Semi-Daily Scribbles

The company picnic gave Barbara a pounding headache and indigestion, even though she didn't eat any of the shitty food. Another season, another round of humiliating back-slaps, and the onset of debilitating self-doubt that accompanied these shindigs were taking their toll on Barbara's delicate constitution. After every bloated VP's speech, and the sour sulfur rising from the potato salad, Barbara promised herself she'd update her résumé and begin the hunt for a more suitable position. Keeping the CV current wasn't the problem. Barbara fussed with, and tweaked, the language and format of her experience more than she put forth the effort to live the life she dreamed. This year was different, she vowed up and down. Barbara was smart and worked hard, but she always came up short. Forgotten about. Passed over. Told to hold on. Hang in there for a little while longer. Those little whiles added up quickly, to where she found herself dizzy and fuming at yet another Employee Appreciation Day. Barbara felt the passage of years seep into her bones, weakening her resolve by the hour as her cravings gnawed at her gut. But when she made it back to her apartment, after an agonizing game of croquet with her boss, Barbara found her salvation in the foyer. The package she'd been expecting had finally arrived. It was heavy in her hand, and her heart raced at what was beneath the plain brown wrapper. Barbara had no intention of attending another company picnic ever again. The box she paid dearly for would fill her frazzled mind with new ideas, deeper meanings, and clearer intentions. She had much to absorb before closing the door on her little world one last time.

Leigh put in a lot of hours to track down answers no one gave a damn about. Since no one but Leigh asked any questions in the first place, that was probably the reason why. All was well in the sleepy little hamlet just east of the interstate. All sorts of folk passed through, and some even stayed. But if you weren't born and raised, you didn't stay on for long. People from outside the county line were different, according to Leigh's neighbors, and they'd never truly understand small town life, the way it was lived in Sheldon. Leigh should have expected the chilly reception when she announced at the church social, right in the middle of a tense round of Bible Line-Up, that she'd discovered some interesting facts about the town's history. Were it not for her schnauzers' agitated growls and yelps, Leigh would've missed her caller from the night before; The Honorable Nicodemus Sheldon, Mayor of her beloved home town who, prior to their meeting, was known to Leigh as only one of many who found repose in God's acre adjacent to Sheldon First Baptist. Mayor Sheldon noted much had changed since 1853, and he needed Leigh's help in settling a few outstanding accounts. His list of grievances was long, and Leigh was still taking dictation as the sun left rose-colored streaks in the sky.

Loni always got big, sticky thoughts lodged in her noggin when her sister came to visit. Loni was more used to the type of stuff normally on her mind, like getting to work on time, and how she was going to pay for her California dream vacation. Then Big Sis would pop in and talk nonsense:

• Dreams are the bedrock.
• The world that lies in wait on the other side of the veil is where vision is given form.
• Thought propels intention across 1,001 night skies.
• Gone is the tantalizing glimpse of potential fulfilled and a future of plenty.
• In its stead is the world of riches we pass up daily because it looks like a rain cloud, sounds like a mourning dove, tastes like good ol' buttery burnt toast.

Loni felt hungover after one of her sister's visits. The wrung out grogginess was tempered by a giddy elation which Loni could never quite wrap her head around. Not much of what her sister did, or said, made sense, but it did give Loni a thing or two to ponder as she faced the fry station every day.

Gary wasn't much of a join-along guy, but he thought of himself as a team player just the same. He was the brightest one in the bunch, for sure, and people did call Gary "the guy with an answer for everything." If one of his answers made it so someone could get the job done, Gary was very pleased indeed to have been part of the solution and not the problem. But then there was Gary's own problem, his main frustration. He needed to retreat, to live an undercover sort of life, so he could come up with all the answers everyone expected. And yet, he also had to remain among the masses so he wouldn't lose touch with what was eating everybody. He was "Answer Man," after all. Gary grappled daily with how to maintain balance. The perfect situation was for him to live in his imagination forever. In that world, Gary was the master of time. He didn't have to contend with people wanting a bit here, and a moment there, to where he felt put out and stretched to the limit. The reality in which Gary found himself, however, had worn down his patience dangerously thin. The team would have to learn to take the field without him.

Bertha was happy for the gentle June rain that plonked against the dusty road out of Dodge. She'd had to act quickly. There was no time for a pre-flight meal, or to sufficiently hydrate her once voluptuous body that was now sharp angles and skin. Stress and unhappiness reduced Bertha to a nearsighted shadow on spindly legs. She wasn't even sure she had the strength to make it far on her quest to find vision; her chance to see the world for the very first time. She got off the road when the plonks were joined by splatters, and wandered into a fallow field, where a lone tree beckoned. Bertha ambled over ruts and clods and came to rest under nature's protection. She gave thanks to whoever made the rain, and the road, and the tree, all of which were better companions than those she left behind.