The Middle Drama

I arose on a morning to a purple sunrise. There was a common type of beauty but also a special effect that was different. A cloud leaned into a corner of the blue-white globe and created a pink spray kind of like the sky was sneezing on the sun. I always like the mornings, the trees and the early birds tweeting and calling. I like the light glinting off the green leaves and it is fun to watch the leaves rock and wave in a breeze.

Nothing was happening, and I expected nothing to happen that day. I was born in west Texas and lived there long enough to catch the tone of poor me in a poor little town where nothing happens, except maybe murder. I can't wait to get out of here, somehow. There has to be some way for me to leave this dead town and find a real life somewhere. But most people are strapped in, like a child on a plane that is taking off, or landing, or like a mental patient in a hospital. Fortunately for me, my parents moved to New Hampshire when I was ten years old. Old enough to be afraid to move, young enough to enjoy the whole new world.

On that day no one was divorced. No man beat his girlfriend or his wife. No woman betrayed her husband, or paramour. No one radiated ecstasy. No one cast a shadow of gloom. Everyone I crossed paths with seemed equally dull. No murder. No accidental death. No injury from riding a bike or speeding in a car. No trains crashed or exploded with fuel tanks. There was no fire. No teenagers got pregnant. No unexplained glow in the woods. No politician got caught stealing from the people. No business got caught poisoning a lake or a river or my omolet. I was neither hired nor fired on that day, that week, that month, that year. Nobody in my family died or became burdened by a painful condition or disease. I didn't even hear a baby cry.

How dull can life get? Here in Merrimook, New Hampshire, nothing ever happens. But it's okay. Count me among the fine citizens of Merrimook who like peace and quiet, calm and ordinary. The hell with interesting times. I had mac and cheese for dinner, watched a documentary about gorillas. Fell asleep around 9:30, awoke about 10:30. Brushed my teeth, got into my pajamas and went to bed for the night. I had a dream about loving someone, a dream that never ended. Until a crimson morning.