finland is one of Trump’s favorite countries. Oops, awkward.

Aardvarks come from Africa, a s_hole country. The word “aardvark” comes from Afrikaans, a language that is 90% Dutch. Somali, may be a distant double vowel relative from the Afroasiatic family. Oops, awkward.

Finland, Lombard and Estonia speak in double vowels. They’re European. How did Somali sneak in? Illegal vowel migration? Or did the Europeans steal extra vowels when they left Africa? Awkward all around.

Rainstorm on the Gulf

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Dark clouds drift to the west, bearing a load of rain drops on the wind. There was a storm earlier. The water pounded the bay in sheets, splashing and sparkling against the gulf, moving in a quiet pattern of ripples. Light and dark shadows reflected across the shallow bottom of a sandy shoal. While it rained, the birds were quiet, the trees were still, it seemed as if the whole of nature’s shop had closed up to watch for the rainbow. When the sky cleared, an osprey was the first one out, soaring and diving, making up for lost time.

Dragonfly

Dragonfly Photo credit: Peter B. Kessler

The latticed wings resembled a ladder. Like a red-orange crayon they drew a line in the sky, a purposeful gash that attracted attention to the one broken stem in a field of reeds where it landed. The dragonfly held its position the way that top predators dominate a food chain. I snapped one picture after another, directing the lens towards its complex eyes. Imagine one insect seen through the lens of a camera and hundreds of moving human beings seen through a multifaceted instrument like the one the dragonfly projects from the slim taper of its body. Would you stay?

Daily Prompt: Flaunt

via Daily Prompt: Flaunt

Sitting with scientists? Flaunt your feelings. Punting with potentates? Cave. Believe it when zombie sightings are confirmed. Catch them and eat their brains. Take an extra scoop of grey matter. Enjoy the taste of apocalypse.

The dystopian realm of the upside down is an awesome place. Best ever buffet. A horde of shambolic goons roam untethered, contravening the will of large bureaucracies run by corrupted corpses. The politicians promise radical change. Hah, the place is showy and shallow.  It’s constituents swim into a swamp of post-truth pronouncements. They’re stabbed in the heart. Eat or be eaten.

Survivor

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My grandfather hijacks every conversation. Maybe World War II was the biggest thing that happened to him. The last time I wanted to borrow money, he told me that when he was nineteen his ship sunk in the Mediterranean. The water was red with blood. Many people were killed. I always thought that he exaggerated, but now I’ve read about that battle. I’m nineteen and I think, maybe if I’d been there, I’d have to keep telling that story about people I’d saved. Swimming, hypothermia, explosions, smoke. Video games, but real. Survivor’s guilt on steroids. Maybe he’s always had P.T.S.D.

Bezerkely Buzz

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There’s a buzz in Bezerkeley. Just a fly. Not a contact high. Swatting the pest, I cross campus. The fly follows me.

I took a shower. I say it out loud. That gets a few looks.

Embarrassed, I wave it away with my copy of The Daily. Sprinting through Sather Gate, breathing hard, I slow. Gliding ahead of me across a wide swath of grass, an owl skims the air just inches above my head. The fly tumbles in the jet stream of the bird’s wings.

Psst, a pesky whisper. It’s back. A streak of grey, a flycatcher. No more fly.

Daily Prompt: Tantrum

Tantrum
A tantrum is the bottom layer. Mostly, tantrums stay buried beneath a careful scaffolding of socialization. You hide, grateful for the conventions that gradually encase you, the interwoven vines like a strangler fig, supportive and unyielding at the same time.

A tantrum is the unfiltered id that is at best embarrassing and at worst criminal. It’s the way you express yourself when no one else matters. It’s the steel edge of selfish disregard.

On occasion, a tantrum can be a lifesaver. There are people who deserve to experience your tantrum. You know the ones. The rules don’t apply to them. When you’ve had it, with the best of intentions, you can let them have it. Sometimes they listen and even if they don’t, you’ve put them on notice.

Library

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He could not sleep. Padding to the kitchen in pajamas, he heated milk. Needing a cozy spot to sip it sent him from room to room, landing him in an overstuffed chair. Children’s illustrated books jumbled together with thick tomes, Pooh next to Jung, a shelf up from Wittgenstein, a shelf down from a huddle of keepsakes. He touched their textures, wound up a song. A tiny bowl, a Nutcracker ballerina, a music box, a rabbit tail.

A last ounce of milk. He rubbed his eyes and paged through his wife’s last drawings. Their life together. Now he might sleep.