What's the story here?

Everything you see has a story, whether you stop to think about it or not.  I stopped in my tracks, if you will, when I spotted this inexplicably abandoned pair of work boots on a railroad track near a popular downtown restaurant. 

What disembodied, barefooted soul (or sole), left them here, as though literally walking out of them?  Did he have a getaway ride idling nearby in the night, or did he just get too darned hot in the 100-degree Mississippi summer and opt for the freedom of loamy grass between his bare toes? 

Perhaps the erstwhile walker was suddenly abducted by aliens, whisked away into the mysteries of deep space by invisible UFO forces that--for reasons only they know--suddenly abandoned Area 51.  Who knows the story?  What the facts are you see before you:  these boots don't look likely to walk again anytime soon.



Could this be part of the otherworldly contingent, come to collect the now-bootless, and, I'm guessing, vanished, walker?  These neon-glowing butterflies no doubt were the vanguard of larger, more substantial flying objects tracking their prey on a still Mississippi, moonless night.  What harmless creatures could possibly produce such unnatural colors with such persistent luminosity?

There surely are, to keep my punmanship going, more pedestrian explanations for both of these images.  But I so prefer the wild flights of imagination that everyday, taken-for-granted objects can inspire.  Don't you?

Through the Looking Glass

This is a photo of a mirror, reflecting a reflection in a window that's reflected in the mirror. 

Confused? 

Life can be like that.  What we perceive sometimes is nothing more than an illusion of something totally reversed, much as it is in Alice's through-the-looking-glass experience.  It's upside down, backwards, and totally inexplicable. 

Sometimes it's better just to accept that and not try to impose logic on an illogical situation.  Sorry, all you engineers and economists reading this. 

In this world, there's the possibility for dreams, for impossible possibilities such as a Red Queen, and for flights of creative fancy. 

What you don't see in this photo is the phantasm that has inhabited this space for at least the last 50 years, known through footfalls on hardwood floors with no one else in the house, or through music strangely filtering through empty rooms with no apparent source, or through unusual indentations on beds that haven't been used.

It's only recently that the logical, organized, show-me person in the household has casually mentioned seeing the, oh, shall we just be honest and call it a ghost?  Those of us who grew up in the household know the spirit, which we consider completely benign, but we've never actually had a sighting.

So the pragmatist among us says it's a female figure, nearly transparent, and floating quietly and quickly into obscurity, as though hiding. Who am I to say otherwise?

In this artwork, drawn by a talented young woman who spent a lot of time in our household--this very house--as a child, a young girl gazes into a mirror.  What does she see?  It's a mystery.  It's whatever we imagine that she sees.

So on a day of infinite possibilities, isn't it wonderful to imagine whatever world your heart desires?  And to wonder if perhaps there's a benign spirit watching, ever so discreetly and carefully, over you?