"Pssst - hey, buddy, you got arms?" It was a voice I hadn't heard before, and coming from outside my head this time. A building was talking to me. A building. There are lots of them around here, so I looked. This one. Here. Huh.
On a pillar on a facade, there, here, a face. Faint. A faint face. It was looking at me. Like it knew me or something. Almost familiar.
Because it should be familiar, if I had seen it before, because I had walked along this street many times but never noticed. But maybe I had.
So maybe I had seen it and not noticed. Maybe we even knew each other.
Possible. So?
I forget a lot. It's one of my specialties, forgetting. Not everything though, mostly important things. I forget significant, important things and all too often retain the junk, the residue, the unimportant impressions, the mistakes, the embarrassing things. But that's beside the point, isn't it?
Because today this building was talking to me. A part of the building. A part at eye level, close by my ear. It was looking at me and asking me a question, this question: "Hey, buddy, you got arms?"
Of course I do — can't you see? Of course it could, this pile of masonry — it has eyes. So it can see. As well as talk, I guess.
Yes, I have arms. What you need?
"I dropped my cigarette. Fell out of my mouth. Can you pick it up for me? Put it back in my mouth?"
Sure, why not? I'm not a dick, at least not this morning, so not always. Sometimes though, but not at this moment.
So I pick up the smoldering cigarette and carefully place it back into the mouth of the face on the wall of the building right here, right now, this morning. And then I go.
That's about it.
I don't talk about it. Not often. Not with everyone.
Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff+snorp@gmail.com
Me? Now I got something stuck in my ear.
Etc...
so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals
