NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Diddlie and I see people dressed in orange outfits unwinding a roll of black duct from a giant metal spool.
It is mounted on a trailer with spokes rising above our heads.
As we walk up Oval Street hill to her place an orange drilling rig, called, ‘Vermeer’, appears on the left verge. White asters lean over the drill pipe where it goes into the ground. It bores laterally through the clay, about three feet down, parallel to the road in the municipal right of way.
“What is going on, Did.?
“It’s called, ‘undergrounding’”.
“As in burial?”
“That’s for graves.
This is for the electrical mains….”
A small orange John Deere backhoe comes downhill toward us. It carries a wooden spool of cable suspended from the bucket. The tracks are rubberized but the engine is loud.
“What?”
“Didn’t you get a postcard from Dordrecht’s Group?”
“Don’t remember getting one.”
Diddlie, stops and leans close to me.
“Fred, you are really out of it!”
“Well, there was a big stack of mail. Probably threw it out as junk.”
“No need for excuses.”
She holds my hand.
“Did you notice anything in your yard?”
“Yes, a few things.”
“How about your lines?”
That too, electric utility lines run under our yard all the way to the meter, by the back door. Where they are still unconnected and taped over.”
“Great! You are all set.”
Small holes about three feet deep and a few yards apart reveal the passage of Vermeer’s drill pipe under the verge. A technician watches over one of the holes, opposite Diddlie’s driveway, while talking to the driller on her phone.
Diddlie lets go of my hand and folds her arm in mine as we go on.
“I hope they don’t hit anything when they drill under my yard!”
We stop at the foot of her driveway.
“All your utilities should be marked.”
“Sure, see all those spray-painted marks. But what about my compost heap?”
“Well, what about it?”
“Don’t you remember? It caved in and all those sparks came out?”
“That’s right!”
“Yeah, I don’t want any more nonsense from that Fascist, Jake Trip.”
“Didn’t Mr. Fawkes sort it out?”
“Maybe, he never explained anything.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘it’s all fixed. Don’t worry about it.’”
“You think he is in on some secret?”
“I don’t know.”
“There is a lot of stuff under this neighborhood.”
“Yeah, Fred, remember all the electronics under the Ashes and that huge pit they dug on Derwent Sloot’s lot for the new house?”
“That was a lot deeper than any basement!”
“Right, and that guy, Stan wouldn’t say anything.”
“Oh, the guy in the hole!”
“He was sitting in a plastic chair on the side when I saw him.”
“And don’t forget, Did, Jakes wine cellar and that insane contraption to transport his Chardonnay.”
“That’s just a gag to hide the dungeon he built down there!”
“It is?”
Oh, don’t get me started!”
Diddlie stops to look around again as we walk up her driveway towards her carport.
“Look how the ditches are overgrown with jewelweed.”
“I have only noticed it in the last few years.”
“Did you see the seeds popping out?”
“Yup, productive little projectiles.”
“We’ve been getting more summer rain.”
“I know, no need for my soaker hose.”
We walk into Diddlie’s carport.
“What’s that orange cat doing on top of Mr. Liddell’s hutch, Did?”
“That’s Oliver, Sophie’s cat.”
“He’s made himself right at home!”
“If he has been messing with Mr. Liddell, Sophie and I are going to have words!”
She looks in on Mr. Liddell who has hidden under the straw.
“I guess he is alright. He’s not crying or anything.”
Mr. Liddell peers through the straw, with one black dot. His other eye is concealed by a straw. The mound of straw in the hutch moves and his ear and then his pulsating nose appear against the black steel critter fence on the side panel.
Diddlie opens the front, picks him up, and holds him. Straw falls off him and sticks to her green cable sweater. Oliver jumps down to the floor and takes up a position on top of an old wine carton at the back. He can see what we are doing, on his right as well as a clear path out of the way to his left.
She rubs Mr. Liddell’s ears, kisses him, and puts him back.
“Have you been keeping up with O Anon?”
“Is that the wacky political site?”
“No, that’s QANON!”
“Oh okay, the one with the Orange cat.”
Yes, Oliver is ‘O’, remember?”
“No, lost the web address.”
“Fred! How would you get by without me?”
“That is an interesting question, Diddlie.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Didn’t we go through this before, years ago?”
“One more time Fred!”
“Remember who is writing this?”
“NO! I don’t want to think about it. Not at all.”
“Listen, it is kind of cosmic.”
“It is kind of impossible!”
She holds both my hands and looks at me closely.
“No, let me update you on O Anon. The real thing.”
“Okay.”
“It is about the advantages of daydreaming.”
“Great, I am all for it!”
“Maybe that is why you are so out of it.”
“Maybe, Cats seem to excel at it.”
“O discusses relaxing out of your will.”
“Like into the unconscious.”
“Yeah, like the idea that God is the same as the unconscious.”
“How could the creation happen in there?”
“I don’t know.”
“So, is O saying it is all in our heads.”
“Well, we are talking about FMS, Feline-Mind-Set.”
“What is that?”
“It is like a better way to be.”
“Oh, some kind of new religion.”
She throws down my hands.
“No, not a religion.”
“It’s just a way to be.”
“Like yawning and stretching and chasing birds and rodents?”
“No, it’s not like we have to grow fur and tails or something.”
“Well, that is good to know.”
Diddlie looks over at Oliver whose tail is doing ‘S’ curves.
“Fred, do you ever get, just random thoughts?”
“Yes, quite often.”
“Where do you think they come from?”
“Who, knows?”
Oliver dashes off towards Dddlie’s hedge and disappears into the thicket.
“I wonder what random thought prompted that sudden move!”
“Well, O says, they come from your FMS.”
“You mean that cat over there in the hedge has come up with all this?”
“You have to ask Sophie.”
“I see. She is communicating with Oliver.”
“She sits with him on the back porch, and she has thoughts.”
“From him?”
“She presents them as being from him.”
“Have you taken up FMS, Diddlie?”
“I am learning all the time.”
“Has she explored the possibility of angels or ancestorial spirits getting back in touch?”
“O Anon is saying that you can call it whatever you want.”
“He, she, it, or even god, if you like?”
“Any of the above!”
“This is about belief rather than fact.”
“Well, it depends on what your truth is.”
“My truth?”
“Yeah, like what is true for you.”
“That would be my opinion or conviction.”
“Right, your truth.”
“I didn’t think truth was personal.”
“Well, you aren’t keeping up. We all have our own truth, now.”
“That seems absurd.”
“Oh, don’t be so stuffy, Fred!”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“What? Just get with it.”
“It doesn’t make sense to me. The sun is shining right now. That observation is mine and that statement is true. It is not my truth.”
“Well, how does the sunshine feel to you?”
“It feels fine until it gets too hot.”
“There, that is your truth!”
“Okay, so what happens if I speak my truth to you and your truth is different?”
“It happens all the time!”
“No wonder we are having problems on social media!”
“What has that got to do with it?”
“Too many truths out there and many are false.”
“Think of it as subjective truth, okay?”
“What is the difference between that, and opinion?”
“Is it your opinion that the sun gets too hot?”
“No, if it is too hot for me, then it is too hot for me.”
“Like I said Fred, get with it!”
