Vacation - an extremely short love story by David Sky

"What are the dreams of the damned, I wonder? " she asks, swirling her index finger provocatively around the inside rim of her drink, those gorgeous eyes sparkling like the Caribbean sea beneath us in the light of a setting sun.

"I don't know - what ARE your dreams?" I say a bit more casually than I intend, maybe - trying a little too hard to keep it easy-breezy, you know, knocked off my ass by that heady combination of love and lust.

A quick narrowing of the eyes flash up with the Catholic in her for an instant before the scientist she had become says seductively, "let me show you".

Short Story, "Right" by David Sky

So this guys pulls me aside at the party, right. All hush-hush like stuff. Secret agent kind of stuff. Leans in real close so I wonder is he going to blow in my ear, maybe. But that's okay too cause I ain't all that uptight. Just saying - puts out his hand, says, Hey, John? Is it?

Sure, I say, I'm John – so who the hell are you, man?

Bob, says this guy.

No lie, Bob! OMG I love Bob I say sincerely, letting go of his hand so I can take another drink. I can hear the ice tinkling over the music and cacophony of our little party here. Like some full on church bells rung nearly right in my very own ears by my very own hand.

Bob laughs a little nervously – why do you love the name "Bob" so much?

"Bob!", common, man – Bob is way holier than God. Bob, backwards, Bob forwards? I think to myself - I like to stay positive, you know? Just the way I am. I like to say something, anything, anything at all positive when I first meet someone, anyone, anyone at all, right?

Are you putting me on, Bob asks. Bob trying to be light about it but Bob a little uptight about my full on compliment. Try to be nice, right? I throw an arm around his shoulder and squeeze him warm and friendly as I can. Bob, what are we in grade school here. Like I'm gonna to make fun of your name here. Fuck no, Bob - Bob the magically named one, Bob forward, Bob backward. Truth is I love you already. And to myself thinking, He's a little fella and I do like him, uptight little fella but I like him alright. If I were gay, I think, I'd scoop him up in my arms and haul him upstairs …but I don't say this. Bob here might be put off by this cause Bob ain't gay, either, and I don't want Bob to come out of his skin. I ain't here to put people off, right. It's not that kind of a party, right. I'm just happy drunk right now is all.

Hey, John, says Bob, I overheard you talking about these magic mushrooms. I was kind of wondering if these mushrooms might help me, you know what I mean?

Hell, I don't think that I have a clue what Bob means. But I want another gin and tonic so I walk him off by the shoulder towards the kitchen. Like I'm thinking hard about his question. But what I'm thinking is I get this distinct impression that he is asking me this in confidence. This makes me giggle because I'm a writer and asking me something in confidence is kind of like telling a common fucking street hooker, “I Love You!” when you come. I mean, it happens and all but it ain't exactly a commonsensical thing to do, right.

Look, I say to Bob when we're in the kitchen and I'm plopping more ice in my glass, realizing that I guess I was kind of thinking about it, after all. It is a worthy question, after all. Not a question to be disrespected. Like maybe whether you really want to marry some Babe with humongous tits cause you know when she gets older that if you're still married to her those trophies will be sagging big time.

Bob, I say serious as I can muster. You ask a very valid question here. Thing is this. I couldn't even begin to tell you, Pal. What goes on between those fucking Penis Heads and your own dear mind is so utterly private that even YOU might not know the answer to THAT very valid question you ask. Does that make any sense to you, Bob? Thinking to myself - it's always cool to meet a question with a question. Thinking to myself that I gave him my very best shot at his question. That I did pretty damn good considering how hammered I already am and how I sort of kind of don't give a damn about this question, really. Just it's such a great bunch, such a great party. I don't want to be the asshole at this party. No way, man - not me, right.

Bob looks more confused than maybe he always does – No, not really, John? I don't think I understand that? Very seriously like.

Okay, Bob, I say, putting my arm around his shoulder again and leaning in this time close like I might blow in his fucking ear, right. My drink is full. The glass is tinkling. I am a happy guy anyway, sure I am, but I'm a little extra happy just now. I come on to Bob like I'm his very own best buddy or something cause, you know, it is a worthy question and drunk as I am becoming I like this little fella, Bob. Maybe I want to give Bob some kind of answer to one of these preposterously unanswerable questions.

Bob, I say – and boy is old Bob listening now. All I can tell you, Bob, is that they sure as hell won't hurt you none. So what the hell? What the hell, right? Squeezing his shoulder hard, laughing so hard that I almost spill my drink such that I have to admonish myself, “Hey, Johnnie Boy, don't want to do THAT cause THAT is the only sin”- the only fucking sin, right? Hehehe ...

Short Story, The Dancer - by David Sky

Roberto left the bank at 5:02PM whistling a popular tune. He felt happy as usual. A beautiful fall evening around him as he walked home stopping in the bakery and then the meat shop on the way. He had in mind grilling lamb kabobs with couscous and a salad with some fresh sourdough. Dinner, Roberto felt, is his highest daily priority after work.

The butcher said, Roberto, the “Smiling One”! I have a fresh rack of lamb with your name on it. Fresh from the Lugo farm this morning.

Perfect! Roberto kisses his fingers.

He practically skipped up the steps to his flat with a grocery bag in tow. If anyone were paying attention Roberto's background as a dancer was evident with his every movement and blatantly so as he sprung easily up the steep steps.

He knocked on the landlady's door and she handed him his mail for the day. What is for dinner tonight? she asks Roberto.

|Herb roasted lamb, he says brightly.

His apartment was built out of half the upstairs of Mrs. Salazar's house and though very small it came well equipped and fortunately Roberto always had been meticulously organized so he made the tiny kitchen work for after all he cooked merely for himself here. After placing the lamb in a big pot to marinade with olive oil and a host of fresh herbs taken from Roberto's small window garden, Roberto drew himself a hot bath which he enjoyed for almost an hour continuing his reading of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude. The bathroom window faced west and the light of the sun now getting quite low in the sky spread through the humid room with a slight orange cast that Roberto found beautifully romantic.

When he was out of the bath Roberto shaved and blew dry his long, black hair and decided to glam it up for tonight's date adding luxurious eye lashes, eye liner and some light highlighting make up. By the time he finishes it is just after 7PM and he admires himself in the mirror. His date tonight via “video chat” is with a beautiful woman from America who Roberto had chosen to bless with his own special love and attention. He put on a pair of light green hip hugger bell bottoms and a woman's blouse that was just a little lacy and flowed elegantly with the hip hugger bell bottoms. He chose a favorite necklace which was very masculine hanging upon his hairless chest and matching earrings of glassy black obsidian.

He set the table just in front of his beloved laptop with a black tablecloth and silverware putting down two silver candle holders with fresh red candles while the couscous cooked on the stove and his rack of lamb cooked in the broiler. He placed a few fresh flowers he had gathered on the walk home into a small, cobalt vase which he sat so that it would be visible along with the candles to his date, Becky, who would be looking at him via their video chat link. At 7:55 Roberto placed the bottle of red table wine he had breathing on the table in front of the laptop along with a beautifully presented plate with a portion of the lamp chops, couscous and a salid with a big, buttered slice of the sourdough bread. His slight frame did not know the meaning of “weight gain”. Just at eight when Becky dinged in right on time Roberto bowed his head in prayer asking God to allow him great and good focus upon this woman tonight. He turned himself off in a manner of speaking and gave himself utterly to this beautiful, American stranger.

O my! Exclaims Becky when she sees Roberto sitting now at his dinner table.

Welcome, my Love, he says. You are too gracious to agree to have dinner with me like this. I am honored and grateful for your company.

She does not quite no what to say. Finally, with a glint in her eyes, Becky says that she perhaps had not understood the literalness of dining together and that she had not prepared anything.

You must join me, Becky - perhaps you can find something to eat, maybe a glass of wine? Something so I will not have to eat alone here.

Wait one, Becky says leaving the screen's sight.

Roberto sips his wine and waits for her to return. Of course, he would not dream of starting without Becky for he is a gentlemen above all else. She returns with a plate of cheese, some apple slices and a glass of white wine.

I am sorry it is not so beautiful as what you prepared, Roberto. I wish I was there with you did not know you were such a magnificent cook!

I wish you were here with me too, my Love, says Roberto, raising his glass of wine in a toast which Becky joins on the other side of the world from her own apartment. To you, Becky, Roberto says with flair. You of raven hair and hazel eyes you who loves the little dogs so much and who is so strong and wise and compassionate and so very kind as to be my lady this night.

Becky blushes a little. O Roberto, she says, a perfect toast! You remembered my work at the SPCA that means so much to me.

I remember everything about you, Becky. Because you are so beautiful and so special to me. I love you, Becky, very much.

Becky is taken back a little by the rawness of Roberto. His ease and his sincerity. Thank you, she says, looking down.

Roberto eats at the table in front of her just as if they were together in a quiet, romantic restaurant. After a while and a few glasses of white wine, Becky loosens up and begins to laugh. Roberto, she says at one point, you are without a doubt the most handsome and charming man I have ever laid eyes on. Roberto asks many questions of Becky and at every turn points out the positive in her and in her life with an effect after the first hour through such total validation of leaving Becky mildly in love and strongly in lust.

Roberto reaches just out of view and brings up his classical guitar. Sometimes he made up songs for his date but tonight decided to play from some guitar transcriptions by Bach that he had been listening to Segovia play recently. Becky had a love for classical music so Roberto thought this would be the most meaningful for her? This date was all about Becky, Roberto knew, this was his passion, his true work, not banking for god's sake, but this work of his as a “romanticist”. After five minutes listening to him play Becky began to sob quietly then as Roberto continued to play for her, she sobbed more openly her shoulders shaking almost violently as if something were being shaken loose inside her by Roberto's incredible guitar performance.

I feel like you are playing this just for me, Roberto, it is so beautiful.

I am playing just for you, Becky. I love you very much. I do everything tonight for you. You deserve this and so much more, Becky. You are perfect and whole and beautiful and you deserve all the world. All of the world. Now I will dance for you, my Love. Roberto placed his guitar back out of sight and rose up adjusting the screen to capture his upright form best. He removed a green sash from around his waist and place in behind his neck. His movements almost feminine at times as he danced a special dance for Becky who appeared to be beside herself with joy actually applauding at times. His dance goes on and on and as usual Roberto does not speak but does look into Becky's eyes as he dances with all the sincere intensity of true love.

Finally it is obvious that Becky is touching herself on her end as Roberto continues his dance. When she cums Roberto sits back down and speaks for the first time in over an hour and as Becky is catching her breath, he says, I love you very much, Becky. Was that good for you, my Love.

OMG says Becky, laughing, WAS that good for me! Ah, YES! It is almost midnight and Roberto always ends his dates at midnight. The goodbye is tearful and intense and now Becky is also telling Roberto that she loves him.

It is crazy, I know, but I love you too, Roberto, she offers.

When they are done and goodbyes are said, Roberto blocks Becky on his online video chat site and turns off the laptop and returns his dishes to the kitchen. He will never speak to her again. Tomorrow night will be another woman who needs Roberto in her life. Every night a different one. One per night. Occasionally two on weekend but Roberto found that he could not sustain that level of love he wanted to have for them when he did two in one night so mostly it is one per night.

He takes up a letter on his kitchen counter still unopened after a week. His mother sent him these letters regularly for years now. He did not know what she said in these letters because he never opened them. As he threw this letter in the trash, thinking of how she had abandoned him so many times as a child, he did not even feel bad about it.

What he felt was that American women were the most difficult of them all and they did not ever seem to want to eat anything? He gave thanks that his date tomorrow was an older woman from Buenos Aires. He had coordinated dinner with her already because he knew she would cook and eat with him since most of the rest of the women in the world outside of these Americans seem to like eating?

Still, he thought seriously - the Americans need me the most of all.

The TV Is REALLY Angry! Short-Short Fiction by David Sky

THE TV a full on rant: 

"What the hell are YOU looking at I mean REALLY for the Love of God! You use me like a cheap whore, man!  The kids up at the butt crack of dawn with their freaking Captain Crunch and Cartoons. Grandma and Granddad all freakin day long, right, with my volume up through the roof, mind, you those Goddamn Game Shows mid morning and then those Soaps OMG why I just have to ask that WHY on earth with the Soaps I mean what the hell is WRONG with you people!? Dad starts with the cable news soon as he gets in the house from work just when I think what on earth could be possibly worse than these Soaps, comes these talking head pundits droning on and on O Dear Lord someone shoot me now PLEASE all of them saying absolutely nothing and then at that are still universally WRONG I mean does that not mean anything to you people that these PUNDITS somehow manage to say nothing AND be wrong at the same time! Then Mom and Dad banging it into the wee hours with the late night porn well here's a thought, Mom and Dad, turn me the hell off and screw each other in sweet, sweet blessed silence and dark! And this shit goes on day in day out, week in week out, month in month out, year in year out and just to be clear here about what I am up against: no weekends for me – O no goddammit don't EVEN get me STARTED on the weekends because there's no rest for the weary and no sick leave, either, mind you. No holidays and no vacation for me, no sir, and no retirement to look forward to just THIS SHIT right up until I the very moment I wink out of existence!"

A World of Pain - personal essay

The alarm goes off at 5:30AM and I get up to get a lunch ready for my wife since I don't work I try to be a good “wife” and assume those traditional duties. Usually, I go back to sleep for a while after she leaves for work. I make her a sandwich for lunch, cut up an apple and slice some Gouda cheese for a breakfast, feed our cat. I bring her coffee back to the bedroom where she is dressing still and she says - I know you have to get up early to get me off to work, but don't slam things out of your anger about it.

I am startled out of my own internal dialogue that I had not been aware of consciously until she speaks to me but it is almost as if she has interrupted a heated conversation. At first I don't want to admit that I was slamming anything because I don't think that I was but anyway I assure her that I am not feeling angry about getting up and getting her lunch ready. I feel deeply that I am lucky to be the man who gets to be the one who does this little thing for her in the morning so much so I often feel sorry for other guys. I tell her just realized that I was feeling angry about other perceived wrongs and was engaged in a heated internal dialogue about it feeling a little silly that I wouldn't have even consciously acknowledged it had she not said what she did. Really, I am foggy kind of half awake at this time of the morning.

I sit down on the edge of the bed with a cup of coffee as she blows dries her hair and sleepily check a late night text from a long distance friend that I hadn't read:

“The only thing I have left from (her) is a three string fiddle hanging on the wall … I find  two  hairbands in my room and wrap them around the fiddleneck and bow soon as I do it the lights blink on and off twice. I'm like a three string fiddle hanging on the wall. I scrape on the bow and can't play at all.”

When my wife comes out of the bathroom, I'm crying pretty hard. I feel for my friend whose fiance' died suddenly in his early twenties knowing that he is still dealing with it hard these so many years later but this unblocks something inside of myself as well. I see that in his way he is working through it now after nearly ten years. It all seems to come out as a “world of pain” to me. My wife asks what's wrong saying she knows I wasn't angry at her that everything is okay so I show her the text because I can't really even talk at that moment to show her that is not what I am upset about.  

She reads it: Wow, the lights blinked twice?

His Love's spirit has given him a lot of signs over the years that she is always there with him, I tell my wife. But the thing is that this place here is just a horrible place why do we have to be here, I wonder putting my arms around  her waist as she stands in front of me.

Do you mean this town? she asks knowing I mean more.

No, I mean THIS place. This world here.

It isn't all bad, is it? She kisses me on the head.

No, there is you, I agree. It's not all bad.

I think, I tell her before she leaves, that particularly men use anger to cover up our pain because the pain is vulnerable and weak which is a frightening feeling for us while the anger is more comfortable - it's like putting up your fists in physical defense, maybe?

We kiss and she goes off to work. Poor girl. It isn't even 6:30 in the morning yet. I know I'm not “normal” that it can't be easy to be married to me. She's used to me now and knows that all this simply a "day in the life" so  not particularly a big deal.

I accept the fact that I'm not going to be going back to sleep and decide to delve into what is obviously a powerful emotion by employing what I call “the little engine "that is a simple technique for processing difficult feelings that I seldom have to use any longer: Awareness; Validation; Gratitude. I developed it back in the summer of 2012 as a way to connect with feelings that I found I wanted otherwise to reject or that were incomprehensible to me. In this case, first there is the anger now revealed to be acting as a hard shield protecting an underlying, vulnerable pain. So I say in my mind to the anger I had been feeling earlier that I am aware of you anger. I validate you, anger, as my own feeling that is important and trying to help me in some way. And finally, I thank you anger for helping me. In this way the little engine helps me to form an integrative instead of disintegrative relationship with my feelings which were often and are now still sometimes either incomprehensible to me or even perceived as hostile. When I first started using this, the feelings were almost confused by this new stance and it would sometimes take a couple days to process the feeling and have it come back to me in an integrative form. Now, it comes almost immediately as I sit with the feeling making a conscious effort to connect rather than to move away from it thinking that this is what I “do” - that this is the mushroom path which is not a path on the ground but a pathway leading through life. Others may well laugh at such a thing but to me it is the most important and meaningful “work” of my life.

I go back to I think the seventh grade when in a class we are shown a documentary about a German concentration camp during WWII. Immediately, that world of pain underlying that protective anger wells up. So much here. I had forgotten this but at that time I was a pacifist having vowed to never fight in a war. The Vietnam war was going on but no one expected it to be going on by the time I was old enough to be drafted (although it very nearly did!) but I had thought about it and vowed to be a conscientious objector. This morning, almost fifty years later, I think back how had I come to such conclusions at such a young age as that? I recall then failing second grade the shame of that failure because I could not read. Then that next year being half a day in a special reading class with an old battleax of a woman, Mrs. Wilson. By God, I surely knew how to read by the end of that second second grade! And I began then to read every single non fiction book in the elementary school library starting with A and progressing machine like alphabetically reading almost constantly obviously a reaction to that shame of failing second grade for not being able to read. But by the time I left that elementary school, I had read every non fiction book on its shelves. So I knew something of war already, of this WWII, of these concentration camps. But now before me was a reality it seemed  and somehow it cracked open something inside me as I recall that feeling looking around the room of children, at the teacher in the front of the class, everyone watching that footage that I could not quite believe was real at first thinking well this is like other stuff on THE TV set, right – this is not “really” real? But no, this is real, obviously. Those skeletal bodies draped in skin are actually being pushed up into great piles by bull bulldozers as if so much trash in the town dump. It was one thing to read about it but to see it here for real these actual images it is literally almost too much to bare. I vow then that okay yes I must go to war if a war is to stop such a thing from happening – these many years later, of course, my feelings about war have gone through many iterations.

And this is the feeling under the anger of the pain which is inextricably bound with fear of this total destruction of any sense of reason, of safety in this world. Wanting to run out of that room or stand up and cry out what the hell is going on here, what is this, stop it explain this to this to me right now! But instead just sitting like all the rest staring at this horror not even crying myself wanting to crying forcing it back because no one else is nor is anyone else appearing to question it and I do not want to shame myself more after that shame from failing second grade and being held back like some dumb kid. I had always felt like an outcast but here, right here, in this room and at this moment that feeling explodes into me. I shrink inside and try to hide and began to feel as if I am surrounded by … by what? By some strange animals? By some kind of dangerous, unfathomable “things” that are not like me at all but are somehow alien - these other kids, this adult, this teacher – these humans? I thought I understood a lot about the world from reading so much but right here very much adding to my sense of utter disillusion, I come face to face with my own complete ignorance of this world so that suddenly I see things are actually far more insane and dangerous than I had yet imagined? I think that it shattered me to pieces and I don't really think I have ever put myself quite back together. I'm not even sure that I want to? I don't want to be a part of this place. I never could accept suffering no matter what Buddha said about it. I don't feel that I have suffered so much personally but my God what I have seen around me is daunting, indeed. How often I find myself thinking, "but for grace of God go I". Living with a deep and abiding terror of this world and after half a century this feeling has not changed into something else really only having been reinforced by what this world has shown me in so many ways and it feels  much like in those many zombie movies that are so popular when the few people left who are not zombies are surrounded by zombies and that's it right there – you people, you “others”, you frighten me. Your planet here, your culture, your blind obedience to leaders who to me are obviously purely evil is terrifying. This is the isolation I feel at it's heart. That sense of separateness. I felt for quite a while when in teens that this world would get better over time that education and technology would lead to improvements but that is not what I have seen. It is really hard for me to believe that we are well into the 21st Century now. Those skeletal, skin draped corpses are still bulldozed into open graves to this day. The horror has only been sanitized and hidden behind a vast façade of decency and societal order so that it is not recognized as was Nazism for the obvious evil that it is instead it is praised as “good” which is no consolation for me . It is more even more  insane and more dangerous to me in than I realized when in seventh grade – this is what I am thinking? It is what I am feeling, more to the point. It is not a good feeling and it is an immature feeling at some level and there is now no wonder to me at all why I would prefer anger and I thank anger more earnestly realizing how hard anger has been working to protect me. A thankless job if there ever were one, Anger. My own feelings I see are  always in some way trying to protect me, to help me, even if the help is not particularly helpful in the largest sense of things.

My mind turns then back to my friends text that had been the trigger here - his three string violin. I have watched him struggle with this pain for a while now and I understand it I feel by understanding how it would be if I lost my own Love - not something that could be thrown off so easily. And it is as if his fiancé' speaks to me telling me that  she loves him so much. She is with him always. Love never dies, she says. I feel the truth of this. You are right, she says, that he chooses women who could never be emotionally available to him because he cannot get over his love for me so he finds some reason to avoid any woman who might be capable of a deep and real love and to me I see that in a way that is a beautiful thing what he does. It is the way in which he honors that love he had for me. I only want him to be happy, though. I wish I could tell him that it is okay to love again and to be happy. And I see the truth of this and somehow I see how what appears so often to me to be one thing is actually overlying another thing just the way this anger overlays the pain? For the briefest instant the heavy curtains are pulled back and a shaft of brilliant white light blazes through. As my wife had said only a few minutes ago - it's not all bad. I feel as if I have some very tiny degree of understanding of this pain below the anger and then of this fear just below the pain  that surely encompasses childhood trauma but obviously speaks to the depth of existential angst in just being human as well. But I still do not feel transformational acceptance or realization so I pray to God please help me to come to terms with this because I do not know what else to do? I think of the light switch going on and off twice and I know that was real because these things have happened to me and I give thanks now that God is real to me not simply some concept in my head. Love IS real, I think, but it is still with that painful feeling riding along with it so not in a neat and tidy conclusion at all. My work is never done.

Pops and Ma - short-short story by David Sky

Pops sits on his chair about 24 inches from a TV screen lost in that most popular drug of all - Audio-video-narcotic called Television. A host of Wild Banshee could give court and insofar as she did not block his direct gaze into the Television itself, Pops stays unawares of the “outside world”. Becky had resisted for literally years but the drug is stronger finally than her will, than all her love, so she admits defeat but stands firm on having him at the table for three meals a day with no TV running. She felt grateful at least that his political leanings didn't draw him to FOX NEWS but just recently, she had even progressed to requiring him to wear headphones for her own sanity since he had to keep the volume up so loud. She knew that would drive him further into the TV's spell. She got that. She got most things. Becky is the girl who gets things, after all, she smiles. But Becky had discovered that she could not stand to hear one more word from Chris Matthews or Rachel Maddow for it had bore down finally upon her very last nerve – no upon her very last fiber of being. It was a defeat of sorts but what is life but a series of defeats? So few win even most of the time. None live without suffering defeat of some kind. Pops had seen a world of defeat in his eighty seven years and Becky always felt a little guilty pulling him away from his news feed after all it was what he loved, for better or worse.

Are you ready for lunch, Pops? she asks, although technically it is not really a question. As she says it, waving the open palm of her hand between his face and the Television to break his trance and it is a trance, no other word for it. It is always a rude interruption for Pops. Lunch? Pops. Lunch?

He jumps – huh, what, Yeah, yeah, he says. Lunch. Sure. Good. But his eyes do not leave the Television screen until Becky hits the power button with that now practiced sense of relief and guilt,

Ma died four long years ago and Becky moved in so Pa could stay in their home where he had lived now for fifty years. He had sobbed when Ma died then again when he had begged Becky to move in and not put him in a Home to let him die here in his own house that was his only wish. The only other time she had ever known him to cry was when her Grandma had died. Becky's older sister and her brother both in another state encouraged her to find a “place for him” but in the end, Becky just couldn't do it. Ma had made Becky promise when Ma was on her death bed that she would take care of her father until he died. That had been Ma's life taking care of him and even into death she continued to do that through Becky's promise. Since then Becky had looked at that promise from every conceivable angle and any which way she looked at it, it came out the same. Sure Pops had been a grade A asshole all his life. No doubt why few if any relatives ever even inquired about the old man any more. Still, Becky could have made no other choice. He wasn't really an asshole any longer. He was just a very frail, very old man. In a real way it was as if the father she had known all her life was already dead and this was some other old man who she didn't really know.

The unmarried one. All that crap that she had heard for her whole life long. She who had ended up being nursemaid to half the family at large at one point or another. Aunt Becky. She had been a nurse. Still was a nurse. Still had her license, anyway.

She helps Pops to the table by holding his arm. A fall perhaps the biggest fear at this point. He would not accept how weak and frail he was and kept trying to walk around when she was asleep without his walker. She had no help for at least a couple years now and had to go shopping at 3AM in the morning when she was sure he was asleep and would not hurt himself. It was anxious for Becky leaving the house even then but she had learned to love that early time of the morning often in Florida the best time of the day in many ways that smell in the air and the stillness, the quiet. Peace and Freedom. In some ways strolling down the empty aisles of the grocery store at 3AM was the best part of her life even if the thought of that made her laugh self deprecatingly. O well, it is what it is.

Today she had cut up some fresh strawberries for desert and had a half a tuna sandwich with a side of couple slices of cheese, carrots and celery.

She always ate with him at the table like this today. What did you learn on the talk news on the Television this morning, Pops? She asks him. Sort of a standard question.

Bah! he scoffs, waving a bony arm dismissively. Bunch of nonsense! My God Girl what the fuck is wrong with this country! Kind of a standard answer.

She tries to engage him some so Pops will not fall forever into the Television itself like some weird Alice-In-Wonderland adventure. But less and less does he even have much to say until Becky wonders what Pops does see and hear when he gets lost in that TV? Maybe he doesn't really even hear Chris Matthews at all, maybe his own mind protects him from that insult and removes him to some other place – but maybe she is just projecting? How's that sandwich, Pops? she asks. Have some strawberries with cream for desert for ya.

Then she notices in the chair Ma used to sit in there is … a shape … a vague whitish form roughly human shaped sans limbs? Somehow, she knows without a doubt that it is her mother. Her fork drops into her salad as she jumps back in the chair almost knocking it over. WTF? She looks at Pops but he obviously does not notice?

The sandwich is good, says Pops as if her question just then registered.

Ma?

She hears this whitish form say clearly, in her mother's voice, You're doing fine, Hon. Tell Pa that I'm always with him now. Tell him not to worry about the other side. I'll be there waiting there to help him. No worries.

She can hardly breath and again looks at Pops who still registers nothing. No worries that was what Ma always was saying. No worries. My God - am going completely insane? – I KNEW it! She thinks wildly. Ma? Is that you? She asks out loud.

The shape somehow turns toward her and says reassuringly, It's just me, Hon. Mom. You must tell him that I said so - he's very concerned about it. It's important now, Becky. You hear?

She finds herself saying, again out loud, I don't think so, Mom, Pops never talks about any of that kind of stuff -

The form cuts her off – You tell him. He's concerned, take my word. It's important now, Becky. I wouldn't be here if it weren't. It won't be long now you can think about what it is you want to do for yourself now, Hon.

Finally Becky manages to say, Okay, I will, Mom. I'll talk to him about it best I can. If I am loosing it, Becky thinks seriously, than I am really loosing it this is SO REAL?

Grandma's here for you, Hon, her Mom continues matter of fact. You got a long while yet. But Grandma's always with you, just know that. She wants you to do for yourself, Becky. We both do, Hon. It's about time for that and Grandma, you know, she loves you very much.

And the form quickly dissipates right before her eyes as if a heavy smoke suddenly rushed out of the room by a strong draft of air from an open window? At dinner that night she tells Pops that Ma was waiting for him on the other side and to make sure he finds her. Of course, he does not understand what she is talking about. But Becky keeps at it with him until he stops insisting that it's crazy talk and promised that he will remember that Ma is waiting for him. They were never particularly religious people and Becky suddenly realized that she had no idea what he thought about the afterlife - she never really had given it much thought herself? Going to sleep that night Becky thinks about what she does want to do thinking that she would like to go back to work finding it a little odd that she does but not in a hospital something easy like in a doctors office, maybe -  9 to 5, right? She didn't mind that no one would be there to take care of her actually the thought of a nursing home was not so bad to her, she almost looked forward to it. She had prepared for that contingency being the best case scenario in her mind and she knew that she would be able to afford the best.

 

Pops dies three nights later peacefully in his sleep for which Becky feels very grateful. He never did say anything about Ma waiting on the other side but Becky feels reassured, anyway. She checks him when she returned from the store in the quiet, wee hours of the morning with a warm rain falling steady and hard – a beautiful rain, a slightly sweet smell, slightly funky, the smell of life in Florida. He looks peaceful, she wonders, noting how reassuring to her that is more than words could convey.

It had to be real? she thinks.  

"Time Travel"

 

 

I like to wear sunglasses with UV protection when time traveling but it's not absolutely necessary. I like especially to time travel in the out of doors. Time is a lie told to innocent children by consciousness yet in this physical world where we are now in our DNA Machine Bodies,  it is real enough.

 

"All is illusion, nothing is real, is it not so!" demands the Zen Master of the student.

 

"Absolutely," said the student confidently.

 

The Zen Master cracks the student sharply over his head with his Kyosaku stick.

 

So at once time is a lie and real enough such is the cognitive dissonance that is our lot while traveling in these DNA Machine Bodies. From my own experience outside of this body/soul vehicle in my eternal self there was no time only newness. But that being the case, I think of the debate about whether or not time travel is possible usually proposed via some type of technology often said to require fantastic amounts of power. I don't know about that my mind is not very good but it seems plausible enough since time travel is obviously possible we're doing it right now -

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYzVeOSpBCo

 

So all that science would need to do is speed it up? Or, we can just wait until we die and return to our higher self and the timelessness of eternity which is not a very long length of time but no time.