A buckeye butterfly floats by very old brick.
Buckeye on Brick
Dragonfly Balance
Pocket Shot…
Sometimes on a hike my cell phone, on its own, will take shots of my pocket. But this one, a spiral of the wood chip trail, was taken while the phone was hanging out of my pocket, or, at least, that is the theory. I like it.
Bone Dry Grave
When I go on a hike, my thoughts are about the condition of the forest given the extreme drought conditions in California. Yesterday, I took Ivan on the Carmel Mission Trail where I stopped and took a cell phone photo of a dead tree branch that appeared to have been laid to rest by the bone dry trailside.
Surprise Visitors
Yesterday started out with a large cup of coffee and…three kittens in what we call “bee alley” (our side yard formerly devoted to bee hives). Nearly impossible for kittens to access the alley. Didn’t see a mother. I checked with a few neighbors but no one was aware of a recent litter of kittens. Took these shots with a telephoto lens as the kittens were scared, although later two of them, including the one in the photo, were frolicking in our next door neighbor’s backyard. The escape route was a gap in the fencing about four feet up. I will try to locate their home but they may be kittens from a feral cat.
Fast Fiction: The Adventures of Chartan: Coffee Bean Fame
(If you are new to Chartan, please read last Sunday’s installment: Java and a Gun.)
Traffic was light and that made Chartan grip the steering wheel tighter. Any joy over the lack of cars is a sign that I am thinking as a chauffeur not as a master of the mind.
“Chartan?”
Her voice caressed his throat.
“Yes?” He saw in the rear view mirror that Minerva had a cell phone pressed to her ear.
“A TV station wants to interview you about your heroic act. I told them we were driving to Sacramento—the person says it can be done there. Shall we?”
I am now part of how she sees the world. “Certainly.”
Forty minutes later Chartan was directed to stand by the limo and look directly into the camera.
The reporter spoke: “Earlier today San Francisco police arrested a suspect in a string of brazen car robberies. Dubbed the ‘car window bandit’, the alleged thief is thought to be responsible for more than 20 daytime crimes where he would knock on car windows with a pistol and then proceed to take cash and jewelry. But today he ran into a hot cup of coffee thrown by this brave man.”
When the news report ran that night, viewers saw the calm, dark-haired chauffeur with “Chartan Chartan” superimposed on the screen.
“It was a 72-bean French roast.”
The quote went viral in the news world. But Chartan avoided the press; instead, he sat on a floor, replaying Minerva’s last words: “I’d be pleased if you would come to my house tomorrow at 6 p.m. for dinner as Chartan, not my chauffeur.”
***
Chartan paced about the small apartment. In three hours he was due at her house and he had yet to achieve that calm state essential to harnessing his metaphysical powers. He had been ‘unnerved’ by a woman much older and wealthier than he. Did he want to be a mentor, lover or friend?
Chartan donned running shorts and a Grateful Dead t-shirt, then sprinted to the city center where vagrants were pinned to dirty brick walls as if they were models for Claes Oldenberg. A few cursed him. Chartan assumed it was his jet black hair, pale skin and lanky body that drew unfavorable comments from the down and out. As he ran back to his apartment, he pledged to return to the bus station alleyway the next day to help some of these sad figures find hope.
The run, a shower and thoughts of helping the less fortunate put Chartan in a high state of readiness. All that remained was to ring Minerva’s door bell.
He took the bus to her mansion. His heart pounded when a beautiful, young woman with blonde hair opened the door.
“Mr. Chartan?”
“Yes.”
“Please come in. Ms. Woods is waiting for you.”
He followed her until he was greeted by a voice from above. “Chartan, I see you have met my assistant, Elisa.” Minerva was standing at the top of the stairs dressed in a bright red dress that spoke of riches.
Chartan fought to regain control.
Continued Next Sunday…
***
Fast Fiction: Loneliness
Benjy thought everything he did should be important, that every moment had significance. About the clearest thought he had recently was that he was lost, adrift. He had no dreams, no desires no reason to believe tomorrow would be different.
For the present he was sitting on a park bench in a very nice neighborhood, waiting for someone to tell him to leave. He might welcome that direction because at the very least it would be something to do. Several hours passed with people going by him without making eye contact. Maybe, he wasn’t on a park bench. He closed his eyes momentarily, reopened them and gently rubbed the bench seat. It was wooden, somewhat rough.
“Excuse me.” A young woman wearing a white bonnet stood in front of him. “Do you know how far it is to the library?”
Her question was one he could answer in detail. He knew the library well—it was his church, a place he could be in without fear that someone, like this woman, would talk to him. Her eyes were kind and she waited for a response with a kind smile.
“I am going there, it’s not that far.” He stood up, raised his arm, palm up in a gesture to follow. She did.
The woman walked side by side with Benjy. They left the park without speaking. Benjy hadn’t talked to anyone in several months. The last person was a bus driver who nodded at him when he boarded and Benjy surprised himself by saying, “How’s it going?” He remembered the driver muttering, “It’s Thursday,” before closing the door.
“What day is it?” asked Benjy, turning to the woman.
“Why it’s Thursday,” she replied.
He decided not to tell her the last time he spoke to someone it was a Thursday, instead, he said, ”Thanks.”
“Do you go to the library often?” she asked. They were nearing the end of the first block with the library about to come into view.
“I do. I like to read and to think there.”
“So do I.”
Suddenly, Benjy was overcome with the joy of sharing a few words with a stranger. Her third question was almost too good to be true: “What do you like to read?”
He briefly told her about a handful of books he had read during the present month and he might have added more detail, but they were now in front of the library.
“This is it,” he said, acknowledging they might go inside and never speak to each other again. But the last ten minutes had been important—a stranger had thrown him a lifeline. He looked at her with a smile, believing she did not see a man drowning in loneliness.
“I’m Emma.” She briefly squeezed his hand. “Let’s go in.”
—-
(A new Harvard study finds that 36% of Americans are experiencing “serious loneliness.”
Looking in the Mirror…
How often do you look at yourself in a mirror? This is one of those questions that is grist for the internet. Some studies say women look at themselves more than men while other sources claim men actually view themselves more than women. Whatever.
I am forced to look at myself when I shave, usually a daily undertaking. When I was a teenager last century, I constantly checked the mirror for acne. Now that I am old and without acne, I don’t look except when shaving and brushing my teeth. I have a lot of hair which I rarely brush–this is a sign of senior independence, also known as the mad scientist look.
During the pandemic I have looked less at myself while spending more time in the kitchen cooking, a nonsequitur statement that is so very true.
What Happened?
I took this shot of a Big Sur beach wedding a few years ago. I was struck by the orderliness of the scene–everyone in her or his place–in a natural surrounding of random almost chaotic beauty. Don’t know what happened to the newlyweds. Do know that planet Earth is in trouble with extreme weather acting as a drumbeat of environmental doom. You know the story. Climate change has evolved faster than most anyone imagined. What happened?
