The 12 Labor Days of Hercules

Labor Day Weekend is a

good time to work out some

of this writers block that’s clogging

my create holes. So, very, clogged.

Time to hose it all off and start

fresh, with new perspectives,

new ideas, better phrases, and

more general interest.

To really get out in the yard and

stretch those toes out in the grass,

really feel the world around me and

delve into the essence of humanness.

Or, pretend to do those things while

accidentally spilling your beer while

trying to explain to the hot but really

disinterested woman how she should

just give you a damn chance cause you’re reallyniceandpeoplelikeyoueandtere’snoreasonsheshouldn’ttalktoyou.

A Herculean task to say the least,

one of Hercules 12 Labor Days I think,

I don’t really remember the Greek myth

all that well, something about penance

for murdering your family after God madness

and not wearing white or something like that.

See, look at all that oozing out of my

create hole. There’s some crustiness too,

but that’ll ease as the juices start flowing,

and I regret just writing about flowing juices.

Yes, Labor Day, deeply rooted in the history

of Chicago and Greek myth. The Haymarket Riots

and the Pullman Palace Car Company all in Chicago

helped solidify the respect workers should receive.

And Hercules doing all those 12 labors to

assuage his guilt over murdering his family.

Yes, such a rich and colorful history we all share.

Whoops, sorry, spilled my beer a little. So, you come here often?   

The Teller

                Megan sat on the edge of her bed. She was waiting for her alarm clock to go off. It was set for 6:30 AM, but she had been up an hour before her normal rising time. She was holding a cup of cooling coffee in her lap. Her blue and pink robe draped carelessly over her shoulders. Her hair was tangled in knots due to her prolonged night of nightmares and tossing and turning. She still couldn’t get the eyes of that poor man out of her head. She’d never seen eyes so terrified in her life. They were haunting her.  

                The birds started chirping outside her window as the purple dawn crept up over the backyard of her small house. The house she got through the bank. The bank at which she worked. The bank that was reopening today after a year of reconstruction and renovation. A year after that man, whose name was Terry, was swallowed by the bank. 

                She’d been okay at the temporary bank branch set up in the mall on route 22. That was okay, plus there was a food court so she didn’t have to leave to get her lunch, which was nice. There was just so much to see and interact with at the mall that she didn’t have to think about that poor man. That poor Terry. She hadn’t been giving him a lot of thought, until today. The police and rescue team said he was still looking up when the found him. His eyes were still open. The mall though, the mall kept her occupied and busy and shopping. She didn’t have to think about that man’s face as she tried on shoes or outfits or laughed with her girlfriends at their Friday after work drinks at the mall bar.

                She shook her head and tried to focus on getting back to her job; getting back to her old daily routine at the new bank building. She clenched her toes in the carpet of her bedroom and then let them relax. She took a deep breath. Her alarm burst to life; buzzing and beeping and Megan shouted with fright. She was jumpy. She was too jumpy. She hurried off the edge of the bed and slammed her hand on the alarm clock. She turned it off instead of hitting the snooze, which she usually did.

                “Gosh darn it,” she muttered as she stood over the alarm clock and her dresser. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She laughed at herself. Her hair was all matted to the left side of her head and she still had pillow wrinkles lining her cheek. She looked like a deranged surgery patient waiting for the “doctor” to see her. She laughed at herself and put her coffee cup on the dresser. She made her way to her bathroom to start getting ready for work. She had to shower and get cleaned up and find something to wear for the grand reopening. She was one of the only employees returning. Amy had gone on to work at the hair salon at the mall and she was doing pretty well for herself. The majority of the rest of the staff just didn’t want to come back after the bank fell down.

                In her small pink bathroom, she got to the business of getting ready. She was after all a practical woman who needed this bank job and she still wanted to be on time and look her best. She still had the strange fantasy that someday a handsome rogue might swagger his way into the bank, come right up to her teller window and have the courage to ask her out. They might go to Queen Crab and see the bad karaoke singers and have Blue Hawaii’s until the sun came up and they held hands all through the night. He would take her away from her hum-drum life and she would love him madly. And he would adore her. She only wished it would come true. She knew that wasn’t going to happen. She knew no knight in shining armor would waltz into the bank and sweep her away into his limo or anything. She knew that was silly. But still…

                Megan was shaking in the shower. She was trying to calm herself down under the pulsing relaxation setting on the shower head.  It wasn’t working. She was mad at herself for being so upset about it being a whole year since the bank fell down around her and yet she was still being persecuted by the memory of it.  She was told that she might have some post traumatic stress but she didn’t like that hypno psycho jibber jab. She was a woman whose father taught her to deal with her troubles head on. Although he was a raging alcoholic and did leave her mother when Megan was 17 to pursue his own selfish dreams of becoming a crab fisherman. She’d not seen him since.

                She turned off the massaging head of the shower and turned the water off. She grabbed her towel and dried herself off. She was feeling less shaky and thought she probably just needed a little more for breakfast than the cup of coffee. She wrapped the towel around her and flipped her wet hair down in front of her and began brushing it out. She was looking down at her feet as she pulled her hairbrush though her long hair. She realized she hadn’t had a hair cut since the accident. Her hair grew slowly, but now, it was too long. She thought she should make an appointment with Amy to get it taken care of.  Her eyes drifted toward her feet and the tile floor beneath her. The tiles. Yellow and pink, an ugly combination. She hated the floor in her bathroom. She wished it was something else, like wood maybe.

                She imagined a wood floor in her bathroom and how that would look. She wondered if it would look like the old bank floor. She wondered if Terry looked down and saw that old wood floor vanishing beneath him. She wondered what was going through his mind right before he plummeted to the ground under the bank. She wondered what his thoughts were as the great stained-glass dome finally came crashing down on top of him. She imagined his pain and perhaps his surprise at his state. Megan felt dizzy and had to straighten up. She brushed the hair out of her face and looked at her reflection in the steamy mirror. She wiped the condensation off and stared at herself.

                “I’m not going to work today am I,” she asked herself.

                Her reflection shook her head no.

                “I’m never going back to that bank am I,” she asked.

                Her reflection shook her head no.

                “God damn it,” she said.

Terry's Teller

                The floors creaked under the weight of Terry’s incessant rocking. He shifted from one leg to the other with the rapidity of a human metronome. He was keeping some inner allegro time scale that no one could hear or likely comprehend. The floor boards screamed for some relief as Terry rocked back and forth. He was blank faced as he absently stared up at the large stained-glass dome ceiling over the small bank lobby. He was in line, waiting for his favorite teller to cash his paycheck. His eyes lazed about the small local bank’s various vintage accouterments. The large dark stained beams holding the roof and dome, the reddish oak of the well-used bank slip table, all leading down to the golden hardwood floor worn smooth by 110 years of bank customers.

                The older man in front of Terry turned around in line as Terry continued to shift his weight from one foot to the other. The old man wanted to say something to Terry, to get him to stop his ceaseless swaying, but he didn’t open his mouth. He looked at Terry for a moment and then turned his body back around toward front and subtly shook his head.   He cleared his throat and adjusted his shoulders. The line moved forward as the woman at the front with the well-behaved children stepped away from Megan’s window. Terry looked down from his admiration of the ceiling and caught a quick glimpse of Megan before the next man in line at her window blocked his view of her.

                Terry felt his heart in his chest beat a little harder and started to sweat a little. He knew he was love-sick for Megan. He was a mess for her; inside anyway. Outside he had started combing his hair, putting on clean shirts and pants, and even shaving. He had considered working out a little more but what’s a little more working out mean when you don’t work out at all. He wasn’t the physical mess he had been though.  He just hoped to God that she would really see him this time. He’d come to the bank so many times confident that he could go right up to her teller window and boldly and bravely ask her out to dinner. Yet every time he got to her and she smiled at him and said good morning and he caught the silvery flash of her eyes; he just collapsed and asked for change. To do his laundry. And mumble something about it being a nice day or not.

                The old man in front of Terry turned around and faced Terry. Terry noticed the old man looking at him.

                “Serious, kid, please stop the rocking. You’re going to wreck the whole building if you keep that up,” said the old man.

                “Was I rocking,” asked Terry, “I’m sorry. Just habit. Sorry.”

                Terry stopped his swaying. He was lost in his romantic imagination of he and Megan holding hands at Queen Crab Shack while they listened to the karaoke singers and drank Blue Hawaii’s and talked about their love for each other and their future together.

                The old man nodded at Terry and turned back around. Terry hated his nervous swaying habit. He’d been doing it ever since he was a child, bouncing from one foot to the other, constantly moving. He didn’t know if it was because he had so much energy or if it was some other sort of imbalance in his brain or why he did it. It was why he couldn’t stay on the debate team in high school. He couldn’t stand still in front of the microphone so whenever he spoke it always sounded like he was driving by. The microphone only picking up his words as he swayed past it so the small audience only caught every third or fourth word of what he was trying to say.

                Terry cleared his throat and tried to hold still. He folded his hands in front of him and tried to stand with his legs together. The floor boards were silent. The noise of the bank, the stamping, and counting and shuffling of papers could now be heard. Terry thought that maybe an engineer or someone might or should come into the bank to check the floor joists. It certainly wasn’t natural for a floor like that to make so much noise. Terry wiped his forehead. He was sweating.

                The old man stepped up to Megan’s window after the other guy in front of him finally finished whatever business he was doing. The old man was shorter than Terry so Terry could see above his head and at Megan. She was wearing the blue top today. She always wore it with a thin gold chain around her neck with an ocean blue pendant that delicately hung above the soft skin of her cleavage. It was a little warm in the bank so she had taken her black blazer off and had it hanging on the back of her chair. Megan’s silver and gold bracelets jingled as she took the slip from the old man and then reached into her cash drawer and started counting out the old man’s money. She didn’t move her lips as she counted. Terry still had to use his fingers to count most of the time and count out loud. He was impressed she could count so fast without needing to.

                Megan finished counting the old man’s withdrawal and slid the money to him under the bullet proof glass. He thanked her and stepped away from the window. Terry stepped forward. He heard a creak in the floor boards as he moved. It sounded a little different than it did while he was swaying. It was deeper. Megan also heard it and she looked at Terry with a quizzical expression. Terry started to shrug and smile. She sort of smiled back at him and he felt his heart soar. Terry thought that they finally had their own inside joke. The floor groaned again and Terry looked down. He hadn’t moved. Megan looked at him and she started to speak. It was hard to hear her through the glass so Terry leaned forward. A cracking sound erupted and the floor opened up under Terry and he fell through. Splinters of wood shot up in the air and all around as the old bank floor was seemingly digested by the void underneath. Megan watched as Terry disappeared in front of her. His eyes were wide open in shock as he vanished downward. Megan jumped from her small bank stool and ran away from the window as the bank floor swallowed the whole front edge of the teller window.

                The other patrons and employees of the bank ran outside and a fire alarm was sounded. Dust and debris floated up into the small bank lobby space. The stained-glass dome over head shifted and cracked and shards of colorful glass dropped into the widening chasm that was the lobby floor.  The old man that had been in front of Terry in line dove toward the exit as the words he said to Terry echoed through his mind. “You’re going to wreck the whole building if you keep that up…,” repeated in his thoughts as he rolled into a ball to avoid more falling wood from the ceiling.

                The old bank leaned on its foundation and the North corner dipped well below the sidewalk outside. Megan had made it out and she was clutching her co-worker Amy as they both watched the dust belch out of the bank through the broken windows. She wondered who that man was at her teller window when the floor gave way. She thought he seemed nice.

A Hippocratic Oath for Humanity

A Hippocratic Oath for humanity,

I think that’s what we might need

these days. A pledge that we, as human

beings, will do no harm to

others.

The original Hippocratic Oath is rife with

inconsistencies, as any document from

circa 275 AD might be; open to translation,

interpretation and selective inference.

Yet I think the tone is practical and wise.

First, Do No Harm – Seems like a simple

enough philosophy. Just act in a way that

does not cause injury to others through

action or inaction.

Whoa! That’s just crazy talk. Right?

Just don’t do things that could hurt

someone? I mean, that’s just such a

radical concept, from 275 AD.

Those Greek knuckleheads probably didn’t

even know what they were doing, right?

Although our Republic is totally based

on their government and a majority of

the Democratic system of elections was

sort of their idea, but c’mon, they’re all

dead. What can we learn from them.

Enough of the nay-saying. I think

it is only right that we embrace this idea

of living in a way that does no harm.

Not as physicians, but as doctors of humanity,

striving to create a world in which we do not fear.

We take this oath and swear to do no

harm, to take no action which will result

in injury or insult to my fellow human beings.

We swear to hear the cries of the hurt, the

wounded and the shamed and act accordingly.

We make no promises. We make no lies.

We strive to find the best of ourselves and

those around us. We recognize our individuality,

and our oneness. We pledge to

believe in the potential of humanity

to be good and great, through support,

understanding and knowledge.

We pledge to do no harm.

The Miniature Laughing Pig

“Hey, you hear that noise? That strange grunting chortle, squealing sound,” asked Dave.

“I do hear it. It’s my miniature laughing pig,” said Andy.

Andy held out his left hand and roaming about his palm was the smallest pig Dave had ever seen. It wasn’t microscopic, but it was terribly tiny.

“A miniature laughing pig,” asked Dave, “where in the world did you get it?”

“The genie,” said Andy.

“The genie,” asked Dave.

Andy was carefully holding his breath over the miniature laughing pig in his palm. Dave looked at Andy, at Andy looking at the pig, and then back to Andy.

“Are you going to elaborate on the whole Genie thing,” asked Dave.

“Hmm?… Oh, right, the Genie. It was a guy over on 11^th street, you know, that weird homeless guy but he has a lot of gold rings on his fingers. Like every finger has a ring on it, but he looks like he’s been living out of a refrigerator box for the last 20 years? Yeah, that guy is a genie,” said Andy.

Dave ran his hands across his face, dragging them slowly down, pulling his mouth open into a silent sort of bored and confused scream.

“A homeless genie gave you a miniature laughing pig,” said Dave.

“Yup. Isn’t it the greatest,” asked Andy.

“Yeah, great,” said Dave, “I, uh…still have some questions.”

“Sure, sure, ask away,” said Andy.

The miniature laughing pig continued to root and snort its way across Andy’s open palm. Every so often it would emit a miniature squeal as if it had found something of great joy to behold.

“So remember when I asked you if you wanted to meet me out at the bar for a drink tonight and you said you would be happy to,” asked Dave.

“Yeah,” Said Andy.

“Why didn’t you mention then that you had come across a genie or had been given a miniature laughing pig,” asked Dave.

“I figured I’d tell you later,” said Andy, “Plus it seemed like you really needed to talk about something that was bothering you so I didn’t want to be a distraction.”

Dave took a sip from his bottle of beer. Andy carefully took a sip from his own and then poured a tiny drop into his palm, near the miniature laughing pig.

“Okay, I understand that. You’re a good friend, but, like… what did you wish for from the genie that you wound up with a miniature laughing pig,” asked Dave.

“I didn’t actually wish for anything. He just seemed down on his luck so I gave him like, the $1.86 I had in my pocket. He seemed really grateful when he grabbed my arm and then put this miniature laughing pig in my hand. He let me go, he smiled and he ran off. I’ve had the pig since then,” said Andy.

“So, when was that encounter,” asked Dave.

“I dunno, probably like, a month ago,” said Andy.

The miniature laughing pig did sound like it was laughing as it sipped from the small drop of beer in Andy’s palm. It sounded like a miniature version of joy.

“A month,” exclaimed Dave.

“Yeah, about a month,” said Andy.

“Have you seen the genie guy since then,” asked Dave.

“Naw. I think he got like, a job,” said Andy.

Dave watched the miniature laughing pig make little jumps from one part of Andy’s palm to the other.

“His little hooves tickle my hand,” smiled Andy.

“I imagine they would,” said Dave.

Andy and Dave watched the miniature pig leap and twist, turn and jump, stroll and roll, and heard his little laugh as it trotted up and down Andy’s palm.

“I mean, I guess it is pretty neat,” said Dave.

“Yeah, I’m pretty happy with him,” said Andy.

“He’s kinda cute and all,” said Dave.

“Yeah. So, what is it you wanted to talk about? What was bothering you,” asked Andy.

Dave looked away from the miniature laughing pig and up at the big neon lit back wall of the bar. He scratched his scruffy chin and took another sip from his beer bottle.

“You know what, I can’t remember at all. Your miniature laughing pig has made it all seem somehow…, better,” smiled Dave.

“Glad I could help,” said Andy.

They cheered their beer bottles and ordered another round as a miniature laughing pig frolicked in Andy’s open palm.