Another One Skates The Dust

Years ago, the twins went to Skateland and Ender broke his wrist. Tonight, Skateland got the other one. Remy broke his fibia. He's feeling okay, and is home with a splint. They'll slap a cast on him later. No surgery needed, which is nice. Them leg bones are tricksy. 

I'm ready for bed. Not sure why I end up in bed at a reasonable time on the weekends, then stay up too late during the work week. 

I'll put on an audiobook and drift off. Let the words mix into my own thoughts until that's all I can taste, like too much banana in a smoothie. 

Goodnight. 

Hilltop

Perched precarious, on the only hill in this town

Ask me to come down 

As if I had a choice 

Shooting stars are space debris 

Mostly falls into the ocean

That's where most Earth trash ends up too 

A composition of detritus and coincidence 

Some interstellar lazy art project

Perched precarious, craning to see further 

Allowing myself to enjoy every sunset 

With no expectations 

It's not hope, exactly 

It's not as if I had a choice

Except, if I did, I suspect I'd be perched here anyway 

Shooting stars strike the Earth every day

Seems like nobody ever gets hit 

Okay maybe a couple people have

But it's not us 

Jaded Noir Detective Chronicles: Extended Analogies

Sometimes I feel like God's unwanted pet hamster, waiting in my cage and hoping for him to toss in a cardboard toilet paper tube once in a while. Sometimes, maybe even a paper towel tube. 

He hasn't cleaned out our cage in a long time. The hanging water bottle is too close to the food bowl, and some of the seeds from the medley have started to sprout. It's nice to see something growing in this place. 

The paper-based bedding has no nutrients, and the seedlings will die once their energy reserves are used up. 

Only mushrooms thrive in corpses.

The metal ball inside goes clack-clack-clack as I sip from my hanging whiskey bottle. I only drink a little. I've got a case to work on. Somebody lost an entire week. 

This could be a tough one. Better have another sip. 

haunted houses

Haunted houses were more common, back then. I think it was because in the generation before electric lighting, houses used gas. 

Burning gas gives off waste products. Most importantly, carbon monoxide. This stuff can make you lethargic, paranoid, and can even cause hallucinations of voices and visions. 

Also, ghosts love the stuff. If you've got a carbon monoxide leak, that's like putting out catnip, but for ghosts. 

Jaded Noir Detective Chronicles: The Chihuahua Chase

As I was driving home yesterday, a Chihuahua was running back and forth across the street. I sighed, stopped the car, and started to step out. Another car also stopped and a woman got out. I felt a little bit of hope. 

Working together, we tried to corral the dog. He darted down the easement, a wide dirt access road that runs beneath the massive steel power lines bisect my neighborhood. 

I jumped back into my car and sped around to cut the dog off. Opal (the woman's name turned out to be Opal) chased the dog on foot. 

The dog cut across the street and into the next part of the easement before I got there. Opal jumped into my car and we raced to the next one. This time I jumped out and cornered the dog. He juked past me and I gave chase. I yelled at Opal to take my car and meet me at the end of the alley. She did, and I chased the dog this time. At the end of the alley was a dead-end, and we were sure we had him now. But no, as we pincered him into a corner, he slipped through this tiny space where a block wall met a wooden fence, and he was gone into someone's back yard. That person had metal fencing on the other side and the Chihuahua easily slipped through and was gone. 

Opal and I trudged back through the dusty alley back to my car and I drove her back to her car. I thanked her for her help, we introduced ourselves, and then said goodbye. We hadn't succeeded but at least we tried. 

My house is on the corner, and this morning as I pulled out to work, that Chihuahua was lying there on the opposite corner by the stop sign. Looks like he'd been hit by a car. My sister had already called Animal Control so there was nothing else I could do for the dog. He was running through traffic in heaven now, being chased by a choir of angels.

She practiced a sort of manic, extrovertive, non-theistic, panenhenic mysticism. It was frustrating and hilarious 

You'd be struggling with some dire situation or moral dilemma, and then she'd appear out of nowhere, holding out a heavy ceramic plate with a huge chunk of honeycomb for your morning tea, or a slice of quiche delicately wrapped in waxed paper origami, beautiful and needlessly elaborate. 

Conversation would come easily, until she said some odd phrase that completely caught you off-guard because it was the answer to a question you hadn't thought to ask 

And it would be the solution to what had been vexing your soul when you had first put the kettle on for tea, or your stomach had begun to growl.  

She was frustrating in the way it might feel if you somehow were to suddenly realize you were just a character in someone else's funny story. Playing your part, only existing during the telling, fading away with the laughter. 

Which is ridiculous, because of course you're real; you're right here reading/writing this. 

Still, to know that the answers existed, and that someone could reach them, but that someone wasn't you....

Frustrating and hilarious. 

But damn that's good quiche.