A few splendid rays of sunshine slid their way through my exhausted eyelids and woke my ass up rather quickly as I rose from the caterpillar shaped couch on which I had fallen fast asleep.
I moseyed my way up and at ’em and almost out the door, which mind you, was the only partition half left standing after the colorful walls of my mind came crashing down however long ago it was. I lightly tap on the fragile door and it comes crashing down too, if only but for, literary value.
At first glance my immediate surroundings looked as though a fiery tornado had just ripped through the middle school I attended when I was a child, which in itself, is a whole other story. Devastation was scattered about everywhere, ripped in half paper dolls and shreds of red ribbons blew erratically in the gentle breeze blurring most everything I could see.
And but of course as I looked all around and behind me, there they were trying to bury that damn thing out back again.
As per the usual, they were hastily digging another grave. It was guaranteed to be damn near a redundant disaster in the making if you were to ask me though, and nowhere near close to being big, or deep enough to occupy the damn thing for very long at all.
I should know, for I have tried to bury the damn thing out back with them numerous times over the past few and a half years.
But there they were with their rusty shovel and little demon like earthworm shaped fingers digging away with the utmost incompetence while trying their damndest to stuff the damn thing into their sloppily dug holes over and over again.
The damn thing, like always as of late, looked to be taking it rather okay and somewhat stoically, almost like he was kind of enjoying it. I would guess because of having been halfway buried out back at least seventy seven times in the past two plus years, the damn thing had become so accustomed to it all that it really didn’t bother him anymore.
I can remember the very first time they tried like hell to bury the damn thing out back like it was the day before yesterday. He didn’t have the slightest bit of an inkling as to what was happening.
He was a younger damn thing way back then, and he couldn’t help but feel lost, distraught, albeit somewhat confused.
Nowadays though, he could see everything coming from a mile away before it was even a mile away. And because he was an older, more wiser damn thing these days, he no longer flinched at the misunderstanding of their task at hand.
This time around it looked almost as if the damn thing were more bored than anything as they tried to fit him in one of the freshly dug graves they had hastily made for him. They folded his two front paws across his chest and quickly started shoveling doubt, ash, heartache, confusion, debris, and all sorts of other silly things in his face.
It was one hundred and eleven percent hopeless though. The damn thing would never fit in the size of the hole they had dug. It had never fit in a hole they had dug out back before, no matter how deep or wide they dug it, and it never would, no matter how many times they tried to dig it. They just couldn’t dig a hole big enough to bury that damn thing in, and there is really nothing wrong with that fact of that matter either.
“Yo!” I yelled out loud asking them. “You do know that you’re doing it all wrong don’t you? That hole you’re digging is never going to be anywhere near big enough to bury that damn thing for very long.”
“Oh, you think so wise guy?” They answered my question back with an underhanded philosophical one.
“How do you know anyways, you’re just a confused and exhausted poet who’s always type, type, typing away, and can hardly even find his way out of a sentence, a paragraph, let alone any sort of extended and ongoing narrative lately. Besides, we are one hundred and one percent absolutely positive that we have finally found the perfect shape, size, depth, and fit for that damn thing this time around, so we’ll show you yet mister whats-your-name!”
“Okay, whatever you say. I’ll just be over here then staying the hell out of your way.” I politely shouted back at them with half a shit-eating grin.
This had become our standard back and forth conversation amongst each other over the past few years, give or take a few instances of unbridled heartwarming honesty.
So I stood back in the shadows next to a cord of firewood once stacked criss cross, now scattered convincingly about, as if ready to be lit up by the looming happenstance burning through my mind as we speak. I finished my half eaten apple, relit a half-smoked cigarette, and spun the typewriter once upon my head now upon my right index finger, all the while watching them out of the corner of my one good eye for at least an eternal hour or two.
It was rather sad, yet somewhat hilarious watching them struggle with all of their might, huffing and puffing, bickering back and forth constantly between each other, and once or twice they even almost got into a fist fight.
They were just trying so hard out of fear and doubt to bury the damn thing, mad as hell at their impatient selves because they just couldn’t get it right, nor could they get it done in a timely fashion and/or shapely manner.
And I, myself, could not help but chuckle under my breath a little bit as I watched them bitch and moan back and forth at one another.
Now, if I may for a moment. I‘m well aware that I might come across as somewhat of a healthily confident, yet sometimes too damn arrogant of an asshole, but it was absolute pure comedic gold to watch an editor, a typist, or possibly just the voices inside my own damn head fight amongst each other for so long as they were, so much so that a creative man much like myself could not turn his wandering mind quite so easily away from.
But they would never be able to bury the damn thing. I knew it, and have for a long time deep within my heart and long lost soul, and again, like me, they were finally beginning to believe it themselves without a doubt.
They were almost able to get one foot of the damn thing in the grave before they just gave up with the utmost disgust. Afterwards they just stood there looking confused and pointing each of their fingers at one another, and laying blame on the other for not being able to dig a damn hole deep enough, nor big enough to bury the damn thing for good.
“Yo.” I spoke again from the shadows. “Would you assholes mind a little piece of friendly advice?”
”Sure. Why not? But you must know, we‘ve always thought we could bury the damn thing ourselves, but by the look and sound of things at the moment we could apparently use another set of calloused opposable and hopeful little limbs to help us handle the task at hand,” they said, simultaneously scratching their head.
”Well, did you ever even think about trying to plant a little garden here instead this time around?” I asked them wholeheartedly. “The ash laden soil around here looks to be just about perfect for growing things and nurturing them instead of burying them. You know, maybe you could plant some sugar snap peas, or a quaint variety of fresh herbs, maybe even some zucchini, or even a few tulips, daisies, and even some forget-me-nots for the little honeybee when she gets back from her longwinded journey. And call me as crazy as you wish, but you should probably go so far as to even think about planting a few seeds of hope with unconditional love, and see where that gets us?”
”Hell, we’d suppose you just might be right you strangely unique fella,” they spoke with a glimpse of excitement about the new task that they had just been handed.
“But what should we do about that damn thing?” they worried,
“Don't worry about that damn thing, it’s as harmless as they come, we just need to get it back home where it belongs somewhere out there in the wild.” I said, looking in the direction in which it was relaxing in the shade, its tail gently wagging, all the while playfully licking his wounded paws.
“Where do you think you’ll go?” they asked inquiringly.
“Not really sure yet, I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” I said with a smirk and a glance north.
“Well, hurry back mister what’s-your-name, it gets a little crazy around these parts these days, and we’re gonna need you in tip top shape.” they said from a place of sincerity.
“We'll be fine, just feeling rather alive this fine and dandy morning. It’s high time we get back out there and see what kind of trouble we can’t find.”
And with a whistle between my teeth and two clicks of my tongue, the damn thing was off and running.
“Be back soon.”
Ryan Love
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