Unless there’s an act of God or an implosive scandal within his administration, Nevada’s Democratic Governor Steve Sisolak will be re-elected to a second term. And since he won’t be on the ballot until 2022, it all come’s down to time and seats.

Senate terms are four years, but every two years, half are up for election (and not all senate seats will all be up for election at once.) The state has 21 state senators and right now there are 13 Democrats and 8 Republicans in the state senate, putting Republicans in the minority.

The Nevada State Assembly has 42 seats, which are on the ballot every two years. Currently, Republicans only hold 14 seats making them the minority here as well.

There isn’t time enough between now and 2022 for Republicans to change the balance of seats in both the Senate and Assembly. Further, the geopolitics of those leaving California and Oregon for Nevada is turning the state a deeper shade of blue, with Mineral and Douglas counties becoming dominantly Democratic, joining Clark and Washoe.

In bed, I open the news app on my cellphone. I tap 2 News KTVN.

“The Nevada Highway Patrol says crews responded to a head on crash on Pyramid Highway at Los Altos Parkway on Friday afternoon. Officials said there were substantial injuries.”

The third in as many months.

My mind slips into a memory. A bluegrass/gospel song by Dorsey Dixon, written in 1937. The title escapes me.

“Who did you say it was brother?
Who was it fell by the way?
When whiskey and blood run together
Did you hear anyone pray?

I didn’t hear nobody pray, dear brother
I didn’t hear nobody pray
I heard the crash on the highway
But, I didn’t hear nobody pray.”

Not booze, but the specter of texting.

Morning time, I’m on Pyramid, nearing Los Altos.

A small car pulls into the northbound path of a fast-moving semi-truck. The semi’s driver brakes hard, crossing over into the ‘suicide lane’ towards me. Best as I can, I hug the broken white line to the right, unable to move over any further because of the two vehicle’s holding their places in the far lane. The semi clips the left side of my smaller truck.

I jump awake at the sound of the ensuing crash.

Nineteen-and-eighty-six, earning only $5.15 an hour, residing in poverty, loving every moment. A bag of Ruffle potato chips, 8 pieces of chicken, 6 cans of cherry Coca-Cola, three dollars and ninety-nine cents per day, living like Kings and Queens.

The sweet life at twenty-six years, sun in our faces, wind through our hair, searching for that next big thing, the coming fad. Blessed ignorance.

The poverty line, like our waistlines, has moved since those days. That bag of chips now $5.29, more air than chip, more than we were making per hour, back when we had more hair, and less worry about skin cancer.

Woke up after my wife. She’s out on her early morning walk.

“Hell, the sun isn’t even up.”

Rolling from bed, I go to the kitchen, make some coffee. As the percolator gasps, wheezes, gurgles and chugs, I thumb through my cellphone at the various news stories.

Corona virus, face masks, riots, anti-Trump, left, right, hatred. Stories I can’t believe, one-way or the other.

The Reno Gazette Journal has the headline, “Nevada Search for Missing New Zealand Para-glider Suspended.” Someone must have thought they were being pretty cute, ‘para-glider suspended.’

James ‘Kiwi’ Johnston vanished August 20. Has it been that long since I’ve checked the local news?

Reading on, it says he posted to Facebook, “Dressing for 18-thousand feet in 100 degrees in Nevadastan.” It’s a place I know all too well.

It’s where many US troops are taken to train for desert warfare because it has features and terrain, similar to Afghanistan. I know both very well.

Johnston and a couple of mates took off in their para-gliders, heading to Wendover from the Shoshone Mountains. His GPS stopped sending signals about 250 miles east of Reno.

“That’s some bad land to be lost in.”

Standing on my front porch, coffee in hand, I watch my wife coming up the driveway. She smiles, goes inside, I follow.

“I need to read the local headlines a little more often.”

Tap called in the morning, “Pete’s dead.”

“Sorry to hear that,” I said.

“Best damned guard dog I’ve ever had.”

“But,” I started to interrupt him.

Pete and I met about five-years before. He’d chased me around my truck, forcing me to retreat inside it until Tap called him off.

“Knock it off, Pete.”

The beast backed away, keeping an eye on me even as Tap came to escort me to safety.

“Guess he doesn’t like me very much,” I said.

“He don’t like anyone,” Tap said.

Eventually, Pete came to accept me, maybe even trust me, allowing me to pet him on his head and back and play with his tail.

Sadness was evident in Tap’s voice, “Found him in his bed, curled up like he was asleep.”

“I’m very sorry, Tap.”

“Be honest with me,” Tap asked, “Is it normal to be sad at the death of a peacock?”

“Yeah, I think it is,” I answered.

A shout out to everyone who can remember their childhood phone number — but not the computer password that they created yesterday.

I jus’ saw my wife sanitizing the hand-sanitizer.

Inspired by Guy de Maupassant’s “Was it a Dream?”

Tired of the face mask, talk of plague, social distancing and the other various ways to avoid one’s neighbor, I drove to Virginia City with three one-fifth bottles of rot-gut, for I wished to become drunk and falling down. My destination being where all eventually fall, the cemetery at the end of town, before it reaches the city’s limits as coming from Reno.

It did not take long to park my vehicle, walk beyond the wooden sidewalks, past the sheriff’s station and fire department and up the slight rise leading to the resting place of those who’ve lived, worked and died in the historic town. And once there, I entered the gates of Silver Terrace.

Inside, I cracked the first bottle and sit on the ground near the 1886 grave of a baby marked three days old. By the time I’d finished, I was well on my way to blinding intoxication.

With the second of my fifths soon laid to waste, I was no longer able to safely walk, so I contented myself to sit on the hill and look into the darkness of Six-Mile Canyon and at the few lights showing life still clung to the ancient mining town. Finished with the third bottle, I passed out.

There I slept till three, when I became aware of movement. I opened my eyes and watched as several figures moved towards the entrance.

“Zombie apocalypses,” I though, still drunk.

I watched, listened and soon heard screams of terror, the crunch of loose gravel, a revving vehicle engine and the sound of it as it raced away.

The cemetery fell quite again, save for the dragging, and sliding of old creaking bones.  Fearful, I closed my eyes, then faded to sleep, only to wake from a solid thump to the bottom of my left boot.

“Were you here when the taggers struck?” asked the caretaker.

“Yes,” I answered.

“You must’ve frightened them away before they could do more damage.”

I said nothing, for aside from the vandals, only the bodies beneath know the truth.

This day’s been face masks, wildfire smoke, boredom and isolation. Night time is arrived and a certain loneliness encases me beneath the covers.

My wife’s already sleeping. I cannot.

Quietly, gently, I climb from bed, dress, slip out the door, into my truck, pulling from our drive. To the Truckee River I head, to a place known to be very ancient.

A place I visit often, especially when seeking refuge from my mind. The Court of Antiquity.

East on Interstate 80, beyond Sparks, beyond city lights, hidden in plain sight of the freeway. I slow to the road side, back into the ramp, now gated, barring vehicles.

Around the gate, down the ramp, I walk. But I am halted in my steps as a shrill scream pierces my soul.

My blood runs cold, body grows chilled, sweat breaks over my skin. I watch into the darkness, right hand palming the butt of my pistol.

My legs refuse to move, feet struck to the ground. Only my right arm moves, guiding that hand to the pocket of my jeans, for truck keys.

Nothing more’s heard other than cars, trucks, and 18- wheeler after 18-wheeler speeding 15-feet above and to the right. Not one occupant knows the primal drama  playing out below.

“A cougar, perhaps a panther.”

My courage rebuilds and I begin forward, that scream echoes again. The moon suddenly breaks through it’s smoky portière.

A wisp of white, moving, floating, that I catch sight of. A translucent body.

Fear becomes blind panic. I run back to my truck.

I’ve forgotten the gate, hit it with such force that I flip head first over, landing on my left shoulder, banging my head on the metal bottom.

No time for pain, I scramble to my feet, open my truck’s door, get in and lock it, fumble with the ignition, and drive away. That scream, that ghostly figure will haunt my dreams if I’m able to sleep.

It’s a simple throw rug purchased on line. The thing that makes it so special is that it creates an optical illusion so strong, not even my dogs will go near it.

The illusion is that of a black hole with a series of white and black squares around the entrance. It has brought many laughs over the past few days as I’ve move it around and watched the dogs refuse to step on it.

Once, I placed it in front of the dog door from the front room to our garage and the younger of out two dogs jumped over it rather than risk walking on it. When I placed it in front of the hallway entrance our older dog jus’ stood there, whining, unable to bypass it.

Harmless fun for these times of pandemic lock down. But that was until yesterday, when a former neighbor paid a visit.

He saw the rug and without a seconds hesitation, jumped onto the center of the black hole. Perhaps, this should read ‘jumped into the center of the black hole,’ because with a terrified scream of shock, he disappeared through the carpet.

I shouted for him, yelling his name until I was practically hoarse.

This morning at 5:30, my cellphone rang. It was my friend calling from a police station in Toledo, Ohio, where he came out into the living room of an elderly woman, with the same rug, and who called the cops, having him arrested.