S.B.T. 361

activate

"just click there'" he says, pointing to a yellow banner. ear to ear we sit, the screen is oversize, it's 'buddy system' in more ways than one. partly because we have our feet here and our brains elsewhere. and partly because the more the merrier, two can eat as cheaply as one, and so on. one person combing their hair is one thing, two doing the same is entirely different

'masked and anonymous' is on tv in the next room, but as i said, we aren't in the real world any more, so here we are. and this thing is all about binaural beats, and brainwave entrainment, and it is being offered for free. hmmm. but what the heck, i want to see what it is, so i click.

a space with the phrase 'enter full name' above materializes. it feels weird but i enter the name. it feels peculiar, like i'm signing a paper that drafts me into the navy or something. most of the time you can type in a nickname but this one wants the full scroll stretched out. now, in the navy, i'm commissioned to do highly sensitive data retrieval, and I have to deliver these proprietary materials to uberpowerful luminaries whose names I can't repeat or I will be dismissed. from the planet, i mean. because it's too easy for them to get away with murder or whatever. it's midnight on a bridge in the valley. the moon shines over the river. i hold my camera up close to my trenchcoat, and ask that "i wonder who else is looking at the moon?" question, but only in my head because if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, did it really fall? ha what a question. a surefire A-plus on the test if they're all that way. a question even squirrels and night birds could answer if you knew how to ask. this is an example of what the space of perception has in store when you have a job like mine, a navy-data-liaison job. there are stakeouts on lonely bridges and docks, in random parking lots and isolated warehouses always on the blackest echoing nights 

below that bar is another required info box with a "your primary email address here" salutation. this is really getting bizarre. cuz that is like a repeat of all that i just typed. and it's also an affirmation of identity. the same accident rarely happens twice, statistically, to one individual that is. i mean forget about war and politics. this is just me here, with my buddy, acting as one. we are giving up the ghost, we are entering a mysterious realm, we are stuck on the top of the ferris wheel in a little red swinging bucket

blink. 

"Thank you!" it says "You will be receiving a confirmation email. Please check your mailbox shortly."

damn creepy if you ask me. which you didnt.

S.B.T. 360

mint chips

"just hope everything is ok" she said sweetly smiling, glancing downward. 

the cash drawer pings open, "a typical spring-loaded function," i thought, as she wrapped my 'all natural' bittersweet chocolate bar in brown paper. as if anything could possibly be unnatural. 

inside the drawer, rumpled and flattened in dark corridors the cash is segregated by denomination, separated by walls. the hundred dollar bill, benjamin greenback, cries out to his son, "50 clams bill! where are you son?" "i'm here, pap! i'm ok, the restraining bar is loose. there's just two of us in here, me and this guy jack" "i'm alone here, son, i'm fine too, i just wish we could be together" and so on, all the way down to tiny wailing baby dollars. squeezed together like sardines, shoved thoughtlessly into seedy orphan housing, never seeing their mothers again. and they are given new names, such as 'buck' and 'moolah'. a 20 dollar bill is almost always a mother with at least one teenager in the house and a few toddlers.

she has to make dreadful sacrifices every day.

the change boxes at front are jingling. house pets and roaming creatures. it's tragic.

what a system, i thought. inside a child's piggy bank, a money clan can stay for years in familial commune, until the walls crack open one day, and someone ends up in another drawer, at a candy store with a bunch of strangers, crammed together in a temporary holding bin. sometimes they are jailed, without any offense, in locked boxes in a vault. it's terrible the way it happens. and nobody even cares.

"oh yes, it's fine, i mean the chocolate-covered samples were wonderful. mint chips. pineapple. coconut. all very tasty, thanks."

S.B.T. 359

popular belief

who cares

about the genus/phylum of the rare woodland lady's slipper, 

or that varying hues of hydrangea can be controlled with alkali

what the difference is between shasta and daisy

not that these things have no importance

but latin and designer names are a lot of iou and sometimes wise

i just cant handle it

so, if you want to communicate these floral importances ami

use color scheme and shape, 

'pink & white bulbous and vast' 

'deep rose multipetal curling' 

'layered yellow stripe-like petals splayed from a cushy brown navel'

ok?

S.B.T. 358

a deer story

it's supper time and though you aren't hungry

you acquiesce because there are others who are and it's on the table

and they are expecting you and you dont realize how stressed you are because you are numb

"what? what is this?" she thought, her mind still slowly churning away from sleep. "it isnt what, well, i, i could swear...last night i was sure... i mean it, i knew it was..." 

she was stuffy from nightwind pollen and there decided not to even try figuring out how things could become much better than what was deemed possible yesterday, even though what was expected is much less charming than this odd surprise, any essence of miraculousness still eluded her sensibility and she just went over to the sink, tore a paper towel from the stick, started the morning coffee

the nonchalant reaction, to the agent and assistant behind the 2-way mirror taking notes o' jectively, was unexpected.  "what strange creatures," thought TM, who typed: "subject does not like - alert - subject does not seem to like o/n express best case scenario"

"Now what?" said TM calmly.

"What are we supposed to do now? We can't force it, what with the quality of the stored data in place." They looked at each other, one of them sighed.

"The only way comrade, is to wipe it all and rebuild." 

a few minutes, and the coffee was ready. she could hear the last sputtering gasps of the machine, and her chosen cup for the morning was the bone china megamug with a bevy of cats in pastel, neutral tones, and she was holding it, pouring in the cream first, then the hot black bubbling coffee over it and it smelled very very good. she was standing there in her robe blandly looking at the top of the stove taking her fourth sip when she heard the birdcall and spun around toward the window to see a baby redwing and a chickadee dancing outside on the deck railing a few feet away. that sight elicited several more quick sips and a sudden bing! of alertness that found her looking around in puzzlement at the mysterious unexpected object on top of the ironing board, and remembering what a deer meant in an old hindu rama/sita fable, with a bass note randomly punctuating a rhythm of doubting thomas refrain "is this really happening?" and then the chorus "like, duh, what's right in front of your eyes?"