Driving a Computer

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It’s been sixty-eight years since I started driving legally, and in that time I’ve owned or co-owned twenty-five cars, the first of which was a used Corvair, a disaster on wheels.

For most of those years, we were a two-car family, although no longer. Our latest new car, a Mazda CX30 (which, given my age, may well be our last new car), is a virtual computer on wheels.

I was always a good driver, but never one who understood how to service or maintain my cars. I was able to change a flat tire (once I mastered how to work the jack!); I could refill the windshield washer reservoir; I knew how to check the dipstick and add oil when needed (though I never understood those 5W30 and 10W30 numbers); I even mastered the art of jumpstarting another car with the red and black cables connected correctly!

But I never understood terms like crankshaft, manifold, differential, torque, or gear-ratio. And to this day, I cannot explain the difference between carburetor and fuel-injector. Whenever I encountered a problem at that level, I called a tow-truck!

I am much the same with computers. My first was an IBM PCjr, purchased (perhaps portentously) in 1984. I mastered the art of writing my stories on it after I learned the critical significance of the SAVE key, but I am hard-pressed to explain the difference between hardware and software. My explanation runs along the lines of: the hardware is the thing itself, and the software is what’s inside it.

I write these days on a laptop that is linked in some mysterious fashion to my smartphone and tablet, allowing me to write drafts on the first and edit them on the latter two. I even know how to transfer those edited versions back to the laptop (although finding them is sometimes a problem!). This piece you are reading has successfully transited the gulf.

At some point after 1984, I graduated to Microsoft Windows (which, I was told, was similar to the Apple iOS operating system, neither of which I fully grasped). I’m now at the point where I understand that android systems are anything that isn’t Apple. As far as computers go, I suspect I may be an idiot-savant, minus the second part.

Aside from using computers for my writing, the best part of using them has been the social media aspect. It’s not as if I’m a slavish devotee of online communities, scrolling my way through my senior years, for I am not. After all, my password is nofriends, for I have none other than immediate family online. And I long ago abandoned the toxicity of the tweeting fraternity and other dark areas of the web.

But it is a joy to be able to see our children and grandchildren online when we are physically far apart. I am in daily contact with my three sisters through text messaging, and I feel I know their far-flung families in a way I would otherwise not. We have friends of bygone years we are no longer able to visit with in person, either because of distance or frailty, but with whom we are in regular contact through emails and face-to-face online conversations.

I remember my parents telling me how, as they aged, their world grew smaller. For me, the opposite is true. Thanks to my computer, my world has expanded, even if vicariously to some extent.

My parents, who lived into the first decade of this century, were not tech-savvy, and never owned a computer or smartphone. My mother, distrustful of technology, used the microwave in her Florida home as a breadbox. My father thought it a miracle when they purchased a Panasonic cordless phone that allowed him to pace the room as he talked without tripping on a tangled cord! And neither of them ever rode in a car that talked to them.

Our new car talks to us, though. She talks non-stop, as a matter of fact, through her pleasantly-modulated, AI female voice, and communicates via any number of buzzers, beeps, chimes, and dings. She also connects effectively with us on a large, dashboard-mounted computer screen (a touch-screen, no less!), and via a covert CarPlay link that allows me to use my smartphone for a number of tasks. I can actually start the engine before I am anywhere near the car, although I’ve yet to figure out why I’d want to.

Miracle of miracles, I never get lost anymore while driving. And I’m never late arriving anywhere. If I follow the instructions of Siri, our silken-voiced guide (whom we have yet to rename), I am sure to arrive to my destination. My father, who used to curse the endless unfolding and refolding of those old paper maps, would be gobsmacked!

I am, too! For, just as I have never understood how my cars actually work or how my computers actually function, I am mystified how they have come together so seamlessly. It astounds me that, rather than buying this latest car, we could have acquired a self-driving one that would ferry us to and fro (rendering me obsolete, as it were!). I confess I would balk at that, distrusting the technology just as my mother did with her microwave.

I receive continuous updates and alerts on my smartphone now pertaining to this new car. And if anything is amiss when the car is parked somewhere (an unlocked door, for example, an interior light left on, or a tire losing pressure), I am notified immediately. It really is quite reassuring in a way—although I do have recurring misgivings from that great movie, 2001, where HAL is talking to Dave in such comforting, dulcet tones even as he plots his destruction.

Surely, Siri seeks simply to solve our issues. Or so I suppose.

In any case, we are comfortably acclimatized already to this computerized car’s cocoon of comfort and safety in which we’re ensconced on our road-trips. We are virtually assured that nothing will go wrong. Still, true to my ever cautious nature, I do have a back-up plan, just in case.

I do remember how to call a tow-truck!

The Allure

This story placed sixth out of 500+ entries in the 2026 Florida Weekly Writing Challenge. Based on this picture prompt, it had to be no more than 750 words.

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“What’s them flowers for?”

“A chica bonita. What’s it to you?”

“Nothin’, amigo. Don’t get steamed! Who’s the chica?”

“Nobody you know, tio.”

Carlos glanced at the sign behind his nephew, Allure Showgirls. “This chica work there?” he asked, jerking his thumb at the building.

“What if she does?”

“So, maybe I do know her. I been there, know lotsa them peelers. What’s this chica’s name?”

“Miranda. And she ain’t no peeler! She’s a…whaddya call it…exotic dancer.” Ramon’s face was red as he tried to explain.

Carlos laughed, a phlegmy rasp erupting from between stained teeth clenching the plastic tip of his cigarillo. “You got a lot to learn, niño pequeño! Your madre know you out here, makin’ like a greasy taco?”

“I ain’t no greasy taco! An’ I ain’t no little boy, neither! Miranda an’ me are…y’know, inamorata.”

Tossing the cigarillo stub away, Carlos wiped his bewhiskered cheek with a beefy hand. “Ramon, you damn-sure bitin’ off more’n you can chew, amigo. Them chicas in there, they don’t love nothin’ but money! Dinero americano!”

“Not Miranda! Her an’ me are sympatico!”

Carlos spat on the ground, wiped his mustache, then pointed at the building. “Okay, amigo, you ever been inside there?”

“Not yet. So what? It’s a gen’lmen’s club.”

“That so? An’ you think you’re a gen’lman now, on account of this raindancer told you so? Where’d you meet her, anyways?”

“None of your business!” Ramon exclaimed. A moment later, he added, “What’s a raindancer?”

Carlos laughed again. “Boy, you a bebé en el bosque, y’know that? Only a babe in the woods don’t know it means a stripper you throw money at.”

Ramon thrust his chin to within inches of his uncle’s face. “I already told you, Miranda ain’t no stripper!”

Changing tack, Carlos said, “Them flowers are for her, right? She know you’re comin’?”

Shuffling his feet, Ramon replied, “It’s a s’prise. She told me she starts at five.” Glancing at his phone, he said, “I gotta go, catch her before she goes on.”

“I know this chica, Carlos said.  “I seen her perform more’n once, okay? When she gets near that pole, she don’t go on! She goes off, know what I mean! She’s la bomba!”

Ramon looked uncertain. “Yeah, okay…but that’s good, right?”

“Yeah, it’s good, amigo, but dancin’s not all she does. All them peelers hafta get up close an’ personal with whatever pervertida flashes the dinero. Miranda ain’t what you think she is, Ramon! An’ she sure as hell ain’t your inamorata!”

Ramon stared silently at the flowers in his hand for a moment.

Carlos almost felt sorry for him. “Where’d you an’ her meet, anyways?”

“Church.”

“Church?” Carlos echoed. “Miranda?”

“Yesterday,” Ramon nodded. “We finished makin’ confession in diff’rent booths an’ walked out together. I told her I thought she was espléndida, which she is. An’ that’s when she told me she’s an exotic dancer.”

“She tell you she works at a strip club?” Carlos asked, pointing again to the building, still amazed Miranda had been to church. “You know that’s what Allure Showgirls is, right? Check their website.”

“I didn’t know where she worked, but I followed her from the church. Decided I’d come back today, bring her flowers.”

“You’re tellin’ me she came to work here right after confession yesterday?”

“Yeah, so? Dancers can go to church, too!”

“I know, I know, but…”

“Listen, tio, I really wanta see her again, give her these here flowers. Even if it’s true what you say, her an’ me might, y’know…”

“Ramon, the chica is at least forty years old! Older’n your mama! She ain’t gonna have nothin’ to do with a seventeen year old chico! Not even if you got mucho dinero!”

Smiling guiltily, Ramon said, “I told her I was twenty-two.”

As he spoke, a black car pulled into the lot behind them, mufflers growling. When they turned to look, they saw Miranda climb out, accompanied by a slender, muscular man in a white, linen suit. Heading for the club, he had his hand clasped firmly on her buttocks, boldly visible in her short shorts.

After they disappeared inside, Ramon looked at his uncle. Carlos said nothing. With a shrug of his shoulders, Ramon tossed the flowers to the asphalt.

“Let’s go get a cerveza, tio! I ain’t in the mood for Miranda no more. I guess the…whaddya call it…the allure is gone! Desapareció!”

I Am Waterfall

This is a piece I recently submitted to a writing contest, responding to the picture of a woman and man near a waterfall.

I have been here ever since, I shall be here evermore, crashing from River above to Pool below, a lagoon I have carved into Rock at my feet. I have no name, but I am eternal, persistent, and powerful—what the two-legged creatures who come to witness call Waterfall. 

I am never still, always dashing and splashing, spraying foam on granite walls seeking vainly to contain me. My colour changes constantly, chaotically, from green to ebony. As I fall, I throw off clouds of mist—wet, wraithlike wisps that first seek the sky, then drift and look to hide until, discovered by Sun’s relentless rays, surrender to the light that banishes such elusive phantoms from his gaze.

I speak no language, but am heard by any who choose to listen. The thunder of my precipitous plunge to Pool is overpowering, rendering all around me mute. Waves ebb to ripples, spreading across Pool’s surface in incessant arcs, caressing her furthest, moss-lined shore more gently than ever I could.

In darkness of Night, I am invisible, save for a gentle luminescence belying the pitiless power driving me. But I am never silent, and I do not sleep.

In light of Day, I cast beauteous bows of colour spanning the spectrum into the air as Sun awakes to turn trees of green to gold. Pool traps their images in her mirrored mere, quicksilver and cold, and her surface reflects Sun back to bluing sky above, a demonic diamond-dance of light atop the waves.

The two-legs have come forever to marvel at my might and menace. They came first in animal-skins, clutching spears; then in helmet and breastplate, grasping swords; more recently in camouflage, wielding guns. They come still, clad mostly in thin strips of colourful cloth that shield them from each other’s greedy gaze. But unfailingly, they gape at me with awe.

There is one in front of me right now, on Pool’s far shore, one of those the two-legs call Woman, her arms raised in obeisance, eyes agog, nostrils flared, ears cocked—all her senses fiercely attuned to the freak of nature I am. Her companion, a creature they call Man, picks his way across the rocky shore to fetch the little device they hold in front of them to record my presence, to memorialize my magnificence.

It is as if they think I can be captured, contained, conjured later for their puerile pleasure.

As if!

In fact, I have captured many of them, a truth that has never dissuaded others from approaching too closely. They speak of finding a way to peek behind my watery curtain, wondering what mysteries I hide from view. They dip their toes in Pool’s shiny water, sorely tempted to savour her silky caress. I simply watch and wait, and when they succumb to ambitions beyond their capabilities, they succumb to me.

More two-legs than I care to count lie atop Rock on Pool’s murky bottom, perfectly preserved by her icy-cold water, too deep to be disturbed by the currents that stir her upper levels. I feel no guilt, for it is the two-legs’ hubris that ensnares them, not I.

Even now, seemingly oblivious to the danger, Woman is coming closer, her long hair drenched by the spray I toss off. She picks her way carefully across the slippery surface of the shoreline, alternately glancing down to ensure her footing, then up at me, enraptured by my grandeur.

Man reappears, clutching his device, motioning Woman ever closer. She stops to pose, moves nearer, poses again. Her body is glistening-wet now, she is shivering slightly, but still she comes on. And then, as so many others have before her, she slips on Rock, teeters precariously, then falls into my churning maw. Her screams of terror are lost in the pounding roar of my majesty.

Man drops his device, rushes forward, slips and trips, picks himself up, madly throws himself into Pool, thrashes his way towards me, frantic to get to where Woman sank from view, irretrievably gone. And then, with no warning, he, too, is taken.

Although they will not be found, I know others will eventually come in search of these latest foolish victims, and as ever, I await them. I feel no remorse, for I am but a force of nature—uncaring, ordained to do what I do, unimpeded by reckless, feckless two-legs.

I am Waterfall. 

The Physics of Music

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More years ago than I care to count, I took my one and only high school physics class. I was overwhelmed.

In fairness, so was the poor teacher. He spoke with an accent, and his most oft-uttered plea was, “Please-a! You have-a to pay attention-a!”

Needless to say, most of us did not. Unlike many of my peers, I was never a prime disruptor of high school classes, most of which I enjoyed, but I was definitely one of those not paying much attention in physics class.

As I recall, we all passed the course. But I’m sure some of us, myself included, were awarded a passing grade by that teacher only to ensure he would not have to face us again in the following semester.

In the threescore-and-five years since then, I have learned—first to my chagrin, eventually to my delight—that it is the laws of physics that govern the universe we inhabit, and everything in it. Alas, I really should have paid more attention.

The physics of music is one example. One of my favourite pastimes while writing, reading, driving—pretty much anything—is listening to music. I enjoy big band arrangements, ‘40s swing, ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll, ragtime and stride piano, to name a few genres. But my preferred music from quite a young age has been the classical repertoire—opera overtures, ballet scores, symphonies, sonatas, piano concertos, and the like. When engaged in passive pursuits today, I am rarely without airpods stuck in my ears.

This fondness for the classical catalogue was ingrained early by my father, who would join me and my younger brother to listen to radio broadcasts in our bedroom as we were falling asleep. On occasion, Dad was asleep before we were, but that didn’t spoil our enjoyment. His favourite piece was the Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin, by Richard Wagner, which opened the weekly broadcast of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

My brother’s favourite was Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky, while I delighted to the stirring, operatic overtures by Giacomo Rossini. To this day, I relish listening to their rollicking sounds.

So, imagine my surprise when I recently discovered in an online podcast that sounds, of whatever type, regardless of origin, make no noise. Sound, I learned, is silent. In space, in our earthly atmosphere, everywhere.

Everywhere, that is, except in our brains. And that is where physics enters the picture, confounding me yet again.

Without our brains, I’m now led to believe, we would hear not even the loudest sound. Mind you, without brains we would be conscious of nothing, so that does make sense. But until recently, I never realized that the very best music ever composed by Mozart, Joplin, Count Basie, Dylan, Kristofferson, Cohen, and all the others makes no noise whatsoever until perceived by our brains. The fact is, nothing in the universe makes a noise until it is registered by our brains.

Forgive me if you have long known this, but sound, rather than being noisy, is a series of silent waves, produced when the source of that sound—a violin perhaps, or a jackhammer—vibrates, pushing against the surrounding air and creating areas of high and low pressure.

The length of these sound waves varies, of course, producing different frequencies, pitches, volumes, and amplitudes. Physics naif that I am, I had to look up the meaning of those terms. The length of a wavelength determines the distance between successive waves, some of which are compressed, others expanded, resulting in higher and lower pitches.

But according to the podcast, none of these make any noise at all until they reach our ears. And even then, they are silent until they’ve passed through the ear’s component parts—the tympanic membrane, the ossicles, and the cochlea. It is only when the vibrations picked up by the ears are transmitted to the brain via the cochlear nerve that we actually hear them.

Mind you, soundwaves travel quickly—343 metres/second through the air—but soundlessly until picked up by the brain. To my young self, though, lying cozy in my bed with Dad beside me, that concept was never imagined. The sound of the music seemed instantaneously audible from our tinny radio speaker.

How, you might ask, could I have believed that? Well, if that long-ago, frustrated physics teacher ever presented this information in my high school class, it totally eluded me. I always thought the lovely, musical sounds I appreciate originated with the instrument or voice producing them, or with the device that recorded and transmitted them.

I can scarcely imagine that the magnificent, baritone voice of the late Dmitri Hvorostovsky, for instance, standing on stage as he sings the comedic largo al factotum from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, is utterly devoid of sound for whatever interval of time it takes to reach my ears in the back row of the uppermost balcony.

I wonder if Simon and Garfunkel ever contemplated that notion when singing The Sounds of Silence. Probably not.

On the other hand, the elderly Beethoven, almost totally deaf, would have heard his magnificent ninth Symphony only in his brain.

Anyway, music is but one example of how the laws of physics govern everything in the known universe. And the amazing thing is that those laws change over time, as new discoveries are made. No single law is immutable, but collectively they are supreme.

Now, someone with a fuller grasp of physics than I might well cry Poppycock! at my naïve understanding, might well scoff at my puerile grasp. And, truth be told, if presented with proof my newly-formed perception is incorrect, I would happily recant. The very idea that sound makes no noise anywhere in the universe except in the brain still confounds me.

Despite the podcast, the infantile part of my brain clings to the idea that the sounds of music spring gloriously forth everywhere at the very moment they are formed at source.

To have this belief restored, I confess, would be music to my ears!

The Dandelions

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During the grand opening ceremonies of a worldwide sporting event the other day, six military jets in tight formation roared over the stadium, low in the sky, trailing coloured vapour plumes to match the host country’s flag. Their presence lasted but an instant; they weren’t there, then they were, then they weren’t.

It occurred to me that, prior to their arrival, no one in the crowd was likely thinking about them. In the brief moment they were overhead, everyone was. But mere seconds after they were gone, most had likely forgotten all about them again, attention shifted to what was happening next.

I considered the scene analogous to the ever-shrinking attention span of our human species. We tend to focus on what is right in front of us, but only while it’s in front of us. Once it isn’t, we switch attention to whatever is next in front of us. Like scrolling.

Thinking, rather than being a critical, contemplative brain activity, is being reduced to bits and bites lasting only seconds. Reacting, in fact, not true thinking at all. Stimulus/response in place of thoughtful consideration and planning.

We would be doomed, I think, if we were required to focus our whole being on something for an extended period of time, as our distant ancestors had to while stalking game for food on distant savannahs. Had they allowed themselves to be distracted as easily as we do, they’d have starved to death, and none of us would be here today.

Life is much like the appearance of those jets in a way. As individuals, first we weren’t here, now we are, and eventually we won’t be. Collectively, going back perhaps 300,000 years, modern humans, homo sapiens, weren’t here; now we are; eventually, if the fate of other species is any indicator, we may not be.

Science tells us that more than ninety-nine percent of all species of life that have ever inhabited Earth are now extinct. When one considers the enormous number of life-forms still extant and sharing the planet with us today, the overall number of living creatures that once were here and now are not is staggering.

Individually, we are similar to dandelions, if you think of it. We might look out the window one day and spy a dandelion despoiling the pristine, green expanse of our lawn. If we leave it to its own devices, the dastardly weed will grow apace (doubtless in company with scores of comrades); then it will spread its seeds, miniature, white parachutists blown on the wind; and then finally, it will wither and die.

Or, we could choose to interrupt its life-cycle by stomping it under our heel, exposing it to toxic chemicals, uprooting it, or even turning it into wine. Either way—whether we leave it or interfere with it—it wasn’t there, then it was, then it wasn’t.

We are the same. Many of us live out our proverbial threescore-and-ten—some less, some more—spreading our seed as we go, and then die a natural death. Others of us, beaten down ‘neath the harsh heel of neglect and apathy, die prematurely. Still others, afflicted with a wasting disease, perhaps exposed to toxic chemicals intended to stem its progress, slowly wither and die. And still more are violently uprooted from their homes by violence or starvation or natural disaster, and are left to die alone.

Mortality is a subject I think about more often now than when I was younger. I contemplate my own, of course, though I do not fear it. Fearing death is like fearing the sunrise; it’s going to happen whether it’s feared or not, so why waste time dwelling on it? As I wrote in one of my poetic offerings—

I haven’t the time to dwell on life’s finish,
‘Though I know it lurks, that’s certain.
When all has been said, I still look ahead
To life’s next opening curtain.

I confess, however, that the demise of our human species is something I do think about. Not because it will affect me directly; I’ll be long-embarked on whatever journey is next for me by then.

But increasingly, it seems to me, humankind is separating itself into two broad factions: the many drones who think rarely for themselves and react self-servingly to whatever stimuli they encounter, content with the base pleasures they eke out; and the despoilers, fewer in number, who think deeply and conspire self-servingly to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest.

I’m pretty sure there is a third group, much smaller, who think first of others, not themselves, and who fight the good fight against the drones and despoilers. But alas, they are running out of time to win that fight. All harbingers are pointing to cataclysmic changes in the earth’s traditional, heretofore dependable cycles, patterns we have known and depended on for our entire lives.

But the effects of those changes aren’t here yet, not in sufficient abundance to alarm the majority of us. It seems that, as a species, we won’t admit they exist—just as that crowd in the stadium didn’t know about the jets in advance.

We’ll know when the effects begin to announce themselves fully, though—earthquakes, floods, wildfires, drought, increasing temperatures, rising sea-levels, climate-forced migration, and, of course, mass death. We’ll pay attention then.

My fear is that, unlike the other examples I’ve mentioned, where things aren’t here, then are, and then aren’t again, the massive changes rushing pell-mell at us will not disappear. They will linger to become the new normal for millennia to come.

And thus, it is we of whom some far-in-the-future, interstellar observer might say, “Human beings? Yeah, they weren’t there, then for hundreds of thousands of years they were, and then they weren’t.”

I console myself that perhaps the dandelions will survive.

Waitin’ On Janice

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This is a piece I recently submitted to a writing contest, responding to the picture of the old man.

“Mornin’, Paulie!” Doris says, mug and coffee pot in hand. “The usual?”

“Yeah, like I got a friggin’ choice!” I grunt.

She pours the mug too full, and moments later, plunks a bowl of grayish oatmeal on the table.

If I had my friggin’ teeth, I wouldn’t be eatin’ slop like this!

“Where’s the raisins?” I complain.

“Underneath. Gotta dig for ‘em.”

I’m by the window of the cafe, my reg’lar booth lookin’ over the courtyard, waitin’ on my daughter. Ain’t seen her in years and I ain’t sure she’s comin’.

Never does. I only left that voicemail today on account of it’s my friggin’ birthday. But that won’t make no difference. Janice hates me. Got good reason, I guess.

The friggin’ bells over the door jangle and I turn to look, but it’s just a jug-eared kid with a stupid cowlick, looks to be maybe ten, and he plants his bony ass in the booth across from me. The bells jangle again, but this time it’s a fat guy, and when he waddles by, he bumps the cane I got leanin’ against my table, knockin’ it to the floor.

“Hey!” I bark, but it’s more a yip. No bite. Not no more. And the friggin’ slob just keeps goin’.

“I got it!” the kid says, slidin’ in opposite me, layin’ the cane on the table.

“Thanks, boyo, but I ain’t lookin’ for comp’ny. No offence.”

He ignores me. “Who you waitin’ for?”

“Why you think I’m waitin’ on anybody?”

“Every time them bells clatter, you turn to look. Who’s comin’?”

“Nobody!”

This little peckerhead’s sharp. Sorta reminds me of somebody.

“Happy birthday!” he says, tuckin’ into a bowl of cereal. His chin’s almost touchin’ the table when he spoons the crap into his mouth, and I feel like tellin’ him to get his elbows off the friggin’ table.

“How’d you know it’s my birthday?” I ask, scratchin’ my beard, wonderin’ where the cereal came from.

He shrugs. “You’re eighty-eight, right?”

“None of your friggin’ business!” But curiosity wins. “How d’you know how old I am?”

Before he can answer, the bells jangle again. When I twist around, it’s still not Janice. Just some greasy-lookin’ guy with a beat-up briefcase.

She ain’t comin’! Prob’ly didn’t even get my message.

“Want another bowl?” Doris asks at my elbow. She pays no never-mind to the kid still stuffin’ his face, almost like he ain’t there.

“No, I’m done. But gimme another cuppa.”

With a full mug in front of me, I turn back to the kid. “How come you ain’t in school?”

He looks at me like I’m dee-mented or somethin’. Which I surely ain’t!

“It’s Saturday.”

“So what’re you doin’ here? Why ain’t you out playin’ somewheres?”

“You oughta clean them glasses,” he says, ignorin’ me again. “They’re all smeared. Use a napkin.”

I grab one from the dispenser on the table, yank off my specs, blow stale coffee breath on the lenses. But wipin’ at ‘em only makes ‘em worse.

This kid is drivin’ me nuts! Who’s he remind me of?

And then I know. He looks like me when I was that age, a sorry lifetime ago. A lot like me! The memories flood in, and my friggin’ heart starts in to skippin’ crazy-like.

“What’s your name, boyo?”

“Paulie. Same as yours.”

There’s real pain in my chest now. “Okay, boyo, I gotta go,” I gasp.

This ain’t good!

“Yeah, it’s your time,” he says. “I came for you.”

It feels like I’m floatin’ to the front door. And just as we get close, the bells jangle, and Janice is there, lookin’ past me, searchin’ the café. She’s older’n I remember, way older, but beautiful like her mama was.

I open my arms, hardly believin’ she came, but it’s like she passes right through me. I reach after her, but she stops dead in her tracks, starin’ at the booth me and the kid just left.

My friggin’ cane is still there. And slumped over the table, one arm hangin’ limp, I see the old man I used to be only a minute ago.

With a strangled sob, Janice rushes toward him. I try to follow, but there’s an insistent tug on my sleeve.

“Time’s up, Paulie,” the kid says. “We gotta go!”

“No!” I cry too late. Way too late. “I’m waitin’ on Janice!”

But I already know the truth. The waitin’ is done.

Mine!

I recently won a writing award from the Gulf Coast Writers Association for this short piece about playing baseball with my brother. In the past four years, I’ve received a first, second, and third place award from the GCWA for both prose and poetry.

I hope you enjoy this little story..

The ball leaps off the scarred, wooden bat with a loud thwack! Above the seven of us scrambling on the dusty sandlot in the park, it soars in a graceful parabola before curving back to earth, slicing right toward my little brother who prances nervously on the grass. He’s wearing the oversized, almost-new fielder’s glove I let him use for this occasion, while I wear my beat-up old one.

I’m twelve years old, which makes Allan nine, and he’s a fair bit smaller than the rest of us. It’s the first time he’s been allowed to play ball with my friends, a game called Five Hundred, where we earn points for fielding balls hit to the outfield by a lone batter—one hundred for a flyball, seventy-five for a one-bouncer, and fifty for a grounder. The first kid to five hundred gets to be batter. If we fumble any of the balls we’re chasing, we lose the same number of points. When I first started playing the game, I’d quickly learned about the existence of negative numbers!

I’d tried to coach Allan in the game’s intricacies before today’s outing, especially emphasizing the need to call everyone off before fielding the ball so we don’t all collide underneath it.

“Just yell real loud to warn the guys you’re gonna make the catch,”I told him. “When they hear you callin’ for it, everybody else will back off.”

Now, as the ball plummets toward him for the first time, I see him raise the glove a tad over his head, his other hand poised beside it, just the way I taught him. The glove seems almost too big on his skinny arm.

Waving my friends off, not wanting to spoil his triumph, I yell, “Call for it! Call for it!”

And he does…sort of. At the very last moment, he shouts, “Yours!” and ducks away. The rest of us watch disbelievingly as the ball thuds into a sparse patch of grass, bounces once, and lies still. My friends turn as one to measure my reaction.

“You don’t call Yours!” I yell at my brother disgustedly, embarrassed in front of my friends. “You’re s’posed to call Mine! Mine! And then catch the ball!”

Allan just offers that shamefaced grin he affects when he knows he’s disappointed me. And my embarrassment keeps me from reassuring him he’ll do better next time.

One of the other guys, a tall kid I don’t really like that much, gets right in my brother’s face. “What a dork! What a chicken! What’re you even doin’ here?”  Allan quails in the face of the attack, tosses my glove on the ground, and trudges off to the sidelines, head down, shoulders slumped.

“Shut up, Gary!” I say to the kid, wondering if this is when we’re going to have that fight we both know is coming sooner or later. Neither of us likes the other. “Leave my brother alone!” My fists are clenched in anticipation of his response.

Gary glares at me, but chooses to let it drop. He tosses the ball into the batter, and we all trot back to the game—all but Allan, who sits forlornly on the grass to one side. He’s holding my old glove now, after I reclaim my newer one.

He’s not there when the game ends an hour or so later, nor is his bicycle, so I climb on mine and head home without him. As I’m getting a glass of cold water at the kitchen sink, my mother says, “Where’s your brother? Supper’s in half an hour.”

“I thought he came home,” I say. “I didn’t see him or his bike at the park when I left.”

“He’s probably still there,” she says. “Go find him, tell him it’s suppertime.”

With an exaggerated sigh, I make my way grumpily back to the park, which is only a block from our house, but the trip seems like an unfair burden on me. None of the other kids is there now, and I can’t see Allan anywhere. As I’m about to turn homeward, I hear a strangely-familiar noise coming from behind the maintenance shed on the far side of the sandlot.

Bump-badaba-badaba-thunk! Bump-badaba-badaba-thunk!

I ride my bike across to the shed, and see my brother’s bike propped against the wall. Behind it I find Allan tossing a ball over and over onto its slanted roof. Each time the ball lands, it rolls erratically down the torn and curled shingles, and bounces off the gutter, where my brother waits, trying earnestly to catch it in that beat-up glove.

Bump-badaba-badaba-thunk!

And I immediately remember why I recognized the sound! I used to practice the same drill by myself a few years back, after I’d been told I wasn’t good enough to play with the big guys. Allan doesn’t know I’m there, so I watch for a few minutes, and I hear him quietly calling Mine! before each attempted catch. Because the gutter deflects the ball’s expected trajectory at the last moment, he misses more than a few. But he keeps trying.

And then, as he bends to retrieve a dropped catch, he spots me. “What?” he says defensively. “You used to do this.”

“Yeah, I did,” I reply, ashamed now of my earlier reaction in front of my friends. “You wanta know a trick I learned that makes it easier to catch ‘em?”

He nods, so I take my old glove from him and demonstrate how to hold back a bit as the ball rolls down the roof, then step into it at the last moment. “It’s easier to catch the ball when you’re movin’ towards it,” I say. And we spend the next little while with me throwing the ball onto the roof and him catching it, more frequently now.

Bump-badaba-badaba-thunk!

And every time he moves in for the catch, he yells, “Mine!”

We lose track of time, but we’re interrupted all of a sudden by my father’s gruff voice right behind us. Neither Allan nor I knows how long he’s been standing there watching, but he says,  “Boys! Your mother’s waitin’ supper. We gotta go!”

Allan runs to him excitedly. “Didja see me catchin’ the ball, Dad? I’m catchin’ most of ‘em now! Jamie says I’m doin’ good! Didja see me, Dad?”

“Yeah, I saw you, son,” my father says, tousling my brother’s hair with one big hand. “Maybe we oughta buy you a glove of your own.” Throwing his other arm around my shoulder, he leads us back across the park, each of us walking our bikes.

“I’m gettin’ better, Dad,” Allan says. “You think the big guys will let me play with ‘em again?”

“You never know,” my father tells him, giving my shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “They might, but you never know.”

“Yeah, they will,” I say, “or they’ll be playin’ without me!”  And my father squeezes my shoulder again.

I Wonder Why?

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In all the time I’ve known her, sixty-three years and counting, the woman who has been my companion and wife for most of that period has uttered this phrase more frequently than any other: “I love you!”

She has said it to me, of course, to our daughters and their husbands, to our grandchildren, to other family members, and to friends (of whom she has many). And we all appreciate it greatly.

Her next most-frequently uttered phrase is a question: “I wonder why?” I assure you, however, she is not wondering why she loves us. The two phrases are completely separate.

My wife is an accomplished woman of insatiable curiosity, a bona fide lifelong learner. There is very little that happens around her that does not provoke that critical question.

“I wonder why the fruit store is sold out of bananas today?”

“The forecast said it would rain today. I wonder why it didn’t?”

“I wonder why the mail carrier is late?”

“I wonder why more people don’t follow the science?”

“I wonder why…?”

Once upon a time, I didn’t realize that more than just a few of these utterances were rhetorical. I mistakenly assumed she wanted me to essay an answer to all her questions, but I’ve been disabused of that notion. And that’s just as well, because for many of them, I had no idea of the answer, anyway. In those cases, in order to appear attentive, responsive, and a willing participant in the conversation, I would simply make something up.

“Ah…I think the banana-pickers are on strike.”

“Um…atmospheric conditions shifted when the sub-arctic air flow was diverted by wind-shear.”

“Hmm…the mail truck probably broke down.”

“Well…a lot of folks don’t understand science. Or don’t care to.”

Being an intelligent woman, my wife saw through these lame attempts to satisfy her curiosity, and scoffed at or ignored my answers. That, naturally, put me in a position of having to champion them—to defend the indefensible, as it were. As a reasonably intelligent person myself, I soon decided not to bother. Nonsense is nonsense, whether defended or not.

Mind you, asking questions, seeking answers, are innately human things to do. We are naturally a pattern-seeking species. We seek to know who we are, why we are here, what happens after we die, and so much more about the world around us.

My wife is a sterling example of that trait—always probing, questing, examining, interrogating, quizzing, grilling—ever in search of an answer to satisfy her curiosity.

I, on the other hand, although not a completely incurious clod, am much more willing to accept things at face value. In most cases, when presented with a situation, I am less likely to ask why something happened, more likely to get on with accommodating it.

“Who cares why?” I tend to ask. “It happened, so let’s just deal with it.”

Consequently, my fallback position when faced with my wife’s questions has morphed into a sort of fatalism, stoicism, ‘take-it-as-it-comes-ism’. Over time, I developed variations on a standard answer that, I hoped, would satisfy any question my wife might ask.

For instance, if she were to ask, “I wonder why the grass on our lawn is dying?”, I might reply, “Who knows? It could just as easily die next door. It’s random.”

Watching birds flit about on a walk, she might ask, “I wonder why some birds can fly, while others can’t?”, I might say, “Random selection. Nothing more.”

If she were to ask, “I wonder why Tom got sick after the party, when no one else did?”, I’m likely to answer, “No reason. Illness strikes randomly.”

A wise person once wrote that asking pointed questions is the gateway to knowledge. I certainly can’t dispute that, and have in fact done that very thing all my life in areas of study that interest me. But I confess I do not have the unquenchable thirst to know the reason for everything, for I fear my poor brain could not accommodate it.

In truth, I do not believe there even has to be a reason for everything. I tend to think some things truly are random happenstances. I know a tree will fall when it rots from within, for example, but I don’t trouble myself to question why this tree and not that one.

Of course, if I happened to be napping under one of those trees, I might care to know…but never mind.

On occasion now, familiar with this idiosyncrasy of mine, my wife will ask, “I wonder why you’re like that?”

At my age, I’ve ceased to worry about it. “Who knows?” I’ll reply. “Just the way I am, I guess. Random.”

Thank goodness, despite everything, she still utters that other phrase—“I love you.”

And sometimes, I do have to admit, I wonder why.

Nothing Added?

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It occurred to me recently that, nicely embarked upon my ninth decade, I am a man of all my parts. I have been mercifully spared the need for implants, transplants, bypasses, or replacements. In fact, almost nothing has been added to the original package. It’s true that I have endured two or three removals of bits and pieces over those years, but everything still inside or attached to me is my own.

Friends sometimes tell me how fortunate I am to have my hair, how lucky to have my own teeth, how blessed to have retained the hips and knees I was born with, and all my fingers and toes. And I always assure them that I do not take any of it lightly.

Although I need occasional assistance from a walking stick now, and do require eyeglasses for reading and writing, I have no need of hearing aids. My ears function well enough still to allow me to hear everything I choose to hear.

If I were a manufactured product, my label would probably read: Proudly made in 1943! No substitute parts. Mind you, there might also be a Best Before date, but never mind.

There can be no doubt, however, that my original parts have suffered a goodly amount of wear and tear over the intervening years.

My memory remains tip-top, both long-term and short-term. But admittedly, things that happened a good while ago are not recalled as sharply or as accurately as they might be; nevertheless, they are not forgotten. I may be guilty in the eyes of some for having a selective memory, but not a sloppy one.

Brain function, as best I can self-determine by using that brain, has not eroded to any significant degree. Reaction time—the ability to respond in a timely manner to stimuli, especially of the unexpected type—is somewhat less than it once was, but I have so far eluded onrushing juggernauts of whatever sort.

The supple muscles that always allowed me to cavort with abandon on so many fields of play have now stiffened, and they respond to my frequent stretching endeavours with painful protest. Alas, the skin that covers them has not contracted to the same degree, and now seems to hang loosely in places where once it was tight.

Gravity wins, apparently.

And speaking of skin, I find mine is now dotted all over my body with blotches, blemishes, and scaly eruptions my annoying dermatologist likes to call barnacles or carbuncles. My skin even bleeds occasionally for no apparent reason, and when I look at my hands, I see my father’s.

The strong bones I’ve ever taken for granted, which have never broken despite numerous tumbles and collisions on those same playing fields, are more brittle now, according to my physician, who has prescribed medication to offset mild osteoporosis. I no longer choose to jump down from a footstool; in fact, I rarely ever step up on a footstool now. Discretion has always been the better part of valor, after all.

I still walk a fair bit, but more slowly now. When accompanied by my wife, I often feel like the late Queen’s prince consort, doggedly trailing a few steps behind. When I speed up to catch up, momentum takes over, making me fear I’m about to pitch forward into a face-plant.

My face certainly has no need for that! I reckon it has received a hundred stitches or more during my lifetime, most from sporting endeavours, some from a head-on vehicle collision I was involved in. The earliest of these were the old, black thread type, worn almost as badges of honour, like dueling scars; the more recent were the dissolving type. And once or twice, I’ve had facial cuts glued back together.

On one long-ago occasion, I was bemoaning the ravages of the latest sewing job, and a teammate said, “Don’t sweat it, Ace! With that face, you’re not going anywhere, anyway!”

At least there was no visible scarring left behind, although the same can’t be said for my torso, where those removals I referred to earlier took place. I was opened on two different occasions—‘from stem to gudgeon’, as my mother phrased it—and I bear shiny, white scars in a capital I shape, running from just below my breastbone to just above…well, you know. Those scars don’t really bother me, not now, although I rarely take off my shirt in public.

Which is just as well, I suppose, because there was never a great demand for me to do so, even before the surgeries.

To my chagrin, the seventy-one inches of height I enjoyed during my all-too-brief prime have shrunk; either that, or I stand with a slight stoop now. Still and all, even with the depredations of aging, virtually nothing has been added to my body—save, perhaps, for a few pounds which I try to carry well. Not for me the ‘chest at rest’ my father used to joke about in his later years.

In Ecclesiastes, we are cautioned: …vanity of vanities; all is vanity. And there is some truth to that, I suppose. It is the rare person among us who can pass a mirror without at least a sidelong glance—and I am not that person. But it has come as quite a shock to see, when I do sneak a peek, an old man staring back at me.

“Are you really me?” I murmured silently on a recent occasion.

And the old man replied, “Yes I am! But don’t despair, because all of this is you. And despite what you think, a great deal has been added to your original package.”

“Only the years,” I sighed resignedly, “and the number of yesterdays.”

“And tomorrows,” the old man declared. “Don’t forget the tomorrows that are yet to be added! And don’t discount the experiences you’ve already accumulated. You are a part of all you have met!”

As I gazed reflectively at the old man, listening to his buoyant assurances, I realized there was indeed something else he was adding: an unshakable conviction that the best is yet to come.

And for that, and for however long it lasts, I’m grateful.

That One Moment

The weekly prompt from my Florida writers’ group was ‘Thou shalt not…’, and this is my response.

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Managing to draw a final, feeble breath, I despair as it leaks slowly away. I try for another, but none comes. My eyes are slits, and through a gathering haze I see faces looming over my bed, concerned and curious.

“He’s gone,” a soft voice intones.

“I’m not! I’m not!” I cry wordlessly, soundlessly.

But then I am. And there is nothing…nothing…nothing…

I do not hear the words when they come. They emerge from my being, and I am become the words.

One. Moment. One. Moment.

Instinctively, I know the words refer to that same moment I have wished all my life to relive. And now it appears, on the brink of the afterlife, I am to have that chance.

I was fly-fishing with Hank, my twin brother, on the weekend before he was to marry the lovely Madison. She was the first person ever to come between us—Hank and Hal, Hal and Hank. But we both adored her.

We had fished this river so many times, it was like second nature—the boisterous sound of water rushing raucously over the rocks, the late-afternoon sunlight dancing on its rampaging surface, the fishing lines snaking overhead, gleaming in the waning light before the lures splashed into the current.

Hank was as happy as I had ever seen him. And indeed, why not? He was head over heels in love with Madison, his bride-to-be. As was I, alas, but it was he Maddie had chosen. And I had never wanted her more.

The fish were feeding in the cool evening, and Hank soon got a strike. As he moved to set the hook, he slipped on the moss-covered riverbed underfoot. I turned as he cried out, in time to see him hit his head on a rock. The current caught him, pulled him from the shallows, his arms flailing helplessly. I dropped my rod, charged after him, heedless of the precarious footing, and at the last moment, just as I fell myself, I clutched his outstretched hand.

“Hal! Hal! Help me!” he cried plaintively as he jounced and jigged in the powerful current. Blood streamed from the gash on his forehead. We locked eyes, and I could see he knew I would never let go.

But in that very instant, my unbidden thoughts fastened on Maddie and how distraught she would be if she were to lose him. To whom would she turn for solace, for comfort, perhaps eventually for love? And who would be better-suited than I to provide her that?

“Hal! Don’t let go! Don’t let go!”

We were struggling in deeper water now, where the current was stronger, tugging at my brother as if to tear him from my grasp.

“Hal! Don’t let go!”

But even as he implored me to save him, I did let go. And in a second, Hank was swept under, gone forever, and I swear I could hear Maddie’s forlorn weeping, taste her salty tears, feel her softness in my comforting arms.

And that was almost exactly how it played out. I cried copiously as I told everyone how I had tried in vain to save my brother. His body was found three days later, miles downstream, badly-battered by the river’s depredations, and he was buried with all due reverence.

Sixty years ago that was. And a scant two years after his tragic death, Maddie and I, each other’s chief comforters, were indeed wed. I have loved her with all I had to give ever since, but I have never quite forgiven myself for my treachery. Almost, but not quite. And perhaps because of my secret guilt, I have occasionally imagined a reservation in Maddie’s eyes about that day, although she has never questioned my account.

Nevertheless, I have never ceased to wonder what I would do if I could relive that one moment.

The good book tells us, Thou shalt not kill! But is that really what I did? Or was I just not able to hang on?

And now, wonder of wonders, so many years later, dead myself at last, I am being granted an opportunity to relive that moment. Is it a test to determine where I shall spend eternity? And with whom?

Hank and I are in the river once again, he has fallen and struck his head, is about to be carried away, and I have him in my grip. The bone-chilling water washes over us, and Hank calls frantically again, as he did back then.

“Hal! Save me! Don’t let go!”

But unlike the first time, I don’t have to wonder if I would win the beauteous Maddie’s love if Hank were to die. I already know the answer. He did die and she did become my wife, just as I had dared hope.

Should I change that outcome this second time around? Save my brother? Lose my Maddie? The final reckoning is at hand. The outcome is in my grasp.

And in that one moment, I make my decision.