Abuzz - Bruce
McRae that the weighty issues were not so heavy as many had feared. How the rush of the clock was a race with the self, not the end-all and be-all worry imagined. That fire burns and fire cleanses, but who knew which and why some are guarded by angels while others are swaddled in the red rag of sin. You come to see how ‘time’ and ‘love’ are not the absolutes the tutor and priest decided for you. Emotions, they have their place, but also their wages – so hate equals fear and love is the compass the lovely steer by. You come to learn so little matters of so much. That if you keep this pace the years will hurry.
Summer nights we’d gather under the one streetlight and tell jokes and stories everybody had already heard. All the men had the same wife, a frazzled woman who wore her hair pinned up like a latter-day Katherine Hepburn. Decent work, you can imagine, was hard to come by. Our town was so small even we couldn’t find it on any map. We had to stand on the outskirts just to change our minds. No doubt you’ve passed through our community any number of times on your way to some other, grander, destination; completely unawares. And I was the one you passed in the night, hitchhiking in a downpour. Remember? The one you left behind, and for good reason too. In fact, I’m still there now, the rain still falling and falling. Honestly. It’s coming down harder than ever.
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