If You Want Good Neighbors

There is a man. He is standing in the doorframe of his house. It is ramshackle. The boards have gone soft, they are drooping. There is no paint left on the wood, and mold has spread over the rot, following the curlicue ruts of termite trails.

It smells wonderful, you know it does. It smells of water and rotting vegetation warmed over, a procreant grave.

I want to reach into the picture, rip that man out of his doorframe and slip into his place.

* * *

Not long ago, when people acted upon their fears in cruel and straightforward fashion, the missionaries gathered the lepers of Hawaii, shipped them off to the island Molokai and left them there.

The man in the picture stands in the door of his house, next to the old lepers’ graveyard. Beside the picture is a quote from the man:

“If you want good neighbors, go for the dead ones. They don’t take anything and they don’t talk too much.”


* * *


Wordplay

Writers love to play around with words. One of the games we love to play is “change one thing.”

I am noodling lightly, not paying attention, exchanging one word for another as fast as I can, when this combination catches my fancy:

If you want good friends, go for the dead ones…



Shit.

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On second thought: Fine. You want to go there? Come on.