“Start it dammit! Start the machine!” Ego said to me. Id was as silent as id tends to be. Not caring much until the damage is done. And then complaining about the outcome. Screwy id. No, I shall not start it. Not with just five or so gallons to spare. I shall not start it unless there is a valid plan. A useful plan. A very well articulated plan I can see. And none such plan presents itself, from myself, to me. As is usually the case as well. ‘I’ll wait awhile to see what transpires,’ I thought a day or so ago. One message in my mind regarded quality, not quantity. And I considered it with very much concern. As if there were meaning hidden in that thought that I could not quite discern. Soon enough though, I gave up. Not completely, but mostly. I never give up completely. For then, I know I will cease to exist. Even in my own mind.

I hopped off the machine and moseyed around the large yard, as I’d done more than a hundred times. Cars. Cars of every shape and size graced this place. All rusted but each revealing to those that seek the once shining luster they possessed. And I actually felt they cared that they are no longer so pretty, so important, so useful as they once were. The silly thought never ceases to sadden me. Even though I know a silly thought it is. Even though I know they can’t think to feel such feelings. They’re not human, right? Not sentient like you and me? Well, like me anyway. Sentient thinking seems only to erupt from me. Not too forthcoming from others of late. So I assume that qualifier must be so. I must truly be alone.

Now, alone ain’t so bad sometimes. Sometimes it is just plain cool. I run naked through the lowlands in the south, and smoke weed in the mountainous north. Nobody cares. So far as I know. Except possibly the errant voice that chides me so. And not even any of those chiding voices are vocal of late. They’ve been quelled by a flower that never dies. Yet that same flower now ignores. Ignores the Dunce me. The Espy me. Ignores my plight. My goal. My dream. My...my, my; what have we here?

A Magnifying glass no less. Complete with handle and rim. And a somewhat unscathed one at that. Odd, given it existed in an environment such as this. What a wonderful find. Something to catch the rays of the sun. Something to focus it into something I might wish it to be, rather than what it might more naturally be. That of a very slow burn and tan. This could be an answer to my ‘Bic Lighter’ dilemma. I’ve almost used mine up. The fluid in this lighter is getting low, and no others exist, so far as I know. With this glass device I may be able to be a little less careful in letting my camp-fire die out. Something to use as I conserve the fuel left in Mr. Bic. for only those things I consider of vast import. Emergencies, so to speak. Hey! Thanks fate! You’re a pal.

I tossed it in my bag without the slightest concern for the living inhabitants therein. Perhaps they’d clean that glass for me? Likely not. Rats and frogs care little about clean, and less about magnifying glasses and such. The hemp buds might care. They just won’t tell you when they do. Not until later. Later, when they introduce themselves to you. That’s the way buds are. And I’ve come to accept, and anticipate that.