When I go, I shall be an acacia tree with thorns!
I am not going to mess around. Social Security will be gone, probably. The climate will be changing and the government will be penurious. All my friends, the Deciduous and the Conifers were gone, the last of them in hospices always prone to being clear cut by the mad men today.
I visited Rain Forest today in the Old Age home, and he did not recognize me at first. He sat in the common room where the thermostat was cranked up to 90+, and he did not have his teeth in, that picket fence of ivory was lost under the couch somewhere.
He said, "The bitch yells at me!"
I looked at him wondering. "Who yells at you? Someone here?"
He made a sad toothless grimace, "No. There!" He pointed at the TV screen hanging up in the corner... on the wall... and I thought of the expression "...like a fly on the wall". The TV was buzzing like a pissed-off horse-fly.
six o'clock we eat;
then play cards;
someone on the tv
screams at us.
They chanted. At least I thought so. Maybe it was the wind in the branches. A bleached blonde Fox News anchor woman was on, talking louder than Nancy Grace. I got up and went over to the TV, wondering if anyone would object to turning down the volume. I took it down a few light-years. No one seemed to notice.
Lots of dead trees... almost dead; trees in swamps, bleached trees, where even the vines have withered and wizened. Prey for woodpeckers, I thought. Woodpeckers on their wings of destiny.
I returned and sat down. Rain Forest was crying softly. I was putting my hand on his shoulder, when a sudden barking made me jump: someone on the TV was screaming at us!
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2 comments:
To me this speaks of forestation. But also how we all seem to be dulling our senses, dulling the subtlety and contentedness of life by the constant blaring of the media - by constant blood, guts and gore. I mean "Rain Forest", speaks of quietness and a "far green country". (Notice the "far", as if it is already gone...almost like Eden in a way. We're losing the Edens we have). Instead of blood, have trees, instead of guts have a patter of leaves to soften the ground, instead of screaming, have the birdies trill as one is right now, outside my window.
This is another wonderful tale, Montag. Did you plan it, or did you just put fingers to keys and start typing?
Ben
When I started, all I knew was acacia trees in Botswana have thorns, and I thought that would be a good persona or "avatar": to be an entity with an armor of thorns.
I wrote the first sentence twice. The third time we went to the nursing home with its dull repetition and the screaming televisions.
I'm glad you find it interesting. It was interesting to write, waiting to see what would happen next.
I find the screaming TV very frightening... sort of like "Videodrome" (the James Woods movie)... or "Poltergeist"... the TV spreads its bad influence while the old powers, like the Rainforest, are debauched and weakened.
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