Heart Monitor - TLC 45

On the Metro he sat across from a young boy, his mother and father. Father’s hands were hard calloused.  

The boy smiled, fascinated by whirling flashing light prisms. His father pulled up his son’s shirt. On his chest were two plastic suction cups and a machine the size of a deck of cards. Ace high. The heart monitor measured his beats, his life rhythm regularity. His father checked the display, saw the cups were secure and dropped the shirt.

“It is a machine for my son. It helps him,” he said with tired eyes. “We got it at Hospital A. Doctors said it was essential for his life.”

The boy and Lucky smiled, cupping hands around eyes scanning the universe, explorers with telescopic magnifying lenses.

He’s a happy kid. Not afraid of a thing like Tran my five-year old Vietnamese friend in a Da Nang hospital missing a leg after stepping on a landmine teaching me Courage.

“We should all be so fortunate,” said adults streaming sad life tales, “Oh pity me. I am so, so tired.”

Talk to the kid. He’ll tell you how tired feels.

Echoes of umbrella digger stone music faded near young lovers huddled on benches and a beggar dreaming on tarmac.

Children with sacred eyes on magical adventures balanced on silver tracks escaping dark tunnels. They disappeared into wild winter aspen forests as two black-shawled women negotiated muddy paths through foliage waiting for spring to thaw out relationships with nature.

Rabbits running in ditches sang The Season of the Witch.

Living breathing bipedal accidents with a pulse craved a place to happen with insight, precision and brevity. Pearl letters played out on a fragile necklace of water-beaded molecules inside an instant in eternity.

Time is a strung-out pimp looking for a fix and exit.

The Language Company