Mid-afternoon.
You are waiting for Carol at Kroger’s on Mason-Montgomery Road. You drove to
Potbelly’s in Kenwood for lunch then drove around looking at houses and
landscapes after a couple of errands, one being corn on the cob for supper. It
has been another busy day where you haven’t had time to sit and write. You had
a good time at Dr. Bajaj’s office this morning, always enjoying a pleasant chat
while meeting. She had a doctor observing her. Both laughed at your laid back
comments. Dr. B reminds you of Carol and you told her so. She looked at your
record and said, “At least you didn’t gain weight,” to which you responded,
“You sound just like my wife.” Before you left she said you had lost three
pounds to which the young doctor was at a loss of words, then you looked her in
the eye and said two eighty nine is not bad when you used to weight four
hundred. With that she laughed with you. Typical banter, which you secretly
hope Dr. B doesn’t mind. – Amorella
1555
hours. I’m thinking Dr. B could have said before entering the room, “This
fellow is the crazy one, follow along and laugh when he laughs and we’ll be
done here quickly.” Actually, I think Dr. B is kinder than that but one never
knows what is said behind closed doors.
You are keeping your guard up, boy. Not a
bad thing to do in such a world where you live, plus it is trimmed in your dark
humor. Not much trust in you. Why is that? – Amorella
I’m
not sure, but the distrust of humankind in general goes back to Kindergarten. It
was probably built in with the “beware of strangers” lectures kid’s get. I’m
sure I took it literally as I did almost everything else. This is probably the
major reason I am pragmatic; although romantic in nature, I am anti-utopia and
I need to bring this out (for authenticity’s sake) with the marsupial humanoids’
social and world family structure. People have to pay for things in this world
but it is not always in money. People pay for security and in the process give
up some social and personal freedoms. From my perspective personal, family and social security are worth more than
personal freedom. Besides, the concept is more social and less selfish. When a
couple or a group or a tribe live together compromise with personal wants and
needs is a necessity. This is a very simple fact of life in my
heartansoulanmind. I know a lot of people will disagree with this; mostly people
who do not have the necessity or desire to be any more social than they have to
be even within their own families. I think the less urban the environment the
more likely people stretch their social wants and needs only so far so they feel
freer and more independent. Rural people (in general) by the nature of this society will be
more independent because it is a necessity. Necessity rules. (1708)
2218 hours. This took awhile but I completed Brothers 2.
Such is the artful task, young man. Drop it
in and post. – Amorella
***
The
Brothers 2 ©2013, rho - a (final) drafting
“What
are you watching?” asked Robert.
Richard not stirring from his
comfortable easy chair, Richard replid, “An old National Geographic rerun about genetic DNA. A researcher is
showing that we men are all genetic sons of a man who lived fifty-six thousand
years ago in East Africa.”
Rob frowned slightly, “So what else is
new? Turn us males and females upside down anywhere in the world and we look
enough alike; I don’t need DNA to show me that.”
“You could have used the heart muscle
instead of genitalia bro,”
replied Richard in feigned disgust, “But it's interesting that by sailing the
oceans those early sailors moved the brotherhood around the known world fairly
quickly. Recently though, science
suggests this argument on National
Geographic may not be true; now scientists think our genetic Eve and Adam
lived about the same time, between a 180 to 200 thousand years ago.”
Robert remarked, “Such is science. What
appears to be truth one day appears to be false the next. You got any new
magazines to read?”
“Harper’s,
but I hid it before you got here.”
“I give you my Atlantic in short order.” complained Rob. “By the way, what did you
think of my latest poem?”
“Hey, what’d you think of my first
chapter?” snapped Richard.
Restless, Robert headed to the
refrigerator, “Where’s the high test Coke?"
“Where it always is.”
Returning to his chair Rob glanced
about, “Where’s my favorite pet of house? Where’s Lady?”
“She’s sleeping on the couch in the
other room.”
“Wake the old girl up for me.”
“Lady!”
shouted Richard, “Come here, girl!” He shouted again, “Lady!” He paused and
commented, “I think she’s got junk in her ears again.” Richard suddenly brooded
on how Rob’s fox terrier, Jack, is always obedient and that he was about to
hear a comment to this effect once again in life. He quickly added,
"Cockers have ear problems.”
“So
do you,” parried Rob.
“Damn
dog,” grumbled Richard. “Lady, girl, come here Robbie wants to see you.” He went in the room to wake the cocker
and she snapped at him. “Damn.”
Rob
walked over to see the comedy. “What happened?”
“She
snapped me. Damn dog.”
“You
must have startled her, Dickie. Rob saw Lady cowered under the coffee table and
coaxed her in a soft voice and outstretched hand, “Come on out, girl. It’s okay,”
Lady crept out with her ears down. “My Jack would never bite me,” commented Rob
with an annoying smirk for added punctuation. He gently pulled up Lady’s right
ear. “Look at the wax and crude in here. Get some tweezers, swabs and scissors,
I’ll clean this out.” Rob calmly petted her and said, “It’ll be okay. You are such a pretty
Lady. Pretty Lady,” he continued, stroking the tan and white cocker spaniel
until Richard arrived with the small box of ear cleaning material.
The
aging cocker soon found herself with cleaned ears and quickly leaped up on Rob
for a wonderland of a belly scratch.
Frustrated, Richard hit the remote and caught the tail end of a
conversation asking for charity."
“Everyone
wants a donation,” remarked Robert.
“I
agree,” responded Richard as he flipped back to National Geographic. “I'm tired of all of it -- the charity,
religion, politics - all of it. Too many inefficiencies."
Rob
added, “Our two dogs have a better life than either of us.”
“True,”
said Richard. He reached down and stroked Lady saying, “my dog cares for us as
only an old mother dog might.”
Rob
responded on cue, “We have to take care of ourselves. Nothing's free.” He
groused, “It's a miracle our species has survived this long.”
“That’s
true,” asserted Richard. “How did we survive our youth in the fifties and
sixties. No one our age thought we would live to be thirty and here we are in
our seventies. The world is in worse shape now than it was then.”
“No,”
contradicted Robert, “it was worse when the Soviets and Americans had nukes
pointed at one another.”
“One
day some crazy will explode a nuclear weapon somewhere and then he’ll say he
has another even if he doesn’t.”
“Why
didn’t Truman do that?” aired Robert. “Why couldn’t we have dropped the bomb in
a desolate area of Japan so its power could be witnessed without having all the
horror from those who survived let alone died in the blast?”
“War
is not humane,” affirmed Richard.
Robert
countered, “But it’s human enough.”
“War
dogs,” noted Richard.
“War
dogs hardly ever bite the hand that feeds them,” snickered Robert.
“Remember
Rob," jibed Richard as he stuck his middle finger in his brother’s face,
"this bone on the hand is worth more than the one critique I owe you."
Both laughed and moved on to lesser matters.
***
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