IN NO CERTAIN ORDER

Step by step, please proceed.

Between the beginning…

This recollecting is a leaking pipe—a stream of consciousness flowing as faithfully as I can. I am not fact-checking myself or bouncing memories off specters, and front-row spectators who witnessed it or thought they did, as their recollections of me are threadbare, assuming a fragment of the garment that I was still hangs in their attic of others. What I display to you in my eyes is carved, what ensued. This episode is my beginning and perhaps my ending; all that lies amongst the marching minutes are milestones, millstones, and headstones. Write your own account if you disagree, the aftermath having splashed you, perhaps.

I surrendered fear and began running on a long, flat road.

We cannot ignore what we have seen and heard, and I know.

I can only assume my cliff was a mirage.

Between the beginning and the end…

My first memory is of being bit in the head by our dog, Rusty, the color of the nail on which I hung my baseball mitt. I adored that glove, Rawlings, its maker burnished deep red on the wrist in confident cursive, my name on the inside, first and last for complete transparency, its owner. It fit me—like a glove should, the tanned leather supple and weathered by purity, friendship, and protection. I was a youngster, a heart steady, intact, and I discarded my mitt on the curb, an adult I had become too soon, or so I believed, my hubris brittle leaves in December. My glove slept abandoned in a cardboard box, and then it was gone in the choking exhaust. A pick-up truck of some sort spirited it away, and the kid, a fat greasy prick, was pounding his baked ham fist in my mitt, changing it, its fit, and I bore witness to it. I am sure he rubbed my name out, and I gave my glove away. Just like that, I was erased.

I surrendered judgment and became a forgiving breeze.

Those who imagine irrationalities will compel mayhem, and I see.

I can only assume my stormfront was battling a different seaboard.

Between the beginning and the end is the work…

I tripped over Rusty; on the floor, our dreaming beagle slept, his softly heaving ribs splitting the equator between the warm wood of the living room and the kitchen’s checkerboard linoleum. I am a pudgy boy, about five, teetering and tottering, and I do not remember much—only a piercing yelp but nothing about fangs or blood. A few hours later, I was sporting a broad bandage that covered about six inches of my scalp. Rusty was back in his rightful spot, tail thumping, no doubt happy that we didn’t put him down for acting on his survival instincts. A dog is a dog, and so are we. Our teeth bequeath it, so be more careful next time. That was good advice, which I never forgot but occasionally ignored.

I surrendered pride and knelt to a child and a man, familiar, known.

Pray to God, OK, but keep rowing to shore, and I sow.

I can only assume my false pride was captive in a dupe's mirror.