Can I Have An Extra Scoop Of Silence?

The line must have numbered seven deep. It seemed that everyone was in a rush to get out of the store but the Rite-Aid, replete with dirty floors and understaffed registers, still seemed the best place to be. He could have ran to the Staples or perhaps the Vons, but he was at the Rite-Aid and until he had purchased the ream of unlined letter size paper he had had come for he was not to be going anywhere.















There was another throng circling the ice cream counter. It wasn't as if the ice cream, which once had only been a nickel for one scoop and a dime for two, was anything to wait in line for. Sure it was relatively inexpensive by the day's standards but the ice cream wasn't very good and it was no longer the value it had once been. The people had been trained to think it a deal and so they still came and come they did. Hordes of people leaving the store with lousy ice cream dripping down their hands.

The man in front of him clutched a Steel Reserve tall boy. The man smelled and his free hand was filthy as he jingled a palm full of pennies, nickels and dimes. The ream of paper took on a greater heft as he battled the fetor of the man holding his precious his beer if that was indeed what the Steel Reserve was. He had never tasted a Steel Reserve but had seen many a thirsty man down on his luck opt for this particular brand. He looked to the front of the line and saw a bad sign. A woman had a lone box of feminine hygiene product but in her hand she held a receipt. She handed the box to the cashier and then the receipt and began pointing at the receipt.

Phones were used, a call for the manager rang out from the blown through public address system and it seemed the line was to be stalled until the customer, now gaining in vituperative volume was to be satisfied to her liking. His arm felt as if the the weight of the world were contained in the ream. He thought he smelled the Steel Reserve man fart. He gagged.

Was it worth it? Was it ever worth it to go to Rite-Aid? He thought about how wrong everything about the situation was. Even the name Rite-Aid was all wrong. How could he expect anything better from a store that didn't even spell the word, 'right', correctly? It was time for action so he made a bold move and went to a line that, though a person longer, didn't include a farting Steel Reserve man or a feminine hygiene receipt switcher.

He surveyed those in the longer line in front of him. It looked promising. There was a girl, maybe eighty pounds on her five-seven frame holding a single package of mascara. A Mexican family of four with two packages of Huggies and a couple of people with nothing much to speak of; probably there for smokes or something else he hadn't the interest to conjecture. The Steel Reserve man farted audibly and the smell made it over to his new line. Everyone tried not to notice but it was nearly impossible.

And so it went. His line inched along but as he watched the line he had left hadn't moved at all. The Steel Reserve fart man was now at the back of his line three people back. The feminine hygiene woman was near tears and he recognized a junkie receipt scam stalled. He felt for her. A piece of him wanted to lay a twenty on the poor gal just to end her misery but a larger piece of him just wanted to get the hell out of there.

It had been nearly twenty minutes since he had entered the store. He had only a ream of paper to purchase. It was not going as planned. He considered his existence and realized that nothing ever went exactly as he planned so why should a trip to Rite-Aid be any different? There was a manger now at the head of the line he had left and the junkie girl was escorted from the store. It wasn't a pretty 'site'...sight. He was only one person from the front of the line. His mind was already back home printing the document he had needed to print. The document that was so important that he would brave a trip to the Rite-Aid at night. And then it stopped.

It seems that the mascara girl needed a different mascara, he thought he heard that she needed the blue and not the black, it was hard to tell because she spoke in such a slight voice that the cashier whose command of the English language was rudimentary at best had her repeat her request at least five time before a common understanding was arrived at. And so his line was stalled. The cashier left her station and so they waited. Minutes nee hours seemed to pass and no cashier. He looked to his left and saw the Steel Reserve fart man counting change at the register next to him and with a loud blast leave the store.

If he had the hair he might have pulled from his head at this point. More dripping ice cream, the mascara girl pulling her hair and into her mouth and no cashier. The line to his left moving at a brisk pace. Hell...

That night as he loaded his printer he felt that all was right in the world. He had made it back alive from the Rite-Aid. He was thankful he wasn't trying to pull a junkie scam and that he hadn't ever had the need to drink a Steel Reserve tall boy and that he was just fine with black mascara. He went to his computer and pushed print...

The printer flashed...low ink level, change cartridge before continuing job. Man was he thirsty for a Steel Reserve.

Baby Please Don't Go

"I see you are going to take the easy route."

"You think this is the easy route?"















"Of course it is."

"Why would you want to go and think that?"

"Isn't it obvious to you?"

"No it isn't obvious. Actually I think it is a fairly insensitive concept to even imply."

"Oh don't get me wrong I'm not implying anything. I am saying in no uncertain terms that you are taking the easy route."

"Why say that?"

"Because you always do this."

"What."

"Words."

"Yeah, okay, words. So what's so wrong with that?"

"Because it isn't a real spiritual way of going about things."

"What are you talking about? The bible is words and...okay, bad example, but there are very spiritual writings and writings are words."

"Hooray for you. Go ahead and fool yourself all you want but what you write isn't spiritual in the least."

"Gulp."

"What was that?"

"Me swallowing my ego, you know a humility pill."

"And so you should."

"Alright so I'm not the most spiritual leaf on the tree."

"Agreed."

"Thanks. I still don't know why you say I am taking the easy way out. That these words are the easy way."

"Now I not proposing that I am some giant of the spiritual world but words are words and I am tired of words."

"Then what on earth do you want if not words?"

"Something spiritual."

"What like, um let me see...how about a spiritual concept. How does 'be here now' strike you?"

"Nice try but you miss my point entirely."

"Go with god?"

"Really? Go with god?"

"It was a joke."

"Right, a joke."

"Then what do you want?"

"Here's the thing. Whenever you are faced with an opportunity all I ever get from you is words. Words, words, and more words. How about some action."

"Action?"

"Yes action. Action is a spiritual concept of the largest variety."

"Okay....?"

"You see you can talk or write or do whatever you delude yourself into thinking you are doing ad-nauseam and all it really amounts to is a large aggregate of useless bullshit. Do just one thing, selflessly, do just one thing and you can rise up."

"Now who is joking?"

"Oh I'm not joking."

"So you dismiss all that I have created."

"I could but because of my love for you I choose not too. But give me some action. All I want is some action."

"How do you know that I don't take action when you are not around?"

"I don't know that. Do you?"

"In fact I do. I believe that I take spiritual action."

"What is it?"

"I can't say."

"Why not."

"Because part of the spiritual nature of it is that I do it without anyone watching, anonymously."

"Really?"

"Yes. I take action that, although I don't believe I am in a position to claim as spiritual, being that if there is a spiritual realm then I can not be the judge of these actions, but I feel would fall into your understanding of spiritual pursuit."















"Oh. I guess I stand corrected."

"I forgive you."

"Thank you."

"Is forgiveness a spiritual concept...or as you might say, action?"

"Don't rub it in."

"Is rubbing it in an action?"

"I get it."

"Is...."

If You Can Sit Still Long Enough

"All right. Who said it?"

There was a not so quiet silence. The kind of silence that seems louder then if there were actually a noise being made. The air conditioner whirred, feet shuffled, throats cleared and in general there was every manner of sound save for a voiced response.















"I know I heard it so don't try and pretend that it wasn't said."

More silence.

"So you think you are pretty smart do you? Well I've got news for you right now. You are not that smart. You may perceive success but I assure you in no uncertain terms that yours is but a temporary victory and in time you will suffer of the error of your ways. A price will be paid."

The rustling diminished and save for the mechanical hums a real silence began to take form, an oppressive silence, and with it came furtive looks and accusatory glances.

"You may think me a fool standing here before you. It is true you may think that whatever fun you might think you are having is worth your effort and on some level you are probably correct but I happen to know something that you don't. I'm sure you are thinking to yourself that it is preposterous that I know anything let alone something that you don't but on that account you would be in fact terribly misguided and incorrect."

He spun from his spot and walked amongst them eyeballing each as he passed with equal disgust. He circled the room in that silence until he was back before them.

"I have good news and bad news. The bad news first. I know who said it. The good news is... I no longer care. You may think that this is all about something that was said but I know better. This is a much larger topic and being that no one wants to speak then I feel it is my duty to continue on. Please feel free, you the one I'm speaking to, to interrupt me at any time but in truth it might do you some good to just keep your mouth shut a while longer and hear what I have to say."

The shifting about and fear returned.

"You see you may think that you got one over on me. On another day and in another time you may have but that is not the point now is it? The point is that your need to say something, to make a proclamation out loud at the expense of another, that other at this time happens to be me, is a shallow plea to define your existence. If you don't speak out, make a mark, be it negative or positive, but to to make your mark in order to call attention to yourself and in your recognition to prove to yourself that you indeed exist is a sad plea at best. To what greater good do you aspire? Are you the baby who sits in his cradle and cries out for food...no. Are you crying out for warmth...no. You are simply crying out because unless you are validated by others then in your sad little world there is again nothing to define you, you exist only in a void and like the little baby you only want attention."

"I said it."

"No you didn't."

"Then I said said it."

"Neither did you. More cries for attention."















The silence was now replaced by a chorus of admissions, none of them by the one who had spoke out originally.

"In your silence you condemn all around you. Speak up and get the attention you so obviously desire."

More silence. Then the bell.

"Class dismissed."

Pass The Velvet Margarita

It was green everywhere in this the summer and it made him insane, mad. He felt as green as anything he might see.















Jealousy seemed to be his root emotion for just about as long as it had been since the grasses of the previous year had died. It had been the bitter fall when his perspective had begun its shift. He had often looked at the latest fancy automobiles and where once he saw to the future and how he might himself sit behind the wheel one day he now had feelings of abject hate for the driver. How come he didn't have that car? Why was the table leaning away from him and fuck that guy anyway.

Next was the coveting of friends girlfriends and worse. He hated everyone and anyone who had ever had something that he couldn't obtain. Early on he searched for the meaning of this new viewpoint, it indeed make him uncomfortable, but as the days slipped by he just gave in and embraced it. He wanted what he couldn't have and it pissed him off to no end.

It overtook every other emotion. Envy it seemed was his reason to be and if that be the case then so be it. He would have just taken what he wanted but even that he couldn't manage so he became jealous of thieves and the like. He was unable to act on his desires and so this then too became a great source of envy when he might see others taking and he just standing by and hoping.

It was a black time for him and now he saw where the garden growing a door up from his home had become thick with summer flowers. He had seen the planting some months back and thought little of it but by the time the flowers had begun their bloom it was on.

He resented the gardener their hobby. He resented her happiness, her purpose and the joy it obviously brought her. Nothing in his life brought him joy and he seethed now at the idea of her digging and planting and watering. Where was his happiness?

It became even worse. The gardener was an easy target but then he found himself jealous even of the flowers. He hated they way they sat there so peaceably, drinking of the sun, their colors some subtle and then some vibrant. He wished them to be gray. He was jealous of the plants, of their thorns, he wanted thorns, he wanted his exterior to match his interior. He envied the water and the dirt the earth he resented it all.

He was jealous of the simplicity of a plants life for they wanted of nothing but earth, water and sun. He wanted so much more and he couldn't have it. He envied the sidewalk and the curb. He was jealous of it all. He was jealous of the people who walked on the sidewalk, he was jealous of their clothes and he was jealous of the shoes on the people's feet.

He envied purpose of being. He wanted his own purpose but to his reason his only reason to be was to be envious. The jealousy was making him insane. He sat on the sidewalk and stared at the garden. He wanted to rip each plant from the earth but again he did not have this larceny in him and he pondered the envy he had for those to who vandalism came easy. He sat for hours with every scenario of jealousy and envy racing through him.

The sun started to set and he cursed it in a refutation of the nature of existence. He was jealous of the religious and the atheistic. He had no belief and no reason but to covet. The the last of the light was gone and over his head he saw the streetlight flicker on.

He slowed and looked at the streetlight. He searched his mind as to how he might rain his envy on the streetlight but nothing came. He tried his utmost but he just couldn't find reason to be jealous of this beautiful benign streetlight. In the streetlight the flowers took on a sickly pallor as did the sidewalk. Everything changed and as quick as it had come over him that previous fall month, his affliction then vanished. He wasn't envious of the streetlight, in fact he wasn't jealous of anything. The fact was as he sat there on that warm summer night staring above to the streetlight he had an odd feeling that maybe someone might be jealous of him.















He had crawled through the fire and escaped. Maybe he was to be envied for to him everything was alright. He had purpose if not beyond sitting on that sidewalk and taking in the all of the streetlight's majesty.

Housewife's Choice

They surveyed the room and then felt as if all the air had been sucked from them. Row upon row of empty seats greeted eyes that had become accustomed to teeming throngs. It was no longer a matter of escalating revenues and cost covering receipts, those days were long gone, but now the need to be needed, the desire to reach out and effect lives took precedence and those wishes were not to be met on this evening.















In the early days their only hope had been to see their idea, the concept they had born come real and so then be received and accepted. The monies and the acclaim soon followed and like a drug they became addicted to the crowds and the kudos. There never seemed to be an end to the fame and adulation and so they in effect became inured to any negative notices that they might have also generated. They were a beacon of right thinking and expression and by their lead they brought the populace on a engaging ride that the people were only too prepared to embrace.

And so seats were filled, willing ticket buyers clamored for the opportunity to attend one of their performances. Sold out performance after sold out performance ensued. They could do no wrong. The ideas poured from them. Some concepts were so spot on perfect that they had but little time from the initial inspiration to the presentation to the crowd. There was no more editing, no more holding back. In their minds they could do no wrong.

This pattern continued for a good long time and they wallowed swine-like in the excess their triumphs had afforded them. They surrounded themselves with sycophants and yes sayers yet the work, the art, continued strong and meaningful. They never tired and created and produced with such celerity that after a while it became almost a mystery as to how they could keep such a frenetic pace and still keep the quality up to their high standards.

They first heard word that the pre-sales had slowed but the walk up was always strong and by show time there was never an empty seat so in their way they just assumed that people had tired of the ticket processing service and so they switched to a new vendor. The work continued at the highest level. New brilliant creation after the next. There was the one night that the show had failed to sell through but with the higher ticket prices they had not really noticed any shift in aggregate incomes. They were selling more t-shirts then ever.

The money continued and they were successful on that account beyond their wildest hopes. Although they indeed mired themselves in all the petty trappings that might derail them their true hearts were always tied strongest to the construction, the creation, the expression of their art. Blind to most everything around them they forged ahead in a blaze of innovation and inspired productivity.

Then almost imperceptibly at first the crowds lessened. At first it was only the back rows and then like a cancer it spread. The work continued to excel but for some reason the people were no longer interested. Little by a little the hangers on started to thin, there was no longer the choruses of yes, and finally the management inquired as to how long they expected the run to last, they needed to book for the future.

So they looked out at the near empty house. They didn't need the large crowd. They could perform for a single person if need be. It was the art. The creation. They needed to reach out. There would be no slowing down. It wasn't that they had changed or that their output was of a lesser quality it was just that the audience had moved on without them.















They would not chase the crowds. They would watch as all around them drifted from view and they would burn. They would burn bright so that if one day the crowds wished once again to find them their brilliance would serve as a guide to help shepherd the flock home.

A Dime Will Get You Ten Cents

"So what do you want me to say?"

"I think that is a little unfair."















"In which way?"

"I think that you should just say what you feel. Don't you think that by asking me what I think you should say that you're hedging your bets to some degree?"

"If you want to look at it that way I suppose you could but I don't really think that I am being inequitable in any great regard."

"I didn't mean to suggest that you are being literally unfair only that if you want me to put words in your mouth then why don't I just speak them for you and you can nod in agreement."

"Pretty dramatic of you don't you think?"

"Dramatic, no I don't think that at all. I am just trying to make point."

"Making points, hedging bets? What is this some sort of competition, like who can communicate best. Is there a trophy involved in all this because you know I love a trophy and if that is the case then I'll really dig in and communicate like nobodies business."

"I don't believe there is a trophy involved, no, there is no trophy but if that's what you need to inspire you then perhaps I can arrange for you to get one."

"Gee, that would be swell. A trophy...like the one I got playing football when I was a kid. That one is great but it doesn't have my name on it and we didn't really win anything and I think every kid who played in the league got one, sort of a booby prize or something but that doesn't mean I don't cherish it like crazy. It's sitting in my bathroom right now. I keep it there in case a lady comes over and while she's casing my stuff she might come across it and then think that I'm some sort of athletic wunderkind or something and then extrapolating upon come to the conclusion that that I might be a stallion between the sheets and well, um right...yeah I love my trophy."

"So you want me to get you a trophy so that girls will think falsely or not that you are a stallion between the sheets."

"I assure you that I am indeed a stallion."

"I'll take your word for it. No, I mean I could care less if you are a stallion between the sheets or not, whatever being a stallion between the sheets is meant to mean."

"Oh I think you know. Hubba, hubba."

"Back to the matter at hand."

"Oh, the you putting words in my mouth thing?"

"I'm not trying to put words in your mouth."

"Avuncular."

"What? Why did you say that?"

"You tell me."

"How could I tell you? You're the one who said it."

"Said what?"

"Avuncular."

"There you go again."

"What?"

"Putting words in my mouth."

"Why would I put the word avuncular in your mouth? I don't even know what it means."

"Then why did you put it in my mouth?"

"I didn't."

"Then why did I say it."

"Has this something to do with your angling for a trophy?"

"An uncle would get me a trophy."

"An uncle?"

"Or someone who takes an avuncular interest in me."

"Let me guess. Avuncular has something to do with uncles."

"Can I have a trophy please."

"What for?"

"Because my football trophy doesn't seem to be having the effect on the ladies I hoped it would."

"No stallion action between the sheets?"















"Trophy please."

"Okay. I'll get you a trophy."

"Make sure its bigger then the football one."

"Avuncular."

"Yup."

I Am Human And I Need To Be Loved

"Just like everybody else does?"















They sat looking at the remnants of some not too good pizza, at the grease soaked crust, and the time it seemed was primed for a cold rain of dissatisfaction. The brightly lit parlor was near empty and the feelings of ennui and nihilism were present and sitting with them at the table. The orange soda had tasted of salt and there was an ammonia smell not unlike the kind created when the threat of physical violence grips one.

"You shut your mouth. How can you say I go about things the wrong way?"

"Because I am the son and the heir."

"You are the son and the heir of nothing in particular."

"Only because of a shyness that is criminally vulgar."

"And that is a manifestation of the falsity in which you view this world."

"I am the son and the heir."

They knew only too well that none of what they had in mind would end well yet onward the proceeded, vengeance and larceny the only motives available to them.

"When you say it's gonna happen now. Well, when exactly do you mean?"

"I mean that I am the son and the heir and it is by a shyness that is criminally vulgar that I do not seek to ascend to the place that is rightly mine. This is the now and how can you say I go about things the wrong way?"

"You see, I've already waited too long and all my hope is gone."

"And you might wait forever for I'm the son and the heir and though all your hope is gone it is only by time that you will understand."

It was an impasse that they both knew would not shift. It was an never ending conundrum and no amount of empty words and riddled allusions would change the fact that there was no way through this thing, that the lives they lived had been rendered meaningless and resolution was as unobtainable as was pleasure.















"So you are the son and the heir. I breathe of the air and walk in the sun but I've already waited too long and all my hope is gone."

"It astounds me that you think that by accepting my birthright, then there might be a change of things."

The parlor was closing and the lights were being shut all about them.

"I am human and I need to be loved just like everybody else does."

"But you are the son and the heir."

"And so this precludes me my happiness."

As they exited they came and stood before the parlor. The street was dark and quiet and though they had no desire really to stay they did as such contrary to any other desire, that now dead, might once have lived within them.

They lit and then dragged distractedly on cigarettes.

"There's a club, if you'd like to go. You could meet somebody who really loves you."

"So I go, and I stand on my own and I leave on my own, and I go home, and I cry and I then I want to die."

"But you are the son and the heir."

"You shut your mouth. How can you say I go about things the wrong way?"
















"But you are human and you need to be loved just like everybody else does."

"But I've already waited too long and all my hope is gone."

"But you are human and you need to be loved just like everybody else does."

"Oh ..."

"Oh ..."