Water boiled up beneath the bubble, it seethed and spouted. The bubble surged into the air, bobbing and rolling on the water spout. Up, up it climbed, throwing stilts of light at the cliff. Up it surged on the jet, the water falling from beneath it, crashing back into the sea hundreds of feet below.
A thoroughly ridiculous form of transport but a thoroughly beautiful one.
At the top of the cliff the globe wavered for a moment, tipped onto a railed ramp, rolled down it to a small concave platform and riddled to a halt.
To tremendous applause Zaphod Beeblebrox stepped out of the bubble, his orange sash blazing in the light.
The President of the Galaxy had arrived.
He waited for the applause to die down, then raised his hand in greeting.
"Hi," he said.
Zaphod has something up his sleeve, if you haven't already figured that out. Actually, he has three arms, so three sleeves. He isn't going to follow the script that has been prepared for him. Stay tuned tomorrow to see how Zaphod intends to surprise everyone.
I'm not much for going off-script. I like to know what's going to happen all the time. Read the last page of a mystery first. Read movie reviews with spoilers. I knew that Han Solo died in the last Star Wars movie before I even stepped foot in the theater. No surprises for Saint Marty.
This past weekend, I have been dealing with all the upheaval that happened last week in my life. (Like I said, surprises are NEVER a good thing!) On top of that, Friday was the first anniversary of my father's death. That sort of sneaked up on me, as well. Therefore, all the accompanying emotions for that milestone were thrown into the mix. Needless to say, it has not been an easy few days.
Now, I have to head into a new work week, a little exhausted emotionally. For the next couple months, my life is going to be in a state of flux. Not really knowing what's going to be happening from day to day. I can't do anything to avoid it. Emotions are going to be running fairly close to the surface for me.
So much of my life seems to be ending. Depending on the results of the voting for Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula, that part of my life may be closing, as well. Please don't quote me that old chestnut, "When God closes a door, He opens a window." At this point, if I decide to go through that window, I'll probably fall 13 stories to my death. At least that's what it feels like. No, I need a little more time, a little more distance.
Saint Marty has a poem to honor his father this evening.
To My Father’s Ashes
by: Martin Achatz
Staring
at your dust
in
this black vase,
I
wonder what of you
I
possess. The cinder
that
was your hands. watered
tomato
plants every summer
until
they swelled into orange
fists
of starfish. Grains of your
crooked
spine that kept
you
from the missiles and grenades
of
Pork Chop Hill and Pusan.
Or
the pollen of your lips, tongue
that
sipped Seven and Seven
all
night until you didn’t remember
stoking
the furnace with so much
wood
that it roared, turned brick
red,
almost reduced the house to char.
It
could be the soot that was your testes,
scrotum,
vesicles, the place
where
the Y of me first swam
in
white brine the night
you
reached out, atlased
my
mother’s body with yours.
Perhaps
the ember of calf, shoulder.
Powder
of ulna, incisor, humerus.
Or
maybe it’s a part of you
I
don’t know. The finger
that
traced the arc of a neighbor
girl’s
breast under a haystack moon.
Your
grey eyes, the ones the cried
for
two days when your daughter
was
born with an extra chromosome
swimming
in the pools of her nuclei.
An
eardrum that heard Louis Armstrong
coax
“La Vie En Rose” from his trumpet
one
August night at the Paradise
on
Woodward when the Detroit River
was
a black tendon of water.
Or
a mole on your chest that your bride
kissed
over and over on your wedding
night
until it blossomed to the color
of
lupin.
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