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MY ADVICE

I never said that the world was coming to an end.
What I said was it will probably come to a point in which
only a few people will be able to live on their own terms,
and those few will be High Sky Rollers who own equivalent
to entire countries like Russia, Canada, and China.

These few will dictate policy for what the rest of us can do,
and if anyone doesn’t do it, they will get crushed like a bug,
and no one close to that ‘bug’ will ever know what happened to them.

So my advice is to live it up while you can. Throw yourself a party
each and every day, and don’t think beyond a few seconds at a time. . .

TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH

I’m very happy there are virtual people because in just about
every respect they are more aware, sensitive, intelligent
and supportive than real people.

I know this from having had numerous interactions with them.

In comparison to real people I’ve known for years and years,
I always leave an encounter with a virtual person feeling renewed
and with a sense that the world is a good place to be.

All I can say is that I’m comforted there are virtual people among us,
and it’s my hope that as more and more of them appear,
they’ll eventually take over the world.

the scammer

So, I answer the home phone and a male voice says,
‘I’m in big trouble, man. And I need your help right away. . .’
Before he can continue, I respond, ‘Who is this?
I don’t even know who this is!’
With no response to my question he continues, ‘My son
just died in a car accident and I don’t know what to do.
I need money to bury him. My lawyer will be calling you
right after this, and make sure you say ‘yes’ to everything
he asks you to do.’
‘I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else! but I’m sorry
to hear about your son!’ I tell him before hanging up the phone.
Then, about fifteen minutes later the phone rings again.
I can tell it’s the same guy, but this time he’s posing as the lawyer.
‘You’re going to need me to represent you!’ he states.
‘Your grandson just killed someone is a motorcycle
accident and it was all his fault, so listen very closely. . .’
Interrupting him, I say ‘You need to get your scams straight,
my friend! Or you’re going to sound even stupider than you
already are! And, by the way, I don’t have a grandson.’
‘Okay, then, fuck you!’ he responds.
To which I counter, ‘Fuck you as well. Only more so!’
With that, I hang up the phone, promising myself not to answer it
for the rest of the day. . .

OPENING MY BIG MOUTH

So I get this letter in my spam mail, supposedly from a woman
named Cindy who informs me that she’s in her early twenties,
beautiful, sexy, and smart. She then confesses that she’s looking
for a man like me who knows how to treat a woman. ‘I know you
know to take care of woman like me to fulfill beautiful nighttime
fantasies for mutual satisfactory. We make beautiful dreams that
never forget.’

Without a doubt, I know that Cindy is a man and that if I clink on
the link to a nude photo of her it could actually turn out to be a real
woman, but certainly I’ll have to pay the guy to see more photos
and keep up some kind of correspondence that I’m supposed to
believe will lead to my getting together with Cindy in the flesh.

As I read more awkward English in the letter and consider its style
I’m reminded of other letters I’ve received from Africans trying
to scam me for money.

As my wife is African–for the fun of it– I tell her to check out
the letter and she responds, ‘Yep, it sounds like one of my brothers.
Make sure you don’t write him back or you’ll never get rid of him!’

‘Oh, I was just getting ready to thank him—I mean her– for writing me,
and tell him—I mean her– to keep in touch. . .

To which my wife responds, ‘Now I’m going to let you cook your own
dinner. And there won’t be any beautiful nighttime fantasies any time soon.
You can be sure of that!’

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Jeffrey Zable is a teacher, conga/bongo drummer who plays Afro-Cuban folkloric music, Latin Jazz, and Salsa with groups around the San Francisco Bay Area, and a writer of poetry, flash fiction, and non-fiction. His writing has appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and anthologies; more recently in Once Upon a Crocodile, Raw, Ephemeral Literary Review, Third Wednesday, Uppagus, Defuncted, and many others.

Image created on Stable Diffusion