supporting characters

supporting characters

fiction
edward w pritchard

When the social order temporarily breaks down in a time of mass social crisis one of the first things we eventually notice is that the supporting characters that furnish the background noise that fill our lives mysteriously disappear. Perhaps there is an economic reason and perhaps it is well known to the properly educated but I don't know the explanation.

If your groceries are going to be chosen unseen at the store and delivered by a faceless amazon delivery driver to your porch while his vehicle blocks  half the road in front of your house for your neighbors why shouldn't he be a robot or intelligent machine?

global awareness

global awareness

fiction
edward w pritchard

Wouldn't it be nice if every world government would order every source of light in the world to be turned off one clear night for a few hours so everyone could see the milky war galaxy as our ancestors did.

What a Gaia moment of hyper awareness that would be.

lock down frenzy

lock down frenzy

fiction
edward w pritchard

Wash hands 
retreat to Venice in darkness on gondola wearing cracked ceramic masks
hiding face from self
drench hands with sanitizer pulling fingers through  hair
isolation dissolves the Herd
Strangers intimately forgotten

just a dreamer

just a dreamer

fiction
edward w pritchard

I am just a dreamer but during this difficult financial period for America citizens I would like to see
the original Americans currently physically living on Indian reservations each receive a small extra check from the government  from the monetizing largess intended to jump start the economy. Perhaps 1 to 5 thousand per individual.

A small tax on future citizens for past injustices by their ancestors.

night time memory

night time memory

fiction
edward w pritchard

Night time memory
drizzles away
like rain
under an afternoon sun

how many employees on a night train hauling only freight

how many employees on a night train hauling only freight

fiction
edward w pritchard

4:35 AM
a night train hauling only freight
heads south east from Cleveland
headed to Pittsburgh
every night the low whistle
stirs up the ducks along Long Lake
who squawk for a minute in protest
but the driver doesn't hear
watching Jupiter as usual in the southern sky
wishing he had someone to talk with about planets, stars and galaxies

kent state shootings revisited

Kent state shootings revisited


fiction
edwardw w pritchard

The Kent state shootings upset me as a young man. As I mentioned earlier in these writings I was in journalism class as a high school senior and editor of the school newspaper when I heard of the shootings and was definitely at the time very anti guard anti war.

Recently though after watching a young man who committed a malicious driving violation recently  throw me the double finger while standing along side his car I have reconsidered my position.

Jeffrey Miller one of the students shot at Kent State, the one in the famous photo laying dead on the ground allegedly gave the double fingers to several young Ohio national guardsmen for several minutes prior to being shot dead in 1970.

If you had a rifle, a uniform, were in attack formation and were given the double finger in a tense confrontation would you have been the one to fire?