Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Where do you want to go today?”

The perfectly modulated voice spoke over a scene of perfect children in a perfect classroom.

Stupid question. Stupid, stupid question. Where do I want to go? Everywhere, anywhere.

Where can I go? Somewhere, nowhere. Where am I going to go? The same place.

Stupid commercial. Stupid, open-ended question. Unlimited answers, limitless possibilities. Only one practical answer.

Where do I want to go today?

Anywhere but where I am going.

To work. To home. To work again. Nowhere else. Time and space flowing forward in one unchanging, unalterable dimension. No tides, no currents, no eddies. Fluid time and space trapped in a featureless void.

” . . . partly sunny this morning, with thunderstorms, possibly severe, expected by late afternoon or early evening.”

Clouds gathering before a storm. To cause it? Or for self-defense? Partly sunny before; partly cloudy after. A partly partly world.

“Can’t buy me love-no no no-NO!”

I hit the button. Want to go today? No. Have to go today? Today, yesterday, and tomorrow. I slid up painfully. The partly cloudy part of partly sunny seized my lower back.

How do you feel today?

The pain in my back will fade with movement until it’s a slow pulse reminding me I’m alive, then metamorphose into a reminding jab.

“I’m in love with you and I feel fine.”

No, no, no. That’s not right. That’s not how it works.

I made coffee. It steeped 20 minutes while I forgot about it. It steeped another 10 minutes while the pain in my back and the pain in my head compared notes to enhance each other’s efficacy. I took a warm sip and added milk. I took a cool sip.

Time to go today. To the office. No partly sunny, no partly cloudy. No storms. No barometric changes. No measurable changes. No underlying changes.

I wore grey. Mostly cloudy. A lingering storm.

“Good morning.” Like yesterday. Greeting, wish, or statement? All bus drivers believe every morning is good, or wish it so. Good or evil?

“Morning.” Statement. Grudging. It is morning. Where do you want to go this morning? A morning like every other morning. Partly something. Same thing. Partly same thing. Always same thing.

I took my card back. I would need it tomorrow to exchange for a good morning. “Can’t buy me love.” Can’t buy a good morning. Can’t buy a morning.

Trees and lake and parked cars and half-grown buildings blurred by. How they saw me and my mount remains, unfortunately, unrecorded.

“Morning.” I smirked in return-not the correct response, according to my manager’s widening nostrils, revealing a theatre of hairy inhabitants.

“We were looking for you,” her lips articulated. I stared at them and their arrogance. When do I want to go today? Not before my arrival was due.

“What’s up?” What’s up that couldn’t wait for nine o’clock, normal business hours, me?

“Oh, we’re having problems with a disk.”

And couldn’t be bothered to bother with tech support. Much easier to look for me, to wait for me, to gripe at me. Where did she want to go today?

Where do I want to go today?

This isn’t it.

Today. Tomorrow.

This isn’t it.

“Okay, I’ll look at it.” After I take a leak. I have to go.

“It’s really not a big deal.”

Of course not. That’s why you were lurking in wait.

to be continued — maybe.

1998