I’m a Stranger Here Myself

by Jeff Sawyer

“Pardonnez-moi, monsieur, I should like to have one of your finest bread boules, s’il vous plait,” I said to the man at the counter, who failed to comply, insomuch as we were at a dry cleaner, in Wisconsin, where he was not employed, and he was by no charitable definition a man.

Sensing that no satisfaction would be forthcoming, I exited streetside and instructed Charles to drive me once around the park, briskly – which he most certainly did not, given that his name was Bud, there was no park anywhere near this sorry town, he possessed no horse-drawn carriage, and he was a Labradoodle.

A kindly policewoman who saw me standing there inquired, “Are you disoriented?”

“Why,” I replied, “I have never even been to Asia. I’m a stranger here myself.”

So she shot me.

A look, and I moved on.

I walked and walked ‘til long past dusk, three days past, in fact.

“Do not go gentle into that good night, Mr. tambourine man,” a bellicose vagabond the locals call Bob Dylan Thomas growled as I passed.

“Think! Think! Think!” I said to myself, substituting “pizza” for “think.”

Seeking any familiar landmark, I traversed hill and dale, two coeds I met.

I traversed some more and ran and skidded and sashayed along until, at long last, the familiar creaky old wooden door of my colonial manse came into view through the fog, warming my heart and my yard and my neighbor’s shrubbery as well, because it was, you see, ablaze.

The End, Probably

 © 2012 Jeff Sawyer