Tarnished

There are always moments, moments that a writer friend of mine -- we'll call him Peaches -- names "golden moments." He's hoity-toity and thinks "golden moments" refers to a Thomas Wolfe's quotation from You Can't Go Home Again:

“This is man, who, if he can remember ten golden moments of joy and happiness out of all his years, ten moments unmarked by care, unseamed by aches or itches, has power to lift himself with his expiring breath and say: "I have lived upon this earth and known glory!”

That's Peaches.  He sees halos of glory around memories.  I peer at them, switching glasses, trying to get something, anything, to show itself in focus.

My eyes are still in acuity flux after the two surgeries in August, though I am reassured by everyone -- and everyone's siblings -- that this will settle down.  Still, I see the darnedest things.

I turned on the television, thinking to watch Meet the Press, keeping an eye on David Gregory's hair more than anything, but discovered I was an hour early.  So I stared at the blurby news, trying to read the headlines running along the bottom of our fairly large screen.

I read that the government, come Thursday, would have $308 in the Treasury.  Wow! I felt a sudden warmth of kinship with those clowns.  I, too, would have $308 in my treasury come Thursday!

By the time I'd ingested some good Colombian, albeit on the strong side, took loads of drugs, squirted my eyes with drops, and returned TV-side, they were still running the same under-headlines banner.

Now I could see that the U.S. of American Treasury would have $30B remaining on Thursday, the "B" representing that which I can never imagine -- billions.

Leaves me wondering how much false news I've passed along during the last few years -- how green are the remains of my golden moments, gleefully delivered and fundamentally flawed?


© 2013 L. Ryan