Evil’s Glaze
An overhead bell announces my entrance. I cross the 1970's linoleum slabs that checkerboard the entrance. The spinning blades of a rickety fan force the air's sticky scent into my nostrils. A tall, zit-encrusted boy glares. He pulls his hands from behind his green apron and points to the flashing red sign in the window.
"Hot, Ma'am?" he says.
His plastic name tag claims he is Assistant Manager. His arms dangle above the glass display case. I try to keep his gaze, but my eyes roll down like an old chevy falling off a cliff, coming to rest in a wake of mangled parts and smoke.
And there they are. Shiny metal sheets oozing glaze covered donuts.
Hope Turns...
I heard him first. The heel of his left shoe dragging.
Clop-scrape
Clop-scrape
Clop.
He hobbled around to face me, then collapsed in the chair. I lunged forward, thinking he might topple back, but he caught himself and settled in.
I couldn't stop staring. He balanced his bad leg atop his good knee. He slurped dribble that seeped from his swollen lip.
"No worries," he said, slapping his perched knee. He winced. "They say I'll be back in the race in another month or too."
I doubted him. I always do.
"You can't go back in looking like that," I said
He let his head fall back, his parted lips revealed a chipped front tooth.
"What did I do to you?" I leaned forward to stand.
"Don't," he motioned me down. "Your turn."
"For what?" I said.
"You," he said, pointing a frail finger in my direction, "fight for me."
The Memoirditorium
I'd build a 1200-seat theatre; gold embossed ceiling, plush seats that slope down so you could see everything on stage no matter how big the lady's hair in front. I'd install an amazing sound system. You could hear whispers. I'd hang floor-to-ceiling velvet drapes trimmed in gold.
I'd host workshops for families, coworkers, schools, clubs, or strangers. I would be their guide, as they write their musical...about them. The poems, prose, pain, dance, songs, hallelujahs, handclaps, and foot-stomps...all of it.
They could invite everyone they know to come and see their Musical-of-Me. Styles galore: Belfry-be-bop, post-modern, heel-clicking, rock-opera, girl-at-piano. No limits.
There might be three people in the audience, or maybe there would be so many that we'd have to run that show for an entire month so everyone could see it. But someone would always be there. Someone wants to see their story. Everyone's got a story. They matter.
Blueberry clue...
There once lived a girl. She was smart, tall and she loved to laugh. Each night, she spent hours, under the covers reading Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew books. More than anything, she wanted to solve the mystery before the last page. She wished she was as smart as Encyclopedia or Nancy.
"Why didn't I know to look for blueberry stained teeth after someone says they ate a whole pie?"
But she could never see all the clues until the mystery was solved.
The same year that the girl read about the blueberry clue, was the same year she ate blueberry muffins for the first time. They were warm and soft, and very delicious.
She would wait until each boy and girl, sitting at the tiny round table had a muffin, then she would slowly peel back the paper and run her tongue across the muffin top, hoping she could taste the blueberries from the outside. She knew that once she bit into it, it would soon be gone. So she bit into it, and like she imagined, it was gone. Every crumb, down her tummy.
After snack, the teacher pulled up a tiny chair at sat with them. She had a big book open in her lap. She told a story about a man who loved the outdoors and wore sandals and a robe, even outside the house. Then she told them that he had died, but he wasn't dead anymore. She said he knew the little girl, and he had a gift for her.
She liked gifts.
The teacher said that the little girl could tell the man about the stuff she was worried about, like the time she stole a Twinkie from the lunch cubby and told the principal a bold faced lie about Bobby Whittaker doing it. He got whooped bad that day.
The teacher said that the man wanted to forgive her for everything bad she had ever done, and she didn't have to be scared about it because, whatever punishment the girl deserved, he would take it for her. She had never known anyone willing to take a punishment for someone else. Why in the world would anyone do that?
The teacher said the man in the robe wanted her to live in paradise with a bunch of other people who loved her, forever and ever and ever. And nobody would ever be sad in that place.
The girl took the gift that day, but she didn't open it. Like the blueberry stories, she didn't see the clues yet.
Being an atheist is simply...to be.
When everyone else is tormented, spending decades seeking out some great being, some meaning to all of this, looking for origin, I'm content. What I see and come to know, is all there is. I guess some people are born to seek, and others are born to know. Like some apples are green. Do you ask them what it's like to be?