2012 EPILOGUE 3a

The mud clung to me for more than a dozen steps, the sucking pops resounded across the emptiness of the lake. Sluurp-pop, sluurp-pop, sluurp-pop, and I finally met the water line. My body felt tired, as if running a few hundred yards, my legs feeling twice as heavy as they were. I waded into the water and walked to where it was at my upper thighs. It was easier walking in the water, the floor dissolving between my toes as they pressed into the silty basin. Bending slightly, I flailed the muddy tennis shoe just below the waterline. Rinsing the mud from the inside twice, I gave it a once over and started to turn back around. Realizing I had to walk back across that mud, I bent down and removed the other shoe as well. Filling them both with water, I started towards what appeared to be the shortest distance to get to the embankment. And it was, by four or five feet; and barefooted, I only dipped in a few inches because of the long strides. I placed the shoes down first and then climbed onto the near grassless knoll. Once sitting, I sparingly dowsed each foot with its appropriate fit, until they were clean enough to slide back into them. Pushing myself up to stand, I realized my ribs still hurt, and I knew I’d have to make a conscious effort to remember not to turn or bend left. And then I turned left in the afterthought, and spotted something, perhaps a hundred & fifty yards away at the tree line. I went straight for it, and with every ten yards accomplished, the image took clearer form. By the fiftieth yard I could see it was a figure, and in less than ten more I could see it was a woman’s. A dark haired naked woman, and my pace picked up. It didn’t feel like I was running, and in the time I thought to be at her side, I was. Bending onto my right knee, I leaned over her to clearly make out the face, Penelope’s. I took her cheeks between thumb and fingers, bringing her face upward, my left hand cupping under her head, tilting it slightly back to be sure for open airways. The slightest rise on her chest bone was evidence she was alive.

I have had good days and I have had wondrous ones. ‘If I am dead, and this all is hell, then I’m going to hang around and see what’s happening next’; my mind chattered to itself, my eyes drinking in the beauty of a fit form. Her breasts were more than desirous, the dark areolas giving life to the nipples, which seemed to swell from my panting breath. Her navel barely sunk below the waistline, her Venus mound rising to present itself, evenly covered in hair. I know I wanted to lean down to see the vulvas, to have that picture in my mind forever. But instead I drew both arms together across her waist, cupping her hands upon her magnificent mons pubis. I may have let my hands rest upon hers, lingering longer than a dare, and then there was a jerk. The shout was more like a scream, it pierced me, “what the fuck are you doing?” Her hands repelling mine, I lost my balance and fell backwards, dropping my elbow between her parted legs. My head caught rest at her knee, and I didn’t know who to thank, Satan or God, but I thought all my dreams had come true right there and then.

2012 EPILOGUE 2a

A weakness overcame me, and I near shuddered in my stance. It wasn’t the ribs, as I’d almost forgotten about them. And I didn’t think it was the heat either, even though I wasn’t used to 90 degree sunrises. And my reflection in the driver’s door window was distorted. Yes, there was a semblance of my facial features, but the few days’ growth was whiter than it was brown. And even though I was used to seeing my hair overlap my ears for some time now, the reflection pasted an electrostatic picture back at me. It stuck out in every direction as if invisible strings held each strand a minute distance away from the other. The picture smiled as I recalled Weird Science, imagining my hair a few inches longer, and being upon the poster with Kelly LeBrock. Especially because 1985 was such a great year for me.

But this was entirely different, and the smile faded from the glass. My eyes seemed hollow and I thought I might faint. For balance I gripped the door’s window slot, to have it buckle under my fingers. I leaned a little forward so as not to fall backwards, and in a few moments my mind & coordination returned. I looked again inside the cab’s emptiness, this time spying a half full bottle of water. Opening the door, it half hung, still adjoined at the lower hinge. I reached across the seat and grabbed the bottle, which melted onto my hand before I could snap it back. I wiped my fingers on the seat, slowly removing the liquid plastic, which felt strangely like a thick coating of Vaseline. And I thought about being dead again. Maybe this is what happens…you’re alone and everything is melting upon contact.

Well, dead or alive, I couldn’t remove the plastic completely, so I thought I would try the lake, thinking I could sure use some of that cool water washing over me right now. I had a very clear view to the west and somewhat the south towards the west, from the trucks side. And I could actually see the highway a few miles away, stretching from the north to the south. Southward, maybe ten or twenty miles was a fair sized city/town. But it really looked like little brown blotches in the very far distance, because everything else looked like sand. I turned from the west, to face north, eyeing what must have been hundreds of miles of single lane road, and hundreds more miles of sand. As I brought my gaze downward, the nearest part of the lake was coming into view. I hadn’t noticed during the night that there was a bench and overhang to its borders, but now I could clearly see the three foot drop to get down to the waters shoreline. And what kind of shoreline is this? My jump down buried me six inches deep in mud. Trying to lift my right foot from it, cost me my tennis shoe. I stepped the foot back enough so I could angle my left foot’s toes upward, and then bent down to find my shoe. Now I’m muddy and filthy and the water is still more than ten feet away. What the hell is going on? And where is everybody? Last night there wasn’t a moment’s peace, and this morning it’s void of any noise. Not a single bird across the water or flying from tree to tree.

Oh no, maybe I’m really dead and this is how hell opens up, my mind stated as I was planning my next series of steps.

 

2012 EPILOGUE 1a:

This was one of those moments. I realized it then and there. Not even my hands could shield my eyes from the light. Waves of heat and radiation waived through the cargo hole as if the shell was merely a hologram. The contents began to rattle and then shake. The gas cans broke free of their latching and flew out of the open doorway, as the truck rose up and rolled over, resting wheels down again, against a large pine tree. It all happened so fast, I remained pinned against the trucks panels. Sitting there now, the light faded into a rose hue that seemed to shimmer against the sky.

Oh man, is this how I’m dying? My thoughts began, and the years were flying by me so much faster than before. There seemed to be as many pleasant visions as there were unwanted, unfavorable, and unfortunate ones. They came at me shrouded in white light, from peripheral to peripheral, growing nearer and nearer until they formed into a pinhead and pierced me. Each with its own emotion, it all seemed too much for me to bear. The elation of loves so great you cry with thanksgiving. Deviations so damned you cry in agony. And for the briefest of moments my arms spread wide, my head lay back dressed in thorns. My hands and feet feeling the piercing pains of shattered bones. And then it went very dark, and I thought, crap, I failed. But the light returned, even the presence of the sun appeared from the warped carcass of what I once referred to as a truck. Holding my hands in front of me I rolled them to see if I could see any differences, but the flesh was as pail and wrinkled as I remembered. What just happened was my first thought, and then a heightened excitement gripped me as my head pivoted towards the cab; Alex and Ashton, what of them?

I tried to rise, but my legs felt like rubber, only allowing me to roll to one side or the other. I arched my body to the right, and then heaved it forcibly to the left, nearing my body to the open doors. And then I noticed there were no doors. They must have been torn off in the roll-over I thought to myself. Then I noticed the pitch of the cargo bed, near 30 degrees west and downward. And when I rolled out of the truck I could see all the wheels on the passenger side were buckled underneath, which caused the uneven slant. My legs came back to me once on the ground, and reaching towards the truck’s driver side for support, the wall folded in like aluminum foil wrapping onto displaced MRE packages. Reaching the driver’s door I looked through the window to see no one inside, and then I really started to worry. Where in the hell is everybody?

The sky was a rainbow of colors, but instead of being stacked one upon the other, they blended almost evenly, allowing the many shades to highlight and accent the others. It was spectacular, but near a hundred miles to the south, the sky was gray with reddish hued oranges still lurking close to the ground. And it was very hot for a sunrise.

 

 

Chap 12 p.123

I laid there for several minutes contemplating my fate, wondering if today or tomorrow would bring my demise. The last week had ushered in such a reality that I knew there may be no way to avoid the round-up. That the government in place would separate the subversives from the compliant, and eliminate those who would or could oppose such a regime.

As I considered my options, I wondered if the boys were alright, and if they could handle the outlaw mentalities the small factions of hold-outs coerced their victims with. That it’s certainly every man for himself, but they were just little boys. I must have fallen back to sleep because the visions in my head were serene and calm, and very colorful. I could hear for the first time in weeks, the chirps of crickets and hoots from owls. The soft breezes rustled leaves against each other as the branches swayed to its rhythm. I thought I could even hear the voice of a faint yet memorable acting character, but I couldn’t understand the lines. “Are you sleeping” the voice reached to me, and in my mind I wanted to say yes. But when I opened my eyes, it was Alan sitting next to me on the ground, smoking a cigarette.

‘No!’ vehemently burst from my lips, and for a brief moment I thought I saw the bright moons reflection off the patent leather shoes of my CO in ITR. But the moon stood still and half phased just above me, and I remembered I was lying on my back. ‘Oh God, I hurt’ I said winching my face and reaching with both hands to my right side. “Don’t move, let me see that” the accent continued, and then Alan raised my shirt. “It’s fallen in again” he said as he reached under my ribcage and tugged on the two lowest ones. Surprisingly the pain went into half-phase as well, and Robert Plants voice echoing, I can breathe again. He raised me from behind and guided me the two feet I fell away from the trucks rear gateway. Leaning me onto it, he grabbed around my thighs and hoisted me into the trucks bay. Twisting me so my ass sat securely to the floor boards, he climbed in and dragged me to a wall for support. “Cigarette?” he asked, presenting a protruding white filter from an unfamiliar pack. My head rolled in a ‘no’ meaning, fashion against the wall. I rubbed my eyes as if just awakening, blinking and squeezing the lids tightly a couple more times before the room settled down, and the feeling of being on a ship upon the ocean subsided. ‘The boy’s’ I started to ask, and Alan quickly interjected “they’re sleeping, Penny just left them”. Now I knew the voice, and my mind laughed…ask him if he’s ever been to Australia…the voice in my head spoke. ‘Have you ever been to Australia?’ stupidly came from my mouth. “Odd question” he replied smiling, and then the face became recognizable. ‘Quigley Down Under, damn-it, you’re him’. “Certainly one of my worst roles and characterizations, yet the first you could remember?” he almost looked disheartened. “I was playing Shakespeare upon the Queens stage before you were out of high school. And all I get credit for is playing opposite Tom Seleck’s mustache”. ‘But you’re dead, I heard about it a couple of years ago. How is this possible?’ “More things than you know are possible. It was the only way to escape with my daughter, before the more than two hundred entertainers were executed in 2017. Not everyone’s invited to the bunkers”, his words trailing away as he turned and jumped down from the truck.

 

 

2012 chap 12 p.121

Darkness is not anything to be afraid of. It is an advantageous time for our bodies to heal while the brain doesn’t have to keep everything else coordinated. And there are the rumors that when we pass, in those very last moments, we see our lives flashing before our eyes. Well my eyes felt like they were in the back of my skull and viewing what was going on, on the big screen at the front. But it wasn’t playing out as a life story. Instead, it played a series of episodes throughout my life in no apparent order. A random selection and even those were not complete.

Throughout the entire time, John Popper and his blues travelers were serenading me with loud and expeditive harmonica riffs. I recognized My Carolina right off, but even the tunes that followed were lightning fast and cram-packed with sequential scale runs. I didn’t think that I was dead, and not just because I think my God likes music, but I thought even He wouldn’t choose Mr. Hopper’s. Fast and haul ass are my two speeds, so the harmonica was for me…the living.

The episodes ranged from witnessing my birth father run over my older sister with the tractor on the farm. To a few years later when she shot and killed a farmhand who was attempting to rape our mother. To chasing ducks around the Missouri tributary near where we lived. And in ten years of living there, I do not recall ever seeing a duck. The other episodes were from my more recent life; the twenties when I was in Thailand. The thirties when I was a single parent. My forties when I first moved to Utah. And throughout these episodes there were adventures I must have remembered; riding motorcycles across America. Going to college. My daughters’ first job, first boy, first baby. I definitely remember she wasn’t sixteen yet. I saw my first business and my second and my third. I witnessed the recruitment process I underwent gaining the position as White House Correspondent last decade. And then my visions took me back to adolescence again, where I thought I was sitting on the carpeted floor next to her as she read something to me. I kept looking at her ears as if they would say something to me. Perhaps I wondered if she could hear herself as I wasn’t finding an audio dial. The music had stopped and I was immersed in silence. I started watching her lips as she articulated each syllable. I could tell by her eyebrows when she was accenting one above the other. And then from a faraway distant place, a voice was beckoning me to harken-up and listen. I didn’t recognize the voice and it was far too far away to understand it, but then the voice kept gaining amplitude. Still but a whisper, I started to crane my head and ear towards the voice. I felt like I was reaching up from the floor, which was soft and safe, and then the voice was clear.

“An important element is to master our desires, so you learn to want what serves your highest good”. I know it was my mother’s voice, but that’s not how she talks. And then the room was silent. Everything was silent, but the lights were coming on.

 

 

2012 chap 11 p.120

Alex was the first to notice, sitting next to me; my left arm slapping him repeatedly. “Uncle Phil, Uncle Phil” he exclaimed, his voice several decibels above his normal speaking range. I want to say I saw him swinging across my lap until he sat facing me, but I was already in a blurred state. The cargo box of the truck was shrinking and turning gray. So out of control was I, that I wanted to grab hold of him to move his knee from my ribcage, but couldn’t find the dexterity to do so. I had one last flail of my right arm, and then Alan and Penelope noticed as well.

And just as I thought the sparkly stars were assembling above my brow, two hands grabbed me and pulled me up into a vertical stand. As the stars seemed to fly past me, I could feel my eyes rolling up, and I wasn’t sure where the gray went. It was just gray a moment ago, but now everything just seems to be black.

End of Chapter 11

Well not completely black…I probably went into la la land with Ellen Pompeo.

A freaky thing happened a couple of weeks ago and I lost the stories direction, but I knew this is where the intermission would be, so I’m going to let the world rest while I decide if I’m going to dump the kids w/A&P, and make a run for it.

Oh, a freakier thing happened, I have like over a hundred followers, and I can’t paint any one of you a picture, I am a klutz. I’m sure there are many reasons, and for some maybe only one, but I need you to remember that the government lives by only two books. Known subversives, and non-subversives. We’ll probably be the first to be rounded-up, who know, maybe killed.

I really am a very good shot. Which is why I moved back here to Utah. Everybody’s got a gun cabinet. But until then I thought I’d finish one of the 7 books I’ve started since 1971 (this 2012 story in 2006). And of course, thank you for enjoying my enjoyment. I’m honored. Philip M Brockman

2012 chap 11 p.119

All of a sudden, she wasn’t so good to look at. Her eyes bore into me like the lasers we split asteroids with. Her hair waved wildly as she attempted the steps, and her half coating of blood erased any semblance of woman, or human for that matter. She could have easily paraded with the Montague followers of the Walking Dead.

I raced to her aid, taking ahold of her right arm and pulling her into the hole. I scanned around for the closest bottle of water, which was directly beside her, and when I bent to reach for it, she kneed me right in the rib cage. I’m not sure if I left my feet, but I did spin completely around viewing the roof before finding myself face down on the cargo floor.

“This asshole shot me daddy” she almost whimpered. If I could have seen her face beneath all the blood, I would have sworn she pouted her lips. Joining Alan at the stacks, she drug the medical kit towards herself. I slid to the west side where the boys sat devouring the MRE’s and propped myself up until it hurt too badly. And then just laid back down, putting the half gallon water bottle under my neck for support. We watched as she peeled the tank top from her body, the beige bra darker and damper on the left cup. Turning it inside out, she wadded it up and poured water enough to spill over the folds of it. Starting at her neck, she washed upwards, even squeezing the cloth enough to cause water to pour down her face; causing her bra to become even darker and damper. She had the boys’ attention as well. Their eyes fixed on the bloody woman washing her face.

In less than a couple of minutes she tossed the clump of shirt against the wall where the broken cot lay mangled. She poured what appeared to be some kind of white-gray granulized powder on her front side, and then Alan poured some on her back, sealing the hole from both sides. Alan seemed to move quite spryly, reaching up and around his daughter’s torso to treat the wound. I started thinking I might not be a match for him, especially if my ribs are broken…and they sure felt broken.

The boys mumbled with food stuffs still in their mouths, asking for another, and I slid two more towards me with my foot. Realizing they weren’t going to get up and walk closer to me, I twisted my body so as to reach down towards my knee. Pinching the outer wrapper between my exposed knuckles, I pulled them up and pushed them to my side. I opened them one at a time and the boys didn’t waste a breath before consuming more. Now I had slid up, my shoulders leaning against the side wall of the truck. I looked across the floor to see the gasoline cans neatly packed against the east wall. The two cans closest the cab were askew and leaning back onto the others. At their base, the red jacket I had claimed from the power plant. What imbeciles I thought, those two who tore the place up, yet so near their prize. I tried to pull myself up closer to the wall, and once sitting flatly, realized I couldn’t breathe. Both my arms flailed like the broken wings of a grounded raven.

I tried to cough, I wanted to call out, but not a sound or gasp of air left my throat.

 

2012 chap 11 p.118

Cum on feel the noize / Girls rock your boys / We’ll get wild, wild, wild / Wild, wild, wild / So you think I…could have a chance with you? Is what my mind was screaming, as LA’s Quiet Riot was always quick to get rid of the inhibitions. But my outside was quiet. Still. I watched to the east as the sun was cresting the mountains, and it seemed such a far ways away. How did those solar flares reach all the way here?

I walked around the front of the truck’s cab and could see the smoky plumes rising from miles away. Wow I thought, that many miles away and it still warped the truck. They’re gaining in intensity. I turned looking into the window at the boys, who were cuddled up in each other’s arms. Their eyes and grimacing lips closed as tight as humanly possible. I opened the door and suggested they get out and stretch, maybe go to the bathroom if need be. Alex asked if there was anything to eat, and I told him to do the bathroom thing first.

How come I had the nasty thing on my mind? I struggled with the dozen or so scenarios playing out in my mind. Another flare strike which might hit us. More of those crazy guys looking for that jacket and wanting to kill us perhaps. How drivable the van is going to be? What is it that we could eat for breakfast?

I was trying to place them in some kind of order. Would she look as good without any clothes on? Or is her eroticism pervasive enough to emanate from every pore? And for the slightest moment I felt weak and pathetic. And then the moment passed and I bent and inhaled two mighty lungs full of air, my hands resting upon my knees. All the thoughts in my mind evaporated and I shook off the fear that death was close by. That so many times in the last sixty hours, it could have been me instead of all that it was. And I wondered if Penelope was feeling the same way?

The boys returned from their bush watering, Ashton wiping his hands, spread wide open, on the waistband of his shorts. Alex looked like he was going to reach forward with both hands and take my left wrist, but I rose and leaned back against the truck for a moment, my hands just behind my hips to cushion the contact. When I was fully within my balance, I started to pivot towards the rear of the truck, placing a hand upon each of the boys’ shoulders.  Guiding them, we went to the rear to see what damage might have befell it. Alan was awake, even alert, sitting and leaning against the stacks of boxes at the far end of the truck. The cot he had been laying on was flipped over and near broken in half, folded, and settled by the west side of the trucks cargo area. There were two other boxes open now, and their contents strewn about the place. They looked like c-rations. Of course that means MRE’s, meals ready to eat. And after I put the boys up into the hold, I tore open a couple of them to see if the boys would accept them. When I looked up again, Penelope was at the steps at the rear of the truck. The look on her face should have burnt a hole through my body. Yet I was surprised to see that the blood had hardened enough that her hair stood straight out on the left side. Wicked I thought, like Hela, Odin’s first born.

 

 

 

via Daily Prompt: Ceremony

My second birthday was a dismal event. Yes, it was my first cake, and perhaps my first horse. But falling off of it and smearing my face in the cake as I reached for it, took any glamour from the intended gala.

So perhaps then, it was my 8^th grade graduation. I had been playing drums for two years and getting to play Pomp and Circumstances for the ceremonial march down the aisles, was certainly the highlight of my life thus far.

And although I was precluded from my high school graduation, a year later when I graduated from boot camp, any misgivings as to my subversive attitudes and behaviors, were easily dispelled. Wearing dress A summer uniforms, my PFC stripe stood out as much as the near shaved head I would have to bear with for the next four years.

Three years later I witnessed a true ceremonial event, as the Prince of Thailand decided to go out for the day. Over two hundred guards and banner carriers lined him on either side. And even though it was merely a walk in the courtyard, hundreds more people came to witness it.

Royalty deserves ceremonial pomp, and it has never seemed more important or crucial, than with our own red carpet events. Be they the stars who parade in glamour at the Oscar’s ceremony, or governmental executives walking to the podium. Even the Queen of England requires a thousand aides and supporters around her to denote the affair.

But what if there were no ceremonies? Nothing important enough to call forth a gathering or spectacle for which to even celebrate. Would all rites and rituals disappear too? A ceremony is only a rite…a ritual.

It is true. I am a subversive. And on occasion a practical joker. But I do not make jest of the rituals we do perform. The rites of passage from one year to the next. From one level of expertise to the next. Of one simple beginning to the next.

Even standing upon a threshold can be a ceremonial event. We witness it at the onset of the Olympic Games. With the entering of any athlete who has the chance to further their career and global standings. Yet, what is ceremonial to some, is not necessarily the case with others. Ceremony therefore becomes the attitude of which we perceive, and of that which we expect.

Like coming to Word Press. When I log in, I am entrenched with posts that carry with them humor…like Ben’s Bitter Blog and Little Fear’s. Even learning fun facts with Edmark M Law, or Dr. Parrot’s parodies.

Inspiration from Aishwarya’s Eclipsed Words, and Comfort’s Human Kompass. Even theheartsphere carries with it a ceremonial badge concerning enlightenment and growth. As does ljphd on learning to write and Cristian Mihai of irevuo and texas law student.

Even our spirituality becomes ceremonial through such bloggers as Steven Colborne’s Perfect Chaos and Elizabeth Ann Johnson-Murphree. Or the world opens up to us through the Traffic Guy and the camper man’s blog. Picturesque adventures from Elan Mudrow, and scores more I am not omitting on purpose. But do to a lacking memory, I cannot produce their beautiful names, only envision their beautiful works. Therefore, Word Press is a ceremony unto itself. It is our parade. Our pomp and circumstance. Our place to walk the red carpet. Our place to revel.

So what is a ceremony, if not the reveling of one to another? Revel on bloggers.

 

via Daily Prompt: Juxtapose

I didn’t respond to this prompt immediately as I do others. Usually I can just type the word into my doc library and voila, 6 to 8 choices where I’ve used the word.

But juxtapose? Never. I didn’t even believe it was a real word. I heard it when I was a kid, grandpa used to say it as to how he wanted the dinner table set on Sundays. But I just thought he was saying just suppose we put two together here and here and here. As I got older, maybe eight or nine, I thought perhaps it was a holy word. Or carried some superstitious element my grandfather was holding onto. No one else in the family ever said it, and I wasn’t ever going to say it too.

But then I started thinking, just suppose I never say the word, and on one particular day, it would have changed our futures? Just suppose that it was in the syllables and accentuations. Just suppose that it triggered the switch that eliminated all hate.

Or all inhibitions, and I’m not sure we should trigger the switch at all. Perhaps it is best to just never say the word again. Just suppose it started some kind of a fad like for sure. And everybody started saying it when they passed each other. That momentary union when they were side by side. “Juxtapose”, ‘and juxtapose to you too’, we’d hear as we were passing. That juxtaposition when the alignment is perfectly symmetrical, and the word must therefore be spoken. Juxtapose.

So then I started thinking, what if juxtapose isn’t even a word. Somebody just made it up a couple hundred years ago, and nobody was brave enough to abolish it.

Some aide to a King was thinking out loud, ‘just suppose we were to place our troops side by side…’. And the King reared up, almost angry hearing of a word for the first time in his court, demanding to hear the word again…”juxtapose”.

So the aide repeated juxtapose and even said it two more times until the King himself was joyously yelling juxtapose. For decades to come all throughout the realm, the inhabitants used the word daily. Especially when contemplating a critical decision. You could see them at the water fountains stroking the hair on their chins, looking seriously and saying, “juxtapose I fill all these buckets, how am I going to get them back home?” Or “juxtapose I do pitch all this hay from one wagon to the other, what do I really get for it?”

One generation, I don’t recall which it was, citizens started blaspheming the word. They would whisper it and then say derogatory and vengeful things. People started becoming afraid to hear the word. And eventually it faded from recollection. Until now, offered as a challenge in the daily prompt.

And now after all of these decades, what images resonate within the mind when hearing juxtapose? Do we picture farmlands filled with acres of alfalfa, two barns setting side by side? Two grain silos? Two plots of land ready for planting, an old dirt path separating them for the tractor to drive between. No I don’t think so.

We think of juxtaposition if we think of anything at all. The noun form of the word where the positioning of two things are already placed side by side. To juxtapose is merely the forming of a juxtaposition, and really doesn’t need to be a word any longer. Just suppose we eliminated the word, would anyone ever really notice? Ever really care? Just suppose juxtapose never existed. How many minutes would have we saved today, not thinking about it.