"spoke"

A meditation on faith, not exactly for the E79FF07. File under Oswald Wang.

End Less Summer

O wall of heat, blast of purely sensual, carry this message across the murmuring villages -
O bad news, its bitter certainty between the teeth, a swan song come to call -
O end of Summer, and her echoes of ends gone by, how do I measure this proof of life in fading light?
O Tessa, tumbled in torn and turning waters, chasing the last in churning repose.

The strolling glowworms of the ending embers
The heart of the valley in so dense a mist
The springs of heaven & her illusion of give -
The answer is again and again and again.

When, with the turn of a wind, long shadows are nailed to our quickening footsteps,
Tongues are tightened and the branches sway: "Speak low," and "Whisper not."
A wave breaks on lowly shores, and it is gathering time.
In the sweet spiralled smoke of encampments' remains
what we have found? Or: what are we not missing?

She thought about the boy.

An especially wan installment of The Timbertoes.
Highlights for Children, February 2002.

internet cafe

This is one of those Third-World internet cafés you've read about. In the front of the store by the registers, near the winter coats, next to the partially-stacked boxes of undershirts, behind the pallet of disassembled what? Also, no "cafe." The spirit of Zayre is alive and well at Kmart store #9360, Forest Park, Illinois. August 29, 2007.

In case of emergency

In case of emergency, break glass. If this had been an actual emergency, you would have been instructed to go to your basement and run around in your footie pajamas and scream. Or air raid shelter. Or Underoos, if it's the warm season. You would have been instructed.

In case of emergency, break glass. Break hearts, break dance, break out. In case of emergency, melt the ice caps and move to higher ground. If this in itself is an emergency, invent a time machine, go backwards in time, and do everything right. If this creates a space-time continuum emergency, you've really mucked it up now. Come back forward in time and see me after class. In case of emergency, clap erasers for an hour. "Will this help?" I suppose you know better, Mr. Thundercats-On-His-Underwear-Time-Traveller? When you have all this cleaned up, go forward in your little machine and tell me if it helped. I won't be there. In 100 years it will be no concern of mine.

The broadcasters in your area, in voluntary cooperation with the Board of Directors who own them all, have established that email is effectively used in case of emergency as proof that we did try to contact you. See here's proof, what do you mean you didn't get it, or deleted it, or were outside on the beach having a life? Anyway, we sent it. You would have been instructed. Hey, what's all this broken glass?

In case of emergency, write something down in the middle of the night and try to decipher it in the morning. "We are [something] ratsbag-angel 7-into..." oh for heaven's sake. In case of emergency, call someone you know and speculate. Filter and calibrate blame. In case of emergency, drink. Water, silly. It's good for you and keeps indefinitely. It's really refreshing. In case of emergency, press zero to speak to a representative. Para Español, oprima el numero dos. "No es el defecto de representante." In case of emergency, sweep up all this glass. There. Feel better? That's better.