Smoke

With smoke in our mouths, we eat breakfast in silence. Bloodshot eyes meet bloodshot eyes, we shake the limp hand of an uncertain future, and wonder how to begin this day. There’s no choice. We have to invite Forever along for the ride, but the carriage is crowded with fools.

“Oh you cheery old thing,” Forever teases. “No one likes crotchety in the morning.”

I feign deafness. In the best of times, I’m not a morning person, and these are not the best of times. The eerie glow is rolling nearer and nearer.

The Future throws her head back and starts singing. “Hey, Jude, don’t be afraid. Take a sad song and make it better.”

“Is this necessary?” I moan.

“Trust me,” she nods. “Let it out and let it in. The movement you need is on your shoulder.”

Maybe she’s right. Like Atlas, I shrug.

She laughs. “That’s it, baby. Nice.”

But you can’t shrug this shit away. The litter along the tracks. The loss of common ground. Is there an appropriate response to the mindless squandering of magnificence?

Love could conquer all, but love doesn’t want to. The leitmotif of love is tired of being used for revenge. Stripped thin and braided, love becomes a noose. Embellished and inflated, the golden calf is slaughtered. The rendered lard is a dangerous source of sustenance.

I believe my Coauthor should apologize for these design flaws. This spiral of destruction. But she refuses. “Not sorry, not sorry, not sorry,” she insists.

“You should be,” I mutter. The suffering now, the miseries coming, cities choking on themselves. I don’t want to be complicit, but I know I am.

Suddenly, we’re in New Orleans. A city built on denial and dikes, levees and levity. “Let me help you with that clunky baggage,” the Bellboy offers. He grabs the straps of my black mood and dances up the stairs of the Monteleone. Forever is close behind, still belting out that damn song.

“The minute you let her into your heart, then you can start to make it better. Better. Better. Better.” Forever’s pitch climbs to near hysteria. Arms raised, all creation sways as one. “Na, na, na, na, na-na-na-na. Na-na-na-na. Hey, Jude.”

“Let who into my heart?” I shout. “Or what?”

Three Divine Fire Chiefs pull me aside. “What if we’re the Starters and Swallowers of Fire,” they posit with roguish smiles. “What if we’re the Ride and the Littered Trail?”

I glare, unwilling to be privy to these dialectical mysteries.

Forever laughs. “Stop griping and glooming, little mortal. Just let it out. And let it in. And thus it will begin. Again.”

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