One,
two,
three, strain, four,
crane your neck and you can see five.
Five airplanes.

Folks will drive for miles to see the worlds tallest buildings, Empire, Jin Mao, Sears, Petronas, Taipei, give me a break. They spend fifteen dollars a piece to ride up. What a waste. The world’s tallest building is the Taipei 101 located in Taiwan, that’s right, Taiwan has the rest of the world beat on architecture, and this stands at only 1,667 feet.

Your average junk civilian passenger jet will cruise at thirty to thirty nine thousand feet, prop planes, about twenty, and military aircraft…well god knows, much higher.

Our culture will stare for hours out a window in a tall building, they’ll drive miles to visit, stand at its base and stare up in wonderment, they’ll pay fifteen bucks to visit the highest elevation. The highest elevation is a joke in comparison to cruise control in a junk passenger jet.

See a white streak in the sky, and how often do you actually turn your head, how often do you allow your eyes to focus on that amazing flying contraption man waited so long for? High above us at any given moment, just right above us is a crowd of travelers. If we were to ascend some magical escalator straight up and across, we could peer in the window, maybe knock and they’d let us in. Right there, families going on vacation, businessmen tired of the routine, stewardesses offering us coke or diet coke, Las Vegas hangovers, people going home, people leaving home, old ones resting, middle aged women watching the feature presentation, paying two fifty for head phones.

Right above us is a crowd of people, hanging in the air, five times over. Five planes, five little streaks of hope, they are going to better places.

I am in a worse place.

I am in standing at the edge of a lot in-between to nice houses, keep in mind, these are houses, not homes.

It rained the other day, so of course all is mud. The sky is not cloudy, just naturally gray. I and Kevin are bored. We decided while the paint dries on the room he just painted, we could do an outdoor activity. Kevin had six steel bats, and over in the lot there is an acre of rocks, you do the math.

I always think I’m going to knock it sailing says Kevin.

Yeah I know I say.
But you don’t.

I toss a rock up…miss, again…miss, again…miss. If you miss hitting a self serve rock enough times, you can physically feel your testosterone level dropping in the eyes of your buddy. Once more…miss, oh come on…miss…here we go…miss…okay…hit.

You always think your going to knock it sailing, but you don’t. This was a fluke, I did. It sailed way out into the field, maybe even farther than Kevin’s farthest. I only have a limited time on this planet, and all I can think is, wow, I hit that rock really far with this blunt object. This is the epitome of not having a purpose. This is humankind.

Ah yes, excuse me?

A new character has appeared in my little life drama, a female, I’d estimate twenty eight years of age, standing at her doorway. She obviously dwells in one of the nice houses next to the mud lot.

Yes, are you…hitting rocks?

Why yes I am…would you like to join us?

Kevin laughs because I’m being a smarty.

Um…no.

Of course she doesn’t want to join us, this isn’t a real question, she is twenty eight year old house dweller with a small kid on a muddy day, I’m just a punk outside in the cold with my leather leisure jacket from Goodwill…hitting rocks near her house.

I would like it if you stopped hitting rocks near my house, thank you.

Don’t you love it when women tack on that thank you at the end of something you must naturally be agreeing with? This is because as a little girl too many people said yes to them, its okay, I’m sure they said yes too many people to. So now they have this little brain defect where instead of listening for the other people’s response, they just naturally assume they agree with them, so that “thank you” just naturally slips out after the request.

Either that or she's just being an asshole.

I wished I had perfect aim, and not so many misses, I would chuck a rock up, nail it, and watch it sail, bang, right in-between the eyes. Maybe this could get Kevin to laugh again. But no, the door closes.

Well firstly I say to Kevin. Firstly you need to realize that this is not her house.

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