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May 22, 2002 hibiscus whisper A side effect of solitude is the propensity to converse with inanimate objects, plants, and wild animals.  I named this condition "Castaway Syndrome" after that dreadful movie starring the stultifying Tom Hanks and a volleyball.  Yes, I know I am the only person in North America who admits a distaste for Mr. Hanks, but I suspect the widespread acquiescence to his stardom is but a reprise of The Emperor's New Clothes.  Only I possess the temerity to point and exclaim, "Look!  There's Tom Hanks, former television cross-dresser and patently unappealing actor!"  Anyway, the dorky character played by Hanks begins talking to a blood-smeared ball named "Wilson" whose performance, incidentally, was vastly less tedious than its human counterpart.  But I have come to understand how a friendship developed between man and ball;  of course, I also understand the contentment found in dry-humping a coconut, but I leave that for another day.  The point is this:  loneliness can do strange things to a man. My pink tile bathroom is illuminated by vertical fluorescent tubes on each side of the mirror.  When the bulbs operate properly, the pinkened light gives me a pallor not unlike Bela Lugosi's.  But it is rare that both lights work when the switch is flipped.  I have taken to sweet-talking the light fixtures in a seductive Hungarian accent in hopes of coaxing light from them. In the kitchen, I bid the Braun coffee-maker good morning and, sometimes, I thank it when I hear the shuddering sound which signifies brewing completion.  A grunt, a shake, a drip--like an old man voiding. When I leave the house for work, I whisper to the hibiscus, bid adieu to Common Grackels.  There is nothing common about those grackels who walk through the grass, heads bowed, and wings folded.  They remind me of monks pacing a monastery floor. In the evenings, when I return to my house after work, I call out, "Honey!  I'm home." And I am.

©  2002 by the beastmaster