Pardon The Interruption

Under Repair Be Back Soon

E. vS

MBEY

You Have Been Where And With Who

It was her first time in front of a real editor and she thought to herself if this wasn't what is like to be a real live grownup. It had all been good fun and a private adventure but now she had exposed herself to those in the real world who might not be so willing to gift her with unwarranted praise and soft peddling.















The desk before her was imposing and she felt that it might have not been such a good idea to go with such a large and respected publisher especially since this was her first novel and as far as she knew, save for the kind remarks of family and friends, the damn thing might be crap.

The editor had been assigned by the publisher and had been given the task of shepherding the, 'little book that could', from amateur status to a possible commercial release. The editor was an older gray haired man and to her understanding would be the last person to show interest in the type of novel that she had written.

She had told the story of teenage love and then of an older woman's regret in having squandered her one real chance at romantic fulfillment. There was no way she thought that this man would be able to connect to a story that for him could have no real relevance. Deep down she felt that the publisher had only been humoring her when they said they liked the work and they had chosen this editor with the specific notion that he would find the work unworthy and send her away without any hope of realizing her fantasy of becoming a published author.

She sat in her chair and had an overwhelming urge to curl her feet under her body like some schoolgirl might. She wrung her hands and felt a fool for being so out of her depth. The editor paid little attention to her as he pulled a yellow legal pad from out of his desk drawer. Then from his briefcase he removed what she knew to be her manuscript. He placed the items on the desk and then looked straight into her eyes...

"So you are Jeannie Wright the author?"

She gurgled in ascent.

"Well I must say it is pleasure to meet with you. At first when the company assigned me to your work I thought that I was being penalized for some misdeed or transgression."

This didn't make her feel any better. Even he had admitted that he was wrong for the project and that the publisher wasn't serious about her book.

"And again I have to admit that the subject matter couldn't be farther afield then what I consider my home territory, I'm a war and westerns guy myself, maybe some hard boiled crime but coming of age love stories, hell I don't know my ass from a hole in the ground."

She slunk further into her chair, if possible she would have just bypassed the chair and placed herself directly on the floor so embarrassed was she at the thought of her coming rejection. She should never have gotten her hopes up and now every person she might have bragged to, in her own subtle way, flashed before her eyes. Why couldn't she have just kept her mouth shut and then she wouldn't have had to deal with the rain of shame that was sure to come.

"You know I doubt my place here all the time. I always think the chief editor has it in for me. When I first got here I was an ancient literature expert so when they started giving me all these war manuscripts and westerns I thought they were trying to foster my failure and now years later those genres have become my forte."

She nodded only because if she were attempt to speak she was afraid she would bust out in tears.

"So I get your manuscript and I think the same thing is going on. How can a middle aged, I'm being easy on myself here, a middle aged man hope to connect to this materiel? I thought, here we go, the end is near and that 401k is in jeopardy of getting cashed in early for the kid's braces. So imagine my surprise that once again I realize that a chief editor is chief editor because maybe they know a thing or two about their jobs."

She had no idea what the man was saying but she was sure that none of it was to be in her favor.

"I loved the book. Don't get me wrong it still needs some work but I think you, young lady, are an original voice and with proper guidance and exposure this book of yours has a chance of connecting with a wide audience."

She attempted to react but had settled so far back in her seat that she nearly fell out of it while trying to assume a better posture.

"Really?"

"Oh yes. That passage when they are swaying wordlessly under the street lamp, the description of that warm summer wind, the unheard music that they both could hear so well...magic."

"Wow."

"So Jeannie I want to thank you for adding a few years onto the career of this old, I mean middle aged man. I was sick of war and westerns and crime and now I have you. Tell me Jeannie..."

"What?"

"Do you have a few more ideas?"

"A have a million."















"Let's get this one out and then we can get onto the next."

"Sure...sure, the next."

It was her first time in front of a real editor and she thought to herself if this wasn't what is like to be a real live grownup.

I'm Not Saying But She Looks Like Friday

"Oh man I can not believe what I just saw."

"Why not? I mean beyond that whole you can never be sure if you are dealing with reality or some other alternate dimension type hoo-haw."

"I can not believe what I saw because it was so amazing and awe inspiring that my common experience, my frame of reference or lack there of caused in me a certain disbelief that such a thing was possible to be witnessed."















"Well either you believe what you saw or you don't. If you indeed did see it then you undoubtedly believe you saw it. If you are not sure if you saw it or not then maybe you can make a case for not believing in what you saw."

"Well what if what I saw, and I do mean witnessed with my own two eyes, still gave me pause to gauge the reality of the experience?"

"I should think that you could believe what you see with your eyes unless of course you are distrusting of your ability to cognize by use of eyesight."

"Cognize, huh? Haven't heard that used before."

"Trust me."

"I do, I do, I was just remarking. And I do appreciate your making the effort to anatomize my experience but I must put forth with all earnestness my steadfast convictions pertaining to my visual acuity. I know I saw what I saw but perhaps I am just in disbelief that such a thing was possible to observe."

"So you adhere to the proposition that what you saw actually transpired, existed, and that though you took the sight in with your eyes your ability to accept that information as real is somehow suspect?"

"I suppose if you want to go that way, sure. What I mean is that I can not believe what I saw. What you want to make of that statement is up to you in total."

"So?"

"So what?"

"So what did you see?"

"I'm not sure."

"What do you mean you're not sure?"

"I mean I am having such a hard time believing that I actually saw what I saw that I therefore am not able to properly describe what it is that I have seen.'

"Oh brother."

"I'm not your brother."

"Hey back off the semantics."

"Look whose talking."

"So let's just say you do your best to describe, in as much detail as you can muster, what it is that you can not believe that you either did or didn't see."

"Oh I saw it I assure you."

"Ugh. Just try please."

"She smiled at me."

"I don't believe it."

"That makes two of us."

The Gift Returned Unopened

It had all become so very complicated. Everything he did was a jumbled mess, a series of events so unwieldy and mysterious that to parse their significance was more task then he was equipped to handle. He was indeed at a loss, at a loss for what he did not know, but this only mounted the intensity of his quandaries.















He lived his life not as if a real participant but his vantage point was to see his everyday only in metaphorical terms. None of it was actually happening, everything he saw or did was just a representation of some bigger thing that in his mind he had created some parallel reality. He didn't work a job but it was embroiled in a Sisyphean dilemma of effort and reward. It never ceased, nothing was real.

His un-gluing was gaining celerity and his disposition was becoming quirky and subject to bouts of rashness and then disconsolation. He sat quiet underneath the shade of a tree and made attempt to sort through his predicament. He tried to see his days through a realistic lens but this would not be. A metaphor positioned itself before him and was his wont he ran with it.

There was a land that contained everything good and valuable to him. It was a place he desired and had a great longing for. The land was a peopled with love and only happiness and good too, but he could not reach it. The land lay in a valley and he was on a mountaintop high above it. He had a mammoth need to get to that valley but there were no roads and the cliffs that surrounded it were far too treacherous to navigate. He looked about and saw that just steps away was tethered a hot air balloon. The perfect conveyance he thought so he climbed into the basket and reached down and loosened the ropes that held it earthbound.

He raised heavenward in that hot air balloon and began drift upon the prevailing winds. He cleared the mountains and was over the far end of the valley. He looked below and saw that all he need do was to make that balloon to lower him into its wonder. He grasped the control of the gas flame that supplied the heat that gave the balloon the hot air it needed to lift from the earth, he turned the gas down but the flame only intensified and the balloon began to rise, he then turned the control in the opposite direction and again the flame became even more fierce and the balloon gained even greater altitude. The valley shrunk before his eyes as he sped higher. As he rose ever more he began to get vertiginous so he closed his eyes to stop the sensation.

When he opened his eyes he found that somehow he had come to be atop the balloon. The balloon's rounded surface made his perch a tenuous place to be and he feared he might just slip from this place and be cast over into thin air. He calmed himself and realized that it wasn't so much the thought of falling over the edge that was so discouraging him but that he could no longer see the valley for the balloon. He weighed his options and knew that being in this place did not serve him and it was well worth any risk to come from this place so he flattened himself to the balloon and slid down its roundness.

He slid right down the side of the balloon but rather then make his way back to the basket he passed by it and found himself hanging to the ropes that hung from the basket that had once tethered that balloon to the earth. He grasped the rope with all his might and looked down below him. There was a cloud cover now and his valley was lost from view. A supreme urgency overtook him and he tried bodily with all his might to pull the balloon earthward by his own strength. He pulled with all his power and though he felt as if if he might be having some effect on the balloon there was no real way to be sure if he had indeed made any headway.

His arms now tiring he pulled himself back into the basket and sat down and drifted. After some time he stood up and looked down to the valley below and saw that he was back above the mountains. The struggle had been for naught, he was back where he had started, no nearer nor further from paradise. The balloon began a descent and again he tried to manipulate the controls of the hot air to keep the balloon aloft. The gas control was frozen in place and now he was nearest to the point of landing.

He hadn't an idea what this metaphor meant. The shade of the tree felt good on the hot day but even so he slid into disconsolation. It had all become so very complicated. Everything he did was a jumbled mess, a series of events so unwieldy and mysterious that to parse their significance was more task then he was equipped to handle.

Single To Left Field

Sometimes we get lost, lost in things and places that derail our better intentions. Louis was just such a man. There had been hopes and thoughts and movement towards successes and it seemed as if every opportunity were only to be plucked so easily as if a fruit from the vine and so may it have been had not providence interceded.















The bell rang and the fighters came out for the twelfth round. Louis knew it was expected that he touch gloves with his foe but he was in little shape to do so. His sight was marred by slabs of thick diffusion yet when sitting on his stool between rounds he gave every impression of a fighter willing and able to carry on, lie though it may have been. He made no mention of the pain or his inability to defend himself rather he acted as if by instinct and so was allowed to fight on.

Louis swiped with his glove and it was his good/bad fortune that his opponent generously slapped back making the connection he was so unable to complete on his own. There was a fast flurry of blows and if not for the other fighter's wildness all of them would have found their mark. Louis raised his gloves in a defensive stance and the blows came crushing hard and fast and he could he feel his own gloves battering the sides of his face. He poked out a weak jab and then another though he could only guess as to where the target may have been. He tasted the blood that ran back through his sinus' and into his throat. Then the real crush came and he felt his head drive back into his neck and the whole thing fold in like an accordion.

Louis needn't have ever taken the fight, he might oughtn't have ever even become a boxer. It was wasn't as if he enjoyed fighting he actually rather abhorred the concept of it. It was just many wrong turns he had taken in his day.

He had a natural talent for boxing to be sure but Louis had no talent for saying no. He had no talent for taking control of his own life. At no point could he step up and speak for himself, to express his feelings for what was happening to him. There were so many forks in the road and so many outs but Louis let those around him steal his life. He was a commodity and so he was treated as such. He never protested, always thinking in the back of his mind that the time would come where he would make his will known but that time never came for him.

There were so many times during the fight where if only he had the voice he might have said how hurt he was, how he couldn't take it anymore and that it would be best for all if he discontinued the bout. Louis just wouldn't stop. Long after he was able to compete in any meaningful manner he stayed upright and dancing, the best he could, from one side of the ring to the other. Just take a knee Louis; you're done boy.

Punch after punch, he hadn't won a round on any of the judges scorecards and the punishment he was enduring made even seasoned spectators turn their eyes in horror. His eyes were slits hidden in red grapefruits and with each strike his sweat and blood flew from the ring into the first three rows of seats. Inside his head all was calm. He was talented at taking punishment. It was like a walk in the park for him.

There was the sound of the bell and Louis thought that against all odds he had gone the regulation twelve rounds. There was the splash of water on his face and he tried to make it back to his corner but his legs somehow wouldn't move. 'Stay down kid, the fights over.' It hadn't been worth it, he didn't make the twelve. He was laid out in the middle of the ring. The ring doctor was checking him and a look of worry stole his face as he passed the light in front of Louis' eyes and saw how little response they gave.

Louis could have bypassed it all. He could have stepped out when the pain had become too hard to bear. There were so many times he might have made other choices. Sometimes we get lost, lost in things and places that derail our better intentions. Louis was such a man.