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Miracle Blackmill
"I still don't get it." He said from across the table, watching as the tiny peels of bark and the month old knots fell away from the tiny tree trunk.
"Not sure what you're referencing; the situation at hand or the one waiting for me in the wings that due to the lack of flap I'm going to have to wait on and I assume you're referencing the bonsai and that, my friend, is most likely just not for you to get at this point in time." he used the flat faced blade that was covered with rust he had polished with the 4000 grit sandpaper to glide through the upper part of the tiny knot, producing a perfect little ring. He could feel his old teamate's confusion. "You could buy one, pay the premium, keep it alive, offer proof of life photos daily if not weekly through mail and online to people who care more about your tree than you and then, and only then might you start to 'get it' my brother." He back-scrapped the smooth cut rearwards to help it curl in on the wound he left.
Across the table B's eyes brightened with what could losely be termed illunination. He leaned forward and pointed across the tree at him, point blank in the face. "Now that I undetstand. Dollars make sense and you're basically sitting on a prirary in a long term protection gig. Everything you do given the mico scale of the project shows through."
Straight to the cents of the situation as always. "Pruning equals grooming but some people just see today's scars, the shaved-up product sitting in the expensive little pot, or maybe even in the simple and unglazed concrete or plaster of Paris form. Sometimes that makes it impossible to see the value in the artist's hand let alone the present toil involved in the work of it all." He picked up the knob cutters and went dark in the deep, thinking about the growth of a week and if he should give some of the stems that hadn't produced another bite or even shave them off flat and sand them gone.
"You're not talking about Gallahad are you?" B referenced the tree by name and that was an insolvent point of order in relation to his usual attention potential.
"Not completely dear brother but to be honest it's been castled up long enough and gained no runners it becomes encumbant on me to try and coax it into survival mode." He said, sitting the knob cutters down and picking up a stainless bristled brush to give the delicate bark layer some 'charachter' that would literally help it breathe in the sunshine.
"Kind of like the people back in the day, brush em the wrong way until you got them to actually pretend they wanted to live." B added, resting up on a fist and sighing.
"Yup but the trees certainly take to it more readily and produce much better results than even the older people these days."
"C...we are 'older people these days' which is still why I have to ask what the whole point of it, of this was and is." He questioningly leaned his head to the left to which C leaned around the outer canopy of the tree to look him in the eye.
"At this point I'm not seeing how I really had much of a choice but it was more than not, simply an appeal to my genuine base emotions. I got taken advantage of and used because no one offered a hand to help me get up out of that wheelchair, not even hard to be quite honest about the situation. After all, and think back, no one but you and M even came to the hospital and that was only once." B understood it was because of operational security in the fact that he had told him not to that he never returned. "She created a narrative in her mind and expressed it openly that eventually bled over into my consciousness wherein she had been and was instrumental in my regaining use of my leg and the ability to walk." He shook his head and picked up the small handmade Chinese thread snippers that no doubt were meant for the small hands used to create the very clothes that most people in this country wore. He found them somewhat useful at trimming the very small wire that he loosely wove around the branches but also to remove the distal ends of the leaves which browned away during the dormant periods. The up side was that while they were not extremely useful, they were somewhat useful and also cheap and readily disposable. He and B had been raised by a generation that went through the depression era in America and therefore that idea was not one that they were normal attuned to. He had changed over the years and he came to realize it wasn't for the better. Everywhere he looked people became more and more dependent and based their entire lives on material things rather than people and both broke when misused and poorly applied to situations beyond their ability.
He returned his attention to the bonzai whenever the substandard and unsharpened steel turned the thickening stem under as they spread slightly. He tried to regularly keep a polish and sharpening on all of the cheap tools however sometimes, because of the multiplicity of them, he picked out to the wrong pair which we are done this time. He regularly handed out the tools to anyone that showed any interest in the craft. "Remember when we were kids and our grandparents would always have us go and borrow either sugar or salt from the beighbors?"
B smiled at a question and had no doubt the salt of the reason why it was asked. "Because you never know when you will need something, even small from your neighbor and many times they are not capable of advanced or expensive means, therefore they should never feel as though they can't repay whatever favor you might ask from them or as if they'd never done anything for you just in case what they need in order to survive his something big."
"People are supposed to look out for their neighbors and we live during a time whenever no one even takes care of the people within their own household. That ancient curse of 'may you live in extraordinary times' is truly a curse so many times in so many different directions that we lose track of how many." He sighed and laid the snips down.
"People don't take care of themselves or their children these days, how can you expect anyone to take up a charge whenever you need something?" B stared off out the window thinking about how he needed to get ready to go to work in the morning and how he would politely excuse himself from the conversation.
"I don't. I can just not fathom or understand how injustice and corruption can be something that has become so commonplace that not only do people excuse it and not work against it they are not even interested by it whenever it is worthy of a Hollywood movie." He shrugged.
"Because there have been far too many movies about it and now everyone is trapped indoors and has seen them all so many times that the predictive programming of it all has just become commonplace in their minds to the point that even the ones that are perpetrating the injustice, intolerance and even actual illegal actions against people who can do no better and suffer under their bootheels don't know that they are actually doing it. To them, it is just 'the job' these days." B squinted as the thought spilled out of his mouth.
"That, my friend, is an astute and eloquent elaboration, a home point that I will deposit in my thought bank. I guess the real heartbreak of it, that I can't get over, is that I remember a time whenever this wasn't the way that it was. I have to think and understand that at some point during World War II there was probably a pair of officers sitting across the table asking one another if they were the bad guys. Do you think that's pretty much what was said, the same thing we're saying to each other now?" He could tell that B was looking for an escape strategy and no doubt had other things to do and since he didn't come on the motorcycle if you knew that it wasn't to go and ride free into the darkness. "Do any of them even ask each other if they're the Baddies?"
"If this sort of thing that happened 10 to 15 years ago whenever we were still at work maybe but now we are simply the old crowd sitting around talking about the good old days and no one cares, just like every generation doesn't as a rule. Eventually the generation that cares will read about it in the history books and unfortunately the history of it all will be written down by the victors. That's going to be the lazy conspiratorial upper echelon of the profession that at one point we all thought was going to make a difference. We're just old people standing at chest depth in the ocean yelling back at the children on the shore said it's coming." B leaned across and picked up the X-acto knife and removed a thread from the shearling-lined patrol coat that still had the shapes of patches on the non faded Parts on the sleeves the removal of left behind.
"Going to get a lot colder out there brother. Couldn't help but notice that you didn't come on one of the bikes even though that truck of yours is loud enough to sound like a Harley. I sure miss those days some days but not too much these days what would the pain and all. Ever hear from any of the old Club?" He asked and stood, then departed for the kitchen. "Care for another cup of silk? I'll even loan you one of my ol green themos if you want to take it with you and maybe get a ride in before the sun hits the ground." He had seen B's eyes perk up whenever the cadre of motorcycles, probably a dozen deep, had gone by. He couldn't help but hope that he had hidden the pain of having lost that privilege in his life deeply enough that his friend didn't see it but he somehow felt that he did.
"Still got the collection?" B asked and stood but still didn't follow him into the kitchen.
The extensive collection of green vintage thermos in comparison to the garage full of multiple motorcycles would seem like an insult to most people but both of them knew that several of the thermos belonged to their grandfathers geandfathers and the bikes usually belonged to the scrap heap after they ended up shiny side down. "You know it." he smiled to himself and refilled the kettle as he thought of all the times that he would bring a literal bag full of thermos along with the bags full of guns so everyone could have some coffee before the runs.
"A's got some science homework that she needed help with and she promised it was about astronomy."
© Satu
"Not sure what you're referencing; the situation at hand or the one waiting for me in the wings that due to the lack of flap I'm going to have to wait on and I assume you're referencing the bonsai and that, my friend, is most likely just not for you to get at this point in time." he used the flat faced blade that was covered with rust he had polished with the 4000 grit sandpaper to glide through the upper part of the tiny knot, producing a perfect little ring. He could feel his old teamate's confusion. "You could buy one, pay the premium, keep it alive, offer proof of life photos daily if not weekly through mail and online to people who care more about your tree than you and then, and only then might you start to 'get it' my brother." He back-scrapped the smooth cut rearwards to help it curl in on the wound he left.
Across the table B's eyes brightened with what could losely be termed illunination. He leaned forward and pointed across the tree at him, point blank in the face. "Now that I undetstand. Dollars make sense and you're basically sitting on a prirary in a long term protection gig. Everything you do given the mico scale of the project shows through."
Straight to the cents of the situation as always. "Pruning equals grooming but some people just see today's scars, the shaved-up product sitting in the expensive little pot, or maybe even in the simple and unglazed concrete or plaster of Paris form. Sometimes that makes it impossible to see the value in the artist's hand let alone the present toil involved in the work of it all." He picked up the knob cutters and went dark in the deep, thinking about the growth of a week and if he should give some of the stems that hadn't produced another bite or even shave them off flat and sand them gone.
"You're not talking about Gallahad are you?" B referenced the tree by name and that was an insolvent point of order in relation to his usual attention potential.
"Not completely dear brother but to be honest it's been castled up long enough and gained no runners it becomes encumbant on me to try and coax it into survival mode." He said, sitting the knob cutters down and picking up a stainless bristled brush to give the delicate bark layer some 'charachter' that would literally help it breathe in the sunshine.
"Kind of like the people back in the day, brush em the wrong way until you got them to actually pretend they wanted to live." B added, resting up on a fist and sighing.
"Yup but the trees certainly take to it more readily and produce much better results than even the older people these days."
"C...we are 'older people these days' which is still why I have to ask what the whole point of it, of this was and is." He questioningly leaned his head to the left to which C leaned around the outer canopy of the tree to look him in the eye.
"At this point I'm not seeing how I really had much of a choice but it was more than not, simply an appeal to my genuine base emotions. I got taken advantage of and used because no one offered a hand to help me get up out of that wheelchair, not even hard to be quite honest about the situation. After all, and think back, no one but you and M even came to the hospital and that was only once." B understood it was because of operational security in the fact that he had told him not to that he never returned. "She created a narrative in her mind and expressed it openly that eventually bled over into my consciousness wherein she had been and was instrumental in my regaining use of my leg and the ability to walk." He shook his head and picked up the small handmade Chinese thread snippers that no doubt were meant for the small hands used to create the very clothes that most people in this country wore. He found them somewhat useful at trimming the very small wire that he loosely wove around the branches but also to remove the distal ends of the leaves which browned away during the dormant periods. The up side was that while they were not extremely useful, they were somewhat useful and also cheap and readily disposable. He and B had been raised by a generation that went through the depression era in America and therefore that idea was not one that they were normal attuned to. He had changed over the years and he came to realize it wasn't for the better. Everywhere he looked people became more and more dependent and based their entire lives on material things rather than people and both broke when misused and poorly applied to situations beyond their ability.
He returned his attention to the bonzai whenever the substandard and unsharpened steel turned the thickening stem under as they spread slightly. He tried to regularly keep a polish and sharpening on all of the cheap tools however sometimes, because of the multiplicity of them, he picked out to the wrong pair which we are done this time. He regularly handed out the tools to anyone that showed any interest in the craft. "Remember when we were kids and our grandparents would always have us go and borrow either sugar or salt from the beighbors?"
B smiled at a question and had no doubt the salt of the reason why it was asked. "Because you never know when you will need something, even small from your neighbor and many times they are not capable of advanced or expensive means, therefore they should never feel as though they can't repay whatever favor you might ask from them or as if they'd never done anything for you just in case what they need in order to survive his something big."
"People are supposed to look out for their neighbors and we live during a time whenever no one even takes care of the people within their own household. That ancient curse of 'may you live in extraordinary times' is truly a curse so many times in so many different directions that we lose track of how many." He sighed and laid the snips down.
"People don't take care of themselves or their children these days, how can you expect anyone to take up a charge whenever you need something?" B stared off out the window thinking about how he needed to get ready to go to work in the morning and how he would politely excuse himself from the conversation.
"I don't. I can just not fathom or understand how injustice and corruption can be something that has become so commonplace that not only do people excuse it and not work against it they are not even interested by it whenever it is worthy of a Hollywood movie." He shrugged.
"Because there have been far too many movies about it and now everyone is trapped indoors and has seen them all so many times that the predictive programming of it all has just become commonplace in their minds to the point that even the ones that are perpetrating the injustice, intolerance and even actual illegal actions against people who can do no better and suffer under their bootheels don't know that they are actually doing it. To them, it is just 'the job' these days." B squinted as the thought spilled out of his mouth.
"That, my friend, is an astute and eloquent elaboration, a home point that I will deposit in my thought bank. I guess the real heartbreak of it, that I can't get over, is that I remember a time whenever this wasn't the way that it was. I have to think and understand that at some point during World War II there was probably a pair of officers sitting across the table asking one another if they were the bad guys. Do you think that's pretty much what was said, the same thing we're saying to each other now?" He could tell that B was looking for an escape strategy and no doubt had other things to do and since he didn't come on the motorcycle if you knew that it wasn't to go and ride free into the darkness. "Do any of them even ask each other if they're the Baddies?"
"If this sort of thing that happened 10 to 15 years ago whenever we were still at work maybe but now we are simply the old crowd sitting around talking about the good old days and no one cares, just like every generation doesn't as a rule. Eventually the generation that cares will read about it in the history books and unfortunately the history of it all will be written down by the victors. That's going to be the lazy conspiratorial upper echelon of the profession that at one point we all thought was going to make a difference. We're just old people standing at chest depth in the ocean yelling back at the children on the shore said it's coming." B leaned across and picked up the X-acto knife and removed a thread from the shearling-lined patrol coat that still had the shapes of patches on the non faded Parts on the sleeves the removal of left behind.
"Going to get a lot colder out there brother. Couldn't help but notice that you didn't come on one of the bikes even though that truck of yours is loud enough to sound like a Harley. I sure miss those days some days but not too much these days what would the pain and all. Ever hear from any of the old Club?" He asked and stood, then departed for the kitchen. "Care for another cup of silk? I'll even loan you one of my ol green themos if you want to take it with you and maybe get a ride in before the sun hits the ground." He had seen B's eyes perk up whenever the cadre of motorcycles, probably a dozen deep, had gone by. He couldn't help but hope that he had hidden the pain of having lost that privilege in his life deeply enough that his friend didn't see it but he somehow felt that he did.
"Still got the collection?" B asked and stood but still didn't follow him into the kitchen.
The extensive collection of green vintage thermos in comparison to the garage full of multiple motorcycles would seem like an insult to most people but both of them knew that several of the thermos belonged to their grandfathers geandfathers and the bikes usually belonged to the scrap heap after they ended up shiny side down. "You know it." he smiled to himself and refilled the kettle as he thought of all the times that he would bring a literal bag full of thermos along with the bags full of guns so everyone could have some coffee before the runs.
"A's got some science homework that she needed help with and she promised it was about astronomy."
© Satu
