An occurrence at Fargo Street


This weekend just past was when I began my attempts at walking like a human again. Up and down stairs even, without a cane, one foot in front of the other. With mixed success. But you’ve got to start somewhere.

My brother, whose name is Jeff and who is the eternal helper to all of those requiring help, came by to wash dishes, to wash clothes, and to help out with those tiny tasks which require some degree of bending over. I remained in my bed as he cleaned and as he intermittently played John Fogerty’s “The Old Man Down the Road” on my electric guitar. This latter bit was, naturally, a not-so-subtle swipe at my infirmity but also a kind of psychic payment for his selfless assistance and so I let it go. Gift horses, mouths, and all that jazz.

At some point in the evening, I do not know when, the rains came and Jeff called out to me from below: “Harry, come take a look at this!” Slowly though as quickly as I was capable, I shuffled down my stairs, clutching the handrail, feet pointing outward in the manner of the most awkward of birds. I made it.

Jeff and Astro stood at the sliding glass door at the rear of my home. “Am I sleep?” Jeff asked me.

I still do not know the answer to that question.

I still do not know what it was I saw.

Outside my sliding glass door, there is a lighted driveway. There is a dirty carport. There is a fence. And on the night on which my brother came to clean, it appeared to me there was a triangle, three feet per side, in which no rain fell. Hovering, I suppose. A little above the rain-soaked driveway.

Though the rain fell, and heavily, I was able to see through it to the carport and the fence beyond without so much as a single drop of rain blocking my view. Through the triangle.

My spatial recognition is what it is and so I reasoned that the triangle must be some sort of tunnel for, you would agree, a mere triangle or even a pyramid in space would nevertheless leave space behind it, between the triangle itself and the carport and fence, through which I would see rain. I am describing the indescribable badly but I say that move around as I would, up, down, to the right and to the left, I could not perceive any depth to the thing. It was only a triangle.

We stood there, Jeff and Astro and me, staring, momentarily transfixed by the anomaly. Finally, Jeff said, “My phone is in my truck!” and ran for the front door. I, with my apparently humorously shuffling gait, made my way through the laundry room to the back door, for I never use the sliding glass one. Astro merely stood there, staring, though I wonder what it was he believed himself to be staring at.

By the time I made it outside, the triangle was nowhere to be seen. Of course. I stood in the driveway, in the rain, calculating where it had been. And Jeff, he joined me, phone in hand at the ready.

The triangle was gone. Of course it was gone.

“I am going back to bed,” I said and ever true to my word, you can trust me, went back to bed.

I awoke. The rains had stopped. I embarked upon the long-term project that is descending my staircase again. Downstairs, Jeff was scraping at a pan whose time had probably come and gone during the Bush Era.

Standing at the sliding glass door, I said, “Hey, did we-?”

Jeff said “Nuh-uh,” setting down the pan. Jeff said, “Never mention that to me again, okay?”

And so I will not mention it, nor dwell upon it, for some things cannot bear contemplation. Maybe it was nothing at all. I leave it now over to you.

Comments

  1. Being a smart ass (or dumb ass?) I suggest chasing floating triangles would be good exercise. I picture an equilateral triangle. Right triangles are more useful. You found a worm triangle instead of a worm hole that is typically pictured as circular. Did you feel the force?

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    1. Your comment gave me an interesting association. This story begins with a floating triangle. And includes a black hole!

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    2. I'm on an awful lot of medication at the moment. I feel the Force pretty much all the time and if it weren't for Jeff finding the thing, I probably would have assumed I was hallucinating.

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  2. Hey Astro, where the hell were you this weekend? What happened to our planned hot date in feline outer space? I provided a portal for you to get there and everything but you still stood me up! I was a little miffed and hurt, I must say. Did that dim-witted human you live with manage to inadvertently stymie our plans somehow? He's really starting to get on my lasst nerve, you know.

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    1. Astro told me to tell your majesty that he thinks you aren't catty enough.

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    2. Believe me, Mr. Bill, I am holding myself BACK out of a sense of public propriety. And say, if you're a REAL butcher, can you slip me a few chicken livers until payday next week? I'm good for it, HONEST I am.

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    3. Unfortunately I only have chicken die-rs. Will those do?

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    4. Oh, har-dee-har-har. Very droll.

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    5. Ha! Although Astro did manage to post a comment to facebook once (good story), he hasn't graduated to blogger yet.

      But yes, he's been very busy providing moral support to me for the past few weeks. It's a big job and he has done splendidly. Much better than I deserve.

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  3. It is obvious to me that the stars are right once more. All signs point to it. Far below the South Pacific, after vigintillions of years, Great Cthulhu is awake, and will raven for delight.

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    1. I'm ready. One thing that is good about not having a wife and kids is that I'm always ready for big changes to the status quo.

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  4. I hear you on the learning how to walk again thing. It's been almost eleven years since my stroke, and today was the third time in a row that I managed to walk ten laps around the back yard without using my cane and in under thirteen minutes.
    I find that if I keep pushing my limits, I keep getting better, even after all of this time.

    So, I don't imagine you noticed any water dripping off of the lower corners of the triangle, as if the rain was being displaced by it.

    "Lost among echoes of things not there
    Watching the sound forming shapes in the air"

    I was amazed, and hella lucky when I came home from the hospital and rehab. There were new banisters on the stairways that had lacked them, and a bed that was up off of the floor had replaced the futon mattress I had been sleeping on, and soon there was a treadmill downstairs, and when that didn't work well for me, an elliptical was bought off of Craigslist that I did get on well with, and for a while I stopped using a cane altogether.
    Then I had to start using it again because I kept freezing up whenever I got too far away from any walls, which was terrifying.
    But I have kept to my exercise regimen, as best I can in the circumstances, and I haven't frozen up like that in years.

    -Doug in Oakland

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    1. It didn't seem to have water rolling or dripping off of it. It's hard to remember now.

      The underappreciated first Peter Gabriel album! Bob Ezrin produces such over-the-top and random albums that it's never been one that I listen to all the way through. But "Here Comes the Flood" and the blues number? Fantastic.

      I appreciate stories about people sticking with it and overcoming physical limitations a lot more than I did before all of this. I might be changed. It feels like I'm changed.

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    2. The first album had me at "Moribund the Burgermeister" and all of its material seemed to translate to a live setting well. Also, I liked it better when I found out how much influence Tony Levin had on it.
      It was the second album I rarely listened to all the way through.

      -Doug in Oakland

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    3. Over the years, the second album has grown on me. It's subtle. "Home Sweet Home" is one of my faves by Gabriel.

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    4. I just read that there was a huge chemical fire in Houston or some such horse shit... Are you OK?

      -Doug in Oakland

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  5. a little mystery.......we all need a little mystery

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    1. Hi there, John. Yes, maybe it's time for more mystery and less horror on this blog. Seems like I veer towards the weird, regardless of how hard I try to keep this a normal, day-to-day life blog thing.

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  6. Does Jeff play that piece as well as that? Floating triangles shedding rain...I want to see one....I want to stick my arm through one and see where it goes. Why oh why did you just stand there looking at it...why didn't you run outside and stand under it? The fact that Astro was mesmerized by it as well gives credence to your sighting...if he saw it, you saw it. I t was real.

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    1. It feels stupid that we didn't manage to get a picture.

      Jeff doesn't usually play standard rock songs. Even his album is strange loops. But he can pretty much manage whatever he sets his mind to.

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  7. I am glad you can shuffle around--even if humorously--without a cane. Small victories, right? Also, I hope at least Astro is willing to tell the story in the future. Just to see your brother's face when the tale is being told. I know, I know... I'm a terrible woman.

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    1. My brother, for better or worse, has come to expect almost anything around here.

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  8. Wait. You mean that isn't normal? Oh.

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    1. Haha. Maybe I have just never slowed down enough to notice them before!

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  9. What you saw was a triskellion. They are rare, as you might guess, but I have seen them, too! Usually it is in a snowstorm because that is what it does here and I never have a camera or phone because I am feeding horses or fetching firewood. If it is clear weather you would never see them as they are clear, also. Interesting that they happen down your way. I never would have guessed.
    Now I have to go home and get a guitar out and play that song.

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    1. How about that? This makes me very happy and gives me something to go research this weekend. This is why I blog.

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  10. I just read Jono's comment triskellion. I can't top that but I, like you, will have to research as well. Take care, Harry.

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    1. Thanks, Mr. Shife, and have a fantastic week!

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    1. I'll keep an open mind about it. Wide enough to, if necessary, include Nargles.

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  12. I think this is very cool!!! Another great pick Harry!

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    1. I'm sort of proud of myself for getting anything posted at all in the condition I've been in. Not sure when the next one will arrive.

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  13. How much longer are they letting you use Google+? I thought it's days were numbered.

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    1. It ends on 2 April. Something called Google Inbox is also being taken down. I assume Blogger, being owned by Google and not exactly a money making proposition, is next, or at least next after next after next.

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  14. So first of all I thought you were making it up until I read Jono's comment. Now I need to google it myself.

    I've been having a tough time blogging recently, not physically, mentally. Glad to hear you are shuffling about, better than nothing.

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  15. Is this by you, under a pseudonym, perchance? It's got all the hallmarks except it's too profane and long for you to write!

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  16. I might have known that alien life would be in geometric shapes. Just my damn luck. Glad you’re doing stairs:-)

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  17. Are you all right? I need your phone number so I can keep in contact with you via WhatsApp or whatever.

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    1. Hi, this is Harry's brother Jeff. I am in no way the writer like my brother, but I wanted to let you guys know kinda what is going on.
      He has been in the hospital for over two weeks now. He is being treated and I hope with all my heart that everything that is being done gets him home and writing again.

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  18. Just what were you drinking again????

    *runs to get pen and paper*

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    1. Man, I wish I'd been drinking something when I wrote this. It was the last thing I wrote before I hit the hospital and I haven't had a sip since then!

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