I need a couple of new imaginary friends. My old ones are under quarantine.

“Jolene” + start singing “Chlorine, chlorine, chlorine, chloriiiiine… Please don’t drink it just because you can.”

It came to me as a high, whining sound, the kind of sound that only a dying jet engine can make as it falls to earth. I had jus’ stepped out of a business when I heard it, looked up and watched as a T-38 Talon trainer came rocketing vertically into the center of the parking lot.

The aircraft didn’t explode upon impact. Instead the crash came with a deafening roar and air-blast that knocked me down and blew me into the street.

Instead of erupting into flame, a small static discharge lept from the craft, zapping me, rendering me too weak to get up and continue running. Seconds later that firework sparkler-like discharge became a complete conflagration as a detonation finally took place.

All around me I saw people suddenly bursting into flames, the feathers of birds began to burn as they flopped about. This was quickly followed by trees, cars and buildings spontaneously exploding into a firestorm.

By this time I was laying in the gutter, between the sidewalk and street. But it was not enough, as I felt myself becoming engulfed by the hot tongues of flame that danced over my body.

This is how I woke up this morning: trying to capture my breath and understand that I wasn’t really on fire. It was nothing more than another night-terror, this time aided by a meal of two tacos and a dose of Tapatío before bedtime.

I’ve not been back to sleep…

While trying to think outside of the box, I learned that I am the box.

There’s never been a vaccine developed that can kill a virus — not even for the common cold. Let that sink in…

An artist, that’s all Paul wanted to be ever since he could remember. All throughout school, kindergarten to twelfth grade, he turned out pieces of work, from paintings and drawings to sculptures, that ‘wowed’ everyone.

That was over four decades ago, when they said he’d be the one to go places, setting the art world’s trends for his generation. Time, unfortunately, has a bad habit of destroying such tributes and then eventually the individual dream of the one praised so highly.

Today, Paul sits on the hard wood floor of a newly built home, touching up the places where the large construction brushes and sprayers had missed their mark. He’ll go home this evening, far too tired to even think about his own forgotten craft.

If you divide the year 2020 by five, you get 404, an error message, proving there is a glitch in the matrix.

Guess I scared a child today while at the hardware store. The boy, wearing a mask,  was in the cart his mother was pushing when he looked at her and said, “That old man looks weird without a mask.”

Embarrassed, his masked mother shushed the kid and then apologized to me. I smiled and said, “No apology needed, I affect some children that way.”

As she hurried from the paintbrush aisle, I heard the boy ask her, “I thought my mask made my voice invisible?”

I’m still chuckling.

It was a trip to the home improvement store that I didn’t want to make, but had to as I am changing out the light fixtures in our guest bathroom. After spending less than half an hour gathering what I needed, I proceeded to the cash resister.

As I’m standing in line, a properly masked couple came up behind me, maintaining the perfunctory six-feet between us, when I hear hims say, “Hon, please mind your own business.”

She ignores him and proceeds to get my attention by saying, “You should have a mask on. Don’t you watch the news and know what’s going on. There are federal government guidelines…”

I hold up a finger, which brings her comments to a halt, then smile, “I chose not too wear one because they don’t work when it comes to viruses. And like you, I don’t believe everything the federal government tells us.”

“What do you mean, like me?”

“See, those cigarettes in your purse? The Surgeon General, thus the Federal government, has been warning about the hazards of cigarette smoking since 1964 and yet — here we are.”

While I can’t be certain, but judging from the movement of her well-sewn and colorful mask, I think her mouth opened and shut twice as she tried to think of a return. As for me, it was my time to pay as I stepped up to the cashier.

Behind me I heard the man say, “I told you to mind your own business, now didn’t I?”

It was a pink wall, a simple, plain, pink wall. On it a single spot, a dark brown stain from where I was sitting.

As I sat there staring at it, I wanted terribly to get up, go over to it and clean it from the wall. It was such a perfect wall — and it was such a vulgar stain.

Then two men came in the room and checked my restraints. I stared at the that stain, knowing it would be my focal point, and that it was blood-splatter from the last person to sit in this dead man’s chair.