PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

My best friend married, in ill-advised haste

because his girl friend claimed to enjoy precognitive

powers, and certain instructiive (although wholly

metaphysical) visions.  (Her father, a former

airplane mechanic, believed vociferously that

no historian had accurately dated the

founding of the Church, which---he asserted---

occured in the mid-two hundres, A.D.).  To

any declarative sentence, positively stated,

she replied, "I wouldn't be too sure of that."

I stayed with them, for a few weeks, in 

Los Angeles, having fled from the venue in

which I had come of age; after having earned a

college degree that was entirely unmarketable;

followed by a miserable termination, as

unsuitable and untrainable, from my first job---

and, as an effect of that, the end of an

engagement that had lasted two years

both of them as nebulous as NGC 3372).

Coming in---sopping wet---from a ferocious rainstorm,

I said, "It must be pouring buckets," to which she---

my friend's beloved---replied, "I wouldn't be too

"sure of that."  Speaking of highway construction

that might cause delays during the morning commute,

I heard the words, "I wouldn't be too sure of that."

Declining a steaming bowl of chili, because the

beans caused me flatulence, I was told (in an

almost piteous tone), "I wouldn't be too sure of that."

2

After several weeks, I returned to the Mid-West, to the

sites and sounds I had hoped, earlier, to avoid.  My

friend had changed since in the time since he had

been married.  The verbal tokens that had always

seasoned are conversation meant nothing to him

any more; the memories we had made together had

become vague and insubstantial---or so he told me in a

tone that seemed to imply, somehow, that the fault

was, or should be, mine.  So I left, on a sunny

Saturday morning, as they slept late (as they

always did).  With some foresight (which I

rarely experienced in those days), I had packed

my Ford Pinto (1975 model) the prior night; and

with no schedule to keep, I was able to choose the

timing of my departure.  I rose at about eight a.m.,

showered and dressed, and then proceeded to

consume each and everyone of the eggs she had

hardboiled while I was loading my car (I removed the

yolks after peeling, and tossed them into the trash);

this, also, would cause tremendous flatulence, but---at

least---no one was accompanying me eastward.

I also drank the entire pitcher of iced tea she had

also prepared, while boiling the eggs; which meant

several bathroom breaks would be required on the

first leg of my journey east, but it was worth it.  I

knew that an empty egg bowl, and a dry pitcher,

both put neatly back into the refridgerator, would

piss her the hell off---and I was quite sure of that.

3

Four decades---forty years---and they, my friend and

his wife, returned to this vicinity.  Her father had

passed away, frustrated and disappointed that his

version of History's chronology, especially since the

founding of the Roman Republic, was not accorded

serious consideration---except by those who

attended the same seminars and conferences that

he did, often in the lobbies of seedy hotels.

My friend and his wife had parented two daughters

who had elected, with (I think) reasonable

justification, to remain in the Pacific Northwest,

where they are thriving with families of their

own, to this day.  My friend's heart, had

labored for sixty-four years without rest; and

he had provided for that faithful organ far

less maintenance and care than he accorded to

one of his vintage automobiles.  Shortly after

their arrival, perhaps because of the stress of

such a transition---or even the onslaught of

many old, but cherishable memories that he

had categorically denied and dismissed---he

suffered what the doctors euphemistically

termed, "a cardiac incident of severe degree."

4

Following the almost heroic efforts of stabilization

involving several members of the local hospital's

emergency staff, my friend recovered consciousness,

although almost too weak to hold a teacup steadily. 

Several cardiologists had insisted that he remain under

direct care and observation, until the several

intravenous medications he was now receiving had

provided the expected alterations in the numerous

measurements---made by machine, or laboratory

analyses of taken samples---which seemed to be

collected almost hourly.  With some sense of

relief (and even a little misplaced pride that he had

somehow contributed to his own survival), my friend

greeted his wife, upon her first visit since the

emergency, with the words, "They say I can

"get past this."  Other than the ambient, but

very low hum of the automatic monitors, the

room (a private one, as allowed by his excellent

health insurance plan) was fairly silent.  In her

most cheerful, and encouraging, voice, she said,

"I wouldn't be too sure of that," and then, with

only a minimum of movement, removed, as a

mask, the face he had loved all these years, to

reveal to him the horrific, but no less determined,

grin of the skull they call Death's Head.

Starward