Smooth Run™

She wasn’t where he said she would be. Not that I cared. His insistence on her being present was quite unnecessary.

Smooth Run™ technology wasn’t up to snuff. And I swear I toggled the “advanced” download option. Beta releases. So unstable.

Like how she says, I am. When she has a moment. Or two.

But I’m beyond that now. So beyond it. That last fight just about did it. What was it about?

Oh yes. Not being present. Or in the present moment. Whatever that means. She continually lives presently. Never planning ahead. Or is that my problem? I’ll be darned if I remember.

So I called up tech support. Or I should say he did. My better half. So much a part of me I’ve never given it a name.

Smooth Run™ Tech Support. What literary device is that? Sort of like “Army Intelligence” or any oxymoron I might think of. Love the “moron” part of that device. It always gives me a laugh.

Now he says I’m behaving like a moron. Is that a joke? Toggle the laughing gas, why don’t you? Oh, now he’s screening a frog keeling over and expiring. So I guess that was for my amusement.

A joke with a serious side. Is that entrée served with salad or fries? I get it. Not subtle enough. Jokes teach.

I’m conceited. Too full of myself.

Takes one to know one. I replied.

Then I woke up. On the subway.

It felt like driving a car with no one steering.

Blot out the drab in your life!

Smooth Run™ to the rescue.

Your personal meaning/truth serum.

The ride dazzled me. You know, the things I never see? The graffiti and the unemployable undesirables who inhabit my breathing space. The seat I never took. Blocking the doors that I have never walked through.

Yet, I completed every task. On autopilot. My mind is wandering from the current moment. Reflecting upon endings for drudgery or inadequacy.

Autopilot my life. Do it all. Smooth Run™, the ads say. Even the paper ads above my seat.

Which I shouldn’t be seeing. Is this someone’s revenge on me? I can see one now. An undesirable. I shiver in my subway seat.

He approaches. I can tell he’s a real one. Not toked up or smiling.

“What do I do?” I inwardly scream. But he doesn’t answer. Damn him! “I’ll be darned” is not good enough.

He reaches over, intruding into my personal space. “Gotta smoke?” he breathes, his breath rancid and overpowering.

I barely stopped myself from vomiting. I fumble in my pocket, which should have had anything I wanted. “Not today!” the jingle went.

Mocking me. I could kill him. If I could reach him. But he has already reached me deep inside. Skin for my skin. Heart for heart. Not a part, but the whole. Enchilada.

I don’t know why that word held everything that mattered. Like a last wish before dying.

“What’s a matter, my man!” he laughs. “Cat got your tongue?”

I’m looking. Out for anyone but me. Him again. All about him. So I go on strike. Like reality has no meaning.

The despicable man retreats, goes out of sight. And I tumble out of the train, a master of nothing and everything at the same time.

#

Woke up. Morning routine should be automatic! Why the fuss? Why should I have to be conscious for brushing teeth, getting dressed, plopping out into the street like a lost turd? I could use the extra sleep!

But he has something planned. Something heroic. A cure for conceitedness?

I hardly know what the word means. Then I’m steered to that restaurant that I threatened to take her to. And then she is finally there.

Not like the last time. There. There. Now don’t be too upset. He says.

Like I’m supposed to know something that I don’t. The movie begins. Like a Hollywood classic. One I never saw before.

“Michael. I want you to know that…”

I’m screaming at him. Why the fuss? I’m not ready for this! He has nothing to say as I repeatedly push the skip/pause/get-my-way button. The invisible one that I always think about.

“…I didn’t want to break up with you…”

And I’m filling in the words. La La La! So me oh my. To do or die. The rest of me, for all to see. The hope. The dreams. The spot on the table cloth so inappropriate. Waiter, see that we get another table?

But then she starts. To cry. And I want too much of what she offers. Way too much. Could there be a new beginning?

What would it look like?

I ask him.

And the answers went on for hours. He spouts like an LLM. So injuriously precise. So literary. An endless encyclopedia of knowledge and grand inquiry. It might have made the difference…

#

I woke up.

Breakfast was delicious. Savory bacon that wiggled like a worm on the fork. Coffee was half good enough with grains that clung to my teeth. Eggs are foamy and running all over the plate.

The bus was full and the people all ingratiating. Not a rectangle in sight, with no one complaining. The bus driver rang out the stops. I had to listen to each one.

The spot next to me was suddenly occupied. “Going my way?” she said.

Whereupon I pushed pause. And rejoiced. “That’s a smooth line,” I said. “Do you have anything else planned?”

She grinned. “What? Have you half a mind? You’re going to Smooth Run™ me too?”

I was beside myself. Him too.

“How do you do?” I quavered, my voice cracking.

We stepped off, and the bus was so small it disappeared. And the trees were so large. The grass so long. The people passing so huge.

I didn’t believe in astrology, but I hardly knew what to say. So I had to ask. “What sign are you?”

She smiled. “Doom.”

I shivered.

“That’s a good start!”

Then we’d whirl about, and the park we traipsed through was not to be outdone. It was more like the main character. With we the ones with minor parts.

An accelerated future, so inline, online, a digital recreation. Hardly knowing my coming from my going. Hardly caring. The hardest part.

Whisper that thrill one more time will you darling?