Terminal Hedwig had no idea how he got there – to those railroad tracks high above a deep gorge with a slip through the ties a certain death.
“how ?” he kept asking himself. a drunken wander? abducted by a cult? extra terrestrial parachute? suicidal leaning?”
he didn’t breath too deep. didn’t want to rattle his body one way or the other and slip through the ties, so instead, he carefully, with a sudden will to live, tiptoed to the other side, the safe side, to the rest of his days, some sort of 12th chance or however many it would be and next thing he knew he was flat on his back, staring up at a late afternoon sky, the shapes of clouds like those of a naked, skinny-to-the-bone prisoner of war, a rib cage sky, and he cried as he lay there and then, his belly boiled, hotter than a heating pad followed by a sudden burst from somewhere within him or outside him and a realization that it didn’t matter where it came from.
it had happened and he shot up like he’d been jabbed with epineprine and there he was, standing on the outfield grass of some diamond or field or yard, a pitcher’s mound in place but not much else, no bases or traces of dugouts, only that mound and what lay beneath it…ghosts? dead ancestor bones? both?
Terminal Hedwig knew in his gut that he had defied death, gravity too. he raced around what were once probably bases, round and around he raced and stumbled and fell and got up and raced until he could breath no more and then he thought about beer and green tea and knew that some days called for one and others days called for the other. The sun was settling now and the clouds along the horizons were orange and purple, a time to celebrate, a time for beer.
he reached into his pocket and felt some paper, six-20 dollar bills….. enough for a 12 pack of Pabst cans and three nights at the droopy-eyed motel and its stained carpets, smell of a damp basement, 25 cent vibrating beds, mirrors on the ceiling, artifacts of what once were but would probably never be again. he spotted a newspaper on the dresser, beside the bed and that paper had the funnies and a sports page with box scores and it wasn’t from that day or even that year, but it didn’t matter because as he was reading it, he forgot about the experiment he was a part of, this life thing that involved death and then he looked towards the wall and there was a tv and he turned it on and there was cable and the mariners were playing the diamondbacks at 7 and he didn’t know much about either team.
he popped a top on a pabst and then another and another and abracadabra it was suddenly 7 and the Mariners took the field.
brewers baseball and things 
October 5, 2022 at 12:33 pm
I’d love to hang out in Mr. Hedwig’s room and share the PBR, but the Mariners/D’Backs might get a little rough. Funny thing, the Mariners making the playoffs. Now my hometown Sacramento Kings hold the longest playoff drought in professional sports with 16 seasons.
October 5, 2022 at 6:44 pm
holy mackerel! 16 seasons! Enough for all of Sacramento to join us at the motel for a few beers. i took a quick look at b-ball previews and fans in Sacramento seem high on rookie Keegan Murray. Maybe he can play a key role in ending the drought.
October 7, 2022 at 3:08 pm
They need to move back to Rochester and draft Russell this time.
October 7, 2022 at 5:27 pm
It’s a head scratcher in disgust to look at Russel’s b-ref page and see no category for blocks. Makes one wonder. Hakeem?
October 5, 2022 at 6:10 pm
I love to walk rail lines. But waking up over a gorge! The description of the sky is fantastic. That droopy-eyed motel seems the perfect place to waste/dream away the afternoons. While the game plays on the tv.
October 5, 2022 at 6:51 pm
he musta been blacked out drunk to walk along rails above a gorge, but i’m sure the view was great. anyway, i’m glad he made it to the motel and didn’t fall because they mighta never found his body, but then again, the animals would have and that seems fair, to give back to the beasts that humans eat in bunches.
October 6, 2022 at 7:36 am
I’m glad he made it back as well. There’s time enough later to be food for worms.
October 6, 2022 at 6:31 pm
i guess leaving dead humans all over the place would be great for carnivore animals, but cause mass disease for us humans.
cremation seems to be the cleanest way to go, but then again, if someone believes in resurrection, they gotta be buried, right?
I vaguely remember some cult a few decades back that insisted all members wear Nike shoes to the grave or some particular shoe mark. if they believed in resurrection and I think they did, i guess they believed there would be exercise in heaven.
I’d like to integrate some exercise routine into my life. about the only thing i do is walk and once in a while in the summer, i swim.
October 7, 2022 at 8:24 am
I think cremation is the way to go too. Or one of those natural burials.
Cults are strange?? Buried in Nikes. There’s probably a lot more strange out there.
I just walk too. And I am close enough to work, I ride a bike in. Which is a nice way to start the day. It would be better if the destination wasn’t work…
October 7, 2022 at 5:33 pm
What’s a natural burial? I agree cults are strange, but unavoidable when under their spell. Great that you get to bike into work and as far as other destinations, be on the look out for that briefcase of cash from a botched drug deal.
October 7, 2022 at 5:47 pm
A natural burial, if I remember right, they just leave you in the woods, in something like a cloth sack, and let you decompose.
It’s funny you mention the briefcase…I’ve been on the lookout since I was a kid. So far no luck.
October 8, 2022 at 9:03 am
I guess the natural burial is the way one relieved one self too….let it all decompose which i guess would serve as compost? That’s how it was in the movie The Martian with Matt Damon…..getting his taters to grow with his own shit.
We gotta keep looking for those briefcases. People at my job say they’d get bored if they didn’t have to go to work. I’d like to give it a try.