My Summer Vacation

It was late summer and my family all got together to take a trip, just like we used to do years ago.  We traveled to somewhere east of here, some old unremarkable town, and we stayed at a bed and breakfast just off the main street.  Our cars were all parked about a quarter of a mile away under a grove of trees out behind the football field of the local high school.  In the dim and drowsy evenings we would take long walks down to this school to get things that were still packed away in the back seats and the trunks, swatting at the mosquitoes in the thick air and straying to the sidewalks whenever an approaching vehicle caught us in the beam of their headlights.

There seemed to be some concern over whether our cars would start or how we were getting home or perhaps even where we were.  But the days just passed by in lethargic apathy, the smaller kids having settled in on loose mattresses in a spare room at the back of the house, the scattered socks and picture books and stale air, the adults all sitting around the living room, passing the afternoons amid newspapers and coffee cups as the sun tracked its course across the front windows and that endless paper strip of sky cranked from clouds to stars, another bright day giving way to another humid night, the proprietor's dog curled up under the shadow of an end table, the crickets out there in the dark, no one really feeling the need to talk. 

There was an older couple also staying there at the bed and breakfast, and on one occasion when we were all sitting around considering what to do about our cars, the wife told us, "The only real vacation is the kind where you're not sure how you're going to make it back. And you don't care."  And so it was with them.  The lady passed away the following night, right there in her bed.  They took her out the next morning with the sheet pulled over her head, the ambulance waiting out at the curb. But there were no tears or regrets.  It was just another thing that came and went. 

A Brand New Machine

I went back to visit the old plastic factory where I used to work.  The quality control woman was showing me around the place.  I could see that a good number of the old presses had been removed and quite a few others had been gutted for parts, to the point that I began to wonder how the place could still rightfully call itself a plastic factory.  There were just oily pits left on the floor where the presses had been.

But then she led me back to a spot in the back corner of the shop where a crowd of workers had gathered.  I pushed through to the front and saw what they were all gaping at.  It was a completely new kind of press.  Instead of using the crude method of melting the plastic and injecting it into a mold, this new press assembled the part molecule by molecule from a digital blueprint.  Through the glass I could see a set of metal styluses at work, weaving the part together out of arcs of blue electricity.  After this impressively rapid fabrication, the parts would drop onto a conveyor below the machine.

The woman running this machine sat before a silver bank of levers and dials.  She checked the readings on a display and marked endless figures down a clipboard.  I thought about how it would be to work a shift at this new machine.  I figured it would be easier, most certainly cleaner, but probably as mind-numbing as ever.  I pushed back out of the crowd, and left the shop out through the bay door, and emerged into the bright blue day with a sigh.  

Color Blind Test

Early one Saturday morning when I was still little, my father took me down to the school to have me tested for color blindness.  It was one of those bustling Saturday morning events that schools often have where there are booths set up and people are passing out fliers, and signs made from construction paper are displayed everywhere in the halls.  The classrooms sat dark and the parents sat  in loose groups in the cafeteria, where coffee and donuts were being served.

The color blindness test involved several different puzzles that were set up on a series of different tables.  There were a variety of intriguing puzzles.  There were some where you had to work your way through a maze by following different color paths.  There were others where cards of various colors were laid out in a grid on a table, and you had to add up all the cards of a certain color to arrive at the correct sum.

I moved from station to station, trying my best to solve each puzzle.  For some of them, I even had to get up onto the table and tap the correct answer with the tip of my shoe for some reason.  I was having a blast.  But I sensed that my father was getting irritated with me.  He didn’t see why I should be trying so hard to solve these puzzles when I already knew that I was color blind.  It just seemed like wasted effort to him.  I countered that the point of the tests was to see if I actually had color blindness.  If I already knew the outcome, what was the point of even being there in the first place?

I thought that was a pretty compelling piece of logic.  And so I moved on to the next station, where I had to get back up onto the table and match these pictures on different yellow squares by tapping them with my foot.  Soon I was having a good time again, tapping and shuffling at the cards.  But when I looked out over the crowd of laughing people gathered around the table, I saw that my father was gone.  He had taken off and left me there.           

Old Time's Sake

I ran into an old girlfriend of mine on the walk out in front of a store.  The walk was set up with stalls and wares like a flea market, and we bumped into one another as we were browsing through all the loose odds and ends, pocket size picture frames, novelty key chains, and decorative trinkets.  There was a sunniness about the scene that told me that it was mid-morning and also many, many years from now, the distant future being infused with a light every bit as golden as the distant past.

We decided to have lunch in a cafe inside the store.  As we took our seats, I reflected inwardly on the memories of our turbulent relationship, snapshots of tears by a grey pond, cars taking us every which way, the faces in the rear view with hands reaching out, bewilderment at the roadside, the crazy silent echo of those days.  But it was nice to see her now.  I realized that in this strange new age, we connected with those who disrupted our lives even more than with those who settled them.

The Collaborator

I accompanied the overseer as she made her rounds of the facility.  She was a rather severe woman, dressed in a military uniform of high rank, her blonde hair gathered into a tight knot at the nape of her neck.  I was dressed in a uniform as well, but one more sloppy and tattered, as befitting a lackey.  Some yellow dust clung to my baggy pant leg where I had brushed against a wall.  I tried to brush it off with my hand as I hurried to keep pace with the overseer.

We came upon a room which some workers were painting.  There was newspaper spread out on the floor beneath step ladders spattered with yellow and white paint.  Utility lights set up on the floor cast long shadows up the walls.  These workers had been abducted and forced to work against their will.  They were terrified of the overseer.  Their hands shook visibly when she criticized their work.  Their faces paled with thoughts of whatever abominable punishments they might face for their failures.  Their voices faltered, their eyes flinching involuntarily, betraying an anticipation of blows.

I had been abducted along with the rest of them, and I considered myself to be just as much a victim as they were.  I lingered for a moment after the overseer had left the room.  I went over to a woman who was working with a brush in the corner.  I tried to tell her that I was sorry for all of this.  I tried to explain that I was caught up in it all just like they were, that I had no choice in the matter, that I was just trying to make the best I could of the situation.

The woman took a moment to weigh my words, nodding thoughtfully as she stared off.  Finally she turned to me, staring pointedly into my eyes as she said, "It don't matter.  I got to thinking about it and I figured it out.  When the police come, they'll know who to arrest."  And she turned back to her work and I knew that she was right.  I was dumbstruck with the realization of my own guilt, but I knew things were going to be different.  I made no effort to catch up with the overseer.  I let her go and I just stood there smiling, whatever the cost.