A.G.E's Joint

Marty comes into the office after a couple of days at Lake of the Fires. On his desk in a note from Beezelbub. He needs the 144-K numbers yesterday. It's nice to be wanted. He pulls the ash covered laptop and powers up...then sigs. 225 new messages, mostly spam. That's all it was good for these days. Everything truly business-related went to Slack or Skype. Quickly scanning the subject lines, he marks them for deletion ten at a time. He would have selected all, but the last time he did he missed a meeting invite disguised as a dating site. On his third set, one caught his attention" "It Could Have Been YOU!, highlighted in yellow"  Ooh. Clickbait. Probably some diamond level multilevel market guru on our payroll revealing the secret to wealth. Yeah, I'm already there. Not interested. He clicked the deletion box. It wouldn't stay clicked. Instead, a pop-up box said he must open it. Oh, great. Malware. I wonder how that got over the firewall.  It was going ...

It took fifteen minutes to find a parking space. The wind was cold against Emily's face as Kristy undid the buckles of the seat. With a tug, the pink jacket untangled and the little redheaded child tumbled to the ground, but she wasn't one of those whiny kids. She immediately bounced up and brushed the rough sand from her knees and inspected her tights. No tears, good. As she began to look around, the huge granite rock smiled at her over the tops of the trees with their red and yellow leaves. Emily excitedly pointed at it. "Ooh, look at the big rock, Daddy."   "Yes, Sweetie. That's Stone Mountain."   "Can you climb up to the top?"   "Yes, you can and maybe we will another day. We're doing something else today."   "But I want to climb to the top!" Her face flushed. Jimmy knelt down to her level and in a quiet voice he said:   "If you act like that, we'll go home and you won't see...

Moon drifts over Cranberry Gap Disappearing into the valley mist Blanketing whispers of cicadas and frogs Gossip of Ceilidh sound impossible to miss At the top of the mountain. Pipers marching across the field As the athletes open the games To toss caber and hammer To test the shepherd dogs Celebrating the gathering Clans one more time. Thistle and Laurel grow thick and rich And a bit of the fragrance clings to the hand That gives the flowers to the victors. Reels and jigs to the harps And whistles of the band. And as soon as it has started It runs away back into the valley mist On the far side of Cranberry Gap. Living in the dreams of the Scots at heart Until we meet again.    (c) Christopher Mitchell 2009, 2011, 2013