Tin Rocket

He stands in the front yard
with eyes closed tight,
arms pressed to his sides.

He has closed out the world
in quiet anticipation of
what is, and is to come.

The countdown begins,
ten, nine, eight, seven,
six, five, four, three, two...

His arms widen a bit
forming long thin fins
to guide his flight.

He begins to tremble
and then shake violently.
...one, we have lift off.

There is a sensation of
his feet leaving the ground
and his body ascending

into the moist morning air,
leaving behind all that
is heavy and harsh.

Wind whistles past him
cooling his red cheeks,
tears tickling his eyes.

As he reaches the higher
realms, his body falls away,
the first stage of his journey.

His unencumbered being
rockets through the celestial
spaces, gaining substance.

His trajectory ends in the
heart of a massive star,
a supernova of Love.

***

Police arrive on the scene
to find the boy's body
lying in the littered yard.

Conspicuous signs of abuse
color his slight form lying
peacefully in the grass,

a look of wonder on his face
and a rusty tin rocket
clutched in his small hand.

We are all Infected

It's an overcast Spring day,
the ground saturated and
squishing under our boots.
My four year old daughter
is helping me clear what's
left of our perennials, lying
dead in the dirt, making
room for the new shoots
to rise up from the earth.

A six foot cedar fence
separates us from the
wider world where the
obvious evils lurk and
probe for an opening.
I hear a twig snap and
see shadows flicker
between the slats.
She laughs, guileless.

Curiosity draws me to
the perimeter to take
stock of the situation,
peering through the gap,
when an undead eye
appears inches from
my face, and jabs my
chest with its rotting finger.
We are all infected.

Saying Goodbye and Hello to Terry Pratchett

I was saddened to hear of the loss of Terry Pratchett this past week and all the more so because I have never read any of his books and likely do not fully appreciate what was lost. I say that because I was an avid SciFi/Fantasy (SFF) reader as a kid and teenager, only to have that love grow cold and lie dormant throughout much of my adulthood, resurfacing again in my forties. I was aware of Terry Pratchett and his Discworld series, but there were just too many books in the genre to hit everyone and I tended to read multiple books by a single author if they tickled my fancy.  For whatever reason, Terry never made that cut.

My first forays into SFF were in elementary school and included Eleanor Cameron's "Mushroom Planet" series as well as Alexander Key's "Rivets and Sprockets", books that have been out of print for decades and sell for hundreds of dollars on Amazon as a result. I built my personal library of hardback SFF books (of which I was very proud) as a kid by getting my five free books for joining the Science Fiction and Fantasy Bookclub, buying the minimum required amount, dropping my membership, and then rejoining to get my five free books and repeating the cycle ad infinitum (and I say “ad infinitum” for dramatic effect because my funds were limited by the finite number of summer yards to mow and bottles to return for ten cents a pop).

Terry was known for his highly humorous touch, which I'll just have to take on faith. I read all of Douglas Adams's "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series as well as "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" and thought I'd plumbed the depths of SFF humor. During my second year of medical school Douglas Adams and Ray Bradbury were speaking together at Butler University's Visiting Writer's Series. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity, but it was the night before a pharmacy exam that was a do or die affair for me, so I skipped the talk and within a few months Douglas Adams unexpectedly passed from this world.  Ray would follow him about a decade later.  It hurts to think that was the choice I was forced to make at the time.

When I heard of Terry's death on Facebook, I determined I would finally read at least one of his books and stop ignoring him. I stopped by Half Price Books on the way home from work and took in some books we'd weeded out for donation and were languishing in the back of my car. While waiting for my books to be tallied and a buy back offer made I went looking for Terry. There was only one hardback book by him, but it turned out to be the perfect one. It had a cheesy front cover, slightly tattered, and included the first three books of his Discworld series stickered at $7.99. I could hardly believe my good luck (maybe he was smiling down on me).

And to make the experience of fortune-smiling-upon-me complete, they offered me an eight dollar credit for my books and handed me a ten percent off coupon for bringing them in to sell. I gave the two slips of paper to the front check out girl and reached for my wallet. Instead of giving me a total she handed me twenty six cents and told me to have a nice day. Thank you Terry for not taking my neglect personal. I imagine I will soon be joining the ranks of your many fans.

The Diner

***
She sits three stools down
from my precarious perch
at the diner bar near my office.
I watch the basketball game
on the wall mounted TV set,
keenly aware of her presence
at the corner of my eye, heart
dribbling like a manic baller.
I lean forward to make a
clever comment, only to be
interrupted by kids arguing
in the seats between us,
an adorable nuisance that
separates us, for years and
years, drawing us together
and pulling us apart, such
a ringing irony at the heart
of our family dinner here
at the Cap City Fine Diner.

***

The Loneliest Place on Earth

It's the loneliest place on earth: an outdoor subway platform on the Orange Line near Yoido Island in Seoul, South Korea.

***

In the early hours of a typical Sunday morning I awake in my barracks well before anyone else is stirring and stumble around in the dark trying to put on clothes without disturbing my roommates. They are sleeping off hangovers and will not arise until some time around noon.  I shove a few Korean Won and all of the coins I can find into a small pouch that I wear around my neck as well as snacks into a cargo pocket for the journey ahead.

I have to layer my clothes against the chill of the morning, but the amount of walking done over the course of the day will require a shedding process and then a reversal as evening approaches and I have to make my way back north to this Army base near the small town of Dongducheon.  It is the home of the US Army's 2nd Infantry Division, situated half way between Seoul and the border with North Korea, described as a "speed bump" to slow the advance of the North Koreans in the case of an invasion.

The halls are quiet and no one is aware of my movements, not even the soldier on CQ duty sitting at his desk after a long night of fighting to stay awake, watching pirated VHS tapes and smoking cigarettes.  It is too early for the bus or a taxi and so I walk the almost two klicks to the base entrance.

The Katusa soldier checks my military ID at the front gate.  I travel light and have no bag for him to inspect and so he waves me through.  The small town greets me with its shuttered shop windows and potent smells unrecognizable to my nonKorean nose.  The train station is still another klick or two away and the walk a lonely one, twisting and turning through quiet streets, the air moist and cold, like walking through a cloud of lost memories.

The tickets to Seoul cost practically pennies.  I find my subway destination on a board on the wall and tell the station attendant where I want to go.  He gives me a train ticket to the next town south and a subway ticket to the final destination from there. The bench is cold and hard as I sit looking down the tracks, lost in thought.  It's like I'm in a movie about an earlier time, waiting for the train to arrive and hearing the odd bird awaken to sing its morning song.

The station in Euijongbu connects the train to the northernmost reach of the Seoul subway system. When I arrive, the transfer occurs across a platform, train on one side and subway car on the other. The wait isn't long, but one of many pauses on the journey.  I watch a man slurp down a bowl of udon noodles with chopsticks, steam floating lazily into the air.  A book in my cargo pocket starts to itch and so I peel back page one to pass the time,

"I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice – not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany."

I have traveled to every corner of Seoul, a city of 12 million people, by myself and with various Korean friends for various reasons.  It has become such a part of my experience that I oftentimes help these friends navigate it, finding the shortest distance from A to B, which they find humorous like some kind of magic trick.  On one particular trip to Seoul I scribbled down the time it took to get from station to station in a notebook, trying to make my travels more efficient so that I could arrive on time to planned meet ups.  I was always on time, but invariably the Korean friend was thirty minutes to an hour late.  They insisted it was a cultural thing.

But there were missteps.  Once I ran out of money and was on the opposite side of Seoul from where I was staying at the time.  I walked for almost a full day, nonstop, using subway stations as landmarks to eventually find the neighborhood.  Another time an announcement was made over the subway car speaker to exit the train which I did not understand.  The train moved to a side tunnel and cleaning ladies entered the train with mops and buckets, surprised to find a lone foreigner with a book.  I turned to put my feet up on the bench and continued to read as if nothing was wrong.

There were lonely places and lonely times in abundance, but the loneliest was Sunday mornings on the last transfer station to get me to church on Yoido Island.  Yoido sits near the south bank of the Han River which cuts a wide watery path through Seoul.  The station is on the Orange Line, an above ground station that overlooks a wide overgrown expanse that used to be where the Han River flowed around Yoido as a kind of tributary of the main waterway.

This transfer spot is not well traveled, especially on early Sunday mornings.  There are times I sit on this empty platform in the sun, in the rain, and in the snow waiting for the next subway train to come through, the longest pause of the journey.  It is quiet here and makes me feel like I am the only person in the city, maybe the only person on the planet.  It's a recurring existential timeout that has me bobbing on a sea of melancholy.

When the subway car finally arrives, it transports me to a station on the south bank of the river, across from Yoido Island.  Just outside the station is a small newspaper stand that sells a brand of tiramisu flavored chocolates that I love.  They are a quick pick-me-up for the long walk over the bridge and the kilometer or so still left to go before reaching my destination on the eastern most tip of the island.  I arrive on the steps of the church a few hours from the time I awoke, tired but happy.