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The wizened old rare-book dealer emits an un-self-couscious sigh as he walks his hoarded aisles and straightens up what avid customers have re-arranged in their quest for just the right titles to adopt. He doesn’t know his sighs have been noticed by treasure hunters two rows over. Indeed, he is not even aware that he has sighed.

One collector is on hands and knees in front of the poetry section of the store, riffling through assorted titles in search of a book that, to the dealer, is in plain view. The dealer doesn’t speak up out of respect for the customer’s self-esteem. He figures that, should this woman get frustrated enough, she’ll wind up asking for the book, which he will gently fetch from the shelf and offer to her, thus curing her sigh attack.

A man rushes into the shop, proferring a one-dollar bill and asking for parking meter change. He sighs loudly, waiting for a palmful of quarters, which the shopkeeper gladly hands him in hope that he’ll return and browse. As the street man rushes out, the dealer suppresses a sigh, knowing from three decades of experience that he’ll probably never see this man again, and that the man will never realize he’s not even said, “Thank you!”

A young woman sequesters herself in the corner by mail boxes filled with letters and diaries and postcards, reading century-old love letters written by people whose lives are long past living but whose words still ring true and honest. She sighs sweetly, wishing that she could go back in time for just a minute, simply to tell the authors that she, at least, appreciates their desires and longings and wishes both fulfilled and unfulfilled.

Later, a four-year-old tagalong customer sighs loudly as she gazes at the basket of MoonPies and DumDums, her taste buds focusing all attention on the trove. Hearing her sigh, the bookdealer gives her one of each goody, making sure she takes the time to select the exactly correct flavor of the lollipop, the exact correct favorite that she just knows is better than all the flavors of the world.

One beyond-middle-age browser hastens to the front of the store, holding aloft the grail he’s been looking for since youth, a copy of A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES, “the funniest book ever written,” he exclaims, with a sigh of satisfaction.

Later in the day, when all living beings but the book dealer have departed, he listens to what should be the Quiet, but all he can hear are the sighs and whispers of thousands of bookie souls enjoying their peace, cherishing their own printed words and images, and awaiting the next flux of browsers who themselves will be unobtrusively browsed and examined by the books, the books who become observers of the 21st-century world they notice, bemused

(c) 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed

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Just who are you talking to when you talk to me? Who are you looking at?

Just wondering.

You used to think of Santa Claus when you saw me. Up till a decade ago, people would stop to say, “Anybody ever tell you you look like Santa Claus?” or “Have you ever been asked to play Santa Claus?” or (via a young child, in awe) “Are you Santa Claus?”

It used to be fun, being asked those questions. It gave me a chance to practice my wisecracks, which, funny or not, I still like to make. My answers depended upon my mood or on whatever was floating to the top in my mind at the time: “Yes, I’ve been asked to play Santa, but that would be disingenuous, since I really am Santa!” or “Yes, people ask me whether I know I look like Santa, and the fact is, I really would like to be Santa—not a fake Santa with a fake beard, but the really honest-to-goodness one and only Santa!” or “No, I’m not Santa Claus, but I know Santa…and he’s asked me to make a list and check it twice, and find out just who is naughty or nice.” (This used to impress kids and make them tiptoe around me.”)

Just a few years later, you would think of Ernest Hemingway when you spied me in the shop among all those dusty, daring books. “Anybody ever tell you you look like Ernest Hemingway?” you’d ask. I’d often reply, “Maybe Jed Clampett, but never Hemingway.” or “You mean do I look just like a geezer with a beard?” or “Who is this Ernest Hemingway of whom you speak?”

Then, during the most recent past, you think of George Carlin when I pass by. “Anybody ever tell you you look like George Carlin?” or “Did you know you look like George Carlin?” or (before Carlin died) “Are you George Carlin?” or ”Can I have your autograph?” or ”Oh, you’re just kidding—I know you are George Carlin!” Some people just make up their minds and can’t be stopped.

You talkin’ to me? You lookin’ at me?

And what will you be reminded of when you see me years from now?

Maybe “Anybody ever tell you you look like the Cryptkeeper?” or “Did you play the Cryptkeeper?” or “Didn’t I see you in that movie…oh, never mind.”

I don’t know why people think of someone else when they see me, but I’ll take it as a compliment, since I am someone, and so are you! It’s just that I’m not someone else, I’m just who I am. And so are you.

Next time you see me, ask me who I think you remind me of. Let’s get creative and make sure we stamp each other with the gentle recognition that we are…well, maybe we are everybody, and everybody is us

(c) 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed

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I’m beneath my mother’s old quilt, flashlight pillow-propped and back-up D-cell batteries at hand, so that I can read into the post-curfew night without interruption. The book I am absorbing is The Moon Pool by Abraham Merritt, and it has already captured me by inspiring the first full-color dreams of my subteen life, here in the ‘burbs of old Tuscaloosa in the 1950′s.

A. Merritt is good, very good, at making me suspend day-to-day logic and supplant it with the newly-formed logic of science fantasy. He’s taking me by ship to ancient South Sea islands and en route injecting those wonderful dreams into my imagination.

Part of me, obscured beneath the limp pieced fabrics, part of me knows things like this can’t really happen in the textured surfaces and cold interiors of everyday life; but another part of me, free-falling with the book’s characters into a bottomless cave pit, part of me knows that reality is just another way of living life. I know early on that I can live my life on many levels at once, and that reality is just one way of getting through the day. This is my nighttime reality—the supercharged but harmless-appearing book that I hold in my young hands.

Abraham Merritt, under his pen name, A. Merritt, beckons me to a world into which I can utterly lose myself, but, strangely and paradoxically, a world from which I can escape at will, simply by closing the book—which gives me time to catch my breath and ponder on the activities therein.

Passages like this keep me turning the pages, night after night:

The tinkling music was louder still. It pierced the ears with a shower of tiny lances; it made the heart beat  jubilantly—and checked it dolorously. It closed the throat with a throb of rapture and gripped it tight with the hand of infinite sorrow!

Came to me now a murmuring cry, stilling the crystal notes. It was articulate—but as though from something utterly foreign to this world. The ear took the cry and translated it with conscious labour into the sounds of earth. And even as it compassed, the brain shrank from it irresistiblly, and simultaneously it seemed reached toward it with irresistible eagerness…

This pulp fiction tome and others of its time stretched my vocabulary, multiplied my ideas, focused my desire to tell my own tales someday. It made me aware of how harmless little marks called alphabet and numbers could act as magic wands, spewing forth images and abstractions that in no way existed if you blinked and stared at them one by one. How remarkable, that tiny black and white symbols could metamorphose into microscopic and macroscopic essences without ever leaving the pages!

Hiding under my mother’s quilt, reading the words of A. Merritt and hundreds of other writers, I educated myself—or, rather, I allowed the constant imaginings of others to educate me— about the possibilities of life  and storytelling.

And I never for a second forgot that each symbol, each word, each sentence, thought, paragraph, chapter, each book, came out of practically nothing—just marks on pages.

Thinking about this through the years makes me realize even today that I make up my own existence, I interpret each symbol in my own way, I myself am in charge of whether I am happy, frightened, sad, ecstatic, critical, mad.

Reading a wonderful book was and is like splattering my face with ice water, awakening me to the plain fact at hand—the fact that, no matter how I’d like to blame the cosmos for my problems, I myself am responsible for the outcome. I can slam the book shut any moment, or I can peek at its contents a bit at a time till all is digestible and accepted.

And I can re-charge any book, re-read any book, any time I choose. All it takes is an old quilt, a flashlight, and a willingness to drop out of this reality for a brief excursion to sometime else

(c) 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed

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I wonder what the world would be like if I could be in total charge for a day? If everyone paid attention and followed my instructions, my dictates, for a day?

What would happen during that magical hiatus, you ask?

Well, the list is humongous, but here are a few highlights.

If I were in charge for one day:

Everybody would get enough to eat.

Torturers would have to release the tortured.

No unfriendly shots would be fired.

Wars would truce themselves up and enemies would party together.

Bullies would treat their victims with kindness.

Snarky social media comments would become gentle and loving.

Abusers would shower the abused with favors.

Smokers would visit and console lung cancer patients.

Bigots would do lunch with people they hate but have never met.

Dog owners would not allow their pets to poop on my lawn.

The unforgiving would be forgiven and would also learn how beautiful it is to forgive.

Criticizers would see the wonder in only complimenting.

Shopping center parents would have to restrain themselves from slapping their kids.

Each of us would pick up and discard just one piece of trash we’d ordinarily avoid.

…and so on and so forth, as my neighbor Margaret Selman always used to say.

It wouldn’t be such a bad thing, you know, living in a world controlled by me—for a day. Mainly, because things could go back to the way they were in just 24 hours, no harm done. If people didn’t like my idea of a break, they could just go back to living their lives, forgetting what just happened.

But what if some folks liked what occurred? They just might make a few adjustments and find some better way of getting through it all. Maybe? Just maybe?

It would be an experiment designed to give pause for thought, let folks off the hook and off everyone else’s case for a few hours, lift the burden of hardship or responsibility or hopelessness for a moment.

It would be nice to see whether the one-day hiatus would help people realize what life could be like, if only

 (c) 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed

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It was dark and dank, the night he discovered

what it was like to hold a handful of floor.

He crawled out of bed as if mired in thick molasses, each movement slow and painful, every muscle and joint aching.

He knew at last that he had entered Zombieville. Those laughable actors-on-screen, sporting more makeup and reconfigured profiles than a gated-community trophy wife, were no longer funny, pretending to be Zombies. Now, he was feeling what they were only acting.

That’s about what dozens of friends, customers, family members and acquaintances describe to me these past few weeks. And, unlike most illnesses, it won’t go away for a long time.

Everybody nowadays calls it the flu, but we oldtimers know better. It’s just a really, really bad cold with all the trimmings, and it makes you feel like life could be over at any moment. There is absolutely nothing funny about it, so the term feeling funny doesn’t quite fit.

We call just about every temporary affliction the flu. In my day and my parents’ days, it might have been termed the croup, the influenza, bronchitis, whooping cough, the crud, under the weather, or, for lack of anything specific, opportunity for a sick day.

The most annoying and fascinating aspect of this brand of flu is that it sucks your energy away in recurring waves. One moment you’re feeling energetic and hopeful, the next moment you hit a brick wall and find yourself sitting and staring into space, not even summoning up the will to read or engage in media or even talk.

We’re in this together, but nobody has enough gumption to throw anybody else off the lifeboat. We’ll sink or float and eventually get past this, but for the time being all we have is the knowledge that we are not alone.

Fact is, this particular sickness is relentless, long-lasting, infinitely variable, configured differently each day, and very competitive with the Wellness Gods. What I have found helpful and strangely comforting is the constant act of comparing notes. Each time I mention the Symptoms of the Day to someone, they verify that they had the same exact symptoms just two days ago. Everybody who describes what’s going on today gives me a chance to comfort them by saying, “That’s just part of this thing…it happened to me last week and it will probably recur one day when you least want it.”

Comparing notes, even with medical professionals who are going through the same symptoms, at least lets me know that I’m no worse off or better off than just about anybody else.

Strangely enough, the more extended the illness, the more episodes I have to look back upon and ponder, the more humor does creep in. It is kind of funny, the fact that every superior thought I ever had about being less ill than others, healthier than my contemporaries, wiser in my choice of lifestyle, the more humble I become. I now know that I’m no more damned immune to the vicissitudes of life than anybody else. Whether I like it or not, I’m as human and vulnerable to Nature as you are. I just hope we can all block this out of our conscious minds in a month and disremember the idea of illness. One fine day, you and I will feel so good that we’ll not even recall the Great Croup Flu of 2013.

It will feel good to be smug once more

(c) 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed

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Sometimes a writer’s great fear is that the keyboard sitting there right under the fingers will turn blank, useless. I know would-be writers who were so traumatized by the blankness of it all that they never, ever attempted to write again.

All us other writers know this feeling, but those of us who refuse to stop are the ones who keep turning out the books and stories and columns and poems.

Here’s an example of a piece that wrote itself without my help. Every line is true and actually happened. I just didn’t know the story was within me. I did not let the fact that I had nothing to write about stop my fingers from writing:

SMOKESTACK                

  It was a cool and clear and pleasant night, the night he raised his foot and placed it flat dead-center on the first rung. The rung felt solid and made a satisfying metallic thud when his shoe came to rest. There were no handrails on each side of the rung, so he grabbed the next rusty metal rung with both hands and gave himself a little lift with his other foot, then slowly unbent his rung leg so that he could ascend and place his other foot upon the rung. He gave the next rung up a quick shake to see whether its seeming stability was real.

      Looking straight ahead, he saw a rung right before his eyes, dividing the cold red bricks comprising the smokestack with a perfectly horizontal line. He looked down to the rung above the one he was facing and hesitated. Should he try to rise to this next one?  Why not? No-one else was around, the property from which the smokestack jutted was deserted this time of night. And the smokestack was just standing there, where it had been waiting for him for the fifteen years he had lived within sight of it.

His right foot rose and touched the next rung. Shifting his weight to the ball of this foot, he quickly and carefully brought his other foot up and, behold, he was standing on rung number two!  His hands went one at a time up to the next rung. He remembered the first rule of wing-walking: never let go of one thing until you’ve gotten hold of something else. He did not want to look up yet, because the smokestack was so very tall. He did not yet need to look down at the ground because he was just a few feet up. He still could drop to the surface and not get hurt. He looked up at the next rung and grabbed it, then down at the lower rung and repeated his previous motions, carefully climbing to the next level. Then, he proceeded to go several more rungs upward, taking care to be methodical, taking care to gaze only straight ahead at the old red bricks.

Before he knew it, he did not know where he was on the smokestack. Had he gotten halfway up? He knew he was too far up to drop back safely. He knew he would probably die were he to fall at this point, so he held on even tighter to the rusty iron rungs, aware that some of the cement holding the bricks together was beginning to flake off here and there in response to the unfamiliar tugging at the iron rungs imbedded in it. Still, the rungs seemed firm.

Should he continue? Should he go all the way to the top? Nobody would ever know if he decided to back out, decided to descend while he still had the strength. He tried to go down one step to see what it was like. He was surprised to find that going down to a lower rung was a lot harder than going up. His foot did not find the rung as easily as he had imagined. He could not see where his foot was on the rung because he was clinging so tightly to the upper rungs. He could look down from side to side, but he could not look straight down at his feet. He froze there for a moment, his breath made visible in the coolness of the night, his heavy breathing the only sound he could hear at the moment, the pounding in his ears was the pounding of his heart, the buzzing was from the adrenalin rush from this unfamiliar experience.

He squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, and started climbing again. You’re only fifteen years old once, he thought. Soon, he was near the top of the smokestack. He must be near the top, he thought, though he could not quite look straight up. The next rung he grasped wiggled in the cement. It was coming loose from ages of neglect, ages of hot weather changing to humid weather changing to wet weather changing to cold weather changing to icy weather. Expanding, contracting, meshing cement against brick, different textures slowly eroding and grinding each other down and loose.

He tried not to panic. I’m too close to the top, he screamed without opening his mouth or engaging his vocal folds. Gotta do it, he thought. He parted his teeth and sucked in more cold air, then started climbing again. He was suddenly at the top, peering at the soot-stained interior of the thick smokestack rising above the town of Tuscaloosa, rising above his little neighborhood, overlooking Northington Campus and Northington Elementary School and the Board of Education and the University’s Student Housing and Eastwood Avenue and 15th Street.

Off in the distance he could hear the hollow mellow lonely sound of a train whistle. He could see the glow of lights from Downtown Tuscaloosa off in the distance. He could see the stars hanging exactly where they would be hanging a million years from now whether or not he ever made it down from the top of this smokestack, whether or not he ever told anybody what he had done, whether or not he ever even understood why he would do a thing such as this. He quickly started going down the smokestack rung by rung, forgetting how difficult it was going to be, determined to stay alive to the bottom, determined to live long enough to try to understand why anybody would do such a thing as climb a tall smokestack filled with loosening bricks and wobbling iron rungs in the middle of the night in the early part of his life.

When he wrote it all down a half century later, he began to understand why he had done it but he had great difficulty putting it all down so that you could understand it as deeply as he

(c) 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed

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Now that the world has ended and re-booted,

now that the New Year is well on its way to where nobody knows,

thoughts slippery & elusive & sublime & silly sift their way through my head.

They defy classification.

Here are some droppings…

1.  Today the air is as thin as polished glass.

2.  If I feel good, that means I’m not appreciating those who are suffering. If I feel bad, I am ignoring the joy and pleasures that can be found in the worst of situations.

3.  Hosiery is important. For some the joy of sox is all there is.

4.  Successful politicians are often merely the most skilled and persistent bullies on the block.

5.  “The unjust get  honors when they right their wrongs.” –Sally Ride

6.  I spent time this morning being attacked on the Web. Damned spider keeps building across my path.

7.  Every day on the way to work, I pass all the Overseers of my life: the bank, the power company, the gas company, the water works.

8.  That guy was certainly sober on life, wasn’t he?

9.  At my age, all my irony is sated.

10.  The newscaster pronounces the word decal as DECK-uhl.

DECK-uhl all with boughs of holly!

11.  I met a guy whose name is Christian. He seemed pleasant.

Guess that makes him a good Christian boy—or a good-boy Christian.

12. The interviewer pronounces the word presage as PRESS-edge.

13.  The vehicle in front of me throws messages in my face: KIA Pelham Alabama 61340A7 Sep 13 Sorenta EXV8 Riverchase KIA burgundy color metal antenna. What am I to do with this information? Another vehicle says IG EY Sweet Home Alabama apr 13 St. Rose Academy Birmingham Alabama Serra Toyota Sequoia Force V V8. Hieroglyphs!

14. My age and experience make me more open to experiences and people.

The field widens, the prospects narrow.

15. The interviewee says, “…ranging the full philosophical gambit.”

16. From the Library of Thought: What if shadows remained a constant size and people lengthened or contracted with the light?

17. We are conscious of things, but things are not conscious of us.

18. The reporter says, “…there are a flurry…”

19. Before I found my bliss in the Museum of Fond Memories, I tried jobs and jobs tried me.

20. Why do pilots fly planes? Can’t they drive them? Or steer them?

21. Lies beget lies.

22. Yellow is the only color I know that is yellow.

23. “Everytime I  think of the past, it brings back memories.” –Stephen Wright

24. The hand-lettered sign says, “Taco cards read…”

25. The Fred’s Store signs says, Those wanting to purchase TABACCO must present IDs.” Must bring tobasco sauce?

24. Naughty insect portrait:  Ant, misbehaving.

25. Something only gets to happen for the first time once.

26. Business article refers to “commander and chief…”

27. NPR reporter mentions Nobel Laureate Willy Brandt, pronounced NO-bull. Guess Brandt was a noble guy. Wonder if he ever won the no-BELL prize?

28. From the Library of Thought: What if the mirror contains the real world and we are merely avatars for the mirror people?

The world has ended, a new year begins and I still can’t stop my brain

 (c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

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Peoples of the Planet Earth, I bring you glad tidings of great interest. Here they are:

1.  The Earth did not end last week. I just wanted to reassure you about that, because I know you may be wondering whether this is some kind of after-life, or whether we are now in a sort of Hell or a jokester’s version of Heaven. Rest assured—the world is still here, you are still here, and, yes, this may be some kind of Heaven or Hell. We just have to deal with it as it is.

2.  Some of us still believe in goodness and mercy…and we must band together. Here’s why this may be difficult: The Meek are scattered loosely among the wolves. We survive by hunkering down and trying to avoid the bullies and the sharks. Because we are largely invisible, we don’t always network with each other to protect the goodness and sustain the tender mercies. Whether we like it or not, this is probably the way it should be. Were we to gang up on the bullies and sharks and wolves, we just might become one of Them. Best we continue our quiet evangelism one person at a time, one situation at a time. Just keep in mind that we are together in spirit and mind.

3. Each day, the world ends and begins anew. This means we have no acceptable excuses for misbehaving, for failing to make the 24 hours just given us a little better. It’s a long journey, but each day can be different from each previous day. Even the lead character in Groundhog Day eventually found a way to redeem himself and others around him. He just kept on getting up and reassessing his circumstances. We can do that, too.

4. It’s time to construct our own Mayan calendar. There’s nothing restraining us—we can roughly steer our destinies by simply deciding to do so, then allowing nothing to get in the way. Whiners and naysayers and wimps who just know everything is going down the tubes…these folks haven’t met us yet, have they? We know how to expend our energies. As Duke Ellington said, “I merely took the time it takes to pout and wrote some blues.” Compose some blues today.

The Plan is self-evident. The Meek are contesting the will.

As Gandhi said, “First they ignore you. Then they make fun of you. Then they fight you. And then you win.”

Yep, we are the invisible warriors. All we have to do is keep in mind that the Mayan calendar doesn’t last forever unless we re-boot it from time to time.

Bo Diddley said it all: “We’re a short time here and a long time gone.”

Thank you, People of Earth, for reading these few words. I mean you no harm

(c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

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My dreams are getting better all the time.

Here are some clips:

First dream: I’m standing on the corner of a downtown city street on New Year’s Eve, hawking a stack of calendars. The sign around my neck reads, “Last chance to purchase your 2012 calendar. Get ‘em while they last!”

This dream is almost as sad as the end-stage career of a Mayan calendar salesman.

Another dream: A city meter maid walks up to me while I’m fumbling for change to insert into a dysfunctional parking meter. “Here, let me cover that,” she says, handing me a quarter. “Merry Christmas!” she says, quite jovially.

My dreams often have science-fiction plots like this.

Yet another dream: Scarlett Johansson calls me to express her despair. She’s just learned I’m already taken and won’t be eligible to marry her.

This actually happened. In my dreams.

More better dream: I’m reading a new mystery novel and notice that I am an actual character in the book. No kidding! I’m in the book!

Actually, I cheated. This isn’t a dream—it really occurred. Read Liza Elliott’s thriller,

30-A Supper Club (Red Camel Press, 2012). She warned me I’d be in her novel, but I assumed she was kidding. I am now what I always imagined I’d be: A fictitious character!

So, sometimes dreams come true. Except the Scarlett Johansson ones.

One more dream: The world ends on Friday. Poof! However, I’m not worried because I know what most sentient beings know—the world ends each and every day, then begins again. Over and over. I’m happy about this, since I realize that Saturday will be the beginning of everything, as will Sunday and Monday ad infinitum.

My dream teaches me that if I blow everything today, there’s always tomorrow. And if I keep my wits about me, I should be able to make each day better than the day before.

Beginnings and endings—and how I treat them—offer me renewed hope, fresh ways to comfort those around me who flail about and fail to see the Possibilities. Sometimes all I know to do is sell you an old nostalgic book. Sometimes all I know to do is make you laugh for a spell, to distract you from your travails.

Sometimes all I know to do is write a note like this, hoping you’ll be inspired to write your own note. It’s important to place those notes into bottles and cast them adrift to cheer somebody somewhere.

Note: prior to placing note in bottle, look into the neck and hold it up to the light. Wonders may appear. Then, place your ear next to the neck and listen. Really listen. There—you’re already on your way to making the beginning of the world just a little bit different, maybe a little bit fun

(c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

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