Playing Fair and Being Kind

I have a ton of projects to take care of. Since the age of 13 or 14. The list began then and has never diminished in length shorter than 40 or 50 items. I think this is the real meaning of life. To get comfortable with ‘sloth’. I’m almost there. For the past hour and a half I have successfully avoided getting out of this recliner and washing yesterday’s dishes, taking a shower, and getting dressed. I chose instead to revisit one of my favorite stories and tuned it up. All it took is a brief glance at a book I need to finish reading my March 3rd. I read the first sentence of the first paragraph of the third chapter and caught a charge of inspiration to alter and expand on the story you see lurking below. It is one I wrote early in 2015.

That reminds me. Procrastination and sloth and other avoidance behaviors…it reminds me of a memo pad that existed back in the day. I was working in an office and there were these note pads that were used to take messages. Here is one.

Someone got an idea to be more accurate with a clarification on the note pad and had a bunch printed up that read, “While you were Fucking-off”. I thought they were great although I never used one. Just the same, the sentiment is similar to sloth, procrastination, and avoidance behavior.

Here is the expanded and improved (hopefully) story.
Peace,
Gentle George
25 February 2019

OSCAR

Oscar was on his third cup of coffee and his eighth restart of the poem that was ghosting in his mind. Playing in the background was a late classical period piano concerto by some Italian composer. It all seemed so scripted; a struggling writer at his keyboard, in bathrobe, in the quiet of a Maine morning by a body of water in Spring.

Oscar’s toil notwithstanding the poem was not coming together. He entertained the thought of switching the words to a short story but he couldn’t seem to focus. Oscar sat back in the old recliner, picked up the coffee mug and took a large mouthful. He let the tepid stuff drain into his throat. He liked the theme but he wasn’t too pleased that none of the ideas were losing meaning in his imagination. He needed to write it all down and begin the process of tossing aside those parts that were weakest and non-supportive of a central thread. Good thinking, he mused. Oscar put down the mug and hit the save button one more time.

He placed his fingers on the keyboard anticipating a thought to come and then he sat back in the big chair again, heaving a great sigh. His mind cluttered with a hundred patterns of words but none of them cogent. Oscar absently pulled at the hairs on his chin. Ouch! He felt a tiny lump just right of center under the hairs. It was tender and Oscar gently felt with his index finger a small swelling. Odd…this is new, he thought; an ingrown hair perhaps? His mind was now off the pile of words on the computer screen. Oscar needed to go find a mirror to check this little nuisance. He stood and walked across the great room. The bathroom had a mirror with light bars all around it and that’s where Oscar headed.  He carried his mug with him and as he passed the kitchen counter he left it next to the sink.

Oscar pushed into the bathroom, flipped the lights on and leaned in toward the mirror. He examined the area where he had felt the small lump. He had just recently trimmed his beard so the examination took no time at all. There it was. He had feared that a tick had burrowed into the sparse jungle on his chin but no, there was only the tiny swelling of the skin under the hair. It was still tender but now that he was looking directly at the area he felt less discomfort. Oscar parted the hairs and noticed the skin was a shade darker than the surrounding surface.

Oscar straightened perplexed. Hmm, he thought. The small lump now seemed larger. Gently Oscar again probed the hairs on his chin and felt the spot. It was quite hard and when he pressed the lump, he could feel something else. The lump was elongated and seemed to continue in two directions under the skin. Oscar noticed now that the shade was darker than just a few moments ago. Whew! Damn! This is really strange. Oscar was confused and thought about calling his doctor. First, he’d need to examine the damned thing so he could talk intelligently about it with whomever answered his call.

Oscar took off his bifocals, wiped them on the lapel of his bathrobe and again leaned toward the mirror. Goddam! There was a black thing just under the skin and it seemed ready to poke through. Indeed, it was elongated and Oscar thought it was a living thing and he began to freak out. Holy crap! What is that? Oscar opened the medicine cabinet and took out a pair of tweezers and found an alcohol wipe. When he closed the cabinet door, he immediately noticed the black thing was now protruding from under the skin and it was readily visible through his beard. Oscar could feel his heart pounding and there was a sense of dread rising.

Oscar’s hand was shaking badly so he held the tweezers with two hands and gently grasped what looked like a piece of wire. The surrounding skin was split and Oscar’s chin displayed a loop of black wire protruding. Oscar pulled the wire very slowly and it came easily. As Oscar pulled some more, he felt his whole right side disappear. There was no pain and no sensation whatsoever. Oscar’s whole right side was visible in the mirror but he could not feel anything from the middle of his body over. His whole right side was non-existent sensory-wise. It seemed his musculature had turned off; no control nor feeling. No electrical impulses driving the cellular structure to tighten, harden, pull and contract the tendon-to-bone attachments. His supports, all of the right side of him gave way. Oscar stopped pulling the wire and he fell over against the shower stall and crumbled to the floor.

Oscar’s mind was functioning at a lower level but he knew that he needed to get to the telephone and call his physician. There was a number written on the telephone handset that would connect him directly with the group that provided him medical care. Oscar carefully but laboriously pulled himself with his left hand and leg out of the bathroom and across the great room toward the telephone. When he reached the telephone, he was dripping with sweat and he had scraped away parts of his body during the process. Oscar was a mess but he finally had the telephone in his grasp. He checked the number on the handset and pushed the buttons on the keypad.

Oscar held the phone to his left ear. He was shaking. He’d never been this worried. His breathing was labored and he was having trouble focusing. Perspiration soaked his robe. Oscar needed to lean against the legs of the recliner in order to hold his head up. He heard the ringing on the other end of the line. The sound made him hopeful. A few rings and a voice answered. “Hello?” Oscar was barely able to mumble and blow out of his mouth. His jaw was slack. His concerns immediately sky rocketed. Again, the voice said, “Hello?” Louder this time. Oscar screamed almost silently but whoever was on the other end of the line heard him. The voice became more urgent and said, “Listen to me, Oscar. Code 9! Code 9! Power down! Power down! Go ‘Stand-by’! Now!”

The words came to him as if his head were in a drum. He heard and he comprehended but all he could do was repeat silently in his head the words “stand by”. “Stand by…stand by..” He concentrated on the two-word phrase. Oscar relaxed and waited.

George M. Goodwin
26 May 2015