A tossed, rotten plum moves with fatalistic certitude along a trajectory. A wet & messy collapse waits at the end of this terminal arc, and in its final, self-obviating act it becomes a moldering pile of fertilizer for its scavenging cannibal children.

Thinking thusly, I prepared to lob myself northward, hoping against hope for a softer landing than that which awaits flying pieces of overripe fruit. After consultation, my inner oracle's prognostications on my immediate future were framed with loose & unreliable words, open to broad interpretation and, at places where I hoped for some clarity, approaching pure gibberish. It was intimated to me in uncertain terms (words that seemed to be culled from rejected portions of the original manuscript of Finnegans Wake) that although no aspect of my future is fixed or predetermined, in truth I can only expect to choose from a narrow range of possible scenarios, none of which allow for any dramatic flights of fancy. IE, it was suggested that I could expect to NOT become an ex-bandito-turned-populist-mayor of a small, impoverished & lawless Brazilian mining town any time in the next ten years. Additionally, a record-setting career in professional sports was out of the question at this point, especially any movie-ish plot involving a nobody (played by me) arising out of the obscure margins of down-home-mid-sized-city-nowhere to lead an otherwise snake-bitten franchise on a riotous chase for the pennant against the big, bad, English-mustachioed other guys. [No... don't expect anything that doesn't look anything like the life you lead now, it said. But, it continued, try to enjoy yourself... or at least try to LOOK like you're trying to enjoy yourself, for the sake of everyone else who is occupied with making sense of their own mess right now.]

There is, sitting in the corner of the room, a hulking, elephantine reason as to why I've picked out the splatter-target that I have, and its trying unsuccessfully to keep quiet and out of the light, but it has a chronic sniffle and shifts uncomfortably on a squeaky, too-small chair. I'll not address it by name just now, as that would embarrass both myself and my pachydermal houseguest. For now, I'll casually set a pitcher of water and a glass, along with a plate of crackers and cheese, on the coffee table in the room where my problem sits, and wander away whistling, like there was nobody there at all. I want the issue resolved, but I don't want it to leave just because I wasn't a courteous host.