Ambush

AMBUSH There are times when you walk down the hall to yet another meeting, walk from your car to the strip mall pharmacy that dispenses your Viagra, or stand before a classroom of dedicated students for another stimulating lecture on urban ecosystems, that some sound, some color, some geometric pattern triggers unwanted memories about people you loved that didn’t get your best, that were somehow roughed up by the mean, the mercurial, the muscular machinations that served your righteous way forward and suddenly your are naked, a declining physique with an fascinating tapestry of surgical scars, blotches and bruises from rugby, relationships and reckless behaviors, and the people around you are unknowing, unforgiving, uncomfortable with your silence, wishing you’d move on instead of searching in the hallway, the cracked parking lot, your hand-written lecture notes for the clothing and armor that have carried you this far or at least for a robe that might hide the embarrassment of your shame and your guilt and the nasty suspicion that, given another chance, you’d behave the same way again!