It Could Have Been Worse

                                            It Could Have Been Worse

   “It could have been worse.”

   “How? I just don’t see it.”

   They’d go on like that for hours if sleep didn’t make them quit competing with one another and communicate like normal people, if there are such people anymore. They go across the street to the river every day and then go to the library, where they are attempting to put together a three-thousand-piece puzzle. No one apparently bothered to tell them that the box the puzzle came in was not the original box, so the picture on the cover doesn’t match the puzzle inside. You’d think they’d have figured that out by now, but being both of an obstipant persuasion, they refuse to believe they’ve been outwitted by a picture.  The picture isn’t any ordinary photo, it is a field of Kansas sunflowers, acres of them and nothing else.  None of the pieces of course have anything to do with sunflowers, but are part of a cloudless blue New Mexico sky with but one distraction, a hot air balloon.

   I ain’t got much to do either, so most days I just follow those two around in hopes that they might do something normal. They are the two most un-normal people I’ve ever been around. They refuse to watch or listen to the news. They refuse to read the newspaper, and they get up at 5 AM every day but Sunday. On Sunday they get up at 5:30 AM. They claim they are practicing for day light savings time, which is only five months off. That don’t seem quite right either, but… In October they begin setting their alarm clocks for 5 :32.  On each following Sunday they set their clock ahead the same two minutes claiming that by the time Spring change comes, they’ll be used to the difference. The light is always an important issue with early risers, but they won’t talk about that.  I asked them, “why not just suffer through the change like the rest of us, rather than muck up your whole sleeping pattern attempting to outsmart time, which everyone knows can’t be done.”

   If it’s one thing you can count on it’s that there is only so much time allotted each of us, and when its gone we’re gone, simple as that.  They however believe that practicing for the change only gives them a leg up when it comes their time to cash in their tokens, hopping it’ll be enough to get them to where they want to go. Now, they say they don’t rightly care where they end up, as long as it ain’t in the same place they are now and with the same people.  

   The two of them claim to hate each other, but when asked why, they can’t come up with a reason. Something to do with the closing down of Sears Robuck; the Apache Mall one. They each blame the other for its closing, although they bought the mower together, and everyone knows it had nothin much to do with either of them, but more to do with consumer attitudes I’ve heard. They keep telling us we are going into a recession, so there’s nothing to do but go into a recession. But to hear them tell it, they is the type people that make the economy run in the right direction; Sears Robuck must have not been listening, cause they are gone.  Lock, stock, and everything but the empty store, leaving the mall a dried-up monopoly of despair.  

   I try and just observe when I am following them around, but sometimes what they say is so grating to my senses, I have to respond. “You two do know that Sears didn’t close because of what you think you did. They were a large corporation for over a century. The markets changed, advertising changed, and the people changed, so I don’t see how any one person outside of let’s say a CEO embezzler, could take down a corporation.”

   I believe the change came when we began believing in advertising.  We convinced ourselves if it’s something new, it must be better than what was old; stores carrying the same stuff but with a brighter more promising image were takin over. People, although afraid of change, can’t wait to see what is behind the curtain, even if it bankrupts them. 

   They didn’t say anything at first, just looked at me like they was wondering who I was and why what I had to say was of the least importance to anyone, especially them. But then, as I expected, Jax, the taller of the two, gets down off his high horse and sticks his face an inch from mine and says, “You one of those half empty glass kind of people?”

   I never thought of myself as half empty, but then I think he was referring to the dichotomy the words were wrapped in, so I confessed. “Well, I am skeptical of exaggerated circumstances and you two are about as exaggerated as is humanly possible.”

   Then Slippery jumps in. “You should do your homework. Sears started dying when they quit sending out those catalogues; we just finished them off. You know at one time you could buy a house from them. They’d ship it; you’d build it. Course you can’t do that today, but then there are other things that people seem to want that they just gave up on. So we wrote them a letter asking why that was the case and they wrote back and said, it was because some items weren’t profitable. Now I can understand profitable, everyone is tied to money in one way or the other, but there is profitable and just plain greed. So, I write back and ask how come if things ain’t profitable now, they once was. And they respond, “the times they are a changin.” Now I heard those words in a song, but plagiarizin a lyric so you can use it as an excuse is crossing my line.”

   To get the full wrap around sound that accompanies either one of them when they talk, you got to imagine yourself in a canyon or cave. They aren’t but two people separated by only a few minutes at birth. Being twins they are on the same wave length almost. When one talks about anything, the other one is like an echo, repeating the exact same words, just a second behind, kind of a short echo. It’s like listening to stereo from a one speaker outfit. It tends to make you a bit crazy after a while and you forget if what is being said has any relevance to a question you might have asked, or was thinking of askin.  I still couldn’t understand how profit got to be the downfall of a corporation who I’ve heard has the same rights as people, according to our Superior Court. And I know lots of people who ain’t profitable but ain’t disappearing either.  I’m not one for arguing with a Superior anything, so even though I thought it was a foolish notion, I didn’t object to the decision, just the way they came to making it.

   Before they interrupting my train of thought, I was going to change my opinion of the Super Court’s decision about corporations havin the same rights as me, but then when I’m interrupted I tend to have to start all over again to come up with the same conclusion; so I just let it drop. I tend to get more so like that when it snows, which is what it’s been doing all spring. I’d blame it on the ground hog, but that’s just a bunch of nonsense so they can come up with another reason to fool with another day of winter, like it’s going to make a difference. But back to the twins, sorry but that’s what happens when I get distracted.  

   So I asked, “why do you believe it was you two that made Sears go out of business?”

   “It’s like this the older taller one says, we order a lawn mower. You know the kind that you have to push like in the old days. But the new ones have a motor, and if’n it starts it cuts the grass; you got to keep pushin though if you want it to move. Anyway, Sears said they would have to order it. Now it ain’t like the old days when they’d call the manufacturer and they’d ship you a mower. Now they have to call China or Mexico to get something sent to them, so it takes time. Well the way I figure it, if’n I’m having to wait for two weeks or a month to get a mower, and there are thousands if not millions waiting for something they think they want, and in the mean time nothing is getting done but the grass keeps on a growin. They started going to that no inventory policy where you don’t have to store anything, someone else does that for you. Anyway, the mower and a million other things didn’t come, so the world basically stopped, at least as far as I was concerned.  You should know that waiting isn’t one of Americans better attributes. We expect things right now, not two weeks from now. So, the people go out lookin for other places selling the same stuff, and Walla! they get it right then. It may not be as pretty but it scratches the itch of want so you can go on feelin comfortable, at least until you get home. You can see where this is goin I’m sure. To make a long story short, when our lawn mower didn’t come, Sears closed the next day, unofficially that is. It took a lot of court stuff to shut down permanent like, but in the end they did make it official. And it was all cause of our law mower. Any more questions?”

   After hearing the reason twice in stereo, I still wasn’t convinced as the logic made no sense, even when considering those from whom it was coming. I’m not an analytical type, but logic is logic and two and two should equal four no matter how you add it up. And I couldn’t see how one lawn mower would shut down a corporation, shipping, or no shipping, because of one mower or a million other things. But then I remembered the guy who ships everything to anyone anywhere and is a billionaire. There is no logic in that either. Well, maybe in the shipping, but then I heard he don’t have to pay taxes because he’s so rich. There ain’t no logic in that either, but then they is making the rules, and to them go the spoils I’ve heard it said.

   This whole thing with the twins got me to thinkin. I’ve heard stories of people that were so close they’d scratch each other’s itches, metaphorically of course, but when one of the twins dies as they surely will, then what happens to the other one? I suppose they two are going to die, but when and how is the question. There’s no way around it actually, but what I’ve heard is that the remaining one in a close relationship like they got, just dries up and floats away to wherever it is we float to after we’re gone. The logic don’t make no sense until you start thinkin of the dependency part of the equation. I don’t believe they individually would have been the same people had they not been separated by that second causing the echo.  

   Now a lot of people don’t think much of being too close to someone that finish your sentences for you. I get the logic in that. Half the time when I’m talking I don’t even know where I’m goin or what I’ll end up saying. So if someone starts finishing my thoughts, they must have a better understanding of me than I do, which is contrary to who I believe myself to be. It is the same philosophy I believe that they started pushin about not needin higher education cause it cost money you ain’t got, and you can make more money flippin burgers or fixin cars than with a degree in metaphysical mind transplantation, or maybe they said transportation. There is some truth in that, but I think it’s just that those with money and power would like us to go back to when they believed things were great. Where only the wealthy got to go to school to learn how to take advantage of our democratic system of capitalism, which works as long as those doing the actual work get their fair share. But they don’t, so they have to form unions to collectively negotiate, and if that don’t work, they have to strike. It all gets complicated, and bein that the average person has an attention span of the twins put together, you can see how forgetfulness plays a humongous role in how our economy doesn’t work.  

   But I got off the bubble again. The twins I should say are still alive and takin advantage of the systems life has to offer. I don’t really know what will happen if one of them passes, but I’m sure they think they do. I just haven’t gotten up the courage to ask. Sometimes the answers go on for hours, once an entire day. And when all was said and done I was no smarter than when I started, and I don’t believe they were either. But bein the seeker of truth that I am I had to ask; out of curiosity I suppose. “You boys goin to the circus?”

   Now a days, the word circus can mean anything from an actual circus, animals, clowns, trapeze, and all, or it can mean the government. The twins have told me that they wasn’t payin to see some clowns, and I told them they already have been paying the tax collectors. They started checkin their bank accounts to see if there was any funny activity goin on. I told them that wasn’t what I was getting at and explained how it worked, out of kindness I suppose. 

   “We work for the money that they take taxes from. If we are lucky we put it in the bank or investments, and get interest…interest is where you make money from money, and then borrow it to others less fortunate. But we is taxed on the money we make from interest, again! Unless you got a loop hole from your tax accountant, you continually are taxed on everything you make, while loop holers don’t have to pay a thing. It’s called Trickel Up economics. That is where you pay money to elect people who in return pass laws givin some to themselves and let you keep what’s left. It’s all confusing on the paper that nobody reads cause of the small print. That saying, damned if you do and damned if you don’t, comes to mind.” 

   Well they just looked at me like they didn’t know the circus was in town and started jumpin up and down like they’d just lost a million bucks on the lottery because they forgot to buy a ticket; they was also gamblers. Both their faces got red and sweat started pouring off their foreheads. Their eyes seemed to get angry wide and then one of them, I believe it was the shorter one said he was feelin dizzy. Then, he falls on the floor. The taller one Jax, then, falls right beside him, both their eyes wide open, staring at each other, unblinking but smilin. I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothin; that’s how I was raised.  I don’t see how, but I suppose lookin at it from my point of view, it could have been worse.