Saturday, January 12, 2008

Nancy Drew and the Crooked Couch, Part I

I logged on to blogspot, like I do every day, hoping to be struck by inspiration. I let my mind take on the role of a net, searching for sights and sounds, but finding only scattered newspapers and the sounds of smacking, which inform me none too gently that it is lunchtime in this part of the world. I search for hours (OK, more like 1.46 seconds) and find nothing that inspires...um, inspiration.

Then I saw the couch.

Had it always been this gray? My first thought echoed through my mind and hinted at a path of luminescent hilarity. I leaned closer and began peering. Yes, it was distinctly gray. Though originally as colorful as the English garden on which it was modeled, it now bears more of a resemblance to a bulging eye bag. My peering continued. The decaying flap of skin that was once the skirt of the chair is certainly a veritable shade of dust that even the shag-carpeted 70s would have considered passe. I peered at the couch and it peered back at me. We had a bona fide peering contest. Then I brushed my hand against its quivering, wrinkled surface and came away with a strip of cat fur that sat vertically in my hand like an anorexic Brownstone. I rolled it vigorously between my fingertips, wondering what would become of me. What would become of us all?

End of Part I (ie I'm frickin hungry and don't want to finish this crap right now)

2 comments:

Madeline said...

To my Valentine:

OLD MAN RIVER
YOU'RE A GOOD RIVER
YOU'RE A BIG RIVER
AND A COLD RIVER
EXCEPT IN THE SUMMER
WHEN YOU'RE A SEMI-LUKEWARM RIVER
MAYBE 60 DEGREES FAHREINHEIT
THAT'S ABOUT 25 DEGREES CELSIUS
OR MAYBE 28 DEGREES CELSIUS
OR 30 DEGREES CELSIUS
I THINK 30 DEGREES IS TOO MUCH
MORE LIKE 28 DEGREES CELSIUS.

Anonymous said...

Quite the metaphysical question you pose. However, I'd like to take it one step further. The question really isn't "what," but rather "how." What will happen - to all of us, eventually - is that we grow from youth into middle-age, from the peak into decline, and finally to death. One cannot avoid this fate. What we're given is time.

Really, it all comes to what Gandalf said to Frodo in the Mines of Moria: "The only thing that we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

Pancakes