Lightning strikes maybe once, maybe twice

In, keys, table, drink, sip, refill, couch. Remote. Helicopter crash, major upset, Buffy! Hey, it’s the African Queen, Mr. Allnut. And what do we have here? Whoa! Fucking BAM! Each successive click took a little less time. It went: poooooooo-ching, poooo-ching, poo-ching,
pching, ching ching ching ching. Bloggedy blue blah blah. One more click and it was off.

Pzap.

Beyond the window rain fell, keeping the promise of the day. This should not bother him, he should just button up and head on out for his walk/jog to the familiar tree and familiar sky and familiar thoughts. What was once eager was now less so. There was always a drier tomorrow.

The sound of the rain and the color of the clouds, the movement of the branches on the trees.

He lifted the window to feel the breeze and what drops may find their way through the screen onto his hands. Spring was arriving, the water its paparazzi. Spring was arriving, the rain just ahead to wake everything up and tell the secret. “Hey, wake up! Get ready! Spring is coming and change is near. Are you ready?”

He carefully selected a book to carry on his bosom betwixt his crossed arms from here to the bedroom, laying it down near the center of the bed. Turning the cover back and tossing a pillow on top of a pillow on top of a pillow, this was almost instinct for him now. Back to the living room to gather his big blue cup of iced tea. Walk slowly, don’t spill. He placed it on the nightstand, turned, and sat down. Left shoe, right lace, one long pull. Tug and a tug and it slipped off. Now the right shoe and the left lace, one long pull and a bigger tug and he was
shoeless, but he was not involved in a baseball scandal. What a relief. He unbuttoned his Levi’s, brought the zipper down, and pushed his pants off wanting for grace. He stood there in his bedroom wearing a t-shirt, underwear, and socks. The rain still came. He did not hear what the rain was trying to tell him.
In fact, he wasn’t even listening. But he was watching. Or looking.

He stood there by his bed, barely clothed, staring at the wall in front of him. The wall in front of him. And there were the closet doors, slightly ajar. The door into the bedroom was to his right, and he turned his head to look at it, too. It was open all the way. The door was open. Open. It was perpendicular to the wall that was itself perpendicular to the wall at which he was originally staring. To his left
was another wall, a wall that was parallel to the wall that was perpendicular to the wall at which he was originally staring - the wall with the slightly ajar closet doors. Through the small opening he could see part of a shirt that was hanging on a hanger inside. He had worn that shirt the last time he saw Dani.

Children do seem to be inquisitive, and he had not been different. Only, his inquisitiveness was a bit more intense than other children’s were, and it ran deeper. It was never about barnyards and marshmallows and rainbows for Gandy. He had to know, he must find out. What were dinosaurs? Who were the Incas, the Aztecs, the Greeks and Romans? What were the major wars and what caused them? What was Mozart’s life like? Where did Christianity and Islam and Hinduism and such come from and why did people believe those things? Books of poetry and books of stories and more stories to tell him where the world had been and how it worked. He was able to soak in so much knowledge that people used to say that he really didn’t study things, he only refreshed his memory about things which he had always known.

His room used to be so cluttered. Books scattered about, notebooks with scribblings and stories he made up. Long-playing records here and there. But even then, in the evenings, he would find himself staring at the wall in front of him. He stared because the wall perplexed him.

There was more to that wall. His brain tried to break the puzzle, but it never could. Later, after the foundation had been laid, it was time to paint in the details, spend some time focusing and absorbing minutiae. He was a teenager now, a young adult, and there was an incredible new tool for this very purpose. What would have taken him weeks to find out using traditional methods now was instantaneous via the internet. Turbo-charged remembering. When his eyes became tired and his brain full of nutrition, when it was time to stop and go to bed, he would notice a wall and the same old perplexion came on again. Now, he would notice the wall first, and then the bed, the window, the shelves, the floor. Objects.

The shirt he had worn when he last saw Dani. A troll inside his mind pushed a little troll hand down inside some gray matter, and after a moment, pulled out the thought of Dani and crushed it between his troll fingers. It squeaked and died. A necessary action, thank you troll.

“Just doin’ my duty, sir.”

Considering the wall. Considering the objects in his room. Not so much a thought process, but a thought process that always aborted itself before it could form and Gandy would retry. Suddenly he shouted to the objects and to himself, “Sweet mother of god, what is the hold up!”