mmmccclxxxv

The Dumdum Conundrum

is earthbound, just astride

the bay, and has flying 

daggers, or at least a

ton-pounded arrow

replete with a
golden half-
buried-into-
the-earth
bow.
the arch
ery badge
i earned in
boy scout camp
gave me such a feel
ing but how could i not
feel ever more accomplish
ed than by sinking to the bot
tom of a lake with a massive
rock tied inside of my t-shirt,
only to somehow find myself
gasping the air with my head
above water in mere seconds
nonetheless.... no matter the
bevy of hifalutin insignia that
adorned my own sash of merit,
that swimming badge, simple
as it might have seemed, pro
vided the most gratification of
all. it was mine. i earned it. i
don’t think there was a badge
for sitting on a cliff with one’s
legs dangling over it. or for
somehow managing to twist
through the mangled limbs
of the trees that jutted out of
the rocks of the steep incline,
just below my dangling toes,
yet seemingly miles above
the papery fields below.
i suppose a bow and ar
row might give one
a better than zero
chance of getting
one or two places
alive, surely, but
to swim is nothing
less than to sur
vive. archery
seems more
like some
thing roy
alty do
with a
fox and
maybe a
dead bird;
or science fic
tion like the hung
er games, or robin
“the rich to help the
broken broke” hood.
to swim rather than
drown seems a much
more down to earth (but
yet, deadly just for the
lack of it) and practical 

skill that one might use 

or need to use at a
moment’s notice, 

without the advantage 

of forethought  (“look, 

i brought
my bow
and a few
gurgle!”).
“oops, can’t
swim, i’m a
goner! gurgle!
gone!”). then
there’s the
myth of solid ground. until, of course the
earthquake hits when, if you’re in my vic
inity, anyway, might have you spinning
around in something called liquefaction.
which, unlike quicksand, at least sounds
like something one might be able to es
cape somehow by means of a capability
to swim. i like to be prepared for the wo
rst, but can’t recall there being an apoc
alypse merit badge, nor one for global
warming, nor one for crashing into an
iceberg, or falling from the sky in a burn
ing zeppelin. i think i remember an old
readers’ digest comic insert, where the
hindenburg and the titanic cross paths;
both have a couple of fingers raised as
one goes one way and the other goes
the opposite, each with smug grins
on their “faces” with a tiny text
bubble apiece, that contain the
same bit of text: “be prepared.”
it’s also quite possible that
my memory is playing tricks
with me and that the vision
of the cartoon inserted into
a blob of text is something
that i only just now
spontaneously and
subconsciously
invented. none
of this prepares
either one of us
for the inevitable,
however, would
n’t you agree?