Scrawlers

Before them, an ocean…no let’s call it a sea…before them a sea. One says to the other this should be in color. The other says I love your neck, the shape of your neck, where it meets your shoulder. I could see the whole world resting my head there. One says this sea is still, flat. The other says when you are lying down on your side I trace the soft curves of your body as slowly as I can. One says the water is warm. The other says yes it is. It is warm.

The future is certain.

A generation of teenagers connect with their parents in the 2060s when clothing styles from the 2040s become cool again. Parents shake their heads and laugh when their kids call cape slacks "retro." 2063 sees the return of the Swatch.

A group of explorers goes missing in the Appalachians for three years until their Starbucks colony is found in 2033 by a thirsty search party.

Global hunger is solved in 2067 when the anomalous six-legged chicken is cloned. By 2080, the world satiates its deep craving for wing-dings. Tofu cloning remains imperfect.

The future is certain.

She sits in her local coffee shop trying to chase away the cotton fuzz in her brain with Italian roast mixed her favorite way. As she drinks, she reads an old novel, once owned by another coffee lover (as the stained pages attest).

The hero in the book is attending a tropical fete that begins at 3AM -- their one holiday of the year. While he marvels at a culture with only one holiday, and one that lasts 3 days, she's thinking about that online writing contest.

She doesn't have time now to write. There's work first.

Though Harry swung a sledge hammer for a living, he held everything else with such a gentle grasp that objects were constantly slipping from his hands.

At night he brewed some tea and then dropped it on the kitchen tiles, splashing his feet with boiling water.

In the morning, putting away dishes, he dropped a cleaver and might have severed a toe if not for sharp reflexes and quick-sliding socks.

On his ex-wife's birthday, he dialed her number and then realized she would still be sleeping. He let the phone drop, picked up his hammer, and left for work.

"Bingo!"

"All right, folks, hold your cards. Janey, pass your card up to your mother," I said, keeping my eyes on the road. "Does it check out, honey?"

"B, a rest area exit sign. I, a horse. N, a homemade graduation party sign with balloons. G, an 'Adopt a Highway' sign. O, a dead turtle." My wife smiled and said, "We've got a bingo!"

The other kids cheered and cleared their cards.

"Congratulations, Janey," I said, "What's your prize?"

"That we never play this stupid game again."

My wife said it first. "Get out of the car, Janey."

When the flowers from my father's funeral died, I threw away the dirt and dried-up leaves and roots and used the empty pots to collect other things over time. One pot I filled with paper clips. Another I filled with half-used rolls of tape. The big green one held pennies. A pink one with a daisy painted on it collected fishing lures. I filled fifty-five pots with all sorts of stuff.

A year after the funeral, I had a garage sale and sold all of the things I'd collected.
I used the empty pots to start over.

Well wishers and family finally dismissed, I rested my duffel bag against the wall and opened the door to Lily's room, trying not to make a sound. Her curly hair fell in unruly heaps around her head, the reddish-gold highlights reflecting the light from the tiny crack in the door. Just like her mother, she slept with her knees tucked close to her chest and whistled softly through shallow breaths. She was a tiny baby the last time I saw her - and today when she saw me, she saw a stranger. I wish she were wrong.

He lay in bed, simply along for the ride that his failing system was offering. Slow, hesitant and lurching, his heart and lungs begin to resign themselves to the finality and say goodbye to tissue and fiber.

His entire body from cell to bone, united in adagio, pulls him deeper into peaceful darkness. Sounds fade, visions spill to blur and he is gone. First nothing, then nothing, and nothing again. Consciousness suspended.

Then, baby boots and smiling faces surround him. What year could it be this time?

3AM is 3PM on the other side of the world. It's also 9AM, noon and 6PM. It's some time somewhere. Whatever the time, when a natural disaster happens or a war starts or something newsworthy needs my attention, it's bound to be 3AM where I am when that damn phone rings.

I'll put it off as long as I can. Five minutes... ten if I'm lucky. I'm not a morning person. And yet I'm expected to make big decisions before dawn and before my coffee.

"Your Majesty, I'm sorry to disturb you..."

No one could stop him this time. Eyes adjusting to the darkness, David leaned his shoulder against the kitchen chair and pushed until it reached the counter. Using a broom liberated from the hall closet, he swiped at the animal cracker box, bringing it tantalizingly close to tumbling over the edge of the cupboard. But just at the moment of victory, the lights snapped on. Say something, anything!

"I bein good boy?"

As his father scooped him up and returned him to his bedroom, David's failure stung like finger prick administered by those damnable pediatric nurses. So close.