The sober gentleman drove home in reverse. When he arrived, the hole in his lot between a modified taupe Ranch and a traditional pale yellow Ranch had begun its tentacle-waving grab at the chilly air. Do I live here? the gentleman inquired of himself, soberly. Like a gust he hissed I do. The way it flails and reaches, he continued to explore, it certainly has touched my wife already, my family. The good work car strained to continue in the opposite direction, against a bleeding foot squishing in a work boot. I love her, them. I must save them.
The gentleman disowned sobriety in a desperate act, allowed his vehicle to pick up speed. Rode the ribbon of road out of midnight's bright yarn box, through harvest brown stoic freeze and sink of oven. Whipping these mesa'd flatlands he might as well have been motoring in the right direction. The monk-specks in the mountains looked the same, coming or going. If the gentleman wasn't wasted, he might have stopped for a spot of no-talking. Which he had nonetheless, his communication required not another. Articulation left before him, behind him, the value of the no-longer sober gentleman was now measured by how alien his thought was. For what do we have? What might we rely upon but our differences, even unto ourselves, saith the Whooey.
My handsome wife, my wedding kids, snug between the Ranches - what will become of them? Now that I have disappeared into what was where will they go? They have everywhere to go, saith the Telephone-Guru, the Tinkling-Dreamcatcher, the Internal-Combustion-Shoulder-Pat. Be not a-Fred, or a-Bill, or an orator. The wasted gentleman continued testifying his satisfying Yabba Dabba Doo sans As and Os. I must save them, Ybb Dbb D Ybb Dbb D. His speedometer still too promising, he floored it in reverse on the straightaway. His bloody foot was singing, dry now and crackling. Go man go, chanted the sacred jackrabbits. Yes Yes, hissed the cool lizards.
Just before he ran out of gas many miles away from his lot, and the promising massage of dark tentacles had whipped away his wife, had said Now now to his children and watched them as they slept, the tired hungover gentleman's red eyes fell upon a glorious hitchiker. She paced and joked to herself, half-carrying her lot. She wasn't going forwards or backwards, just pacing. The glowing gentleman said Hop in, and she did. The car faced west, motionless and their sunsets were now balanced.
The next day the gas came and the car drove away. Where is our lot? the glorious hitchiker cooed. It is over there, saith the Sparkling Wheel. Way over there.
� 2004 by john e
