It began when Tom had a ‘run in’ with a ‘Southern-Born’ program director, who wanted a box for listeners to place their names in for an on-air give away that evening. Tom politely explained that it couldn’t be done because a corporate rule demanding a two week period of on-air announcements prior to any giveaway.

“Sorry, but those are the rules,” Tom said as Southern-Born stomped off.

Minutes later Southern-Born returned, this time with a box of his own. With Tom seated, back to the doorway, Southern-Born bounced it off Tom’s head, demanding the box be ready in half-an-hour.

Tom stood up, “I’m not your nigger and I won’t be treated as such! The answer is still NO!”

That was Friday night, after everyone but himself, Southern-Born and a couple of disc jocks had gone home for the weekend. On Monday, Tom was called into the Station Managers office and told that ‘name calling wouldn’t be tolerated.”

“Who’d I call a name?” Tom asked.

“You used the n-word on ‘Southern-Born’ man,” the manager stated.

“No, I didn’t,” Tom corrected him, “I used it on myself, after he hit me in the head with a box.”

And though he successfully pled that he hadn’t called Southern-born the n-word, he was still written up and threatened with firing. Southern-Born however, was never disciplined for the assault or trying to circumvent corporation rules.

He walked Katy every day. As for the shepherd dog, she tugged at her leash, nose to the pavement, head swaying back and forth, tail up, wagging happily.

She had her favorite spot, an old tree at the edge of a nearby abandoned cemetery that she liked to snuffle. One of its thick roots had fractured the sidewalk and the recent Fall wind had stripped it of its leaves.

James Ryan was looking up at the bare branches, when Katy nosed his hand, “Ready, girl?”

As he turned and with Katy’s leash twisted around his legs, he fell, head bouncing off the edge of the sidewalk, bright stars exploding in his eyes. Laying in the grass between two headstone, he felt something bind his legs and wrap around his chest.

Katy, barked ferociously and snarled wildly. A fat tendril tried to subdue her, but she was quicker and she retreated to the other side of the street.

Jame’s tried to scream, but the thick stem about his chest constricted. Then the now helpless man was dragged slowly towards the darkened crack of the broken sidewalk.

Katy, whined and growled as the tree pulled James through the fracture until only bits of his torn up tennis shoes remained. As the last of him disappeared, a hesitant Katy turned and started for home.

Overhead the thunderous crash of a thunderstorm rumbled, bringing with it torrents of rain, flushing clean the bloodied gutters.

A few years ago Tom quit his promotions job at a large multi-signal radio station. His boss called him the following day, asking what had happened to cause him to quit so suddenly?”

“Nothing happened,” Tom answered.

“Well, if nothing happened, why are you quitting?”

“Nothing happened. That’s why I left.” Tom replied.

“I don’t understand.”

“Never a lunch, a coffee, or dinner, never a birthday card, never an acknowledgement of a job well-done, never a pat-on-the-back and further, you either refused or failed to stand up for me when I did nothing wrong.  So, like I said — nothing happened.”

If faced with picking my corporate title, I’d go with ‘Step-n-fetch,’ over CEO.

The US Space Force’s have received their new camouflaged uniforms and are being deployed to the Forest Moon of Endor.

Here’s a new word I jus’ coined and have since submitted it to Urban Dictionary: ‘pergahoard,’ which is to be caught between collecting and minimalist lifestyles. Makes me think of James Joyce and his novel, ‘Finnigans Wake.’

“So, what’s your greatest fear, Tom?” Doctor Headshrinker asked.

“Death.”

She tapped the word into her computer while still looking at him.

Psychiatrists and the like had long since stopped hand writing their notes and had taken up the more straightforward method of keying directly into the patient’s electronic file. Gone, too, were the uncomfortable couches that the patient laid restlessly upon.

“What about death leaves you in fear?”

Tom sat for a moment mulling the question over before answering, “That I’ll die unfulfilled.”

“Unfulfilled?”

“Yeah, but I can’t really explain it.”

“Try,” Headshrinker said.

“I’ve always wanted to be known for my writings.”

“I didn’t know you liked to write,” she stated, tapping more notes into the computer, “Are you an author?”

Tom shook his head up and down as a hurt look came across his face, “How long have we been holding these sessions?”

“I don’t recall the exact date, but about five-years,” she answered.

He sighed, “See what I mean?”

“No.”

“Betcha know who Danielle Steele or David Baldacci are, right?”

“Yes, and I enjoy both authors.”

“Do you know either of them?

“No.”

“But you know me, right?”

“I don’t see your point,” she responded avoiding the question.

“We’ve been holding these sessions for about five-years, you said so yourself. And in all that time you didn’t know I was a writer, with two books under my belt, and yet you ‘know’ me. That is what unfulfilled means to me.”

Doctor Headshrinker had stopped typing by this time.

It was a banging on the door rather than a polite knock. Sam rolled over lifted his smartphone from the dresser and checked the time: 2:37 am.

The sound at the door was louder, sharper, more demanding.

“What the fuck?” he mumbled as he pulled on his sweatpants, a tee-shirt and slipped into his house shoes.

Bang-bang-bang!

“I’m coming,” he shouted, “Hold your horses!”

Sam stumbled around the corner, flicked on the porch light, then stepped up to the front door to look through the peek-hole to see who was pounding on it at such an early hour. It was the police, in full riot gear.

He flicked the bolt and swung the door open. Sam was immediately swarmed, knocked to the ground and unceremoniously hand cuffed.

“Samuel Smith Evans?” a plain clothed detective asked.

“Yes.”

“You’re under arrest.”

“For what?”

“A four-15. Disturbing the peace.”

“What? At this time in the morning?”

“We’re or we’re you not fist fighting an unknown subject in your dreams?”

“Yeah, but that was simply a bad dream.”

“I understand that, but still any act of violence is against the law, even if you simply dream it. Load him up fellas.”

The team of eight, surrounded Sam and quickly escorted him to the waiting van still idling at the sidewalk.

“Good job, guys,” the plain clothed office shouted after them.

When I was in grade school, we had a black rotary telephone in our hallway. It was heavy and attached to the wall with a thick cord. Originally, it came with a phone number that started with two letters. Our two-letter prefix was HU, which stood for Hunter and represented the numeral 48.

“Darby residence,” my mother would say, answering its deep-throated ring.

Sadly, that’s all gone now; mother, childhood, the rotary phone, that deep-throated ring.

That phone has been replace by the smartphone, the size of a postcard. As an aside, a postcard is a smallish rectangular piece of very thin cardboard used for sending a message by mail without an envelope, typically having a photograph or other illustration on one side and place to write a few brief words like, “Wish you were here,” the precipitants address and a stamp on the other side.

And now, instead of a ringing all through the house, we hear tiny sounds, little dings, beeps, dongs and bongs going off at all times and from the couch, end table, laundry room, under the bed pillow and even the bathroom.

It used to be, in the old days, you’d just send a birthday card or pick up the phone, wish them a happy birthday or whatever, but not now. In fact, a week ago I wanted to say happy birthday to a long-time friend.

“Do we have his phone number by chance?” I asked my wife.

“I don’t know,” she said. “If it isn’t in the Rolodex, perhaps you can looking him up on Facebook and tweet him.”

I’m certain she meant ‘message’ him. It’s so easy to get confused with all the assorted social media apps. Anyway after an exhaustive search, I was unable to find his address or an online profile and I never did get to wish him Happy Birthday.

Then today, I found all of his information in my cellphone’s contact list. Now I know what happened to the old familiar phone book as well as the Yellow Pages, so thick that it could double as a booster seat in a pinch.

There is a reason they call them smartphones and mine is definitely smarter than me. At least I’m intelligent enough to know not to use my phone as a booster seat, though I often forget it is in my back pocket and I wind-up sitting on it anyway.

“I’m going to the post office to buy a stamp,” I say, slipping on my jacket.

“Why don’t you get an entire book of stamps instead?” my wife asks from the back room.

I pretend I didn’t hear her as I pull the front door closed behind me and lock it.

Buying a single stamp is a heady process. It demands walking, standing in line, talking to people, seeing cute and ugly babies, asking about the dog sniffing at my pant leg, maybe even petting it, helping a person with the door, perhaps shaking hands or hugging, waving hello and talking to even more people.

“I didn’t think you heard me,” she says when I get home, seeing that I bought the entire book and not the single stamp as proposed.

I smile at her, placing them on the counter and she knows then that I heard her.

What few know though, is that I never really go out to buy anything. That purchase is only a by-product of a larger agenda. I went out to bypass the television and radio, to avoid my computer, and to ignore social media. No Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram, no pen, paper or pencil, no cellphone.

Instead, I went out to experience life in the real and to feel alive and now, I must figure out who I’m going to write and mail a letter to. I have a stamp.