The Silverware Soap Opera

The fork was jealous when the dish ran away with the spoon. It felt less whole. It whispered thoughts of incompleteness to itself, looking down shamefully at its transparency. Wishing it was smooth and curvey. It looked longingly at them working in tandem...filling themselves with scalding hot tomato basil and butternut squash soups...exchanging fluids. It walked the streets in desperation. Desperate to alleviate its feeling of jealousy-hating itself for what it couldn't be.

At the fork's pathetic peak, pasta came in full recruit of the fork. The fork was reborn, spinning and twirling itself into manic frenzy. Twirling until it was dizzy in its own delight, drunk with its own reinvention of itself. Never realizing it could do anything more than stab and serve the knife.

(The sordid past of the knife and fork was whispered about in grocery store lines and dark corners of cocktail parties. Overheard conversations on the counter were steeped in debate "The major problem was the knife never let the fork run free!" the whisk demanded. "The fork should just count its blessings to be matched with the devilishly lethal piece of silverware." claimed the ice cream scoop. Back and forth they all went discussing their own stance on the tortured souls, eyes wide and thoughts unedited. In their therapy sessions, the fork pleaded with the knife to seek out its own passion..."My god, just get yourself into some steak!" "Plug yourself in, and take down a Thanksgiving turkey!" But the knife just sat flat, hurt, and annoyed at the pleas of the fork to be something it wasn't. The therapist diagnosed the knife with co-dependancy traits, and in that instant the fork had a waking moment.)

Now...at last...liberation. "Pasta? Where were you all my life?" the fork murmured in its glee. In mid-pirouette, the fork glanced over to see the spoon slumped over at the street lamp, fedora pulled over its tear-streaked silver, smoking a cigarette with the moon. In the distance, the fork watched as the dish sat...satisfied in its isolation and glowing in its self-righteousness, as large plump fingers plucked the baby quiches and deviled eggs off the plate.

Drawn to its passionately sensitive defeat, the fork wrapped its prongs around the spoon as it sank and collapsed into the fork's embrace. That night,they wept together until their tears created new tides and floods that disapated into wandering creeks. In the morning the spork was born.

Now the days of the working fork and spoon had come to a sudden halt, they were busy feeding the spork and teaching it to live with pride in its mixed race. They filled their days trying to get the spork out of the cafeteria and onto some white linen, but it had been cast aside early on. Judged as being overzealous, scoffed at for its multi-talents, it was plagued in its overly utilitarian-ness. Jealousy ran its course undeservedly on the spork, and the spoon and fork had to sit and watch as their diamond in the rough was fated to canned carrots and applesauce on the food separating plastic trays.

On their nightly autumn walks, the spoon and fork would stop at the window of the corner Chinese take out, prongs and concave oval pressed against the window...silent...hypnotized by complexity in the simplicity of the chopsticks. "Man, they are good." the fork would admit with great respect. Inevitably, their conversation after passing the Chinese restaurant would somehow make its way around to rants about the magic they could have created together, had they the chance in there. Soups, sauce, noodles, vegetables and meats. "We could have teamed up with the bowl and left the dish and knife to their own lazy and self-serving antics." the fork would exclaim. "You would have tackled that Mu Shu, while I worked the steaming wontons." the spoon imagined.

And then the night would fall short as they approached the house, the light of the tv illuminating the window and the profile of Spork sitting slightly slumped and two small tears would drip down their silver handles, in that autumn night, and the tides had changed once more.

And the moment in between...

Awake, waiting alone with the promise of the late night meteor shower. My eyes betrayingly set on this blank paper, as the echo of the Oakland train perpetrates the night. I have decided to rebel against the sky's possession of my searching eyes and excuse myself from the anxious await.

Still the moments in between...waiting...waiting....waiting...

Now, the memory of the last stab of light grows dim and dusty with cobwebs. It rocks in the chair at an agonizingly monotonous speed. It plays Bingo and eats applesauce, tapioca, and rests its removable teeth on the nightstand.

I am irritated.

It has been at least four minutes since the last meteor.

My impatience is taking a slow and painful wreckoning on the meteor shower. In the time in between, I cynically compare the meteor to a sparkler with a shorter lifespan. I question my cold wait on the balcony...ridiculing the meteor in its assumption that its as magnificent as the space shuttle or electric can opener. Quickly, I come to the conclusion that the meteor shower is something humans do to feel closer to purity, like a hip detox. A cleanse-in trade for your deprivation, instead merely stripping you of all your nutrients. I blame the meteor for making me wait for a drip after being promised a shower...feeling lied to and humiliated. My hurt feelings turn to anger, like an alcoholic.

And then I wonder in my impatience and feverish Sharpie moving its way across the paper, How many have I missed sitting here staring at this piece of paper? Were there eight at once, or one after the other? Were they blue and green, yellow and purple? Did they circle inside themselves like the star at the end of the Saturday morning cartoons, leaving me stuffed from my huge episodic meal.

And again, I am irritated...

Was this what the meteor shower wanted? Maybe its tired of living up to the expectations. Maybe it merely wanted to be met with a glance up and chance meeting. A ren dez vous. A greeting with a subtle smirk and slowly shaking finger, "You got me again, you bastard". To fill the time in-between with inexplicable joy and contagious laughter. To trade the guest star spot for the featured extra. To simply make an appearance and Houdini out.

Most likely, it intended me to wait. Stupid universe. Clearly, I have a smaller attention span than you. I have now left messages for friends in L.A., Chicago, and New York to check you out...I have contacted three major U.S. cities, How about a little kickback for the press, huh?

And so, I wait...

It has now been at least 6 minutes.

I am aware of how solitary I am here, waiting, alone, growing doubtf......

And then a glittering white scar stabs the black sky to death, and a not so silent gasp

escapes from my mouth. I am struck deaf and blind to the world beyond the meteor, resting peacefully in the beauty of its grip.

And there I sat, like a child who doesn't want to get out of the pool.

Me and the empty sky.

The empty sky and me.

Momentarily, not in confrontation.