April Flash #3

prompts by amygdale: grass around a sundial; low-hanging fruit; if it lasts more than four hours call a doctor; twelve books; completely artificial; “Boggs was such a great ballplayer he had two wives – one for home games, and one for away; tirra Lirra by the river

It grew like grass around a sundial, these feelings. The all-encompassing wave of reality, crashing into the dew-drop dreams like a morning fog rolling over the horizon. It dangled like a verbal participle, like low-hanging fruit on a branch normally out of reach, ripe for the picking. I wanted to gobble that juice down whole, the meat of the fruit smacking against my teeth and lips, dripping down my chin and pooling in a puddle at my feet. I wanted to devour it whole, but take my time. There had to be some kind of balance to this. For me, it had never been like this. My friends all used to joke with me about my infatuations, my inability to stay steadfast in the awakening, my ADD with attraction. They’d say “jeez, j – if it lasts more than four hours, call a doctor” and so was the way it was. My eyes would glaze over in passing from one beautiful moment to the next, unable to focus on anything for too long. There were just too many. Too many to settle, to come home to, to realize. It was like reading twelve books at once, mixing up the characters and the plot lines and the intricate twists and turns of a million stories in a multitude of minds. So what was I doing now? Following in her wake like a puppy on a leash, but unbound. I thought I was housebroken, but I was drooling like a leaky faucet. It had been months now. I’m pretty sure something was wrong. Was the way I was before the reality, and this was completely artificial, or the reverse? I couldn’t say. All I knew was that I wanted to catch this feeling like an errant throw at a ball game, hold it in my mitt and not let it slip through the cracks, lest it never return again. Speaking of baseball, I caught myself jolted out of my thought-like revere at a party. I didn’t recall getting there, even, and for a time I didn’t even know where I was. But my friends had been talking about the lives of famous people, athletes in particular. The same one that told me about my need for an impending doctors visit was overheard saying “Boggs was such a great ballplayer he had two wives – one for home games, one for away” and I shook my head in wonderment. I had been like that, hadn’t i? Unattached, unaffected, un-phased. I was definitely phasing now. All I knew is I wanted to immerse myself in it, wrap myself up in it, lose myself in it forever – go sit at Tirra Lirra by the river and have a drink and maybe wait for her to pass by in the off chance she was traveling in my direction. This was silly.

Perhaps if I felt this way, I should try saying hi sometime, eh? Infatuation is funny that, and it’s amusing how my mind could bend reality to create this fairy tale world with the girl of my dreams, when I hadn’t even met her yet.

That’s what faith will do to ya.

prompts: So much for the afterglow; for the birds