WHAT IT IS
Mutt had the puzzled look of a puppy trying to understand his first command. The mechanic hit the air brake, swung open the cab door and climbed down from the rig all the while praising the condition of Mutt’s truck and its mechanical worthiness. If there had been a problem, the combined forces of mechanical engineers and the vessels their spirits moved on, solved Mutt’s transportation problems. At first light, Mutt would be back on the I95 wheeling toward Boston.
Mutt’s encounter with No.1 was a lesson in the art of the muddle where the seemingly apathetic are anointed and notified that inactions are the excuses that create the perforated bags in which the water is carried. Spilling time into an ocean of misappropriated wisdom, gave observers the opportunity to heckle what they did not hear, chastise what they could not see and, best of all, relish in the warmth of their own bathwater. Mutt was not part of this cohort, but he knew of the possibility of their hypnotic effect and often searched his soul to see if the tentacles of supremacy had claimed him.
Mutt broke off a tiny bit of his peanut butter and jam sandwich and placed it on the leaf next to the insect. The wasp ignored the offering at first, but after several minutes he tentatively shuffled toward it. Rubbing his legs together and staring at Mutt. Tthe creature neither heckled nor chastised and if he wore a hat, Mutt thought, he would have doffed it.
WHAT IT IS NOT
Pickles sat in a wicker basket surrounded by potions, lotions, scented soaps and mini chocolates from around the world. She had been fondled and touched by many of the town’s quasi-sophisticated who were undecided if their money would better be spent in the caverns of the big city or over the Wi-Fi waves of the internet. Small town chic waged a perpetual war on itself, inflecting scars of inadequacy that only itself, and a small cadre of keen observers, could recognize, while most everything else just floated down the river to a lake of practicality. The complete irrelevance of this egomaniacal army is not lost on all, bit those that embrace it, walk a line so thin and so corrupt that the human conditions becomes altered in ways that shatter not only the truth that is us, but bends our spirits in hideous pursuits of vanity.
Pickles languished in the store front window for weeks and no amount of stings from the local bees, wasps and hornets could restore her sentientism. Finally, after a plea from Leo, No.1 sent his first lieutenant to free Pickles from her coma.
WHAT IT IS/WHAT IT IS NOT 