I Saw the Signs, and Followed Them
Have you ever seen a sign, Dear Reader? One of those harbingers of 'something' that makes your hair stand on end, your chest rattle, your index finger point in rude fashion at some thing in the distance?
Posts tagged ‘travel’
Apr 4
14 Comments
Charleston Strut
For almost 22 years, I've lived in the same Old South port city, full of crumbling mortar and the sulfuric smell of pluff mud. Charleston, South Carolina once competed with New York City for supremacy as THE city in the United States. If The South had won the War of Northern Aggression (or The Recent Unpleasantness, as some Southerners are fond of labeling our Civil War), the map of the United States might look very different today.
Phobias and Euphorias
Do you have a phobia? One of those debilitating things that, when thrust into a group, can lead to mortifying consequences if the phobia is triggered? Maybe you tell yourself it's silly, even though your reactions are agonizing and severe.
Well, I'm afraid of the dark. I mean, THE DARK, not nighttime or a murky room. The suffocating brand of darkness when THERE IS NO LIGHT paralyzes me. Consuming, enveloping, blinding darkness. It makes my hands humid, my heart throb, my lungs constrict.
Still, I Only Have Eyes For Her
Steam blew out of her mouth and fogged her glasses against the backdrop of the night sky. Rubber-and-leather-clad feet crunched on gravel, echoing against the whip of flags in the wind, the sirens, the thrum of jet engines. Even with the ghostly pencil of stone carving a swath between a crescent moon and two planets, she sighed. The National Mall on a windy night wasn't her idea of a fun slog after a zig-zagging day of work, dashing from place to place to place around the District.
It’s Only A Paper Moon
It was a few pieces of board. Strung lengthwise. Two-by-somethings at top and bottom. A slanting shard of wood between the two. Carried by two lads of indeterminate age.
I passed them in an intersection, on the way to an appointment. I was late. Running. Almost. I couldn't stop to ask them why they carried that particular configuration of wood through a busy intersection. Borne between them. Leather and asphalt. Oxygen and wool.
