Catch me if you can!

It is highly distressing to note in myself the conspicuous absence of any adequate power to hold control over the passions, whims, and leanings of my mortal body. Of particular and special significance is my inability to keep my mind in check. As my composition once again wriggles free of my weak grip, my vagrant mind takes advantage of the lull in my defenses and undertakes a breakaway for the umpteenth time. I am attempting (with little success, I regret to note) to apply my prodigal brain to the study of a legal file. I suppose it does little or nothing to relieve my struggle that the words and phrases in many of the legal documents tend toward obscure and obtuse masses of words cloaking the germ, the real meaning behind all the big words and commas, semicolons and perplexing nouns and adjectives. WHY can’t they just get to the POINT?!

My restless mind roves this way and that, squirming and writhing in my weakening grip like a petulant child anxious to get out of the house for a romp in the park under the glorious golden rays of the morning sun. My repeated attempts to feed it information seem to have the same effect as a mother attempting to feed soggy asparagus to her carnivorous 5-year old son. Invariably, bits and pieces of the delightful green herb find themselves in new and unfamiliar territories, some on the flushed face of exhausted Mother, some on the newly painted walls, but precious few in their intended destination: the boy’s mouth. The same may be said of the straggling bits of information strewn haphazardly in my cranial crevices. The visual reports from the ocular organs splash onto my thickly clouded brain and roll off like water off a duck’s back for all the effect they have on my grey matter.

I turn my back for a moment to attend to the deafening prayers of my body for sleep. In a flash, the mischievous brat takes off, vacating my skull. In vain I give chase, willing myself to ignore the heavy shackles of weariness on my feet. It’s a lost cause: the blasted child is hiding behind a bush, playing with a butterfly. Curse him! He’s taunting me with his unnaturally long tongue, rolling his eyes up and down and stretching his face by the ears. Sticks, stones, and spatulas! If I could only get near him, I’d give him such a hiding…oh, what’s the use? He’s just too quick for me. Now climbing a tree, now frolicking in a pool, up and down, left and right he darts around the Fantastic Fields of Imagination, Distraction and Daydreaming. Who would guess that that fat little brain-child could run so quick? I warrant he and I operate in different time zones, and that by some cruel stroke of fate, the laws of physics and gravity seem to make special concessions for that infernal brat.

I fall to my knees in exhaustion and shriek in despair. “COME BACK!! PLEASE come back! Please?”

My cry is swallowed up by the thick fog that covers the Fields. Presently I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around to see the beaming, grimy face of my brain-child peering at me over my shoulder. He gives me that mischievous chuckle I hate so much and proceeds to latch his sweaty, dirty body to my quivering shoulders. I take a deep breath and slowly straighten up with his pudgy arms firmly slung around my neck and his stubby legs wrapped around my torso. “All right, you sniveling scoundrel. Ready for more asparagus?”

No response from him. He’s sound asleep on my shoulders. His deafening snores make my ears buzz and his repulsive drool is dripping down my shoulders and back.

I wearily trudge back to his high chair, plug him into it and…now where’d that bowl of asparagus go?