Sunday Light and Word – Cloudland

There was a guy who wanted to smash me into pieces. I think for pretty good reason, but man, I did not want the smashing to happen. When he confronted me I couldn’t help but smart off. I had some internal inability to back down from certain doom. Anyhow, someone else got him and me separated and after that he lost the impulse. I don’t know why. He was really well equipped to scrape me off his shoes. He knew where I worked, but he couldn’t be bothered to find me there. So, I would sit at the counter and wait for people to ask for something that wasn’t hardcore. But that wouldn’t happen so I’d put some music I liked on and hope for something outside of the normal do-you-know-where-to-get-some-good-weed conversation.

How man heshers? How many greasy long hairs in search of the newest in doom?

There’s a couple of particular moments when you laugh so hard in your life and then spinout into some other kind of emotion because you indulged too much. You did too much laughing, and liking and carrying on. And I’d see these kids that embraced that sentiment, that there was too much light, too much good, and they’d get sullenness tattooed across their foreheads. Then, they’d go see Fudge Tunnel and try not to sway, or smile and I got that fucking joke.

I wasn’t any better. I’d worn scorn like an invisible apron, collecting the scowling dismay up inside of itself and weighing me down, until at last, I made a pile of judgmental opinions and burned them by the harbor, watching their trailing smoke climb up to cloud land, and wondering who I was going to become.

by Hank Cherry