Wednesday, April 23, 2008
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sweep the dust in search of dinosaurs
I DON'T KNOW WHY the dinosaurs ran away. But I can tell you that the top of my door is dirty. The top of doors, dirty with years of accumulated dust, never having been wiped down partly because of neglect, partly because of there never having been any previous demand for clean door-tops, no inspective fingers hanging with strained effort from its upper ledges in search for areas besprinkled with seemingly sociable gatherings of dirt and grime and soot. That's why I'll bet you the top of my door is dirty. Because I never get to wipe it down. Because that part of a door gets ignored often, the top of it. And no one ever gets to see it. The topsides of doors. Dusty. My doctor says that I have trouble expressing my thoughts. Thought impedimentitis, he said. I tend to disagree, as most people, even the most agreeable of the lot, are advised to do when dealing with physicians in charge of judging your mental faculties.
But the dinosaurs, I asked him about them. Sure I had complained about the velociraptors going through the garbage. Sure I had grieved about the pterodactyls circling overhead just above the chimney. Sure I had noticed when Fido hadn’t come in from his doghouse a few days ago. But I hadn’t expected such an abrupt departure. I hadn’t expected the sudden quiet synonymous with the absence of prehistoric animals. No more high-pitched shrieks that harkened back to Jurassic times, no more rumbling footsteps of the larger ones outside my bedroom window at night. I told him how I had been playing pinochle by myself when it happened. How I had been winning. How I then noticed the missing stegosaurus.
I told him that I looked at the half-eaten ferns I had planted outside. That I thought it a little cataclysmic how municipal ordinances don’t regulate the disappearance of ancient reptiles. That I had panicked and thought about the regularity of life without dinosaurs. Undone dishes, clogged drains, tops of doors being dirty. The doctor, he said I should look for them in likely places. Then the unlikely ones. He said I should wipe the top of my doors, sweep the dust clear off. So I did that. I dusted my doors in hopes of bringing back the dinosaurs. I ran my finger along the ledges. I said good riddance. Someone ought to have done this earlier. Someone ought to have cleaned all this up.
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Comments (61)
Even when I don't totally understand I'm very intrigued. I have thought impedimentitis. Of course I'm going to use that now. Maybe even in an official document in a patients chart. Wonder if anyone would notice?
do you remember that children's book about a kid who found a dinosaur or something? and i think brought it to school? i wish i remembered what it was called.
Oh, how I envy your ability!
@gloomsister - Danny and the Dinasour WOW!!! I pulled that outta who knows where...
I really need to get dropped off at the shallow end on this one Im lost but I still really enjoyed reading this... Thought impedimentitis sounds so official I bet your a great "balderdash" player..
I wonder how it'd be like to suffer from impedimentitis. Btw, is Fido an Italian dog?
RYC: ROFL. Does that even help?
I'm telling you, you just have a way of telling stories............which reminds me of my HS Eng. teacher, Ms. Dela Cruz, she's a magnificent storyteller, just like you.
@Adamission12 -
wow, that is amazing! thanks.
@gloomsister - I can still picture the cover of that book it was one of my favorites...
Somehow a missing stegosaurus ... how does one miss a dinosaur that huge? I've always enjoyed reading your stories. Though, I haven't been commenting. *hugs* And yes, life is back to its antics again. Blah.
municipal ordinances, thought impedimentitis, playing pinochle with yourself - and winning, oh I LOVE your stories.
tops of doors and bottoms of tables.
being abandoned hurts... even if it's by dinosaurs. (hmm... i can now see a slight connection to old people when i re-read this. no, not cause they eat the ferns in the front yard. ;) ) i enjoyed this one particularly more than the others. ^_^
What about the bottom of doors? They must be fairly dirty. Maybe not dusty, but dirty. Goodness, all they see. The same patch of carpet and bugs and fleas flashing before it every time someone opens the door. Kids kicking it. Dogs scratching at it. The poor bottom of the door. I think the door is a very neglected thing to begin with. And what about it's hinges! Those don't get enough attention either. And what about the tops of TVs! DVD players! Oh this could be quite a list....
ryc: Oh! Your comment makes me very happy! I'm glad you saw the symbolism in the picture =] I was hoping to get that across. I thought it might've been too much (especially with the first bold line tying into the first sentence in the last entry), but I was willing to go for it. I was hoping it would be subtle enough to be noticed.
one liners - yes yes yes. i feel like in most conversations i don't make much sense, or i jump from topic to topic so fast no one can keep up. yes, i do take my pictures, but i also edit them on iphoto, it's not simply the image i capture. and, thank you.
when i was little, i think half of my kindergarten class was always playing house or something but me and my best friend gavin always played dinosaurs. we were so into it. i guess it's kind of like that, they disappeared. in third grade we were convinced we were aliens and walked all around the school on our knees. uh, it was strange. but such a good childhood memory.
i've never thought of the tops of doors. it's strange thinking of something you've never really thought of before.
I don't comment because I never quite know what to say
isn't it terrible? how dirty the whole world seems when there is silence? i would pin the blame on the pterodactyls, he was the sneaky little tattle tale who decided that dinosaurs have rights. they have rights to a clean house, free of dust - doesn't anyone realize that dinosaurs have asthma too? and it had been a long time since you'd let them order pizza..sure, that was because some of them had been putting on a little weight, and it had been thought that the veggie trays were a better idea.. though, of course, nobody would have ever expected the emotional distress this caused for the missing teenage stegosaurus. for her, this was the last straw - and instead of cutting herself and trying to be "darkly misunderstood", she decided that it was simply time to go elsewhere - where they would still let her order pizza, and listen to her darkly-emotional-music-filled ipod..and of course, she took along half of your plush animal collection. and your favorite coffee mug. spiteful things, those ungrateful dinosaurs that seem to think they should have inalienable rights. well, i say that they should have thought about that before they went and got themselves practically extinct before! that's where pizza will get you!
I like the dinosaur references...they ran away. Nice.
It's childlike and all grown-up at the same time. That's the magic of your stories, I think. And I think the doctor has issues as well!
I always love to read your comments and various interpretations of what you write.
An inexplicable thing, but I was reading this and the chorus of Alice's Restaurant got stuck in my head. I think it is the bit about what even the most agreeable lot are advised to do- Loved that.
I really dig the way you can make an emotional print with your stories. No matter where you go with it there is that theme that drives straight through.
RYC: Being we all have the destination, the journey is the only thing that makes it interesting. For now, at least. I am still holding out for a plot twist.
It may be me, but could you pull the two together a little better? Everyone's a critic. tops...of....doors....did no one see the dust disturb itself when the meteor hit? moondust on my door...microscopic nanodiamonds glistening in the ice...did they run away, really? or were they somehow herded off...
Thought impedimentitis... Hahahahaha!
You are so creative and talented. Lucky bastard!
go out there?
hahahahahahahahaha
no way.
I went to the mountains with some friends for a day, and I was told after about an hour (right that the bathrooms were very far away and if you have to pee then you just have to go find a rock.
I held it all day until we started home and stopped at the nearest place that had a bathroom.
I just couldn't bring myself to go out there.
I mean what if a bug...
grosssss.
no way.
:)
As do I
I'm lost for words, but enjoyed reading it. "Thought impedimentitis". What a gift you have. You should come up with names for all the newly discovered syndromes. Bet you can come up with cleverer names than what they come up..case in point- "Restless legs syndrome"