The Neighborhood

Ron Koppelberger

The Neighborhood

The disposition of slavery frustrated him and he screamed for release, “YYYYYiiiiieeeeeeeeee!” Rain was falling in exasperating waves of teardrop blessing. The neighborhood was unaware, entranced by the ethereal drama, the presence that defined their true transport, their mode of life, their actual status in the universe, in a prevailing evil smoke of duel reality.
The televisions were dressed in a myriad of programs, they saw game shows, but underneath, they saw soap operas, but underneath, they saw movies, but underneath, they saw Sunday football, but underneath lay the truth, the secret reality of a thousand nightmares in scarlet neon.
Juke Sober was watching a movie about Viet Nam, yet beneath his wife was being eviscerated; the action pushed ahead occluding the truth……..and the strange thing was that she was in the next room making a decision between hamburgers and hotdogs. Juke saw up top.
Pepper Holly was watching a western, yet what lay beneath her subconscious and the enchanting dance of a car slamming into a brick wall, a young couple catapulting through the windshield like crimson angels. Flashes of light lit the cotton dander of a cloudy twilight sky. The sound of a woman sobbing drifted across the neighborhood in quiet desperation.
Juke prayed asking god if he was in heaven or hell. The sobbing continued and the mass continued to watch, to act in reverence of what appeared to be their lives, their existence, oblivious to the shadows that surrounded them.
Somewhere distantly a wolf howled in the midst of saffron fields and wheat, in a flash of insight the wolf thought, “ A gilded plane for innocent dreams and waking endeavors unto the promise of what wont pretends.” For a moment they all saw the great garden of wheat bloom.
The wolf rested, waiting for them.