Category: Straitjacket: V-17X

Whittling away the time, a robber thinks to himself, “Well, it’s now or never, and I don’t like the likes of never.” He gets into a crouch, just ready to pounce on his unsuspecting victim. Then he waits (and waits and waits) until the waiting just becomes too much to bear and he relaxes his muscles (they were starting to atrophy). Just then, a pigeon flits by, brought over by the half-eaten bagel lying on the sidewalk. “WHAAT. Oh Jeez, a pigeon. I freak out too easily.” The robber doesn’t seem to understand that no people will pass this way any time soon, as this is a particularly desolate part of town. All the waiting will make him hungry, so he packed himself a lunch. No self-respecting robber these days would go to work on an empty stomach, that’s just irresponsible.

I recently had a diabolical plan
to deflect all arguments waged at me
with terse and witty comebacks,
but nobody would engage with me.

I looked up and down for someone
with whom to pick a fight, but
everybody was either listening to headphones,
transfixed on their phone,
or exhibiting a combination of the two.

The only person I found who wanted to talk
was a homeless fellow who kept going on
about how the KKK was behind 9/11.
That really took the wind out of my sails.

This tree doesn’t know what it’s doing. All the other trees around it already have their leaves; this one is seriously lagging behind. Maybe if I talk soothingly to it, I can help facilitate leaf growth. I’ll come back here soon with some friends and a picnic basket, play some Vivaldi, engage in stimulating conversation and occasionally hug its trunk with loving care, cooing sweet nothings into the knothole that could easily be interpreted as an ear.

A blimp (we’ll call it Harold) holds steady at 2,000 feet, the people within its underside capturing aerial video of a baseball game. Harold is so used to this kind of gig that it often takes its mind off the mundane goings-on. Right now it’s wondering if it can learn to play the sax, or, more accurately, if a sax can be made to accommodate the average blimp. Harold surmises, as usual, that no human will pick up on its desire to be a jazz musician. Harold has once again reached the conclusion that blimps and people simply operate on different wavelengths.

Consider a squadron of like-minded pencil pushers coming together for what appears to be a normal business lunch. No dice, compadre. They’re really meeting so they can compare shoe sizes (a way of establishing pecking order). Performance in the workplace aside, these guys need a system for gauging who is inherently superior, and, therefore, who shall be judged inferior.

——

The women of the group (of whom there are two) choose to opt out of this amateurish measuring contest in favor of light conversation. “Do you think we’ll ever be able to travel faster than the speed of light?”

“What’s faster than light?”

“I’ve heard that intentions travel much faster than light, like when a child is injured and a mother instantly feels sympathy pain, even if the two of them are miles apart.”

“So the first experiments will involve mothers and children, got it.”

“Yeah, and we somehow have to conduct the tests without harming any of them.”


“What, so if there’s a movie loosely adapted from it, they can say ‘no women, children or animals were harmed in the making of this film’? Okay, I can see it.”

——

The men have decided that Carl is alpha, and Jacob is omega. All the rest of them feel somewhat secure, as they haven’t been singled out. Next time they have a business lunch, they’ll have to find a new variable to rank dominance (like the number of credit cards they own or how many TVs they have in their homes).

Dear Holden,

I haven’t heard from you in a long time, so I felt writing you a letter would be appropriate. In this age of instant communication, I’ve noticed that you’ve gone dormant. It’s as though you’ve fallen off the face of the earth. I get it, I have times where I just want to curl into a ball and let my responsibilities melt away. Practically every day I have a moment or two like that, but I can’t act on such a desire without losing my footing.

I don’t know if you can consistently manage to sidestep life’s persistent nagging by using your hands-off method. Are you able to shut it all out like a professional athlete? Do you just not need social interaction on a regular basis? Your lifestyle intrigues and alarms me at the same time.

Have you ever thought about taking on a pupil, someone with whom to share your worldview? If you’re even remotely interested in that kind of arrangement, I’d be an eager student. You wouldn’t even need to do any teaching, per se. I’d be content just to co-exist with you on a somewhat routine basis, to soak up the lack of urgency that you embody.

Since I’ve already tried to contact you by phone, email, Facebook and LinkedIn to no avail, I send off this letter as a way of showing that I can use old school methods of communication to be a friend. I know that you’ve always prided yourself on your penmanship, and I’m sure you know that I would just love to get a hand-written letter from you. There’s nothing you can’t tell me, buddy. Write me back, okay? I want you think about my proposition.

Warmest wishes,

Gabriella