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Odin odin@aflx.com

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Books
· Perceptions

· ECHOSIS

· Prosetry at Work

· Said and Unsaid - Vol 1

· 3 WAY MIRROR


Short Stories
· Patience Waning

· Ladle Lines (A prosetry memory)

· A Gentle Man

· Pacing Love's Journey

· Gratitude

· A Sticky Conversation

· Blazing Now and Then

· Vulnerable Captivity

· The Kite That Would Not Bow

· Time


Articles
· War and Peace

· Desperation Breeds Desperation

· Preference Manifest

· Innocent Guilt

· Barbed Isolation

· A Place...

· Sanity's Loss

· Organs Anonymous

· Fatuous Beyond Absurdity

· Truth is One


Poetry
· The Life-long Pernicious Evil

· Cherishing Sounds of Silence

· Understanding the Unexplainable

· Reality of Another Kind

· Finding Trust Again

· Aromalicious Memories

· A Jungle-rain Pastorale

· Sediment Within the Soul

· Life's Enormous Green Chest

· Roadkill Memoriam

         More poetry...

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by Odin odin@aflx.com


Out of Touch Bubbles
By Odin odin@aflx.com
Last edited: Wednesday, August 23, 2023
This short story is rated "G" by the Author.
       
Recent stories by Odin odin@aflx.com
· Patience Waning
· Ladle Lines (A prosetry memory)
· A Gentle Man
· Pacing Love's Journey
· Gratitude
· A Sticky Conversation
           >> View all 367
The pursuit of success sometimes convinces us to dodge choices, knowing they are causal in nature, creating consequences that become yet further choices. Eventually, some make a decision. A flash fiction reality. (Image by Taylor Marie McCormick)


 

Out of Touch Bubbles


We discovered.

There's a location,
we all know it,
Main Street America,
that place where
deals are consummated,
innocents made guilty,
trials court shams.

We learned.

This place of early starts,
schools short of everything;
lined paper scant,
pencils with erasers gone,
full-length crayons just history,
once chalk stubs, now nubs,
all while administrators ignore and laugh,
all the way to the bank.

We tried.

That place of the first job,
first date,
first car,
first seduction.

We tested.

Some found the glitter place
where 3-piece suits
came from Brooks Brothers,
not J.C. Penny,
where 2 martini lunches
boded well the norm,
trumping yesteryear's
Big Macs and cokes.

We joined.

Where going home
meant driver-driven,
doorman-opened,
gilded elevator ascension,
home of wrap-around glass,
marble floor supported,
sensory-indulgent décor,
programmed delusions,
where only one’s own voice is heard,
mirrored self-image as only reflection,
all while standing atop terraced view.

We looked out.

We looked skyward.

We looked down.

Seeing thirty-eight floors below,
everyday people,
those making possible our out-of-touch bubble,
this insulated veneer,
the platinum exterior,
fending off bad dreams.

 

Fortunately…

Some awaken from their fantasy stuper...

 

Realizing mistakes are often one’s buried card to

a winning epiphany.

Finally.


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Reviewed by Ronald Hull
Reviewed on August 23, 2023
I never reached that kind of bubble to be popped so easily by epiphany. But I have had a two or three martini lunch or two, have been escorted by limousine, but never on any kind of regular basis. Still wondering what climbing the corporate ladder with my old boss would've been like and what the golden parachute and early retirement would have been.

But after the epiphany you describe, life returns to a, more normal, plane again.

Ron