Canto Sixty-Three – Harmony’s Response Team Assembly Area
Almost as soon as the crash woke Harmony Castille’s team of warriors, the old girl was immediately busy with setting up a response team in the area of the crash hole opened up by the collision between space cruiser and dome.
“Studpopper, you take point like I taught you. You are a good boy and you know how to do the job effectively if you just remember what I taught you.”
“Yes, ma’am, Miss Harmony, ma’am. I won’t forget what you taught me not to forget in the heat of battle against an enemy that wants to eat me. I shall certainly remember what you taught me because you are such a good teacher, Miss Harmony, ma’am.”
“Studpopper?”
“Yes, ma’am, Miss Harmony, ma’am?”
“You are remembering the rule about addressing your leaders respectfully. You are doing that really well, like a good boy. But you’ve forgotten how to take the point, haven’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am, Miss Harmony, ma’am.”
“You sneak quietly into that hole in the wall and look for the enemy. When you spot them, you signal us, and we set an ambush for them.”
“Oh, yes. Thank you, ma’am, Miss Harmony…”
“And, Studpopper?”
“Yes, ma’am…?
“If you forget again the enemy will kill you. And if they don’t… I will.”
“Yes, ma’am, Miss Harmony ma’am!” Studpopper saluted smartly just the way the old church lady had taught him. “You are such a good teacher, ma’am!”
The beautiful Harmony Castile chuckled to herself as the soldier tiptoed quietly into the breach in the wall of the bio dome. Mere moments later, Studpopper’s hand was signaling that someone was coming.
Silently Harmony signaled Shalar and her other men into position for an ambush.
Senator Tedhkruhz and his remaining elite Galtorrian Guard came marching through the hole, confident in their invincibility. He pulled his men up short and the gloating smirk evaporated from his face. The artificial lights of the bio dome glinted off the barrels of six Telleron skortch pistols.
“What have we here?” the evil lizard-man Senator croaked.
“You would be this evil lizard Senator Toadface we have heard so much about, wouldn’t you?” Harmony’s smile was the cold, calculating smile of the experienced Sunday school teacher who knew for certain she had the young sinner right where she wanted him.
“Senator Tedhkruhz, if you please, Miss Monkeylady.”
“I’m sure I said Senator Toadface. Did I not pronounce it correctly?”
“I am here to make certain that life on this planet ends with its preordained conclusion.”
“Over my dead body, Toadface.”
“I am certain that is precisely what I had planned,” he said as he stepped back and his lizard-men raised their slug-throwers to fire. “Shoot now, men!” he roared.
There was an electric blaze of skortch-pistol fire, a few random gun-thing noises, and then a whole lot of sparking and fizzing as skortched lizard-men turned into powder and foul smelling gasses released by their disintegration.
“Did we get them all?” Shalar asked as the gas and smoke began to clear.
“I don’t see any remaining lizard-guys.” Harmony nodded at her men, satisfied.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, ma’am, Miss Harmony, ma’am,” Studpopper offered from his position on point, “But I saw the Senator slip out again through the hole in the wall.
“So he escaped after all?” Shalar asked.
“Dang it all to heck!” Harmony swore with language that pushed the limit of how brutally an Iowa church lady could ethically swear.
The Man in the Mirror
Every now and again we have to stop what we are doing for a moment and examine ourselves. If we are writers, we tend to do it every fifteen minutes or so. You have to expose the soul to the light of day for a moment and take a look with eyes wide open, prepared to see the worst… but also open to seeing beauty where you may not have seen it before.
So what do I see when I look in the mirror? More darkening age spots, more patches of psoriasis with increasingly red and irritated potential infections. Drooping eyes that have lost their sparkle and now darken with blue melancholy. I see a man falling down. Falling slowly, but falling never-the-less. It happens to everybody with age. I can no longer do the job I loved for 31 years. I am no longer the goofy Reluctant Rabbit with the big pencil in the front of the classroom, telling stories and making learning happen.
Once I was a big deal to little people. Once I created magical experiences involving books and great authors, poems and great poets… and I taught little people how to write and master big words. I mattered like a big frog in a small pond, able to make the biggest splash in that particular pond. I was the froggiest. But I haven’t drawn myself as a frog yet.
Of course, I was never as big as that other Michael. He made a really big splash in a really big pond. He was a really big frog.
He and I have a lot in common. Not far off in age. We got married about the same time. Both had three kids, two boys and a girl. Both were associated with Jehovah’s Witnesses at one point. Both of us never really grew up. He had Peter Pan Syndrome, and I stayed in school my whole working life.
And everybody has a dark side, in counterpoint to their better angels. I’m not entirely sure what my dark side entails. Being a grouch? A diabetic? A closet nudist? But I have one. I trot it out to make fun of it constantly.
But as I was feeling sorry for myself, being forced by the city to remove the pool, becoming a bankrupt poor guy thanks to Bank of America, and generally in such ill health that I feel like I am wearing a lead suit all the time, I stumbled across one of those life-affirming moments. A former student asked me on Facebook to post a picture of myself so he could see how I was doing. I posted this picture.
Yep, the man in the mirror is definitely me. I got loads of complements and howdys from former students, former colleagues, a former grade school classmate, and my Aunt Wilma. I heard from people I care about and they reaffirmed that they still care about me, even though some of them I haven’t seen in more years than I am willing to admit. Sometimes you have to look in the mirror to see what needs to be changed. Sometimes you just need to see the precious few things that were always good and haven’t changed. It is a process worth the effort.
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Filed under battling depression, commentary, empathy, feeling sorry for myself, grumpiness, humor, insight, inspiration, Paffooney, rabbit people, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as humor, Michael Beyer, Michael Jackson, rumination, self=examination