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Some things in life are so incredibly terrifying, that it’s best
not to think of them at all. Most doctors recommend that you deny the
very possibility of things this terrible so that in the least you have
the slightest chance for a relatively well-adjusted lifestyle as defined
by the American Journal of Health and Medicine.
One of those things, one so horribly incognito in the safety of our mundane
models, is lifelessly drifting in a cold nothing almost 50 miles above
the mid-western United States. It watches with its arms drifting out,
not unlike a boy playing dead in the pool.
Way up there in the black, it’s hard to imagine how fast you’re
really floating. Without the wind in your hair, the cold vacuum can drag
on like a Brian Eno concert.
This unspeakable thing watches the 6th hole on the fairway of the Winfield
Scott Country Club, proud host of the Winfield Amateur Open. The floating
observer has been watching this course for years, but today is not another
foxhunt.
Something very unsettling is happening 50 miles down below, and it’s
growing more concern than algae in a college student’s fish tank.
It slowly leans its head a tiny bit closer and narrows a pair of eagle
eyes to get a look at a young boy.
Far, far below on the Winfield Scott Green, Jackson listens to some advice
from a caddie he met on the range. He was the only one who didn’t
approach him about lessons. Mike is a likable man in his forties who carries
the wisdom of his years along with his youthful thirst. He has Jackson
line up a belly shot with the putter and demonstrates the motion. This
much is clear just from watching, but floating in earth’s outer
orbit, the voyeur can’t hear a damn thing. That would be ridiculous,
seeing as he is nearly 50 miles away with a few layers of atmosphere in
between.
Though it floats like a gargantuan rag doll, its eyes nervously twitch
and stand up in outrage. He recognizes the boy from their last encounter
over 9 years ago, the first showdown on the storm-swept roof of the Shoemaker
house. It remembers the boy that slipped through his silver grasp.
The unspeakable satellite shuts its eyes to recall the night it heard
the boys yell out their names through its storm, and so startled when
it remembers, nearly forgets to withhold a deep gasp.
Just like in a high stakes hand of Texas Hold’em, you have to be
extra careful with your gasping in outer space. When your drifting in
an endless vacuum without any safety equipment on your head, gasping can
really cost you.
Jack sinks his shot and revels in the learning curve. Even though it’s
his first day on the golf course, he thinks it safe to assume that Mike
is the quality caddie he needs. However, when he retrieves his ball, he
feels a deep burning pain within his legs and almost falls to the grass.
If you were to cut his leg like a tree stump, you would find that the
sixth ring is burning hot enough to fry ice cream.
Fifty miles away, the unspeakable thing opens its eyes and silently mouths
out a single name with its cold dry lips,
“Jack.”
[B]
BACK |
Dedication
Chapter 1 - Two Bookends
On A Couch
Chapter 2 - Battery Fluid
Chapter 3 - Whose Fuse Is The Muse
Chapter 4 - Why Widows Sing The Blues
Chapter 5 - Welcome to Sears
Chapter 6 - Fortress of Solitude
Chapter 7 - Rite of Passage
Chapter 8 - Letters of Arrival
Chapter 9 - Keeping Busy
Chapter 10 - You Can’t Teach a Gorilla
to Golf
Chapter 11
- Satellite of Love
more to come.......
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