I sat on the rocking chair on my front porch. The chair was
left by the previous owner of my home. I kept it because my porch doesn't feel
whole without the rocking chair to break the monotony of empty space outside my
front door. When I moved into the house six years ago I discovered the chair
atop the asbestos floor in the finished basement room—what is now my den—facing
a large painting of an unfamiliar village on an unfamiliar hillside that hung
crooked on the wall. The painting could've been perfect yard sale bait between a framed velvet Elvis, and another framed velvet Elvis. Anyway, the
basement room was otherwise empty. I imagine the old fella', whose memories
must linger in my home like arthritic ghosts I unceremoniously stomp daily, sat
there rocking dawn to dusk and fixating on the painting until he was overcome
by double vision or legal blindness.
Sunday morning I sat on his rocking chair. I stared at the
gorgeous morning like I imagine the old man stared at the painting.
I could see a slice of backyard behind the duplex across the
street. A young girl—too young to color in the lines—was dawdling about. She
was holding a helium filled balloon. Something happened that caused the
balloon's string to dislodge from her weak grasp. Perhaps she stepped on a
bumblebee. The balloon ascended skyward like a Mylar Jesus who'd rethought the
second coming and figured "Screw this place. I'm going home." The girl
began wailing. I watched the balloon climb until it became swallowed by the
sun's brilliance, as were my pupils. Darkness momentarily overcame me. She continued wailing. As
the gorgeous morning returned to focus it occurred to me that there is nothing
else in the little girl's world at this moment besides the tragedy of the
escaped balloon. That is it. Nothing else.
I considered what was going on in the adult world I inhabit, the world supposedly
mature enough to color within the lines? What vile headlines raced leftward
across the ticker to disappear off screen only to reappear from behind like a
rabid Pac Man chasing his tail? Behold cackling warlords waiving semi-automatic
weapons and directing amateur beheading porn somewhere on the dusty side of the
globe. And international dignitaries as deserving of being heads of state as
Justin Bieber being a life coach, despite wearing lapel pins and flashing
credentials permitting access to the shiny toilets at the UN Headquarters. And
school girls kept under floorboards in an African dessert, awaiting god's
command to be hawked to Jihadist pimps. And a rampaging virgin leaving bodies like breadcrumbs
on the Santa Barbara streets, marking the trail back to a rejected kindergarten
kiss. And evangelical missionaries exorcising condoms from the shanties while
gleefully marking down the days until the rapture, using AIDS babies as counting beans. And knucklehead politicians believing 99.9% of climatologists are
puppets to renewal energy companies that years ago paid-off the CIA to shoot
Kennedy brainless so the Hollywood elite could film the lunar landing in an
underground soundstage to instill a "can do" attitude among millions
of Americans including a young David Stern who pursued the NBA commissionership
solely to rig the 1985 entry-level draft enabling the New York Knick to select
the "Hoya Destroyer" Patrick Ewing while the Indiana Pacers front office wept for a better tomorrow.
My senses returned to the sobbing girl across the street.
Somehow the balloon's escape was more harrowing to her than the totality of
every desperate headline. But the balloon had disappeared long enough that her
spirits gradually rose back to a naïve sea level.
I leaned back into my rocking chair and took a deep breath.
Some peeling varnish stuck to my bare back. When I leaned forward and exhaled
the varnish specs ripped from the cracked wood. I returned to admiring the gorgeous
morning like I imagine the old man admired the painting. Aw yes, the
balloon is gone.
The world is a framed velvet Elvis anyway.
