FROM DOC’S LOON FABLES 9
The Car Payment and the Poet
A car payment paced back and forth in the vastness of an abandoned steel mill while shouting obscenities and waving its arms. Calmly observing this behavior from her perch on rusty debris was a poet.
“Hold fast to time!” called the poet.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” said the car payment, turning swiftly and pausing mid-pace.
“Your dreams live. Don’t dole them out like so much tar. Sample them tenderly with wicks of burnished straw,” said the poet, smiling strangely.
“Great. First I’m abandoned in rubble, and now I’m harassed by some sort of mad alien being. Give me a break!” complained the car payment, gazing upward and shaking its fist at the ruined catwalk.
The bleak landscape outside remained indifferent, unmoved. Sun rays low from the horizon glinted off the windshield of a pale green 1948 Nash Rambler parked beside an exhaust-blackened pile of plowed snow.
“Night is nigh,” said the poet.
The car payment crumpled to its knees and wept openly, unashamedly, without restraint. And so began the long darkness.
Moral: When you’re in despair, a poet will not care.
