Day 566, January 19, 2022

The $1200 Volvo

Children of this Earth. Dogs afraid of dinner on the stove. A broken down Ford Galaxie on the highway. A flat tire on a Volkswagen Rabbit. A failed temperature gauge on an old Buick. A flat tire on a different Buick. Waiting as the clouds of coolant wafted their toxic smell from under the hood of an old Volvo. I once had a pet turtle that lived in a miniature landscape. We set it free in a tributary of the Charles when its shell seemed to be going soft and started to smell. Once, feeding ducks, I saw a drowned cat at the base of the concrete wall. And always, the eyes of a doomed deer haunt me. I should be more careful. I should be more callus. I used to talk to trout clipped into the stringer as they lolled over the side of the boat in their final hour of life. I once shot a rat at forty paces and it did not die peacefully. It is a harsh world. It is a forgiving world. It is a changed world. Dystopia smells like duck cooking on the stove. I have forgotten an alphabet, all the right angles, the secret sounds. I can trace my name in cracks and crevices. A rope swing over a river, a rocking chair on the porch of an old folks home, when will we dream again? There is little left, except to ask for forgiveness. There is only the empty ice tray, the wrinkled lollipop stick, the half sucked candy cane, and the gold foil wrapper of a dark chocolate pip.