Right. Pay attention now you lot.
I’ve got to get through a half thousand words and you’re going to help me.
I’m going to keep putting them one after another down on this page like ducks in a row or ants marching in line and you’re going to pick them up one by one like the good little poppers you are
Still reading?
I know you are. You’re waiting for something.
Anything.
To just happen.
It must right?
Sure.
.
.
Not yet.
Wait for it.
Wait. For. It.
Nope.
Maybe now?
No.
There was once a woman who lived out of phase, so she felt, with the rest of us.
Oh, it didn’t happen all the time.
But she drifted.
You do too.
Those days when you are stopped by every red light.
Every.
Red.
Light.
Pay Attention.
You know what I mean. The days when you click right along, zip through cars that try in vain to get in your way. The lights that turn yellow just as you approach to sift the lurches off your tail. The lights that go green with a clear lane for you to zip through.
The blissful days when everything flows smooth as silk.
Yeah. The opposite of that.
EVERY. LIGHT. STOP. MOVE. GO. STOP. ANNOYED.
And someone zips in your spot as you pull up to it. And the other gets the last doughnut at work because of the three extra minutes the lights took.
All because your battery died.
Her’s did.
Clock reset.
Slightly out of phase.
You do it too.
Halfway home.
One foot in front of the other. That’s how she walked. Some people sashay and swaggle their hips.
She drifts.
Some point their toes out.
Pronate, they call it. I didn’t know Nate went pro.
Pro in what though?
Pro like Leon? The Professional?
That’s what she did.
Pay attention for you drift.
She sits in the cafe swirling her tea. Lost in the thoughts of others coming and going.
The bell above the door jingles announcing the arrival of another seeking status or solace or summons or sanity or some other s-word
Just one hundred and forty left.
Pay attention.
Of this woman, you want to know?
She walks in silence like the night.
Full of wonder and dreadful fright.
Drifting hither, and thither, and whither, and yon.
The stone mason here, now gone.
Fury delights angel tears.
You’re still reading this even thought there is no point.
You’re waiting for it. You’ve come this far and you won’t give up.
Seventy more.
Hemingway invented the six-word story. Or so they say. I really don’t know. I just know he wrote one that encapsulated a heartbreak.
These five hundred encapsulate a life.
Your life.
Plodding along, reading one word after the other.
As she walks, drifts like a wisp.
Twenty more.
Pay attention. We’re getting to the good part.
The good part is this: I lied.
Eight left.
A distraction as you align.
Pay attention.
Now!
-j.e. pittman