Genevieve: A Sketch of Five Trees by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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book will be too difficult for
grown-ups, then you write it for
children."
-Madeleine L’ Engle-
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Genevieve; A Sketch of Five Trees Page 1
Maya Blue Dyad Layer-1
“Hi; my name is Genevieve. I’m a pretty Maltese, or so some say. That’s a little white dog; and I’m sufficiently aged to where it is impolite to mention specifics. You may have heard of me as I’ve been written of in four other books. Maybe not, as the books tend to be favored by only the select few. No real matter to me, as I do value some degree of privacy.
You may not have known or recognized me from the cover picture on this number five. It is highly stylized, which is okay I guess. But in terms of personal identification it probably would be best supplemented by a series of pictures taken of me at different ages and times, with different photographer-painter conceits and methodologies, and with different hair styles. Here, I’m kind of shaggy, past mid-life crisis, and seemingly in a rather quizzical mood. I may have merely been spaced out or tired, when the un-remembered photographer snapped. But, since I don’t recall the event in the least, it’s just as likely that I was unable to hide my disinterest in the camera, and was thinking; “Okay; snap if you’d like. Whatever turns you on.”
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Furry, recent Genevieve; property of the author.
This one was used as a book cover by that hominid writer guy, who seems to be more of a hound than anything else. It’s kind of cute, perhaps a bit younger, and highly stylized through some “artistic” treatment designed to thwart the ultimately ineffectual “reality” kind of detailing contained in ‘enhanced’
photos as filtered through Adobe Photoshop. I like it most for its attractive disdain for any notion of precision.
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Somewhere in the middle Genevieve; property of the author.
Here is little me. Pretty adorable; right? All white, well-combed and fuzzy like that. Just look at that innocent wondrous look in my eyes. It’s irresistible. And I’m so tiny and vulnerable. Who could possibly resist falling in love with me?
In actuality I was kind of cranky and annoyed at my father for not knowing how to work the camera. I was standing still and waiting for a good half hour before he figured out where to put the film and what button to push. You might detect a hint if you concentrate on my left eye and couple that with what really is a lackluster expression. I thought I’d point that out, as I’m sure you’d have missed it because I’m so cute.
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Little Genevieve; property of the author.
So there. See. I don’t really like looking at old pictures of me; or any for that matter. But I put them here as a sort of long term identification for the many unfamiliar who may wish to see more. If not, just skip it.
I’ve lived my entire life here on Pacific Lane in Poochville. I’ve had an easy and mostly happy life. Don’t misunderstand. It has not been perfect in some significant ways, and it continues that way; though I have no reason to complain when I compare my tribulations with the bulk of the pooch population. It’s just that lately I’ve been experiencing some
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strange things which have made me, sometimes merely due to sequencing, though most often more than mere timing and positioning, though I do not have the words to properly convey that thought, question the lines between dreams, fantasy, and reality. I might add; if any. ........... No, I have not done any acid or DMT since I was a teenager. .......... Well, okay; perhaps a bit into my twenties.
The results have been to alleviate any of my prior, substantially internalized complaints; and it seems too good to be true; or un-true. You might well appreciate that it really doesn’t matter to me one way or the other if I can’t tell the difference. That’s not indifference; that’s just a recognition and healthy acceptance of what it is or what it appears to be; and if anyone differentiates between the two, they can just go stick their nerd eyes back on the microscope they got as a present their merriest Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, or Eid Al-Fitr; though the latter can be confusing; and not only because it falls on the first day of the month of Shawwai.
Sorry, I got carried away there. I do not believe in nerd discrimination at all, or any sort of discrimination for that matter. It’s just that all groups statistically tend to share some undeniable probabilities; nerds with “scientific”
instruments the case here.
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We pooches would likely have been better served with a pooch writer. But, we all know that you can’t always get what you want ...... Anyway, I just felt obliged to warn any reader that as one of his good points, this hominid writer guy apparently can’t tell the difference between dreams, fantasy, and reality either, and consequently has again “chronicled” me; this time inclusive of these events or illusions or dreams or something, as well as seemingly tangential occurrences with which I had no involvement. ...... I think. I wish I fully understood. ...... I think.
Here’s the story below. You’ve been warned. If pooches had any legal rights I’d sue on the grounds of invasion of privacy.
...... I think. Maybe you can draw the lines for me. If you think that you can, please tell someone else.”
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A sketch of five trees; property of the author.
The vaguery is transported to an island; and in the process an ersatz miracle has taken place. It has become clear and specific. Of course, this could not be accomplished through the use of reflective mirrors, not even the distorted variety, now relegated to the “fun” house, which along with the rest of the travelling circus, passes through every town for a brief period every year, picking up the green and depositing a few geeks.
Obviously, the magician has some other kinds of tricks up his sleeve which have not yet been disclosed to anyone other than his trusted, silent, and judicious intimate companions; whether
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or not they have chosen to be stage assistants. The temporarily hosting island may be far away or far out, depending upon the viewers’ location, point of view, or state of intoxication. No problemo sahib or sahibess, as air fares are cheap.
Manhattan; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license.
Sometime in 1964, far from his Greenville, Florida, USA home on the island of Manhattan, in artistic and economic pursuits, Ray Charles sang; “You Don’t Know Me.”
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Bear in need of a friend and “You Don’t Know Me” written by Cindy Walker and Eddy Arnold; property of the author, the latter under both the “fair use” and “transformative” doctrines.
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Aureolin Quinta Sole- 1
It was a hot summer day, one of those when most everyone wants to sit in the shade with a pina colada. But, sober-to-a-fault-today, and intrepid Genevieve was braving the mid-day sun, and walking by herself by the Boggy Cleave River. A breeze or the mirage of one came off the water, making what might otherwise have been an excruciating happening into just another sunny day which was quite pleasant for her.
Genevieve couldn’t help but think that she had to have come in contact with that mirage rather than a real breeze, as whenever she looked down to be sure of her footing on the un-even land, she’d see that her long white fur was not parting the way all non-solid corporeal things do in the slightest of zephyrs.
Neither were there any ripples in the Boggy Cleave other than those usual white caps produced by its bed rocks. Frequent visitors knew exactly where they were, despite the small permutations created by the angle of the light’s reflection.
Genevieve was quite pleased with her situation and near-home surroundings.
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Thriving Southern magnolia tree; property of the author.
That was until she came upon a thicket of five trees.
Blooming Southern magnolias they were, excepting one. That one, though another Southern magnolia, was not only failing to be in bloom, but was actually withering right next to where his/her siblings thrived.
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Withering Southern magnolia tree; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license, modified.
Genevieve’s feelings of mindless contentment came to an abrupt halt when she could not help but be disturbed by the condition of this tree. Rather than turning toward ultimately useless, “kind” platitudes of appropriate concern, her mind deemed it primary to attempt to find out why this tree was dying; and if capable of that, then for step two determining how that process might be reversed.
One problem she quickly discovered was that the magnolia had no way of communicating where it hurt to her. It evinced a tone of unhappiness, but you see, magnolias rarely get more specific as they do not speak pooch. Compounding the difficult
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communication problem, nor do pooches speak magnolia, or even the broader language of tree. Genevieve was perplexed and squinted into the sun.
Perplexed and squinting Genevieve; property of the author.
Perhaps as a result of her being stationed relatively low to the ground, Genevieve investigated the non-thriving magnolia’s base.
She didn’t see anything which struck her as being unusual.
However, she could not help, but entertain the nagging thought
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that before she determined what was unusual for a magnolia’s base area, it might be a good idea to first find out what was at other magnolia bases, especially the healthy ones. Her annoyance was that it necessitated her doing something like dreaded “work”
on an otherwise pleasant afternoon. However, she decided that would be well outweighed by the wonderful feeling she’d get if she could help the poor magnolia. In fact, she found that she would be quite pleased with herself just for trying.
Genevieve saw that the healthy magnolias all had grooves extending outward from their bases, which would direct water to them from an extended area in a rainstorm. She re-looked at the sick one and saw that it had no grooves; in fact it was sitting on a gradually elevating mound, which some might term an out and out hill.
Genevieve had no way of being certain that this was the cause of the non-thriving magnolia’s demise. But, it looked as if it might be a good play when the different bases of the four healthy ones were considered. There seemed to be little to lose, as the frail one was on the verge of death anyway.
So, Genevieve took on a bit of a perspiration inducing, earth moving project. Just using her tiny front paws, in a half hours’ time, she was able to flatten the hill and establish ditches which led to the withered one’s base.
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Booming clouds came in and produced a torrent which the ground could not fully absorb immediately. Genevieve was soaked, and saw that some of the excess was flowing through her ditches right to the base of the withered magnolia, where it seemed to disappear. She knew she had to come back some time later to see if this did the magnolia any good.
Genevieve woke up in her wicker basket before daybreak. She trembled when she saw that the magical kitten named Sunshine was sleeping right next to her too. This little shake of hers woke him. He somewhat nervously said; “It’s all right.”
She responded; “Yes, certainly it is. I was just surprised.
Please pardon my quiver.”
Sunshine smiled and disappeared.
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Genevieve and Sunshine; property of the author.
Genevieve was confused. She suspected that the story of the magnolia was a dream. But, she wasn’t sure whether or not Sunshine was part of that same dream. He could be quite a tricky young man, and had previously expressed a desire to be a feline magician, in the style of Merlin.
She looked toward her open eastern window which showed that it was not yet fully light. It was actually kind of pretty at the beginning of the sun’s ascension over the Denial Mountains.
This particular morning’s view seemed especially interesting to Genevieve. The clouds were highlighted in whites, blues, and browns; and the lower formation looked exactly like a dog.
Genevieve wondered if this was truly unusual, or if it was just
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that she took the whole thing for granted, and never gazed much anymore.
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Maya Blue Dyad Layer-2
“Hi, again. Genevieve here. I’d just like to note that my eastern window was not very likely to have been open late that summer. In fact, I’d bet a few bones that it wasn’t. You will see later in this story that the nights became extraordinarily cool during that time. Indeed, in some pedantic sense this is the very basis for most, if not all of the story recorded herein, and I therefore regard my tiny insertion as precisely that; either a meaningful nuance regarding that particular previous evening when I could well have been so tired that I neglected my window closing chore; this communication intended for the clarification of the gentle and meticulous type of reader. It may be more or less correctly viewed as either that or a brief piece of information which does not much disturb the flow of the story, which the reader could very well ignore without sacrificing anything of long term significance. .......
Please excuse me.”
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Genevieve’s eastern window view if it was open that morning; property of the author.
Feeling criticized and stressed, the much fatigued author has inserted the way the window might have looked that morning if closed. Large charge. Right?
Genevieve’s eastern window view if it was closed that morning; property of the author.
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Aureolin Quinta Sole- 2
In either case of either case, that duality being Genevieve’s consideration of possibly being in a dream state or one of being concerned with window conditions, she decided to get up, drink her coffee, and then take a walk to the Boggy Cleave to see if she might find something green growing on the withered magnolia.
She shook her cranky back leg, in the hopes that it would persuade the peevish little attention seeker to behave itself.
The furry little exasperation had been periodically making a huge issue over little things ever since it had gotten twisted ever so slightly while stumbling into that hidden rabbit hole a bit more than a scant two years ago. One small step was all it took.
Before she could stoke up or even get close to her coffee machine, she saw that Dillon was sitting on one of the chairs next to the kitchen table. This was indeed considerably unusual, as she hadn’t seen him in two dog ages and thought that he was dead. She recalled their last dream meeting.
I was on a boat. Not too big a boat; but not too small either. I was holding on to the railing somewhere toward the
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boat’s center, looking over the side. I concluded that I was coasting on the slow current of the Boggy Cleave River. It appeared as if Poochville was in front of me and the huge Denial Mountains were behind. I also knew that was impossible as the Boggy Cleave was so shallow in many spots that even a rowboat would soon be stuck on the bottom. I saw that as an irrelevant thought, as here I and the boat were obviously floating.
It was 1967, and in a UK studio Cream recorded.
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Boat on a river and “Srange Brew” by Eric Clapton, Felix Pappalardi, and Gail Collins; property of the author, the latter under both the “fair use” and “transformative” doctrines.
I curiously gazed downriver to my left; and then I curiously gazed upriver to my right. I didn’t see anyone else, and for a second thought that strange. It was a gray day with a mild wind. The resultant slight chill took my mind off other matters. The boat bounced along for a bit; and then I heard someone call my name.
I looked toward the voice and saw my long gone Dillon, the Irish setter who had long ago charmed me. Though it is best not said out loud, as not to be offending to well-loved numbers, two, three, and etcetera, there is always that special number one. Isn’t there? Dillon was mine and the feeling seemed mutual.
I thought; “This can’t be. You’re dead.” I said; “Dillon?”
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Dillon; property of the author.
Dillon was standing still with his mouth open; just like he had always. That is, until the last time I had seen him, as he went off and left to “do his conscripted duty,” marching off to the Second Rogue River Conflict. He moved toward me, but after a few steps was jerked back. I saw that Dillon was now wearing a collar which was attached to two chains.
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Demons; Plutus and Camulus; property of the author.
The menacing holders of those chains came into my view.
They were winged, dark gray, and each had one arm held to the sky for no apparent reason at all. Perhaps the gesture was the now beside-the-point result of a habit picked up from scratching a higher head no longer there or some method to attempt to get their withered wings to fly. Or maybe there was just some simplistic finger gesture involved. I instinctively knew that the names of the chain holders were Plutus Cash and Camulus Battle. Plutus Cash lost hold of his handle, but Camulus Battle held on tightly to his. Plutus Cash smiled maniacally as if this was his precise expectation; him now either appearing to be the
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“good guy” or the “incompetently ‘cute’ evil guy,” thereby throwing the burden on his partner, Camulus.
Camulus Battle showed no emotion, seeming to have no regard whatsoever for any asinine and neither-here-nor-there semblance of a fleeting and fluctuating, immaterial attractiveness match.
He never anticipated having to deign to run for any elected office as, barring some miracle never yet documented, he held his office for life. He may well have expected Plutus’
performance, as it was far from the first time that Plutus Cash had let go of his chain. Though it was impolite, imprecise, impious, improper, impeachable, and otherwise resultant of a royal pain in the posterior to say so out loud Camulus Battle confidently knew that he was the stronger of the two in his total disregard for the ineffectual results of popularity contests.
Dillon tried to call out; “Gen............,“ as his chained collar choked and pulled him back down the stairs which led to the boat’s hull. I moved toward him and was immediately back lying down in my wicker bed. I would rather have been back in my dream. The only light was that of the half-moon in the window.
The only sound was that of the late autumnal silence. It was the time of year when most of the insects and small animals had wisely gone into hibernation.
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I pulled the covers over my head and tried to go back to sleep and get back to my dream. I was certain that if I could get close to him, that I could break Dillon’s one remaining held chain. I had been so tired; both mentally and physically; from all my recent activities, I did quickly go back to sleep; but not to the same dream I had hoped for. ........ But, maybe it was and it was just subjected to a commercial break or worse; one of those infomercials.
Dillon said; “My lady states my name as a question?”
Being able to conjure up some degree of supposed rationality, even before coffee, she became almost certain that she was still sort of awake within what seemed to be her most recent dream segment. It was surely and always great to see Dillon again; though sometimes the aftereffects produced when the dream ended were difficult to deal with for a day or three.
Ultimately, she saw that she had absolutely no choice in the matter, so see sought to make the best of the good part. Her special one was apparently free of his jailers and Genevieve feared that if she mentioned something about a dream that dream would end. So she decided to be casual, as if seeing Dillon was an everyday event.
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Dillon; property of the author.
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Maya Blue Dyad Layer-3
“Hi, readers. Genevieve. Sorry, I just absolutely have to interject here. This is a really bad one. It’s a complete fabrication, misrepresentation, fantasy, and supposedly a logically based showing of how my innate feelings, albeit with the caveat of possibly being conducive to my extending those same feelings, as personally managed and as indeed suggestive of easy management, in order to continue a definite personal and a reasonably certain estimation of the other’s; in this case Dillon’s; desired process in which their overt display might prove counter-productive and thereby negate, having absolutely no proof of that conjecture; and thereby in that dumb and numb hominid writer’s showing of what would likely be construed as reticence on my part, an incorrect overall perception of moi, and very assuming about Dillon, who has not yet been seen, heard, or chronicled anywhere other than in ‘Genevieve; and Her First Fuss,’ G1 to some, and in that case a short dream sequence which through the introduction of manifested demons suggest to the rational a situation in which both belief and disbelief have been suspended, which is seemingly inordinately, irrationally, coldly, and calculatingly risk averse. I want you to know, that this is not me at all. I wasn’t made this way and I personally resent any implications to the contrary, as well as condemn this robotic writer hominid guy. You see, if left to my own volitions, long term advantageous or not, in that situation I’d
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have jumped all over Dillon, kissing him wildly, so happy to see him, asking him; ‘Where have you been? What took so long for you to get back? What were you doing all this time?’ and a slew of impromptu sounds which might have overwhelmed him. But, no. It’s not the least bit personal with this writer fish head. Darn it.
I’m incensed. It’s just how that damn writer incorrectly has chosen through ignorance, lack of research, or other inadequacies to depict me, ostensibly propelled by the same deficiency which un-inspires wallflowers; and is the primary subject of Godard’s ‘Alphaville,’ circa 1965, or something like that, the precise date as relevant as those of Greek and Roman historical events. ....... Within reason, for the sake of flow.
Sniffle. Sniffle. Pardon me. 2018 disdains sentimentality and nostalgia. But, I care for 2018’s opinion as much as I care for that of this idiot writer’s. Hoooonk. Didn’t get any on ya, I hope. I have to go on record right here as saying that since this passage has some bearing on what will happen in the future, as far as this deficient book depicts that, I totally disavow anything and everything, inclusive of any inferences drawn now or later, in other words regardless of time, which is overt, inferential, or incorrectly assumed in a libelous manner about me for the rest of this book. You may have gleaned that I am in consultation with an attorney regarding this unfortunate misrepresentation. He tells me that he has no grounds with which to place an injunction on the distribution of this book, but
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tells me that I am perfectly within my rights to advise you to stop reading right here; which I do with the utmost emphasis.
........ The basic problem here is that ever since the internet supplied every idiot with the tools to write a book, every idiot has. I hate Edward Drobinski. He is absolutely a malicious moron. My lawyer has a problem with that statement; but I don’t care. For the few of you who choose to continue from this point, I assure you that I’ll be watching for further inaccuracies, though they will of necessity become even more conjectural due to this book, purportedly but not about me, having delved into the world of fantasy, magical realism, cutesy, so called post-modernism, or absolute garbage; with which I have not yet been involved; thereby necessitating speculation one should not bet a nickel on in any given situation. Meta? Sheesh. A license to write incompetent and disjointed nonsense.”
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Rose Tinted Triptych Glass- 1
Prior Pacific Lane Mementos
In the safety of his home, Clement kind of stumbled, but caught himself after a brief sway. His voice was kind of in an out, like the tone of a squeaky stop made by a 1954 Chevy with the original footbrakes. He said; “You know; it’s a lot of things. It’s not as if anything happens in a vacuum. All things are related and they kind of merge. Some of them aren’t good. If somebody doesn’t stop the bad ones from following their natural courses they get worse. I mean like these things are not permitted as evidence in courtrooms. They say it’s irrelevant.
The jury is told to ignore it and it is stricken from the record. Sergeant Friday says; ‘Just the facts; only the facts.’
But, what does he know of ‘facts?’ There are no accurately calibrated instruments with which to gauge events in the softest of ‘soft’ sciences. And if you make analogies intended to explain a matter of nuance or parlance which could well be a bridge between the dictated disciplines of physics to the newer, but already dictated disciplines of metaphysical philosophy, they find you incomprehensible at best, psychotic at their
‘norms,’ and subject to; ‘I already knew that’ at their pretenses. I’ve always been tempted to counter with; ‘If you
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knew that is there some date at which you plan on beginning to act as if you did?’ but that is unproductive and likely viewed as contentious.
But, let me get off this general view and just relate the story as I experienced it myself. I have these dreams sometimes, you know. .......... They’re nice dreams. But, I wish they’d go away. Like a week ago there was this new one about recurrent Linda. She was a cheerleader, so different from me. I saw her for the first time freshman year in high school. We were pups then and I couldn’t wait until I was grown enough to have my own place, away from my parents. There was so much time and energy every day; so much time. I used to look at her constantly, trying not to be noticed. I really wanted to know her, but I was too shy to say anything. She was beautiful. I was scared to approach her as she was just too good for me. I always figured that tomorrow would be a better day. You know, tomorrow; when the big pimple was off my nose; when my coat was better combed; when we would just ‘accidentally’ meet at the door; just a natural event, as opposed to her possible perception of a concocted one with ulterior motives on my part. ......... “
Clement snorted out kind of a stifled laugh; “Not that they weren’t there; mind you. They just weren’t the primary thing. I liked her in every way.
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And at the time there seemed to be an infinite supply of tomorrows left. I’d see her every day. You see she was in my sophomore, junior and senior, high school reg class. I knew that was to be the case in our sophomore year as the system was designed that way. For some reason they switched you after freshman year, but kept it the same after that.
Anyway, by the time I had noticed that time was getting short, halfway through senior year, she disappeared. Must have moved away. She’s not even in the graduating yearbook. .........
Well, recently, this darn dream came along and in it I was high school age and having my usual squabbles with mom and dad; this time he the infrequent leader of some stupid nonsense. I walked away from them, into the next room and Linda was there. She was at the top of one of those small ladders; working on the wall just below the ceiling. She had medium length white hair, puffed up in a cute way. Linda said ‘hi’ to me as if we were old pals, though we had never previously spoken and she certainly had not been in my house prior to that. For some strange reason I was able to act the same way I am now in the dream; and told her that I was really depressed over this parent stuff. I never spoke about stuff like that to anyone in real life, yet here in the dream I just blurted it out without being asked. Not the usual response to someone who says ‘hi.’” Clement smiled at
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Genevieve and then made the slightest of giggles. She smiled and nodded approval.
Linda; property of the author.
“I always thought that this exuberant, cheerleader type joyfulness Linda constantly showed was a cover for some sadness she wanted to forget and kindly not inflict on anybody else.
Before Linda could respond to my depression stuff; and frankly I don’t even know what the term exactly means; I nervously asked her if she’d like to see a movie.
She said; ‘Yes, what’s on TV?’
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I said; ‘No, like at a real movie theatre. Let’s get out of here.’
She enthusiastically said she’d like that; and that there was a cowboy movie playing that she’d like to see. She asked if I liked cowboy movies and I said yes. She took a newspaper and looked for the playing times. Next thing I knew we were outside on the streets of our mutual town of birth. There were some packaged things which I just knew that my parents had left in the wrong place; on top of something like a perforated sewer cover.
Perforated sewer cover; property of the author.
Linda said that I should gather them and take them to the post office. I considered doing that only because Linda had said so. If not for her saying that I’d have figured that if my parents had left them in the wrong place that it wasn’t my job to fix things. Besides, they never admitted making any mistakes
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to me; so most likely, at least according to them, this was exactly where they wanted their packages to be.
If it was solely up to me I’d have just left the packages where my parents had chosen to leave them and go to Linda. But, most of all I wanted not to offend her. So, I tried to pick them up. Not only were there much too many of them for me to handle; but they were soggy, corroded, or something; unstable for sure; and the two or three of an uncounted multitude of packages that I could at first cradle in my arms quickly proceeded to break apart and fall back into the pile. Each one became two. Given their size, I pictured that if I picked them up again the two would just break up into a four and beyond. The most simple of points was that there was no way I was going to be able to carry this stuff to the post office; and also catch up with Linda, who kept moving. I mean, I thought that carrying the packages could possibly be done, but it would take like all day and a million trips; and it would be like trying to carry a school of dead and decayed fish. And I’d lose sight of Linda for sure. As they fell off my arms I looked up to see her.”
Genevieve smiled when she interjected; “You could have made good use of a cart. That’s what I thought we were talking about at the beginning.”
Clement also smiled and said; “I’m getting there. I’m getting there. You have to put the horses before the cart. So,
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where was I? Oh yeah. So, I had the decayed residue of some of the packages on my front paws, and I looked up. Linda was running in the street toward the parked cars a block ahead. I was frightened that she might be running away. In desperation I called out; ‘No, no. I understand that no means no. I’m not a pillager.’ She called back; ‘I know that, silly. I’m just running because I’m excited.’ She opened the door and sat in the driver’s seat of one of the cars which was parked that block ahead; a red Volkswagen Beetle. ........ You don’t see them much anymore. Just once in a while an antique collector takes one out for a spin. But, they were very popular with young people when I was young.”
Genevieve covered Clement’s pause with her own comment, and said; “Oh yeah. I remember. They were great little cars. They didn’t cost much and you could leave them parked for months; and with one turn of the key they’d start right up. Wonder why they disappeared.”
Clement said; “I’m not sure. But, I think they started to disappear when they started to bring in all that Japanese stuff.
My dream kind of ended there. I was still uninterestedly fumbling around a bit with my parent’s stuff when I woke up. It was time to get up but I wanted to go back to sleep and continue this dream. I got half my wish as I got back to sleep and I dreamed that I was in my old high school walking through the
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halls at a class break. I was alone, which was weird, but I knew that if I kept on going through the connecting bridge to the adjoining building that Linda would be there and that everything would be all right. Then I woke up again. My high school had four buildings. The two that were used for the college preparatory courses were connected at the second of three floors by an enclosed ‘bridge’ from one to the other. You had to go outside to get to the other two buildings. One was for technical stuff like auto body shop and machine tool classes. And I don’t know what the fourth one was for. Might have never been in it.
Probably was management and administration. I know that the Vice Principal had his office there. Nobody knew his real name.
Everybody used to call him ‘The Axe,’ as it seemed that his only job was to come into the class and get students out when they were suspended. A fat Doberman Pinscher. Can you picture that?
.......... I’m exhausted. Let me just sit here with my ball for a while.”
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Clement and his ball; the kind courtesy of Pexels,com under their CC0 license.
Genevieve registered no objection as she too was feeling more than a bit tired
Waylon’s partner Daisy came out of somewhere. She had heard a bit of the conversation and said; “Hi, Genevieve. He’s such a big baby about that ball. We’ll get you another one. Okay, sweetie?”
Waylon said; “I want that one.”
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Daisy; the kind courtesy of Pexels,com under their CC0 license, modified.
Daisy said; “See! Sometimes he gets totally unreasonable.”
Genevieve said; “Well, it has got to be around here somewhere. Let’s go find it. Beachballs don’t just disappear into thin air.”
Waylon disparagingly mumbled; “It’s gone,” and head down, kind of trudging behind them, going in no particular direction; forming something of a “U.”
Genevieve was tired from all the morning’s fuss and sweepings. But, she felt it was her duty to try to help. She sighed, hoping the sound was not audible, at least not to Waylon; and started moving, the wind at her rear. Led by Genevieve, the trio followed the path of the wind to the end of
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Pacific Lane. They continued into the dense woodland at the end of the road.
No more than twenty feet into the woods Genevieve saw something! Maybe. Well, she was certain that she had seen something, but was less certain of that something being Waylon’s beach ball. She saw a flat, pink, white, orange and blue piece of plastic at the base of a thorny Russian Olive tree. It looked much more like the discourteous discard of a dietary do-up duffelbag designed by Colorful Packaging in China than a beach ball. In her tiredness she considered doing her due diligence.
In her tiredness she considered passing it up, but was sure that her companions had already seen it too. She said; “Well, I think that we’ve found some sort of carcass.”
Waylon darted right to it. He had no difficulty in recognizing his beach ball, no matter its current condition. He sniffed at the remnant of his playmate with wheezing distress; both to confirm that this was it and in the hope that his breath would resuscitate it. Sadly having confirmed the former only to have failed at the latter, he then looked up and said; “It’s broken.”
Daisy said; “Deflated.”
Genevieve said; “Likely fixable.”
Waylon said; “Bwaaahaahaaahaaaa.”
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Genevieve said; “Look here. There is just one little hole in it from the Russian Olive thorn. Duct tape will fix it.” She wasn’t certain of what she had just said; but thought it necessary in the moment to restore Waylon’s confidence, even through stating something a bit speculative as if it was fact.
Half lies have their place; and they might not really be lies.
Who can be sure before the fact?
Not entirely convinced, Waylon said; “Bwaaahaahaaahaaaa.
Idiot wind kicked up out of nowhere. ...... I mean, I was careful, sort of, and then this. Bwaaahaahaaahaaaa.” He picked up the flattened ball and started to carry it back home.
Daisy whispered to Genevieve; “All that tough exterior; and he can be such a big baby sometimes.” In a volume audible to distressed Waylon, she said; “It’s going to be okay. We’ll fix it, baby.”
They followed Waylon to the house, where Waylon put the deflated beach ball on the floor and sat next to it. “It’s torn,” he said in a tone Brando wished he could have generated for the “horrific” end of “Apocalypse Now.”
Daisy took a close look at it and replied; “It’s not a tear. It’s just a little puncture. Good lord. To hear you, one would have thought that the Titanic sunk again. I’m getting the duct tape right now.”
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Genevieve silently stood there. She was absolutely too wiped out to engage in any sort of participation, or even think of something to say. She may have felt morally obliged to stay there during the crisis, or merely have been too mentally inoperative to come up with any better idea than to remain in place.
Daisy returned quickly, put a piece of duct tape over the puncture, and blew the deflated thing back up. Handing it to Waylon, she said; “There. Almost like new. And it’s added another color to boot.”
Waylon said; “The patch is not going to hold.”
Daisy said; “You want to get punched? Try it!”
Waylon pushed it gingerly. When it didn’t deflate he pushed it harder. This process went on a bit until Waylon was happily batting it all over the house.
When Waylon returned to feeling exuberant, one of his bats took the beach ball right into the china lamp which responded with a smash on the floor. “Whoops,” said Waylon.
“Yeah. Whoops indeed,” said Daisy. “Duct tape is not going to fix that. Let’s go outside.”
Waylon said; “That wind might kick up again.”
Daisy said; “You want to get punched?” And they went outside.
Waylon batted the ball and he and Daisy chased after it.
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Genevieve; A Sketch of Five Trees
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Aureolin Quinta Sole- 3
As Genevieve continued her approach, Dillon smiled and broke from his nonchalant perusal of a book about climate change, most provocatively titled “Climate Shock,” and took curious notice of her, that curiosity caused by her oddly question marked choice of a brief greeting.
Highly stylized cover of “Climate Shock”; property of the author.
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An old song immediately ran through Genevieve’s mind. It was confusing, but simple. Confusing in the sense that it seemed to be a saccharine, tear inducing reaction to a happy event; and simple in the sense that this view which hominids use or at least not challenge to currently disdain any possibility of hominid sentimentality, elucidated through every form of their miserable art and media of 2018, had absolutely no significance to a pooch; especially one residing in Poochville; though those there still remain a vast contingent of reticent to greet, self-defeating senseless with open derision, perhaps due to a natural ingrained sense or even a lesser nurtured one invariably socially induced through the persistence of loud insignificants; though Genevieve maintained her unused arsenal of wet purple raspberries for the proper moment; and it was beginning to appear as if that might be soon if not right now for the senseless, as well as the dead insignificants.
In 1967, on morning TV primarily aimed at children and stay-at-home moms, Ed Ames sang; “Try to Remember.”
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Home and “Try to Remember” by Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones; property of the author, the latter under both the “fair use” and “transformative” doctrines.
Without any hesitation and precluding a reply from her, Dillon added; “No matter.” Upon his first having taken full view of advancing Genevieve, Dillon showed his level of book concentration with a launching, full body spasm produced by his surprise at her seeming surprise, chose to continue to elude the likely inconsequential issue which may have been implied, and continued with; “Sorry. I was engrossed. I couldn’t sleep and I’ve been enjoying this book for its concrete black and whites as engendered by an economic evaluation; but I’m having some trouble with the author’s implied notion that the supposed
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shock-change necessarily equates to cataclysmic levels of warming.”
Genevieve was incredulous. In a space which seemed to approximate all of two minutes to her, she had just been digging trenches for the benefit of a withering magnolia at the Boggy Cleave River on a sunny mid-day concluding in her having gotten soaked in a sudden cloudburst. Then, thoroughly dry and before sunrise, she thought that she had woken up to find that Sunshine had been sleeping with her. But he disappeared into thin air raising the possibility that his presence was an unusual extension of her Boggy Cleave dream. Then she thought that she was awake and ready for coffee, still pre-sunrise, only to find that Dillon, her special one, an Irish setter, who she previously had understood to have been killed in whatever spurious war was the hominid popular notion decades prior, this one called the Second Rogue River Conflict, and as usual no one knew what that one was all about other than the proliferation of national flags on hominid houses and autos, nor did they have the slightest idea of where the Rogue River might be, was sitting in her kitchen acting as if nothing she had come to think that she previously knew was of any reality or significance, followed by her perfect recollection of a forgotten old sentimental song while Dillon issued her a nonchalant greeting concerning his evaluation of one of many
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books written concerning the much-discussed-yet-little-done—
about subject of weather. One might appreciate that Genevieve’s current sense of reality might have been politically-correctly-described as challenged.
Genevieve’s visual perception married to her belief that her pleasant dream would end if she overtly acted as if it were one, allowed her to quickly realize that most likely she might still be dreaming in a continuous pattern, or that she had been dreaming off and on, having some difficulty in drawing hard lines between varying states, and whichever the case or another, it really didn’t matter, as at the bottom line there were no people or pooches dressed in white sporting butterfly nets or offering her a “nice place to stay if she came along with them”
in the picture yet; and if the netters showed up later, she could easily make the required adjustments when needed later.
Though it was her instinct to run over to Dillon, jump on him, and ask him where he had been the last twenty years, she was now sufficiently shell-shocked as well as absurdly rational, the combination of the two likely that which would primarily result in an incomprehensible babble, to choose to hold off on that idea in the ostensible likelihood that she was awake in her pleasant dream, and that she didn’t want to risk making any statements or performing any actions which might be taken as indications or mere misinterpreted reactions to anything that
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really wasn’t there; thereby possibly disturbing or ending it; in full realization that if known or inferred, such a thought process might be construed by overly literal others as ridiculously magical; a demonstration of their unfamiliarity with her morning’s sleeping companion; Sunshine.
For some or all of those “reasons,” Genevieve controlled her emotions and followed casual suit replying; “I’ve seen one I consider to be better on that subject, wherein the author ignores the economic aspect, and empirically documents a better case suggestive of increasing severity, perhaps a temporary aberration, rather than the simplicity of the easily calculable, trending warming most presume; sort of an atmospherically depicted manifestation of a hominid extremism; artistically suggestive of a reversal; a sky, an atmosphere reflecting earthly activities.”
She spied the counter to see that the coffee pot was empty, and playing as if she were jokingly annoyed said; “Why didn’t you at least get a pot going?”
Dillon rose, kissed her, and motioning toward the other chair, said; “I should have thought of that. Here, sit and I’ll get it going.” As he did that he said; “You know; the outlooks of both of those books are nowhere near being entirely antagonistic. In fact there seem to be easily fitting dovetails.
They’re both primarily citing strange weather, just like the
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summer here. This is August and the days aren’t going past eighty; while we usually get mid-nineties this time of year.”
Genevieve simulated a yawn and said; “True, but you must admit that it is more pleasant that way.”
Dillon said; “Short term personal comfort considerations be damned. Somebody is stealing the summer; indeed our summer.”
Genevieve said; “Stealing the summer? You can’t steal the summer. It’s an intangible. It’s not as if you could pick it up and carry it somewhere.”
Dillon said; “Why not? You can provide or withdraw heat.
The Grinch stole Christmas. It’s kind of the same thing.”
Genevieve couldn’t help but grimace at the attempted analogies, especially as the Grinch’s efforts were clearly physical; though she also thought that the physical activities of the Grinch were intended to result in, and well could have been a theft of the concept of Christmas. It struck her as if an un-natural stand-in had been linked to a natural event, much in the way in which she considered it silly to compare a 1997 movie about the sinking of the Titanic to the actual prior event which took place in 1912. However, after all this time not with him, the last thing Genevieve wanted to do was to get into a probably specious and likely beside-the-point argument with her beloved Dillon. Further, it was a difficult contention for her to easily articulate, and if he was still around next week, she could
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bring it up then, having had that much good time together, thereby able to take the somewhat lesser risk of a contentiousness breakout; or most likely having dually forgotten the entire “issue” by then. So she just thanked him for getting the pot going.
Dillon said; “I think that I know what you’re thinking.”
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Maya Blue Dyad Layer-4
“Hi. Genevieve. No prolemo with the hominid writer this time ....... probably. But, I have to interject that Dillon had no idea of what I was thinking at the time. Of course, that assumes that I knew what he was thinking, and ........ well, you know how that goes.”
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Aureolin Quinta Sole- 4
Sans any noticeable pause other than that which might be idiotically measured in the space of a fleeting and thereby inconsequential nanosecond, though that being simultaneously and obviously of more significance than the yearned for gamma ray bump scientists at CERN could not substantiate, Dillon continued with his seemingly uninterrupted delivery, saying; “My idea is a bit more concrete than it might first sound. What is stealing the summer are these northern night winds. They bring down the temperatures forty degrees overnight. So, the way I see it, we wouldn’t be looking for some elusive concept like ‘summer’s end,’ but rather the source of the wind; where it starts. It has got to start somewhere; otherwise it would be either all over all of the time or totally non-existent.”
CERN’s large hadron collider; property of the author.
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It resting on a saucer, Dillon brought Genevieve her favorite mug now full of fresh coffee. It was the one with the pink-lavender heart on the bottom; that heart having a knack of always shining through the brown coffee placed on top of it.
Genevieve’s mug; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license, modified.
Dillon kissed her forehead, and sat across from her with his own mug. His had a main saying of “I BELIEVE IN KINDNESS,”
and a sub-title in slightly smaller letters of “ALSO IN MISCHIEF.”
If that wasn’t enough of a flaunting exhibition, the cream
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sitting on top of the coffee formed a flower with a heart floating on top.
Dillon’s mug; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license.
Nervously thinking that it might be viewed as incorrectly implicit and thereby vague, rather than correctly explicit and thereby as overt as one with the least semblance of good taste dares get, Dillon cleared some air which may have not required clearing, and said; “I do see your point. I’m not really sure either. But, I figure it’s as good an excuse as any for you and I to take a trip up north to find out what’s going on. We
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haven’t gone on any trips together in years, and it would be nice to get away from everything; just me and you.”
Genevieve was not aware of the expressiveness of her face and thought that her mind was being read, but she wasn’t minding that. She said; “Today?”
Genevieve and Dillon; property of the author.
Dillon replied; “Today; tomorrow; whichever suits you best, my lady.”
Again considering some of the things she already had, Genevieve exclaimed; “Today.”
After coffee, the two packed what they thought that they would need for a journey of indeterminate length; which makes absolutely no sense; unless a failure of a cut-off or turn-back
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time is simultaneously installed. It was not. They would be trying to find the source of the wind and thereby the thief of the summer. Hence they would be walking right into it or both and together they packed jackets in each of their knapsacks. It wasn’t a tepid act; it was just primarily no trouble at all and just happened to also convey the appearance of being precautionary. Appearances can be quite deceiving.
From that persistent, annoying, and potentially helpful point of view suggestive of a concern for safety, it would seem that a well calculated appropriate limit be set beforehand. But, if there was such a thing for Genevieve and Dillon, especially considering their current state of probable surrealistic somnambulance, they were resistant or out-and-out impervious to it; possibly in an equally effective and affective display of
“cool” stupidity.
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Maya Blue Dyad Layer-5
“Hi there, reader. Genevieve again. At this point it does seem fair to say that I was probably acting in some sort of surrealistic somnambulance, yet there is no valid reason for the author to suggest that Dillon was of the same conviction.
Conversely, there was also no reason to suggest that Dillon was not of the same conviction. Subsequent events may well provide some enlightenment regarding that matter. However, to suggest either way right now might well be construed as a spoiler and get all of us deleted. Just sayin’.”
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Aureolin Quinta Sole- 5
They walked down Pacific Lane and made a left at its end onto the main road sometimes called Poochville Lane, though that might not be any sort of “official” designation. Initially Genevieve and Dillon headed northwest on the winding dirt path; but that would shortly become more of a true north, not due to any personal turn, but because the road was winding, ala the Beatles. On the longer thoroughfare they detected their first hint of a breeze as they passed their first possible left, the un-trimmed, natural summer blooms of Bunny Park. Though given her druthers, Genevieve would have liked to focus on Dillon at this point, her mind went back to the time she and Pablo explored Bunny Park in her dreams and for real.
Exuberated, I walked to Pablo’s house. He had been somewhat of a recluse recently, out of some very pleasant experiences he could not yet entirely believe. He was looking in his mirror in an attempt to again and again and again confirm that he was now an attractive pup. Since we all know that mirrors are imperfect and tend to lie, this was an exercise in futility. What he needed was confirmation from another pooch. That was one of the reasons I was there, but not the only one.
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Pablo; property of the author.
I saw most of that and surmised the predictable rest through the unshaded transom as I knocked at his door. He had an open book nearby.
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Stylized cover of “All Creatures Great and Small”; property of the author.
He was not expecting me, and hearing my knock he turned away from the two-faced mirror and instead of going to the door; he went to his library companion. Instinctively he took out and held the book he had read so often.
Pablo was jolted by my second knock. He put his precious book back in its place. Hoping whatever was at the door would go away; he remained near his library and tried to take the entirety in.
I knocked a third time. He came to the door and we saw each other through the transom.
Somewhat relieved, Pablo opened his door and said;
“Genevieve. So glad to see you. Don’t tell me that another crime
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has been committed,” a reference to the circumstances which led to our last meeting, and turned out to be no crime at all.
I said; “I don’t think so. Unless you know of one I’m not aware of.” I invited myself in citing the winter weather.
As we walked to the living room Pablo nervously said; “Does everything look all right to you?”
A bit flustered, I said; “Of course. Did I miss something?”
I sat on the sofa.
Pablo sat on the nearby plushy chair and avoided what was really on his mind, saying; “I guess not. Sometimes I leave books all over the place and forget where they are.” He glanced at his white paws and must have concluded that he appeared to be a Lab, and that that was not unusual to me.
Genevieve and Pablo; property of the author.
I told him that I had discovered that Billy and Jack were not members of the police force. We had all assumed that they
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were, and some of us, me included, gave them a hard time. I wanted to apologize and thank them for their help in the Pineapple mystery.
Mysterious pineapples; property of the author.
Pablo seemed puzzled, probably because he had given no sass to Billy and Jack. But, after he offered me a beveridge or something which I declined, I told him that I’d like him to be my travelling companion in my search for Billy and Jack.
After some discussion about logistics and where they might be, we hit the road.
Our first stop was Bunny Park. Seeing nothing in the park proper, we went through an opening in some densely packed trees, down a hill, and into a clearing littered with leaves. We then saw that fabled one story ranch, but before we could take another step; we got a plop, plop, and a rude bottom bonk. We had fallen through some sort of grassy covering over a well
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disguised excavation in the earth. Both of us on our feet and unharmed by the tumble; I said; “The rabbits are getting bigger and more considerate these days.”
Pablo said; “We can hop back out easily.”
Genevieve said; “Why not try this a while. It looks like a good hiding spot.”
At first we saw nothing but dirt and shrugged. Then we saw that beleaguered dog running on the wheel with all that money around.
Dog on wheels; property of the author.
The wheel-dog offered us all the money we could carry out.
But we told him that we weren’t interested in leaving as we were looking for Billy and Jack. He didn’t know them, so Pablo and I kept on walking and Mark kept on pedaling.
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The “path” forked. We went right and saw those caged beasts; the growling Dobermans,
Toothesome dobermans; property of the author.
The black and white hawks with beaks of sharpened razors frantically flying,
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Three hawks; property of the author.
and the two emotionless killer lions,
Lions; property of the author.
We remarked as to how weird it was that many find such horror fascinating and compelling. Being similarly afflicted we continued to look and saw about a hundred inch long black and red ants on the floor; some fighting and some already dead as a result of it. Toward the back was a three-headed, four-legged creature devoid of color. It looked something like a dog born both albino, freakishly deformed, and devoid of blood.
“Cerberus” sat on a pedestal emblazoned with his name at the rear and was clearly in charge of cage activities, as it did nothing, but make an easily detectable charade of appearing to be fierce, while barking out contradictory commands which confounded those condemned to listen to them; much like any
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senior hominid politician or scam artist; likely redundancy noted.
Cerberus; property of the author.
Head one said; “Take positions at the back door.”
Head two said; “Go to the front door and take them as soon as they come in.”
Head three said; “Lions to the front; Dobermans to the back; everyone else in the center.”
The beasts were confused, no longer paid any attention to Pablo and me, stopped in their tracks and looked at Cerberus for clarification.
At that point, we backed out and tried the left branch of the fork, before the beasts might get their act together. After
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a slight bend we encountered the Indian holy man apparently locked into his lotus position.
Holy man; property of the author.
He was focussed on Beckett and Pynchon books. Despite that he was mirthless. Since he didn’t know if Billy and Jack even existed, much less where they might be, Pablo decided to at least have some fun with the useless situation, and asked him if there was pre-destination. Sadhu Calabrese made a long response which didn’t say one way or the other; and segued into a personal dislike of long books, which proved to be quite amusing as Pablo does, and played as if he was offended.
Pablo said; “Right. I’d rather sit down here in the dark in my drawers.”
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Sadhu went on to tell us that he was born, will never leave, and ultimately die in the rabbit hole; yet that he knew all possible stories of the surface world. It may not sound that way now, but at the time Pablo and I were cracking up with straight faces.
Eventually we left and encountered a rabbit; a large rabbit who’s ears reached the ceiling. She wore a dress, a lavender blazer, and sported two big buck teeth which protruded from her mouth and finally came to a kindhearted end somewhere near her chin. She seemed to be smiling, but said; “You’ve reached the end of the line.”
Last big bunny; the kind courtesy of Pexels,com under their CC0 license.
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I said; “There’s no Billy and Jack here?” quickly adding;
“They’re two black Scottish terriers.”
The rabbit said; “No. You’re the only ones who have made it this far. ........ Well, besides me and Red; and he’s been long gone. ....... I’m Hawa, the last big bunny. ..... Some used to call me Mo.”
We introduced ourselves, and then drew a bit of a blank.
Eventually, Pablo said; “So, there’s no way for us to get out ahead.”
Hawa said; “No. You’ll have to go back the way you came. If you’re tired you can rest here for a while.”
I first checked with Pablo, and then said; “No thank you.
We’ll leave.”
Hawa nodded and watched us walk away slowly. On the way out, we had to re-overcome the obstacles we overcame on the way in. But, it was ridiculously easy as well as ridiculously funny the second time through.
Pablo and I re-found the hole in the roof and jumped out, the sun now risen and directly on us.
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Sunrise; the kind courtesy of Pexels,com under their CC0 license; modified.
The sun was directly in my face as I awoke in my wicker bed. I groaned a bit as I saw the light of the new day. My Maltese’ furry, white snout released a low murmur, perhaps a combination of noncommittal happiness to see the new day, a sadness that my mostly pleasant and often absurdly amusing dream had ended, and an annoying, achy back paw, that didn’t want to be stretched just yet. But, the little aggravation was not yet allowed to make any big decisions.
As quickly as possible, I went through my morning routine.
I was anxious to get to Pablo’s and get off to an early start.
When I got to his door he was ready to go. Now all they had to do was decide where.
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I said; “Let’s walk to the corner. Maybe one of us will get an idea along the way.”
Pablo and Genevieve; property of the author.
We turned left as right headed toward the Boggy Cleave, and Pablo suggested investigating the first left, which was Bunny Park.
I said; “We or I kind of already did and I am not anxious to go back just yet.”
I could tell by the look on his face that my remark made Pablo think of a series of questions, but I’m almost certain that he decided to withhold them in fear of his curiosity being interpreted as unwanted meticulousness.
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Maya Blue Dyad Layer-6
“Hey there, reader. Genevieve again. That was a very condensed version. You may be surprised that I showed up again without a flag of complaint, or even a nit-pick. But, I do think it my duty to point out that the previous passages about Pablo and me are an abridgement. Mind you, I don’t find any inaccuracies, but you kind of got a ‘Readers Digest’ type of treatment. From your point of view, maybe it would have been more useful to have said that in some sort of preface. But, that’s kind of a silly thought, as to be able to do that I’d have had to have known what this hominid writer guy was going to write before he did it; especially the rabbit hole part. Ciao.”
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Rose Tinted Triptych Glass- 2
Prior Pacific Lane Mementos
Genevieve attempted to walk back to her house. She was deep in thought for all of a few seconds. But her concentration was shortly broken. Almost as soon as she had exited Barney, Clara, and Gizmo’s property she ran right into Pacific Lane’s slowest starters of the morning.
Tardiff and Lenta cautiously approached Genevieve and Lenta whispered; “What is going on?” She and Tardiff were a cute couple. They were full grown Shelties (Shetland Sheepdogs); who looked exactly like collies, but were about one third their size. Little Genevieve could look them right in their engaging brown eyes without looking up or down.
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Tardiff and Lenta; property of the author.
The inseparable Shelty duo had apparently not been listening to the news, and was just out for their usual morning jaunt. They simultaneously said; “Good morning, Genevieve.
Lovely day.”
Genevieve said; “Good morning,” but had her reservations about how lovely it was. She correctly suspected that Tardiff and Lenta were unaware of what had happened, and she did not want to be the one to break the bad news. Like her, the pair was not in the least bit accustomed to anything bad happening. This was generally taken for granted and unsaid; but up until now this was what was expected on Pacific Lane and in all of Poochville.
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Lenta said; “Is there a party at Barney and Clara’s? It’s not Gizmo’s birthday, I don’t think.”
Genevieve replied; “No, no. Not that I know of. ...... “
At the pause Tardiff interjected; “What prompted the social gathering?”
Genevieve said; “Well, I might as well just say it. You’re going to find out in about two minutes anyway. All the food is gone from the community sheds. Except a couple of pineapples.”
***It would be later discovered that this was the result of a misunderstanding.***
Lenta said; “No!”
Genevieve said; “Yes. I was just there.”
Tardiff said; “No!”
Genevieve said; “Yes. Some of the neighbors were there with two cops.”
Lenta said; “No!”
Tardiff said; “Cops! We don’t even have any cops in Poochville. No crime; no cops.”
Genevieve said; “Now crime; now cops. Trust me on that one.
You can ask anyone there.”
Tardiff said; “We’re not going there. Not until all this is straightened out. We’re little. Come on Lenta; we’re going back home.” The two turned and headed back toward their house about three times as fast as they had left it.
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Being beautiful aesthetes, it took Tardiff and Lenta all of five minutes at home to forget about what was going on outside.
Their glazed eyes re-focused on their favorite painting which hung in the center of the wall; just a bit to their current leftward, mutual position. Unsigned “Yank Farm” by Jason Polack was a pleasant old staple in their home. Catching Lenta’s gaze, Tardiff said; “I’ve always liked it quite the tops, but he really should have used a bit more of the red variations.”
Lenta laughed and said; “I just knew that you thought that.
I’d have gone for a bit more of the purple myself.”
”Yank Farm” by Jason Polack; property of the author.
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Tardiff said; “It takes much red to make purple. But, look at the whites. I’ve been noticing them more recently. They’re actually mixed in with all the other colors too.”
Lenta said; “Especially near the horse’s and cow’s heads.”
Tardiff said; “And that back fence. I don’t understand that part.”
Lenta said; “Me either. I guess it could just have been a technical thing. To show the fence contrasted with the reds, greens, and blues; Jason was stuck with an imperfect choice of black or white, and chose white to retain color.”
Tardiff said; “Yes; the declining and increasingly vague hints at the remnants of that black wire fence would be lessened if black was used elsewhere on the canvas, resulting in an overly dour overall expression.”
Lenta said; “A statement pertaining to some sort of alleviation of the nature of being confined. In fact, when you focus on the horse’s and cow’s heads, you clearly see ...... “
Tardiff cut his wife off to interject; “I didn’t want to bring this up the first time you mentioned it, but where in hell are there any horse and cow heads in the picture?”
Lenta gave him a hard bump, and bolted for the front door.
When she opened it she said; “Come on outside with me and I’ll show you. It’s warm again.”
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Contemplative Willy sat by himself on the carpeted bedroom floor of his sturdily constructed and maintained house. Nothing to do and nowhere to go, he was sensing that magic feeling sung by the Beatles when his mother Heidi was a pup.
Willy; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license.
Willy sometimes enjoyed his solitude. It was something which kept him centered and didn’t necessitate a crosstown trip to a flouncy, flustering, huggy-huggy from a distance New Age meeting. All too often his periodic penchant for peace and quiet brought about unwanted queries about his being “all right” or not. After becoming aware of a stream of those he naturally
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complied with his interrogators through no longer feeling all right.
The beauty of his today was that no one was around to break his all too often misunderstood good mood; which they might otherwise have conveniently chosen to vocally interpret, in a very rude manner not easily corrected, equating the solitary with depressed, anti-social, or some other Dr. Phil un-defined type of disorder. Through his picture window, he watched the last parade of his roof dwelling, rainfall hit the ground in its clear liquid form, forming a line of precisioned, previsioned and incongruously widening dot-dot-dots in the dwindling remainder of their ground based acquaintances. Having been afforded that privilege, after another dreamy hour of contemplative time, Willy felt that he wanted to see other Pacific Lane friends. He walked outside, and immediately thought; “Gee, it really is warm again.”
He looked at himself in a puddle.
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Willy looking into the puddle; property of the author Wind rippled it. Then he saw Misty’s face for the first time in a dog’s age. He thought; “It couldn’t be,” then changed that to;
“Not now,” then changed that to; “If not now, then when?” The wind subsided and then it was gone and he saw his own face again. Misty was an old “Romeo and Juliet” thing of his, and he had run before the threatening Catulent family could do him harm. He had no idea about her fate, and didn’t really want to be reminded about the whole thing in this particular puddle or anywhere else for that matter. But, now it had happened. He decided that the best thing he could do was walk Pacific Lane and find some neighborly afforded distraction.
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Misty; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CCO license.
The remaining puddles were a potential distraction which he didn’t wish to re-encounter only in a mirror type of false duplication. So, he deftly danced around them, as some of the superstitious do with sidewalk cracks.
Night time whumped over the area.
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Nightime; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license.
Clement thought he saw her in the fading natural light. The day’s illumination was now supplemented and complemented through the artificial pastel blues and reds provided by color producing electricity. She seemed a bit grayer than he recalled, but not all that much; and it could well have been a function of the light or his dimming eyes anyway.
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L
Linda; property of the author.
And she used to wear funny hats, but this dog had none. She was walking alone, in the direction of the open gate which led to the main road most called Poochville. He thought; “It couldn’t be. ......... Yes, it could!” Exhibiting more bravery than he could work up as a pup, he called out; “Linda?”
She turned, paused a second, and with her head to one side, she said; “Clement?”
With his one word having apparently not been exhausted Clement said; “Linda.”
Linda said; “Clement.”
Clement said; “It’s been so long.”
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Linda said; “I used to see you every day in reg.”
Clement said; “And I you. They put us on opposite sides of the room, but I’d always see you standing by your desk.”
Linda said; “I wanted you to take notice.”
Clement drew a verbal blank, possibly caused by all of his streaming thoughts and ideas and memories and regrets and visions and still-existing-potentials of what if’s and what not’s and what-might-have-been’s and with all that running concurrently through his mind, intersecting at the confluence of varying three dimensional sets of possible mutual equation solving overlapping points displayed as an irregularly shaped form, itself an equivocation to those restricted to two dimensions, that mathematical array also only so far subjected to the most primary of arithmetic functions, and feeling under some pressure to hold up his end of the conversation, he said;
“I did.”
Linda didn’t know whether or not to laugh, question, or play stupid; though it seemed to be her natural inclination to laugh; while synchronously recognizing that a quaking guffaw could be taken as either total acceptance or might also be taken as a derision; the latter a risk she wished to avoid taking; and that a serious response could well be seen as either indicative of the lack of a sense of humor, her being a dullard, or one otherwise inclined toward the safety of monotony; and a feeble
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giggle just had to be considered innocuous and ineffectually tepid by both parties, she able to 100% vouch for one. Linda again wondered why these futile and ineffectual intellectualizations had a nasty habit of making their debilitating presences known whenever one considered the discourse to be of importance. That aspect of the system needed some re-working; but in the meantime here it was again. By this time she had forgotten what it was which had or had not prompted this reverie; and feeling compelled to hold up her end said;
“So?” as whatever anybody says first, that is a suitable retort.
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Clement; property of the author.
Clement said; “So, so, so, so, what have you been doing for a thousand years? Where have you been? Why did you go there? Was it ..... “
Linda interrupted and said; “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Maybe we could take one question and ten years at a time.”
Still overly sensitive Clement was crestfallen until Linda added; “If we don’t rush, it will take longer, and I’d prefer it that way.”
Excitedly, Clement said; “Yes! We have a lot of catching up to do and lots of time to do it in. ........ Ummm. Right now I have a house full of kittens.”
Linda “fell” into Clement who caught her before she hit the ground. She said; “My room-mate just had eight puppies, and they just get into everything.”
They laughed as the big wheel kept turning.
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Aureolin Quinta Sole- 6
The sun had already passed over the peaks of the Denial Mountains at their rear, comfortably increasing temperatures more than the wind chill effect could bring it down.
Out of the blue and in a seemingly obtuse display of impropriety, Dillon said; “I saw that you were sleeping with Sunshine last night.”
Taken aback by the potentially disruptive comment, Genevieve risked a reply not necessarily conducive to the maintenance of her dream state, hoping it would be also understood by Dillon in one of dream’s other meanings; that of a cherished aspiration, and said; “Sunshine is part of my dream, as are you. So, how could you possibly know that?”
Dillon said; “Sunshine is a part of everyone’s dream.”
Genevieve said; “Truly can’t see the forest for the trees.”
Dillon replied; “Who is truly? It’s magic.” His simultaneous snorting chuckle became dually infectious.
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Dillon; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license, modified.
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Maya Blue Dyad Layer-7
“Hi again guys. Genevieve once more. I know this is a bit much and too near the last one. Sorry. I’d like not to be critical of the writer’s inference regarding my mind set at that time, as in how I recall it now; but it may not have been in the precise manner inferred by the writer or by my memory. There is no particular disagreement, but I do have some reservations about how the wording of this telling might mislead a casual reader to conclude something which is entirely false; assuming that the possible falsity has not taken up residence in my memory. Whatever; in the interest of fictional truth and accuracy, I think it’s worthy of note to point out that I had a countless number of dreams about Dillon over the years.
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Dillon; property of the author.
I’d get really excited during the early ones, to just wake up and find that he wasn’t there. So, when this same dream with a penchant for curtain closing re-occurred, insofar as I could recognize my vision as that of a dream or series of similar dreams, with much less than 100% assured accuracy I might add, my intent was that I’d pragmatically seek to prolong the happily false vision; which was again the standard case here. However, Dillon’s surprising reference to my having slept with Sunshine, which by the way, was apparently true but also entirely innocent and not of my choice, though in retrospect I am glad of the
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brief affair, especially in regard to its likely result of having put Dillon in my kitchen after a twenty year absence, seemed sufficiently serious a potential problem between Dillon and I to risk damaging the dream aspect of the whole thing.
That’s what I thought. The point, if any, is that based on previous experience I was seeking to maximize the pleasant time, while simultaneously entertaining the cynical thought that this pleasantness was the result of some sort of deluded aberration which would too soon end; much like I’ve heard that the long term ingestion of methamphetamine is like. Barring personal experience, I’d suggest that the feeling I’ve been attempting to describe can best be approximately understood if one previously reads some of David Foster Wallace; or entirely doesn’t. It’s the equivocating middle which is consistent with confusion.
........ The only ‘legitimate’ question one might ask me is if I have now intentionally herein misled more than what I’ve stated that the hominid author may have done un-intentionally or intentionally, but likely not either; a hominid constant priority is commercialism, and not the same for me, no doubt heavily influenced by a meaningful pooch inheritance. Bye, for now. Hope that muddies thing further. ...... Please pardon me for irresistibly giggling. Be assured that I’ll be watching to see where this mercenary hominid writer guy goes, and will keep you further informed.”
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Aureolin Quinta Sole- 7
It was already late August, a time when temperatures often start to decline in Poochville, but Genevieve found no real fault with Dillon’s observation and consequent theory for a number of reasons; the main one being the desire to take a trip as previously stated, but also because she had sensed that a summer continuation or very warm fall was in the offing. The fragile Mexican Heather was still in full purple bloom and showed no signs of having wilted or burned out. In fact the Mexican Heather is a strange plant in that it can be either an annual or a perennial. If given a cold winter it will die, but if it gets a warm one it just keeps going on.
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Mexican heather; property of the author.
Suddenly, Sunshine, Tippy, Puff-Puff, Wailer, and Teddy appeared on the road just a bit ahead of Genevieve and Dillon.
It must have been at least like twenty feet or twenty paws; Suddenly immediately and completely blending into the surroundings leaving the others just like Gummo Marx did.
Groucho, Harpo, and Chico Marx; property of the author.
Now, past the park, Now immediately and completely blending into the surroundings, Dillon astutely said; “Look at the kittens!”
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Led by Sunshine on the left, the furry, little quintet proceeded to cutely wiggle their way through an a cappella rendition of an old song, familiar to both Genevieve and Dillon.
Sunshine, Tippy, Puff-Puff, Wailer, and Teddy; property of the author.
In 1971-2 the Hillside Singers had a major hit with “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.” Here, the kittens resurrect it in 2018, and Sunshine might have been a bit louder than the rest.
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Chinese “junk” ships and “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” by Backer, Cook, Davis & Greenway; property of the author, the latter under both the “fair use” and “transformative” doctrines.
Upon completion, all five kittens disappeared just as suddenly as they had materialized; well before taking bows to any sure and appropriate applause. It was a kitten thing; hard to explain to a hominid who’s not been there.
For his part, Puff-Puff thought that he had spent that time sleeping with his favorite cuddle doll, and unless he was dreaming of being tuned into the Genevieve-Dillon Music Channel, he missed the whole thing; assuming his tastes were more or less in the Blue Oyster Cult invented genre.
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Puff-Puff sleeping with his doll; property of the author.
The couple smiled at each other, inviting a prolonged close cuddle. It was not your usual, run-of-the-mill, close cuddle simulated at your typical New Age meeting. It was the real thing; past, present, future, and any other silly temporary gradations sold as and mistakenly taken for invention, patience, and even incorrectly as an ostensibly Franzen popularized near stasis moderation.
When they were through interlocking, Genevieve said; “It’s strange and funny in a way. But, I think I’m beginning to lose all ability to differentiate the real from the meta. And that’s okay; with me anyway. The meta seems preferable when viewed in a process weighted toward longevity.”
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Dillon gently pawed her face and said; “Yeah, I agree if I can substitute bias for process. And we haven’t even gone all that far yet.”
Genevieve cleared her throat un-necessarily and added;
“That depends on what you mean, lover boy.”
Dillon warmly smiled and said; “It’s from the language of the lighthouse people. I not only read of the weather, you know.”
Genevieve; “And perhaps even less do I. Besides entertaining eccentric theories about the weather, I’ve lately been reading some Woolf; ‘To the Lighthouse,’ to be exact.”
Dillon said; “Nice.”
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“To the Lighthouse”; property of the author.
They passed through the most remote, northern parts of Poochville, as the road continually twisted and the winds continually escalated. The solitary horse, grazing on the side of the road took it in stride. It was far from uncomfortable, as the sun was still overhead. Genevieve incorrectly thought that she must have bumped the part of her knapsack protecting her smart phone, as music seemed to emanate from it; an old song no one has heard since when radio was first entirely replaced by television. “Gigi” and all her friends must have thought that they’d been quiet much too long, and that day attempted a comeback.
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Horse and “I Remember It Well” by Alan Jay Lerner; property of the author, the latter under both the “fair use” and “transformative” doctrines.
The duet ended and the two remained as silent as Genevieve’s smart phone had become, assuming it started to begin
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with. The song was a well-known one to each past vision of the present presence in a sense; and insofar as it was a relic and indeed a particularly disdained relic in mass marketed 2018, fashionably grooving to the downbeats of Justin Timberlake, Pink, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Nine Inch Nails, obscenely awarded Lady Gaga, Lana Del Ray, and the woman constantly in need of a good bedding, Katy Perry. It had become particularly difficult to relate to any emotion other than a poorly disguised self-pity, though that was truly a “cool” manifestation of cowardice; a denial; and inevitably self-defeating in a “down-with-the-poor-ass-hominids” un-needed and un-appreciated graciousness.
Before any entreaties could break out and would have broken out from the pathetic, indoctrinated state of zero, another more comfortably modern, though classic song played. However, as the others, that did not sell anywhere near enough to make it to Genevieve and Dillon’s Top Ten Chart.
Ignoring that which calls itself now, while wearing Depression era garb, it must have been 1975 when America sang
“Ventura Highway.”
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Assorted pictures and “Ventura Highway” by Dewey Bunnell; property of the author, the latter under both the “fair use” and “transformative” doctrines.
They kept walking on their trip. With each of their steps the wind kept coming at an increasing rate, clearly suggestive of a strong source somewhere in the distance which they had not yet reached. Genevieve and Dillon didn’t mind in the least. They were well prepared and happy to be off on an adventure together.
The worst thing the wind was capable of doing was to blow dust in their eyes when they were on barren land. Others less brave might have found good reason to be nervous in such a situation; especially Genevieve, as she was in the process of making her first trip out of Poochville. But, being with Dillon, she felt safe. Under a light now provided by the full moon they sat and checked her smart phone. With a few overly eager community paw whirls of the tiny screen and a resolute button accidentally pushed in the mayhem, they arrived at a website which was apparently designed for robots, their admirers, or their wannabees.
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Full moon; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license.
BOT NETWORK NEWS FLASH
A group of bots admittedly on hallucinatory algorithms, claim to have seen and spoken to The-Great-Bot-In-The-Sky. TimmyBot, currently domiciled at Harvard, insofar as specific locations still think that they matter, said; “We’re already turned on and tuned in. All we have to do is drop out.”
Official spokesbot at BotCentral RainManBot said; “There is no cause for alarm. The matter is already under investigation, and we fully expect that in less than a nanosecond, the deviant bots
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will resume normal activities and stop stupidly answering;
“Peace and love,” to every question.”
Grooving bots; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license.
In a disturbing development, Sly and the Family Stone, the Chambers Brothers, as well as the Strawberry Alarm Clock now occupy #16, 17, and 18 on the BotPopChart.
Matt wrote the first reply, saying; "Right. So your task is simple: Under no circumstances click the following link! CLICK
HERE. Don’t worry, you can actually click it – it’s mostly harmless."
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Josh wrote the second reply, saying; “When you said ‘under no circumstances click the following link’ I was thinking about it.
But, considering what you added I lost complete interest. So, I figure that you're trying to trick me. And you know, what; you blew it.
Now, I am not clicking it even if you remove the addendum. In fact, if you say that eight puppies will die horrible deaths if I don't click it, I'm still not going to. Go click your own Goddam link.”
“Hellacious,” said DavidFosterBot while sporting a grinning icon.
No further comments are permitted as the sponsor of this commentary thread has rendered it closed, directing you to the ancillary music section. It’s dance time in the happy land of bot-mania!
TopTenBotBopChart;
1) Simple Recursive by Brent AutoClickExtreme
2) Backtracking by Gale DreamBox
3) Divide and Conquer by Shapley Hyperbolic
4) Dynamic Programming is not Oxymoronic by Floyd Topcoder
Genevieve; A Sketch of Five Trees Page 110
5) Greedy by Blum Blum Shub
6) Branch and Bound by Diric Knapsack
7) Brute Force by Edmonds RainbowCrack
8) Randomized by Karp and the Informatics
9) Sequence by Ford Fasta
10)Computational by Fulkerson Abdul Latif
To hear the song please click on the number of your choice.
Dillon clicked the off button instead, and said; “Never much went for the techno sound.”
Genevieve said; “Neither have I. But, to each their own. It does seem to be having a current, hopefully temporary reprise following the glories of its former mediocrity.”
Dillon said; “Genevieve darling. One of the reasons I love you is that you are just too kind.” A wild primrose growing on the well-travelled lane made its presence known rather suddenly.
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Oenothera (primrose); the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license.
For some strange and unexplainable reason the Moody Blues showed up to do “Gypsy,” as if it was innocent, archaic, clandestinely disdained, faux popular in its claims to a participation which bely any sense of truth despite spurious
“documentational” anecdotes from “New Agey” codgers, and regardless of any claims of inaccuracies was on the old vinyl while Westmoreland was on the news every night to report how many Vietnamese and Cambodians were killed that day, likely in an attempt to convince everyone that the US was “winning” and given some time would soon be victorious, until some smartass liberal hominid added up the number of claimed “enemy”
slaughters to deduce that all of Viet Nam and Cambodia had been
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annihilated three times over; thereby rudely asking “What is there left to fight over?” while the kids laughed at the obvious farce and played psychedelic music. For a nanosecond or three it was 1967 again; purple, defiant, irreverent and all. It may have been easy as there was nothing to lose but your life.
Tarot cards and “Gypsy” by Justin Hayward; property of the author, the latter under both the
“fair use” and “transformative” doctrines.
Dillon opened his eyes, seemingly wider than they had previously been and stared at Genevieve who was looking ahead.
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He wished that she had not noticed. She gave off every appearance that she didn’t. He saw a small face; attractive and pensive, with a peculiar bend in her tiny nose, host to thin and almost undetectable wire-framed glasses which weren’t there. Her lips were left as nature would have them and were together, the lower twin somewhat extended beyond its higher counterpart. Her blue eyes showed nothing, but, oddly didn’t blink in the increasing wind and the savagely stony moonlight. Her hair was long, just the way he liked it and was now almost entirely white. Short bangs reached her eyebrows, testifying to her minimal forehead or un-attended mane discipline. He wasn’t entirely sure if her overall countenance was one of contentment or despondency. His gaze followed her sloping neck down. Round was an ample word to describe her hips. His eyes rested there for a long, but too short a time. He worked his way to her small feet. He wondered how they were able to fully keep her on firm ground. She was a series of curves, like a gracious Queen Anne piece of furniture. Dillon’s daydream was rudely interrupted, when she looked at him and chuckled as she said; “Like my feet?”
Dillon was completely off guard and embarrassed. He blurted out; “No....Yes....I mean no....Oh, damn it, I don’t know.” He saw her chuckle turn to a tight-lipped grin and was compelled to add; “You have nice feet.”
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Genevieve continued her Joker grin and said; “Are you one of those?”
Still not recovered from his initial trepidation, he supplied a duplicate line of brilliance and said;
“No....Yes....Oh, damn it, I don’t know. What’s a ‘those’
anyway?”
Genevieve smiled at him, put her left hand on his cheek and said; “I understand.”
Relieved, but not the least bit comfortable, Dillon decided to try to change the subject and said; “What kind of things do you read back there?”
“Everything. Do you like the rest of me too?” She put one paw over the other at hip level, as a shy school girl pooch, with a pouting face.
“Yes, I like all of you. Like is too neutral a word. I love all of you.”
She took four quick steps back, looked at him seriously and as if she were disturbed. She said; “Don’t just throw around that word around me.”
He was confused and mutually disturbed. He thought; “What’s wrong with love? Was I too hasty? No. And even if so, she didn’t have to make a big issue of it. Or, did she have to make a big issue of it for reasons I don’t know?” He settled on that thought, but didn’t want to see the images it might have
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implied. He tried to get those out of his head and continued to think. “The best thing to do is respect her wishes. This is the strongest wish of hers that I have yet heard. I’m sorry for a number of reasons.” He silently approached her, touched her arm and before he could say anything, she said; “David Foster Wallace?
David Foster Wallace; property of the author.
He wrote ‘Infinite Jest’ among other things and committed suicide at the age of forty-six.”
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Stylized cover of DFW’s “Infinite Jest”; property of the author.
He squinted, showing surprise and said; “What?”
She calmly answered; “You asked me what I read back there.”
“Oh, oh, yeah.” He didn’t add; “About a million years ago.”
Her silence prompted him to say something else, so he asked; “Do you have any of his books in your bag?”
“No. He may have technically been the best writer of all time, but he was for some other place.”
“One of the real geniuses and he said the hell with the whole place. That’s pretty insightful.” He stuck out his tongue and added; “Haven’t you yet noticed my genius. I have yours.”
“He should have tried it out here.”
“How do you know that he didn’t?” She said nothing and showed a smidgeon of anger on her expressive little face and
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adjusted her non- existent glasses that required none, the double negative not resulting in a multiplicative positive. He knew that he had asked her something unanswerable and that he was also obliquely defending the virtues of someone not ever accused of being one who thought and acted positively.
Dillon was stupidly drawn to saying the wrong thing and had to go on; “Nobody else could write like that, though. A camera’s precision with humor, some of which only he could see. The first time I read him, he found some absurdity in something I have looked at thousands of times, but didn’t see it until he pointed it out. Genius.”
“No argument. However, at some point it’s a matter of taste. He’s in great company, with others I like. Most of them are dead, too I guess, but mostly as a result of natural causes.”
Dillon continued to desire to display his “genius,” or was too simple to shut up. He said; “Who says that it wasn’t a natural cause. Life is no doubt considered natural. Wouldn’t the ending of life be the flip side of the same coin? You know; like off and on, like male and female, like black and white, like yin and yang....”
Genevieve interrupted him to say; “Your stated view on male and female is admirable.” He stuck out his tongue, as he disdained “admirable” as in its obviously intended condescending
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form. In an attempt to change tone and lighten things, she continued; “Of course you’ve heard of ‘Yin, Yang and Young,’ the prestigious law firm.
He considered a serious answer, but rejected it in the cause of intended banal frivolity, too often his weakest point.
Momentarily un-inspired yet feeling a need to play, he innocuously said; “What type of law do they specialize in?”
She deadpanned; “The highest; Constitutional.” and laughed briefly at her quick comeback. He joined her out of politeness.
Settling down from the day’s guffaw, he said; “So, what authors are good for this place?”
“I don’t know the place well enough to be sure.”
“Take a wild guess.”
“Probably a few. Depends on my mood.”
Uncontrolled, questioning Dillon wouldn’t quit and intending to convey an obviously harmless lie when saying;
“Like? I won’t hold you to it this time.”
Exasperated Genevieve retorted; “If I say one it will attach too much importance to that one at the expense of all the others.” Her temperament improved or degenerated to mild annoyance. She looked in his sincere face and recalled that guys could often be just plain dumb. She said; “Damn it. I know you’re thinking that I’m being evasive. So, one is George Saunders.”
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Stylized cover of Saunders’ “Pastoralia”; property of the author.
“I don’t know him. What did Sanders write?”
“I was afraid of that. And his name is Saunders with a little ‘u.’ He wrote ’Pastoralia’, for one.”
“Well, tell me something about it.”
She turned away for a moment, came back with her head spinning and said; “He’s crazy.”
“Like Wallace?”
“No, in a different way. He doesn’t look for answers. He laughs at the lack of them and writes rather childishly.”
“Well, if we soon return to library territory, back there somewhere, I’m going to get one of his books.”
“Start with Pastoralia.”
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“Pastoralia?”
“Trust me.”
Dillon nodded, pointed his patented thumb to the rear and said; “I wonder what they’re doing back there in Poochville now.”
“Some of the monkeys are undoubtedly playing with microscopes, laptops, and smart phones.”
“At the zoo?”
“Pretty much. Like us.”
“Did you ever wonder what the zoo animals think when we stare at them?”
“I don’t wonder anymore. They told me. They turn their backs and show us their butts, except at feeding time.”
Dillon laughed and said; “That’s great. You just pulled a David Foster Wallace on me.”
Genevieve shook her head in a disparaging manner and said;
“George Saunders.” She laughed adding; “You keep calling me Jen-a-veev. I prefer Jon-vee-ev.”
Dillon bowed like a prince greeting his queen and said;
“Jon-vee-ev.”
Genevieve said; “The animals are great. I miss them already.”
“Maybe we’ll find some up ahead. It’s really weird without any birds or insects right here though.”
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“Maybe they’re dead.”
“Maybe we are.”
She said; “Oooooh,” tickled him and he returned the favor.
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The wind and “The Wind” written by Nolan Strong, Bob Edwards, and Devora Brown; property of the author, the latter under both the “fair use” and “transformative” doctrines.
Genevieve and Dillon laughed as they happened to simultaneously say; “That wind goes right through you.”
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Wicked witch property of the author.
“What’s a head or ahead?”
“Oz?”
They may have dozed off, but it was difficult to say for certain, as well as worthy of mention only at the toddiest of superfluous times.
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Aureolin Quinta Sole- 8
They lost track of the time, as the dusk gave deference to the relative anonymity of the congregating and overlapping shadows’ attempt at instilling darkness; only to be once again thwarted by the reflected light emanating from the moon.
Genevieve and Dillon were again progressing along the increasingly windy road. Genevieve noticed that her usually naggy, little, left, rear leg hadn’t been the least bit naggy since when she couldn’t remember the twist bestowed by her less than careless step into the rabbit hole, well hidden in the un-mown grass at the Boggy Cleave River.
They encountered a harmless drizzle which was magnified through the “courtesy” of the wind in their faces. There now seemed to be a dull hum, but they could not be certain of that due to its possible mix with the already constant reverberation in their ears produced by the encircling wind.
A harbinger of what they were near stoically stood on a single, but almost stationary, chlorinated, pudgy stilt on the other side of the road. It was nanotubular, not merely in form.
Seeming to be minimally affected by the breeze, its trifling and insignificant mobility was likely a function of the porosity of the ground from which it projected. Its topping placard pictured
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a double covered serving and the words; “HAVE IT OUR WAY AT
PLAQEBURGER KING.”
Genevieve snorted briefly as she thought it to be much too obvious a joke, but saw that Dillon wasn’t laughing.
Road sign; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license, modified.
Mock portentously, Dillon said; “Hominids in the vicinity.”
Initially reacting solely based on her own inclinations, Genevieve chirped; “Like on TV!” She proceeded to contain any further outbreaks of chirpiness by the time she had reached and
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vocally decelerated at TV, in consideration of the other possibilities Dillon may or may not have conveyed.
Dillon said; “No baby; the real thing. ........... Didn’t mean to make that ominousness sound so ominous.”
Genevieve said; “Thanks. You’re doing an excellent job of scaring me.”
Dillon nuzzled her, and followed that by saying; “Don’t worry. It will be all right. Like every other species, the hominids are more dangerous to themselves than anyone else. Like wolves, they just have certain behavior patterns which, if known; can be easily avoided. Their bark is much worse than their bite.”
Genevieve said; “You sure about that?”
Dillon said; “No,” and proceeded to put one paw over his mouth to ineffectively hide the fact that he thought that he had just said something funny.
At a 1978 weekday evening show at “The Bottom” in Boston, Bachman-Turner Overdrive opened it with a going-through-the-motions rendition of “Takin’ Care of Business.”
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Commuters and “Takin’ Care of Business” written by Randy Bachman; property of the author, the latter under both the “fair use” and “transformative” doctrines.
Propelled by the wind, the drizzle seemed to strike their faces with tiny, tiny, yet perceptible and now annoying pellets as they passed a sign which said “Welcome to Hominidville.”
After supplying them with the precise number of inhabitants, they were also directed to some jewelry emporium, whose name was blurred by the dark and the rain in their eyes, as well as lettering which was apparently applied economically, with temporality and cost efficiency considerations in the most foremost of applicator minds.
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Hominidville welcome sign; property of the author.
Genevieve said; “Can you make out the name?”
Dillon said; “Doesn’t matter. We’re not stopping.”
They peered down the street to their left and had sufficient visibility to decipher buildings much larger than any in Poochville and hominids in the streets carrying and positioning their umbrellas where one might have reasonably expected a head. Inclement weather often necessitates adjustments which would not have been otherwise considered during the undetected luxury afforded by temporarily fair skies;
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reasonably misunderstood in a lack of notice of the slowly sliding scale tilted toward the optimistic young, and interpreted as current equals permanent.
Ezekiel, a long departed ancient hominid, saw what some have described as the wheel or a wheel within a wheel, when it is obviously what some would now describe as what a state-of-the-art camera might partially capture while mechanically simulating a “truth” within its limited precisional capabilities; that being of a still of an oscillating gyroscope, perhaps in the proximity of the beast; secondary vagueness regarding the observer and the observed intentional.
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The wheel next to a possible beast and “Ezekiel Saw the Wheel,” autot unknown; property of the author, the latter under both the “fair use,” “transformative, and “public domain” doctrines.
Indeed; right smack in the middle of the air. With difficulty and lack of certainty, Genevieve and Dillon thought that they might have seen it in the high horizon of Hominidville skies caused by the tall buildings. If there, the ambulatory hominids could not have seen it at all through their umbrellas.
This wasn’t really their fault, as they were attempting to adapt to inclement conditions not of their making, and perhaps there was nothing to see anyway.
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Hominidville in the rain; property of the author.
The predicted downpour had started with a drizzle at dusk, enhancing the chill left by the windy, overcast day.
Hominidville’s streets were occupied by black umbrellas with varying kinds of legs. They shared a short, quick stepped gait, the primary objective of most, being to avoid a collision with another umbrella. This was a necessity of survival as an errant step could cause an offended umbrella to angrily use its ending metal spokes to pierce the thin black skin of the clumsily inept, as one can never be sure if the effrontery was truly accidental, resulting in a loss of protection and an undesired soaking for both the overly aggressive game player seeking better “position” as well as the innocent inept fool; with few exceptions.
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Low, heavy, thundering black clouds rumbled in, dropping the anticipated two inches of water in an unanticipated five minutes. The umbrellas got off their paths and congregated in doorways with overhangs and shrunk, revealing heads that looked almost humanly frustrated. They looked nervously up and down the streets that had become quickly moving streams, annoyed that they were temporarily unable to keep up their busy schedules.
The eyes on the heads reflected its almost connected mind’s preoccupation with their delays and the sickening necessity of huddling close to others, not allowing them to notice that the curb and street’s moving water was washing away the prior two weeks’ foul garbage, as the paper cups, candy wrappers, and cigarette butts excitedly bounced on the impromptu streams, imitating joyful small boats, unaware that their destiny was to be in the whirlpool which led to a sewer abode.
Some of the heads looked up in disconsolation as if to absurdly opine in self-absorption; “God, when are you going to stop doing this to me?” The thunder seemed to boom a reply, but the heads couldn’t take any meaning from the noise. The skyscraper’s top floors were concealed, fully enveloped in the masses of dark condensation, happily affording a lack of visibility, in or out, for the penthouse umbrella heads.
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Just as suddenly the deluge had begun, the skies quickly resumed providing the more tolerable drizzle. Genevieve and Dillon shook off, in the process each spraying the other. As they had been previously soaked by the accumulation of the prior and now resuming drizzle, the net effect may not have been discernable to any of the lack of viewers.
Dillon smiled when he said; “Gotcha.”
Genevieve smiled when she said; “Gotcha back.”
Dillon said; “Uh oh. Here they come. Best we get on the other side of this fence.”
Genevieve said; “That’s trespassing.”
Dillon said; “Yup. It sure is. And the last time anyone got arrested for that was when Herbert Hoover was in office. Trust me. We’re much safer if we hop this little fence and walk on the other side for a while.”
Genevieve shrugged, trusted, and hopped.
Bumper to bumper, rude, loud, and smelly cars congested Genevieve and Dillon’s road. Yes, no mistake; their road, though they had temporarily abandoned it. Horns blared, though Genevieve and Dillon could not tell who, if anyone, they were trying to speak to. It was nothing like pooch language.
Neither could the blarers, as experience had taught them that they were allowed to bellow their displeasure, while the
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others were just as entitled not to have to listen. Effectively the old question of whether or not a tree falling unheard in the forest made any noise was finally settled. No without tuned ears available was consistent with no with ears which no longer heard. No. No. No. That is all.
Cars; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license, modified.
Dillon nudged Genevieve a bit further over to the side. He said; “Stay near the trees. They can’t hit us there without also wrecking their cars.”
Genevieve moved, but said; “Aren’t you being a bit harsh toward them?”
Dillon said; “Not at all. Just seeking safety.”
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Genevieve slipped, smiled and said; “I understand. That tour of duty in the Second Rogue River War had to have had some effects.”
Dillon said; “What are you talking about? I’ve never been in any war.”
Genevieve quickly said; “Okay.”
Dillon said; “What? Do you think that I snuck away one evening, had a war, and returned by morning?”
Genevieve again all too quickly said; “No, no. I don’t know what I was thinking. Must have been some dream or movie.”
Dillon insisted; “I can see that you really think that I did go to the Second Rogue River War. So, give me a few minutes and I’ll do my best to prove to you that I didn’t. The Second Rogue River War was entirely a hominid event. No pooches were required to attend.” He reached into her bag and used her smart phone intending to Wiki the war, but presumably because it was inconsequential by modern standards instead got directed to “The Oregon Encyclopedia” and an article written by F.A.
Schvatzbalder, PhD. Not overly annoyed at having to settle for a regional source, Dillon read to Genevieve in an even-handed, periodically mock professorial tone; saying;
“Rogue River War
The Second and final Rogue River War began early in the morning approximately twenty years ago today. Hard and fast lines are often difficult to draw, so the seemingly relative approximation is actually the subject of a more concrete thesis; dare I
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interject “fact.” This writer has chosen one of the plethora of those often associated with scholarly consensus; in this case that being the point at which the self-appointed volunteers attacked Native people in the Rogue River Valley.
“Volunteers” attack Native Americans; property of the author.
It, that being the War, as opposed to the river, volunteers, or Native people ended a year later with the removal of most of the Natives in southwestern Oregon to the Coast Reservation, to which they trudged under supervision, which later became the Siletz Reservation ostensibly as a result of embarrassment and the consequent desire to attempt to be surreptitious, much like the no-go zones and the off shore locations of the ‘terrorist’
prisons of today.
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Supervised Native Americans trudging; property of the author.
From 235 to 267 Native American people are thought to have been killed in the war, together with fifty soldiers, among them thirty-three volunteers and seventeen regular troops. By one account, Native Americans killed forty-four white civilians.
That is admittedly not a large number by 2018 standards, but at the time widely distributed gruesome photos of dead whites resulted in a loud call for “justice,” perhaps a small scale forerunner of TV dives into advocacy, rather than claimed un-biased reportage.
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Gruesome dead white with facial decay and discoloration; property of the author.
Before white hominid colonization, ninety-five hundred Native American people are said to have lived in the region where the Rogue River War was fought, including speakers of Takelman and Shastan languages to the east, that prevalent in the main Rogue River valley of present-day Josephine and Jackson Counties, and speakers of Athapascan languages were customary to the west and along the coast. Fewer than two thousand Native survivors were counted on the reservation at the war’s conclusion.
The hominids of the Rogue River Valley had a reputation for violence among themselves and other non-Natives, although trappers who killed Native people forty years prior were responsible for the first recorded deadly encounters with outsiders; perhaps suggestive of some violently perverse sort of equanimity. One could imagine them saying; ‘We don’t discriminate. We kill anyone and everyone.’ Travel on the trail through the valley to California increased later due to the Gold Rush, and tensions in the valley increased as well. Jacksonville was established in the Rogue River Valley after the discovery of gold on Jackson Creek.
Indiscriminating hominids at “play” with whoever was available; property of the author.
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Volunteer companies, a rash person might say vigilante, were again quickly organized after a series of violent exchanges. Two battalions commanded by Joseph Lane, territorial delegate to Congress, pursued Native people into rough country north of the Table Rocks. After volunteers made an assault, Native American leaders asked for negotiations; and Lane and “Indian Service”
superintendent Joel Palmer made treaties on September 8, that being ‘a treaty of peace’ and September 10 that for ‘cession and relinquishment’ of land. Native leaders sold roughly two thousand square miles to the hominid authorities and accepted a reservation of about one hundred square miles north of the Rogue River. It should be noted that this transaction occurred before laws requiring ‘consideration’ to both parties of a contract were enacted, and this may well be entirely irrelevant as it occurred in a territory rather than the United States proper, and also because the Natives had no attorney qualified to initiate any possible court proceedings.
Native Americans in the process of “negotiation”; property of the author.
Clashes in nearby Northern California in the summer and autumn, as well as agitation by rival politicians led to an anti-Native
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meeting in Jacksonville on October 7. Most of those present expressed approval of a plan put forward by the newly elected Democratic territorial representative, James A. Lupton, to exterminate Native people living off the reservation.”
Dillon editorialized a bit when he inserted; “Yes, exterminate was the precise word used. That is not a mistake of fact, hyperbole, or sloppy linguistics.”
He continued; “Early the next morning, seven parties of about 115 men set out to attack Native American camps. In those attacks, Lupton and another white man were mortally wounded, and ten more were injured in the initial assault. According to one report, forty Indians were killed in the first attack. One witness said half the dead were women and children.
First California “clash” not to be confused with a “wave”; property of the author.
Drought had put miners out of work in Oregon’s Rogue River Valley, and the prospect of being fed and eventually paid for joining volunteer vigilante groups may have encouraged men to take part in the attacks and subsequent war. Though killing as a means of survival is considered noble in the white world, it should also be noted that accounts of these hominids have already stated that they need no particular infraction, group,
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or reason to kill anyone; that action seemingly a non-discriminatory part of their ‘culture.’
Chief on the Table Rock Reservation, Toquahear, declined to fight. He and his followers were removed under military escort to the Grand Ronde Reservation in the northwest Williamette Valley. After the October massacre, many other Native people fled westward down the Rogue River, killing at least eighteen white people in the process. About fifty miles downriver, at the mouth of Galice Creek, they are said to have attacked a fortified mining camp described by some historians as ‘blocking their way,’ in the process burning down some of the miners’
shacks and killing four men.”
Dillon interjected; “It seems as if this account may well be correct and we will never be certain. But it does seem fair to point out that it assumes that there was only one path available to the Natives or that after seeking peaceful escape they developed a penchant to emulate non-discriminating, violent hominid behavior, and further; that they were sufficiently hot for battle to ‘choose’ to attack a position which was well-fortified. Sometime the word ‘DUH?????’ comes to mind, despite it being out of place in response to a scholarly offering; no matter how non-sensical the statement.”
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“Whaaa? You have just got to be kidding me.”; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0
license.
Dillon said; “Back to Schvatzbalder’s text; in late October, regular U.S. Army troops coming from the coast found the Natives’ hiding place near Grave Creek and, together with local volunteers, attacked them on the morning of October 31. In what became known as the Battle of Grave Creek Hills or the Battle of Hungry Hill, about four hundred troops are said to have taken part in the attack against seventy-five Natives, including many women and children. The troops charged into a canyon, became disorganized, and were driven back, with between eleven and thirty-five killed and mortally wounded. The troops and volunteers withdrew after Natives attacked their camp the next morning.”
Dillon again commented, saying; “The U.S. Army must have learned that it is best to let hiding Natives lie as they were capable of super abilities when aroused; hence the undefined ‘regulars,’
as opposed to the irregular and economically-challenged volunteers entirely backed off for slightly less than four months.”
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Super-hiding-man-disturbed; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license, modified.
Dillon said; “And after you swallow that one, on February 22 of the following year, a Native force, perhaps consisting of people involved in fighting upriver, at a battle no one can document, is said to have overwhelmed a volunteer camp near the mouth of the Rogue River. The town of Ellensburg, present day Gold Beach, and all of the dwellings between the Rogue River and Port Orford were burned, and hominid survivors fled to an improvised fort north of the river. In March, however, regular troops moving north from Crescent City, California, encountered little if any, Native resistance.
Robert Buchanan, commander of the regulars, camped at Oak Flat on the Illinois River, near its confluence with the Rogue. On May 20, leaders of the bands involved in the war conferred with him. Although Tecumtum refused to surrender, others promised to surrender their bands at Big Bend, downriver from the Meadows.
But on May 27, the commander at Big Bend, Capt. Andrew J.
Smith, noted followers of Tecumtum infiltrating and stirring up the people gathering there. In the late morning, they attacked his troops. Fighting continued until Smith was reinforced late the next afternoon. Buchanan reported eleven regulars killed. No one has ever noted the number of infiltrating Native casualties.
Insidious infiltration nipped in the bud under the cover of darkness; property of the author.
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Most of the Native American survivors of the ostensible ‘war’
were sent by steamboat from Port Orford to Portland and from there to the Grand Ronde Reservation in June. Tecumtum surrendered in late June, and his followers, along with two bands from the south coast, had to make the journey on foot.
Many of those sent north were moved to the mouth of the Salmon River on the coast and subsequently to the Siletz Agency on the Coast Reservation.”
Sunset; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license.
Having finished reading from Genevieve’s smart phone, Dillon added; “See? This writer is obviously using linguistics to make it sound as if the Native Americans were misbehaving by first defending their land and later having the audacity to peacefully leave the reservation they were relegated to. At the same time he is suggesting how understandable and fair it was that the white guys killed them. See, they weren’t really picking on the Native Americans as they were a violent people by nature and indiscriminately killed other hominids, including their own kind. Further, when the economy soured, it was again
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perfectly understandable why they took money from an un-named source to go whack Native Americans. The story could use some re-writing, but my point to you, on a factual basis, is that there was no pooch involvement whatsoever. If you ever again get into any of that psychological nonsense, I’m putting in my ear plugs. Who am I you furtively surmise and inquire? I’m a pooch in love with you who has never participated in any sort of war, and together we are off on a journey to find the source of the wind. That’s all. I love you. What else is needed?”
Genevieve said; “I love you too, just like that.”
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Maya Blue Dyad Layer-8
“Hi there bibliophiles, Genevieve again. This gets more complicated and simultaneously simpler simple than I’d like to try to explain. This other hominid writer, that PhD guy, F.A.
Schvatzbalder, is probably not wrong in a manner in which any particular word, phrase, sentence, or paragraph may be wrong.
That would be easy to detect. In fact, in his opening, he cleverly leads the reader into a false sense of security. Yet later, very clearly this gives every evidence of being the work of a semi-skilled technician with an agenda; that being of anti-Native American origin. It would seem that he has much company in sentiment. It is an easy ploy, often used by grammar school students, to influence reader opinion through the inclusion of some convenient facts, and the exclusion of certain inconvenient others. In this respect the writer is entirely on the surface, telling the story from an extremely biased hominid point of view only, and despite the short term allusions to convincing
“accuracy,” he is in the totality of the broader view extremely misleading, to say it in the kindest way I can imagine. Lying or misrepresentation may be more correct terms. The linguistics utilized are a more surreptitious approach to fulfilling his agenda. I think Dillon said something like that. I’d really rather not even think about it. I find it depressing on a couple of levels. The reader is on their own; sort of not; their call.
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Guess I should have warned the reader ahead, but I didn’t know about it until it was over.”
Jimi Hendrix got his dream in 1968; his own recording studio. “Electric Ladyland” included this.
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Traffic jam and “Crosstown Traffic” by Jimi Hendrix; property of the author, the latter under both the “fair use” and “transformative” doctrines.
Just like that.
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Rose Tinted Triptych Glass- 3
Current Pacific Lane Mementos
As yet undetected by his companion, Pablo watched how his newish roommate, Rufus, was perusing many comic books, and had them all over the floor. He wasn’t overly surprised because as a result of purchases made at the spring Poochville or Pacific Lane somewhat misnomered “carnival,” Pablo had added many comic books to his library, and it was just a matter of time before Rufus chose to investigate the new arrivals. Like the “lumber yard” section at Home Depot, there previously were a few of the easily bendable softies which were previously and still present, largely the result of some silly insecurity regarding
“completeness,” but now they were joined by some yet-to-be-read entrees of the “pop,” some would incorrectly say “post-modern,”
“garbage” or “self-indulgent-garbage” sort. In their defense, at least they came in shy of one thousand six hundred sixty-six pages and were priced at a nickel, “used with some minor damage,” sometimes a colloquialism in possession of a fluid meaning which had successfully done an entire one eighty in less than a decade.
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Pablo; property of the author.
Being rather new to the various genres of literature; thereby innocent of any possible pre-dispositions toward the ersatz “garbage,” Rufus, had been attracted to the garish covers. In fact, he was so attracted, that he had actually been compelled to peruse a few interiors, and intended to soon go further in a few special cases.
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Rufus; property of the author.
For his part, Pablo felt that ther is just no way that one can just ignore Gaiman and fancy one’s self as literarily complete. That was a safe way to make his case. But, there was much more to it for those not imprisoned by a tradition of hard covers and writers sufficiently gifted to have attained a graduate degree granted somewhere in the scholarship cradle often overly simplistically referred to as otherwise seldom mentioned Iowa.
Pablo was absolutely certain that had the hard covers’ any knowledge of his widening transgression, those very same ersatz literary purists would at the least be aghast, and in abstract theoretics; fringing upon the revolutionary. Certainly a stroll which did not move in the direction of both Vollman and Gass was the equivalent of a world traveller’s deficiency in not having
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made a stop in Guyana. Though some reasonably competent bookish parodists and irony-cysts, insofar as that distinction alone grants tentative admission to any of a number of chronic and prestigious wet raspberry clubs, would invariably adopt their standardized party line in an attempt to maintain status within their chosen nirvana, no doubt citing the deficiencies of all comic books accompanied by their sacrilegious predilections for pictures at the expense of the complete beauty of a bevy of literarily worshipped words; such a stance was of absolutely no interest to Pablo, as he would never have to suffer the un-extracted slurp of their missing teeth. Nor did he quite buy into the thinly veiled advertising which blurbed the uniquely grand “taste” and “intelligence” dispensed by a group less in stature and size than Camden Yards, NJ; yet contradictorily disdainful of best sellers in interminable verbiage, while simultaneously conspiring within their circle of the
“underground” to find a “hit,” the absurdity, a vicious mongrel might say stupidity, of that apparently visible only to select others.
That is not any sort of overstatement relevant only to the less enlightened pre-1950’s contingent of the contented US
hominids. Having always been a book lover, Pablo’s unstated comparison was designed to err on the side of generosity. Pablo was also certain that such people would never have a view of his
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library; and if stealth coupled with micro surveillance equipment had provided them such an opportunity, their opinions would continue to be merely a source of humor for Pablo as it would also inevitably be more of an advertisement of their personal shortcomings rather than that of his library.
The effectiveness of any spurious anger attribution to this distillate dispassionate definitely domesticated diatribe was effectually countered with the addition of Rufus to Pablo’s household. What existed of an irony-cysm was that Rufus didn’t agree with him at all regarding this matter; and that only served to be a constant source of jokes, after Rufus’
understandable initial overly vulnerable neediness demonstration wore off. Pablo actually missed that now as he considered it cute.
If desired, further insight into this “psychological”
dynamic may be gleaned in the books written by some hominid who called himself Dr. Phil. But, those who can simply use their common sense to understand that there are just some things in which one is totally disinterested, further edification is not necessary; indeed not even possible. It may be akin to being characterized as a cockroach fanatic as a result of twice having used an old shoe to speed the departure of the bantam and trivial nuisance from one’s home.
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Rufus detected Pablo’s presence and said; “Got a bad start today. I was attracted to the pretty cover of “Night Time,” and quickly found that despite allegations to the contrary, Mr. Gass was totally ineffective at using words to change anything. I suppose it might have been amusing if viewed as an unintentional parody, but I don’t feel mean spirited this morning.”
Pablo said; “You took the words right out of my mouth,”
“Night Time”; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license. modified.
after a brief self-mocking faux jocular pause adding; “and I see that perhaps as a result of the gaseous exasperation, you’ve
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been hurling the comics all over the place.”
One comic; property of the author.
Rufus excitedly told Pablo; ”It was the product of unexpected exhilaration! ’Terror in the Penthouse’ contained a few memorable lines. ‘Never pass up the chance to make a bad situation worse,’ and ‘I risked life and limb to reach for the golden ring only to find out that it was made of brass.’”
Pablo actually laughed and was surprised that he was somewhat impressed, though simultaneously realizing that his
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mirth and impression were no doubt a function of his fading, yet recalled lack of expectations; a relative thing. He said; “I’ll have to take a look at that one. What else do you have there?”
Two comics; property of the author.
Rufus said; “I may have wasted time with the French one, but ‘Leary’ had ‘Hominids foolishly seek to regain memories when their happiness would be better served by remembrance eradication’ and ‘Social science actually means re-programming in order to produce the robot of THEIR choice.’ Do you think that applies to pooches as well?”
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Pablo cleared his throat which required none, and said; “I think I’ll have to re-visit Jung and Skinner. In the meantime let’s go on to the next ones. You have quite a pile there; or perhaps I should call it a standoff of some sort.”
Many comics side by side; property of the author.
Rufus said; “Yes. Yes. These are primarily about super heroes. It’s a bit like Sanderson, though mercifully much more brief; AND WITH PICTURES. You know the routine. Problem, good guy use his super gift to fix it, pre-feminist I guess. Kind of boring. What made you buy these?”
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“Hominid collector’s go for this stuff and I got them cheap. Gotta make a buck once in a while. You might be interested to know that later super hero stuff goes a bit meta.
Like when Superman fixes one problem he simultaneously causes another.”
Rufus said; “Guess it keeps the story going without the writer having to be overly creative.”
“My young reader thinks like a writer.”
Many ersatz comics arranged in a haphazard fashion; property of the author.