Gup, Spiders, & What Might Be Next…
Page 6/8

“Yes, I like that,” Aimee said. “Continue on.”
“My assignment was to give a summation of all that’s occurring on That Big Street, or Route 388, or Rte. 44 or Johny 99 or only going only west or east, or whichever way you wish to meander. There was an informant along the line who once told me to study what happens on said route and fill out a detailed report nightly. Scrawl it out on a yellow legal pad and look for any unusual behavior going up or down.”  
“Okay,” I said.
“Be a sponge like you’re twelve again…soak it all up.” 
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll record the process of entropy on the village mountain, the dreaded decay that pains, shames, and blames everyone on Planet Earth. Halfway down the slope I find a St. Jude medal and a prayer card for a Ukrainian freedom fighter who referred to himself as only Miko, along with some potent weed that appears to be a popular topic as of late, as of now, as of front and center like ladies and gents and every single human who fits in between that description, binary or not. I study customers in the parking lot from across the crazy road that was once known as The Intersection of Death, so many damn fatalities.”
I go hunting at the OCEAN STATE JOB LOT, PETCO, and MIRACLE EAR walk-in, and STAPLES and URGENT CARE and ATHENIAN DINER and TOWN FAIR TIRE and sneak up behind floors of a condo, or maybe they’re only apartments? Who really knows the cogent and lucid answer? Perhaps they all have been demoted somehow, right? I don’t know much of anything to be honest for I get increasingly foggy as the years groan, moan, and slip past. First, a Bank of America goes up in that strip mall began a long time ago, a mere branch, a tiny spot for ATM’s and fast cash. 
“Okay, go on for you are getting warmer,” Aimee said. 
“Up popped Starbucks soon after, and a few years later up came this weed dispensary known as Venue Cannabis Distributor in late 2023. They destroyed the bank, ransacked it in a matter of speaking. Construction workers tore at the vault and everything else, too, that’s when they brought in the traffic cops to blow their whistles at any pedestrians which rapidly become loitering souls, or hoodlums, or maybe even struggling addicts.”
“Anything else?” Aimee asked.
“Currently, my left hip is sore, and I’m supposed to get it replaced in the future, but big insurance companies loathe me, and they want my pension, too which is nothing short of highway robbery. I mean, I’d like to fill the absolute truth in for you, got me?”
“I guess,” Aimee said. 
“Is this okay so far?” I asked.
“You’re getting there,” she said. “Continue on.”
“I’m like five-hundred yards away from Cannabis Venue Dispensary now, and sometimes I think about picking them each off all those customers as they trudge back to their cars with their pathetic $35 worth of weed in their wallets and backpacks. The weed is legal, less dangerous than the coffee and assortment of Red Bull and Monster Drinks that their grandkids chug like mad in artisan vapor stores and smoke shops.” 
“Who knows?” Aimee asks.