It starts with a kiss.  A gunshot, followed by fireworks.  At the alter , the starting line is painted on the road,  there is cheering, cake and confetti.  The finish line is so far away.  A white ribbon dances on the breeze.  Tied between two bronze petioles, it waits for my wife and I to break it.  Muddy, freshly dug dirt litters the ground.  When the marathon of marriage is over, a casket is the medal that will hang over our shoulders.

The crowd, is often larger than the contestants.  I have learned 13 years into marriage, that it is a team sport.  She and I, are in it against ourselves and the world.  Everyday, I put one foot in front of the other.  We try to learn, more than we fail.  We have to stay together.  If I wander off of the path, I could fall in a ravine, get run over, or fall into the bushes and let fatigue and leg cramps make me quit.

The crowd yells.

“Most marriages fail!”

“Give up!”

“Upgrade!”

We run the marathon.

My left foot is bloody.  My sock squishes with every step.  I run with a limp, but I am still running.  I shot myself in the foot awhile ago.  She picked me up.  We cried for a moment, then we got back to it.  She looks at the crowd, and asks, “Why are you running with me?”

“I asked God for a wife.” I say smiling.  “He delivered.  How can I complain, or think of replacing that blessing?”

She insists we pause, for another kiss.  A drink of water.  Then we are running again.

As years go by, we push baby strollers, and pull wagons.  It is harder, tougher, more fatigue, and yet, we run the marathon.

The crowd yells.

“Men are terrible, evil, and vile!”

I glance into the crowd and see all of the kids standing without dads.  Wives with out husbands.  I squeeze my wives hand.  I have no value without her.  She tells me to ignore them.  We run the marathon.

Years fall off of the calendar.  We trot, slow and steady.  We are a team.  The hands of the crowd reach out.  Women ask me for hugs, they want to run their fingers through my hair, they want me to listen to their stories.  If I stop running, we fail.  I belong to my wife.  She wins my heart every day until the day I die.  We move to the middle of the street.  It is just us and the race.  The sound of the crowd is drowned out by the rubber of our shoes, rhythmically caressing the road, forever, to the end.

We run the marathon.

Copyright © 2017 Zachary W Gilbert

Somewhere deep in the rocky mountains, a deep mine coughed a plume of dust, in a deep earthly rumble that shook the boots of the workers on the surface.  A mighty mess of metal cables, platforms, and gears twisted and fell down the large shaft.  Rocks the size of train cars slid down the mountain and buried the mine.  It was hard to breathe.  A red silt hung in the air.  The owner of the company took his 5 year old son into the job trailer.   “Son, there are hundreds of people down there.  They are going to die if we don’t figure out some kind of a rescue.”

“What can I do?”

“We’ll take a short truck ride into the canyon, out there, we’ll find a vent pipe, that you can crawl down.  I will give you medical supplies, and a map.   You have to get the survivors to go to the opposite end of the caverns, where the soil is right for us to bore a rescue shaft to get them all out.”

“Can’t someone else go?”

“No. There is no other way.”

“Ok.”  he wiped away his tears, “Let’s go save em’ dad!”

The young boy was fitted with a harness.  His shoulders barely fit into the round plastic pipe.  A small air tank was placed in before him, and behind him, tied to his ankle was a medical kit.  The ground crew greased his entire body in a gooey sludge.  He hugged his dad, they held each other silently for a moment.  Then he crawled into the jutting tube.

Just over 650 meters down, he crawled.  The hiss of the air and his dim flashlight, were his only companions in the darkness of his new reality.  Gravity helped him, and he started to slide.  The exit of the vent pipe into the mine was as high up as one man standing on another man’s shoulders.  When the young boy emerged, his medical kit became lodged and he hung like a he had a parachute caught in a tree.   Three men, helped get him down.

“Guess you the one they send down to save us?”

“Yes, my dad says we have to go to the far end.  They are going to make a hole to get out over there.”

“Sounds good little man.  You are going to have a tough job convincing these hardened miners to listen to you.  That cave in killed about 40 of us.  The survivors are scared and angry.  We have been waiting for you, and we wanted to give you a few things.”

One man handed him a small bottle of cologne, “Hey little fella, I usually wear this to remind me that there is still beauty in the world.  My eyes have had sunlight stolen, but that doesn’t mean my nose has to suffer.”

The second man handed a pack of gum, “This is for you ears.  If you chew gum, they will pop and stay loose.  Less chance of a headache.”

The third man, took a thick gold ring off of his finger.  “I am the foreman, you should wear this to let the people know that I agree with what you are trying to do.  I need to stay here and keep looking for survivors of the cave in.  Now get going, you don’t have a lot of time.”

The young boy began his journey, underground, in darkness.  He called out in his tiny voice for anyone to follow him.  Some who found him, dug through his med kit and took what they needed and were never seen again.   As he walked, several began to follow.  When he was about half way to the bore site, where the rescue elevator would be dug, and angry mob stopped him.

“What are you doing down here?!” they yelled.

“I am the bosses kid, I know how to get you out of here.”

“The boss would never send his kid down here!  Your a liar!”

“I am here to save you, please, we have to go that way!  Down to the far end!”

“No!”

The crowd shoved the small boy into an iron mine cart and killed him.

“Lets go to the main freight elevator.  We will get out of her that way!”

The mob left.  After three hours, the three men, the boy had met when he first set foot into the darkness, found his lifeless body.  Even though he was dead, they followed his instructions.  They walked to the end of the mine.  The air was thin, and water went up to their knees.  They sat in darkness and waited.

The air became thin.  Life became fragile.  Hope flickered with the last dying flashlight.   In that moment, a scraping of metal on rock.  A tearing of earth from above.  Not another cave in this time.  A drill…

It broke through and fell.  It was a one way unit that would disconnect and light up when it found its depth.  The whole cavern lit up.  The elevator soon followed.

“You go first, and take his son with you.”

Loaded in the tube tighter than a small closet, the man rode slow to the surface.  When his darkened eyes finally held the bright glow of the sun, he whispered, “Exquisite.”

 

Copyright © 2017 Zachary W Gilbert

 

I am unseen.

A heavy wooden door creaks shut, while thick metal hinges close tightly.

White pages fall like clipped angel wings,

My information, tattooed on feathers,

I am not in there, while they discuss, while they decide.

I am unseen.

Paper like freckles, seem to multiply over the black table.

The multiplying blight of my deeds infests the room.

Hiring, firing, guilty, not guilty, where do the kids go?

My fate writhes in an inverted symbiosis of information and decision.

I am unseen.

A heavy wooden door opens, while thick metal fingers of fear take hold of my heart.

I walk in the room, it seems too big, they ask me to sit.

A heavy wooden door creaks shut, while thick metal hinges close tightly.

Co-workers, family, friends, and children wait, on the other side of the door.

I am unseen.

The bullet that carries truth, rips through my heart in an instant.

One word, one act, one moment, removes the balance of remaining time.

Vacancies are filled at work, and widows remarry.

Kids ask, “Where is daddy?”

I am unseen.

 

Copyright © 2017 Zachary W Gilbert

 

 

 

 

Capable.  The word rolls out of the mouth,

like a boulder, loosed from a mountain,

it rolls and crushes everything in its path.

when it strikes the cold river, it shatters.

Capable.  Stolen from good,

a now twisted word,

thrown into conversation purposefully,

ensconced cowards, a perpetually volley.

History hides whispers of the dark use

of ‘capable’.

“Your not capable to do that job!”

“Your not capable of understanding my politics.”

“Your not capable of love!”

A word flung out in blind ambiguity.

Capable.  Must be saved.

Away to a high mountain top,

housed in a stone fortress

made of the still boulders of achievement,

a welcoming, safe path to success.

A wooden sign holds,

burned, black letters,

“You ARE capable!”

 

Copyright © 2017 Zachary W Gilbert

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/capable/

In a heated moment,

red hatred, wrapped in loud words, take flight.

Pain cuts the heart, with its invisible razors,

A wounded soul aches in heavy darkness.

Apologize?  Perhaps, someday.

A beautiful girl,

might spend her whole life,

waiting for a prince,

who, will pursue her, with courage.

Approach? Perhaps someday.

A growing child, within every blink,

pulling away, pulling away,

moments are slaughtered, under times blade,

the battle for a pause, is lost.

Accept?  Perhaps someday.

An unnamed year, floats among stars,

it holds  veiled day, under an orange horizon,

it hangs in the mist, like a lost blue balloon, dancing in the air,

An unclaimed hour, like a rattlesnake hidden under a brown rock,

Seconds, with its yellowed teeth, eats minutes.

Death? Someday, Indeed.

Copyright © 2017 Zachary W Gilbert

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/someday/