"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” C.S. Lewis...
Poetic Duologue - FLASH FICTION
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PENELOPE AND PETER, TWO REGENERATED HIPPIE-TYPES, NOW BOTH WITH PhD''s, BOND IN A SOPHISTICATED EXCHANGE ONLY THEY UNDERSTAND; SHE ENJOYS A CUBAN CIGAR
After hugging Penelope smiles at Peter warmly and begins to verbalize what’s coming through her: “Let it be known, Peter, that much has been consigned to voyaging across recurring chasms of deduction. Accepting fate as lambs led to slaughter; we all project illusion within set boundaries while ascribing immutable frailty as the withering of seasons. All these undulating abstracts that plague us; who are we to be in an ever-changing world?”
Peter shrugs and responds in like manner: “Let me see if I can answer that ole friend. I truly believe that it is in those shifting shadows of reason, where we as human islands are fashioned and released to grope, and hope, and live, and die, in pursuit of a mystic pebble, and brief visions, to construct what imagination envisions as structure and God-ordained wholeness.”
Penelope scrunches her nose in perplexity. “What exactly do you mean Peter?” She asks.
“Well…. How can I put this?” Peter takes a deep breath to center his thoughts. “It’s like hearts and minds balanced breathlessly together in the same evolving cosmos I’m thinking. Cyber-spatial lamenting, (connections) blinkered, bullying, too much information, nattering in the same virtual millpond, human-islands with prescience, rationalizing, while desiring for self what most will never bestow on another more worthy than self.”
“Oh gosh… of course! The scourge of ego-centrism, Peter. Self-interest becoming a religious zeal.” Penelope seems struck by lightning and sits erect with eyes wide. “Wounds sanded smooth as fittings,” she bubbles excitedly with a seer’s clarity. “Exceedingly glossed surfaces reflecting image and warrior stamina mingled with sacred radiance, peace, and oneness worn as talisman’s to mystify, enchant, describe, and ascribe (lights) to shaman awareness and those media-magnets striving for acclaim.”
“Bingo! Bingo! BINGO! The world’s full of them." Peter grunts and reaches over to light Penelope’s Cuban cigar. "You couldn’t be clearer. When did you get such insight? In the real world,” he proclaims with fervor, “many islands of ones and zeros plagiarize, duplicate, manufacture, and regurgitate plastic flowering poles, once static in mud-holes as flags (celebrating) exclusivity, while autographing blindly in the pantheon of hoodwinks.”
“I so agree with you,” Penelope nods. A moment later she chokes back sobs and her eyes began to tear-up. “Who in the world will help us as we flounder along life’s widening schism in pursuit of self?”
Its ok ole’ friend. You and I see eye to eye.” Peter reaches over and touches her hand. “Honestly; striving is only whimsy. In this world nothing is at it seems and no one understands anyone. Well… hardly anyone that is. What we wish to accept as true, we create, and freely embellish as classic oils enthrall the eyes, doing so as perfect storms inundate the shorelines and realign the garden in rhombus rights to craft the illusion that just maybe we have a handle on Truth and honor, and perhaps, at some point, are notable, or notorious enough, to be the frontrunner.”
At that moment steaming hot coffee’s arrived. Peter smiles warmly at Penelope and reaches for the sugar.
“Do you take one or two lumps?”
richard Lloyd cederberg
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“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for a bird to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.” C. S. Lewis
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However, in all my conversations in my many years in academia with PhDs, many who were flower children in another life and tried all manner of mood enhancing elements, I never heard a single conversation like that over coffee, wine, or booze. I must've been consorting with dullards, because I generally understood what they were talking about unless it was technical jargon.
Ron