No Barking Sparrows

When you find yourself on your knees in the handicapped stall at the local movie theater, staring at the black curly hairs in front of you, life seems a little more clear.

Sometimes, the incessant rumblings of silverware and coffee mugs as the boss rewashes, replaces, and rewrites every syllable you had sweat out etches the tally marks of a prisoner onto the skin of your cell walls.

Or Casanova keeps throwing rocks at your window, only to be a ghost when you search to see who has shattered the panes.

Perhaps, though, Mr. All Around reincarnates into The Lost Boy, and the bitterness of a high school world hides and gathers dust with the diploma.

A friend loses his first girlfriend, and you have now played the part of the victim, the murderer, and the consoler. And each part seems okay now.

As the days wind down into humid evenings of Irish goodbyes and occasional collisions, the prospect of a new life with frigid evenings of Irish hellos steps up to wait it's place in line.

Most times you can keep pace with the sparrows.

But it's the times of absolute will and self preservation, when hair is pulled up, shirts are pulled off, and backs are bowed to whatever has gripped our physical abilities

That makes the spokes of the barking wheels of life shine a little brighter.
Here's to the handicapped stall, black curly hairs and all.