The saints of time restraints – Notes From The Boneyard

Joining me on this week’s Boneyard is Howe Gelb and Pieta Brown, making this a hat trick with three authors. It accidentally tells the tale of three characters, from three different parts of earth, who all somehow end up in the same place, connected by time, imagination, and dreams. Enjoy.

I. Hexagon

It’s 2:22. The witching hour. But only if you count in Earth time. What time is it on the moon? Does time even exist outside our spinning globe? I sip my coffee, and watch from the car window as I drive through the rain-soaked streets. Through the rainfall, I can make out the same people I’ve seen my entire life as they flock by, like ghosts. Those faceless faces. They are everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Been here since the dawn of man. In this grey void that is neither here nor there. This Scranton called Omagh. How did I end up back here? Where it all began. Where it will likely end. I’ve gone full circle, via hexagon. I continue driving, just to be anywhere else but here and now.

On the outskirts of town, I see a hitchhiker. Standing tall, like a maple tree that reaches the moon. He has no purpose being here at this time. A stranger. Out of place and out of time. He is glowing in the darkness, completely white, from head-to-toe. A phantom.

I pull over just to make sure I’m not imagining him altogether. He glides into the passenger seat without a sound, untouched by the rain. I don’t ask him his name, but the tag on his briefcase says, “Halo Globetrotter”.

We drive for a lifetime or more in complete silence, until all signs of life have vanished. And then, as luck would have it, a neon sign ahead which reads ‘The Waltz Inn Motel’.

The place looks deserted. Empty. Apart from a single light glowing from one of the rooms. So… there is another soul out here on the same stretch of empty road as us. We are not alone. But where are we exactly? And are we asleep or awake? We pull over to take a sip of water from a found fountain. And ponder it all…

II. Pondering

‘Coincidence’ is a convenient, albeit lazy, explanation for converging moments of passing events that fascinate the beholder who has been chosen by such audacity of impossible formulation of crisscrossing events in bearing witness to such phenomenal accuracy. Lucky you. Luck being another lazy convenience.

Look at it this way: Those ants at your feet. See how fast they scurry when in multitude. Now imagine you are of a celestial prominence high above the random rigors of human social scurry.

See how we all behave from heights on high, having the perspective to see everyone way down below sped up just like the ants. It’s the same pattern. The scurry of daily troubleshooting. Except the human one is dedicated and dictated by the man-made clock. And yet, it has nothing to do with our actual existence. We only invest in it like it matters. Meanwhile, there’s a place I have to be (man-made clock-wise) which has now taken a back seat to a song that’s surprisingly forming now, and demands all my attention unless I wish to live with the phantom imprint of never having taken the time to capture it’s lightning flash in the jar of guitar. I’m going to be late again. And my love will think I place her second amongst my priorities. Why? Because she is not my true love… Says the all-knowing sacred clock. Quickly, then I sketch the outline of the song, egg out for it to properly to hatch later, now that I have proof of its startling availability. I, then, grab my sunglasses and scoot out the door, glancing appropriately at the phone for the flash of the hour scolding me: 2.222… Again.

III. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To Scranton (aka Omagh)

Leaving… Such an arbitrary thing to do. But, I did leave town just as the clock hit 2.22, heading down what I thought was a Highway. But, it’s dark now and I already forget which exit I took.

Like true love, I had been looking for one, and found another, and the neon lights of a motel sign lured me in. The Waltz Inn. “Maybe this one will do?” I thought to myself. And the bed is fine, after all, and the windows actually open, and there’s even a couch in here.

I would locate the remote and surf the local channels, but I keep flashing on the dream I had this morning in the back room of a second story apartment where I slept with the screen door open to a balcony beside a maple tree that was blowing in the wind all night.

In the dream, two men kept circling each other… around a small fountain beside a stone wall, topped by a giant clock with the words ‘Hand-Made’ spray-painted underneath.

The men and their faces were chiseled. Sculpted by time, loss, and other phantom imprints.

One of the men seemed a bit older; his hair was silver, and he was wearing a white leather jacket and white sunglasses, and he was carrying an anvil briefcase. The other man was more compact and darker somehow, and had an oversized travel mug in one hand that kept spilling over as he moved. In his other hand, he had some lottery tickets which he seemed to be scalping.

“Feelin’ lucky?!” he kept yelling loudly. And as he was yelling, the silver-haired man sat down on a wooden bench. He put the case in his lap and slowly opened it. As he opened it, a small black bird flew out and landed on his shoulder, and I woke suddenly to the sound of an alarm I didn’t remember setting. The maple tree was still moving in the wind, and I was still alone (or maybe he was just late again?), so I packed my bag to leave.