A crumbling infrastructure, and: Clichés are clichés for a reason

A crumbling infrastructure

I had too much computer. And a bad case of quaint.

Such as it was, time stood still and there I was with someone seemed half my age and less a quarter my hygiene. We walked to Emily Dickinson's grave. We held hands; he said his fingers were empurpled from picking kale in deep frost. I found that twee. In an adorable way.

We did all the things two boys can to celebrate the failure of language. Twice. And then, embarrassed, we stank of each other. Me more. I affectionately called him goat boy.

But never to what I remember of his face.

Clichés are clichés for a reason

When the Sasanian king learned that the poor could not afford to listen to music, he gathered the then ten-thousand known lute players and gave them each an ox, a donkey, and a donkey-load of wheat. With this small self-sustaining fortune, they would wander the countryside plucking and playing and maybe even now and then dancing. However, the lutists summarily gobbled up the ox and the wheat and rode back to the king on ten thousand near-dead donkeys.

The king was understandably angry. But don't believe what history says about him. He did not banish them to wander the earth. No. Instead he calculated a little and knowing they each still had a lute slung on their backs, he sent them away, telling them in real serious king voice that he wasn't mad, just disappointed. He suggested, disappointing as they were, that they would never find a home and never be full-bellied and always be outsiders. And they'd forever hang out on the edges of local fairs with rickety rides. This was a totally fucking brilliant king. Now with ten thousand poor, but mostly just dispirited, lutists, the poor would hear good, truly sad music from then to now even, even to right now. Imagine that.

While I don't find it exactly laudable I do find it fun to think about. Like so many smart things, there is however a kind of discomfort once it reaches a certain level, and you'd prefer the smartypants just dial it down, and your friend just shut up cuz they are saying everything they think about you in a puppet play and not really leaving the ugly actual puppet-themed bits out even though you'd think they would do that instinctively. But no. And then they go on and on about how everything is hidden in plain sight and how look at him over there he's simply exactly what he is and isn't that a treat. And you could certainly take a page out of the King of Sasania's playbook and quote unquote banish this dipshit friend, even this loved one, perhaps even "a squeeze" as they say, to a world where they are sure they must wander unloved, unknown, poor, and cold sometimes, with no ox, no donkey, or a skinny, beaten, near-dead donkey, and nothing but their own smart instrument on their smart but very ribby back. And say, hey friend, the part of me that's stupid's intimidated by your articulate sorrow. And the smart part, tired of your dumb voice. But, go on, strike a chord.

My meat part will listen.