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Flickering
My brother in his prime could throw a baseball 90 mph and at 6' 7" his backswing and follow through with a golf club are such that I cringe a little each time he drives the imaginary ball 300 yards down the fairway, which is represented by me sitting in an easy chair in front of his fireplace, just six feet away. I slouch down a little so that my head is protected from the accidental tragedy that would be the slipping of the club from his fingers. With each fierce swish my mind pulls up a photograph from the past so that I see and hear a swishing flicker show of images, one of which is not from the past but the future and is glass enclosed framed photographs on the wall in front of me exploding in a Sam Peckinpaw smithereens fashion as the accidentally? released club bounces to and fro like it is under the control of an invisible and not so very adept baton twirler. The pictures from the past are me smarting off to him by asking does he want a medal or a chest to pin it on, or stealing his car keys to sneak out the family car three years before I had a legal license to do such a thing (driving, not stealing), or the accidental? karate chop to his throat that made him reassess his real or imagined superiority over me, in our childhoods.
I got new tires on my truck yesterday and a new windshield last month and will begin driving northeast in the morning and although my stay here in Dallas did not seem to accomplish much towards the ultimate goal of easing my aging mother into the idea of accepting in home care I did learn a thing or two about the incompetence of some agencies that provide such care. My brothers that are local and a sister coming in for a follow up attempt will carry on and despite this string of dismal failures we have faced it would only seem natural that luck will eventually change to an opposite of whatever it has been bringing and for this family that will be a good thing. My mother, meanwhile, is a long way from full blown alzheimers and I expect will carry on just fine until her children are able to get their acts together.