The Reducto Absurdum of Human Experience

    By Kenneth W. Anderson Jr.

He laid there silent, not moving. The white in his eyes had turned to a pale yellow and it spread down his face, down his arms and legs, all the way down to his toes. His skin wrapped itself taut around his cheeks, stretching across his ribs, binding his hands and feet, as if he had been left out too long in the sun.
“He’s been asking if anyone has called for him,” said the nurse.
She was not a bad looking woman, but her sterile white uniform and her square-tipped shoes protected her from any spontaneous flirtations.
“No one else has been here?” I asked.
I sat in the corner of the room, trying not to impose. She walked around the bed and pulled on the sheets and pulled the pillow square under his head.
“No,” she replied.
 Our Father who is in…
Last time we had seen each other was over ten years ago. Ten years.  I did get a couple of post cards in between, stamped Las Vegas, Chicago, New York city, saying that he might be in LA soon and that he would call and buy me a steak.

 Tap, tap, tap… Mr. and Mrs. Meadows announce… the engagement of their daughter, the fair and lovely, Rachel, their daughter with big blue eyes, to future something, Henry L. Colson, son of…doctor, no, not doctor, salesman.

"Are you going to eat that?” Rachel asked.
Her long manicured fingers nervously tapped her wine glass.
“That was the idea,” I replied.
“Don’t you know how these animals are killed?”
“No.”
She lowered her head and her voice became a whisper.
“It’s cruel and inhumane.”
Her watery blue eyes implored the seriousness of her distress. My eyes wandered out the restaurant window to a girl standing at the bus stop in the rain.
“So, did you two talk?” She asked, her mind now occupied with another urgent cause.

Talking: the act of conversing with another, the communication of ideas, thoughts, feelings to another; the ability to articulate one’s thoughts into verbal sounds that one understands as language… silly little sounds that echo in the ear.

“Yes, we talked, a little.” I lied.
My father was very good at talking. He could walk up to a stranger and in five minutes be his best friend.

“Good. I think it’s best not to let things remain unsaid between you two. If he should…well, before you can tell him how you feel, well, it will always be there, inside, unresolved.”
Her hand reached for mine as if to make sure I wouldn’t run away.

Rachel Meadows, Rachel, lovely Rachel, long legs Rachel, who flattered herself with the idea of becoming an actress.

I looked out the window searching for the girl at the bus stop. She was gone and the rain began to fall hard from the sky, scrubbing the people, the sidewalks, the cars and the streets until everything was washed a dull grey.

My father would die the next day. He left no will, but the nurse sent me his watch, a movie stub and some loose change from his coat pocket.