Hello; Vignette by Nadine Sellers

Hello, My Name is Danielle and I'm In Denial! Absurdity creeps in fluid waves over our lives; first licking our toes, then drowning our spirits in seismic swells to leave us heaving by the bedside shores. The radio is lording it over us; from somewhere in satellite space, a smooth baritone wraps itself around sensible words, espousing the one God of the one man in Charge. This patriot act is sure a fast acting drug! It has taken over a whole segment of the vox populi without so much as a groan. The officer's knock on the downstairs door is louder than the offender inside, louder than the victim's cries. How many cops does it take to wrestle an old man to the cold ground? A disheveled woman gesticulates on the patch of grass below the upstairs window; words scream stories of deceit and disappointment. Her husband came home drunk and started beating her, see that bruise, he done it. A little dog punctuates every curse. How long does it take to bring sense and sanity to shredded lives? A helicopter makes its third round over the complex, the cross marks it as a hospital to hospital shuttle. The pilot is on overpriced overtime. Sirens pierce the fog in the background: Song of the highway ripping holes in the small town peace. Patches of black ice bring good business to town, nurses on duty, pink stripers on benevolent kicks, passing out smiles and magazines like candy for college credits. The mortuary has been booked heavily lately. Plot space is at a premium; There is talk of a crematorium being planned to save the alfalfa fields for the senator farmers. A child whines next door. A mother desperately shrieks. She bemoans the day she ever thought it cute to birth such a burden for herself. Toys hit the wall with such force as to rip the air with screeching strikes. The hair on my arms rises in syncopation with the outbursts. No proper time to offer cheap advice, mental note to self: smile warmly for harried mother, wink to child across the stoop when safe. This neurotic cat up tree, meowing like the kid in apartment B2. Kestrel circling. Fluffed up sparrows grudgingly flitting away from cracker crumbs. The trash truck grinds its metallic jaws in the alley. Waste abounds among the poor; It keeps them hostage for life, for good, for bad and utter economic misery. Seagulls feed noisily off the leavings of man. They glide on thermals heated by the reflection from stark white walls set in East -West corridors. The long - winged spatial creatures then land on the old asphalt that has been ravaged by freeze and thaw. They squawk over a half-eaten, ten-dollar special, pizza slices; (It's a five dollar food fight for the birds) Sun, weak over the snowy roofs. Frost melting off the windshields already. Midmorning bears the stigma of another dreary day in the high valley. Insanity almost looks good by now. Would Kerouac jump off the bookshelf and leap into life untouched? I stare at titles unread. A haze has settled on the mind between acquired knowledge and forgotten ballast. A leg extends from body seemingly unattached, hands rub sheet, absently. Outside, noise resumes at suburban pace. A train clangs its industrial travails on old tracks at the county line. Could poison escape these ferrous cages and spread over the complex? Could haggard faces peek from the next day's paper? “Entire families evacuated. 2 dead, 26 taken to local hospital for decontamination”. No energy to spare when the moon is void, the sun is pale, and feelings faint from reality. Phrases push their way through slush, memory insists on pouring despite empty receptor cells. Connectivity interrupted by frigid anger. Responsibility fizzles into rote morality, stunted in its effort to continue existing. Get dressed-eat-slip on good shoes-watch where you step-read the headlines-chew slowly-watch what you say. The guy on the radio still rehashes Osama's fate as if a thousand Osama's mamas had not sprung forth angry clones in the Mohammedan belt across the globe. Chew slowly-watch the tree top from the upstairs window-don't focus. Iraq stripped from its mystery, lies on the stomach like a lump of exogenic history. It's their country, is it not? Bombs tear the soil, smash the joy and destroys public treasures. I worry about the mother next door while others make bombs that maim another woman's son. Chew slowly-swallow-cease care-cease fire-swallow bitter bombs like pills in a chicken's gullet. Something called job forces me to surface. Clock at attention. Rise from couch-wash dishes-go. Money? Ah,yes! That commodity. The work is satisfying, the workers pleasant, for a few hours I shall be human only. All animal urges and commiserations avoided. Can we, for an instant, apply some sense of sociability to this, our, passage of time?.

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