(to be read with a Mark Twain-esque accent)
(written spontaneously 2006)
Walking along life’s road one day, I saw with southern eyes, the pebbles upon the path ahead that had fallen from the crags above. And from those pebbles I divined a thought which I entrusted to myself, to keep, with no little sincerity, in the poke of my own personal perspective.
Jingling with certainty was change that had occurred, broken by the bargains of life into less though fancy forms, and having gathered in deft piles in the corners of my pockets, they played games with my fingers as I trudged amongst the pebbles.
Now, beyond the further pebbles, preceding the jingling change, were the listening ears of jolly robbers hiding by roadside graves. As I came upon the bend with thoughts intensely thinking, I paused to order them, amid the scattered pebbles. Like dewdrops upon a flowers petal, they burned upon my inner thought like a dancing glance of metal. And then (but not long after before) I felt the cool of steel upon my skin, and a thin unseen voice said “We mean not to harm you, but you can assume we will.”
My hands gave up their thinking, and as I lifted them aloft, I sensed the slithery slide of deepest thoughts being thumbed from my personal poke of perspective. Now this was a moment that called for the unexpected. So I began to dance the slow dance of the disordered thoughts that I had seen among the pebbles. At first the silence, though not too much loud, became quite loud enough indeed, and then by increments, a laugher began to grow. The laughter was mine, as I danced the dance of the insane, and reaching amid the mirth I made, I felt an unseen thread…it was the thread of another thought! Then the laughter stopped.
“How can this be?” said the robber of my thoughts. “How can you be completely robbed and yet still have more thoughts?” To which I replied with a wily smile, “Why, you silly, you must to poke your head with a stick in order to get new thoughts, and if you’re really feeling lucky, you can try the trigger.”
“Reeeeally?” said the silly crook, as the glint of greed danced in his eyes. But as he put the stick to his head and curled his finger round, I turned with wide-eyed sincerity and told him please to “Stop!”
He looked at me with a sudden start, understanding just then, that I had his life saved. Then with a sly grin he realized he had been sadly outsmarted. So I calmly took his gun and gave it back to him, and then told him that when thoughts become intents, those thoughts become intense, and when those thoughts have tense, they can even have pretense. I then whispered in his ear and told him the secret to creating new thoughts.
Now the thoughtless robber of my thoughts, lives like a thoughtful king, successful in the poke of his own personal perspective and safe from the stick of stupidity, content with the secret that a wanderer once danced out, as he walked along upon life’s road one day, amongst the fallen pebbles.
-JHJ