Let down your small walls and take care to step gently,
The anger inside the color wheel isn’t all red and tyranny.
Be wise and slow, be kind and know,
Have time for the answers and things that are shallow,
Sing songs to a friend, sing songs to your enemies,
Or sit in a corner and stand in the center,
Be scared of nothing except the things you can control,
Choose wisely or randomly, but stay true to your vision,
And let down your small walls and take care to step gently.

6.

Somewhere fifty miles east of nowhere sat the factory. Its silver smokestack, a lone cylinder spanning into the sky puffed a steady stream of black. Once or twice a day a bird would wander into the toxic cloud and plummet to its quick demise. At the base of the factory the poor children would collect the dead birds and sell them for souvenirs. It was a horrid affair. But the authorities understood that the children needed to eat, so they turned a blind eye.
Mr. Caspers sometimes watched them from his office window. He wondered why they bothered? The sickness would smother them all in due time after all. Still his lot in life was to produce. And so he did.
He looked to his desk, a strange metal apparatus with ascending steps to a large projector powering up.  Such wonders he could imagine. He grabbed the film marked Annapolis and smiled. It was a new one just delivered. They didn’t get much in these parts of the world. Not anymore.  He took the metal cylinder, careful to not harm the celluloid inside.  His fingers shook as he adjusted the focus and finally after much fidgeting found the moment, sighed, flipped the switch and sat down for a respite.
The girls skipped. 

It is really hard to be better than we were made to be.

End days.

Snow sits silent on the east coast as a deer walks past.
Fires rage wild on the west coast with furious blast.
Politicians talk, conspiracist tell lies,
Global warming must be a hoax, the idiots’ voices rize.
And the common person in the middle alone and devout,
Tries to live their best life, no reasons to pout.
A consumption of resources until there is nothing left,
The earth needs a lawyer or judge to protect it from theft.
And the sun rises tomorrow, so many lost,
And the sun rises tomorrow no matter the cost.

5.

“This is the sound of a television blurring all the oxygen right out of the room,” the mother said as she casually glanced at father, a man mid forties, smoking his third cigar of the evening. Their young boy Jasper sat on the carpet in front of the tube, half watching the news show on the screen, half playing an imaginary game with his fingers, the air shadows of a setting sun, and occasionally with the dog who ran through the room.
“Hmmm” father said. He took a long small drag on the cherry smoked tobacco. 

She wanted to scream. But she ironed the blue dress shirt, its uneven levels of remaining fabric pressed between steam and a squeaky board, with no verbal complaint.

Mother bit into Fathers neck late that night. A small bite, one of affection and hate. It did not pierce the skin but made him turn his head slightly. He grimaced a little as he moved her hair to the side of her head. His breath still carried the smell of tobacco. She never thought about how unusual it was for her husband to smoke. No one else did anymore. But he was her husband, and she knew very little about him anyways. 

They met on a plane, a journey to one of the newly freed areas . When you disembarked from these flights the customs agents would steal your money, but it was an accepted practice. The cost of flying the friendly skies. He smiled at her then, at least that was how she remembered it. He had taken her hand and walked her through the turnstile past a pretzel stand onto the cold icy tundra of Scanton, Pennsylvania that day. It was a choice, one she made willingly and a few months later they were married. Later they moved into the red brick house, identical to all the others on the street. 

Sometimes, she knew that Father kept things from her.  

He held her neck tightly as he made love to her then.  She thought of the pretzel stand they had passed years ago and wondered if they tasted as good as they smelled. 

The crashing wave is more than a line in the sand,
Challenging all preconceptions and mastery of the land,
Pachinko blings and needle nose pliers in the repairmands hand,
It’s time in the listing light, to take a stand.

Outside a girl skipped down the street. She wore a polka dotted dress up high around her waist. The summer air stuck to her like maple syrup on a waffle. Her hair was done in pony tails making her seem slightly younger than the sixteen years she had spent on Earth. All across the street girls came out from their red brick houses, and skipped. It was that way that summer. A strange occurrence, but one doesn’t question what the youth does. No one understands them anyway.
As the girls skipped it would become increasingly clear that some of them strained under the weight of clothes and hair accoutrements. They persisted in this activity regardless, less concerned for their health then the precise movements and form they sought to perfect. One of the young ladies, a girl from Charlotte, North Carolina held tight to a southern drawl as she sung a song none of the other girls recognized. By the end of the summer they all knew the words. 

“‘Cause I don’t want to throw rice

I want to throw rocks at her

She took the only love I had

No, I don’t want to throw rice

I want to throw rocks at her”

The song was written by a famous singer of old times. Dolly Parton. It really had no place in the current world, but somehow it intertwined with the girls skipping, became some sort of anthem and meant more to them then the skipping itself. It was a strange summer after all. The girl from Charlotte, North Carolina, would marry later that year, a young prince or vice counsel or some such was the one to court her. He asked her to throw rice at the wedding, a family and ancient tradition. She obliged, but kept a small rock in the seam of her wedding dress as a precaution. That is how the story goes at least. 

3.

The dogs name was Felix. He was brought home by father before the boy was birthed and had a healthy two years of attention before the young ball of screams and smells arrived one snowy evening. At first Felix was curious, and before he had the chance to acknowledge the changing landscape the boy had become less of an intrusion and more of a friend. They went everywhere together. Down to the small creek that spilled out of a far away drainage pipe, to search for worms. The boy would laugh at Felix as he rolled through the water, turning his golden fur brown. Sometimes the boy would take Felix into town with him. They carried fifty cents on these occasions, enough for a soda and small bit of jerky. This is where Felix truly found his joy with the boy. Sitting on the curb watching the transports  go by it was inevitable that the boy would drop a piece of jerky, allowing the old Labrador to snack on the delicacy. It was a simple life, but one measured by fifty cents, and a half mile walk home in the fading sun. 

A cold winter rain fell on the nose and ran off into the new year but as far as Jack could tell it was just another day. Everywhere he looked felt like yesterday, the same thing again and again.
His small comfort of maple flavored latte gave him the warmth and alertness to move forward. In the following hours he would go and meet with countless clients, trying to upsell their phone plans to include things they would never use.
His masters in Native American studies obsolete the day he put the graduation robe on.
For Jack it didn’t matter much. The routine had led to numbness, an occasional night out for drinks with old college friends did little to dispel the notion of motions uninterrupted. Occasionally a news story would break and it would make him take notice, but not for long. The next day would be the same. He chose not to complain, many had it worse off than him. Many did not have the routine of a common daily life.
A common daily life.

2.

Candle didn’t wait for her sister to return home before starting the preparation. Local authorities would be by soon and it was always a mystery if they came with ill intent.
It had been five years since she and Bertie had been on their own, and they had managed so far. Only once had an inspection gone poorly and Candle had the scar to prove it. An overeager inspector had lashed out at Bertie and Candle foolishly intervened. She still could see his eyes sometimes when she went to sleep. Orange and brown and filled with violence.
The year after a new inspector arrived, and she wondered often if he had been disciplined or simply reassigned. Most of these were routine, a check of your water supply, a look into your upkeep of the small area room afforded your family. Most of the neighbors passed easily, but once she heard a scream and later sobbing a few houses down. A week later they had new neighbors. Candle was putting away the last of their clothes into a small storage bin when she heard Bertie coming through the front door. 

“Im sorry im late sis” Bertie chirped as she came bouncing into their small abode. “What can i help with?”
Candle gave her a small hug, wiping dirt off her sister’s cheek with her sleeve.
“I think we are good, you remember the rules?”
Bertie shrugged.
“Sure thing sis, don’t talk, smile and let them do their job”
Candle didn’t think her sister would cause any problems after the one incident and she felt guilty about even reminding her. Bertie had felt guilty enough about it to begin with. They only had a few moments before the door speaker chimed in.
“Inspector Visit, Please open up ” came a scratchy voice on the other end. 

Showtime.