chase scenes serial #23
syrup-minded barristas at Coffee Break. The people were not unpleasant. It was more that they were used to a series of people who knew the ropes, and, especially at this early date, were slightly bemused by clueless greenhorns like ourselves. I have gotten distracted here. Perhaps it is the aimlessness of the project or that I have forgotten which episodes I have slipped into the streaming mess thus far. We are on our descent into the Atlanta airport and I believe, for my own benefit, I will terminate the text there. The last thing I need is to inject another ill-conceived time burglar into my daily life. I have enough projects that I am already not putting the respect and depth of thought toward. This one, although it could clearly have a manageable extent, that being the satisfactory address of all materials, thoughts, and locales that filled the seventytwo (72) hours I was out of sorts. Yet, now the, no, now our altitude has gotten low enough that I had to put away my headphones, I have to listen to babies blubber and their parents bicker and talk about their friends, and their friends televisions.‡
‡ There is nothing more to say about North Dakota now. Perhaps even more completely than they would had I merely mused upon them in the context of the trip, any episodes that I have neglected have escaped my memory. I suppose talking to my father, or hearing tales of other peoples’ travels might cause them to resurface, [or reconstruct themselves from some partial edges of memories sketched concretely here, into something that I had not even experienced], but that is not the concern of these writings. These were never meant to be comprehensive, always unfinished and digressive. The smell of burning wood fills my nose at dusk on this Sunday evening in Atlanta, dogs bark, it is unseasonably cool, I feel, as I write these lines, in pencil, without fear, that I am back in my body, back in time that runs with me, two abreast, another jet engine hides in the sky.