Riverside (Jaaaz) I

By the river, Alex’s dawdling mixes pleasant fantasy with unpleasant.

Alex’s toes are soothed by the coolness of the mighty Mississippi, as if the mighty Mississippi was “there for him”, for his personal pleasure and use, as if the great river was caring and loving, as if the great river had anticipated his sore feet and aching toes and knew just what to do to soothe them.

Why, Alex pondered, question the exact nature of loving care when obviously it worked. Alex’s toes wiggled freely, delightedly — that was what mattered.

Alex hadn’t been barefoot in a long time. He hadn’t been shoeless. He wasn’t a rich boy– he was a swamp rat– but took care about footware. Footwear. Hardware, software, shorn hair, footloose and fancy free, jumping and jiving. His “sneaker” of choice? By far? Jordan Spizike Low, retailing for $165.

Footware tootsie care, but no tootsie so fine, no bridge too far, as to shimmer in lace of cooling baptismal waters of the mighty Mississippi. Baptismal waters! Tootsie sprinkles, glimmer rainbows of bliss transmitting from toe to head– broadcast from there, via cowlick, to the air waves above. Oh God! Dawdling Alex realized probably these mighty “miss” or “mist” waters were the “source” of the baptizing waters sparingly twinkled that bright May morn when he, coerced by mommy, received blessing, of church.

“Cut the crap,” a pestering red devil sitting on Alex’s left shoulder muttered violently.

“Those May morning waters can’t be these, dear boy.”

(It may be a May morning upon which Alex soothes his toes, but it was definitely a May morning when Alex received baptism. There is an official record of that event in the church’s diary, or whatever that book they kept is called.)

“All is one,” coyly stated the lovely linen white angel on Alex’s right shoulder. Though coy, the choir-toned voice had a hint of chiding, as always.

Alex felt a little, tiny, piercing of pain in his big toe. He looked down. The skin on both feet was all shrivelly, as if he’d aged, these blissful minutes, by nine or ten millenium. Or millenia.