Contemplations

 By Christopher Hunt

    

     I was wandering round old Jake’s woods, contemplating my grand future of dragons, dames in distress, and an overall condition of unrealistic bravery, when I stuck my foot straight through a yellow-jackets nest. However unreasonable, it’s a simple process of adrenaline spewing panic: the soft crunch of bee-paper giving way, the first burning sting in my leg, the hum of mirror-wings batting the ever-slipping air, and the sudden realization that, yes, ‘I’m freaking like nobody’s business’. But hey, I was about to be stabbed by a trillion microscopic poisoned teeth, not an exceedingly enjoyable prospect to say the least.  

    

     It’s interesting to note that I had encountered these over-zealous flying bastards no less than five times previously, and, due to this, I actually went through this choreographed process consciously and subconsciously, resulting in something similar to what happens when you listen to a perfectly lovely song playing twice over but separated by a few seconds. No matter how magnificent, how majestic, how virtuoso the original song was, there is absolutely and unequivocally no way in this universe that you could enjoy that mashed up and convoluted monstrosity. Now imagine if you started with something less-nice than a classical masterpiece, if you started with something, if possible, more horrific than our previous repeating (and thankfully imaginary) song. ‘I hope she will sing to me when this is all over.’

     This was where I was: stuck between a mental breakdown and an overly ruddy, throbbing, and engorged state of physicality. I went on a quick journey of thought processes and came to the conclusion that no matter how much I hurt, inside and out, that standing still in the middle of an angry dragons din and screaming my throat dry would not improve my overall state of being. This resulted in a mad scramble of legs and arms while I figured out which set of libs was designed for running. I ended up using a combination of the two and made fair time, considering my choice of locomotion, escaping from the dragons den with the princess miraculously in my arms. And then, just like Kirk in the Enterprise with all his crew, I made contact. Not with a here-to-for undiscovered species of Martian humanoids as I possibly suspected at the time, but with a perfectly lovely specimen of Quercus lobata, or in laymen’s terms, an oak tree.

     This was exactly what I needed: peaceful quiet darkness. A pause from the crashing-conscious-world I had just left. I drifted lazily, wondering how the beast had caught up with us. ‘We were traveling so fast, so far. Why are the lights so bright? Why do I feel like I’m inflated and covered in plastic wrap? Where did she go? What’s this funny thing sticking in my arm? Oh, it’s taped down, that’s strange. Wow! This bed is really soft. That’s nice.’ Out of the clouds the nurse asked me what had happened. I thought on it for a while and decided on the safest answer. “I saved the world!”  

Thankfulness

"What are you thankful for?" My family is hear. Not all of us, assuredly not all of us. That would involve a bit more proximity and a bit more noise than today as we are gathered around the kitchen table. Its set up outside on the huge deck attached to the back of our house. Being built on the second story of a house that seems to be burred deep in the middle of a forest gives the feel that we are not actually surrounded by trailers on three sides, roads on two, and the ever-present yelping of dogs. As i said, my whole family is not present. Its only my parents, my three brothers, a sister-in-law, my grandmother, one of my sisters, and a friend. Only? Yea. When raised living in a seven by ten room with three brothers and in a thousand square foot house with a family of eight, only is especially relative. My sister and her husband are the missing miscreants. After there wedding a few months ago they moved up north were my brother-in-law grew up.

 We cook through the morning, five at a time in a far to small kitchen. I make an emergency Ingles run for the lacking necessaries. Slowly it all comes together: the long cooking turkey making up the frame for the phenomenal picture of scents, the driveway partially emptied for my grandmothers car, and the table brought out and set. Laughing and frantic, we scramble not to burn our various dishes and sides. Finally everything's perfect (as perfect as could be that is) and everyone's seated. We sing our traditional "Aleluya" round and pray. After a short scripture reading we dig in. Its somewhat like a humanized version of what you would expect of starving and mindless cannibals when they run into a group of exceptionally plump Americans, although with less meat-tearing, crunching, blood and grunting. Midway through the feast we take a short siesta of sorts (comparing to the previous actions) and listen to a second reading from the bible. Although it may be convoluted or even possibly covert the following issuance could be compared to Nagasaki and Hiroshima, or maybe the great flood or the big bang. Never-the-less, I survived, with a bloated stomach, a peaceful mind and a happy conscience.