Wednesday, August 4, 2010

I saw old photographs today from the 1940s. The world was chaos as World War II threatened and the economy took everything out of people's hands and gave it to the war. It shook out all the good stuff of life like emptying the trash.


Two children stood on either side of a barrel filled with potatoes. One little guy's face was wrinkled up and had just too many pleats in it around his chin. I think he was crying. Nothing in the picture tells me why. I now add this little image to the storeroom in my head where I keep Things That Will Bug Me Forever.


I started with just a few shelves I could reach, and now the little carpenters of nagging thoughts have built a sturdy lattice up the side of my head so the Things That Bug Me are never beyond reach.


Questions about Lily are there. Was she kept in a kennel outdoors all the time where she could pace a few steps one way, then back again? (It's a stupid futile cycle of banging your face against the cage over and over and moving without purpose). I do it myself.


Today I picked up the stinky furry dirt covered shit sponge and folded it for Hershey The Couch Hog and dropped it near the couch. A couple hours later I saw her asleep on it. It's a small small small small step, but no hint of a cage or wiring even brushed my cheek.


But little phantom movements have me glancing to the side and wondering what just zipped past. Is stress squeezing my brain and forcing false images out, or is my head just perceiving simple things differently, like my own shadow slipping across objects I pass?


Time for some nice red wine.


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