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Forgetterie Fraying in the Sun


The dial tone pleads for a response. Monotone and spare change not forthcoming. The operator cannot hear you through the tinny whine of a bad connection. The call is for you but you cannot bring yourself to pick up the receiver. The voicemail is full. The pass code long forgotten.

Come and share a quarantine with these denizens of desolation. The cushions are comfy and the springs still taut on this stretch of infinite weariness. The tumbleweed-watching is particularly good today. Comfort has never been so discomfiting.

It would be futile to reframe this frame as anything but an exercise in melancholy. Hanging on some bygone wall commemorating a din and distant happy memory. But now only a stark memoriam to dust and fragments of yesterday.

An intricate spiderweb of fragility creeps across the face of this mirror. The bruised and battered countenance all the more candid as it reflects the true nature of society. The visage that is thrown back at us as we gaze into it's swirling honesty is startling: I am grotesque. But I am rid of artifice.

An oasis of green and bloom ascends from the moribund mound. They may not spin but they do toil. Tirelessly hauling the burden of hope on Filmore Street. Nodding lightly in the breeze at the erosion of effort in the immediate vicinity. Swaying at the hum of power lines thrumming grey and garish above.

A tire perfectly attired in tiredness. Resting on the side of the road for an axle that may not be coming. Heavy with vulcanized lassitude and awash with miles on unaffectionate asphalt. Balding and over the hill. Love's austere and lonely offices cracked into it's treads.

These lungs are deflated and wheeze with dusty miles. Rollers jammed and cord hardened and brittle from the tides of decades. A wifi Roomba resides where it once occupied in the closet. Obsolescence the obituary recited within flimsy gears and coughing cogs.

Time raced up and dinged without warning. Clipped by the catastrophe of the clock. Did anyone see that coming? Most do not. And now we writhe in the sand with nothing but our remorse and reminiscence to keep as companion. Regret in mirrors are grimmer than they appear.

The songs have been sung. The frosting has dried. And the balloons have flocked elsewhere post-celebrations. And this is where they go to expire. From jubilant representation of life abundant to crumpled drizzle of gleaming mylar scattered over the sand. Blow out your candles, Laura. And so goodbye.

It was an idyllic existence. Middle-class income. Savings and family vacations. Braces and college prep courses. Everything according to plan. But one cocktail waitress later and an acrimonious divorce that dragged on too many years, here're the tattered remains. Abandoned and out of luck. The lasting symbol of our America: The broken home.

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