Category: Fiction

Edgar blamed a faulty alarm clock for oversleeping, causing him to miss his usual train. He would have to wait a full 20 seconds for the next train to arrive. It was a waste of his precious time, something that would surely be noticed by his boss. He valued his job because in this economy, not everyone enjoyed the privilege of working a whole ten-minute workday. He had come to enjoy his position as a dirt inspector, a highly respected vocation in the world of wheelbarrows, where subterranean housing is the construction de rigueur. He was proud that even though he was only nine months old, he had already worked at the job for four months, nearly half his life.

Life in wheelbarrow Nano-World, where everything—including time—is measured in 1:48 “O” model railroad scale, had not always been rosy for Edgar. Born into the low-rent Wheelbarrow Handle District, he had moved through the ranks of the working class to the much smoother-riding Rubber Wheel District.

At the “O” Scale Wheelbarrow Universe Fair (OSWUF), wheelbarrows from far-flung regions convene for their annual pilgrimage. Wheelbarrow communities tie up alongside one another, throwing up temporary bridges, and the seven-hour long party begins, the full vacation time allotted to a wheelbarrow citizen. A gigantic wheelbarrow is at the center, where the two top contending wheelbarrow football teams may compete for as long as a mind-boggling 4 minutes to win Wheelbarrowland’s championship.

“O” scale wheelbarrow communities have, by necessity, restricted populations, so it’s hard to find a mate if the girl next door doesn’t strike one’s fancy. It’s not surprising that at the championship football game, a roasted corn vendor named Rosabelle caught Edgar’s eye. Time and again Edgar purchased the butter-slathered corn, tipping her generously until he ran out of cash. It was she that, at game’s end, his belly aching from too much roasted corn, helped him home to his own wheelbarrow. Before the OSWUF concluded, she had rented a spare bedroom in Edgar’s wheelbarrow from a neighbor, and the rest, as they say, is wheelbarrow history. After patiently courting her for nearly 8 days, they married. Two children had followed (one of them born prematurely, a mere five day pregnancy), requiring him to add bedrooms to his second basement subterranean dwelling.

“O” scale wheelbarrow dwellers are different people from you and me, but they are not stupid people. Edgar’s job as a professional dirt inspector provides him time to contemplate the world beyond his wheelbarrow, the Standard Time World that houses you and me. To Edgar, it’s a slow motion world, where all moves at a snail’s pace.

Life in the Standard Time World defies reason. In the Standard Time World, Edgar struggles to fathom that his current lifespan of 1-½ years would be stretched to 48 times that length—perhaps as many as a mind-boggling 80 years in Standard Time World!

With this much Methuselah-scale time on their hands, he reckons Standard Time World dwellers could do so much more with it. Why would Standard Time World residents conceive of ever more ways to waste their precious time with trivialities, warfare and petty selfish indulgences?

A devout worshiper, Edgar turns his voice to God. “The gift of time,” he says, as he utters his evening prayers, “is one of the greatest gifts of all. Help me to value the months, the hours and the minutes; I am grateful for the 18 months of life that You may give me. Help me to use my moments well.”

“And, Lord,” he adds, “help the Standard Time World dwellers to use theirs well, too.”

Goose Envy is a common malady among less glamorous birds. Birds as diverse as the Dodo and the Greater Adjutant Stork have long wished for incarnation as a glamorous goose.

The sometimes snarky Señor Duck suffered from the malaise. Perched on top of a Corinthian-inspired pillar and having donned his handsome sombrero, he resembled a south-of-the-border hood ornament. He pictured himself, however, with elegant broad goose wings, their handsome plumage folded against his ribs, his head supported upon a great length of graceful gooseneck, rather than his own squatty cervical vertebrae.

The other fantasy that crowded his brain was Lucy. If anything could, she had partially restored his faith in Duckdom. She was the most gorgeous duck he had ever laid eyes on, with elegant, teasing feathers and a sly, pouting beak. He briefly met her prior to Lucy’s southward migration flight to Mexico last season, and he couldn’t get her out of his head.

Señor Duck was so conflicted over Lucy’s southward departure that he donned the Mexican sombrero and perched atop his Corinthian post, hoping that upon her return fly-by from Mexico his festive outfit would catch her eye, and that she would be curious enough to stop for a chat. If he got lucky, they might wind up preening together at a local pond.

He waited, waited, and waited for her return. Each time he replayed the fantasy of the last time he saw her, his fantasy grew. He could still imagine her noble and strong silhouette against the dawn’s first light of her Southward departure.

So there he sat with his own private thoughts, wishing his appearance were more handsomely goose-like, and despondent not to be reunited with Lucy, flown to Mexico.

Throughout his long weeks waiting for Lucy, he did not recognize that as he sat, his wings had atrophied, growing weaker with each passing day and month. The skin on his feet grew pale and brittle from disuse. The world waddled painfully and slowly beneath his unmoving limbs.

During the most disappointing times, fantasies are all we can hold on to. But the trouble with fantasies is that they are a record of realities as we once perceived them, not necessarily the current state of affairs. They are manufactured dreamworks—realities as we want them to be, but not as they actually are.

The Lucy of his fantasies never did return; the Lucy who eventually did come back was not the same gorgeous Lucy that had left for Mexico.

Instead, she returned as a mother duck with a handsome drake alongside her. Her once-glamorous feathers were now worn and faded from the long flight and the strain of raising ducklings. She had a new purpose in her eye—the mellowed purpose that experience gives.

But sombrero-donning Señor Duck had not waited for her to return. A few weeks before her migration return from Mexico, he had stretched his withered legs from on top of his Corinthian post, spread his atrophied wings, fluttered to the ground, and started gingerly waddling.

The time alone on the Corinthian post had gradually mellowed his fantasies. The strain of trying to become more goose-like had eventually helped him to accept himself. The more he viewed the silhouetted profile of himself perched upon his column, the more comfortable he had become with it. And Lucy—well, he figured that she probably had gone on with her life also. They had both changed. He gradually squeezed shut the door to his fantasies, took a deep breath, and leaned forward.

The fantasies—those things that never really should, could or would have happened—gradually faded like dark shadows, bleached away by the dawn.

Testing his withered but strengthening legs, Señor Duck began reclaiming his own best possible destiny, one step, two steps, three duck waddle steps at a time.

His rehabilitation therapy at the hospital was the easy part. Figuring out how to make do with part of his body missing was the hard part.

Adapting to life as a damaged soul would be this soldier’s next battle. Still, he felt strong and up to the task, except, that is, for the fuzzy, lightheaded glow he felt whenever his nurse made her rounds.

The infirmary held his wounds together, and soon, as he healed, she held his heart together with her hand on his. He had lost his leg to the war; he lost his heart to this woman, now so long ago.

Then, with her own unforeseen illness, the hospital held them both, long florescent corridors distancing them from one another, her leg also lost now so long ago.

After their release from the corridors, the doctors were unsure how much more time they would have left to share together.

So they moved their fast-track courtship from the hospital floor to the dance floor, balancing the uneven steps of their imitation legs with a slow-motion waltz, their limbs lost long ago.

The winds that finally blew out the flames of the exhausted war served to fan their love. Gradually, unexpectedly, their years together gathered and grew; they savored each one as a welcome, precious gift.

And on each side of their bed every night, their wooden legs rested like attendants ready to serve, faithful companions to replace their limbs lost long ago.

When at last his life had run its course and later, when her life had done the same, they carried her carefully from their bed.

Then, gently, they brought out their wooden limbs, where every night of their lives together they had been carefully laid by the bed, patiently awaiting the next day’s dawning.

Now they, too, like the soldier and the nurse, would remain together, limbs lost long ago.

It’s the same every week–go where the people are and infiltrate them with peace. Fortunately for him, his warfare-imposed disabilities do not impede this practice. And the months, now measured in many years, don’t diminish his efforts. He is a man transformed by his faith. He is a peace hawker, an oxymoron he likes to attach to himself, provocatively linking his passion for peace with an ardent commitment to activism.

He had weathered the Just Give Peace a Chance idealism of the ‘60s that greeted his stretcher as he was carried off the hospital ship. The chanting demonstrators that surrounded the gangplank were a curiosity to him more than a threat. This was all new. Three years previously, the din of the enthusiastic well-wishers for the brave young lads departing to Southeast Asia had cheered his heart. But all that had changed.The jeering was not the worst of it. The worst of it was two buddies cut nearly in half by machine gun fire. The worst of it was a girl who had decided she could not wait for his return. The worst of it was the sniper bullet that had ripped open a lung and opened his intestine.

He spent years looking for “the best of it,” the redemptive outcome of it all. It evaded him for a very long time. Peace had left him during the war, and he had never gotten it back.

His epiphany followed him late one night into Charley’s Bar, a dive identified by a dingy purple neon sign. Its flickering, burned-out script lettering resembled unintelligible Arabic scrawl.

Unlike the emptiness in his heart, he could spin his empty mug down to the bartender for a refill. This was familiar turf. He knew the pattern of the grain in the wood of the bar and the speed the mug needed to reach its destination.

But this time something in the emptiness of the mug and its spin on the bar grabbed his eye and his heart.

Yes, he had yearned for peace–longing for the absence of war had never left him.

But today, he realized it was different. He recognized, for the first time, what he had been hoping for–no war and no pain–was not enough. Peace, defined as the absence of warfare, still felt empty.

Peace, he recognized, is not only the absence of war. It is not simply a vacuum. It is not a neutral placeholder like a stalemated demilitarized zone.

Instead, it is the presence of something far more powerful. It is an active and penetrating force. Peace is a substance that steals domains and imposes goodness like a conquering army. It chases evil, conquers it and banishes it.

Today, in this crowd and for this crowd, a veteran of warfare again collaborates to give Real Peace a chance.

It is his opportunity to help rout wickedness and redraw the turf of good and of evil one more time.

“Shhh! Quiet!”

A woman’s voice in the dark directed me to squat down and be silent.

“It’s happening!” her male companion’s voice chimed in. “I’ve never heard of anyone witnessing this!”

In the pre-dawn dark of the parking lot, we all sensed we were about to behold the rarest of spectacles–the metamorphosis of a pupamobile.

“What stage is it in?” My heart was beating hard now, as I hid behind the hood of a black and yellow Mini.

“We’re not sure,” the woman replied. “We think it’s been going on awhile! The old skin is already starting to slough off!”

Sure enough, beneath the pupamobile’s old skin, wrinkly and starting to shed, a smooth and shiny surface was emerging.

Dyed-in-the-wool automobile enthusiasts only whisper at this apparition. Creepy as the appearance of the horseback-riding wraith of Sleepy Hollow, the transformation usually happens out of eyesight and earshot. Even the hardiest of auto devotees have not witnessed this event.

Like many insects, birds and mammals, automobiles have evolved sophisticated measures to guard against extinction. As a molting snake sheds its skin, certain automobiles secretly undergo metamorphoses and transform themselves. A pupa encapsulates a caterpillar in a chrysalis, leaving its adolescent life behind, transforming into a brand new kind of butterfly creature.

Likewise, this car was leaving its old form behind. The new form was emerging just beneath the tinfoil appearance of the old skin. The sweet smell of caramelized transmission fluid accompanied the mesmerizing transfiguration. A soft puff of air briefly kicked up dust as the reborn auto adjusted to its new springs and footing.

“I feel like I’m on the set of Invasion of the Body Snatchers!” the man whispered hoarsely to me.

I had to admit, it was eerie. There was no grind of metal on metal as one might expect. Instead, there was a gentle sound like the fluttering rustle of tinfoil and the transformative skin texture of something giving birth.

I’ve heard the rumors of such pupamobiles over from the whispers of those who claim to have witnessed strange happenings in junkyards and on remote street corners. Usually, the resulting machinery was hideous and ugly. 1957 Chevy Bel Aires with tiny undersized wheels and bouncy hydraulic suspensions. Ford Coupes, grotesquely jacked up and featuring oversized, monstrous, chrome-plated V8 engines. A rare exception was the Prius, the noblest pupamobile of them all, which evolved when a Toyota was sequestrated overnight too close to an electric trolley line.

But what freak of nature might emerge from this transformation?

I could only hope and pray for a miraculous metamorphosis, an automotive transmutation yielding value and substance.

A train whistle in the distance reminded me that I was about to be late to board my locomotion to the place of my employment. As I apologized to my friends that I would have to dash to the train, I left a final plea.

“The pope is in Cuba,” I whispered. “Have you seen that old thing he’s riding in?” The world-renowned Popemobile had definitely lost its luster. “Let’s pray this automotive transmogrification doesn’t morph into another worthless lowrider. Let’s pray for a miracle–a new Popemobile!” 

“A new Popemobile!“ they murmured excitedly in unison. “Let’s pray!”

As I regretfully hustled away into the darkness, I glanced back at my new friends one more time.

In the dim light of dawn, I could barely make out their profiles, their outstretched fingers frantically crisscrossing their bodies with the Sign of the Cross.

Perhaps you’ve been there, smack in the middle of a roomful of folks you didn’t plan on spending the evening with. You feel out of place. But you are expected to be there—it’s an obligation. Endeavoring to bridge the discomfort gap, you find yourself attempting to create interesting small talk with a woman whom you’ve never met before. She asks how you like your job and your boss. Fishing for a scintillating response, you turn a phrase that goes to the edge of your comfort zone.

“He’s a good guy to work for,” you suggest, “even though his three-way bulb seems stuck on ‘dim’ most of the time.” It’s a mild dig that many an employee might utter, out of their boss’s earshot.

She laughs at your cleverness; you secretly crow at your ability to charm.

Only later, as you drift awkwardly around the currents of the other partygoers, do you discover—in horror—that the woman you were trying to impress with your clever comments is your boss’s wife’s best friend. Your life passes before your eyes. You search for a rewind button, but there is none. Your head feels like exploding. You feel broken, inexcusably stupid, and prepare a vow that you will never again flirt with stupid small talk. You consider cutting out your tongue.

In the far corner of the room, four women are remarking over images on a cell phone—pictures of a baby. The women gush over the child in the customary, “Oh, how cute!” and, “So sweet!” vernacular. Linda offers an expression intended to trump the small talk of the other women.

“Look at the cute nose!” Linda exclaims, “Why, it’s just like Allen’s!”

The comment is met with dead silence. Finally, “Linda, who is Allen?”

Too late, Linda realizes that she’s the only one who knows about the existence of Allen, and Allen’s relationship with the “oh-how-cute” baby’s mother.

Linda feels the temperature in the room spike, turning her head to hide her face’s fierce scarlet color. “Hello, Joan!” She pretends to recognize a friend across the room, her means of escape. Behind her, and not trailing off quickly enough, Linda hears her soon-to-be former friends, who don’t pretend to be fooled: “Who’s Allen?”

I’ve never tried blowing up a tomato in a microwave, but it must be the same explosive temperature that our heads reach when we realize we have just said way too much. The ears blaze. The throat seizes as if attempting to swallow a small grapefruit.

Moments later, the blood abandons the head as quickly as it arrived, leaving the cheeks pale. Below the eyes, faint veins just beneath the surface paint the skin a sickly green pallor. Depression creeps into our lightheadedness. Knees twitch and wobble.

We have committed an unpardonable sin. How can we recover? We feel shipwrecked, marooned, and without the means to express our sudden and agonizing torment.

“When will I just learn to shut up?” we agonize.

Days later, a work associate pulls up a chair and queries us about our apparent declining condition. As our world comes unglued, it becomes increasingly difficult to disguise our demise. We agonize as we wade through the muck of our fallibilities, ashamed and embarrassed.

After our gut-wrenching confession to our workmate, the friend offers only unanticipated silence.

“Well?” we demand, “How can I ever put my life together again? The shame!”

The patient friend on the chair finally offers an unexpected response.

“I used to be like you,” he explains. “I agonized over the things I’ve said and the length of time people would remember my inappropriate comments.”

He pauses, then finishes. “I know you feel lousy over what you think you’ve communicated to others.

“But don’t worry about it. Nobody ever really listens to us as much as we think they do!”

It’s the sort of mistake any young store clerk could make. But it’s also the sort of mistake that could get a person fired from the retail industry—working alone in the women’s undergarment department, she had mistakenly left the drawer open.

It’s not that this sort of carelessness has never happened before, but this singular event may have launched an unexpected revolt in the undergarment industry. Indeed, the so-called Spring Revolutions recently blazing around the world may have finally come home to roost on our own favorite retail clothing store shelves.

There’s more to say about our beleaguered sales girl in a few moments…

Some say that the fabled Boxer Shorts Rebellion started it all. Protesting poor shelving conditions in a particularly dilapidated K-Mart store, men’s underwear had gone berserk—not the employees, but the underwear itself. After careful planning, sometime during the darkened nighttime hours, as the security guard inspected plumbing supplies at the far end of the store, Men’s Shorts gathered their combined strength into a unified effort and slid quietly from their wrappers, swapping packaging with one another. During the mass rebellion, 30” waist size briefs exchanged packaging with 44” size boxer shorts. Fashionable, Speedo-like apparel in bold purple and green patterns ended up disguised in the wrappings of special-purpose easy-on disposable, moisture-resistant medical undergarments.

The payoff came the day after the purchase of the underwear, when irritated customers of all dimensions and proportions angrily returned their mislabeled goods. One beanpole-shaped fellow complained that his brand new shorts were so large that they disappeared down his pant legs. Another red-faced customer of enormous potbellied proportions threatened to sue if the feeling didn’t soon return to his mid-region, claiming that he was nearly strangulated by a pair of microscopic sport briefs masquerading in a box colorfully labeled “Fashionable Styles for Portly Gentlemen.”

The rebellion was so overwhelmingly successful and held such enduring impact that the men’s undergarment department had been shut down and disbanded. Atop the empty shelves were forbidding warning signs, declaring “Shop at Your Own Risk!” These signs had been scrawled over with newer disclaimers: “Due to English Language Problems with Suppliers in Thailand, Product Contents Can No Longer Be Guaranteed.”

The ensuing copy-cat episodes in other men’s undershorts departments in neighboring stores strangled reliable supplies and raised the local men’s undershorts costs. For three months running, men’s undergarment sales became Internet giant Amazon’s most profitable revenue source.

Some say it’s the elastic in the undergarments that made possible the nimble maneuvers in and out of boxes so rampant among men’s undershorts. If true, the theory yields credence to the very newest contagion of the spreading dilemma: women’s undergarments. Similarly elastic, the potential revolution among women’s departments could be even more calamitous. Untold yards of angry stretching and snapping elastic, with sinister purposes, could pose a far greater threat to the security of the nation’s undergarment supply.

And so we return again to our hapless women’s undergarment clerk who left the drawer open, and whom I happened to photograph at the very moment of the dawn of this new feminine undies insurrection. Panic stricken, one can see the young woman, clad in black, grabbing for the massively escaping avalanche of unmentionables, making their getaway from the unlocked drawer towards the freedom just beyond the store’s doorway.

Standing just beyond the door, I panicked at their sinister approach toward me, straps wildly flailing like tentacles. I bolted down the street out of cowardice and fear of the deranged elastic, uncertain what damage massive quantities of these angry garments could inflict. Bruised skin from close-range, furious snappings would be the least of my concerns. Pit marks and scarring from metal clasps, asphyxiation by elastic strangulation—it was all possible.

I sympathized with the injustice heaped upon the undergarments, their inhumane storage in quarantine-like conditions within locked, pitch-black drawers. But I also pitied the unsuspecting young woman clerk, nearly out of her mind with fear over her own fate.

My call to 911 brought the police and firemen, who arrived just as the first garments snapped and stretched beneath the door, intent on their rubber-charged gallop down the street.

Their escape was short-lived. As chemicals from the firemen’s hoses quickly mixed with that of the garments, the lively snapping and popping of elastic turned into a gargling, bubbling goo as, in short order, the chemical reaction dissolved both the garments and their frenzied game plans. Within moments, the firemen’s hoses had turned the undies into melted mini-towers of pink and yellow and white sloppy glop.

From somewhere deep within the mass of melting cotton, nylon, Spandex and lace, there came a faint voice: “Ladies, stick together! We will rise again!”

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Had his head not been created facing up and outward, he would have missed seeing the emergence of the woman with a bright crimson flower in her hair gradually appearing before him, returning his gaze. He was the first to arrive, his green t-shirt clad creator having arrived early for the event.

His memories of his own former existence, beyond his current chalk-dust appearance, were clouded and lacking in historical perspective. He wondered again at the woman still emerging beneath the creative hand of the neighboring artist. Her eyes emerged, then her full face—a beautiful image, he thought, despite the odd clothing adorning her, from an age and context unlike his own, an Asian woman whose time and place he could not quite comprehend.

His confusion over his own appearance gradually cleared a bit; he recalled that had been a star of the silent film, a clown bearing the name Charlie Chaplin, later also enjoying success in the talking film era.

But outside of his current chalky existence, he remembered nothing of the past or the future. The chalk could resurrect nothing of history or context. Lacking a body of flesh to connect him, this moment was all he could know.

As his artist-creator added decoration around Charlie, it gave him time to peer over his shoulder to view another woman, dressed in Western Victorian style more familiar to his own context. A playful, billowing hat crowning her head drew his attention. Her artist created her as a splashy showgirl, her beauty expressed in shades of pink. When her gaze connected with Charlie’s, he saw the two of them gliding on a dance floor, music softly cushioning them, the warm light of candles extending their stay long into the evening. If only, he pondered, they were breathing, living and loving—fully formed three dimensional creatures instead of sidewalk chalk.

A sudden splash of color above his head jolted Charlie. It was a thing, or a man, or—was it a woman? A body draped in shocking tones, a stretched torso, absent arms and a single enormous eye—or was it? Again, lacking context beyond this day’s chalk-appearance, there was no way to comprehend its abstract expressionism. The geometric human figure puzzled him; their worlds were distant, detached from each other.

Then, appearing from yet another stretch of colored chalk dust, Charlie noticed a woman—a mother with her children surrounding her. As the artist chalk-stroked the mouths of the children, they seemed to come alive, crowding, teasing and playfully challenging each another—laughter—lots of laughter. On this day of their shared chalk lives, Charlie concluded that this was the most beautiful sight within his view—it held a vision of hope and of promise.

The orange hues of early sunset announced the gradual end of the brief existence of Charlie and his chalk cadre. Soon, uncareful shoes eroded the chalk, smearing their limbs, their hair, their faces, their eyes into the concrete sidewalk. Silently as they appeared, their dust mingled, their figures retiring again into timelessness.

As they disappeared, the artist creators likewise disappeared, drifting apart and dissolving into the deepening shadows, having resurrected, if only briefly, the somnambulist activities of shared chalk-drawn lives.

But unlike their creations, the artists reserved one power, which set them apart from their art: the power of choice.

They alone could choose to end their drift, to stop the dissolve of the paths that had brought them together today as artists with a dream. Against the approaching nightfall, they could still choose to pursue, to explore the new friendships this day had held for them. And they could join with each other, bringing one another along, past tonight, and into tomorrow.

When the first grey days of winter moved in, Old Meter #2’s departure was not far behind. It was not wholly surprising that #2 would go. As the oldest meter, he was the founding member of the cluster of meters, having been installed before the house was subdivided into apartments. Upon his last inspection, he was found to suffer from slow meter syndrome, resulting in lost earnings for the natural gas utility company, and his replacement came with little fanfare. But Miss Meter #1, Gumbo Ya Ya Meter #3, Junkman Meter #4 and Meter of the Pack #5 grieved.

“It’s always about the money,” muttered Meter of the Pack #5 upon hearing of Old Meter #2’s impending replacement. #5 was an awkward sort of meter who was proud of the “Meter of the Pack” nickname that he had invented for himself, suggestive of the design flaw he possessed—a flaw that made his usage dial turn unreliably. His own replacement had long been rumored, so he took #2’s decommissioning personally.

There was another cloud of melancholy that hung over the meters. The woman renting Gumbo Ya Ya Meter #3’s apartment had abruptly left her place some time ago. It stood empty, awaiting badly-needed refurbishing by the owner. Pots and pans still littered the kitchen; buckets and packing boxes and foam shipping peanuts were strewn about. The story gradually shook out. The former resident had been discovered to be cooking gumbo ya ya illegally, in an unlicensed and un-inspected kitchen, falsely labeling the containers as originating from New Orleans. Suspicion arose due to the amount of her kitchen’s gas usage, uncharacteristically high for a residence, and drawing the false conclusions that she had in fact been running a meth lab. With her gone, the gas gradually drained from Gumbo Ya Ya Meter #3’s pipes, and he gradually faded away, like the grip of early onset Alzheimer’s. One day, after the arrival of a new occupant, and with the gas flow restored, he would be back. But for now, he was forced to withdraw from the traditional social hours that the meters coveted.

Before Old Meter #2 was taken away, and while Gumbo Ya Ya Meter #3 still had all her faculties, they had all indeed enjoyed a close camaraderie. Here, on the north side of the aging house, they were protected on the hottest days. As their various renters arose to face the new day, their meter dials stirred, slowly gathering speed, the flow of gas gently tickling them awake from their nightly slumbers. Junkman Meter #4 generally napped on his own schedule, since his renter worked the graveyard shift as a night watchman at the local junkyard. When #4 awoke, he would boast to the other meters about how much gas he had passed during their sleep. It was a lame joke, but he never tired of it. Jokes don’t come easy for tightly-regulated meters.

The meters watched together as the sun began its daily arc, gently warming them from the chill of night, the early glow of the sun’s first light coloring their steel, like crab shells reddened by boiling water.

Their job was forever unchanging. At the sun’s daily arrival, the meters remained perched upon the gas lines–looking like hearts connected to fat, gray arteries, as they monitored the flow of invisible energy. Their daily routine would be interrupted only once per month by a lone technician, who, like a homecare nurse, would inspect them and note the progression of gas, displayed upon their slowly rotating dials.

Old Meter #2 had provided years of faithful service to his longtime renter, Reverend Robert, a young pastor with a sterling reputation until recently, when the rumors surfaced about his supposed dalliances with the attractive brunette who lived across the hallway, Miss Meter #1’s renter. Never mind that all the rumors were unfounded. Yes, they had become good friends, and, yes, they had engaged in conversations at the local Starbucks, but always with great intentionality to be in full view of the community so that no misunderstanding might arise. The cumulative weight of the rumor mill had taken its toll on him. He soured on the people, and eventually, the ministry itself, and his world unraveled. He felt he deserved to be loved, and that it held no contradictions to his calling. When a small emerging home group offered him open arms to become their leader, he resigned his church and took their offer; the reduced income meant nothing to him. It felt good to be free and to no longer care about perceived impropriety. He would answer for his actions, but no longer to the torturous investigations of the former congregation.

On the same day that Rev. Robert was reinventing his life, his gas meter, Old Meter #2, took its final ride to the junkyard, the same junkyard that was under the watchful eye of Junkman Meter #4’s graveyard-shift night watchman.

On this day, one final drama would play out in Meterland. The technician tightened the last nut, leaving a brand new face in Old Meter #2’s place—New Meter #2.

“Hey, everyone!” New Meter #2 shouted to the other meters, hoping for a warm welcome. “Look at me! Fresh out of the factory box! And look, no dial for me! I’m all digital! Wheeeee!”

The other meters, clearly grieving for Old #2, barely tolerated his comments. They stole a sideways glance, which is, actually, all meters can ever do. Indeed, the brash new meter did have a different look about him.

“Hey, I even have my own tattoo!” he boasted of the round yellow tag across his front. The other meters thought better of correcting him, knowing that, with time, the inspector’s number would fade and disappear, just as theirs had so many seasons ago.

With the setting sun, the day’s heat drained from the meters’ cold-blooded shells. As the renters fell asleep, their meters quieted as slumber also gently came upon them.

Rev. Robert’s dreams again turned, now freely, to Miss Meter #1’s renter in the apartment next door as a smile passed across his face.

Meter of the Pack #5, with his renter at work in the night shift, had already long been silent.

New Meter #2 emitted the cold light of new diodes. He was proud to be the first next-generation meter on the block. So far, he liked the new friends in his meter-hood.

There was something that excited New Meter #2 about discovering the intricate gas utility usage patterns of his renter, the Rev. Robert.

But from the news that he had already gathered from the other meters concerning Rev. Robert’s dreams of Miss Meter #1’s renter, New Meter #2 anticipated that all those patterns were about to dramatically change.

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An Apple

A Twig

Wrights Flexi Lace Hem Facing, and

Apartment Finder Magazine

 I came upon these discarded items, in that order, during a single ten-minute walk. What could these items mean? The sleuth in me could not let go of the evidence.

Eventually, the order of events became obvious:

Eva sat on the grass in the park, the breeze softly moving her hair. Yesterday’s college graduation marked the beginning of her life of New Choices. She would get her own place now, finally, leaving the restrictions of dormitory life behind. She breathed in her newfound freedom. Yes, everything would become different. She would have a career and new friendships of her choosing.

“You look happy,” came a voice from just behind her. “I’ve been watching you from up the hill. Care to share a bit of my picnic?” He handed her the apple.

Two hours later, Eva took off down the hill, to the park’s exit. To her surprise, the apple was still in her hand. It had been two of the best hours she could remember—he, another lingering graduate from yesterday’s ceremony, was witty and a bit eccentric in a disarming sort of way. Laughter made his eyes shut tight, and she liked that. In the joy of the moment, she balanced on a brick wall, placing foot before foot, being careful to keep her balance.

Only later did she recall that during her balancing act, she had left the apple on top of the wall.

Not bowing quite low enough beneath a young tree, a twig grabbed at her hair and broke off. Eva plucked it from her hair, noticing round seeds attached to it. She took it as a good omen—her graduation, the delightful picnic in the park, the promise of a full life ahead. To celebrate all of this, she placed her small Twig of Hope into the utility cover beneath her feet.

I’m still not sure what Wrights Flexi Lace Hem Facing is used for, but she had a package of it in her purse, ready for a sewing project. Our friend, Eva, is handy with a needle and thread. Maybe she was going to decorate a pair of jeans or trim the edge of a handmade tablecloth. In any case, the package of Wrights Flexi Lace Hem Facing fell out of her purse, just as she reached into it and pulled out her wallet to buy a newspaper. She would enshrine the newspaper, which documented the headlines of the First Day of Her New Life, framing it on the wall of the new apartment she would rent.

She noticed the neighboring magazine stand that held Apartment Finder Magazine. Of course! She would pick up a free copy to find her new residence! She eagerly rifled through the apartment guide.

But wait. I wondered at the story of Eva that I had imagined. Why, if this series of events had transpired, had I found the apartment publication still there, left behind on the magazine stand, opened to the page showing the apartments she had envied? Perhaps I’ve gotten the story twisted. There’s no explanation that fits this scenario. Why would she leave the publication behind? My story of the series of items that were left behind, the apple, the twig, the Wrights Flexi Lace Hem Facing and the Apartment Finder Magazine must all be mistaken, though it all seemed so plausible!

But now, as I revise and replay the scenes with the cast of characters, the mystery suddenly becomes clear to me!

I’m staring at Eva reading the magazine, so caught up in her dreams that she does not hear the approaching steps behind her. Suddenly an abrupt and familiar chuckle catches her attention and she spins around, gazing directly into those eyes, now shut tight, closed in laughter. The young man apologizes for frightening her.

“I’m sorry,” he begins, “but I had to follow. The park got awfully quiet and lonely after you left. I had no choice; I just had to follow.”

I gradually lost their conversation through their laughter as they strolled away together.

From atop the magazine rack, Apartment Finder Magazine quietly flapped its pages in the breeze. The apartments could wait for another day; this was the first day of the rest of her life.