Knowing the Future
There are fools on the loose. Fools out in the open, fools in hiding, fools in the alley halfway up the fire escape. Fools pretending to be wise men. They’re all over the place, it’s hard to tell one from the other.
My mother taught me these things. She’d sit me down on a kitchen chair after supper and lay it on out there. Be on your toes, she’d say, keep an eye out. Don’t be taking no fool’s gold, stick with brass pennies. Now off to bed with you.
You can imagine the dreams I had.
It got so I didn’t trust anyone, not my Irish uncles or the kids down the block. I kept on my toes, looking this way and that. I didn’t have time to learn to ride a bike or shoot marbles. Fools were whispering in the shadows.
He’s a strange one, that one, all the fools said.
I became hyper vigilant and aggressive when the need arose. I carried stones in my pocket.
Before I knew it I was five years old and dead certain what the future held.
