Sketch: Two men after breakfast

The tall man sits in his chair, his legs folded up like a grasshopper.  He laces his fingers together and sighs.  He is less than half his standing height as he sits in the chair.  His shirt hangs on his coathanger shoulders. The bones of his face stretch his dark skin taught over his cheekbones.

His eyes glisten with emotion as he talks about his son, long gone now.  He buried him 17 years ago where the mulberry trees edge the cemetery, and birds scream in the morning when the feral cats pick their way through the weeds.  The old clock on the wall is ticking slowly, as if counting every third second.  The refrigerator hums and clicks.

The tall man sits with his old friend. They have long silences between them that are comfortable. Their thoughts continue together when the words end.  They breathe in and make small sounds that neither one notices, digesting their breakfasts and clearing their throats or just punctuating the other's last sentence with a grunt quietly.

The phone rings and the tall man reaches his long arm over to it. His fingers lift it slowly and steadily off its cradle and he waits for the receiver to get to his ear, patiently.

"Yessir," he starts, his gaze drifting to the yard outside the screen door that's open to let in the warming summer air.  He holds the receiver with his long fingers pressing their tips against the plastic of the phone, lightly.  "Yessir," he says again and the hand retraces its path to set the receiver back down with a quiet click.

The other man has begun a habitual rubbing of his left hand on his knee.  The tall man looks at him.

"Knee again?"

"Huh?"

"Knee's giving you trouble, old man?"

"Who's on the phone just now?"

"Lawyer Maginnis, he says his name is.  Know him?  Says something has come across his desk and wonders if I'm able to come on down to his office and see about it."  The tall man frowns and his eyebrows bunch up, knitted like old wool.  Three of his fingers resting on the easy chair tap and then stop. He takes a deep breath, inhaling slowly and steadily so that his throat looks strained. He closes his eyes briefly as the deep breath overtakes him and then he lets it go and settles down.  The call has cleared his mind of his son and the memories that return every morning. It's a relief. His friend is watching him out of the corner of his eye.

"No idea," says the other.  "You have to go now?  What about Millie?  She's sleeping still?"

"Yessir.  You stay here till I get back?"

"I can."

"All right then."  The tall man gathers his feet under his legs and pushes up out of the chair.  He is well over six feet tall, and his face looks regal when he's standing. "All right then," he repeats, gathers his keys off the side table, shrugs into his windbreaker and walks out the door.  The screen bangs softly after him and then the house is quiet except for the ticking clock.

Pique Your Imagination

The world between what is seen and known and the unseen and barely known, explored by the imagination and prompted by a curious spirit, pricks the conscious mind and tugs at the heart. There it is, and is not, a timeless space of dimensionless being. It exists, more than anywhere else in song, story, poem and prayer.

Throngs stream into stadiums and arenas to see contests between teams or solo competitors, or into theaters to listen to singers, hoping that there may be a glimpse  into the mystery of life and beyond, giving voice literally to that which might elevate the mind and transform ordinariness, spark  something with possibility.  We listen for the lilt in the voice or the moistness of the eyes that tells us that emotion is rising, that the heart of the singer is affected, that something is afoot.  We hope to become different, to have our senses expanded, the impossible reeled in and made near.  We have words for the experience of accessing the unknown:  Transcendent, uplifting, divine, and surreal.

We may view a piece of art, a painting, a photograph, or we may sense in some way that something special, unusual or undefinable is upon us. It may be fleeting and transient, but we know those moments as breathtaking and memorable.

On the other hand, when life is only drudgery and slop, hope and possibility drift away to the cold reaches of the night.  We sag, we worry, we cannot sing.  We cannot even breathe very well.

It is certain that living things, humans certainly, need those transitory moments when the dimensions of ordinary life change, when time stands still and when creativity and imagination are in full bloom.  We need to have time to let our minds wander, to drift undisciplined and unruly into the state of dimensionless being.

Ask any artist what I mean, and they will tell you:  Time stands still or means nothing, and it is as if they become a tool for the creative force of life itself.

Sometimes, I imagine I can step into pictures and exist in them.  I exchange my mundane existence for a walk in new worlds known to no one else.  I let my mind wander far into the realm of imagination.  It is as if I can push the edges of the painting's frame or photograph's edges aside and climb into a different state of mind.

Nothing is possible.  That is, nothingness is possible, even probable, when we do not live in between worlds at least part of the day.  The cues that beckon us to the dance of creativity are for our eyes and ears to catch and relay to our hearts, which beat more strongly when we do.  A backlit field of wheat at dawn, a fleeting smile, the ringing note of a trumpet in the woods are talismans for the torch of imagination that must be sparked if we are to be alive fully.

What piques your interest, stirs your heart, speaks to your eternal spirit?  Are you dancing lively, you tender creator of your own possibility?