By Ryan Quinn Flanagan
Have you ever looked at the projects and wondered
why those that claim they could terraform Mars
don’t start right here on earth? I guess it is a prestige thing.
Who wants to terraform Regent Park when you can
terraform Mars? That’s the red planet. Has its own crayon
and everything. A primary colour. That’s where the money is.
Not the bank. I bet if I opened a bank vault I find an underground
poker syndicate and a few dozen prenups. Maybe Jimmy Hoffa’s
esophagus and a third printing Codex Gigas signed by a
Keith Richards impersonator. Did you know that they didn’t allow drums
at the Opry for the longest time because they thought them an
instrument of the devil? Which begs the question:
Gene Krupa vs. Buddy Rich. Who was the devil rooting for?
Robert Johnson played guitar so the Crossroads don’t count.
Besides, the Crossroads aren’t even the real Crossroads,
did you know that? You might as well stand in an IHOP
bathroom and think you are at the Crossroads. Not to belittle
the point, but the truth is a slippery little beast. More
like a tadpole than something you’d carve into a tablet.
The way a toad feels in your hands the first time you bend
down to play prison warden.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, The Academy of the Heart and Mind, Setu, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.
Academy of the Heart And Mind 