We used a FABLE to PAINT a picture of the day the MANIAC succumbed to his MANIA. Everyone found it very instructive.

Georg’ann

Looking out the hotel window, 4th floor
top floor, watching the sun rise
up and out of the horizon,
where an empty field meets the Wabash River.
A small, vivid band of color
slowly spreading like watercolor.

Closer in we watch traffic pick up
in the McDonalds drive-thru across the parking lot.
Amused by a state trooper in line.
We guess he likely gets the egg McMuffin.

My eyes wander to the STAIN on my shoe, a drip of blood.
In which I now see a gritty crime story unfurling,
the PANIC in the scene as MANIA settles into reality.

“I counted! 15 cars in the drive-thru
and 7 Fed Ex trucks getting gas.”
pulls me back into another storyline.
One in which a woman and child sit side by side
on a fluffy white comforter, feet propped up on the air system,
unhurriedly watching a tiny square of the world start it’s day.

Let me write tender slice of life scenes
from the Holiday Inn Express on Joe Fox Lane.

Heather