Angry Planet

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Feel the ground?
I feel another tremor coming.
You know, I don’t think this planet likes us all that much.
The landing should have been smooth, but that turbulence was downright wicked nasty. Came out of nowhere, slammed the living daylights out of the shuttle.
The clouds were all pretty and fluffy, but from down here they look so angry and red and dark.
The sooner we get off of this rock, the better. I don’t want to end up on the receiving end of an avalanche.
Now hurry up with that damn stabilizer before we run out of oxygen.

The Landscape Of Dorian Grey

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As we back across Dorian’s perfect lawn, like a plush green carpet, we stop to admire its beauty.
The eternally young monster lay in a pile of dust in his foyer, shown his accursed painting, but outside in the fresh air… the grass… the grass…
“It’s always looked… perfect,” I said. “Too perfect.”
We head back inside, looking for a painting of landscaping.
What depiction of brown, wretched, barren grounds awaits us?
Instead, we come across a painting of a puddle of water, lumps of coal, a rotten carrot.
Well, I guess that explains Dorian making a snowman in July.

Level Playing Field

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All of the headstones are flush with the ground, which has been flattened to allow for quick and easy lawn maintenance.
The groundskeepers are supposed to collect up the flowers and flags and candles and other items left behind, but they never do.
There’s a brief change in tone of the drone of the lawnmower as it chews up and spits out pieces of whatever trinket it’s absorbed, spraying it across the lawn with the grass clippings.
The leaf-blowers toss the grass clippings, leaves, and shards of shared memory into the air.
I’m sure it lands somewhere. Not my problem.

Not A Dream

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Every time something bad happens to me, I close my eyes and tell myself “This is only a dream.”
The time when gigantic jelly donuts were attacking The Pentagon? Only a dream.
The time when Nancy Pelosi was whipping Newt Gingrich in my bedroom? Only a dream.
The time when Superman froze Lake Superior and dropped it on Idaho? Only a dream.
Standing naked in front of the rest of the school during Final Exam Week?
It’s not a dream. It’s totally real.
I wonder – if I scream loud enough, Superman will hear me and drop Lake Erie on me?

Closing Windows

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Welcome to 2007. It’s so easy to send an instant message halfway across the world, right?
Open a window, type what you feel like saying, and close the window.
Sometimes, it’s a little too easy. You type faster than you can think, and that’s when the trouble begins.
Over and over, I try to say I’m sorry, but the words never come.
Maybe if I open another window?
It just sits there.
It’s so easy, right?
Maybe not.
More messages come in, covering the blank window completely.
Perhaps I should just cut my losses now and go read a book?

Prayers Answered

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The simplest mistakes can have such disastrous consequences.
It’s true that God hears all prayers, but he’s gotten rather sloppy keeping them organized.
Every now and then, someone’s prayer gets answered for a complete stranger.
Maybe you prayed for a cure for your father’s cancer, but you wake up to a brand new bicycle?
That kind of thing.
It’s been happening more and more, which suggests that either God isn’t infallible or that people don’t know what they really want.
I, for one, really like this shiny new bicycle.
Actually, it’s kinda fun to ride to the cemetery with it.

Three Moons

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People are freaking out because there’s three moons in the sky.
The third one appeared an hour ago.
The second one appeared a few hours before the third one, but people didn’t realize it because the first moon had just set.
Folks don’t notice those kinds of things, you know.
It was when the third one appeared over the horizon, they noticed the second one up there.
And the original moon one is coming up now.
Or is it a fourth?
Everybody’s wondering about Who? What? Why? How?
Me, I’m just loading up with silver bullets.
Do you hear wolves?

Walking

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The cost of shoes has skyrocketed.
Shoes used to be inexpensive, but they’re become expensive because of greedy speculators and shoe industry executives.
People are being urged to conserve their shoes, but they keep buying socks that wear shoes out quickly, or they insist on walking when they should be driving.
Or riding a bicycle, but bicycles aren’t exactly cheap these days, either. And our infrastructure just isn’t ready for them.
“We’re a walking economy,” says the President. “So we need to reduce our dependency on foreign sources of shoes.”
Lots of talk, but we never truly walk the walk.

Key Ring

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The super in my building has the most amazing ring of keys.
I swear, it is as big as a hula hoop and has ten thousand keys hanging from it.
No matter what door, cabinet, or padlock he faces, he never searches for more than a second before finding the right key.
“I just know where every key is in the ring,” he says. “Everything has its place.”
He died last week while fixing the sink in 3F.
It was as much a part of him as his nine fingers. I wondered if they would bury him with that thing.

Miss

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So many things to miss:
I want to see the sunshine.
I want to feel the rain on my face.
I want to feel the grass between my toes.
I want to feel the wind between my teeth… breathe in…. breathe out.
I want to climb a tree and hang from a limb, just swinging, rocking back and forth, at any moment my legs could slip, but I know I won’t fall.
I thought I wouldn’t fall.
But I did. And I broke my neck.
It’s been years, but every day, someone tells me I’ll move again.
I want to.