guest post #2 - [apple]crumble.

Her dad had been sick for a while. It seemed like a long while. Was it only for the past five months that she had been travelling to see him three times a week? But those 20 hours a week seemed such a big commitment – packing up lunches and the kids and arranging for dinner when she was away from home. For a while she had felt trapped. Why couldn’t they just put him in a nursing home and have them take care of him? Why did her mother want him to be cared for at home? That meant rearranging life.

This time when she visited and asked him how he was doing, he told her a story. She could see by his earnestness that it was important to him. He really wanted to tell her about what he had done earlier in the week.

“I went to see the doctor.”

“How did that go?”

“There was water.”

“What water, where?”

“Outside.”

“Oh, a lake?”

“And animals.”

“What animals were they?”

“They were…..there. They were by the water. They were in a group. They…”

“Were they geese?”

“They were together..”

“Were they ducks?”

“They were...”

He stumbled for the right words. He had never had this kind of difficulty telling a story before. He was frustrated…It bothered him that he couldn’t tell her what he had seen.

She was puzzled…and sad. She had known he wasn’t doing well. Perhaps for the first time, she wondered for how much longer he would be with her.

She tried to pick a new topic; something that they could talk about without him feeling bad.

“Dad, it’s Valentine’s Day today. I baked some brownies that I brought over to share. The girls helped me make them.”

He nodded, not comforted really. He knew something still wasn’t right and he remembered he couldn’t speak what was on his mind.

She knew, too. They sat together and watched TV.

An hour passed…or was it two? It was time for her to get ready to go…but wasn’t there some way she could connect before she left?

“I love you, Dad.” She couldn’t remember saying that to him before.

He paused, looked up and said, “I love you too.” She didn’t remember hearing those words before.



After all, it was Valentine’s Day.

                        - Equinox

workday.

"Censure me in my leisure, and awake your senses. ... No.  That doesn't sound right.  I can never remember when I need to."

Morgan turned toward me with an incredulous look, an awful smirk etched carefully on his face.  "That is, em, masterful, sir.  I must salute you for, em, managing to copy Shakespeare by misunderstanding and misquoting his work.  Truly, truly."  He struggled to keep his face straight.
      "Really, Morg, I can't do this.  How do I write something... like this... for anything... like this?  Eh?"
"It's a ruddy obituary, Sam.  Don't.  Use.  Shakespeare.  You'll regret it."
      "Mmmmm... mmm.  I can't.  I'--"
"Yes, you're having an existential crisis.  Don't deny it, man.  As Richard the Third said, em, 'chop off his head, man.'"
      "You scrub."
"Ah, us scrubs, the intellectual garbage of the news world.  Love it."
      Out of a sudden urge to act out a movie scene probably found in most modern romantic comedies, I crumpled the paper up, stood up to throw it into the waste basket, and stubbed my toe on Morgan's table leg.  The office buzzed with suppressed laughter.  Morgan smiled in an utterly condescending, charming way.
"At least, sir, I do my job with integrity and surety; I'm a perfect, em, scrub.  You got some work to do though."
     
      "Scrub."
"It's due before lunch break."
      "Oh."

blue backpack.

"Don't move." The lights flick on and the door of the room snaps shut.

She freezes, fingers gripping the blue backpack on the table in front of her. Her back is to the door.

With slow, measured steps, the man walks around the table until he faces her. He smiles when he sees her face. "Angela! What brings you to my dining room at four in the morning?"

Her lips twitch twice before forming a tense smile. Digging her fingernails into her palms to stop their trembling she rests her elbow on the backpack. "I left my graphing calculator here. I needed it for a... assignment due tomorrow and..." Mind spinning wildly she laughs, trying to dispel the tension that hangs in the air between them, thicker than her mother's lobster bisque. "I was pulling an all nighter! You know, college is tough! I didn't want to wake you so I figured I'd just sneak in and grab it."

The man's brow furrows, "You have the key?"

Angela twists one of her long blonde curls around her finger. "Yeah! Hannah gave it to me the other day when we were working on homework. She said it was just in case of emergency, you know?" She grins widely.

"Hannah, gave you the key? When? Hannah's been away all week. When did you leave your... what did you say? Calculator?"

"Yes, sir. My calculator. I left it a week or so ago but I guess I didn't need it until now so I forgot," she says, sliding the backpack over her shoulder. "See you another time, Mr. Judson!"

He takes two steps forward and grabs the backpack as she turns to leave, "Not so fast, Angela." The zipper breaks as he tears it open and dumps the contents onto the table.

Three bananas he had bought the day before. A teddy bear that Hannah had outgrown. A blanket from the downstairs couch. A roll of paper towels  and four spoons from next to the sink. He didn't recognize the rest of the items. A ziplock bag filled with dozens of plastic frogs. A box or crackers. A jar of applesauce. A picture frame, lying with it's stand in the air.

He reaches down and flips the picture frame over to reveal a laughing little girl with strawberry blonde pigtails and dozens of freckles. He looks up at Angela - red hair tied up in a ponytail, freckles scattered across her nose. Tears stream down her cheeks.

She darts forwards grabs the crackers and the teddy bear and runs out the back door.

The little girl in the picture smiles up at him from the wooden picture frame in his hand.

unused.

      Angels, angels and demons.  They mock me.  I am the in-between, the unused, the neglected, like torn fringe on a petticoat.  But they do use me.  I am the secret hiding place.  For meetings in the dark, for lovers in their shameful visits with... They use me.  Imperfection after imperfection I harbor.

      This is well.  I am imperfection.  We will blend

well.  Together we make up a constant denial of the ideal, the perfection.  We loathe it.  We loathe the mediums of glamour and brightly shining, shining, shining...... perfection.  Get it away from us.  Burn.  

Quietly.

      Anger?  We have it not.  Guilt?  We have it not.  We do not live in this place.  We are this place, and the imperfection permeates it, but not us.  I.  Burn.

Us.

      Mercy, let us drink.