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Nearly Lost


by Tim G. Young


It's a cold day, a quite cool day and I don't know what has moved into my head but it feels like it's putting down roots and I'm sure I don't want it that way. I know damn well I don't want this thing to stay. My body feels chilly but it's not from the outside temps. It seems to me it's the opposite of a fever. I believe it's all the electricity that surrounds me and the world at large. I'm feeling this need for a scapegoat so I turn to electricity which is easy enough, I mean it's an intangible kind of current. It will not go into the Tupperware and into the fridge to keep overnight. But the fridge, in its infinite wisdom, knows all about this electricity and  its ideas about a cold world.

And cold world it is although electricity could aid in sending us either way. And because it is just a thing, a most stunning silent force, it can be as merciless and callous as the waves on the sea, but can it not be as beautiful as the lights of a city night? Doesn't this sound like a perfect recipe for danger? Danger in the sky, danger down below, danger creeping into my head like a worm from space crawling into my ear and uploading itself into my brain. And when would electricity send two volts about whether or not I was using it as a scapegoat for the troubles of the world.

It's actually a damn hot day. The sun in summer position glowing and burning like the stuff stars are made of. Stars are meant to burn for a very long time before they begin to cool down. They don't know any other way. They, like electricity and the oceans, can be merciless and at the same time remain ignorant of what they do.

So in the cold and hot of another day I sit beneath the ninety-three million miles away ball of thunder and explosions. The thunder created by fiery bolts of brilliant electricity, slicing atmospheres like the mighty swords of the knights of the round table. Shining, sparkling, revealing their power for only an instant before instantly cloaked again in darkness.


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I'm sitting in a canoe paddling furiously against the current to keep the thing from rushing over the falls and myself falling to certain disaster. My muscles crying like a thousand babes in the nursery all at once. My mind racing faster than the current so intent on my demise. All I can see is the chilly water dripping and splashing from the oars as I constantly lift them from the flood. All I can hear is the million gallons crashing on the rocks at the brutal bottom of the falls. All I can taste is the rock like stone of fear galloping in my throat. In the next moment of time it is possible to remember I released the paddles and dove from the canoe into the frantic waters. In another second my arms and legs would be ripped from their sockets. In that second doom splashed upon my face and forced my head underwater where my vision informed me of a world not so filled with the desperation of life ending scenarios. With what incredible little energy remained in me I swam towards the silence.


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My air conditioner is humming. On the way to the kitchen I accidentally stepped on an inch long bug crawling for cover. I quickly lifted my weapon of mass destruction but the creature was not able to survive the weight of the crushing blow. I said I was sorry. I picked it up with the aid of a cutting of a paper towel and tossed it in the trash. Then I resumed my voyage to the fridge in the kitchen so as to fetch a bottle of icy cold water. I left the door hang open for longer than was necessary to grab the water because the cool air from the fridge felt even more delectable than the temps created by my humming AC. Standing like a statue, cool air in my face, I drifted off to a deserted island in the Carribean. I leaned back into the depths of my beach chaise, looked to my right and lifted my sunset colored cocktail to my lips. Inside the glass the ice cube like glaciers slowly cruised and nudged one another. I knew they could feel no pain. I deliberately sucked one of the cubes into my mouth and crunched it with my powerful jaws. As the crumbs of the once proud cube returned to their original physical state on my tongue, I felt the heat lightening and saw the thunder crash violently everywhere I knew it was possible to be.
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