First hookup

“What we seek constantly in romantic love is not human love or human relationship alone; we also seek a religious experience, a vision of wholeness.”
~Robert A. Johnson

2:13 AM

A puttering engine whines down beach street on a frigid night. The sound of rusted struts and worn wheel bearings bouncing along frost heaves and pot holes. Headlights fluttering. Shadows of leafless winter limbs shifting and merging against the bedroom wall. He watches and listens—passively—without comprehension. Eyes half open, half shut.

An electric blanket covers him to the nostrils. Thermostat set to 60 F. A frugal man of limited means, he found this place at the dead end of Beach street, near the river’s edge, where it takes a sharp left and meets Willow avenue—another dead end and entrance to the old Jewish cemetery. He bought the property for a song. The street itself a hazard, with its heaves and holes, notorious for frozen fogs overflowing the river bank at night.

An anonymous chat, several hours earlier. She’d answered his Reddit post; an anonymous stranger. He’d baited the invitation with homemade hot chocolate on a frigid night, marshmallows too. Sex on the mind, but unstated.

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Love is not enough

Love is not enough to prevent the metaphorical Devil and his demons from cunningly and imperceptibly creeping into your relationship, destroying it bit by bit, like the sugar that rots away a tooth over time.

Keep your guard up! Don’t delude yourself into thinking that flirtation or fantasy play behind a screen is harmless. He is a predator, searching for the microscopic cracks in your loving behavior, slithering his way into them, feasting on their weak walls like a hungry termite, and making space for the others to enter and contribute to his project, which is to destroy your relationship from the inside out.

Breakfast with Sylvia

The outdoor billboard declares: “NO MASKS OR VIRUS HERE!”

Finally, a place that serves a decent breakfast, minus the humiliation of temperature checks and forced sanitizing. No scraps of virus riding piggyback on strips of bacon; no waitresses sneezing Covid laced pollen my way. A pre-pandemic breakfast, the way it used to be. Great money making concept, I think to myself. Breakfasts of yesteryear!

The meal is perfect! A fluffy wrap of sunshiny yellow egg stuffed with spinach, onion, mushroom,and cheddar, with strips of crispy bacon, and a side of hot cakes drizzled with a sweet maple syrup that is to die for. I’m in breakfast heaven!

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The big one

The end of our world arrived on that day, just like the day before, during the early dawn, when the sun was a faint glow on the east horizon. We’d already packed our bags, just the basics: a few outfits, toothbrushes and paste, a bar of soap to share, medications, and one book each for me and my Mary—something to read while on the run. There wasn’t much else we could carry or had time to pack, not knowing the status of things from hour to hour. We’d find food somewhere, not a meal, but something to hold us over—if need be.

The big one was on the way, again. The message blaring over our smartphones; the whine of sirens; the emergency broadcast system counting down the minutes and seconds in high definition—repetitive instructions from a virtual voice and human appearing avatar, like a YouTube video in continuous loop mode..

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Our stories

“There are the stories we tell ourselves, and the stories we tell others. Some of them may even be true. But what are the stories which are storying their way through our daily lives and of which we are mostly if not wholly unaware?”
~James Hollis

The three stories:

1) The same old story that you assume is happening again. In reality or imagination, this is the all too familiar theme or pattern that seems to follow you like a stalker, recycling itself over and over, chapter after chapter, from cradle to grave. You whine and complain about its apparent return, playing its victim at times, but it is your Old Faithful, always reliable as an excuse or crutch when all else fails in your life.

2) The story of fulfillment and happy endings that you wish were happening. This is your version of the healing, heroic, romantic journey that you’ve dreamed about from childhood onward. The story evolves with the changing times and circumstances, but remains true to its original theme. You dream of it, hope for it, and search for it, but assume the low probability of its fruition.

3) The real story that is actually happening or unfolding throughout your life: A convoluted plot with characters and themes that appear, disappear, and sometimes reappear again, often without any apparent rhyme or reason. Creating one’s personal story from this bigger, more chaotic story, is a challenge without end, as the real world is in constant flux, without loyalty to what we’d like to believe about it.

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