Who Is This?

The last song on his Cake CD finished playing.

Ok, Dad, he said from the other room. And he said something else, but I didn't pay any attention.

Dad, he said, poking his head into the doorway.

What?

Time for you to select some music.

So I did — not a CD but black vinyl from a two-album set with an as-good-as-new, almost pure white cover that opened like a book. I lowered the needle and sat down in the rocking chair next to the couch where he was doing his homework.

As the first song on side one played, he stopped doing his math and looked up, listening to the words, chuckling sometimes. As the second song came to an end, he looked over at me.

Who is this? he asked, innocently.

I was silent just for a second. Who is this!? I thought to myself. He's heard it before, and he knows a few of the lines still. But that was years ago, and those words are on the second album. I looked at him.

The Beatles, I said.

Oh, he said with a very serious look on his face, in obvious recognition that he knew exactly what I was thinking.

11:53:31 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []  

Fireflies on Earth Day

I sat at last alone outside among the glowing fireflies.

The air was cool. A breeze blew gently thru the leaves. And although I could periodically hear the rush of traffic from the highway to the east and from the highway to the west, if I shut my eyes and turned my face to the dusking sky, I could feel a coolness of the breeze that brought a smile to my face, and I could hear ...

Ringing in my ears. It never went away as the doctor said it would in 1986, so when I shut my eyes I could hear ringing, and the spell was somewhat broken. But then again, there were the fireflies.

In the dim shadowy light of early evening, the fireflies descended. With my eyes opened again, I saw them — dim green points of lights flashing in the Persimmon next to me and in the Oak across the street and everywhere else I turned.

Fireflies. Not a bad Earth Day's end.

9:10:41 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []