Last Picked

John Ray was the last picked for my team in a game of Quidditch.

Membership

It's 5:00 PM;
is Costco Closed?

A boy on a BMX bike goes
up and down grey concrete ramps
in a basement engineering floor.

Staircases with no guardrails beckon lost wanderers.

My wife's long black hair stops me
from revisiting a tribute gold medallion
left at a fighter's photo
like a stone on a Jewish grave.

London Back Alleys

The driver of a black triple-decker bus operates the vehicle from the third floor. He is a chauffeur following another livery vehicle, a Mercedes. I marvel at his instinctual dexterity which allows him to deftly manoeuvre through traffic and around roundabouts in the clockwise direction.

After exiting the bus, on the sidewalk I see a column of brightly-coloured couples - men and women - in 5 matched pairs dressed in fuchsia, mauve, chartreuse, burgundy, and turquoise unitards. The males are costumed in inflatable outfits which make them resemble walking fruits.

Rounding a corner, I stumble upon an altercation that turns violent, the dark-skinned, wall-eyed instigator complaining why onlookers - myself included - aren't interested in joining her cause. Just then I glance down to a drainage underpass in time to see a Jeep roll through ankle-deep water being chased by a dirty white dog. The Jeep and dog splash by in the opposite direction, then emerge on the street surface a few metres ahead. The Jeep literally corners the dog in a parking lot.

Rolling onto the scene, a Toyota minivan arrives with a damaged passenger-side sliding door. The driver of the van opens the damaged sliding door from the inside (I note that he's tanned to withering, wearing only green briefs) and asks a bystander how much it will cost to repair the damage.

Fire Campers

Instead of traditional outdoor camping each year, our family visits evacuated towns on the edges of wildfires in California.

In a deserted Pinecrest bar, chilled kegs of beer are the only uncontaminated drinkable liquid and firefighters toast, "To a rat, 'cause I ain't dead yet!"

After finishing off two half-full mugs of beer, Steve notices residents returning to their homes. One emerges from the crawlspace beneath the front porch and introduces himself as Eben to the gathering at the bar.

Work Hard Play Hard

Huddled around a tiny VAX terminal, Jim and Sam's faces are illuminated by the amber glow of the CRT, puzzling over a chunk of code. Through the double-doors to the cafeteria strides Bill, willing to help even after leaving the company for their rival across the street.

Sam spies Rick in the lunchroom playing with Pokémon cards and decides to join him. Rick holds twenty-five cards in his hand and has dozens more organized in front of him.

"I'm playing Clue rules," mumbles Rick.

Sam strides outside to Disneyland park where the train is just letting out its passengers near a glass-walled merry-go-round. Sam ambles down a slope to a ridge overlooking a wide moat. In the moat are three crocodiles, two of which are involved in some kind of mating ritual, the male swallowing a female up to her throat. Sam spies a redheaded toddler climbing underneath the guardrail and looks frantically around for its parents.

Luckily, a park employee wearing a jetpack rescues the child and its father as the mother screams with relief.

rnd PHP

At a family party, I stay indoors until the pleasant sunny afternoon darkens. I welcome the rain on my face as other guests take refuge.

Returning indoors, the party is a classroom. I take my seat in the back row on the right, as the instructor quickly explains variable naming in PHP code. When trying to remember the correct spelling of 'carp', the students begin chanting, "Spell it wrong! Spell it wrong!" The professor scribbles, "$carpp" on the whiteboard as a nearby classmate shouts amid the flutter of laughter, "She might as well name it '$cottoncandy' now!"

Halloween Marathon

The last trick-or-treater arrived at 4am, a drum majorette.

Homunculus

Steve's twin arrived last night, August 17, 2009.

We aren't sure of its origins, since its life-line is much longer than Steve's. We interpret this to mean that it was born before Steve, or will outlive him, or both.