First Person Plural

I saw it happening in real time. Happening to me, right before my eyes, and there was nothing I could do about it. It was like a dream I often have, where I’m being chased by something or someone, probably myself, but can’t get away. It’s not that I get caught, but I get bored and just give up. Sit on the curb, and wait. Nothing happens, no noise, no lightning, no visions, or ascensions, nothing. 

This is different. It feels different, because I’m awake no doubt, or at least I think I am, but then I’ve been known to nod off in the middle of a sentence. 

I could see the wall of frozen water, a tsunami of manipulated snow, or God had flushed the toilet again. I should run, I know I should run, but I’m unable to move, frozen as if I was just pulled from the freezer and left to watch myself thaw.

I can hear people yelling at me to get out, head for higher ground. The sires are screaming, the birds are flocking, the wild flowers in my mind are doing nothing. It is as if they understand there is nothing you can do, so why try. The inevitable has arrived by first class mail.

I am not a defeatist type person. I’ve always believed there is always something that can be done. To just sit there and wait for the inconceivable is just not me. I’ve been told that I’ve been known to squeeze eleven pennies out of a dime. I don’t remember doing that, but I do believe we can all do more with less. Problem is, there are people who believe therefore, that you can do everything with nothing. An improbable probability that takes on meaning only when you refuse to believe in probability, as it takes away your ability to improve, change, survive the un-survivable.

I know that is perceived to be an oxymoron, but what is life, if not a wall papered with oxymorons. I would rather look for the end of eternity than sit and wait to see if what I’ve been told is true, inevitable, and there is nothing I can do to change God’s mind about the concept of no beginning, no end. 

If that snowball hits me in the eye, I could be blinded for life. End up living on the street because no one will hire a cyclops, no matter how good a person, or how optimistic one is. And all because of the physics and natural attributes of the combination of water and cold. It seems unfair, but then what is fair. 

I saw the arm cocked, the snowball cradled in the palm of a red mitten, and yet I found it impossible to believe someone could be so cruel as to throw ice projectile at me and not envision the retribution I would bestow upon them with ferocity of Zeus.

Sure they may only be having fun, but it won’t be fun for me, living in an abandoned car, not having enough money to feed a pet I always wanted but was forbidden to have.  And being that grotesque one-eyed guy who people cross the street to avoid, and being grotesque isn’t even catching.

All I can do at this point is grit my teeth, and accept my fate.

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Good God! Can he get more melodramatic when all he has to do is duck. I’ve known him for his entire life and I realize he thinks differently than the rest of the universe, or at least the universe I’m aware. He tends to clamor on about rising above adversity, climbing out of hell because his being damned for being contemplative, had to be a mistake. He was always a reason to, or an example of, questioning the impossible, but trying, just to find out for sure. 

Just think about it. If you were behind a frozen wall of packed snow, an ice fort, and were involved in a war with the neighborhood kids who were although physically more advanced than you, but considered by you to be androids disguised as humans, when the arm comes forward, wouldn’t you duck? 

It is not his fault really, he was born a prognosticator, a Democrat in a Republican family. When his father rants and raves about pulling and bootstraps, he considers the make and value of materials used, and how and who made them. He is opposed to exploitation of people, especially children, probably because he is one, physically at least. Maturity factors: let’s say Alzheimer’s. He could apply for social security and probably get it. 

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing discriminatory about looking at something from every angle before deciding if you like the shape, color, weight, quality, to determine if it will fulfil its needs. But it is the criteria needed to make that decision, that drives everyone crazy. And so the conundrum for some, an inevitability for him. To duck or not to duck, that is the question. 

Of course it could have been tempting fate by walking on an ice-covered skating rink, sliding down a tree strewn hill, or attempting to navigate the ski jump at the snow park on a toboggan. All seemingly simple choices unless you are him.

But not being him all we can do is watch in expectation and attempt to conjure meaning from ill conceived conceptualization, or reasoning from dubious fatally conceived results, no matter the infusion of faith.

I have watched him on several occasions similar to the one being analyzed. On one such occasion skiing from the bumper of a car unbeknownst to the driver on newly slicked streets of the first ice storm. Dry patches are less rare than you would imagine and once encountered leave little to renegotiate before leaving substantial amounts of skin behind as tip for destiny.

Sometimes, no matter the contemplation, the planning, theorizing, the actuarial tables; the worst occurs. Sometimes it doesn’t. No one knows why. We can speculate as to the reasons one looses an eye while another receives new glasses and is cautioned to be more careful.

I watch as he eyes the snow-covered ice ball heading for him. I can visualize the cogs is his mind spinning like deranged second hands of the alligator’s clock. Him weighing the probability of the improbable, knowing he will receive his metaphysical answer within a fraction of a second, and yet continuing to argue with himself over the percentages necessary to drive him to fate of an abandoned vehicle.

I watched as the iced meteor slid silently through our universe passed him and exploded on the rear wall of our fort. He said nothing, just smiled, made the sign of the cross knowing it had all been unnecessary as he knew, as I knew, the neighbor boy although oversized in body, and undersized of mind, through like a girl, before anyone bothered to show girls the proper way to use their weight and dexterity to throw the perfect snowball, that always finds its mark.