by Scott Simpson
So the bell rang and we all punched out, but it’s hard being the American, so many third-world countries strategically located but ideologically problematic, and then there’s the lingering fast-food aftertaste and the smell of the Mall bathroom and the poly-textured rub of the voting-booth curtain sliding open to the sounds of the “historically oppressed” making marketable music for my children to buy but not get, and all of this factors in, but the worst part is when the market crashes and I have to remind myself that a 700 billion dollar bailout, after all, would be just a small drop in the world economy bucket I’ve been kicking…
Being the American means almost everyone wants me to fall hard—harder because I’m holding most of the goods and losing friends fast, making people want to tear down my back fence and scatter my toys… it all makes my stomach hurt--gives me a real global-tension headache…
So, I take a deep, cleansing breath, and stroll nostalgically out among the cold-war missile silos and dream of days when slapping leather solved everything until I’m stopped short in front of a polished casing panel, my reflection distorted and stretched, but still quite cinematic, “You lookin’ at me?... Are you lookin’ at me?” and damn if I’m not doing a great DeNiro, and I slap and slap… but when I turn around, the rest of the world is no longer looking, they all went for Chinese take-out.
Scott Simpson is a former high school teacher, college professor, camp director and lay-minister who attempts to live a contemplative lifestyle on a planet that views quietness and stillness as destructive ideas that could potentially undermine the fabric of society. He, indeed, hopes to undermine the fabric of that society with quietness and stillness. Scott lives on a planet called Earth.
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