A Tail of Tear, Part Whatever Since I Don’t Know How Long This Is. Like that.

There I sat, watching my youngest chew the metal studs out of the pleather chair that my mother-in-law had given us, contemplating.

Is the iron in the studs an enhancement for one so young, or is that outweighed by the sharpy pointy innards? Is the challenge of pulling studs out with baby teeth a life-affirming feat that he will carry with him like a pocketful of Sour Warheads?

“Hey! Don’t chew the pleather. Keep on task, dude.”

At that moment I heard a descending F-sharp scale howl from outside and sincerely hoped it wasn’t the garbage men tripping over our bags of used razor blades. When will they start recycling that stuff? When will they start training the garbage people to observe where they step and to stop bleeding on our driveway? The blood is a difficult complement to the gray of the existing mildew and should really have more orange in it to work as an accent. These sorts of issues expand on a daily basis and, while offering me a ton of time to philosophize, deliberate and define what should be and when, they detract from my goal of constructing a façade, similar to a slipcover for sofas, that would fit over a two-story single family dwelling, allowing internal decay to progress at will, yet foiling ravening covenant-crazed groups who have a racist, sexist, religionist bias against those items and beings that are simply a part of the circle of life. You know, worms, compost, grubs, roaches, rats, nutria, zombie beavers.

"Don't eat the pleather, sweetie. I can see you with eyes in the back of my head. I'll be right back."

I ambled outside, unable to run due to exacerbation of a bunion that even a two-hour session with flesh-eating koi hadn’t remedied, and noticed my new neighbor clasping one of her youngsters in her arms, high above the ground while squeaking something or other about a snake. I don’t know where her other youngster was, but it was apparent that she wasn’t inside the snake, since the snake was coiled and HAD been pleasantly sleeping and was skinny and non-youngster-filled.



To be continued…