It surprised McKinnison, the speed at which his quarry could run. He’d tracked Kid Williams to the small cluster of wooden buildings along the desert hillside and he aimed to bring the murderer to justice.

McKinnison lost his man between two buildings that lead from the back of the settlement to the dusty, dirt path that served as a street. In the distance all he could hear was the tap, tap, tap of the blacksmith’s hammer.

Slowly he inched his way between the buildings, onto the boards of the walkway and towards the sound of the hammer on metal that seemed to beat to the rhythm of his own heart beat. At the blacksmith’s shop, a man stood, back to the door over hot coals, bellow pumping air to feed the fire.

The same man returned to the anvil and began tapping out the same melodic beat McKinnison had heard before. He started to move on, but paused realizing that something seemed off.

“Hands where I can see’um, Kid,” he ordered.

The would-be smitty stopped, lifting his head and glancing over his right shoulder, “What gave me away?”

“You can’t shape cold metal,” McKinnison said, “Now, hands up and move into the light of the doorway.”

His request was met with Williams spinning quick to his left, six-shooter in his right hand, flashing as it spit lead in the direction of the lawman. But McKinnison was quicker than the outlaw as a single bullet pierced the up left of his chest, the area becoming crimson immediately.

Williams did not immediately fall. Instead he stumbled into the darkness of the shop, as if hiding like a wild animal before collapsing on his back. McKinnison moved through the doorway and stood over the fallen man to look into his dead-eyes and face.

“Told ya Kid, you can’t shape cold metal,” he sighed.

Walls are painted white,
Where everything is so white.
So bright is the red apple.

My sister, Deirdre sent me two hefty boxes of personal effects that belonged to our Mom. She’s had them in storage since mom’s death in 2002.

While a bit overwhelming, I am devising a plan to archive much of it as it consists of old family pictures, newspaper clipping, postcards and such. In fact I’ve already taken the liberty to salvage the 82-year-old newspaper clipping regarding my Great-Grandma Rosa’s murder, which has never been treated right since the day it was first published.

The best I could do is clip off the ragged edges from where it was torn from the paper back in 1937, and using Elmer’s Glue-All and heavy black archival paper, glue it down and flatten out the crease where it had been fold and unfolded so much that some of the newsprint has fallen away. There are so many more clippings like the one below that need ‘T-L-C.’

Eighty-two-years! There are a number of pieces to this story that need fitting together like a jigsaw puzzle, and I have plans to write about this at a later date, but first, I have some boxes to finish going through.

Frog gazes outward,
Searching the uprising mountain.
A dream since tadpole.

One penny is a single reality. A second penny is another reality, different from the first. If the two pennies are rubbed together, then separated, do they leave behind traces of themselves on the other and are you jus’ as broke? Asking for Rick Sanchez and ‘Doc’ Brown.

7 June 2019 –
Anthropomorphic Test Device completed first reverse jump, phased 180-degrees mid-transfer, file footage on demand from ATDs on board recorders, optimal, phase in/phase out, 60-seconds, data under review.

10 June 2019 –
Second ATD reverse jump completed, 60″ pi/po, OBRs optimal, FFOD, parallax displacement, 0 to 180-degrees, DUR.

13 June 2019 –
Trials suspended pending corrective action: PD of ADT needs solution, without correction, sustainable reverse/forward jumps with Live Test Subjects unobtainable.

17 June 2019 —
PD solution: angle ATD 180-degrees for allowance of refractive perception from point ‘A’/point ‘B’, suspension lifted, engineers refitting module frame for 0-180 mobility mid-jump.

21 June 2019 –
ATD transitioned from ‘A’/’B’, ‘B’/’A’, 0-0 PD, 60″ pi/po, OBRs optimal, FFOD, DUR.

Snail slimes slowly past,
Trail glistening in the sunshine.
Meal for the passing crow.

He stared at the carbon storm grate that adorned the area below the sidewalk, with its checkerboard-squared spaces and came upon an unusual epiphany. The grate no longer was that for straining large items from the gutters flow, but rather a magnificent box with 100 boxes of fantastical possibilities.

Deeper downward, he envisioned each box holding this life, the lives of all, each in a separate reality, one divided from the other, thousands of iterations.

Sadly, I’ve traded one world where slow death was a certainty, for another where only a slow death is a certain. Perhaps, you can tell which I would rather suffer, though the outcome is no doubt comes with a sameness.

The morning began bright and clear, but by the time mid-day arrived, I found myself standing in the open under a violent thunderstorm. Sheets of stinging rain aside, I feared being struck dead by the fingertips of Thor.

A long abandoned mine became my wanted shelter as I fled to its entrance. There for over two hours I watched as the skies above and around me continued to flash.

Boredom and a wandering mind set in. I pulled my flashlight from my knapsack and proceeded to explore the slight shaft.

Less than two-minutes in, I spotted it, The white line of stone that told that a vein of gold lay nearby. It didn’t take long for me to locate that as well.

Smiling at my good fortune, I followed it deeper and deeper into the tunnel system. My, god! It was long and thick in some places, wider than my thumb and so I continued.

It crossed itself twice and both times I came upon other shafts that had been created to access to larger pockets, now gone. Engrossed in this, I lost my way and though I could see the bright line of white accompanied by the green and gold lure of great wealth, I could not find my way back to the entrance.

An hour turned to several and those several fell in order to a day, but I could tell neither from this man-made tomb I had accidentally become victim, too. And then soon thereafter, my flashlight, my only source of light began to fade.

Though I turned it off to conserve what power the batteries held, it proved useless as they eventually failed. With them, hope failed and I sat down where I stood.

Around my waist was my final comfort, my pistol. Decidedly, if it came to a long period of starvation and thirst, I would fire it but once and only the one time.

The Boogeyman man is a feature of childhood, meant to hold a child in line with the moral and corporal wishes of adults. As an adult, the Boogeyman is a frightening being, that in pitch black, becomes as real as a wild animal in the forest of one’s mind.

In the distance, echoing and plodding, I could hear the slight footfall of another being. It was some distance off, so I had more than ample time to toy with the child still left in me.

“Hallo!” I shouted repeatedly certain that my brain was playing tricks on me and that I was hearing only a rescuer or two moving my way.

Nothing. After a while I stopped and call out no more, sad in the idea that my wife had not missed me yet and had not given my location to the authorities for possible rescue.

But, still the persistent sound of foot steps came echoing down the tight corridor of the shaft in which I sat. Perhaps a bear or maybe a mountain lion had found their way inside and having discover my scent, had become keen on an easy meal.

My pistol rested in my lap, finger ready to defend myself if needed. A dead animal, freshly killed and though raw, would provide nourishment for my weakening body and I would gladly dine on such.

There it was again. My eyes blind to the sights about me, my ears had taken over and that issued the alert to my brain, that indeed, something was moving ever closer and closer to me.

The sounds, in fact, were real and I now understood this. They echoed gently from rocky-wall to rocky-wall notifying me that I was under threat.

As quietly as humanly possible, I lifted my pistol, thumbed back the hammer and waited. Waited for the thing to finally be on top of me.

Now! My brain screamed. The flash of the barrel left me blinded – but in the instantaneous, but brief illumination I saw my intended target.

The sound echoed like a deafening thunderclap and I was rendered unable to hear or see what happened next. To both my extreme happiness and my shuddering horror, I was rescued by a party of five men, sent deep into the mine to extract me.

However, only four of those brave men would exit alive. I had murdered one as he made his way down the shaft I was sitting in.

“He didn’t have his lamp on, so how was I supposed to know he wasn’t a wild animal?!” I asked the judge as he sentenced me to a quarter century in prison; at my age, a certain death sentence.

Meanwhile, the powers that be grow rich off the vein of gold I’d located. A vein of gold that has cost more than one man his life.

Screaming Stellar’s Jay
I rest my hands in kitchen sink
My, the window is so dirty.