Intro and orphans in Normal entries

It’s been a strange couple of days, not in a bad way, or, even objectively a strange way. Subjectively my head has been a strange thing to have on my neck. I wrote a couple of orphans. Wait, no, I started writing flashes that I didn’t finish. I could have, but I didn’t, and it’s sort of like the ten second rule. For the one guy who doesn’t know what that is; if you drop your, say, taco, on the ground you have ten seconds before it’s inedible. It’s weird but it’s a thing. Wait, no, if there is weird shit on the floor it will be on your taco immediately, it’s a thing that people say and some believe that weird shit won’t affect your taco in the first nine seconds. The other seven billion people on the planet know what I mean. Even the germophobes and OCD. Ten second rule. To me the weirdest part is unspoken; what wicked things happen in that eleventh second? Ten seconds or no if you’re hungry and enjoying the taco you’re going to probably grab it, brush the hair off and eat it anyhow, or not, but you won’t be counting one Mississippi, two Mississippi …

These flashes are eleventh second orphans. It feels weird to only have two; there should be three. That’s why this introduction has … stuff in it. Five second stuff.

A tow head girl like polished marble reaches for the tree, a branch bends down to her. She picks a fig from the branch and walks off smiling.
“What’s up with the tree?”
A carmel kid with curly bronze hair reachs, the branch leans toward him, he picks an apple from it, laughs, and runs.
“What tree?”
A dark child and a child like aged parchment hold hands as they walk towards the tree, a branch leans down, the dark child takes an orange and the parchment child takes a pomegranate.
“That one.”
“Oh. Some say it’s the last of the garden of Eden.”
“Yeah, some say there’s no such thing as global warming. I’m not one of them.”
“Fair enough. It’s the edge of the blast radius.”
“Blast radius?”
The kids have come back, more kids, dancing around the tree, and, as they need it, branches lean down to lift them up or give them fruit.
“Yes, about a week ago there was a city, a great, grand city, spreading further than you could see, all the way to the ocean. See? There is some rubble still way over there.”
“Huh. What city?”
“Pardon?”
“The name of the city that isn’t there, what was it called.”
“Los Angeles.”
“Never heard of it, sounds made up; lost angels.”
“No, it wasn’t an English name, it meant something else.”
“Still never heard of it. What kind of blast does that?”
A child with a shaved head and alabaster stripes rides in on the back of an emu, the branch reaches to them with oranges and bamboo leaves.
“A kind one. It’s the law of attraction.”
“How’s that?”
“It must have been kind, like attracts like, love attracts love.”

“So? How’d the date go?”
“Good, good, I think. He pulled a rabbit out of his hat.”
“If that’s a metaphor it sounds like it went better than just good.”
“I don’t get it.”
“A metaphor is phrase when applied to an action …”
“I know what a metaphor is, I don’t get what you’re applying or implying to what.”
“It just sounded kinky. Not a metaphor huh? So he’s a cheesy magician from the late forties? “
“No. He pulled a rabbit out of his hat. At the restaurant. A rabbit got loose … wait, no, I don’t know what the bunny was doing there, but the bunny hid in his hat. He gave the cloakroom lady our ticket and when she gave him his hat there was a bunny, a rabbit, in it. Not like a wild hare, like a classroom bunny or a lab bunny, you know, fat and white with pink eyes.”
“What’d he do?”
“What do you mean?”
What’d he do about it; you’re on a first date, I mean both of you, and he’s standing in front of the cloakroom with you, a live … the bunny was alive right? …”
“Yes.”
“… A live fat white pink eyed bunny, two coats, a hat and a check out lady. What’d he do?”
“He thanked her, handed her a ten and the bunny. She smiled and did that little thing that looks like it’s going to be a curtsey.”
“Oh. Maybe she planted the bunny.”
“Maybe. Seems a bit elaborate.”
“We’re taking the scenic route aren’t we?”
“You in a hurry?”
“No, but I do want juicy details.”
“Yeah, none of your business.”
“Oh, it really was a good date. What’d you have for dinner?”
“Pork chops and coffee.”
“Really?”
“No, but when you said forties magician I started thinking about a Carver story from the New Yorker. I can’t remember the story, but I remember laughing at them having pork chops and coffee for dinner. No, I had first date food, you know, rabbit food.”
“I’m sensing a theme.”
“Heh.”
“So, where did the none of my business happen?”