VODKA GIMLET WITH A TWIST XIII
Felix Cross – Point‘Running Against the Wind’
My family’s gone now; the wife packed while I was at work, and left a note.
‘I can’t take any more,” she said.
Neither can I.
My son had dropped out of school and took off for the West Coast after the Orlando fiasco; I was so tired of seeing him ghosting around the house I didn’t try to stop him.
The wind is kicking up again this avenging April, as winter has chased Spring back straight under the ground.
That’s where I am going too.
My business has and will pretty much run itself; that is the one thing I seem to have been able to control, up to now.
And now that I have only this left, I am going to take something else into my own hands right now.
The Law.
It has been over a year since I started these journals, but from here on in they will only be read by my compatriots down here, or in the courts or newspapers.
It no longer matters what winds will blow; they can’t reach down deep here, deep in these bunkers under this Rocky Mountain.
My contact, the one who led me safely to my new home, came from the words I had written here. It seems that others saw in them more than I saw myself, the potential to become the person I really am.
Where others have tried and failed, perhaps I will succeed.
To Mr. Rudolph and the Brotherhood; thank you for laying the groundwork for the rest of us; we could not have done it without you.
Our tactics will be somewhat different, our network will defintely be finer-tuned and harder to stop, but it will be just as ready for action.
When I relayed that I was ready to come in from the cold I made sure my daily routine did not change, and with no one left in the house I could make my arrangements easily.
Don’t bring much, they said; we will take care of everything.
Just bring a token of your commitment to the cause, of your regard for us, and disregard for the world you are leaving behind.
I have it here, the first of my new friends.
Ruger, .44 Magnum, laser sight.
Who will it be in my sights; an abortionist, preachy black ‘reverend’, ranting feminista, gay ‘couple’?
Maybe the presidential candidate who has betrayed his southern roots and heritage.
You take my world away, I take yours.
My cross to bear.
My rebirth.
Caroline Duke – Counterpoint‘If Dogs Run Free’
Coming back from a life-altering experience – good or bad – you have a choice.
You can let reality take back hold of you, the simplest decision since it takes only a day or even an hour and it involves the easiest thing to do for all those of us Weak of Spirit.
Doing nothing.
Or…
Back in North Carolina (kiss the ground) after Florida, nothing had changed in that week but me.
Or, more accurately, my ability to be me.
Do I just sit and ponder this, over and over until it becomes a moot point, remembering that sensibility without action is indeed the death of the soul?
What do I want now; just another terrible bout with my skewed reflection and its endless takes on co-dependence?
I want to look away from the mirror, outside the window.
And then go there.
If that is where more demons await, then so be it; could they be worse than the ones in here?
You face another terrible decision after one like this; what or whose need do you address?
The plight of animals, or children, or families?
The land, the culture, the sick, the dependent?
The co-dependent?
In darkest moments I wished I could be like that fat jackass I saw that time in his Hummer, secure in his Republican mindlessness and able to wave that whole list out of sight and out of mind.
I thought I had managed it with the pills, but it only internalized deeper, a predilection to the condition they call cancer.
I allowed a tidbit of national news – more than that means certain death – into my thoughts the other day; the fact of a nursing shortage so severe that the already Stage 4 health care system could be looking terminal.
Is this what happens when this society extols soldiers over teachers and nurses and caregivers; that the caregivers give up caring?
Soldiering, like everything else, must be taken in context; an act of bravery in a context of utter stupidity like Iraq is …
A waste of bravery, a waste of a life, a waste.
Taken in context, the acts of bravery by nurses or teachers grow in stature, not shrink.
With these thoughts in mind, the Universe provided me with another nudge, in the form of one more little news blurb.
Our local Humane Society had joined with both Hospice and a children’s hospital to provide animal companionship for their most critically ill patients.
A simple way to help animals and people help each other?
How did I miss this?
And you, you out there; how did you miss this?
How’s this; you can get up in your prison of self and think you need to stay there, or… you can just walk away.
Just Walk Away.
As the man once said; “… just prisoners here of our own device.”
So, fare thee well, I am walking out the door.
This journal goes with me, locked, a new one also, unlocked.
Out, I am going out, running out, coming out.
