Black and White

He would channel surf though the photographs in his mother's shoebox that he kept on the top shelf of the closet, the black ink of her static memories projected on a yellowing white glossy cardstock screen. Aunts, sisters, cousins, classmates in one roomed elementary schools and small county high schools with malt shops down the street and barbershops where men with hats and ties worn in the middle of the day would go and discuss politics and morality. The names of the suspended strangers didn't matter. He didn't need to know them; he only needed to nurse on the comfort that they were always in the same poses, always in the same box, always accessible on that top shelf. He could be certain that black would always be black and white refused to be anything but white. In his world, how could he know for sure that the red he saw on the ambulance light was the same colour that someone else saw on the cola sign? Colours were far too subjective. Black and white were monochromatic absolutes. For this reason he could sit for hours watching the same black and white comedies on television, holding close the sketched images drawn before colour muddled our thoughts.

On the Way Home

Christopher Drywell, age 47, sitting in his Lexus in the middle of Georgia 400,
wondered if the traffic would ever move any faster than the 2-5 miles per hour it was creeping now,
wondered if the traffic girl on Station 109.7 StarFM sounded so cheerful because she was getting a foot massage from a hunky Latino custodian named Raul,
wondered if the thoughts he caressed while looking at his secretary would constitute adultery,
wondered how old Felix in accounting was,
wondered if Felix in accounting worked out,
wondered if Felix in accounting was gay,
wondered if the game would be rained out,
wondered if the person in the car in front of him realized that the candidate on their bumper sticker had lost in the last election,
wondered if that candidate, fresh from scandal, regretted having run,
wondered if he smoked a cigarette in the car with the window open would his wife would be able to smell it later,
wondered if he had an affair, would his wife know,
wondered if he had an affair, if his wife would really care,
wondered if the Mexican construction worker on the side of the road ever felt trapped.