Tuesday, September 22, 2009

The Infertile Brother

Hubert met his sister, Jackie, for lunch the other day. It was going fine: a fancy restaurant, a bottle of wine, a bowl of spaghetti, a rack of lamb, an Italian singer regaling them with songs of the old country, and the feeling of filial love unique to all siblings.

Hubert drew deep from the air in which he breathed. Something was troubling him, which was immediately evident to his dear sister. He took a long sip of wine and then began: "Jackie, as you know, I'm your only brother and, as such, am the only person that can thusly sow seeds of familial lineage. Without offspring to my name, we are but a period, ending the sentence of our generational name; it is only if I have children of my own that this won't be a death sentence, but a never-ending one of life"

Jackie patted Hubert lightly on the arm and gazed deep into her brother's eyes. "Hubert, this is true. It is a burden of brothers throughout the land. The pressure: high. The stress: immense. Those fears of our glorious family name being blown out like an eternal candle," she then blows out a table candle for dramatic effect, "make me shiver in the wind, the same wind that blows out another candle," she blows out another candle, "and creates discord through bringing this ancient tremor to the forefront where all we want is to banish this exigence to the other nightmares of old: snakes, goblins, dragons, vampires, but instead it comes crawling back like the aforementioned snake on its belly crawling through fertile grass, or what we hope to be fertile, but instead perhaps a barren wasteland where snake flops like worm and burns out our family name like the Sun extinguishing its eternal flame," she blows out yet another candle, "thereby creating a black hole where we once burned brightly, like butterflies in the terribly lonesome night sky with no stars to light the paths to the North, the eternal North, now dead and gone like the candles of our dreams," she blows the last candle out.

Hubert grasps in the darkness. "I can't see you anymore. I feel like the first caveman in his first night in eternal darkness! Will the Sun ever rise again! Will I have a son to raise ever! Ah, my sister, I am barren as the wasteland you so poetically described with your beautiful words in the deadest of air, or shall I say dead heirs, for we will have none to carry the light of our name into perdition. I'm infertile and an ill-planter of seeds of creation. Forgive me!"

The singer finishes her song, gives them a frightened look and runs away to get away from this carrier of blackness. Her brother is fertile as the great plains, so she cannot emphasize with this sibling dust bowl.

Sunday, September 06, 2009

The Death of Air

Rolando Martinez piloted the plane like a banshee out of a sticky Tijuana swamp. He was the first Mexican to ever fly a plane, and was given the Martin Luther King Jr. certificate of Justice for Trailblazing! (MLK was the closest thing to a trailblazing Mexican, it seems). Martinez wore this certificate proudly on his sombrero to show his joy at being so honored. Unfortunately, the sombrero fell over his eyes and stuck to his face. "Argh! Mi sombrero es stucko on mi cabeza!" Old Richard Lexington chuckled from the copilot seat. "Got you good, amigo! I superglued it, so it would stay on your head the whole journey."

Martinez gaped in horror: "You didn't need to do that. I would have kept it on anyway. I was to wear it to show my joy of being the first Mexican trailblazer ever, but now I can't see. You will have to fly the plane!"

Lexington's jaws dropped in fear. "I'm blind! I can't fly planes anymore."

"Then why are you my copilot?"

Lexington beamed in pride. "Do you see this shirt I'm wearing?"

"No. My sombrero is over my head. Do you see it?"

"No. I'm blind. But I know what it says."

"What does it say?"

"It says that I'm a trailblazer for being the oldest person to be copilot...and there's a picture of Martin Luther King, who is the closest us old people have to being a trailblazer."

"That's really great. Congratulations!"

"Gracias, Amigo!"

They shared a look of friendship, albeit blind friendship, and waited for the northerly winds and the puffy clouds to provide the plane a blanket forged from the whispers of eternity, for all was dark but the light of their trailblazing friendship: the first old person and Mexican to ever be friends.

Cue trophy of Martin Luther King Jr. hugging a mirror.