He held on to the overhead bar half wondering what it was that posessed, even compelled people to live this kind of existence, day in, day out, clutching hopelessly for the bar on the subway praying that they wouldn’t fall into the fat old lady behind them, wheezing and panting, looking oh-so-chic in her 25 year old fur coat and red sunglasses. It was beyond him, it really was.

He liked to think himself a bystander, here by circumstance. He took the subway, yes, but it was only coincidence that he had gotten on at 5:00, in the heat of rushour. He was just beginning his day, he thought, and it was mere coincidence that he should be on the subway at the same time as these sheep. he wasn’t commuting, he was just there. Somehow, though, he knew this didn’t wash, and that even if he was there by circumstance now, he felt his life inextricably liked to these commuters, and he was hopelessly locked on the same path of life that they were following.

“Your attention please, your attention please. This train is express to Packard’s Corner. This train is express to Packard’s Corner.”

Damn, he thought. What should he do? Packard’s Corner was one stop too far, but he hated waiting for T’s. He hated all the people, and he hated crowds.

Damn, it’s bright. He thought. His sunglasses slid down his sweaty brow again. Damn glasses, he thought.

Might as well get off, he thought. Hate walking more than I hate this flock of sheep.

As the T came to a stop he though he may as well get off. Maybe everyone else is going on past Packard’s Corner, maybe this way I won’t have to deal, he thought.

So, he got off the T. But so did everyone else. Soon he found himself immersed in thousands of Business clad, fat sweating bodies and he hated it. He decided to get back on the T. Anything is better than being near these people.

But as he was about to get back on the T, one of those sheep, one of those miserable, deformed demented sheep knocked his sunglasses on the ground. he stooped to pick them up, but that selfsame miserable sheep pushed him aside to get where he was going just as quickly as everyone else. That miserable sheep just kept kicking his glasses, further and further away, not even noticing, not even hearing his plaintive protestations, convinced that the time on his fucking watch was the be all end all of human existence.

And he just stood there, watching his glasses be swept up in the flow of human sheep, resenting them, watching without speaking, wishing there was someone to notice his predicament. But there was no one. No one but uncaring, miserable sheep.

He got back on the train as the doors closed. And made his way to Packard’s corner.

Tags: archive, damn glasses, fiction
Current Music: Daily Show (9/5/06)

This casual dress on Friday for the March Of Dimes is a good idea. It should be expanded.

What if we allowed everyone in this company the option of wearing professional casual attire to work in exchange for a $1 payroll deduction, allowable only on days when they were not going to be in contact with clients? That would be up to $5 a week for each person, with good incentive to donate. With approximately 925 employees in the Hancock New England Area, that would produce a theoretical maximum of over $375,000 a year in potential charitable contributions. It could be added as a check-box on the time cards and taken directly through payroll, on an honor system basis.

Tags: archive, essays, snippets
Current Music: Colbert Report 9/5/06

Note: I wrote this as a children's story. It was hand-bound, and I gave it away as a gift to my friend Julie

There once was a boy with whom the clouds spoke. It first began when he was very young. “You can hear us at last. Welcome.”

At first the boy was frightened. He did not know what to say to the clouds. He wanted to know why the clouds had chosen him to speak to. When he asked this, the clouds replied “We did not choose you. It was your own gift that singled you out. You can understand us, and we can bring each other happiness.”

Slowly the clouds came to be his friends. He would talk to the clouds for hours, and share his thoughts with them. He grew to be comfortable with them. On cloudy days the boy would be very happy. His friends were all around, and he felt loved. He liked nothing more than a cloudy, rainy day, where he could talk and play all day with his friends.

On sunny days the boy was very sad. His friends were gone, and he was alone. “Why have you left me?” He would always ask, but the clouds would always come back to him, and never explain their absence.

The clouds told him many things. They told him about far away lands, and things about his own land that many did not know. Sometimes he would tell his parents what the clouds told him.

“How do you know that?” his mother asked.

“The clouds told me,” he would reply.

His mother would just smile.

Slowly the boy realized that others did not share or believe in his gift, and he learned to keep it to himself. The boy was growing older, and now he was going to school. He was considered very wise.

“He knows a great many things,” his teacher would say “It is sad that he has no friends.”

But the other children gradually came to dislike the boy. They feared his wisdom and his happiness without the company of others. They resented his indifference to their games and parties.

“He is not friendly,” they said.

“All he does is talk about other places,” another said.

The boy saw their dislike of him, and it made him sad. He wanted to be friends with them, but it was hard. He could not tell them about the clouds, for they would mock him. He could not just be with them, for the clouds would speak to him even in their presence, and he would become confused and embarrassed.

His sadness turned into anger. He began to dislike the clouds. “I want to be like other boys. I want you to leave me alone.”

“You do not want that,” the clouds replied.

“Yes I do!” he yelled, and although it was a cloudy day, and he normally kept his windows open on cloudy days, he shut them tight and pulled the curtains closed, hid under his bed and cried.

“You cannot be rid of your friends so easily,” the clouds said as a thin mist of fog came through a crack in the window. “You have a gift, a gift that they do not understand and cannot share. Yet it is still a gift, and it would be unwise to throw away your gift for the benefit of lesser people.”

“I don’t care!” The boy sobbed. “I want to be like everyone else. I want to be a normal boy and be friends with other boys and girls, not clouds. I don’t want any gift, and I don’t want to be special. Leave me alone, and let me be.”

“Then we will leave you,” the clouds replied, “but we are very sad to do so. We wish you happiness in your chosen life, and wish that perhaps someday you will appreciate what we had given you.” And with that, the fog in his room left.

The boy began his new life. He slowly made friends with the other children at school, and for a time he was happy.

His teacher showed concern “he had such wisdom for his age, now he thinks only of games and other boys and girls.”

But the boy could not forget the clouds. Of course the clouds did not disappear, they only stopped talking to him. Now he was very gloomy on cloudy days, with his old friends all around him, and he could not talk to them.

He thought he felt more sad than other boys, because he knew the clouds could talk. But they would not talk to him. He felt very lonely indeed on cloudy days.

As the years went by the boy realized his mistake. “Come back to me! I have wronged you!” he would yell into the sky. But the only noise he heard in return was the wind.

And so he went through his days, very sad, and very much alone. His friends provided little comfort to him, since they could not understand his problem. He kept his sadness to himself, always hoping that one day, the clouds would forgive him, and once again tell him of the world beyond.

Tags: archive, boy and clouds, childrens stories, fiction
Current Music: Colbert Report (9/5/06)