The Apple Washer

I am a chameleon, hidden and green with the rot of envy for normal people and the pleasure taken in the brainfood they eat; green and pale, washed-out, the color of pasted Lima beans. Unseasoned.
An appropriate shade , utterly devoid of epicurean appeal, yet easily digested. Lacking anything worth chewing on , no teeth required, no gnawledge needed. Easy-open jar and a button that tells you when it's safe to eat. The Greengo Redstop Shop is fine for the incurious, but it's Yellow where things start to get interesting. Dangerous.It's where the fun is. It's also where the lonliness lives. That's the dangerous part of the Yellow. By Yellow, I mean not Red nor Green. Black nor White. Yellow shares these characteristics with Gray, therefore Yellow is sometimes Gray; the reverse should be true, but it's not.

So I've got all this thinking going on, manic as hell, but utterly silent except for the flurry of tiny blows landing on my keyboard. Abandon hope , all data entering here, except I cease my attack on the keys long enough to consider: Isn't Miranda Latin for 'wonder'? Isn't that girl I met the other day named Miranda? Wouldn't it be Romantic if we were in a situation where I could tell her that?
Who am I kidding? Our collective Sense of Wonder has been reduced to :"I wonder what's on TV tonight?"

Babyfood. Pablum. An offering of schmaltz smeared on toasted Wonder Bread. Everyone's favorite!
Not everyone's. Not mine- not all of it anyway. A lttle bit, yes; but a full serving leaves me ill.
It's the root of my rot, the heart of my jealousy. My social allergy, the source of denial, denial of what isn't likely to be true, and even if you believe, I can't. I get hives.
These people have so much that I don't: Wealth, health, good credit, new cars, sex on a regular basis, etc. The kind of people who never need duct tape.
Yet they are willing to settle for so little. They never ask "why?" because they really don't care about reason. They are capable of asking "when?" only by breaking it down into simple components:
A)"Then", also known as History (or the past)- this leads us back to "why?, as in,"why should I care about history?" Such words are the sound of raking nails to my Yellow ears.

B) "Now", AKA the Present. This, apparently, is the only culturally relevant aspect of "when". No one cares about the past, and very few are prepared for -

C) "Later" , (sometimes called the Future). 401k, IRA, Pension etc- all decent enough , and something I'm not afraid to say I wish had more (some) of. But in the coming NewDark Age, the period of anarchy and violent social restructuring preceding the age of post-electronic agrarian Fuedalism; during this Dark time a new Hummer will be worth about as much as an old Pinto. (Probably less, with petrol sure to be scarce.)
How to plan for that? Don't ask me. My farming and hunting skills suck.


I see a man washing an apple in the breakroom sink.
Soaping it. Scrubbing it with with hands, kneading it like a beautician kneads a scalp.
Rinse. Repeat.
I wonder where exactly this apple has been that it requires such a cleansing.

"You know, with all the rain and the sewers backing up, they're issuing health warnings about the tap water", I tell him.
I forget to mention that I'm talking about southern Florida, not Richmond,Virginia.

"Really?"
"Yep. Saw it on TV last night."

As I left the room , the man was trying to peel his apple with a plastic knife.