The View From Scranton

Not Seeing Things

For a cad with a view, I can't see a thing. Out the window from where I sit lies a hill much like every other hill in hilldom. It's hazed and horizoned and peculiar to nowhere. Here in the swale it looms large, like a bump in the order of things.

In the country of the flat the one-hilled cat is king.

Or not. Here, and especially in the surrounding so-called hills, I'm what's called a flatlander. An outsider. An intruder. Unfamiliar with the hilly ways. Without a hill of my own. My beats are where streets have numbers and the avenues have names and that makes me wrong for this land. Where I come from you can walk from one end to another and feel as if you've gotten somewhere and still never reach a conclusion.

Here the streets slope, steep, sway, look at you sideways. Stop. They know you're gonna be on 'em but they really rather you weren't. Rather you didn't bother. Rather you left 'em alone. They've taken a position and it doesn't include you. Or me. Like the welcome caress of a fist.

Or a cold shoulder. Before this place, this time, I thought shoulders got cold 'cause they were above everybody else. That they were for those with shoulders to square. I never had to much suffer them -- then those that could wouldn't dare -- but I've seen the feeling. Now I think I know it. The nudge of a distinctly low blow.

To be fair to this fair town I haven't been fair. I haven't been out. I haven't been about. So I haven't seen whether or not there's anything on offer. When you're colleagues are limited to cons in a holding pattern you kinda lose perspective. I take that back: You never get perspective in the first place.

So you see I see nothing. Not the forest. Not the trees. Not the bee's knees. I sure as all hell can't see myself. Can't see myself remaining without an outlook. Without a view. Perhaps it's time I looked into it.

posted by John Hood. @ 9:13 PM