[lit-ideas] Right now.
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "LIT-IDEAS" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2004 00:46:20 -0500
It's 11:45 pm right now. I just came in from my verandah where I sat
comfortably eating Elfo. You people probably don't know Elfo. It's a local
dish made of pasta, shrimp, mushrooms, butter and lots and lots of garlic.
God, it's good. I sat very satisfied finishing off the last of it and
washing it down with the last glass of Erath's wonderfully wrathless Pinot
Noir. I wish you all could have been here to watch me eat and drink so
heartily. Had you been here, some of you might have objected to my calling
my verandah a 'verandah'. Those of you who would would probably have
insisted that it was at most a portico, or more likely, nothing more than a
mere balcony. I won't argue with you except to say that though it only
measures 9 x 12 feet, it is encircled with wooden railings and balusters and
looks out over what must have been a former plantation in days of yore. We
call that a verandah in the South, thank you. Having licked my Elfo plate
clean of all garlic, and wiped the glass of the last drop of wine with my
finger which I licked -- a trick I learned from the priests as an
altarboy -- I settled back in my chair to listen to the sounds of the night.
The temperature was 72 degrees and the humidity had dropped to 58 percent --
this is an event of Biblical proportions, folks. I've not known such a
comfortable evening in July in Memphis in all my life. I watched the sky
for signs, shooting stars, exploding suns, etc. Was this the night the
preachers all prayed for? The night non-believers get their comeuppance?
Nanh, it was just a random gift of nature, an exquisitely beautiful night
filled with the cry of crickets and cicadas and tree frogs. The ancient
choir singing the psalms of Earth as sung by their brethern for a hundred
million years: "Pussy, pussy, we want pussy!" What can I say? Religion
was different back then. Well, not really, but the liturgy is different
now. Oh my, is it ever!
It didn't take long to get bored with the whiney insects -- like they're the
only ones going to bed horny! -- get over it, guys. If it hasn't happened
yet, it ain't gonna happen tonight. I let my own thoughts drown them out.
My own thoughts started out profound enough. I was looking at all the
apartments around me, all the cars going up and down the "Boulevard" and
thinking how each and every one of these people think that their own lives
are what matters. I chuckled thinking that to me these anonymous people are
just a backdrop in my life. It struck me how foolish they were in their
self-importance. Then, all of a sudden I realized they thought the same
thing about me. I was just a part of the backdrop in their lives! I stood
at the rail and bellowed: "I am a human being!"
But no one acknowledged it.
Off to bed then,
Mike Geary
Memphis
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