Square one

 

One should not one-hand a short case of kidney beans from the shelf to your cart on the second day after a back crash. There was a warning twinge but I ignored it. 

By the time I got home, brought the perishables inside, and climbed the stairs, it was all I could do to sit in the desk chair and figure out how I was going to roll it to the sliding glass door. Salem wanted to inspect the high deck. It took a few minutes.

Is there a better word than breathtaking to describe pain? Breathtaking should remain a thing of wonder, but that's what it was. 

I stayed there close to the door because I didn't want to forget her. Even in shade, it was too hot out there. The sun was down behind the trees, and this little pile of crocheted critters was something to focus on between breaths. Each of these shots was accompanied by a splash of pain as I turned in the chair to catch the light. 

I contemplated re-wetting them with soda ash solution and painting dye directly to the pale places, the misses. It will happen. But not for a while. The blue cusspot with the golden belly is done. 

Her Highness came back to the door after a very few minutes, and the two of us made our way back onto the Slab of Rest, where she spent long minutes scraping salty grocery shopping sweat off my hands. 

I won't show you the ceiling I have to stare at. Besides cobwebs and old water stains, like most contemporary, cheaply built houses in the 70's, all the ceilings were finished with a mop of dicks dipped in plaster. I won't show you because you can't unsee it. 

There's too much of that on the internet lately. 

Smug faces thinking they have secrets as layers of rot peel away and drop off, and they start turning on one another, smarling and snapping. 

                                    We abide. 

Even though I have never been able to sit through the entire movie, that one phrase spoke to me. Abide.

I went online, applied, and somewhere, I have a certificate proclaiming me a Dudeist Priest. I should get a CLERGY placard for my car.