Bot Luck

   "It's going to rain today."

"It doesn't look like rain. The sun is shining."

"Barely. And I see a cloud."

"A cloud?"

"Well, more than one. A couple.

"And that is why you think it is going to rain?"

She laughs. "No, of course not. My phone says it's going to rain."

"Your phone?"

"Yes. The weather app on my phone."

"So you trust a square you can't communicate with more than the two eyes--and brain--you were born with?"

"Well, it knows more than I do."

"It?"

"The Bot it. The Bot who puts information on our phones. You know, the automatic information transmitted to us--all of us--and mine says 'Present location, rain 90%.'"

"And the eyes and brain you were born with?"

"You already said that. My eyes can read the very clear message, and my brain interprets it. Accurately, I might add."

"And what do your eyes see when you look out the window?"

She walks over to the kitchen window, makes a show of peering intently across the back yard, then left, right, then up...just as the first drops of rain begin to fall, and, in celebration and affirmation, the first clap of thunder.

"Thank you, Ms. Bot," she says, not loudly, but calmly and without the inner smirk showing on her face.

He is silent for a full minute, then says, "Well, you've always been lucky."

"Yes, I know," she says. "Married you, didn't I?"

Skipped Generation

    Marianna was shy, quiet, reserved, but she knew how to pay attention. That's what her mother had said. "You are always there, paying attention. Watching, but silent. Too silent."

Mariana didn't know what that meant..."always there!" A bother? In the way? Her mother's voice was kind, but controlled, when she said that, on the edge of appreciative rather than condescending or critical, so Marianna guessed, no, knew it was a compliment, well, almost a compliment, something her mother had appreciated about her or, at least, could bear.

Not that she was perfect. Oh, no, that had always been clear. You would be so pretty if you.... or Women that make something of themselves always.... and, once, Speak up! Say something, anything--Spoken too loudly, almost a shout. Marianna wished now she'd been able to say, "I'm just thinking or I'm not good at that or I'm trying, or, more truthfully, I can't.

She was used to herself now, and had a life, a partner, a job, a few friends and, best of all, a chatty, witty daughter who talked all the time, even before the sounds coming out of her mouth were more than syllables, her babble practice for the stream of language that eventually emerged--opinions, joy, anxieties pouring from the music of that little girl's mouth.

"Do you ever stop talking?" Marianna asked once, overwhelmed by the flow of language from a tiny girl's mouth. Her daughter looked up in surprise and behind the surprise, was hurt--or was it embarrassment, a feeling Marianna knew well.

"I love listening to you," Marianna said. "Don't stop now!" 

She took a breath, her daughter took a breath, and chatted on, and then following, after that and well, guess what? .....How her mother would have adored this child, this tiny child, this impossibly wonderful little girl who always had plenty to say, even when nobody was listening.

The Other Way

     Too much coffee, not enough toast described his breakfast perfectly. His daily menu left a hole in his  stomach, a caffeinated black brew that sloshed when he stood up, and dissolved the crumbs of toast, white toast, before it reached his gut.

    "Too much coffee," he said aloud. "That's what's wrong with me."

    "Nothing wrong with you," the young doctor had said. "Heart sounds good, lungs doing their job. You're going to live to be a hundred," he'd said, and then laughed as if that would be a good thing. Who wouldn't want to be a hundred, get your picture in the paper, and a birthday card from the president?

    He did not want to be a hundred, did not want another 12 years sloshing around his flat. She'd always called their apartment their "flat" although he'd pointed out, more than once, that there was nothing flat about it. The walls were a glossy hue of undulating golds and greens--her choice; the table was round and the backs of the chairs, curved--his handiwork.

    "And," he said, always the clincher, "We don't live in England."

    "But we could," she would say. "Or should. Even ought."

    "But we don't," he'd thunder. He knew now that his voice was too loud, especially when he was irritated or adamant. "We don't!" he'd said more than once.

    "But we could!" Her come back, always, not as loudly as his, but just as sure. "We could."

    A silly argument, one of those pointless back and forths they'd practiced for years, almost a call and response: I'm right and you're wrong. Or maybe it was just I'm me and you're you. Not really the game they pretended it was, but a statement of the obvious: he was he and she was she.

    Now he was alone and could do whatever he wanted.

    Yippee!

    But...

    (There's always a "but.")

    But it was so much better the other way.

The Better Question

She heard the chirping before she saw the birds, baby robins in the nest she'd watched their industrious mother build, strand by twig by stalk with, Miranda was delighted to notice, a few strands of the blue yarn she'd scattered on the lawn for the birds and their nests...to make a house a home, she explained when Robert, her next door neighbor, asked if she was expecting the night fairies do weave all that mess into something.

She'd resisted correcting his word "mess" into "100% organic wool sheared from highland alpaca known for their calm disposition." 

"It's for the birds," she had said,  but he harrumphed off before she could explain that it was for their nests. The yarn, the alpaca yarn, was a bit of softness and beauty, not a mess.

His last words, shouted before he slammed his door, "Birds don't eat string!"

Poor man. She knew too well the signs of misery and dissatisfaction, been there herself when nothing was beautiful and everything a problem, designed to confuse her, trip her up, make her or something (there weren't any someones then) she cared about miserable.

She thought of knocking on his door, telling him what she'd learned by being quiet, by sitting--alone--and she, like Robert, was alone, but sitting alone at her front window and watching the world emerge before her very eyes brought her joy every day.

"You can do it at any hour," she'd say, "Morning, noon, or night. It's my time to be outside of myself and in the world without moving, to see the beauty we were born to."

She rehearsed the words in her head, silently, twice, imagined his harrumph, his perfected scowl, even his slamming the door. The more she thought about him in the little, perfectly groomed house, not a fallen twig on the sidewalk or a scratch on the smooth grey clapboard siding, the more she knew she had to do it.

She play acted the scene in her head: her timid approach, the too soft knock on the door, him flinging it open and shouting, "What?"or "We don't want any...or...."

But if she had a cherry pie in her hand, or even a plate of cookies, it might please him, might slow him down enough to see what she offered.

"But why bother?" she thought.

"Why not?" she said out loud, always the better question.

~

Two days later the perfectly washed plate appeared on her porch with a one word note: Thanx. 

Best he could do and good enough. Good enough is always enough.

Last Word

        "Do you believe in ghosts?"

"No."

"No?"

"Well, pretty much no."

"What about spirits?"

"Define spirits."

"A presence. A feeling. An inclination."

"Related to spiritual?"

"Well, Most likely, don't you agree?"

"Well, possibly etymologically related."

"For sure."

"So, if 'spiritual' is real--an adjective describing a genuine, as in real, feeling, then it follows that spirit must be real, and if spirit is real, spirit, a noun which can be made plural, then spirits are also real."

"Is that what you think?"

"Well, logically, it follows."

"Yes. So?"

"So, have you experienced the spiritual?"

"Define 'spiritual.'"

"'Of, relating to, consisting of, or affecting, the spirit.'"

"Not helpful, if you use a variation of the word to define it."

"What about 'of or related to sacred matters?'"

"Better. But then, define the singular 'spirit' for me please, Ms. Webster."

"'An animating or vital principle held to give life to physical organisms.'"

"Hmmm. You googled it, didn't you?"

"So what?"

"But what is it? A feeling? If it is just a feeling, then it's not real, not temporal. You can't touch it or see it, so it's not really there."

"Like sadness."

"Huh?"

"You can't touch sadness, so it's not real. Is that what you're saying?"

"Well, you can pass it on."

"Like catsup?"

She laughs. Nods. "Yes, not physically like passing the catsup, but if you ask me why I'm sad, then you might feel sad too."

"Not always."

"Well, I don't always pass the catsup, either, but it is probable that if you pass the catsup, I will receive it--just as it is possible to pass a feeling on by sharing it. I tell you my sad . . ."

"Or spiritual..."

"....story, and then we both feel sad."

"But, I know what it is to feel sad and you know what it is to feel sad. Happens all the time. Sadness is a common, everyday feeling. But spiritual is different, harder."

"Exactly! But that doesn't mean its not there."

He throws up his hands, ready to be done with the conversation, but determined to have the last word. "Why don't you always pass the catsup?"

Question of the Day

   "There's a bird out there," she said.

"Lot's of birds," he said without looking up. "The world is full of birds. Ants too."

"Ants! What do ants have to do with birds?"

He didn't answer immediately, couldn't, too deep in the paper, the news of the day that trumped (ha, ha) everything. "He's been fined $9000. For contempt, of course. His specialty."

"The bird?" She knew it wasn't the bird, knew what he meant, but she had given up reading the paper, even the comics which weren't really comic.

It was a big bird, crow-like, but not a crow, maybe a raven, standing....or sitting on the apple tree outside the window, waiting for the first buds and blossoms? or leaves at least? It was spring, and she too was waiting for warmth and flowers, apple blossoms and eventually those too small, but still delicious apples from the tree they'd planted when they bought the house 30 years ago--or was it 40? Before everything, before children, dogs, the scrawny cat who wandered in, when it was just the two of them, fresh and unwrinkled.

She smiled at the memory, touched her neck, smiled again at the way random thoughts took over so easily, and wondered, aloud, "Do birds have wrinkles?

He jerked up at that. She knew he loved her questions, her too-early-in-the-morning questions, even though he repeatedly denied it.

"Do birds have wrinkles?" she said again, "Under all those feathers?"

"No, never," he said, his early morning response always authoritative. "Think about it," his daily opening for her question of the day, think about it, then, always, his own question. "Have you ever cooked a chicken, a skin-on chicken?"

"Of course," she said.

"And what do you see? Dots or pricks where the feathers were pulled--blemishes, scars, but no wrinkles."

"You are so smart," she said, as she always did, and went back to watching the full-feathered, wrinkle-free crow. Or raven. Maybe it was a raven.