Everybody is a Star (Daily Planet email #873)

A stray button for an unbuttoning. A heavy burden for an unburdening. A loose comb for a lost hair, a false flag for a false patriot. A bare vision for a bold expanse. A loose ribbon from a lost package, a building for an unbuilding. These are so few of my favorite things.

An alarm! We crisscross our flooded and debris-strewn islands, making sure the windows are locked, the barbed wire is in place, the broken glass mosaics on the ground reflecting optimally. We check the storm doors to make sure there are storms and work the rebar to ensure the jutted fragments are aligned just so. Much to do, much to do. A semblance of competence is all that panic requires. Oh, but Hark! The all-clear sounds indicate it was a test alarm to test our alarm. We are pleased to have been duly alarmed.

We take stock and take heart, new thoughts on an old broom. No tears, all told, numinous rays as if. Tormented flagpoles strafe the low-slung clouds, sclerotic trees reach for an unsettled sky. Had enough? How can you be certain until you try some more? When you say to the dark, “Who’s there?” do you really want an answer?

You drive all night looking for a thing. The towns in their crook of a varicose stream. Grey slag on a pelted mass. See how the smoke roils violently at the smokestack lip, but resolves to a stately smear in its height? How do you till these endless rows, ford the rushing waters, embrace the antagonizing horizon? Alluvial thought encrusts my eyes, holds my feet in place, this feeling of cusp. I annex some comfort from the future. There is no third way, but thank goodness we have two.