Riverside (V)

Alex wants to dawdle. He wants effortless enjoyment. He wants a relaxation never to be boring or annoying. Or to produce bed sores. He wants a relaxation without surcease, without disturbance by hunger, thirst, cold or heat.

What Alex wants is The Garden of Eden. Alex wants Heaven without dying.

Alex is aware this is impossible. Perhaps sinful. Yet Alex is also aware faith moves mountains.

He remembers his infancy. He remembers a mama coming to the rescue, to change his diapers.

Now Alex sits in the cool mud of the bank of the MISSISSIPPI river. The cool mud cools Alex’s mud, which is in Alex’s bottom. The cool mud of the bank extends into the cool mud of the river’s bottom. Alex was unaware, when he was a baby, and his bottom was scafed, and sore. Alex sat in cool mud, even as a baby.

Alex has come home! He can almost feel mama, big mama, in the pure of the mighty Mississippi, gentle on his mind, and bottom, river bottom.

The river is cool, for the waters of the river are soothing. Alex, cooled and soothed, enjoys himself here. Leaning back, closing his eyes, he lets the sun, soothing for once, bake him. The brown mud of the bank is also getting baked, but retains its sooth, its cool, its love of the sun, to tease it. Yes, to get it hard. This is dawdling, but will it last? Alex doesn’t rightly know. Does Alex have a right to know? Cool.