Paul was Spring, Ahead.

Paul was putting the red jam on his toast. Then he wanted marmalade. His toast was half red and half orange. & sweet. His coffee, black.

Before him lay the middle of an idea fueled by clarity in coffee. Pen marks & perspective lines. The diner placemat framed with a brown lattice pattern. Next to a coffee ring, a list of photography supplies. In short script on the right side were subjects he wished to shoot. His head humming with a crisp white clarity, what steps next to take, snowing.

“It’s going to be a hot one” the flannelled figure next to Paul remarked.

“I don’t have much to say.”

“If it gets much above 45 degrees workin is gonna be tough.”

“Wouldn’t it be better for working if it was hot? Put some rum in your straw.”

“Ground thaws. Bad news.”

 

The waitress refilled Paul’s coffee.

“Hey doll how about some sugar and crème?” Paul asked.

“You asked for it black”

“Oh.”

Before he could respond she had placed the seasonings on the counter & stared straight into his eyes, her one eyebrow cocked.

“Thanks.”

“Cindy just likes to fool with ya,” the man said, “just give her a rap on her backside when she walks round the counter — that will set her straight.”

“I did that in a place down in California. Waitress slapped me straight away.”

“People up here know their place. Cindy knows her place. I move trees. And you?”

“Looking for work. Was down by the coast for a while; I thought I wanted sun; I missed winter.”

“If it gets much warmer, there won’t be any work.”

“Place needs to be frozen, white, to get things done.”

 

Snow was melting. The crisp white outlines melting. Away.

Paul was cereal: part XXVI

[this box of Lucky Charms was opened on 1 February]

 

Paul was telephones ring, you follow a script, time passes. A simple peer pressure pitch. Yes, he could follow lines in the snow — passive aggressive status updates, call & response catfights — but that was all walk backwards.

 

“Remember at school when you got lost on Neversink?”

Mindless. Wend the drifting. She said “We are creatures of habit” so many times it drove Dad to leave. A clearing. To prove her wrong.

 

Up. Must walk up.

Need to find the clearing without snow. Always a fuzz on the line, autodial. The amount of text fit onto a postcard. From the West. But, always empty words

 

& next year school & school & school & then what?  Need money car travel. Each day bed made, sheets tucked backed under mattress. No record of the night before.

 

“Why were you even up there?”

 

It comes down to collecting a paper, a small scroll, some script. To be part of the club. There was purpose to movement (updownleftright on page). & thens were lined up for tomorrow. Pull lines from dream. Inset; telemarketing scripts, post cards, magazine subscription inserts, twigs, a splotch of patchy red snow where a deer was downed, calendars, newspaper, a recipe, resigned flight, sheets record sleeps twists; in restoring the sincerity to your voice, perhaps mores sales, more readers.

 

Out of all the possible call combinations, a person who knew Paul, Ralph.

 

So many enjambments but no where to hide. & then where the woods opened up. Centered in this clearing, a small grass halo with a cigarbox.

 

Supposed to be a simple sequence. One foot infront of the other. Repeat. An ordered event. The next line, pitch. Walk up, find the cigar box, run down, win a game of 4 square. Follow a serial story through 28 steps. Tracks decodable, imprinted snow.

Each day another piece. It passes. Less mind.

 

 

Insert a cliffhanger question here? Can Paul make it back down Mount Neversink?

 

Tune in tomorrow for Part XXVII of “Paul was cereal”

Paul was cereal: part XXV

[this box of Life was opened on February 1]

Paul was the stillness

an empty winter wood.

 

White, white, white, white,

 

 

white, white, & white.

 

 

 

The space expanding its own possibility.

 

 

 

| little letters show life |

 

 

 

Tracks decodable, open to interpretation as the narrative direction or motivation of writer to give reader understandable lies|lines to follow. phollow phonetics, the size & shape of this printed snow

 

a rabbit, a squirrel, a comma, deep hollow foot holes “he moved out west” & then the yelling stopped, perhaps a fox, deer?, there those tracks there point to something more unidentifiably large & catlike.

 

Up must walk up.

 

 

Up must post update.

 

 

Up must walk up.

 

Maybe lost? Just drawing out the journey?

 

Tune in tomorrow for Part XXVI of “Paul was cereal”

Paul was cereal: part VII

[this box of Count Chocula was opened on 1 February]

Paul was turning towards the sound but a forming fog blocked all that was behind. He could see nothing but whiteness all round, snowy ground blending into the surrounding flightless cloud, papers above flapping, the grassy island he stood on the only noticeable colour. & the bird, rested now  hopping, hopping, hopping a little further with its wings warming up, & then fluttering upwards into the heavy air.

 

A streak of orange light leaped at the flipping, but it was already to high, moving upwards into the cluster. Both Paul & the cat stood tranced & looking upward as the bird began pulling at papers,

 

each sheet falling in a buzzing alarm. Sound taking over all sight ringing RInging RINging, Paul walk up, RINGing, Paul wake up, RING ING

 

What is this racket? Has the bird escaped paper piles or is it just preparing a nest?

 

Tune in tomorrow for Part VIII of “Paul was cereal”

 

Paul was cereal: part IV

[this box of Fruit Loops was opened on 1 February]

Paul was a certain stillness to the woods in the afternoon; the sound of snow melting, dripping, dropping off trees; the rhythm of walking & boots cutting through the crusty white forest floor; the overuse of sem;colons; a tune in breathing & stepping & breathing & scrolling & breathing.

 

Paul had seen the bird trying to fly out of the wood, but on each attempt it clinked into the ceiling. A chiming connection of glass on glass, echoing. The cardinal couldn’t climb out of the expansive, tangled, everyday forest. It resigned flight & landed snowbound.

 

While Paul approached the downed flyer, the cat appeared. Paul stopped still. His stomach ached & his mouth watered as it always did before he threw up. The cat looked up & then Paul unleashed his terror in a scream.   

 

Will Paul’s yelling scare the cat away? Don’t we already know what happens because this section was a flashback & in the current action sequence Paul was carrying the bird in his hands while running in terror?

 

Tune in tomorrow for Part V of “Paul was cereal”

Paul was cereal: part I

Paul was up, must walk up. He was walking through a crowded overloaded space that, due to the abundant & glowing white light, felt open; reflections & half rainbows flitted over trunks, brown boxed stacks reached skyward & expanded in branchless bursts with thin, frail leaves; small paper fragments clustering to obscure a sky view, yet passing through them always, light.

 

Up, I must walk up.

 

Paul continued moving & shifting through tenses. His small footprints dotting a path backward in snow. Mittened hands cupped together, the tiny bird warm in his fabric nest. & then, in front of him an enormous beast stalking head down with teeth glistening. Gutteral growling, slow paces toward Paul.

 

Will Paul be a treat for the treacherous creature? What is your favorite colour?

 

Tune in tomorrow for Part II of “Paul was cereal.”

Paul was eventually pulled out of the mass, one word will right | write | Saturday, snow, a cardinal.