Arrant Knaves, All

Flight of the Cottonwood Seed

Seven months of living on the dole: a period of Prometheus Unbound when my only daily duty was to stumble my un-caffeinated sandals the half block to the coffee shop, drop two bucks on the counter in dimes and nickels for a bottomless cup, sit on the patio for three hours with a pilfered New York Times, and write an outlandishly abstruse fictional account of an unemployed writer who sits at a coffee shop all day reading a stolen newspaper. But such unabashed freedom is unAmerican, so when a recruiter waved enough green and with the Texas Workforce funds about to dry up, I took a contract job. Currently, I am back in a cube in a well flourescienated office full of busy people wearing their winkle-free professional personae. The first day, I was given the grand tour and introduced as "This is Earl Knavage, he is a short-term contractor."

At first, the transition from the coffee shop to the cube was a tad difficult. I tried to quell the need for smoke breaks, but on the second day I caved with the justification that I needed to stretch my legs and went out to the designated and well-posted smoking area that is rimmed by several cottonwood trees. On these May days, the trees spew relentless clouds of cottonwood seed. "Ahh, the fecundity." Can you imagine what seeds from a cottonwood tree look like? Just to make sure you are with me here. For a whole smoke, I locked in on one seed floating about, high above the Explorers and Suburbans in the parking lot. As if it had wings, this dude knew that it didn't want to land on the asphalt and live a futile short seed life in a Reserved space, no this seed was destine for the rich earth miles, maybe 10 miles, away. Flipping the smoke in the sand receptacle and trudging back to the cube where my coffee was cold but I drank it anyway, I had a warm, cottony feeling shortly before the numbness reappeared.

posted by Earl of the Knaves @ 8:54 PM