The Spirits of Route 66: Book of Delbert

The Ballad of Two Brooding Ghosts

Back in the old days, the only days, because here there are no days (only moments), one of them had been a country bumpkin, the other a spoiled child waiting for the orange pumpkin to turn into a golden coach. But that was only a fairy tale, Reginald finally had to admit, while Otto still believed in that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

That's exactly what Otto had been before.

A rainbow-chaser, a dreamer, a reality-evader, a man who found it easier to pick up and move along well before his welcome ever had a chance of running out. Of course, there had never been much of a welcome in the first place. He'd led a mostly transitory existence, but there were other more colorful words folks tended to apply toward the likes of him: hobo when in a generous mood, tramp more often than not, and then lowly bum when his presence became an embarrassing burden to someone. The one true companion he had maintained in that life was Cecil, his faithful hound, whose mangy appearance was the one thing that helped make Otto look good in comparison and therefore more acceptable among the crass hoi polloi. Many a night he would approach a tavern door only to be told with a fair amount of hesitancy, "well, you may enter I suppose but your mutt had better stay clear of the premises." Yes, it was handy to keep the company of such a social enabler as poor ugly Cecil, a beast who might have sensed the slight but never really let it get him down.

Yo, that Cecil, a fine dog with a convenient temperament, eh?

As for Reginald, no doubt about it, he was the complete opposite of his netherworld cohort. He was born and well-bred within a bustling east coast city, a trust-fund baby and late morn sleeper, a man of big ideals propelled by the smallest grains of grit and had been allowed by his parents to bounce along gaily and daily throughout his unencumbered days. His rather odd personality traits and socially-repugnant nuances remained covered-up, however, by those who knew him and were forced to indulge him, otherwise they too would become socially tainted by their unseemly public emergence. Luckily, their domain was filled with a vast array of accommodating closets, metaphorically speaking, and Reginald was well-kept within one of them at all times.

True, in that material world the laws of physics always reigned supreme. But afterwards such laws dissipate into timeless vapidity, and yet occasionally opposites do attract. Wandering souls tend to bind with what they sense they somehow need. They will cling to, twist around, and latch onto what they require. The conscious vessel with which they invade may not want to admit it, truly may not want to even consider it, but so subtly they do conjoin and then carry on with nary a second thought.

Or maybe it's just that such shit does happen.