The longer
we confine ourselves to a place
the more
it imprisons us.”
– Sarah Noffke, Defects
Sitting at home, feeling like a big target in some video game I’ve never played where stray bullets are coming from everywhere in growing numbers and the Sheriff is telling me he’s doing a great job.
Been a month since we got back from Cedar Key and no symptoms of the Trumpvirus. Guess it paid not to leave our room the whole time we were there.
But we could hear the partying. Late into the night.
Been a month. Truth be told and I’m telling it, didn’t go many places before anyway. Have no friends, so nobody to visit.
Neighbor – he’s got money and goes out every day – puts the Wall Street Journal on my hot tub, sight unseen.
That’s one scary newspaper.
The dog and I walk an hour every morning. Was eighty degrees at seven a.m. so we were out not long after dawn.
Four cyclists, looked like two sets of husband and wife, came gasping past me uphill with the wind blowing across their faces, their gaping maws unmasked and smiling with geezer joy.
The air hung heavy even with the breeze.
I tried not to breathe.
Stopped watching the news.
Felt like they were looking right at me when they started talking about poor old black men with pre-existing conditions were the likeliest victims.
Like they was gonna call me out by name.
But I’m not scared.
It’s my wife who insists on disinfecting my cans of Foster beer.
After a month of self-quarantine, with no end in sight, you realize it’s the lack of freedom that’s the worse part.
Of course, all my life, that’s been the worst part.
Captivity is stifling. So you must get your ass unstifled. Simple as that.
Many, many people, you won’t believe how many, have asked me about the New Normal.
What’s it gonna look like?
My first thought is, I should live so long.
My second thought is, my ass stuck at home.
If I’m lucky.
A clown has to continually find new ways to be scary. The clown is weak. My real worry is the clown’s fans.
Because he’s not really that funny.
Oh.
Oh, but yes, yes, he is, she says.
And then I say, The Bachelor was a far better show than The Apprentice.
