Lester

Lester hoped the maple leaf was large enough.  When he had agreed to be involved in this “stage play” about creation, he had no idea how accurate the story would be.  He was certain that some day, later on, he would look back at this situation and laugh.  But right now he was cold, he was naked, and he was standing in the bushes that surrounded the maple tree that stood in front of his pastor’s home.  He had never prayed so hard that a police car would not come by.  He wasn’t exactly sure how the front door became locked, but locked it was.  Now he had to get from the front yard to the back door without being seen.  With a couple of deep breaths, Lester bolted.  The scream that erupted from the neighbor’s porch met his ears about the same time his toe caught the tree root.

Fish and Crows

     It became eerily quiet but Francis stood in the produce section, wearing no pants.  The smell of old fish and musk hung in the air, and Francis could not remember her name.  He gathered his things and began to head for the double sliding glass doors.  The doors were once transparent, at the point that Clarence the janitor had cleaned them this morning.  But the hands of a hundred unruly children had besmudged their clarity, reducing them to this.  The store manager took one step toward Francis, then apparently thinking better of it, distracted himself with the disorderly state of olive jars on the nearest shelf.
     Men without pants were probably best avoided, so his distraction continued until Francis was out the door.  The sun reflected off of Francis' tighty whiteys, catching the attention of a young mother and her three year old son. "Mommy, that man is wearing no pants," the young boy quipped.
     A murder of crows jolted overhead, starting Francis' attention for a moment, unfortunately for Francis and Walter (whom we've yet to meet), this moment of misdirected attention resulted in a rather uncomfortable situation.  Francis, not watching where he was going and Walter, watching the pantless man watch the crows, who in turn were watching a piece of tin foil skirt across the street, caught his toe on the sidewalk. The stumble brought about a somewhat wild flailing of arms on Walters part, which caused him to drop his coffee. Dropping is probably not an accurate description of the event.  "Pitch" would more aptly describe the result. It's been believed in some Middle Eastern countries that throwing coffee brings about bad luck and excessive flatulence.  One might be tempted to say that because Walter was not in a Middle Eastern country, this piece of trivia was irrelevant, but they would be mistaken.  Walter had, in a distant past lived in Abu Dhabi for a short period, and happened to somewhat enjoy the experience.  So the bad luck and flatulence appeared on the scene.
     Francis' mother had always struggled with excessive corpulence.  Francis' earliest memories were of being nuzzled in the large flowery bosom of his mother.  The flailing arms of this passing stranger in a flowered shirt brought this memory to mind, distracting Francis once again.  But this time Francis stumbled as well, but in a different sense. This entire sequence of events lasted mere second but the final outcome would change Francis' world forever. Before he could stop himself or even think about what he was doing, Francis put Walter in a full embrace, hugging that glorious flowery countenance.
     Walter would recount that day, that weird incident for years to come.  At parties, over dinner, in casual conversation, the bizarre story of the man in the underwear would always somehow come to the fore.
     Francis would spend the weekend in jail, alone, in his underwear, trying to remember exactly how it all happened.  The smell of old fish and musk hung in the air and Francis could not remember her name.

Introduction

Every so often a story or the outline of a story will come to mind.  After many years of this happening and my writing them down to only store them on my computer, I thought I might share some of these bizarre ramblings.  So hopefully you enjoy this foray into instability...