“Do you hear that?” she whispered.

“No,” I answered.

“Sounds like a ‘clickity-clack.’”

“Must be coming from the neighbors. How long have you been awake?”

“A couple of minutes.”

“Was it the sound that woke you?”

“No. I had a strange dream. That’s what woke me.”

“Wanna tell me about it?”

“I was dreaming that the old manual typewriter in the other room, the one your friend gave you, was working all by itself, writing a story.”

“I wish it worked like that,” I said, knowing what tomorrows story would be.

“Shh,” she urged, “Did you hear a ‘ding?”

“No.”

My cellphone changed the word ‘hungry’ to ‘horny’ which is sadly the most accurate autocorrect mistake so far.

We’re all wearing masks and yet I can’t understand why everyone gets mad at me for peeing in the swimming pool. After all I still have my trucks on.

Went to Walmart today and saw a 20-something woman slap a disabled, wheel-chair bound WWII Army vet from behind and on the side of the head. I said nothing as I walked over a slapped her hard across the face.

Then I called the cops and shielded him from her until they arrived. The elderly vet, smiled and with tears in his eyes, simply looked up at me and said, “Thank you.”

Yeah, I’ll be your Huckleberry!

It’s like this — doing right can be frightening. Doing right, though never truly hurts. Being arrested is temporary. Court room and jail time is also temporary. In the end I wanna hear: “Good and faithful son.” For me, that’s the take away for defending the defenseless.

And yes, you can call me an asshole for striking a woman. I don’t give an eff.

The two stucco houses sat facing one another, across the long-time quiet street. Each home had a large picture window in front, and that’s how he came to see her.

She was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen and he had no way of getting her attention. Neither one, it seemed, were allowed to leave their homes due to the pandemic.

He waved, jumped up and down, did somersaults and even screamed at the top of his lungs, till he lost his voice. And still she did not look his way.

It wasn’t until a springtime thunderstorm did she finally look across the street. The sudden flash of lightening startled her and she looked to see him smiling and waving frantically.

She stood in front of the window and waved back, excited to suddenly have a friend. Then she held up a single finger and disappeared from the room.

When she returned, she held a piece of paper against the window. It read, “Can you sneak out?”

Without thinking, he shook his head yes. Quietly, he opened the front door and sprinted across the street.

Once at the window, he looked in and found the girl was nowhere to be seen. Then he back away from the window, having noticed that he had no refection.

Frightened, he raced home. Once inside he look across the street to find the girl standing in the window, looking very confused.

“What happened?” she mouthed.

“I don’t know,” he responded, raising his hands, gesturing that he didn’t know.

That’s when he saw it – or rather –didn’t see it. His hands were suddenly invisible and his forearms were beginning to disappear.

He looked at the girl and could see that she too was vanishing, piece-by-piece. She looked panic-stricken and ghastly pale.

He race back to the door and swung it wide open and indicated for her to do the same. She did.

They stared at each other for a few seconds, as each of their bodies continued to fade away. Then they ran to one another and hugged.

Sharing their fear, they burst into a single bright flash of energy and evaporated. Neither knew that they had long been dead because of the virus and were only memories trapped in each others picture window.

So a burglar broke into our house. I aimed the little red dot at his crotch and let the cat do the rest.

Nighttime again and I’m in bed again. Actually on top of the bed. Too hot for blankets, even with the air conditioner and over-head fan running. My brain is running, too. Running hot and I cannot even begin to tell you what it might be that I had been thinking only a minute before. There is no backstop to the hard thrown pitch that curves in over home plate and slips by at the outer-edge, and still my body is burning up, my brain, boiling.

With a helpless sigh, I get up and pull on my shorts and a tee. Gonna sit out in the living room for a while, relax if I can, maybe fall asleep on the couch like I’ve done so many times since March. A slight chuckle huffs from my chest, exits my mouth at parted lips as I realize that I never used to falling asleep on the couch. What makes it so funny is that I promised myself that I’d never do such a thing.

Best laid plans — and all that bullshit.

Music. The bedroom door is closed so I don’t interrupt my wife’s sleepage and I turn on the radio, adding even more light pollution to the living room. The microwave and the stove’s lighted numbers, the refrigerators blue-glow of ice and water dispensers, the Internet tower and the TV satellite box.

We are not in Kansas anymore, nor are we in the 70’s or earlier.

Speaking of the fridge, one side is the freezer, where I keep the booze. Sure, I’m overheated on a rather warm night for October, but my taste-buds aren’t broken, so I help myself to tumbler of liquid-relaxation and trouble-starter. Isn’t gonna help my brain none either, but what the hell. I have all night and early morning if I need it and no place I have to be. So bottoms up.

The gentle fwup-fwup of the overhead fan feels good and the blades are syncopated with my heart’s beating.  But it seems that there is nothing decent on the radio. So, what about that black-box of NSA doom? I’ll ask her.

“Alexa, play soft-rock.”

“Here’s a station you might like, 70’s soft-rock.”

Two or three tunes in and I’m on my feet, slow dancing in the dark, by myself, a glass of whiskey in one hand, the other madly conducting the band. Berlin. Take My Breath Away. Whadda song, memories of youth well spent and the knowledge that my old age is being wasted.

More laughter, because that isn’t what I really meant to think. But now, I can’t recall what it was I was thinking. Two sips and this Scotch whiskey is already touching my head. Perhaps it isn’t the drink at all. Maybe it the fact that thoughts come and go faster than I can hold on to them. Seems to bug me more than when I was kid. Back then I used to tell myself that there was plenty of time for those lost thoughts to come back around.

Hmm…maybe I was right: my old age is being wasted.

So lets get serious! I walk to the back room, the computer room and switch on my best quarantining friend and it lights up at my touch. Time to get some of my rambling thoughts down on paper or rather the computer screen. Then it happens like it always happens — what the fuck was I thinking and what the fuck do I write about now. Oh, how the dirty, foul, vulgar words slam up against the gate that are my front teeth and I force them back, swallowing a considerable amount of sharp-edges that leave me feeling like my throat is grated and raw.

Then I think how at 12, my dad brought home a cassette recorder that someone had given him. It came with a blanket tape, a wall plug and microphone. It was the first time I’d ever heard my voice, stuttering and all, and I fell in love with the idea of talking into a mic. Over and over and over again I recorded myself till the tape finally wore out, getting so badly jammed that not even with a pencil could it be saved. Back then, though I don’t remember what I was gobbling about as a preteen, it seemed that I had a lot to say. Unlike then, his night — soon to be this morning – nothing come to mind and I’m happier to be pounding at the keyboard and not staring blankly, dumbly at a cheap microphone.

“God, help me,” I hear myself pray, “Clean up my dirty mouth, help me put my thoughts in order, help me write something more notable than this rambling scree and please, keep me cool and let me sleep. Amen.”

I’d go on a diet, but I’m afraid my brain would get thinner and I’d become narrow minded.

My wife gave me a red shirt. It’s obvious that she’s never seen ‘Star Trek,’ otherwise she would know what happens to the guy wearing the red shirt.

Think I’ll sit right here
In this chair and fry.
And why not?
I don’t do much else
And being so inactive
Is leading
To my death anyway.

So quick,
Give me that plug,
If you won’t do it.
I can and I will.

Don’t forget
To unplug me
When I’m well done
Or to break my knees
So I can lay out flat
When they light
That blaze beneath me.