O!

It got dark in a hurry.
Like the clouds had somewhere to be.
They seemed pissed about it.


The van headed into a hot black fog.
Tornado Alley they call it.
A giddy fear goosed my heart.
The windows misted.


I jabbed at the AM dial for answers.
Sports, static, religion, static, religion, sports...
They refused to mention weather.
Staccato noir dialogue played out on a nostalgia station.
Maybe The Shadow knew.


There was no tornado.
Just visible humidity.
Tongue-ish weather.
And for some reason, Omaha was alive.
Cornhuskers everywhere.
I parked the van in the Old Market.
Sweating and starving.
It was 11pm.
I asked the parking lot slouch if there was an event going on.
"Saturday night," he deadpanned.
Omaha.
That 'Tude'lin Town.


I went to one of those downtown brewery places for a hot meal.
Flat screen TV's in all directions displayed every sport ever played by Man.
Fresh, young, hot scientists invented new kinds of corners just to display these sports on these TV's.
I witnessed the brewery chef using the warmth generated by these TV's to cook hamburgers.
Then he pitched the hamburgers to a ballplayer on the TV.
The ballplayer hit the hamburgers all the way to Africa, solving current famines.


"The future is the present.
The present is a gift.
A gift is the future."


- Tony Mendoza
Omaha '011