rejectomorph (flying_blind) wrote,
rejectomorph
flying_blind

Still Life with Bozo

Waiting for a pizza (outdoors, to avoid the din of a dozen screeching kids, assorted video games and one of those CD jukeboxes spewing Journey and indistinguishable country crooners) I sat on the bench in front of the Hallmark Shop, a quiet spot largely concealed from passersby due to the piles of off-brand paper towels and bins of failed merchandise which spill out onto the sidewalk from the One Dollar Store where the movie theatres used to be. I watched the reflections of passing cars and drifting clouds in the windows of the Hallmark shop, superimposed on the glass shelves full of knick-knacks and fake flowers. From behind the stacked boxes of paper towels emerged a tall, prematurely aged guy with his hair in a pony tail. He was wearing a beat-up windbreaker and faded blue jeans, and had a scruffy partial beard. He puffed on a cigarette, then stubbed it out in the concrete receptacle at the end of the bench. He gestured with his head toward the window display of the Hallmark shop and said "My girlfriend Crystal has a problem with curtains." Nobody else was around, so I presumed he was speaking either to me or himself. He gazed at the window display briefly, which was entirely free of curtains, shook his head slowly and sighed, then turned and walked away, leaving me to ponder the meaning of his cryptic message. It is yet another confirmation of my belief that the human mind is the oddest thing in the world.

Another day of rain, and an evening full of the various chirpings and chatterings and screechings of birds. From a high branch somewhere nearby, the ornate trills of a lark fall through the grayness like the blossoming of an unexpected flower. A couple of days ago, I heard several larks in that remnant of woods adjacent to the cluster of new houses where, in previous springs, they gathered to sing in a particular tree which stood alone in the midst of a field. It's nice to know they didn't have to move too far. On the next sunny day, I'll wander down that way in the evening, and perhaps hear the lark calliope I heard last year, when more than a dozen of the birds were arrayed among the branches, all singing at once. It was an experience Shelly might have envied. For now, I listen to the spattering of the rain in the night, which, at the moment, sound oddly like a cat eating a wet dinner. Everything is like something else. Hooray, simile.
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