The drip in the laundry ticks a slower time. I wonder where the water is going while watching sugar ants soldier march counter to sink for crumbs in perforated lines purposely moving without fear of flood their
bodies a matching length of the coffee drop stain unmistakably black on the bright white of poly cotton. A fresh shirt, again, only fresh for a moment as
a longer sip held tongue tip for that bit of bitter then filling the flat hot noting of cacao. A mindful swallow inviting the day’s expected though not the unexpected
stone thrown from the five-axle dump with a single road jump and into the windshield with a dull thump and burrowed burr in the glass tempered to withstand and I wish I could stand shouting thanks it hasn’t all shattered. Just a round ground the size of a dime, though definitely larger than
the pebble in my shoe taking my weight through the heel then sliding through the arch with a half-step shake sending it under my pinky toe. The tolerable pain feeling appropriate metaphor in the office watching
it loaf roll from my loafer into the can looking an un-grand ten times smaller than imagined as the roach looks on I first think is alive, but the delicate legs are pointed high, the only thing it sees is the other side of wherever the roaches go. I push the dollar sign as a last character of a password already changed and I’m locked
across three screens in a welcomed minute of peace before the links of a tangled emailed chain requesting in creepy pleasant corporate demand the box marking the automatic be manually checked, the last digit should be a nine, not a five, and that’s about the time everyone is running. I am the one running into the market where
the SKU doesn’t scan and now I’m standing as a man pretending to be in control of a destiny interrupted. The laser red passing the box of lines over and again and upside down and right to left and left to right, waiting for the beep offering the freedom to cut
my finger on the foil top peeling the sharp cork covered edges for the hummingbird to hover curious above the pink, her spot of white familiar from the summer before. This one bird covering all those miles remembering our garden and wine sharing her time and looking into her eyes keeps me questioning why
we must travel so far to find ourselves in safer places. The late sun shadow dots the fence through the hanging iron lantern’s design, the between bright
as my booklight spotting crafted sentences of an author I hope wrote imagining me reading in the dark in the bed in the quiet. From the background seeps the sound
of the drip in the laundry ticking a slower time. I wonder where the water is going.
1. Title photo design by Author, from a Damon Lam photo, Unsplash.
© Copyright William Hazel, 2024
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