Red Shoes with Green Heels

     Splashes of brilliant blue sky passed through the holes in the roof.  Walls made with sticks and plywood, here and there, nothing solid.  Rafters pointing at an angle to the sky, only connected at the walls, not joining at the center, like the rib bones of a dead bull drying in the sun.  Standing in stark contrast to the brightness of the sky, is this my prison, is this my future, is this my broken soul?  No ceiling here or there, but no rain comes in.  Small shacks with dozens of people milling around, touching shoulders, but not making any sounds or connections.  Small shacks turn into a mall, sitting on a hill with no sides.  Gullies with mud and dirt, no grass or vegetation, caused by bombs and heavy equipment, always around but never seen.  Buildings jutting out over the cliffs with only small boards to walk on, over the dizzying heights above the gullies.
     Sheila leaves on the Olds, driving over the dirt road, now mud, now dirt, now water.  I drive alongside in my truck on the dirt airstrip, now mud, now dirt, now water.  I look up at her and we turn right.  We stop at the on ramp of the interstate to bale hay.  We can't because of all the garbage.  Instead we edge the two feet of grass alongside the interstate ramp.  It is straight up, move you Angus bull, I can't edge the grass with you doing jumping jacks.  I take the bush axe and perfectly edge the bright green grass showing the mars black soil underneath.  In the field, several people are baling hay by hand, among the white milk jugs.
     As I merge onto the interstate, cars whiz by on the outside and inside lanes.  I am walking down a city street in the center lane.  Hundreds of people are swimming downstream against me.  I slip in and out of the school of people with the grace of dolphin, not touching a one. None of them break the school wall and hit the oncoming automobiles, knowing that if they did the cars would take wings and fly away.
     Are these three maroon aluminum poles in my hand a knight's lance?  There is a handle on the end.  Let me look.  No, when I turn it around to inspect it I can see that it is a church steeple.  Long and skinny with a bulbous end, when joined together, will stretch over a hundred feet into the sky.  Just then, I see the cathedral, in the distance, where the rafters do not meet.  I know that I can walk the rafters and install the steeple,  I look down at my cadmium red dress shoes with the green Bahia grass seeds and the sienna sesame seeds held wetly to the John Deere green stacked heels and jump deftly from rafter to rafter.
     Night is taking over as I walk down magnolia lined Park Street.  Not as many people, but they are very sinister and look at me with hunger in their eyes.  Maybe I can get home soon.  Where is home?  Houses stacked on houses, some with walls, some with roofs, some floating, some half buried in the dirt.  Ah, here it is, a French Tudor.  Cream colored stucco with dark brown stained wood trim.  I am in bed.  People come in and out of the bedroom through the closed French doors, with white lace curtains.  With pillows piled high all around me to make a high wall.  People milling all around the room looking at me. looking past me, looking through me.  Talking and laughing with each other.  All I can think of is, where are all the ghosts?  It is lonely without them, I guess they are busy elsewhere.  In their place, the witches are brewing up trouble in a pot.
     I am asleep, is this a dream?  Could it be another dimension?  Just because I am asleep, does not mean that it is not real.  If I am awake, could I not be dreaming then?  Maybe all the pain and suffering, work, bills and headaches are really just a figment of my imagination that I can see only when I am awake.  Sleep may the reality with just a bit of surrealism.

Sheila's Sunland

     Every once in a while, a man realizes how lucky he is to have a good woman.  If he doesn't on his own, she will remind him.  Fortunately, this time I got it all by myself.  I go to three or four art and craft festivals a year.  They are to much work for me to do by myself.  Sheila is gracious enough to give up her weekends to help me with these ventures.
     We had gone to Marianna's spring festival and oh what a disaster.  The wind was blowing so hard, it blew a sunken Spanish treasure ship up all the way from the gulf.  Finally we gave up and took our tent down before it blew away.  As we were loading our stuff into the wagon, the lady next to us was telling Sheila that we needed to go the Christmas festival at Sunland.  She said there was always a big crowd and everyone was buying Christmas gifts.
     The big day of Sunland's festival had finally arrived.  Up at three a.m., the wagon is already loaded, and we head off to have fun.  We get there just before dawn and it is bitterly cold.  By the time we find our spot, unload and set up, the sun is shining bright and we have shed our heavy jackets.  The crowds were there, but no one was buying.  Thoroughly disgusted, we answered questions and carried on mini conversations with everyone.  All the time wondering when are the paying customers going to make an appearance.  The heat was getting to be oppressive, the dust was stifling, and Sheila's frustration level was rising.
     Around lunch the crowds got really heavy.  There seemed to be a lot of people there with problems.  Even for Florida, this was unusual.  The black lady at the tent next to us was a small framed, neat and dignified elderly woman with class.  As the white woman, in her face, shaking with the palsy, bent over at the waist. talking incoherently, scratching her nose, the lady acted as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.  I looked at Sheila, her mouth was open and a bewildered look was upon her face.  I was looking at her, looking at the black lady's husband, looking at the black lady.  No one offered to go her rescue.  Poor thing.
     There was a procession of groups that came by the vendors.  Each group had five or six people with diminished mental capacities and one normal person as a chaperon.  A few had a near normal grasp on reality, but most were off in space with no way home.  Some were able to move around on their own, but others were not.  Sheila looked at me with a puzzled look on her face.  "What is going on?", she asked.  "Do you know where you are?  This is Florida's mental institution", I informed her.  "What the **** are we doing here, you jack***?" she asked.  I explained that the Christmas festival is their way of raising money and allows the patients to mingle with friends and family.  She calmed down and eventually got into a festive mood.
     As the day wore down, we were loaded and ready to go, Sheila had to go to the bathroom.  While she was gone, I helped myself to a coke out of the ice chest.  About halfway finished with the drink, I heard the sound of steel striking flint. When I looked up I saw Sheila coming across the hard dry dirt.  Her hips were on her shoulders, her arms swinging stiff with each step.  Her stride covered six feet easily and each time her heel touched down, sparks flew in every direction.  After being married for thirty nine years, I knew better, but stupidity always wins.  "Do you want a cold drink?", I ask.  "Shut up and get your ass in the truck," she responded.
     Leaving the compound, she told of going into the restroom.  It was deserted, and when she sat down in the stall, she heard the door open.  Some one came in and yelled "Whooo, whooo, whooo.  Then she went by each stall banging on the doors. When she finally got into a stall, Sheila got out and started to wash her hands.  When the woman heard the water, she yelled Help, help and started banging on the walls of the stall.  "Ain't my job", Sheila said and left.
      I stopped in the middle of the drive and laughed until I cried.  This pissed her off even more, but I could not stop.  She finally came around and started laughing also, albeit not as heartily as I.  To this day if I am having a bad day, thinking of this brings a smile.  If I am having a good day and think of it, I bust out laughing.  Thank you, Sheila for an interesting life.

The Scrooge With Rouge

There is an old town
in England, it is told,
of a man of great reknown.
But if I may be so bold,
to tell of one living with the prick,
who in trying desperately to feel fine,
gave up beating him with a stick,
and gave in to drinking fine wine.
Every day just before lunch,
you know that she was feeling good,
simply because shse had drank a bunch.
Picking up the stick of wood,
she threatened to put him in his place,
she yelled, I am the Scrooge
that every day, to my face,
I apply a pound of rouge.
You had better be nice and make a pass
or I will grab the spirits three,
and with them, I will thouroughly beat your ass,
turned pitifully over my knee.
Merry bah-humbug Christmas from
the Scrooge with rouge.

Charles Sims

The Greatest Gift

     Ah, the sounds and smells overwhelm me.  Food and people everywhere.  The fresh home baked bread sent it's wonderful pungent aroma over to me on the slight breeze blowing my way.  I had not eaten in several days and the fragrance was overwhelming.  The small amount of food that we had went to feed the wife and kids.  With no money to buy food, I watched the street vendor out of the corner of my eyes.  I was not normally a thief, but with hunger and the amount of people milling around, I was just waiting for my chance.  Eureka, there it was.  He turned his back for a moment to speak to a customer and quick as a fox, I snatched the bread and ran. 
     "Thief, thief", he shouted and I knew that I was in trouble.  My bad knees slowed me down and allowed the young men to overtake me.  As desperate as I was, I could not escape.  Being caught could mean the loss of my hand, but desperate times make for desperate measures.  After loosing a couple of teeth and a broken nose, I was taken before the magistrate.  As he looked at my condition and listened to my sad story, he had compassion on me.  Instead of cutting off my hand, he sentenced me to six years hard labor.  Now I know why I got to keep my hand.  Nothing to do with compassion.
     Prison was hard, however I did get one meal a day or rather I got to eat one time a day.  Just enough to keep up my strength, but that was more than my family got.  During the day was terrible, moving heavy stones to pave the roads was back breaking work.  Later due to my age, I was given to the group that poured sand and soil into the cracks around the stones to level out the road.  It was night that was the worst, though.  We were kept in the dungeon with no light, locked in our own stocks by our hands.  You soon learned to control your bodily functions until you were released in the morning.  The sound of grown men crying and weeping made my plight only the more deplorable.
     This night, at the end of my sentence was different.  From a slight distance, we could hear two men praying and singing psalms at the top of their lungs.  Praising their God as if they were on top of a mountain, not down in a deep, dark, damp dungeon.  They were locked in their stocks with hands and feet.  This was reserved for the worst offenders.  When they had been brought in during the day, the jailer was given strict orders to guard them with his life.  If they escaped, the jailer would be killed. 
     As Paul and Silas prayed, the dungeon was rocked back and forth by a massive earthquake that shook the foundation.  The doors came open and the stocks were broken away from all the prisoners.  The jailer seeing the destruction and supposing the prisoners gone, pulled his sword to take his own life.  Paul cried out with a loud voice, "Do thyself no harm, for we are all here."  The jailer cried out for a light and went in and kneeled to Paul and Silas.  "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"  "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thou house."
     As I heard the story of Jesus Christ and His death and Resurrection, I believed also.  The following week I was released and reunited with my family.  I knew that had I not stolen the bread, I would never have received the most precious gift of all, eternal salvation.  God is with us