A red beautiful blood cell, looks like a lush red planet floating in space.  It’s doom soon arrives as small landing craft attaches to its surface.  The invader has many forms; a ball like sea creature with tentacles,  a brownish thumbtack covered in boils, or perhaps a black half moon that looks like a rotten potato chip.  No matter the shape or origin, they all have the same purpose.  To corrupt the natural function of the cell.  They drop twisted designs into the warm cell like radioactive string.  Tiny threads of data, thinner than a spider web.   The evil slips in unnoticed.  The virus does the only thing it knows how, infects.  The strands of lies are picked up and incorporated in the machinery of the cell.  The cell begins cloning the viruses.  Its doom is sealed.  Virus after virus is made without end.  Pumping out units, a slave to its new twisted mandate, the once red beautiful cell, is now an agent of evil.  One last virus forces the cell walls to explode.   An armada of viruses is released.  They drift in the void, waiting for a place to land.

***

A break room with white tiles and florescent lights begins come alive. Hot water makes swooshing noises as writhes and twisting in the copper pipe of the coffee maker.  A warm soothing aroma of roasted and ground coffee fills the air.  People begin to congregate around tables and chairs.  Soon, words take flight.  An army of invisible butterflies land hard on the soft fleshy beaches of all the ears in the room.  They crawl down the listening canal quickly.  Tumbling hot metal spikes, dig deep into the the cavern floor.  Then they find their waiting prize.  The brain lies in a darkened tomb of bone.  Electrical flashes and sparks dance within and around the mass.  The words crawl inside.  They burrow, infest, and begin to multiply.  Before long, the brain becomes toxic.  It is reprogrammed by the evil words and is now sending out directives to the mouth, that are the exact same twisted tails that poisoned it.  The body roams finding new victims to infect.  The proverbial heart begins its death march.  It is no longer red and beautiful.  It becomes rigid, atrophied, and full of thick black tar.  People all around, begin leaving tracks of sorrow everywhere they go, like invisible mucous.

***

Decay and rot will overtake moral in seconds.  When attitude is built on a love for people however,  the virus can only multiply its value and numbers by zero.  It dies, immediately after falling off the inflamed belts of the assembly line.  Its power is zero.   A social immune system is built on God.  To see every human being as his creation is difficult.  To love past a comment takes strength.  To love higher than a mistake takes courage.  To love through hate takes more cutting power than a mighty drill cutting through mountain rock.  Loving people is much like working out in the gym.  Reps will build strength.  Strength will yield results.  Results will change lives.  A positive attitude is welcomed by sickened minds.  I believe people want to be happy, deep down inside.  When I get sick with the flu, my main thought and wish is for it to be over.  If there was a way to end my suffering in a moment.  I would take it.  Thinking socially, if someone can walk into a room and encourage, excite, and relax people.  Shouldn’t such a virus killer do so.  Yes!  It takes practice.  I have to hit the refueling station every day in conversation with my creator.  I purge all of the tarred filth out of my heart.  I talk it loose.  I cough out contagion, and set free my rage.  He can take it.  He wants it.  It is a component of our relationship.  Then after multiple reps of “Thank you God for this,” and “Thank you God for that!”  I have a pumped up attitude to blanket the people in my life with some ‘thank yous’.  I want them to see the value they have to me.  If there are 10,000 wrongs, I still find 1 to raise high upon the pedestal of spoken thankfulness.  In time, the saturation of brain viruses begins to die.  Like a ripple of sunshine in the social group, infection begins to die.  The dark night of the viral invasion is over.  Smiles begin to form like the sun rising on the horizon, shedding light on what is truly important in life.

 

Copyright © 2017 Zachary W Gilbert

The cold air envelopes my skin in its arctic teeth.  I look for shelter.  I have no home, no warmth, and no hope.  My fingers are numb.   My tattered coat flaps in the wind.  I see lights glowing in the guts of warm houses.  I wish I was inside.   I see parked vehicles. I wish I was inside.  Ice cycles hang everywhere.  Christmas lights hold a soft glow as steam rises into the cold night air from frosted roofs.  The snow creaks and pops under my frozen boots.  I would sleep in a garage, or in a dumpster if I could find one.   My body is numb,  it hurts to breathe.  I fall face first into a snow drift.  The cold snow melts on my face for a moment.  Is this what hell would feel like?  A forgotten soul, lost in a blanket of pain.  I hurt in darkness, then suddenly, I am gone.

***

A migraine headache squeezes the pulp of my brain.  My head is an over inflated tire trapped in the bone of my skull.  There is an ache behind my eyes.  Pressure, ache, severe pain.  People talk to me, it hurts.  Light, movement, music, life, it all hurts.  I lay in a dark room with a cold washrag over my eyes and on my forehead.  I see spots like fireflies dance in arcs on my eye lids.  I have to listen to music I never listen to.  White noise.  If I know the words, it hurts.  I shift in bed, and move my pinky finger.  Perpetual pain.  An electrical storm within the flesh of my brain.  All of my focus is upon my ache.  I think of hell.  To be immersed in perpetual torment without escape.  Would death hold pause?  Or is it from suffering to suffering.  I ache, I ache, I fall asleep for the last time.

***

A broken heart feels like a lead blanked wrapped around my chest.  It pulls and is heavy.  Every topic, every moment, surrenders to the thoughts, that hurt.  I wish there was medicine for heartache.  Something to push it away, dull it, perhaps erase it.  I try to distract myself, nothing works.  It takes time.  Time for the pain to dissipate.  I didn’t chose this ache, it chose me.  It was like catching a cold.  I was in an infectious place, my emotions were malnourished.  My neglect causes this perpetual ache.  My heart is broken, if it heals, amid stitches and scars, it will never be the same.  It may be smarter and better, but not original, hopeful and pure.   Wounded by black fire, its beats, crooked, puffing chalky smoke.  I am trapped in a hot shower of emotions, and they burn me where I can’t see.  I can’t stand still.  Pain eats away what is left of me.  I make it stop forever.

***

Things don’t go my way, as I sit in a new warm car.  I am mad that my wife picked out the wrong color of winter coat.  I am so hot I have to turn the defrost off.  I look at the temperature reading on my radio.  “Minus twenty?  Wow!”  I would hate to have to work outside in this.  I yell at the coffee shop people, they screwed up again.  I tell wife some drunk homeless dude passed out in a snow drift.  She is crying  because her best friend died from  severe migraine or something last week, and her husband was so heartbroken he lost her, that he took his own life.

In that moment, I realize,  I have nothing to complain about.  I stopped and thanked God for the many, many, blessings he has given me. I ask him to forgive me for not seeing the other souls and their pain on this earth.  I hug my wife, my hot tears soak her shoulder.  My kids said, “Ewwww daddy!”  My wife and I laugh.

 

Copyright © 2017 Zachary W Gilbert

My heart is dark and weary.  I struggle to find oxygen in the thin foggy air of the high mountain.  I have been hiking and alone for hours.  I look up and see the peak wearing a gray fog like a crown.  Soon, the pine trees have halt their wooded and green march.  They sway in the wind, a silent crowd of onlookers, watching my doom unfold.  I walk further, my only company now the wind, the rocks, and my heavy sorrow.  After an hour I see my destination.  The tired wooden structure that I go to when the darkness finds me.  My shoulders ache deep inside.  A heavy invisible weight seems to grow hands and push down on me.  My eyes are thick, inflated, and swollen.  I am thirsty, so thirsty.  I push the old wooden door open.  Splinters of wood burrow into the reddened pink of my palm.  I take off my hat and wipe the hot sweat out of my matted hair.  I know I should get ready.  My doom is coming.  My redemption is waiting.  My choice will determine my fate.

The dark wooden shack holds tight to the windy mountain side.  It looks as if it were a tubercle of wood, jutting from rock.  An unnatural growth in a land of stone and wind.  It is  octagonal with open windows all around.  The smell of old wet wood hangs in the air.  Glass does not occupy the openings, there are only creaky wooden shudders with rusted hinges.  A deep water well made of stone lies in the middle of the room.  Fresh clean water can be pulled from the belly of the earth.  The taste is mineral and devoid of any dying swamp odors.  I have a fire going in a dulled brick fireplace.  It crackles and pops as the mountain wind whips and dances outside.  I should close the windows and drink.  Water to dilute the darkness.  But, I gaze out the open windows.  Memorized by the moment to come.  My mouth and throat are a sticky dry mess.  My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.  The storm is coming.  The air has a wet arctic bite.  The crows are coming.

Thousands upon thousands of dark birds fly up the mountain toward the tired wooden shack.  They caw and swirl, like an angry black ink swirling in  water.  I should shut my windows, but I my eyes are fixed.  My breath quickens.  Thousands of cries, getting closer and closer.  They want my water well.  If I close the window and drink, they will crash upon the wooden walls like beaten waves on a rocky cliff.  If I let them in, they will defecate and poison it my well after they have drank it dry.  I should shut the windows, but I don’t.  I stand still and let the feathered storm overtake me.  My clothes are pecked and ripped.  My skin becomes hot and cut.  They devour me to the bone.  They drink up all the water from my well.  The stoned circle is stained with the aftermath of their loosed bowels.  They fly away into the mist.  Hunting for the next sorrowed soul.

 

Copyright © 2017 Zachary W Gilbert

I bought some new black socks.  I opened the package, and that faint chemical odor new  clothes have attacked my nose.  After a good wash and adequate dry, they are ready for my feet.  I love to put on socks right out of the dryer on a cold Colorado day.  A warm cotton therapy session before work.  In those moments of bliss, evil awakens.  Seeds of destruction, in the form of tiny black threads, somehow burrow into my toe nails.  From side to side my toe nails have a curvature.  I try to stick to my rule of, if I see white, I trim.  When I gain weight, it becomes difficult to get my toes just right.  As I jog, and lift, the bulge of my belly recedes and I see tiny black cheese balls stuffed deep under the nail of my toe.  Aged all winter long, they are a festering stench.  To combat the smell, I could wash my socks, over and over.  Even if I wore new shoes every day, they would still smell.  I could use chemicals and sprays to fight the battle, but the source of evil would endure.  The only solution, is to get a file designed to excavate that putrescence of evil that rots under my toenail.  Though some pain, and perseverance the tiny slimy strand is beaten.  A good foot scrub in the shower with a brave loofah sponge is the chaser.  Finally, the odor is vanquished into a the dark abyss of the drain.

I may say I am a good person.  “I washed my socks today!”  But, if there a patch of festering lint lodged in my soul, am I really a good person? Perhaps the stench of my entombed secret is hurting the proverbial noses of those around me.  I may shout, “I bought new shoes!”  Did that solve the problem?  My attitude is toxic because of my laziness has anchored me from doing a complete clean of myself.  I consider comments ‘flat’ when they sound like this;  “I did the dishes!”  Ok great, but, how well.  Did you just cram them in the dishwasher without a prewash? Did you scrub?  Was the water hot?  Ambiguity lies within ‘flat’ statements.  Another one of my favorites is that store brand soda tastes the same as name brand.  In my opinion, it does not.  “I bought you soda.  Just drink it, it tastes the same.”  Uhm yeah, no it doesn’t.  ‘Flat’ statements.

A person can offer the self proclaimed statement of, “I am a Christian!”  Isn’t  that vague?  What does that mean?  A preacher who screams and yells at someone who simply trying to sell you business cards?  (Yes, that happened to me).  A cheap ‘Nickle Denter’ who won’t tip on Sunday afternoon?  A walking human file of judgmental banter and acidic hatred?  A human grudge archive?  Perhaps my willingness to remove my soul lint will un-flatten the term for me.  I might accept the term of Christian to mean; One who realized there is evil hidden under  their toes? Attempts are not made to hide it with clean socks, new shoes, and sprayed air fresheners.  For me, use the term of Christian requires true cleanliness. Step one, I must admit I have a toe jam problem.   I realize I am a ‘Self Aware Sinner’, and I may require a ‘Self Sacrificed Savior’ to dislodge that smelly evil lint lodged under my heart.

 

Copyright © 2017 Zachary W Gilbert

Interstate 25 used to be a reliable place for me to lose a good mood.  Drivers, aggressive and erratic was my interpreted focus.  I used to offer free drivers education rolling commentary on every commute.  I was perpetually angry and irritated.   My attitude is much different now.  If someone gets in front of me and goes slow, I think of them as a guardian angel, perhaps protecting me from some unseen dangers up ahead.  When I was young, I would see every rolling piece of metal as my enemy.  Blockades of agitators that were on the road simply to annoy me.  That wasn’t true.  I was full of anger and aggression, and I was egocentric.  Today, as I drive, I make sure I have extra time for unseen delays.  While I drive, I look at other people, and wonder what their story is.  Did they just get promoted, or lose their job?  Did they lose a loved one, or just get engaged?  Are there kids still living in the same town, or did they lose a child last year?  Oh no, they cheer for the wrong football team, oh well, I am sure they have their reasons.  Cars are powered by people.  People with lives and stories.  Today, I am grateful that I finally see that.

A safe arrival after driving is a blessing.  Every time.  In all my years behind the wheel, I have always arrived safe.  Among thousands of people, we all coordinated our efforts within very dangerous machines, and made it to our destinations safe.  If there was a score card that showed accidents to safe arrivals, what shred of anything would I have to complain about?  Nothing.  Realizing that, I drive happy.

God has blessed me in so many ways.  Family, career, and health.  I wonder if he takes it as an insult when I complain that the line at the coffee shop is moving slow?  Does he feel sad when he blesses me with that sports car I have always wanted, and I lust for one better? Does he shake his head when I complain about a cold, and forget that surgery that solved my life long struggle with perpetual sinus infections?   When I pause, most days I shake my head.  I am like a spoiled child, hungry for more.  What I am trying hard to do is identify what is good in my life, and enjoy it.  The negative things are mosquito sized problems.  They are annoying, and they capture my complete attention and irritation, but they are so insignificant to the big picture.

One of my newer tricks for happiness is to find what is good about someone and compliment them, encourage them, brag about them, and mean it.  This takes my attention off of me.  I pause, I sigh, I finally see that the ratio is in my favor, and there are good people to be noticed all around me.

 

Copyright © 2017 Zachary W Gilbert