#njarts

Cham touched the minorly wet shift key. With a crack it let out a shock. This day all the orange construction barriers on the road outside came down, the road re-routed. Now a one way with a pedestrian strip on it’s side. The image of the sectioned pedestrian strip was in their mind, separated, ungrounded, they got up from the chair and received another shock, emanated with loud snap bang sound. A dirt bike was heard zipping down the street out the open window as Cham juiced the nippy breeze as he crossed his apartment and walked straight to the source of busy motion, the lcd tv, stood right up to it. He removed a strip of plastic from the control panel and mid stride, moving towards the ladder in the closet, received another pinging shock. They stuck the plastic to the ladder, an older ladder and turned and got a worn jacket out of the closet to ring in this fierce wind that had just picked up inquisitively. Gusts were shaking the surroundings outside the house. They walked down the old velvet banister and then returned to floor level, exited the big ornate front door to a quick bucket downpour of rain. The rain on the dry pavement puddled and went down the cracks in the stone steps of the apartment building and poured out to the sidewalk.

The spikes were in town. Every single block corner had a frickin pedestal with an assortment sphere, the trailed kind. No glass and this thing sitting on it’s spikes, sphere and spikes, resting on the pedestals. Of course the pedestals were watched but there was still rubbish and risk. In fact Cham had been walking for four blocks down this stone town when his shoe locked on an assortment sphere. With a sharp metal dragging his foot weighed to his stride and scraped the pavement. Dumb, he took it off and got shocked again. The people running the pedestals were an old weathered type. Dressed in leather and smelling very musky. It opened up raining on all fronts now and a sole and huge lightning strike struck the center front of his peripheral, crashed out and zapped the assortment sphere. They pulled a fold-out hat out of the jacket pocket and rushed through the rain. It dripped from the worn awnings of the store fronts.

Newest way they’d ever seen one of these spheres destroyed but not the only way. Cham decided to get away from the pedestals and ducked into an alley behind a cafe. There was a man back there. A small dumpster was arranged by the edge of the pavement, by the neat cut grass. The man stood against the wall, white paint on his work pants and just out of the rain, against the building. Thunder rocked the soundscape. The ground was less balanced here. There was neat cut grass but plenty of soggy wet boxes and indescribable rubbish. He asked if Cham wanted to know of something weird, pointing to a black plastic milk cartoon. “These things. They just put them here. Some day’s there’s two. The next day you come back and there’s just one.” Alert, Cham felt the balance of the concrete they were standing on. It was precarious. The whole vicinity wobbled and sweltered under gravity. He could not believe the man had the audacity to move the milk cartoon. Terrified of falling through, Cham ushered himself into the back of the cafe.

Raw vegetables were being blended very loudly, making the air pungent and the current icyy and harsh as he received another shock which they were plenty used to. From inside the stainless steel kitchen chamber and through the door, a crescendo of dish wear was heard out in the restaurant as dishes were pushed off a big round table into a tub, it coming into view as Cham, feeling for a patch of seam on his jacket, headed into the main dining room. The musk was otherworldly, the restaurant was filled with pillar patrons. Still even this cloudy overtaken atmosphere was nothing compared to the glowing sight of the flowers in the little grill pits in the center of the tables. The grill burned orange as the flowers seared. A kid sitting on the shoulders of a pillar involved person, was dropping big rose flowers into one of the pits.

A clanking car was heard going down the street, even over the rain, sounding like loose and ajar bits and pieces all at war with each other. With this more pillar related individuals started bringing their stench and themselves into the cafe. The place was filling up. Cham was pushed back to the kitchen doorway. A chef quickly glazing with a brush with a swatch, accidentally got glaze on Cham’s wrist. The chef bailed a bucked under the fridge out the back door, no concern or perhaps, knowledge of the man with the messy pants, paint on wall if he leaned. The pungent odor of lunch was making the kitchen stuffy. As the cafe was so full people were beginning to find themselves in the kitchen, another bucket from under the sink. The ground tilted and Cham slid out the front door.

A new car and a cop car, Cham was shocked, a cop with green hair handed him a surfboard as he fit right in the outlet, smooth and folded in on himself to catch the ridges of the wave coming down the avenue. Flesh and carving along the current, Cham sailed off into the sunny rainless areas, collapsed on the surfboard, and rode out the diminished tide laying down and at ease. Wanted and prim, his closed eyes raw and fresh, faced the sky and the surfboard gently rocked. Like netted disco balls, things definitely flowed back louder and muskier; arm rods, assortment spheres, smells, sound, keyboard and a ringer. Cham peeked his eyes open and bumped into a gnarly big tree-back while laying on the surfboard. A squirrel just there and throws a green earthy nut, off the tree, into the water. The surfboard, with almost an ode to bubble and overtake, floats on top of that acorn. A moment passes for Cham laying there and then, fully zapped.

Part of a longer story