Signs

1. Of the times

My eye swept across a small sign stuck in the grassy median strip: Panic Contest. In the next moment of approach, I saw that it actually said: Fabric Outlet.

2. Of my age

I was driving a car in which the steering function and the throttle shared the same equipment, meaning that the curvier the road, the faster the car went. This was tiring, so I pulled off the road at an open, park-like field.

I sat on the grass and watched some gathering storm clouds of kitchen utensils. A sudden wind caught the clouds and whipped them toward the west, driving spatulas and spoons across the sky. By some trick of perspective, they were much lower and larger than they first appeared.

A giant soup dipper crashed into the second floor of a nearby house, bowl-first, smashing out a wall. The handle ripped open a first-floor sun porch before the wind caught the utensil and swiveled it around the house to join the others.

I laughed at the absurdity, and noticed that some teens walking by had seen it, too, and were laughing.

“That’s nice, that kids today can see the humor in something simple and silly like that,” I thought.

I woke soon after, smiling, this time at myself, for dreaming in language like "kids today."

For Dust You Are

The yellow crocuses 1 planted around the grave of the baby quail have bloomed in this warm spell. I'm sitting near them, in the back yard, reading in the sunshine. 2 plays her standard repertoire of 5-year-old games: restaurant, house, ballet, sporting event.

Then she slides half-way onto a chair beside me and grins.

2: I have a question for you. If you get it right, you'll get my very best trophy. Who made us: God... or Mother Nature?

Me: Is there really a right answer?

2: Yes! [expectant pause] If you think about what we are... you'll know ...

We speak at nearly the same moment.

Me: Mother Nature?
2: Mother Nature!

2: I thought about it and figured it out for myself. --I don't know if it's truth or not, but it's what I think.

I pretended I had to go blow my nose and ran into the house so I could scribble the conversation on a piece of scrap paper. For the record, I never speak about a "Mother Nature" figure; I'm not sure where she got it from, but she's been mulling over the different between the two characters for over a year now.

What was happening in her brain as she pondered this? What does she think God is that we are not?