Helping no one

Two stories about wasted potential.

Lion’s

The Solution

In the basement of Robert Sandoval’s house the world could have found many solutions they had long been looking for, solutions to the biggest of problems; but in the living room, the dining room and both bedrooms, they would find many smaller problems that had already been solved. Problems that, from what we have put together, are best contemplated at a summer cottage in the winter, at a funeral of a friend of which you are the decease’s only attendant, or a long road trip in a recreational vehicle, with a table, and a friend you do not care for driving. Yes, glued together on the walls, floors and in the halls are literally millions of pieces of cardboard placed together, with care, to form large images not intended for decoration but instead for relation to the other pieces which should surround it.

Unlike the puzzles plastered and pined to the walls on the main floor of Robert Sandoval’s house, Robert Sandoval was a puzzle that could not be put together. At least he could not be solved by any of us that found the contents of his house after “The Most Unfortunate Accident.”

Everything was found as the people had left it, but in place of the people there was only space. That, of course, after “The Most Unfortunate Accident.” It was only a year ago that “The Most Unfortunate Accident” occurred. From what we have learned in that year we found that the times were troubled, troubled so much that a capitol T was almost necessary to properly label how troubled the times were.

To escape these troubled times a man name Tim Hutchinson toyed with time and space. His goal was to move to a different time and place, teleportation of sorts. And with something to do with the beta waves in the human brain, we’re not quite sure, he was successful to a point but not to the point of a pin. In comparison to the size of a pin point, his success measured up to the tip of a Boeing 747. His intention was only to bring himself, but with him he brought everyone else. This was “The Most Unfortunate Accident.”

Our story, however, is not about Tim, for Robert Sandoval could have helped him. And in helping Tim, Robert could have helped everyone. See, below all of the puzzles pieced together, in the basement of Robert Sandoval’s house, are articles written in hand, bound, labelled, and placed under the only light on the only piece of furniture in the basement, an unstained maple bookshelf. There labels read, “The solution to economic strife,” “The solution to inequality and war,” “The solution to hunger,” “The solution to environmental inequality” and so on and so on.

These articles we praise not for their aspirations but for their ability to thoroughly and completely meet the definition on the label. This we know because we had the same problems that have confronted the human race when we came to this place, coincidently, three days after the “The Most Unfortunate Accident,” and these articles have solved our problems. When we first arrived we found no one here, but there were buildings and books, and art and beers. So we searched and searched hoping to find a person to explain the emptiness of the planet but no one was found. So, we searched all around. Luckily where we landed was not far from Robert’s home. We found his books with their writings and let our people know the solutions to the problems that have been plaguing us. With our new knowledge we put the solutions to the test. They were a success. However, we do have one regret not – we have not been able to share these ideas with anyone else, yet.

Ceahorse’s

Listening and sometimes hearing.

To whom it may concern:

I am writing this letter because I can’t think of anything else to do. I simply can’t stand back and watch such a gift go to waste.

I first met Jackson Banks on a Sunday 6 months ago. I was with my best friend Elijah Banks. We were taking Pete, my 1 year old son – who was 7 months old at the time – to my ex-wife’s house. On the way there, Elijah told me to stop off at his bro’s place. He said he needed to pick something up. We went to Jackson’s house, E’s cousin. I unbuckled Pete from his booster, and took him in my arms and followed E up the steps. Before he knocked on the door, he warned me that his cousin was a little weird. I thought nothing of it at the time.

The door was answered by Jackson, a man, who was topless and had a bunch of lather in his hair. It turned out to be what it seemed. He had been washing his hair. We dispensed with the greetings but Jackson lingered on my son for a long time, which I found strange being that my son could respond with anything more then Ga-goos.

Jackson let us in and took us to the living room where he found a spot on the couch and motioned for me to join him. E excused himself and went upstairs to look for the thing he had come to get.

I sat down beside him and glanced at the TV. It was showing a run of Days Of Thunder. It was at the part where Cole Trickle is afraid to get back in the car.

I looked back at Jackson, and asked him if he needed to go to the bathroom. He replied, nonchalantly, without any indication to the foam dripping on his shoulder, that he had been watching the movie and that he didn’t want to miss any of it.

At this point my son, Pete had burst out some Ga-goos. Jackson had looked down at him and turned to me and laughing said. “Your son has a dirty mouth.”

I dug around in my pocket and found a tissue and proceeded to search my sons face. Finding nothing, I turned to Jackson. “What you mean? There’s nothing on his face.”

He looked at me, scrubbed his hair a bit with his left hand – getting soap on the couch back – and then raised his eye brow. “What are you talking about?”

I told him that he had said that my son had a dirty mouth and that I couldn’t find anything on his face, to which he simply laughed, rolled his head back and then reached down beside the couch – without looking – and produced a squeeze bottle filled with water. With the water it then started to re lather up the soap in his hair.

I, feeling frustrated, pressured him further as to what he meant.

He told me that he didn’t mean that my son’s face was dirty but that my son liked saying dirty words. I looked down at my son, he was smiling at me I then looked back up at Jackson; he had a sideward grin on his face, the “I don’t know why” kind of grin.

I didn’t really want to, and if it hadn’t been my son as the topic I’d have let it go, but I had to ask. “What the fuck are you talking about? He can’t even talk”

“Sure he can, you just don’t understand him.”

“And you do?”

“Yeah that’s right. I understand them all.”

He kept looking back to the TV between sentences and sometime at the mid words of the sentences. He also kept at the hair.

“Let me get this straight. Are you telling me that you can understand baby talk?”

He reached over to the tea table, and annoyingly picked up the remote and paused the movie. Turned to me and said. “Listen man, I said I understood him, and I DO, now all I want to do it just wash my fucking hair and finish this movie so I can start it over again.”

He seemed quite irritated so I left it at that. About 30-40 seconds later E came back downstairs. He told me he was ready and tapped his cousin on the shoulder and headed for the door. As I was packing all my stuff I glanced over to Jackson’s side of the couch. Sitting on the floor beside him were hundreds of bottles of shampoo and squeezable bottles of water.

I’d have thought nothing more of this, excluding the conversation I had with my ex-wife where she demanded that I never bring Pete there again. However, yesterday was a day of epic proportions, in the life of a parent. It was the day my son said his first word clearly and accentuated. It just so happened to be “fuck!”