An interlude of the year

spot the heart

I was travelling down the information highway the other day, and you know what?

It was pretty slow.

Very slow.

I watched the computer do its, well going round and round thing, and I thought about the olden days when you had to wait for the television to warm up and I figured, what the fuck.

So I turned off and pulled up alongside a pretty road side bar.

Wooden cabin, a deck with rose bushes growing and an empty table in the evening sunlight.

I said hello to the other folk and asked if I could dawdle a while.

Dawdle ahead they said.

Whilst I was sitting there, sipping – I chose green tea - a small circus pulled up – they too had had enough of the information highway.

They fell out of their wagons laughing, and seeing the assembled motley crew on the terrace they started to perform.

First up was a song and dance number with a tall thin guy on accordion handcuffed to a little round guy playing a smaller Ukele.

Oh yeah they had trouble with the handcuffs and we had fun watching them have trouble, and then they had a bit of fun with our fun and suddenly no one was thinking of trouble.

There were three acrobats, one from Brazil and two from Spain and they were crazy.

Full of infectious energy, so we had a bit more fun, and they had a bit more fun, and they pretended to be getting drunk, well two of them did and the third had trouble getting a drink so we had a lot of fun watching that and they had fun with our fun and then they didn’t have trouble with their trouble anymore.

Someone sang but I wasn’t so keen about that so I ordered a white tea to go with my green tea, and the sun sank in the west and the sky said look at me I’m beautiful.

So we all – acrobats, clowns and assembled tea drinkers – stopped and looked at her and applauded, for she was mighty.

Then they put up a tightrope, and after the tight rope a looser one that was a trapeze and all of that was splendid and even the sunset started having fun and joined in the applause.

Then the little round guy pretended to be King Kong and we laughed so much we all threw paper airplanes at him like in the film when he’s at the top of the Empire State Building.

And I wondered how many of the others had seen the original version because nowadays too many people are on the information highway and miss this sort of stuff.

And then it was done and the sun had gone down and someone had lit the fireflies.

The Brazilian opened a bottle of rich old red wine and he poured everyone a glass.

I went out back and spoke to the trapeze artist who was standing gazing at the moon.

“It’s beautiful isn’t it?”

I concurred.

“But maybe it’s my age?”

So I gave her a hug and said goodnight.

I sat in the car and looked at the signs; information highway left.

Someplace else, right.

I turned right.