A
GREEN LIGHT SIGNAL
It’s a clear night, even
the city lights can’t dim completely the array of stars overhead, A
blurb flashes on and off at the sixth floor apartment window. Spaceship511 catches the signal and coasts
slowly by. No, nothing calling here.
The flashes are only solar battery Christmas tree lights. 
A white owl, also powered by the Arizona sun, perches on the wall of the patio. Suddenly a dazzling sparkle arrow darts from
the eyes of the owl and points to the inside of the window. There is only an instant available for
insight. That’s sufficient to catch the
Kross-road stories.
An old lady is humped over the computer
keyboard. Her back hurts. She has spent the hours of the afternoon
struggling with the computer layout, pushing unknown html around to form a
Descriptive Archives. Her efforts
haven’t been productive. Three possible formats and none worked. The entire K-Log might have been
destroyed. She will find out when the
next K-Log is added.
The old woman’s computer has a file
with the title of “K-Logs in progress.”
These stories have come to her so that she might edit and return to the
world.
An hour remains before she must push
the keyboard away and prepare supper, returning to her evening duties, The computer screen shows the unfinished
K-Logs and she looks quickly to decide which one to finish telling the
story.
Maybe “Coming of age,” a teenager
becomes a young man. No, not yet, the
story awaits the ending, on its way from Indiana.
“The Report on the Mexican.” This story will hurt to get on paper. Too much blood, too much heartache to
continue with this now.
A photo of Senator Ted Kennedy shows up
under the papers by her keyboard and the old lady smiles as she remembers that
afternoon.
The phone rings, the wrinkles crease on
her face even further. A Kross-roads
hasn’t shown up yet for grandson, medical help is needed and the old
woman wants his ills handled, wants to hear hope.
There is one more picture laying on her
desk that might be a mystery and might be an answer. June 1976.
She knew the man, a methodical person, and he had set up his Canon on a
tripod to take a series of pictures at an Indiana State Park. The day celebrated a 50th wedding
anniversary, complete with speeches, good picnic food, beautiful warm June
weather and happiness covering it all.
The camera caught the mood and the photographer produced lovely scenes
of trees bordering the rippling water.
He used these scenes to make calling cards and gave them out for both
business and social purposes.
Thirty years later, 2006, the
photographer died. He had told his wife
and a few close friends that he would try to find a way to contact from “the
other side.”
2013, seven years have passed. Two of his calling cards show up unexpectedly, within a couple of days of each other, and from two
different places. One came in the mail from
a friend of a friend of a friend in New York state. The other showed up in a box of paperwork to
be thrown away.
The widow doesn’t doubt that her
husband is telling her that all is well with him. But what else? This comes at a time when she has a decision
to make. Is her husband telling her that
he accepts that she might love someone
else? Or is he reminding her of
pleasurable days they had together, that the time has not yet come to find
another love.
A Kross-roads awaits in her life and she
believes that a message has come from her love of forty-five years and he is telling
her the path to take. She cannot read the
signposts. She awaits, she wants further
signals. Slightly exasperated with her
message from ‘the other side,” she calls out, “Dear, be more clear and specific.” Many a time she has told him those very words
and many a time he has told her, “I am clear and specific, you are not
listening to me.”
Spaceship511 backs away from this scene.
The window, the apartment, the owl are bookmarked. Kross-roads are waiting here. The old lady will return to her keyboard
tomorrow and maybe the stories in this household will be ready for telling.
November 21, 2013
