No Going Back

Photo credit here.

The theme for the Writer’s Workshop was “Late.” This was the prompt which created what follows:

 

“You get a pair of glasses in the mail that lets you see the flow of time all around you.  When you look, you can see things that are ahead of time or behind time or things that are running smoothly.  It’s not quite what you expected though.  What do you see?”

 

At first there were drops, landing mid-air on nothing visible – then streaking horizontally as if a ground was rising up to meet them.

 

One landed with a PLOP several feet behind me and the “streak” became torrential, barreling toward me. I panicked, feeling my breath quicken with a strong sense to turn and run. But other drops had me solidly in a circle – their surface tension keeping me from movement.

 

I turned back and a wave was forming, threatening to both take me out at my knees and engulf me in oxygen-deprived movement, so I turned my back and waited. . .

 

But I was floating, unbeknownst to me, all of these drops had me buoyant – moving, but still – always in an in-between of torrent behind and trickle before.

 

The torrents had movement, pushing me in one direction or another. Then I realized they were pushing certain previously unseen barriers down – helping me see different places in my future – creating glimpses of what might be.

 

If I chose to step towards one apparition or another, the torrent came along, eliminating from view any other option previously revealed.

 

My presence shifted the topography – all else going flat with each movement. Shifting my gaze behind, the drops became a wall – no going back.

 

Writer’s Workshop, March 16, 2025

Trouble

 

Photo credit here.

Writing Workshop prompt from 8/2022: “Did you ever get in trouble at school? What happened?”

 

Ms. Tew was my first elementary school teacher. I don’t remember how many children were in my class, but she chose to set-up her classroom tables in a large square. The space in the middle of the tables seemed enormous to my 6-year-old self. 

 

Our classroom abutted a second-grade classroom which had a reading loft. I yearned to be in the class with the loft the next year and pined for the adventures a loft might bring. Even in first-grade, rumors spread about teachers and their relative kindness, coolness or harshness. The teacher with the loft was known to be cool and kind, which seemed to me a perfect combination. 

 

Our first-grade classroom, much like the arrangement, was square: No mood lighting, no loft – just bulletin boards and chalkboards with harsh fluorescent above. A rectangular floor-to-ceiling window provided the only natural light, but the window faced South.

 

Sometime during the first couple of months of the school year, Ms. Tew received word she had a phone call to take in the principal’s office. She pointed toward the worksheets before us telling us to work on our letters, and she sternly warned us about making too much noise. She also told us to stay in our seats. She would be gone briefly, and we needed to behave ourselves during her short time away.

 

I do not know the nature of the phone call, but seconds and minutes turned into what felt like hours to a classroom of aesthetically starved first graders. I’m sure it started with small conversations between neighbors on the square. A little later, the hyperactive boy sprang up to bother a friend seated across from him. Paper began to be wadded up and thrown. The girls screeched as the boys began pulling hair. Small, and then large, arguments broke out. The decibels grew louder and louder. 

 

At least once, maybe twice, another teacher passed by the room and encouraged us to shush and get back in our seats. But as soon as she left (and they were all she’s), mayhem commenced. Herding cats comes to mind. 

 

My predilection is for rule-following. Given the regular chaos of my home, rules became a safe-haven providing security and defense if needed. While my classmates got out of their chairs, drew scribbles on the chalkboard, poured Elmer’s glue on the tables – I sat trying to focus on my alphabet, keeping my head down and trying to stay out of trouble.

 

When Ms. Tew finally came back, her normally calm demeanor morphed into wild-eyed rage. She yelled while making statements about what she had told us to do, how we were disrupting the entire wing of the school, how we only needed to be still and quiet for a little while. I imagine the floor was covered with pencils and markers, poorly cut construction paper, glue bottles and paper jets with the nose-gear bent sideways. Chairs must have been in array, maybe the tables were knocked askew – but in our defense, she was gone a LONG time, especially for freshly minted first graders. 

 

She had us straighten the room up and return to the square while she found her wooden paddle. She stood the students on each side of the square up in unison, then went down the row whacking our rear ends with the board. “Thwok, thwok, thwok” 

 

I wanted to protest, to tell her I had not participated in any of it. I didn’t want to get paddled. I feared the pain, being lumped in with all the rule-breakers and what if my mom found out! I might get a whooping again for being disruptive. I think I started crying – maybe we all did. All the exuberance of childhood shenanigans squelched thwok by horrible thwok. Replaced by alligator tears and smeared “A’s, B’s and C’s” on our pages. 

 

An event like that did not happen again in all of elementary school (or beyond). I don’t know if Ms. Tew received a reprimand with other teachers forbidden to act similarly. Maybe the rumor mill did its job and scared all of us straight. Who would think the teacher would paddle ALL of us? Truth is stranger than fiction sometimes.

 

Still, the event is my lasting memory of first grade and my lasting memory of Ms. Tew.

 

Written 3/25/26

Resilience

 

They had taken the metro to the island in the middle of the Dnieper River. The war had not yet begun, the Orange Revolution had not yet shifted the political landscape. The catacombs remained intact, St. Michael’s gleamed golden in the sun, Lady Victory signaled an era which recently passed into history. This moment culminated a few weeks of planning between the English teachers and students which included gathering at the island to experience a cookout in the “usual” Ukrainian style. 

 

By this time the snow had given up and warming temperatures melted what remained. The teachers followed the university students on an unmarked path back into the woods. They found a clearing and a barbeque by magic, and soon, the students were unpacking their backpacks with the different snacks and food they brought. 

 

Potato salad, bread with dried fish, butter and dill; a dish called Shuba (layered fish, carrot, beet, mayonnaise) and Sala (or pig’s fat) came forward one by one. While the other dishes were cold, they heated the Sala a bit, then passed it around. They told stories of how Stalin, during World War II, starved the people of Ukraine. When they could no longer buy meat, Sala provided calories to keep them alive another day with hopes to see Stalin defeated. They were survivors. 

 

The English speakers sat silent – how does one respond to resilience of this magnitude in the face of vicious hate? 

 

With awe and respect. 

The picture was a Writer's Workshop prompt from February of 2023. I gave myself 15 minutes to write on the picture prompt and it took me to my time in Kyiv, Ukraine '98-'99. 3/20/26

The Process of Becoming

Photo credit here.

Little comes out wholly itself.
Even a seed must be formed bit
By painstakingly long bit and
Even then its journey continues.

 

Is it food? 

Does it feed off another?

May it wait for yet another type of seed

Which by combining 

becomes something new.

 

The hazelnut contains the universe – 

The work of millennia formed and 

Transformed into this tiny seed.

 

Give it soil, rain, sunlight – 

The nut transforms into something

Quite different – larger, broader

Containing multitudes of itself

For all of time (maybe).

 

All the tree releases from itself – 

Gases to fill the air, 

Nitrogen to feed the soil

 

As it dies it decomposes into hummus and fungi

Decomposes into 

Soil and spore and molecule.

 

The world below and the sky above

Filled again by what had been

One tiny seed, by what had been

Universe.

 

So what of my short life?

The lesson may be not so much

All my transformation

But mostly I am stardust as much

As I am flesh and

To stardust I will return.

 

The vanity of life

Its crowning glory:

The whisper of eternity

In each breath,

Each turning of a life.

 

Writer’s Workshop, 11/16/25

Leaps of Faith

Photo credit here.

The trip had been long – a red eye out of LA, landing in Sydney with another 2 hour flight into the interior. We hiked another 3 hours deep into the Outback to the place locals called “The Fair.” 

 

Daylight was fading on the deep reds of the landscape and the sky looked maroon as Earth reflected Sky reflected Earth. As night crept further down the window of the horizon, a structure appeared – the original Fleur-de-lis? A rollercoaster? A statue in metal memorializing a child’s drawing of a tulip? 

 

Then people began appearing up high on the crest, down low at its base. . .

And even. . .

Upside down?

 

“I knew it,” she said, as all the weariness of travel fell away by the force of some gravity as yet unexplained. “I knew Newton was wrong!”

 

She went off on physics and Einstein and quarks and ended on string theory and the expansion and compression of time. When she finished, she looked at the rest of us stunned into the silence of the uninformed. . .

 

“Gravity,” she said, “it’s vector is just an illusion. . .” and she ran full throttle toward the structure and leapt. She swung up on the fence nearest the perilous looking curve and then walk/ran up and around the loop like Spiderwoman or a gecko or some other tiny creature for whom gravity holds little power.

 

All I wrote at the Writer’s Workshop, 4/27/25 (if I weren’t so tired, I might try to finish it, but not tonight!) The photo used for the prompt was of the structure in the picture above, but not this particular picture - though it looks cool and otherworldly in this photo (Ulrich Genth Tiger and Turtle Magic Mountain)

 

Wonder(ing)

 

Photo credit here.

How did the universes begin? By a spoken Word over “waters” – things that are NOT becoming manifest by breath and voice? 

 

If so, where did the waters begin? In the belly of God – an artery cut open to bring about life?

 

Does the serpent swallow its tail,

Spinning time in endless loops

Until the flick of creation

Telescopes a spiral

Reaching to eternity?

 

Or maybe the learned ones know best

A single atom

Exploding with instability;

Then opposites attracting

And coalescing

Swirling together and

Settling into non-ending expansion

 

All of us stardust

Matter to the matter that is us

And then to pass through and onto

Some other galaxy light years away.

 

A burden of questions

Known only as (in?) mystery

Inviting us to embrace

Wonder.

 

Writer’s Workshop, July 2025

Transitions

 

Photo credit here.

Transitional seasons are where I stay – in the not yet, but just gone in between – the border where one is just beyond view whatever direction I look. 

 

It’s a life season – of life seasons – where the bouncy, bubbly of young adulthood borders the feel-it-in-the-morning ache of middle age. It’s just below the surface irritability from hormones that don’t quite work like they did. 

 

It’s crawl out of my skin- or maybe slip out of my skin – sweats and heat that arises in my chest and finds their wet way to the ends of my hair. It’s achy muscles and taunt ligaments sending pulses of pain through my feet and up to my hips sometimes landing in the knuckles of my 3^rd finger and thumb. 

 

And then the moments of breezy forgetfulness. Where I am bouncing in the air, clapping my feet to the ground – making all the noises I can and feeling the flow of music run through my body as if we were one and the same. 

 

I feel it in the joy of laughter over the odd beginnings of my younger self – feeling giddiness over a silly joke or the taste of sunshine that comes through frozen milk, eggs and sugar. I sense the lightness of not needing to be careful while staring down the rolling pin that cradles my arch. 

 

I stride along the horizon’s curve, zigging and zagging between who I have been and who I am yet to be. But I am always, only present to the here, the now. Continuum, breath-by-breath, the constant transition defining us all. 

 

- August 3, 2019, Writing Retreat

Tree Talking II

The tree stood sloped upward at the edge of the yard. It grew long with the setting sun, reaching toward the house, granting respite from another sweltering day - or may it was rain - it's hard to remember.

The tree had stood guard over rows of corn and squash, the squeals of children hanging from swing sets, the death defying tricks on a trampoline with no pads or webbing to insure safety.

It watched the man in overalls with his donkey plowing the fields and later the same man with a tractor. It heard the cluck of chickens feeding on grain, laying eggs. It gasped each time the crack of a breaking neck reverberated on the wind.

The tree took in the smoke of a hundred fires: the ones for singeing the soft down off a chicken, the ones clearing to ash a stack of debris, and the small ones in the cigarettes the boys smoked discretely behind the barn - high on their maturity and sophistication. 

When the house burned it watched the embers glow upward on drafts, then scatter on the ground. It felt sprays caught on the wind from the fire hoses and was grateful for how the night cooled.

These moments imprinted on its rings - the internalization of all the decades of activity: famine and harvest, glee and wailing, birth and death. An observer, but also a container of the passage of time, lasting longer than any of its human counterparts. An old soul, whispering its secrets in the language of leaves blowing in the wind. 

Stand near it in stillness, and calm your soul.

- Writer's Workshop, July 2024

The Gateway

 

Photo credit Paul Reiffer

The day is gray - when water folds into skyline like its lapping heaven

Yet the face of the sky is flat, motionless, settled - still

As if the wet lick does not tickle its nose or catch just enough of its mouth to make it retract back in disgust. A pall placed upon it by hands unseen, it is dispassionate.

Yet there is a gateway - the legs reflected in the ocean's mouth, the top disappearing from its view.

Is it a chin rest of the gods? 

A step so the god may reach to grope for the sun? 

Maybe it's for the god's cigarette - that nasty habit it's trying to break? 

Or a hairpin to keep unruly tresses obedient? 

But there it is - hard and motionless; embodying in flesh what the vapor sky expresses - out of place

Like a piece of trash on the wilderness path - unthinkingly, carelessly tossed aside.

- Writer's Workshop, 2019

Journeys

Photo credit here.

I have nothing to write – no journeys within or without, no journeys from the page or from thin air. I am jumbled in my mind – like a slinky that has gone all wrong – unable to slink, unable to have one smooth curve folding in on itself line after line.

Instead, it is the cloud of dust surrounding Pigpen – ethereal and light – but chaotic and swirling – one thought, plan, decision, worry cascading around another – clouding my vision – clouding the paths I’d like to take…

 

Ethereal and light – no, not really – the specs are carbon shards and tiny anvils - each with enough weight and slice to leave me bruised and bloodied – at least in my mind – likely my soul…

 

Just writing these words helps the dust settle, the kink in the slink pop mysteriously back into place. Breathing – deeply in, deeply out – creates a calm in the chaos – a pin, prick of smooth in the midst of all the waves.

 

What journeys would I like to take? With my feet, my mind, my eyes, my ears? What worlds await within if only I give them an opening – a stillness – in which to be born?

 

And so, maybe the first journey is the journey to quietness – a labyrinth walk, a shavasana, a moment of breath – or maybe the first journey is recognition a journey needs to be made at all.

- Writer's Workshop, 2019

This Happened Before

Find this image on Etsy here.

The shadow grew long in the face of a bright light appearing among the aspens. The orb glowed orange-yellow before exploding to encompass the whole of North, South, East and West. The scene felt familiar. 

He grew up where the sky blanketed the earth - prairie and plain kissing endlessly everywhere he looked. A small stand of trees soldiered every house, every barn and punctuated the fine "S" curves of a stream.

One fall night, he ventured several miles on foot to camp below a knoll on his neighbor's farm. The milky way swirled and twinkled above him and the brook gurgled nearby. The harvest laid bare the earth and it smelled of decaying shafts of grain and the dust of too much sun. 

He fell asleep, he thought, and awoke to a startling light pulsing in the trees by the brook. He wiped his eyes and blinked, hoping the orb might disappear - an apparition of a fading dream.

It did not.

He felt his heart throbbing in his chest - his mind racing to determine the next steps. How did this light get here? 

- Writer's Workshop, February 2023

Making Tracks

Photo credit here

She looks at her phone - again- waiting for the text that could change everything. 

Nothing.

She looks up at the tracks, then across to the other platform. How long had it been since she ventured on a subway - to take the hour long train into the city - to arrive in the bustling Garden where only concrete and basketball grow?

She looks around. No one is looking anywhere but at the palm of his or her hand. . .

What was it like? Does she even remember? When the phone booth sat at the corner of the street? When she last stood awaiting the Metro with nothing  but her backpack and time on her hands? 

Maybe there was a paper or magazine - an ad across the way. Then a stranger with the 3 piece suit or the beleaguered mother and her toddler. There might be a conversation - a comment about the weather, a communal huff when the train did not slow down. 

Now, the conversations were only virtual with someone miles away, though she was so close to them all.

What had she lost? Was it worth what she gained?

Did she ever account for the change - think about the shift of interaction from people to machines? 

Or did the world rush forward - barreling down a track with an ending it may not expect? 

- Writer's Workshop, 2019 (or earlier)

Bad Writing

Artwork by Thomas Joynes can be found here

 

The graying light angles though a rectangular window near the ceiling, casting a shadow on one side of the room and illuminating the woman sitting cross-legged on her bed. Little tornadoes of dust move through the beam which, with an adjustment of the eyes, show a desk stacked with books with a lean-to bookcase, a sweater draped off one shelf. 

 

The room is compact – a pole between parallel walls is filled with hanging clothes. A small door catty cornered from the bed leads to a small funnel for urination and defecation, a slightly raised floor tilts imperceptibly to the corner, draining recycled water from the showerhead during the 30 minute cleansing allowed each week. 

 

She stares up through the window to see the curvilinear gleam of the Circle of Life – then beyond – pure black dotted with the stars and galaxies yet to be named. 

 

It is silent.

 

She turns on the candle as she pulls out one of the three drawers below her bed. It moves out and then a top piece hinges up and over her legs creating a small table. Meals are served based on the day’s schedule and arrive via the small compartment to the right of the door and above the foot of her bed. 

 

No food has arrived in the last week.

- Library in the Forest Writing Group 2024. We were encouraged to "just write" even if we considered it "bad writing."

Bad Ideas

Imaged used during writer's workshop, unknown source

"This is likely a bad idea, but hell. . .why not?" she thought to herself as she picked up the tiny dessert fork and dipped down into the pillowy white layer of the Pepto Bismol slice of. . .

Well she wasn't sure what. It looked like a dessert, but serrated like tin - hot pink and puffy cloud tin on a darkly colored crust - maybe chocolate? licorice? 

But she doubted even this as she signed up for the Expect the Unexpected exhibit hall on her Vegan Safari. A trip she planned over a year ago when her then passion was tofu scrambles and "I-can't-believe-it's-not-meat" burgers. 

Turned out to be a phase - as they always turned out to be.

They being her bright ideas of the moment: her this-will-change-everything-and-fill-the-hole-inside schemes which undoubtedly led her to places - figuratively and literally - like this. . .

A Vegan Safari in the Expect the Unexpected exhibit about to eat something entitled "Martian Sky-High" made with absolutely no sugar, no dairy, no fat, but obviously a lot of pink dye (beet juice?) and what she imagined might be mung bean paste (as the epitaph read, "It's high because its protein content is through the roof!") whipped to the frenzy before her via blending. 

"Very bad idea," she chided herself as with one fluid motion she placed the concoction in her mouth and promptly spit it into her napkin, "I'm going to find some Edwards." 

- writing workshop, February 2025

Breaking Up

 

Image can be found here

"It's cold, " she mumbled looking down at the wet wood between her feet.

"I just meant. . ." he trailed off wondering how once again he lost her eyes and found the top of her head.

He placed his hands in his back pockets and looked up at the void of gray above them. "At least it's not raining now," he thought," it could only make things. . .no, not worse, just more complicated." 

"You always 'just mean,' Mike," a sniffle breaking her words. Was it the cold? Was it her anger? Was it her sadness? 

Then it happened. She tried to go with it - the sniffle, the sadness, the heartache of another shoddy explanation - BUT NOTHING HAPPENED.

In the space between her body and her soul - the space that fills her stomach with butterflies or pours chills down her spine - that space was empty; white, colorless - like the space that surrounded them now.

And in that space and in that space within her, she found release. Release from anxious anticipation of what their next encounter may be - one of love? of cautious friendship? of convenience? Release from giving a damn about his opinions or thoughts about her. Release from the emotional cat and mouse that left her exhausted and demoralized. She looked up at Mike and jabbed him in his Adam's apple. "I don't give a damn. Not anymore." 

As he sputtered, she lifted her collar, tightened her scarf and turned down the path.

Bent over, he looked to see the yellow, then brown, of her Timberlands walking a away.

A soft rain began to fall.

- Writer's Workshop, 2020

Burnout

Image found here

 

I feel a winter's pall and it's June. Sunshine all around - just not when I'm outside these doors.  Fluorescent sun is all I get of rays, the happy mural of families outside the only trees, the only laughter. For me, I'm not burned out as much as I'm "stuck in": this building, the long hallways, the constantly rotating parade of illnesses - each with its season. Yet, I don't have a season, but I have many. For me, it is hospital beige and gray season, information overload season, if-I-get-one-more-ridiculous-consult season - all in a day or even a few minutes - yet my view never changes. No fall color change, no spring bulbs or summer bloom - just the gray of winter all year round.

- Lexington, KY

Miracles

 

Picture found here

"We're going to sanctify those suckers right on out." 

I wasn't quite sure what the man meant, having heard him in passing. I turned toward the voice, shading my eyes, and saw he wore a sign "Get Sanctified, Get Saved, Get Holy." 

The man stood in a white collared shirt buttoned just below the neckline of his Fruit of the Loom: A balding head reddened and sweating in the sun. A second man dressed similarly, but with a head full of brunette, stood head and hands lifted as if waiting for a globe to be placed there.

An older woman, round shouldered and hump backed, had what looked like a baby stroller in front of her and as I locked in on the carrier, I saw movement.

The woman appeared to be crying, tossing a handkerchief at intervals as she said, "Thank you, Jesus!" and "Yes, Lord. . .please God," in punctuation to all the bald man said.

"We know God can save!"

        "Yes, Lord." 

"And He will do this miracle for us."

        "Please, God." 

"All we have to do is believe Him when He says the prayer of a righteous man availeth much!"

        "Thank you, Jesus!"

Eventually, when a small crowd had gathered, he said, "Do you believe?"

        "Yes, I believe," she said.

Again he asked, "Do you believe?"

        "Yes, I believe," she replied.

A third time, even louder, "Do You Believe?"

        "Yes, I Believe!" she cried.

"Then believe your miracle. . ." and she yelled, "Hallelujah!"

The man ripped off the blanket which had covered the carriage and a dog popped up and barked.

"This is what needed the miracle?" he said seething.

        "Yes," the woman said, "Precious is my baby. I told you as much." 

"So just what does this dog need saving from?"

        "His bad teeth. They are just something awful and I don't have money for the dentist." 

"The dentist?"

        "Why yes - you said you could sanctify the cavities out." 

"We DON'T DO THAT lady." 

         "Sanctify?"

"No, heal dogs." 

        "Does God not care about dogs?"

At this, the preacher, redder than when he first started, looked at the snickering crowd. He took a handkerchief from his pants pocket and wiped the sweat from his face. He glared toward the woman who had picked up her dog to soothe it. 

"Sweet, Precious, " she cooed, "he may not believe, but I do. God made all this world holy and marked it with Love. God loves you as much as anything in creation." She kissed him, "Wanna go get a pup-cup from Jiffy Cream?"

At that, Precious barked and spun, licked and panted. And when I looked closely, I could have sworn, I saw dazzling white.

- Writer's Workshop, April 2024

Darkness and Light

Image found here

It sounded like the cracking of leaves - the paper lanterns catching the wind, jealously protecting the flames billowing in their bellies. A thousand candles in the sky, punctuating the night into a universe of our own making.

Children giggled and laughed, a toddler wide-eyed in wonder yelled, "Whoa (!!!)," and the adults within earshot smiled and tried to grasp the awe of heat and air, molecules shifting into new configurations allowing the lanterns to lift - molecules of oxygen and nitrogen pushing the lanterns up further and higher - drafts blowing them toward the darkness, dispersing them to the horizons.

For a moment a hush fell over the crowd - a contagion of awe and mystery as each person kept his or her light in his or her vision until it became indistinguishable from all the others.

Mary considered her light, the hours she spent finding the paper, the carefully constructed wire holding her flame. In her mind, the flame held the hopes for her future, the wishes of her ancestors, the sparks of imagination which would find rest in the heavens and illuminate the path she needed to take now. 

Henry, who stood beside her, knew nothing about why he was here. He had walked up to the park to leave the raucous mess which amounted to his life and found them here - the thousands of people with their lanterns and their lights offering what they had to the night. The cumulative impact of all those people, all those lights stilled his mind to a single question, "How can someone keep offering his light to the darkness?"

- Writing group, November 17, 2024

Being Left

 

Image courtesy of elms

Shadows grew long across the drive, another sun setting on the gravel, the grass - highlighting the Everests of ants, the sequoias of earthworms, the deserts of crickets. 

I stared at the elms, bare armed and anorexic, aching for what was left of the blue sky. Maybe I ached having watched the car pull away, being left alone, again, to take in all this space.

Sure, the grass portends spring; fuzzy tree limbs, the adolescence of the year - but now my heart felt the bitter cold of winter - its barrenness as well.

Will spring arrive in closed chambers coursing with grief? Will the scent of apple blossoms reach down into the earth and breathe its sweetness? 

In this moment, I do not know.

- Writer's Workshop, March 2024

White-walled Tires

 

Photo Credit: User:Dante Alighieri

By his sunken cheeks and tobacco-dried skin – his wispy physique and broom-head hair – he was more stuck in the past than setting a trend. The coppertone four-door luxury Oldsmobile with the thin white walled tires said as much, but the high gloss wax and bright white sparkle, belied a certain care for appearances which the driver did not mirror. Maybe his wife demanded the pristine appearance of at least one thing she owned. He could at least talk back, laying claim to what was left of his person, his style, his swagger – which included the shy reluctance he expressed while exiting his car.

 

“Damn,” he thought, as each opening of his car door revealed another car, coming with speed, around the corner. “Double damn,” as the post office drop off box, informed him pick up wasn’t until 5 PM that night. He had hoped driving to the post office would mean quicker delivery of the payment. The one that needed to get to the bank before the closure threats became reality.

 

The trailer wasn’t much, not even double wide, and almost as old as he was – he bought it secondhand for what he thought was a good price. No, he didn’t have all the money and the stent in the pen made credit hard to come by – but he had gotten some advances on his paychecks, and everything was hanging in the delicate balance that exists between making money and paying for life.

 

The disruption came that February when an annoying cough married the flu and the children they spawned were pneumonia and something the docs called respiratory failure. Insurance was so damn expensive that he failed to apply, so the bills piled up while money dried up, and the only calls he receives now are from the collectors. He disconnected his phone, broke his cellular contract, and relies heavily on the car and the USPS to connect with the outside world.

 

He thought of all of this, standing in front of the boxes, “not a damned thing I can do about it now,” and he shrugged his shoulders, turning his hands palm side up and went back around to the driver’s seat. He punched in the cigarette lighter, waiting impatiently for the red light to come on, twitching the cigarette between his index and middle fingers with his thumb. When the lighter was finally hot, he pressed the cigarette to it and drew a deep breath. 

 

For a moment, a peace settled in his body…

 

then the coughing came, rattly and wet: jolting his body in and out until a small amount of phlegm finally exited his mouth to the pavement. “Damn, these things are gonna kill me,” and he stuck the cigarette back between his lips, placing the car in gear, and pulling out in front of a Prius, which honked in one long blast, but so softly, he never heard it above Patsy, standing by her man.