Let’s work

Let’s work, be proud, stand tall…

I have no concept of the length of days. I am indeed lost in a strange life. One moment I was headed in one direction and then I woke up headed in an alternate direction. 

This part of my life seems to be almost a sequel to my trek out of South Texas, but in reality the year before, and this one, if you look deeply is represented by one underlying factor. 

I left the house in the morning and was on a mission like so many men who came before me in the previous decades of the Industrial Revolution. Somewhere along the way, something happened. 

The earth shook, and the ground beneath me broke away, I was falling from building to building, desperately grasping onto whatever I could. I think I always knew why it was happening, but just couldn’t get myself to say it. 

So here I am, running up and down ladders, shooting condos, Home is a van in a campground. There is no uncertainty like this when you have many people depending on you and they live on the edge with you. 

The day will come to a close, we will saddle up and ride away. Under the evening sky, we will eat and talk and drink. In the morning, it will happen all over again.

I will grow tired of this work and give ultimatums, bluffing poorly with nothing in hand.  They lose, I lose, we lose.

Rescue comes in the form of shelter and also in work that is in its very last days of a 100-year run. This is good, but the immensity of my pursuer makes me as powerful as a speck of dust against the galaxy. Before my words are even spoken, they are defeated. I have known this before I became self-aware.

Looking out the window on Lillian Road to the farthest street light I could see before the road bent away to the right. They painted futility onto the surface of the road even though I already knew.

But I tried! I fought. Ridiculous! Like seeing the car speeding towards me, I try as hard as I can to close the door, even though I know it should have been closed an hour ago. Even so, the door separates nothing.

Like on July 13th, while New York City sat in darkness, I was suddenly flung out into the woods late at night. Slowly I walk back towards my yard, back towards my house. I saw him in the driveway walking away from me, yet I knew for sure that when he got to the stairs, he would walk up them and toward me. 

Four steps up to the outside porch for me, opening the old-fashioned aluminum storm door. It squeaks as I close it, and I walk past the first door, making a left down the hall, coming to the end, and making another left into the rounded stairwell. Just as I do that, I hear him open the aluminum storm door. I am not surprised by this.

Up to the second floor, I go, and as I round the corner and look at my door. There is no knob on it. I hear him start up the stairs behind me. 

I knock on the door so that someone might open it for me, but when I knock on it, instead of it being made of wood, as it appears to be, it is made of concrete and makes no noise whatsoever. In futility, I turn around and look up just as he gets to the top of the stairs.

What do you want?