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11:11 And 11:12 Can Be Different |
| Written by Nunyo Bidness | |
| Tuesday, 18 March 2008 | |
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Share it:      The terrier barks when I drive off. It barks at most things; birds, people, horns, sirens. The sun. The windows are down and the stereo is off. I can hear the gas pouring into the engine. First gear gives up to second with a click. The terrier’s yelp fades and I’m not listening for it. The clouds are rudely beautiful. They dominate the sun in a process that sounds as far-fetched as the one that clicks from second gear to third unassisted. It’s very busy. And I feel that it’s the same thing driving the clouds to blanket the sky that makes my nose itch around Sarah, and the same thing that gave Sarah the legs that couldn’t be painted as surrealistically and obnoxiously eye-drawing as hers. Whatever it was, anyways. It made third click to fourth too. I am on the same road, only four automatic gears later, with enough distance to almost forget the terrier. But it’s too nice of a day to forget. A car is driving towards me at forty, maybe fifty, miles an hour. I am going fifty three miles an hour and my car is three-thousand pounds minus x, where x is how many pounds I am off by. If he turns his wheel to the left enough to put his wheels in positions terminal to mine in the right lane and drives straight until we collide, the right lane of Whitman Drive will look like a metal gram cracker being hit with a sledgehammer. It doesn’t happen, he stays in his lane, but neither of us are as relieved as we should be when our cars pass. This repeats itself, along with the automatic clicking of gears until parking between two lonely white lines and going into the store. I buy two large bars of chocolate. One is dark chocolate and it tastes better if you are a person that drinks black coffee instead of coffee with sugar, and it costs one penny short of two dollars. The other is milk chocolate. It is diluted and artificial but it takes no time to enjoy and is more popular. It is one penny short of two dollars as well. It costs two pennies short of four dollars for both at the counter according to a green electronic screen with numbers that remind of me of an alarm clock. The clerk agrees with the screen and tells me with a squeaky voice that doesn’t match her loud nose. I put the two pennies on the counter because I don’t have pockets and two pennies are only worth the difference between four dollars and two bars of chocolate, and I won’t need two more if my research is right. The manual gears of today; this day, where the horizon ends in the clouds instead of continuing on into a futile forever blue, clicks from first into second and I can’t stop it if I want to. So I drive out of the parking lot, parallel and reverse of how I came there, with a smile. The smile is indulgent and I feel good because it isn’t forced. The road doesn’t curve after the right turn I take ahead. The yellow dotted line keeps going; so far that the line disappears and turns into a gray mist that heads towards the mountains until it isn’t seen anymore. I’m going to follow it one day. But today is for something else. I’m not sure how yet but the engine shuts down when I tell it to and I go inside with four dollars minus two pennies worth of chocolate and wrappers and brands. It is a very nice day. The CD is skipping in the neighbors yard and it doesn’t bother me. The plastic bag goes into a drawer with the others and it barely shuts because I don’t need plastic bags that often. There will be a day that I do. Like today was the day for a terrier’s bark and a beautiful cloud blanket; the plastic bags wait for theirs. The fence has a gap that the terrier barks through. I am there, and an open chocolate bar is in my hand. It is the dark chocolate. I break off a piece and the terrier takes the donation and swallows it. It goes the same way until the first bar is done. He seems to like it. The milk chocolate would have been another dark chocolate if I knew he fancied the dark. The terrier does not discriminate or pick favorites when I offer it through the fence. It goes like the dark chocolate bar. The clouds are still gray in the sky and shade on the ground. The sun isn’t as strong as it thinks it is, and the breeze is just as strong as it needs to be. Dust isn’t flying and my forehead is cool enough to wear a hat without sweating. The CD skips but the door muffles it as it closes behind me. I open my book and take the gum wrapper out. The day is almost where I left it, like when you leave a cup of coffee behind that is too hot to drink, and when you come back, it’s perfect. Copyright 2008 Nunyo Bidness |
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 19 March 2008 ) |
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