Snowball

I hereby resolve by the impetus of antiquity to record a discharge of my brain in the proper receptacle. I also hereby pledge to overcome pretentiousness by means of a complete disregard of my own thought. I hereby recognize that that recognizing means thinking. I hereby disavow all knowledge that my keyboard has a button marked "delete" and a button marked "backspace." I hereby pledge to stop typing the word "hereby" and the word "I."

A story a day, as different as possible.

A road flare was burning on a copper wire stand in the shoulder of the bridge, between the concrete sidewalk and the white lane that bordered the road. It made a whooshing sound and a buzzing sound, like the fireworks that spit green torches of flame and spin furiously until they stop and sit errant, smoldering cigars in driveway ashtrays. An officer had pulled the plastic cap and struck it alight and placed it there, and plumes of sulfur wafted into open car windows. It made cigarettes taste of cavernous breaches in Terra, where solids turned to liquids and poured through veins. Lungs couldn't taste it. Lungs tried to breathe it. Tongue and lips let it pass at the behest of brain. Cough. Or don't.

Guessing that traffic lights near the fairgrounds mean little when the carnival is on. Beep. Left or right or straight. Move, please. Belly full of fried dough and powdered sugar. Pocket full of empty space where bingo money was. Back seat full of nothing. Front seats full of music. Seat belt full of me. Beep.

Me at twelve. A standardized test, and a mower outside the window. A fresh cut school rightaway with zero days on the schedule, and a growing list of bruises and grass stains to accumulate. A dark room at night with a firework storm in the sky, a dinner party on the back porch. Murmured talk. Boom-crack-boom. Dave Brubeck. Boom-crack-pop. A remote carnival outside, inside mind. Anonymous age twelve, classmate, top car, Ferris wheel, organ piping, bell ringing and silence at the first spark of powder. Smell of food, grass, sound of river air, and people. Tried to pick a stuffed animal up from the curb out a moving Car with open door, no seat belt.

Overwhelmed, drowning in recollection, across worn synapse jumps to tastes and ambiance so clear like a bell ringing between ears of a note that is named. Beep. Front seat warm with fresh breeze and sulfur. Sky like inky water with firework trails, dissipating. Cars full of people. belly full of fried dough, pockets full of empty space where once was bingo money, back seat full of nothing, front seat full of music, seat belt full of me.

Wonder if communicating a smell or a thought or an experience is like lighting a firework, pluming the smoke about and wafting into people's lungs. All present breathing tasting, recording. Wonder if communicating a smell or a thought or an experience is like letting it spit colored sparks, reflecting in their eyes, tickling nerves, mapping, recording. Wonder if communicating a thought or smell or experience is like letting it buzz and hiss, ringing it's howl like a bell between present ears, echoing, waving, recording, resonating. Wonder if a shared thought or smell or experience is clearer. Wonder if gathered separate synapses sing together from their solitary skulls like a chorus of the bells, if they build like fireworks displays upon each other. Wonder where the powerful thought is, how it acts.

Beep. A turn at the line of the intersection. A burning flare. An officer who put it by the side of the road. A finished carnival. A line of cars full of people. A belly full of fried dough. Pockets full of nothing. A backseat full of emptiness. A front seat full of music. A seat belt full of me. A sky full of smoke. A red light.

Wonder how many enumerations while waiting for lights to change.