Short Fuse, No Fuse

Sometimes, when I’m sitting up in the oak tree at the hour in which all the young families of suburbia take their walks- I see him. A family parade walks by- A mom, stroller in tow, a dad juggling a red radio flyer in one hand, the golden retriever in another, and up ahead, the five year old who wants to embark upon a solo adventure- and as soon as they round the corner the front door of his house slams and the porch railing rattles. He staggers angrily down the front walk, his lips muttering something beneath his scragilly graying beard. Chasing behind him, his mean old sidekick- the scroungy mutt.
And following this muttering episode, he hops into his truck, the brown dog beating him to the driver’s seat. Yet, as he swings open the car door, he knows best to move for his master. Door slams closed, dented truck putters away.

He returns ten minutes later; nothing in hand. He’s stopped his muttering, and he goes back inside. However, ol’ sidekick doesn’t seem to be quite as cooled off. Instead, he lies in the middle of the street, and even though they are cloudy, I can still see the mean in his eyes.

Five minutes and the man comes storming out down the walkway again- yelling audible obscenities at the dog. He doesn’t seem scared- rather, expecting. Yet- instead of slinking back into the house he walks back over toward the truck parked up against the front curb and waits for the guy to open the door. Again, into the drivers seat, he moves when necessary, and they drive off once again. And come back empty handed.

It seems what life is all about.

Blessed Compulsion

"Blessed Day." she says
Not once
not twice
or even the usual thrice,

but as many times as she can possibly fit it in so that atleast one effort is heard.
I wonder if it's compulsive- like how I have to look behind me three times everytime I walk the main road. She says it whenever she ends a sentence in her long goodbye speeches- like she never knows when exactly shes going to walk out the door but just to be safe for the emergency that its before the next sentence, and extra hearty "blessed day" is tacked on the end of the current one.

But what exactly is so blessed about this day? Or the day she said it last week. And of course so- on. Nothing I can imagine, as I'm thumbing through piles, and piles of powder blue insurance papers and making sure they get in the right folder under the right name- that is, if the folder is even to be found under the dim light of the cramped and dusty record haven.
And it seldom is.
Which is why this day is indeed not blessed. Nor this task.

What could she be thinking?

As she talks to the receptionist up front, the conversation is muddled with the awkward placements of her "Oh dear"s and "oh blessed weekend" in all the wrong places at all the wrong times. I can practically see the imagined weight of the world on her shoulders, hovering, demanding another awkward phrase to prove her a lovely person as I spy from behind the file room door. As of this week I can mouth these phrases at all their wrong times in the way shes become so predictable.

She sounds dizzy- in the way the lady down the street sounds dizzy as she calls hello yet sounds as if shes already gone on to the invisible person behind you for another pointless conversation.

But maybe I judge too quickly. She could quite possible really mean it.
But then- what is so blessed about having to return the same time next week, and next week- and well you know.

Votes for Sainthood I suppose.