writing prompt

Peas and Broccoli

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments

My name is Gus.  Gregory named me.  Gus.  No last name.  Gregory is only 3. He’s not up to speed on the concept of last names.

I’m a superhero accountant and Cheez-Its bring out my powers. I wear them in a pouch around my neck. I can climb like Spiderman, but I can also fly.  I am often blamed for not eating the mushrooms when they’re served.  Gregory does not like mushrooms. His parents insist he try them each time, but he doesn’t have to finish them. Gregory so hates mushrooms that even a taste makes him shudder. He tells his mom and dad that I will just spit them out. I wouldn’t. That’s bad table manners. So, Gregory spits them out.  Well spits it out. He will find the smallest one put it in his mouth with a grimace, wretch, and then spit it out.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

His parents think he is overreacting. He is not. Gregory simply cannot abide the texture. 

Gregory likes Miss Rachel on YouTube and his life-sized Cody doll. Cody is very soft and squishy.  Apropos of nothing, Gregory will holler, “Peas and broccoli” and then collapse into peals of giggles. It always makes his parents laugh. Me too. 

Gregory loves me.

I do not make his parents laugh. They think I’ve gone on too long.  They are concerned.

I think it’s unfair that they try to shoo me.  I’ve done nothing wrong. I am Gregory’s friend. His best friend. His only friend. Maybe when he starts preschool or daycare he will be done with me, who knows.  I hope not. He is my best friend too. 

During nap time, we whisper to one another in our secret language.  This really concerns his mom and dad.  It’s clear that it’s a secret language and it’s clear that we use it to keep the adults out.

Even Grandma isn’t allowed to know the secret language either and he tells Grandma everything.  Even about me. She knows there is a language, but Gregory will not translate for her.

“Peas and broccoli” in the secret language is a phrase of complete exasperation. Oh for peas and broccoli. You get the idea.

But when I’m not around, Gregory doesn’t use the secret language.  At those times, the phrase is just nonsense.

I love Gregory, but he will soon be done with me.  I have served my purpose.  I am similar to his dad, but I always have time for Gregory.  No household tasks or homework to interrupt our time together. His mother is just a lost cause.  She is so stressed.  Trying to keep the home neat and orderly. Trying to get a promotion at work.

Perhaps they are right to be concerned.  They are blowing it. There is only this one time that Gregory will be three. Will believe in me and my ability to climb skyscrapers or fly from one to another. Will make me spit out mushrooms and holler Peas and Broccoli.

Brian

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Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

Donna unplugged the modem, counted to 60 AGAIN, plugged it back in and watched the light.  Blue, blue, red, blue.

“Damn it.”  She looked at the clock.  17 minutes.  They had 17 minutes to get her internet up and running.  She’d called the company three times already.  It was out statewide.  She was just a cog in the wheel. 

She opened the laptop’s camera and checked her makeup again.  The lighting in the family room was not optimal, but that’s where the laptop lived and besides the background was more interesting than any other spot in her house.

There had been a hundred messages back and forth.  Five phone calls.  Now they had graduated to Zoom.  Brian wanted to meet in person, but Donna was cautious.  Overly so her friends said.  She had no reason to think he was anything other than what he said, but she’d heard too many horror stories to relax.  But oh did he feel perfect. 

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Blue Asters

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The stained glass tries to compete but fails to overtake the scene.  The vase too is spectacular as is the old rough hewn window ledge. The vista outside the window takes nearly  5 minutes before it is noticed though the mountains are lovely. 

But those flowers.  That blue atop green stems.  The color of the Aegean.  The color of an infant’s newborn eyes. The color of my love for you.

Shakespeare would have composed a sonnet.  Byron an ode.  I am too close to my dreams.

 I have but these few words that have escaped the remnants of sleep.

Komorebi

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Dappled light in the forest of my dreams.  Serene.  Peace.  At ease.  Body vibrating at the same frequency as the trees.  The breeze lifts a tendril of hair and my spirit soars.  I feel good.

Oh to feel good.  For nothing to hurt.  Not my back.  Not my feet.  Not my heart. 

I can’t remember when.,,  Let’s not go there. 

I want a komorebi tan – light-kissed skin with the shapes of leaves tattooed by the sun.

I remember my first fall and deciduous trees.  I was enraptured.  I made a glue of flour and water and pasted fallen leaves to the mirror of my Sears French Provincial dresser.  I was 12.  The leaves were orange and red and brown.  The flour dried hard and solid.  Those leaves were there for months and months.  Until… I don’t know why or when I removed them.

Komorebi – you can almost smell the fragrance of chlorophyll.  The trees respirating oxygen.  A body can breathe in the forest.  Deep cleansing breaths. Breathe in the now, exhale the past. 

Relax.  Rejuvenate.  Rejoice. 

May the forest always be with us.  May the light always be with us.  May peace be our birthright.  Forever and ever Amen.