Skylarking

let's start with the weather. everyone else does. in the future, weather might be a memory as we huddle in underground bunkers, color of the sky a whispered rumor. perhaps that sounds melodramatic, but that's the way we roll here in the pacific northwest, lost in imagination, looking to the mountains, snowcaps crisp as cut paper. // i went to lowe's again, an almost daily experience, shopping cart crammed in unlikely fashion, hardiebacker jammed in vertical and tile trim jutting aft. my cashier's nametag said SKYLAR and i told how i preferred today's clear and cold to the usual tepid rain. he felt the same, still not used to it after moving here from california. "when was that?" "12 years ago. been here more than half my life but it only gets harder to take." i heard that. the sunlack is cumulative, turns good people into fungus. // but! i had a job to do and my first cut almost blinded me, hot metal shard struck hard just below my eye. i blinked twice, lucky guy. that's just how it goes--the purpose of work is to kill you, whether fast or slow. oh well, i keep my head down, one small step after another, listening to horrors of a bygone age to make me feel better, no closer to completion than when i started.