Left Off

 

 

Someone had used it as a bookmark, saving their place, remembering where they had left off.  Then, apparently becoming tired of the story, they closed the book and returned it to the library, forgetting completely about their bookmark.

I believe it was weeks later when I came along.  A clever and eye-catching title, I picked the book from the shelf and headed home.  It was then when I was leafing through the pages that I discovered the bookmark.  I wondered if they had ever remembered they had left it in the book. 

What would I have to go through to find the person and return it to them?  Is returning it something I should even do?  Two-dollar bills are unique but not all that rare. They are just different enough to make them fun to discover.  I doubt the library is willing to give out any information about their patrons.  How much trouble would someone go through to track me down?  For two dollars probably not much. 

I’ll have to think about this.  I’ll just tuck this bill into my wallet, so I’ll remember where I left off.

zc

 

 

Alexa

 

I know that she’s listening

I know I should care

Daytime or night

Alexa is there,

 

She nagged and she nagged

until I stopped smoking

She called 9-1-1

When she noticed me choking,

 

She’ll mention the weather

shares with me the news

Then clears her throat

If I reach for the booze,

 

She won’t vacuum the carpet

Or wash up a dish

She’ll not dust a shelf

Or grant me a wish,

 

She can pick out my voice

When I’m in a crowd

There’s no way in Hell

I’d read this out loud,

 

As a friend she is lacking

A companion – so – so

I’m moving away

But don’t let her know.

 

 

 

Time

 

The dates were in the past, so I pulled the page from the calendar and tossed it into the waste basket.  There was no going back now.  Having just done that, I imagined a wall clock that, as the hands moved around, the part of the clock that was now on the back side of the hands, dissolved.  There was no need to toss out the used up hours, they simply automatically disappeared.   It was as if the sweeping second hand was actually sweeping.  Once again, there would be no going back. 

On a much larger scale, as time sweeps over us, we tend to disappear bit by bit.  Everything about us changes, our hair, our internal systems, our looks change.  No matter if it is a calendar, a wall clock or just us standing here, time does its thing.  We tend to accept this as if it cannot be changed or stopped.  We focus on technology, on gadgets and apps, completely ignoring the elephant in the room. 

Forget, for the moment, theories of relativity, laws of physics and even space exploration, and examine if you will, time and what it is that moves it forward.  Surely there is a driving force, whether we can see it or not, it is there.  It has a speed that does not fluctuate and has no conscience.  Nothing in its path escapes its effects.  But here’s what I’ve discovered, and this is the important part

Sorry.  I'll be right back. 

Florida

 

More yesterdays than tomorrows.

Bookmark

 

11-27-2005

 

Bookmarks and headstones remind us where in the story we have left off.  We travel through Life going in and out of events, either as participants or as spectators.  We accumulate experiences either good or bad, hopefully growing and learning from each. 

We toss out judgments and opinions as we go, that others might see the path we are on, and we snap photographs as reminders of where we have been, and who had joined our journey, if only for that moment.

It is a simple process to move a bookmark.  Anyone wishing to backtrack a little, perhaps to spark some reminder as to what was taking place can take a peak before picking up and moving forward.  Headstones, however, can only direct us back to photographs.  They can lead us back to memories of moments shared, but there is no forward movement along the same path.

It is an entirely new adventure we take after having left someone behind.  Their headstone blends into our judgments and it affects our opinions.  We can still move forward but never as the same person we were.  There is now a jog sending us off in a slightly different direction.  We may not realize it at the time, but our course has changed.  All we know is that we now travel with heavier baggage.  It is a weight we cannot put down.  A weight that has become a bookmark of its own, wedged deep into our life.

The pages of our life in Michigan are gray.  I write this in a time when the city is in decline, the economy is getting worse, and yet we stay.  I’m not sure what it is about Michigan that keeps us here.  It is easy to see the reasons for leaving, but we are Michiganders at heart.  We were born here and have grown to accept that our politicians are crooked, our roads will crumble if looked at, and that the auto industry will never shake free of the union’s choke hold, dragging it down to an inevitable death.

Looking beyond the failing economy is not for the squeamish, for it is filled with the carcasses of deer strapped across bumpers, and poking out of the bed of cheap pickups.  For despite the Visitor’s Bureau propaganda, the evolution of Michigan inhabitants has not evolved beyond the whiskey filled, chilly eating deer hunters, who persist in shooting unarmed vegetarians, strapping the lifeless bodies across the hoods of their Toyotas, and proclaiming, “I only kill what I eat.”

At my age I have learned what it is to loose a best friend.  I have grown to understand that life continues on despite all feelings to the contrary.  But how do I deal with a dying state?  Michigan is falling faster than the New Years Eve Ball, and the handwriting tells me that local politicians aren’t about to pull her out of this nosedive.

I have written this article as a bookmark, placing it at a point where I hope someone with wisdom and insight might see it and know what to do.  

 

   

 

3/22/2026
Obviously I failed.

 

 

Fan Mail

 

Truth in Packaging

 

How great it would be

if inside we’d see –

The product inside

It's the amount that you hide,

 

I find it a sin

that you don’t put more in

It seems so unfair

you fill it with air,

 

You claim you need room

for disclaimers and such

Then you charge quite a bit

for not very much,

 

I doubt that more label

is the thing that you need

Your motive seems clear

It’s just simply greed.