Missing

"...there comes a time when contingency itself is contingent on the abrupt desire to happen, a collosal burp brewing somewhere."

--John Ashberry

Missing

It used to loom large and then not so large at all. In fact, the looming really does imply being up ahead, in front, approaching, in the future. It would be enough to get you up in the morning. It could keep you up - but in a good way. And always, always not only a topic of conversation - even with those who probably didn't even want to hear about it., but a mindstew. You know how that goes - the mind goes to that which it wants and it wants to share it's expectation. It's a way of filling in what isn't there now: the talk, the image - you can see its presence and having it - the thought of having it. That is a hole that gets decorated with longing.

The wrapping on a present, or the icing on a cake - the ornaments on the Christmas tree and the snare drum's beat around the melody that hints at what the song is all about - the heart bump that everyone wants to get. Wrap it up nicely because that's the celebration' the pre-part; the not knowing yet delight in possibly getting. Possibly getting it.

The completeness of the imagination leaves one in its wake. It leads, it's always in the lead . . . and you stumble on behind with visions of dancing in your bed. Always around the corner, up the road. The map is continually redrawn like google gone wild - with various close-ups (Hey, I can see your house from here).

The design of this plan - surely there is one - is yours. Contingencies rule, of course, but you tell yourself that they are all part of the plan. That's the way plans go. The rooms that open up into rooms that have corridors that take you up up stairs into closets that reveal entire shopping centers. And if that's a contingency, then what's its contingency?

-- Big Frank Dickinson