Plans.
Somewhere in a quiet little town in Northern Illinois is a little gas station. It’s not much to look at, you may have seen it and never paid any mind. This little gas station used to be a mom and pop shop with a little garage attached for giving oil changes and tires rotations to soccer moms and boys whose fathers never taught them to do it themselves. Now it’s a Shell. One must imagine a couple’s dreams at business ownership were set back on that spot.
Just down the street is a park. You can see it from the little gas station that used to be a mom and pop shop. At this park, children play on the playground. Young boys and girls play football, baseball, and softball at various points of the year. Dads will cheer their sons and daughters on. Some are made proud, others disappointed. The kinds of dads who teach their kids to change their own oil. They make plans to live out their athletic dreams vicariously through their children. Some are very talented. But maybe they like music more. Still. Dad has his plans.
Plans. God laughs.
Dog owners walk their dogs at this park, too. Couples stroll around, some with dogs, some without. Teenagers get up to no good there. There’s a little forest just past the football field notorious for teenagers getting up to no good.
All a manner of life takes place on this obscure little northern Illinois street. It may even be undistinguishable from any other suburban street in the United States, save for the climate.
Summers there are warm and often humid. There is green everywhere and the air can be thick with the smell of cookouts. Winters are long and often bitingly cold. The sky is gray and, while the snowfall can be very beautiful, its beauty quickly gives way to ice and slush and snow blackened on the side of the road by car exhaust. Fall and Spring are cold, too, mostly. In the fall, chill sets in early. In the Spring it retains its grip as long as possible.
…
Down the street from this park, almost smack dab in the middle between the park and the little Shell gas station that used to be a mom and pop shop, there is a house. Nothing out of the ordinary to see from the outside.
A beautiful girl lives there.
There’s a boy who loves her. She loves him back too.
This girl had a quality about her that could almost be electric, and she was stunningly beautiful. There were lots of boys who chased her. But she loved this boy. He loved her back, too.
This girl would often contend that she could not bear to finish a story. She never wanted to know the ending.
Maybe it was for fear of tragedy. Maybe though, she felt that not knowing the ending meant the story never ended. There could be a comfort in that. Often on late night walks through the park down the street from the little Shell gas station, the boy would play the contrarian. Try to see if he could change her mind. He never could. She was more stubborn than he.
He had to know the ending. Indeed, no matter how tragic, it was the most interesting part.
…
This park, down the street from the little Shell gas station that used to be a mom and pop shop, was the scene of many late night walks with this boy and girl who loved each other. They would talk about this or that, or nothing at all. They would share cigarettes and she made him promise to quit before they got married. They made plans. They sat at the bench and proclaimed their love for each other. Young and in love. They had hope. They made plans.
Plans. God laughs.
Maybe, sometimes, they’d stop at this little Shell gas station and fill up their tanks on their way to this place or that. It meant very little to them. Just another gas station.
The former proprietors of the little mom and pop shop would stop by the little Shell gas station sometimes, too. They would get gas, and stand on the spot where their dreams collapsed.
They had plans once too.
…
Years would go by. The young boy and the young boy, now perhaps a young man and a young woman, kept loving each other. Not the same love as before. More mature, perhaps. In its way, it blossomed from simple passion into an impossibly close friendship. They became family in their own way.
The young man, now, had grown to love this young woman more than his own life. More than anything he thought possible. He imagined getting a normal job, and having a normal house with children. He’d teach them how to change their own oil, and let them play baseball, or football, or music if they would like. He had no desire to live vicariously through anyone else. Above all odds, all he wanted was firmly within his grasp.
He made plans.
…
Granted, all was not always perfect. The young man and woman surely fought, had the disagreements all couples had. No sweat. They always made up.
On nights when the young man wasn’t around, the young woman would go for walks in this park by herself. Maybe, an idea began to creep into this young woman’s mind.
Maybe, she thought, she didn’t want to know the ending. Maybe, she thought, she ought to stop reading before the ending.
Perhaps for fear of tragedy.
She made plans.
…
There are few certainties.
Here’s one:
Late one cold spring night, the girl stopped at the little Shell gas station that used to be a mom and pop shop.
Where she planned on going is no certainty.
Here’s another:
She collapsed there.
Late one cold spring night, at the little Shell gas station that used to be a mom and pop shop, the young woman, for whom the young man would surely have killed and died for, thought her last thought.
What truly happened, other than that, is no certainty.
…
Perhaps, the young man would wonder, love was truly not enough. None of it was enough to the young woman to make life worth living.
Indeed, if life itself wasn’t worth living, what chance did he stand with her?
Perhaps, she felt she had figured out the ending. The sad, tragic truth. That love just wasn’t enough. She never wanted to know that.
The young man, though, he needs to know.
Now he does.
Does he?
Surely there’s more to life than one tragic truth. She’ll never know.
That’s just how she wanted it.
…
Here’s one last certainty:
Sometimes, late at night, the young man who loved the young woman more than life itself will drive by that little Shell gas station that used to be a mom and pop shop. Sometimes, he’ll even get gas there.
He’ll stand on the very spot where his dreams, and all the very ideas he once held as truths, collapsed. Much like the former proprietors of the little mom and pop shop.
He’ll stand there and look down the street to that park.
He won’t be going back there.
…
“Fire & Ice”
I roll ash between finger and thumb,
while sitting here stoned and sipping spiced rum.
My mind grows tired and sick from the thoughts,
of a world so uncured with mind blowing plots.
As I continue the resisting to feel relentlessly numb.
I ponder the times of serenity for some.
We all strive daily for further understanding,
How is this world so lost yet at the same time astounding?
We all live in fear; to scared to sin.
Yet, We live in a world where people kill to win.
I see no crime in letting your dark side shine,
It's how one learns their perforated lines.
Injustice has become our laws,
the others have been long forgot.
I intend to restore humanity,
With my hearts humility.
I intend to instill trust with truths
Without using weaknesses of personal abuse.
As society points out those who go their own way,
Don't judge hastily for the ones choosing their own identity.
I am a rebel in my own right,
Intending to move forward and continuing the fight.
To bring fire and ice together.
The scorching fire of judgement and
The clear pure water of acceptance.
For I know the truth;
fire and ice don't mix.
Will the frozen purity of acceptance put out the inferno of judgement?
Or will the blazing fire prevail?
Time will only tell....
The Clock Witch
They call it a Clock Witch.
A gluttonous little creature that burrows into the brassy depths of gears, cogs and springs, nibbling away at all measures of time. A Clock Witch, they say, is the reason your ten-minute snooze rings in ten seconds. It’s the reason the morning hours pass quicker before work or school and the hours during work or school seem to drag on for days. According to Newt Scamander’s Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them, the mundane hours of a witch or wizard’s life are the most unfavorable in both taste and satisfaction. A Clock Witch prefers only the finest of hours, the most scrumptious of minutes and savory of seconds. These are unfortunately, and more often than not, the most important.
I’d never heard of a Clock Witch before.
Until now, I had always assumed that time was just time and there was nothing more mischievous and gluttonous than time itself. Nights spent mulling over my new discovery were quick to prove me wrong and after lapping up the dusty words of old books that had been touched by nothing but time (inhaling a grimy cloud or two and pausing only to let pass a fit of coughs and hacks), I decided I’d meet a Clock Witch for myself.
The process of extracting a Clock Witch from a clock would be a delicate one, of that I had no doubt. But I figured I’d read enough pointless manuals and various How-To's to handle the situation. There was bound to be a tidbit of clock-picking skills stored somewhere in my mind's waste bin of useless information, not so useless now that I'd found a use. Of course I could have cast a few spells, muttered a few charms. But that would have been too easy. Aside of meeting the Clock Witch, I intended to catch it and like catching any other pest, one can never expect such a task to be simple.
So much for pointless manuals and various How-To's.
Instead, I found my clock-picking skills through Disney's 1951 adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Like the Mad Hatter, I sat determined. Fork in one hand and a timepiece in the other, I pried all four prongs between the brass seam and pulled.
Tick. Pop. Spring!
Gears flew, screws spun. An impish laugh rose from the still ticking heart, a small burst of cold air hitting my cheek in its escape. I stared down at the dissected apparatus, my own muddy reflection staring back from the rusted clockwork.
Empty.
I checked the time on the intact and well functioning wall clock above my desk. 10:37 PM. In the hours I'd spent searching for this pest of prime, I'd missed study hall, two exams, and a much anticipated chess game with a friend.
They call it a Clock Witch.
A Clock Witch prefers only the finest of hours, the most scrumptious of minutes and savory of seconds. And these are unfortunately, and more often than not, the most important.
