Ordeal, or deal with it

I said to the Yeti, wash yo’ butt! Quit leaping out like that, you’ll scare the children. Second graders by the looks of them, more-or-less absorbed in their crayoning, which I can only imagine features yellow suns in the corner and birds in the shape of the letter m. Motherly letter, how well I remember learning its name! M’s the one that looks like mountains and the birds that circle them, idiotically, in old cracked paintings from the Renaissance – which I still can’t spell without help. Every day is Earth Day, but today is special because my ISP is down and I am forced to go wandering outside, peering closely at the unfamiliar trees and wondering where I left my clothes, all of a sudden, and why I have grown so hairy. I’ve been taking howling lessons from Elvis, listen: [fire alarm]. Then there’s [a train whistle, only it’s nothing like a whistle]. I am walking lightly on the earth, I am stopping to smell the flowers, let me hear you say Hail Yeah. My feet are shaped like large, cracked gourds, my nose drips like a candle. My eyes – Lord knows – are bloodshot from too much peering in peoples’ windows to watch TV. I am registered to vote – no party affiliation. The last time I tried to affiliate, no one was willing to swear in blood. What the hell good was that? You want friendship, you want brotherhood, get out the goddamn knife. Nobody wants to commit anymore: no walking under turf, no trials by ordeal. It’s enough just to enter a couple digits somewhere, move a decimal point and poof! someone’s nonexistent wallet gets heavier, poof! a mountain turns into a valley, poof! mercury is good for us. Easy come, easy go. My friend the coyote stopped by and left his calling card, a pungent remark bristling with the hair of somebody’s dog. It was in fact shaped like the letter C. You can read into that whatever you want. And since today is Earth Day, I expect some fool will try.