Eh? Just Living

It was the day before, that momentous day, when my future would be decided. I likened it to being in a stickup. So I bought a chocolate bar, but I didn't eat it. Then I took a bus just to see the scenery. Went there and came back. So slack we were, just two lumps on a seat, neither here nor there.

But I couldn't help but argue with my companion. About everything. At least at first. though she had this effect on me. She'd be offended, then turn it into a joke.

She'd say, "There's nothing to be afraid of. Try, try again. never give up!"

And it certainly helped that we went everywhere. Unseen. Not knowing the why or the how. The wonder of it is that though that whole day was a whole bunch of nothing. It turned out to be a day I will always remember.

I'm ahead of the game, I think. But what game am I winning?

Oh, the one that has no prizes, no reason why, or disguises. I'm not hiding, deciding, flipping out, or going out of my mind.

Eh? Just living.

Sort of like time traveling. She made up my mind for me. Sitting across from me, with that sly smile. Her face was the gameboard of my desires. I'd go anywhere if she would tag along.

"No cheating!" I said, my smile mirroring hers.

"How do you cheat at life?" she answered. And I'm thinking (which is against the rules) that one has my number.

"One what?" she demurred.

And I'm cheating and thinking again.

Of fancy wallets plump with cash, we could spend on fancies and daring do.

"Pray spend a moment with us," sniffed the arbiter pretending to be our waiter. His disguise was so much grander than our fancy clothes. Puffed up, full of being the job, he thinks he knows what we are about. What was it? Was it our jeans and a long-sleeve tank top for two? Torn at the wrist, from too many transfusions. Was it our pants that swell with pride at the accomplishments that others deride? Or our shoes that stomp on anything too difficult?

Our getup betrayed us. Even though our thoughts were very far away.

It was a rat race without rats that we were contemplating. More like how Charlie Brown's favorite word has no meaning. For those who lightly tread,

That kinder, gentler being, who, when questioned, neither had a view nor a purview. Not an opinion. But a fact. Could there be an arbiter who has nothing to arbitrate?

Oops! There I go. The way of the dodo. Which was up for this trip. Extinct as any bird could be, or will ever be. But her tender look hauls me back.

"Ahem!" I pontificate. "Me thinks that waiter has too much on his mind. Pray tell, when will the food arrive?"

"Burnt pizza for two?" she asks, grinning mischievously.

And there it was. The time betwixt us on loan as it always has been. Time travels between us, around us, as we hold that thought that alone was eternal. That burnt smell welling up inside us like an elixir, a story to be told to our grandkids. Who would wonder what English farce could encompass the domain we were conquering?

But then we had to leave. Smacking our lips and savoring the mediocre, unassuming appearances of things that once held meaning, but were now eclipsed. As any sun twirling about their space must have to endure.

#

I'm so back now.

"Next!"

That office temp had this look in her eyes. You know how people get? When they haven't the first notion about how to do the job? So they hang on so tightly to what they think they know. While you drown in their contempt. Yet both of us are squatters in a house we do not own. But she has a job, and I do not. So that makes her a better squatter than me.

"Oliver Demerol," she cracks wise. "What a strange name. He'll see you now."

I squeeze by her and walk ever so confidently to the door of my future. So plain looking. Brown. With peeling varnish. I imagine what it might have looked like thirty years ago when Puck McDavit lovingly slaked that thirsty door with his paintbrush until it shone. He never knew it would blister and peel so many years later. But why should that matter?

I knock.

Which, of course, was not the right thing to do. Ms. Office Temp sniffs, while everyone else waiting for their interview grimaces. I soldier on, trying not to stumble over the chair left haphazardly in the doorway by the previous candidate.

"Oh, never mind that!" he dismissively says as he rises from his desk to shake my hand. "Jim McStravick. Pleased to meet you!"

"Likewise," I limply said. And so it went for what seemed a long yet terribly short time. Endlessly long because of my hope and short in the meantime, between what must happen and what ends up happening. Or some variation in between.

I couldn't help thinking of Star Trek. To endlessly cruise from one denouement to another. The starry crescendo is baffling when the outcome is always the same.

Afterwards, I found a treasure in my bag. That chocolate bar. So creamy and sweet. Like a kiss from heaven. I wanted it all to myself.

But she caught me after I exited the elevator onto the main floor of the building. Eating it.

"No piece for me?" she pouted, her hair sort of wild from the wind.

Whereupon I gave her my last bite. "There! Satisfied?" I snapped.

I looked around me. So many suits walking, ties, and briefcases gliding. The sunlight filtered through the expensive skylights, illuminating a scene so pastoral that it could have come from some nineteenth-century novel.

But all of me was on display. Not the fortunate ones, those who hardly deserved a second glance. This was worse than being in any waiting room with its flora and fauna. Worse than any imagined slight.

She took my hand. "Oliver Twist is what I should call you!" she exclaimed as we exited the building.

"Twist?" I answer.

She looked at me hard. "Twixt now and the future, time and time again!"

I had to laugh when we went looking for a pizza shop.