The International Writers Magazine: Dreamscapes Stories about life

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No Wonder • Josh Flyr It is no wonder he scratches at my door at five in the morning. He has been up since four and his patience has finally failed him. He reaches his catcher’s mitt under the door, unsheathes a single scimitar, and tries to hook me from my bed to play.

He juts his lips through the gap under the door, where saltillo tile half meets matted green carpet, and speaks to me.

It is no wonder he scratches at my door at five in the morning and speaks to me. He opens each day like tearing paper from a Christmas present. Like a kid who’s had the same, single item on his Christmas list three years running, and has spotted half hidden by the tree a box just big enough, or is it? He loves the paper and box as much as the present. He is really into anticipation.

It is no wonder he speaks to me under the scratched door at five in the morning. He is trying to encourage me. He thinks I’m depressed, and knows how afraid I am that he might be right. He knows about Uncle David. He also thinks his breath smells like bacon, so he whooshes great breaths through the shag gap to give me a positive morning connotation. He says in his silly voice, “Hellooooooooo” and I smile weakly before rolling over. He says, “Get up Nowwwwwww.” And I think to myself, “No, today is a day for sleep.” He is quite right about certain things, and quite wrong about others.

It is no wonder, when I ignore his under-door talk, that he goes to the main room and tries to summon the fire department. He stands at the highest point of my short couch and howls heavenward, “Fire! Rape! Heinous Murder! Depression! M’Aidez!” He then goes to the spot he has found but I haven’t, the acoustic epicenter of my small house, and looses his resounding stadium chant, “Pro-zac, Pro-zac, Pro-zac.” He knows which buttons to push, and this one doesn’t require thumbs.

It is no wonder when I storm out of bed and open the door to yell at him to, “Cease and desist, enemy mine!” that he has snuck back to my door, and zips between my feet like brain gas through a popping ear. My bedroom is King Tut’s tomb, the surface of the moon. It is Tarzan’s jungle and he is the great explorer, discovering it for the first time for the hundredth day in a row. He has a fine imagination.

It is no wonder he rushes between my feet into this land of adventure. He is dragged in by the gravity of his imagination. I float in it, a vacuum in a vacuum. In the room behind the fat guy brushing his teeth staring at me, he finds first a sock. Not a sock, a tireless tooth-proof bunny. It hides underfoot, plots cunning escapes, is foiled but plots again. It plays dead. Then springs to life and is immediately snuffed out, the final capture, slimly preceding the final escape attempt. He has excellent instincts.

It is no wonder he’s lost interest in the sock. He has alighted on the plastic wrap from my dry cleaning, a first lunar landing. He steps gingerly down from his moon module and radios Houston. “I am…stepping… onto the surface now. It is…. incredibly slippery and fun. I’m now… rubbing… my face on the surface, and I really… like that… a lot. Houston, I’m going to roll… over… on my back now, and try to… pick some of it…up. Houston, we have no thumbs.”

It is no wonder he was born into royalty; having no thumbs he would have been good for little else. But atop his throne, my roll aboard suitcase, he smiles beneficently, surveying his kingdom. Many born into privilege such as his would have wiled away their young years, lazily awaiting succession. No layabout, he has slain countless cunning bunnies, landed on the moon, discovered and rediscovered infinite new lands, slaying more foreign bunnies, equally clever. He has earned his throne. He is king.

It is no wonder he has so much to say when I return home in the evening, gutted by boredom, dressed like someone who’s been working. He climbs on me and kneads my chest while I recount my tales of skyscrapers and airliners, bankruptcy and bed salesmen, interjecting staccato, “But...” and “Okay, but…” into my breath pauses. As I fall silent and begin stabbing absently at my remote control buttons, he launches impatiently into the fantastic account of his day, not particularly impressed by the details of mine. For one with such amazingly agile ears he is a very bad listener. Nonetheless, he is my best friend.

It is no wonder, I think as I begin to doze, catching fleeting glimpses of a better day tomorrow, a better me beating him to the door at five, that he is my best friend. He is saving my life, and I once told him his breath smells like bacon.

© Josh Flyr - January 2006
azflyrs@mac.com

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