Everyone is afraid that the answers are obvious. No one likes the obvious answers. Everyone's in the market for alternatives.
Once I saw an angel drawing a picture on the sidewalk in chalk. I tried to get over there in time to see the picture, but there were too many people coming the other way. I'd take a step forward and be pushed two steps backwards. "Excuse me," I said, and people would smile at me and nod, but no one would let me pass. I found myself forced onto a city bus, wheeled away to the other side of town. By the time I got back, the angel was gone, and rain had smeared the chalk into a colorful pool, indiscernible. I feel like I missed a real opportunity to know something I needed to know.
"How do you know it was an angel?" they asked. "It's the only explanation that works," I said. "I just feel it in my heart." "It was probably just a person," they said. "No. No," I said, my cheeks beginning to flush red. "You had to be there."
Once an old black man asked me for money for coffee. I had the strangest feeling I'd seen him before. "Do I know you?" I asked him. "No, I don't think so," he said. The voice was familiar, like a sound from the past, from that place I always try to remember. "I think I've met you before," I said. "I get that a lot," he said, his hand held out. I handed him two bucks and he nodded and walked away, just like he always had before.
In Greek class we were discussing the preposition transliterated "anothen", as in "gennethe anothen," which is usually translated "born again." "It can also be translated as 'born from above,'" said Professor Balch. "How can one word mean both 'again' and 'from above?'" asked one student. "How could you ever communicate clearly in such a language? Shouldn't a word have a clear meaning." "We have words like that in English," replied the professor. "What about 'over?'" I asked. "Isn't that similar?" Over. Again. Above. Over.
I want to tell you about déjà vu, about how it works, but I keep getting this feeling that I've said it all before. Do you ever feel that way?
Hello, friends. How are you today?
Later. Love.
P. S. - Aphter: Ten. Man, I was looking back over those Aphter posts and DAMN are they rough. So many typos and missing words and bad wording. I'll go back at some point and rework a little quality into them. For now, the name of the game is to keep writing. If I start reworking, I'll despair and quit. Such is my nature. Thanks for stopping by.