Somewhere deep in the recessive bowels of the Pentagon, Washington DC, one hundred and fifty members of Congress, elite educational facilities, and the military gathered for a secret meeting.

“So, what is so urgent that you called me away from my golf game?” an asshole senator asked.

The question, though uncomfortable, was met with nods of agreement. Yet no one else voiced a concern.

A man rose from his seat and walked over to a large screen television, and as he turned to face the gathering, he pushed a button to his hand-held remote, and a picture came on. He looked around the room to see if anyone understood what they were watching.

Nothing. Only blank stares and zero expectations.

“Ladies and gentlemen, what you are viewing is a recent photograph…”

“How recent?” a voice asked.

“Less than 12 hours…is a photograph of the farthest reaches of our solar system.”

“So?” someone said.

“Looks like a glass bubble, if you ask me,” another stated.

“To whomever said that last, you are very close to right.”

A murmur moved through the seated audience from left to right and then back to center, vibrating to the left once more. It was the most life the presenter had seen since stepping in front of the sem-darkened room.

“What you are looking at are the farthest bounds of our solar system. And if it resembles a glass bubble, that is because that’s what it is or as closely assocciated with a glass bubble as possible.”

“Do we have any idea what is beyond it?” a woman asked.

“Yes, but we cannot get beyond the bubble, and should we, our universe, including Earth, would perish.”

“Why does it look like a book shelf that’s out of focus?” came a question.

“Because that’s what we think it is.”

Suddenly, the murmurs turned into whispers of skepticism.

“A shelf, full of books,” the asshole stated angrily, adding, “Bullshit.”

The presenter waited for the crowd to settle before continuing, “And the bubble we’ve discovered is an upside down wine glass trapping us on a table in the study of late astronomer and planetary scientist Carl Sagan.”

The room erupted into a blind panic.

As I struggled with my anger and PTSD from being yelled at by a neighbor over a problem I had tried resolving, to no avail, and in the end, had no responsibility over it, I started shoveling the snow from my driveway. I hate scooping snow because of my twice-broken back.

Then from across the street came out neighbor Bob, riding his bright green and yellow John Deere, equipt with a plow blade. He usually clears all the nearby sidewalks and, if possible, their drives because he’s a good neighbor.

“Stand back,” he shouted over the din of his tractor.

I moved to the front of my truck, which I parked facing forward, and watched him back his machine into my driveway.

Quickly, he scrapped my driveway clear of a thick layer of freshly fallen, wet snow. I offered to give him five bucks for gas and get him a cup of hot coffee, but like every other time, he told me no and then went about his way.

With the heavier snow out of the way, I returned to my garage, hung up my shovel, went inside, and got myself a cup of coffee, my faith in humanity restored.

As I turned into my neighborhood from Eagle Canyon, I nearly ran over a small female pitbull wearing a winter sweater. Because she was running toward the main road, I tried to coax her to come to me.

Instead, she ran up Mercedes away from Eagle Canyon. I spent the next half hour trying to catch her. I wasn’t alone in this, as two other men had joined in the chase and had as much success as I did.

Finally, I headed for my house. After parking, I put my stuff away inside and grabbed the snow shovel to clear the driveway.

That’s when I heard the dog barking at two kids standing against a fence. Crossing the street to the children was a woman who looked my way and shouted, “Come get your effing dog! It’s scaring the kids!”

“Not my effing dog! Not my effing problem,” I returned, adding, “And tell those two little shits that it’s an effing dog, not an effing bear.”

Because of my PTSD, I don’t handle being yelled at by anyone very well. The next day I realized it was Dolly, a neighbor woman I have been friends with for the past 20 years.

After 205 years in the entertainment industry, Franklin Nevermore Stein retired, and now he slept late each morning. The evening before, he had a headache, so Franklin loosened the bolts on either side of his neck.

He vaguely recalled his wife getting up and ready to shop at Walmart before he awoke face down in the snow, body paralyzed. He was afraid that he was still in the antarctic as in his younger years, wandering through the ice fields.

Then he saw their Rottweiler, Trixie, race pass, “Now I have to wait for the Missus to get home and find me.”

Sometimes I lie awake at night, asking, “Is it worth it?”

Then I hear a voice, “Who are you talking to?”

Next, another voice asks, “Don’t you mean to ‘whom’ are you talking to?’”

Suddenly, I think about computer screens, having bought two last year.

I imagine their conversation when I’m not around.

“It’s New Year’s,” one says to the other. “What’s your resolution?”

“Same as always,” the other responds, “1024 by 768.”

The first voice comments, “If you don’t think fear controls you, then you’ve never been chased by a pissed-off rooster.”

“Say what?”

No wonder I lie awake at night.

Buddy and I were on our front porch as she and her German Shepard walked by us. The dog saw Buddy and practically dragged his human across the street and onto the sidewalk.

She laughed as he stopped to see if Buddy was up for a greeting sniff. He was not.

Instead, Buddy pushed in the pulled-to door, disappearing towards the far side of the house. It was my turn to laugh.

As she walked away, I called after her, “What’s your pupperz name?”

“Ranger,” she said.

“Way to go numb-nuts,” I thought, “Ask the dog’s name but not hers.”

Other scientists called him a crackpot because he held unusual beliefs. His latest was that life forms from Outerspace were billionaires visiting from one of a thousand galaxies in the infinite universe while on vacation.

His colleagues howled with laughter after he made this latest theory public. They thought it was even funnier than when he claimed the Milkyway wasn’t a candy bar but more like a chocolate sundae with vanilla ice cream, and Spanish peanuts, over a chocolate sauce.

None knew that all these extraterrestrial beings visiting the plant were Interspace psychiatric attendants checking on their offshore looney farm.

Snow piled up, the power went out, and the roads were closed. And still wet, heavy flakes continued to fall, settling on everything, making life miserable for the residents of Virginia City.

It was nothing new.

Storms like this one they were experiencing were commonplace, albeit disastrous for the unprepared or worse for the ones who ignored all the signs. And that was the problem, learning to read the sign, to tell when a storm of this magnitude would settle on the mountain village that attracted thousands annually.

In darkness or gray sky, God shook the damned snow globe again.

My wife calls me a hoarder, though I prefer the label ‘pack rat’ better. But names aside, I collect objects and store them in collection bins with other a-like things.

When I find something I have nothing to pair with, it ends up in a large wooden box that once belonged to my wife’s grandparents. And sometimes, it gets too full and cannot be closed.

When this happens, we set about removing, rearranging, and throwing some items away. My wife rarely asks why I save this or that.

In November, we poured through the box, pulling everything out and setting it aside before reloading it neatly. She surprised me by asking about a set of binoculars I’ve had since 2nd grade.

“Why are you keeping these?” she said. “They don’t work.”

“They’re sentimental to me,” I said. “Let me explain.”

It was Mrs. Newquist’s class that Brett first came. He was a bright kid, but anyone could tell by his clothes and the free government lunches that his folks were not well-off. We used to hang out on the playground and at home since we were neighbors.

Come Christmas time, having saved my chore money, I bought him a model car kit. Brett was fascinated by anything on four wheels.

We exchanged gifts. I saw the delight in Brett’s eyes at the neatly wrapped package Mom had helped me do.

Then he handed me my gift wrapped in writing paper, the lined type we used for practicing penmanship. I tore it open, only to find his stupid, broken binoculars that he always had around his neck.

Hurt, I raced home crying and hid in my bedroom. It was there that Mom found me and explained how it was the best gift he could have given me, it was all that he had to offer, and he’d given them to me from the heart.

“Once I understood this, I was happy with them, and we played with them all the time, busted or not,” I said. “And that’s why I still have them, to remind me about what real giving is about.”

She handed them back to me, and I slipped them into the box.

It has taken me some time to clear my head and heart to the point I feel brave enough to admit I am selfish. On my desk is a seven-page letter I meant to send to Lorri but forgot about several times, and now she is passed, and I have no one to which to mail it.

Lorri and I had known each other since kindergarten at Margaret Keating Grade School. Not only that, we graduated from Del Norte High School together.

Her father and mine served in the Air Force during the Korean and Vietnam wars. While my dad stayed in the service until 1972, Mr. Stobert received his discharge in 1965, if my memory serves me, and settled down in Klamath, below the radar base where he had worked. He was the head chef at the Requa Inn, where my brother worked for him, save for the month I took over for my brother after he broke his arm and could not wash dishes.

Lorri was always a shy child and grew into a shy woman, at least the last time we saw one another face-to-face. Though I learned that she hated to tease me, her fear of ridicule outweighed her hate, so when goaded into it, Lorri went along to get along.

In the letter on my desk, I wrote about how I remembered an early evening at the Trees of Mystery when I was sitting on the wood railing outside the shop talking to a tourist girl, and I caught Lorri looking at us. I recalled how our eyes locked and how we smiled at one another like we each held a piece of a secret.

A couple of years after high school graduation, we bumped into one another in front of the Del Norte Triplicate office at the corner of H St. and Third in Crescent City. We stood there for over two hours talking, and we promised each other that we’d get a cola or a coffee one morning before I headed off to the Marine Corps.

Sadly, that never happened.

We lost touch for years afterward, and I only learned she was in SoCal the evening I was attacked by someone who tried to choke me out with a rope, and I drove to the Trees Motel and asked to use the phone to call the sheriff’s office, which Mrs. Stobert obliged me.

When FB came on the scene, I was quick to ‘friend’ Lorri, and where we chatted over the years. She always asked me to visit, and I always said I would, though I never managed to get around to it.

And now, I can’t, even though I declared in the letter that we would celebrate her birthday this June. The thought leaves me heartbroken.

So what to do about this unsendable letter?

It finally came to me. I will burn the letter allowing the smoke to carry my words and thoughts into the heavens, and perhaps Lorri will receive them.