I’m willing to wager all the money in my pocket that these words are hitting you at precisely the right moment.
That is kinda how it works with this way of life. Almost start to get to used to it, you come to expect it even, though it seems to never cease to amaze when the universe really pulls one out of its ass. The next coincidental reconvincing tips me off that I’m in exactly the right place, perhaps even on time, especially when our last known ping was pinned between a rock and a giant mountain of rocks.
That’s where I was last time we spoke, a spiral of cosmic conundrums had dropped me onto a boulder and beautiful mountainside where I spent the winter building a future out of dirt. From up there I’d found the downtime to pseudomize my fictional writing career, and after a few read-throughs of our protaginal crastinator escaping the criticisms of construction I’d finally convinced myself I was as unprepared as he for the miles that lie ahead.
So here is where our story picks up, at least I hope I get picked up. I caught a ride into town with the supply truck, everything I own strapped to my back and a cardboard sign that simply reads EAST COAST. The Atlantic still fourteen hundred miles out, I carry no money or food when I travel, the trick to finding on-the-go nourishment is not getting yourself sidetracked by where you think you should be headed, it’s to be present enough to realize that you might already be there.
Geez man, that was some certified cliche AF hippie shit, the journey is the destination and all that, except it turns out that cliches might be more worn than my cords for a reason.
I’ve been at the corner for less than three minutes, not even long enough to launch my advert, and here rains the voice of an angel cutting through the concrete chaos with dinner plans.
“Hey mister, you want a hot dog?”
Vagabond Chic
PJ Blankin
He slips back into his study of characters, twenty-three on the top shelf provides ample room for little else. Outbreak of water cooler quarrel threatens the last remaining hour of falsified freedom far faster than a new mystery virus crawling across the faded screen.
He consumes a kaleidoscopic carnival of the human zoo, every species represented though some more than others, still more balanced than the meager meals of justice. Two soups and a drink mix later he ponders the prosperity of a privatized security force, the most miserable inmates as their shackles grind away at daily breath, certainly sentenced to an extended stint in the system as they pay the price of a big house in the free world.
Forty men compile the general’s population, the better half better off seeking asylum within an institution equipped to handle their capacity, too bad the accounting department has diligently converted numbers into past due reform bills.
He trades his bread for a slice of dignity, off-brand Ivory fetches a silver dollar on the brand new state-of-the-art digital commissary superstation 4000tm, investor’s pockets prepare for the next generation of filth. Dignity discarded as scalding drizzles grow icicles, his self-worth shrinks around the drain of the shower gang octet.
All dressed up and nowhere to go, takes an evening stroll to unglue his bedlegs until a few laps later he climbs back into square one. Tonight’s entertainment includes the clippity clop of eighty flipflops circling a fast track of wrong turns. A thin veil knocks the chill but brings little comfort to the creatures of night. Lights out conditions lemmings for a complimentary four am wake-up call. Hurry up and wait.
Industrial glow casts shadows across the next few pages of alluded disillusionment...