BerNID memory machine

I can't seem to remember anything about my weeks or most of my days. This is not for lack of material. BerNID will remember these things for me.

[bernidmemorymachine]

HER

Wife had turned in early.

I walked to 'one stop'. There I purchased a six pack of India Pale Ale. It rocked dead-like in its black bag. It's weight told me it would taste good -- like the way you can just tell with a submarine sandwich.

Frightening people lurked around the 'one stop'. In mercedes' and yelling at one another, 'don't fucking cross the yellow line.' A dude asked me for a cigarette by the door. 'I don't smoke,' I said.'That's not what I asked,' he said.

Safely nestled in my couch, I flipped a movie on. It was about a man falling in love with his operating system. I imagined my wife snoozing in the other room, grinding her teeth a little, and I realized this is how it starts, and looked deeply into the retina display.

[bernidmemorymachine]

Tip Jar

BerNID remember me this;

Married man walks into tea shop near close. The man smells sweet and old and worked and the register girl greets him with a welcoming smile. 

The smile is dimpled. She is gifted with beauty. Hers is unmanufactured and sunk to her bones. 

The married man asks for a small coffee - black and glances at the girls bosom. She is wearing stripes. He shifts his eyes to the neon words rolling over the price checker on the cash register, nearly the same trajectory as the stare he wished to conceal. The man receives his cup, and leaves the register.

Natural beauty turns down her eyes and continues the count of her tips. 

[bernidmemorymachine]

Races

BerNID remember me this;

Walking down Essex in Witch City, I was spotted by two hounds. They pulled at their tightly at their leads, while their owners chatted and did not notice the renewed fervor of the beasts they trailed.

My dilemma; diagonal traversal of street to port of call without being bitten. I could feel their eyes on me, keeping pace with my increased stride and greedy for a piece of my calf. I was their motivational rabbit and they my greyhounds.

At work,  in a mechanical buzz saturated fug, a round of applause broke out. First from two women that approached me from behind, and then picked up throughout the rest of the room. I had fixed the bug. It was ridiculous, but felt good and I smiled.

The Wednesday-Lenten-Eve-Service was attended by five people. Weather and hump day lull had kept people away. The weeks lenten discipline, represented by black pebbles now left on the rails of their parishioners pews, was silence. We sat for fifteen minutes without a word. The pews rocked in the wind, and I thought of and prayed for the people I love and those in hardship that came to mind. I prayed for my knee, and my resilience to evil. And I thought of the Church building as a teether to the steeple (NECN reported 78 mph winds on Nantucket). I thought of the soft creaking in the sanctuary. The a harp sounded from a cellphone marking the end of the fifteenth minute, and I left in silence.      

[bernidmemorymachine]

Banana

BerNID remember me this;

Oh, Banana; fruit for a mobile age. Fittable into most adult pockets. Yellow. You are edible at a great breadth of ripeness and edges soft yet precise. My taste for you grew as I got older. Banana the social fruit, goes well with peanut butter, may be dipped in chocolate and frozen to boot.

A mother at the coffee shop. On the way to daycare with her two year old.

[bernidmemorymachine]

Alumi-wallet

BerNID remember me this;

To the box of ties, stretchy belts, socks, patent leather wallets, and art books with detachable paints add the aluminum credit card case. Airport proof and water resistant. It is the baby boomers answer to cyber security, and identity theft. Manufactured in a myriad of colors, they fill up approximately the same surface area within your pocket as your standard American wallet.

And they are purchased in bulk. You may not have a grandmother but the ladies operate as a cohort and will make sure that you will find yourself in possession of the Alumi-wallet before you are interred. If not this christmas perhaps next? The gifting may even skip a generation. Your child may pick one up, instantly in love, off the street, and within months you will be in a predicament; break the child's heart and rid it from your world or keep it and watch it survive you in the contents of your attic.     

[bernidmemorymachine]

Dethroning

BerNID remember me this;

A blight to your institutional record, and an exception to the precedent, you bastards at every turn rob your dominion of life. The rules request no talking, banning chit-chat, gossip, and polite gaggle, but a discussion is not talk. Particularly when in relation to pressing matters: Ukraine and Russia and what we did wrong in the aftermath of world war two. 

We should have never let them have an army, he says, it was the only one that we left in Europe. He slides his newly finished portion of his paper to the lady he is speaking with. They are the same age.

She nods in agreement. That's exactly correct she says, she lowers her voice, It comes down to economics. If the economy is goin' good. 

I know one thing. That's for sure, the man says, and with a grave tone as if he is remembering the worst, We need to do something. Can't just let them bully people, him and his bullies.

Then you appear, out of your barricaded cloister, and shush with vein in neck pulsing. The man and the woman regard you politely and lower their voices and continue. You remain to stare them down.

People are trying to study, you say whilst holding a finger to rigidly against your lips. Shhh! Your breath through your teeth is sharp and practiced. The man and woman close lips without conclusion and part defeated.

A medal should be designed for your service; a shield with an x through a pair of lips or a tongue; maybe a filled in speech bubble. The library is a palimpsest, and is filled with the hum of the lights and that murmur indicative of all HVAC mega-systems. Pupils piloting study carrels return to their scholarly pursuits.

Come down from your throne. Reference the book of time Librarian.      

[bernidmemorymachine]

Repair man of particular specialization in the Coffee Shop

BerNID remember me this;

First customers include fitness matrons/retirees, a close eyed buddhist clutching his three jewels , a huddle of contractors bent over their mugs, and an occasional pig. In this town the police get fat, and make use of discretionary arrest. The conversation is good hearted.

There is a latin faction as well. These men are painters, and in the summer sit at the tables outside smoking cigarettes and annunciating the points of their quibbles. One of the group has broken his back, and had an operation to repair it.

He wears a stiff plastic girdle, and is greeted by a member of the non-latin contractors inside the shop, who is sipping solo. They greet one another warmly. Familiar with the situation, the man without the plastic sleeve, recounts a period of his life lived with a knee brace. It was a trying time, he says, At least you can drive.

This man, during his period of injury, did little more than sit in his home, though sometimes he was brought to picnic. Vincent, his cousin came by with his truck, and let him ride in the back. Got a burger out of the experience.

I can still drive, says the painter, but not legally. I am on a drug. Although, I am trying to take just half a pill now. Like morphine. I am not supposed to drive. It is a little painful,  but I am taking less and I can deal with a little pain.

Good for you, says the carpenter. Hey you you know -- if you ever need any repairs done on that thing just let me know.

The injured party smiles. Ok, he says.

Leather straps -- anything. I have my one friend with a prosthesis for a leg. I fix that for him all the time. You just let me know.

[bernidmemorymachine]

Introverts Annonymous

BerNID remember me this;

The networking event was at a converted industrial space of a hot start up off of summer street in Boston. Forty-nine about to be alumni were dressed in financier's attire, and one was in a bright blue button-up and white tie.

I was there to see who I knew. A lady I had met in college was in charge of the event and I greeted her toward the end.

She returned my greeting with a nod and a shy toothless smile. I remembered enjoying coaxing her teeth out of her smile. It signalled a victory of wit to be logged on my ego's abacus.

I told her that I had for a year waved to her when I saw her near my place of employment. She had not waved back, but I assured her that she must not have seen me.

She asked where I worked. I told her where, and what I did. She chuckled, again without teeth, and told me that she had an identical twin that worked near there. Her sister was an introvert as well, she told me.

I laughed and hit her with a wave of unmatched garrulousness. I babbled about my shame/delight/relief at this revelation. Her expression was one of speechless bafflement.

While I spoke at her face seemed to move over her skull and her lips flapped. I remembered then that my last interaction with her had been as a guest speaker and recovering introvert in a session she was holding for college freshmen paralyzed by their social disposition.

I realized halfway through the session that I was indeed not an introvert. The speech I gave the attendees was one of overcoming shyness, and suggestions for doing so. I concluded, 'You too can overcome this.'

There was a Q&A session after and I did my best to respond as an introvert; if I made eye contact I made sure to briskly, and without control tilt my face downward.  

[bernidmemorymachine]

Back it up Kid

BerNID remember me this;

In between St. Mary’s and the Vicarage there was a lady motioning for someone to come to her. She dressed appropriately for a person in a position of care; khakis on the bottom and a Jansport on the back.

There was a toddler with a grin taking minute steps backward, and making beeping sounds like a utility van. His fists were clenched and controlled his retreat. Fist back, foot back, fist back, foot back.

The hat he wore was yellow. It was a cyclists cap and had black lettering. I am becoming nearsighted as I get older. I couldn’t read what was written on the kid’s brim.

[bernidmemorymachine]

Ice Drop

BerNID remember me this;

I walked out my front door today. The porch on the house next door was full of people. Usually there is AT MOST one person there, and only for long enough to finish a cigarette. 

They seemed to be looking at me. I returned there stare as is polite, and looked in the direction their faces pointed. 

The people of this house are not a family. I suppose they have been brought there, because their needs facilitated their placement there.

One of the group is hunched over and takes a morning and evening stroll in an ankle length fur coat.

It was warm, and the snow was melting. The group was watching chunks of ice fall from the green copper roof of a building down the street. Dunkin donuts is on the first floor it is 74 steps from my front door if I ever need a donut. This building is three stories with generous spacing in between. If I had to guess (i haven’t measured) I would say from eave to sidewalk is a distance of 200 feet.

These folks were watching the ice drop. When I returned home (a period of some hours) only one of the group remained. She stood where she had before. I am unsure if she had been there the entire time.