Apologies but the whirlwind…there is a stranger at the door with a package, a long line of these scurrying ants that trek and knock and drop their square boxes, and the dog goes berserk. They retreat to their trucks, white and orange and brown, and one that to me looks like a thin, smiling penis. They putt-putt away…apologies but the whirlwind…I often invited the newspaper and its bylines in for coffee and earnest debate, but now I am assaulted in my own home, a brick through my window. I am a hostage in a crudely dug pit watching a wretched horde of mutant mannequins above apply lotion to its skin…apologies but the whirlwind…the modem is sputtering, and I am on hold for the hundredth time. Another man is on the way to replace what was replaced by another man, and the dog will go berserk again, and I don’t blame him, the dog, it seems a natural reaction…apologies but the whirlwind…I hear the word nuclear from day until the night. I wonder what that means for the leaves and the trees and the rest of us, people who would just like to keep their lush flesh applied to bones that don’t glow, who want to go to a picnic this weekend, or perhaps the county fair…apologies but the whirlwind…Yes, I can fix that font or that word or that sentence for the millionth time, you bet. I think that is much clearer; indeed, that is a much more eloquent way to say nothing and something at the same time, a cunning linguist, an artisan of imitation words, nonpareil, am I…apologies but the whirlwind…my phone is buzzing and ringing, somehow simultaneously, and I can't find that app. A pop-up window discloses that I must be aware of malware, and I have been compromised, perhaps, and I can be sheltered for forty-nine ninety-nine…apologies for the whirlwind…I reboot, restart, control, alt, delete and wait, and a pile of books is begging to be read, but what do Aristotle or Orwell or Hemingway know? They can take a number…apologies but the whirlwind…I watch a child, the first of many, climb to uncomfortable heights, slip under the rusting railing, and plummet just out of my reach, and a man, a bit familiar, hugs me. I look to the parents, and they are mummified, distracted, without eyes, really, and now I have the sound of cracking eggs in my skull, and I want it out…apologies for the whirlwind…My chromosomes have become quaint notions of an earlier time, and I think of dandy men in top hats draping velvet-lined capes over puddles to keep dry the feet of dazzling damsels, ladies in the most evident sense, all…apologies but the whirlwind…I speak to bumper stickers where brains should be, and I am mired in endless traffic, their tailpipes in my nostrils. I have no recourse but to inhale their infantile platitudes plastered on the pulsating rear ends in an alarming sea of red brake lights…apologies but the whirlwind…I cannot make sense of my calendar and the litany of special days, weeks, and months, and I wonder if the definition of the word special changed while I roiled in fitful sleep and how much of these bizarre distinctions were earned…apologies but the whirlwind…I never voted for emojis—the smiley faces, thumbs up, and clapping hands—so stop sending them my way. If you want me to accurately understand your intent, write more clearly…apologies but the whirlwind…I checked my dictionary and my thesaurus, and words are missing, words that did nothing wrong, innocent words that strung together sentences that strung together paragraphs, that filled books, and some of those tomes have disappeared too, yet no one has stapled a words-and-books-lost flyer to any phone poles. However, there is a collie misplaced in my neighborhood. There are two schools within spitting distance of my front door…apologies but the whirlwind…I have a dollar worth a pittance, but I am told it is patriotic to be poor, and the definition of transitory is two years, at least. I see the pols wave and spew and spit, forked tongues thrashing, and all I want for Christmas is dignity and quiet and maybe, just perhaps, a motherfucking thank you for showing up and pulling the weeds around my feet day after day…apologies but the whirlwind…
Is driving me underground.
Don’t bother to call or write or knock, or text.
I can’t be reached here.