The Scorpion

Reverie (n.) : (12c., Modern French rêverie), from resver "to dream, wander," a word of uncertain origin (also the source of rave).

I’m talking to a guy on the street, someone I ran into who seems very familiar, though I can’t remember his name but he knows me obviously even though I’m unsure if I know him. What’s your name again? I’m asking him. Tom, he says, and he’s looking disappointed that I don’t remember and I apologize. I have a big problem remembering names, I tell him. Sorry. We’ve been chatting for quite a while in front of an apartment building with steps leading up to a landing with several doors and he’s pointing to a sign on one of the doors, and I can’t see which sign he means because there are so many of them, all small and generally quite colorful, though several are simply black and white which counterintuitively tends to make them more noticeable, and these signs say things like, it’s a planet not an empire we’re not perfect but they’re nuts imagine all the people living life in peace fight tooth decay keep mexicans deport trump this is a time when rebellion becomes a duty war sucks thinking is not illegal if ignorance is bliss why aren’t we all more happy and he’s pointing pointing pointing at one of these signs and I’m not knowing which sign he means and he has to go up the steps to touch it and it’s a sign that has a question about a pet dog that says, do you know about the dog named Schenectady? or a name very similar to Schenectady I’m not sure if that’s exactly the name because it’s hard to read from this distance but there’s a QR code next to another line of type that says, learn about Schenectady, and he’s pointing his phone at this code and he’s bringing his phone down to show me, and it has a picture of a dog’s face looking very sad and it says, Schenectady is suffering from lip thrush. It might be another dog disease, I can’t quite see which exact dog disease it is, but next to the sad dog’s face there’s another QR code with the words: Learn about K-9 lip thrush. And I’m saying, that’s weird and he’s saying we should get together with our coworkers, and since I can’t remember him or where I met him exactly, I’m wondering which co-workers these are, are they are the tour guide co-workers or office-worker co-workers? And I’m afraid to ask him because he’s feeling bad about me not remembering who he is, but still he wants to socialize with me and with these other coworkers all together and I say, okay, and he’s saying there is one co-worker in particular who he wants to have contact with, a guy who’s really great but very retiring and it would be great if he comes out with us and meets us and I guess this person is notoriously unavailable and he’s mentioning his name which I don’t recognize and he’s saying, I’ll call him on the phone and make some excuse to get him to come out of his front door and he’ll find you there sitting on his steps and he’ll be surprised and excited and then I’ll walk up all nonchalant and we’ll have a meeting and we’ll socialize for the first time in a long time, and I’m saying, I don’t know, and he’s saying, well think about it but first let me show you something, and he’s taking me inside a big, pretty much empty, office building and he’s talking talking talking and I’m really needing to break off from him because I’m starting to worry about a certain project at work, something I’ve done quite a long time ago but for some reason no one has asked me for the files and it’s occurring to me the work is due just around this time, it might actually be due today so this uncompleted work is haunting me and there are other assignments that I did not fully understand at the time they were assigned and the files have not been formatted yet and I’m becoming increasingly worried as he’s talking talking talking and suddenly there’s an earthquake and I keep thinking I have to be going while at the same time everything is shaking shaking shaking, significantly shaking, maybe the biggest earthquake I’ve ever felt but there is no sense of panic and he keeps talking about how happy he is to be running into me and about socializing and I am not feeling frightened, I am only waiting for the shaking to stop and I’m like, oh great what else can go wrong? The sort of thing you say under your breath and roll your eyes, not a panicky sort of feeling at all, and then it’s finally stopping and we’re moving outside and there’s a little earthquake rubble here and there but nothing that strikes me as unmanageable, and he’s starting up again telling me about the trick to get our co-worker to come out with us and I finally break away from him. 

I’m needing to get to the office as soon as possible but the parts to my bicycle are scattered all around our garden, which is bigger than I’m remembering, and I’m finding my derailleur in the mulch beneath the rose bushes, my cog set in the periwinkle, the crank arm among the tulips. I’ve taken my bicycle apart sometime before so it won’t be stolen and now I’m laying all the parts and tools out before me in an organized way and I’m realizing that one element is still missing, a single ballbearing. 

I keep my spare parts in a cardboard box, which is a large and shallow one coated in shrink-wrap plastic and it’s perturbing to have to remove all this thick clear plastic in order to access the interior, and I’m hurrying so I can ride off to the office to finish the important project that’s haunting me, a job I neglected for too much time and is due almost at this exact moment, but because I’m the sort to open boxes in a civilized way without ripping them and abusing them, I’m squatting down on the ground bending over the big box that I’m noticing is made of a very enticing, warm brown shade of cardboard and I’m trying to penetrate the plastic layers with my finger by rubbing my finger into the seam between the two flaps that come together at the front of the box, poking at the seam softly at first and then more firmly, poking poking and rubbing harder and slightly harder with my finger tip and then a little harder hoping to weaken the plastic coating at just the right spot and get my finger down between the flaps and inside the box and that way I’ll be able to feel the smooth slick texture of the ballbearing inside it when a woman who I work with and who is a very attractive and friendly person comes up behind me and she says, I need to talk to you, but she is arriving just at the very delicate moment when the tip of my finger is entering the box, it’s almost up to the first knuckle, and it’s wiggling wiggling, feeling for the hard round object and I’m beginning to slowly tilt the box so that the things inside can come sliding down against my finger and this woman’s sudden arrival is interrupting this operation and I don’t want her to notice how much the act I’m engaging in feels very private and personal at this critical moment when she’s unexpectedly appearing, and I’m saying, I’m sorry do you mind if we talk a little later I’m busy with this manipulation involving a box, and of course she’s seeing the pieces of my bicycle spread all around me and she’s saying, why do you need a bicycle? 

And so I begin making an excuse about what I’m doing as if I’m feeling slightly ashamed about doing something that’s perfectly natural when I’m really just wanting her to stop talking to me at this sensitive moment when my faculties are concentrated on one single smooth round object and I’m saying something like, oh I only work part time you know I don’t work full time so during lunchtime or after work I like to ride my bike to a winery and that’s why I like using my bike so I can go places, and just at that moment I’m feeling the ball bearing rolling past my finger and my frustration is growing and I’m saying, somewhat bluntly I admit, I’ll talk to you a little later okay I’m busy now and she finally walks away. 

I’m pushing my finger all the way through the seam right up to my second knuckle and I’m probing probing feeling around and I’m thinking if I tilt the box steeper to make the ball bearing roll to the spot where my finger is in the seam hole, I’ll be able to pin it there and then get two fingers on it so I can very gently pull it out and as I’m tipping the box I’m almost certain I’m feeling the hard round ball touching me and I start being excited and the exciting feeling is making me tilt the box up more steeply and then too steep and the top edge of the box is colliding the large heavy glass jar which was originally a fish bowl, rounded with a small base, that’s on top of a small pedestal in the garden and this is the jar that holds the scorpion. 

It’s an exceptionally large grotesque-looking scorpion, shaped like a deep fried gyoza, with a crusty brown exoskeleton that looks like it has a partially-healed injury on its left side that has yet to completely scale over and it’s crawling out the mouth of the overturned jar and it’s just standing on the ground in the sunshine, not moving, maybe feeling the shock of hitting the ground after falling off the pedestal and feeling a bit confused to be outside after so many months inside a warm glass jar with no wind or garden smells and I’m grabbing a couple of sticks I find on the ground so I can pick it up like I’m using chopsticks but it’s huge, as big as my fist, and I’m bending over it and slowly lowering my improvised chop sticks over its back and one of the sticks is just barely touching it and it freaks out and is running away and I’m chasing after it but it’s being very speedy, and we’re running running running through the petunias that I’m being careful not to tread on, through the periwinkles, and up and down the garden path and it’s scaling the fence and I’m hearing the scatching scratching scratching of its claws against the dry wood and it’s going through a hole in the fence into the neighbor’s yard, and right at this moment my wife is coming and she’s saying, what are you doing? and I’m saying, I’m trying to— but I’m not wanting anyone who might be nearby to be hearing about the scorpion, so I stop my talking, I drop my chopsticks, I embrace her very closely in order to speak to her very quietly and intimately and intensely and I’m pretending to be making out with her while I’m really trying to explain about the scorpion very quietly, and I’m not thinking she’s understanding what I’m saying or why I’m doing this, and who should be coming, walking along the garden path, but Agnolo Bronzino from the Bronzino winery and I keep pretending even harder to be having an intimate moment with my wife so I won’t have to talk to him but it feels weird so I drop it, I let go of my wife, and I say, oh hi what brings you here? and he says, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, and I say, oh interesting but I have to fix my bicycle right now which is spread out on the ground in pieces and he’s standing over me looking looking looking while I’m putting all the spokes in and I’m feeling him watching me critically and I know at any moment he’s going to start telling me how I’m doing this or that wrong, even though I’m very familiar with putting my bicycle together, but I’m also knowing I have that problem about the ball bearing so I’m foolishly telling him I’m missing one ball bearing, and he’s saying, don’t worry that’s not crucial, as if he knows anything about it, and my wife is there too and Bronzino is finally leaving and I’m whispering to her about the scorpion and she’s seeming very blazé and unimpressed and generally disinterested, she’s not thinking it’s a big deal, but I’m knowing that the mere breath from this particular type of scorpion can render a person paralyzed, and if this highly poisonous animal touches your skin with the tip of its little gray tongue which it pushes through its long proboscis, even that little tongue lick with its infinitesimally small amount of poison is enough to kill you and you’ll die writhing and foaming and I’m worrying and debating with myself whether we should keep it a secret or not.

But after work I’m riding my bike to the winery on the hill, not the Bronzino one which I don’t want to go to, it’s another one. I’m pushing my bike much of the way because one wheel is not turning smoothly for some reason and there’s a lot of traffic but somehow I’m avoiding getting run over and one car is zipping past me, just barely missing me, going up the hill and stopping quite suddenly, and it’s the attractive woman from my office, who was talking talking talking just before the scorpion escaped, and she’s leaning out her window and she’s laughing and she’s saying, Did you find the drain pipe? I’m laughing too and I’m saying, Yes it’s right ahead, the drain pipe, pointing up the road and she’s speeding off but I know I’ll get to see her later at the winery, and when I get there there are all these very posh people and I know I’m supposed to be speaking to someone or teaching a class or something, but there’s a man sitting at a table who’s looking like a famous musician I know who’s also a crime investigator, and then it doesn’t look like him at all, I’m only thinking he looks that way because the famous musician’s music is playing on the soundsystem, and I’m knowing that since his music is playing he’s here at the winery someplace and I’m needing to find him to congratulate him on his nice musicianship but this man is sitting at the table and he’s being very excited because he’s just won a lot of money in a poker game even though he doesn’t know how to play poker, and the attractive woman from my office is there saying to him, it’s because you were so quiet, and I’m interjecting, yes, that’s right, it’s always the quiet one who wins at poker, and he’s looking at me very angrily, and he’s saying, I was not quiet.

He’s a foreigner. He’s not understanding the concept of being poker-faced and quiet, and I’m thinking, yes, he’s not the quiet one, he’s the garrulous one, he’s the one who is noisy and talkative, and he’s the one who’s winning all the money and he’s winning it in spite of being the opposite of everything you’re supposed to be in order to win, he’s winning a lot of money and that’s usually the way it goes.