Cotton Candy

April 27 2024

The warm air was thick and full of moisture (according to the man opening for Nate Bargatze the night before, walking in Houston, was like walking in ones own mouth). That was true enough Filly thought laughing to herself.

As Filly opened the wooden back door and then also the glass storm door, stepping out into the dark morning she smiled. She had kids at the house and so she had to leave much earlier to get in her ten thousand steps while her husband presided over the home fort. As she walked she adjusted her neon green reflective vest and took off her rain jacket printed with hundreds of little puppies on a navy background. Even though her car was wet from rain, it was not raining. The jacket was just in case… she did not want to risk her phone getting wet.

Her hand bumped irritatingly against the “postal quality” dog repel spray in her right pocket so she switched the canister to her left pocket. She always had that canister it seemed, except when she had needed it. Oh well. She was getting used to being surrounded by dogs.

The sky above her was like blue cotton candy. Billowing clouds of a darker blue against a lighter blue background of sky. The clouds were moving as if a storm was still brewing and the breeze that came with it was blowing against Filly’s left side, coming from the east as she headed south towards the back, where there were no exits.

The two houses on either side of the street were lit with Christmas lights wrapped around the planters in the entrance ways. Most if not all of the houses she passed were lit by automatic porch lights… the kind that would turn off when it got lighter outside. Filly turned left and the breeze gratefully was right in her face as she headed east. “Like a breath of fresh air” had new meaning.

The moon an almost full golden globe, moved mysteriously in and out of the clouds, sometimes easy to see and sometimes not. The moon was something the kids would love to view with their new telescope, she thought as she watched the moon again go dark, hidden behind the mist. The streetlights obscured by tree branches cast eclipse like shadows on the street as she walked beneath them.

No cars were out and the voice on tape from her phone audio book sounded unnaturally loud. Earlier before she had left her home, she glanced at her phone noticing some visual suggestions for her to think about but right now, Filly was busy observing the streets because of the car she had seen the day before.

Filly had come home the day before, from Chicago, and had gotten up to do her workout. Workout done and back in the house, she had started to move clothes (shirts, dresses, skirts, slacks, belts and shoes) back into the closets from the beds and the sofa where they had been stacked, after having been taken out, because of the hot water leaks from the attic down into the rooms.

It had taken her most of the morning to sort them and hang them back in place. Filly thought of her clothes as her friends…she had accrued them over the years and they fit her well. Gratefully, she thought to herself, they were still alive, though many had been caught in the stream of water from the ceiling.

When she came down the stairs at a little after noon, having put away things in the closets, she had seen a small black low to the ground car, like a Kia or an Elantra, with thin slanty windows. (The kind of windows seen in the wards in buildings where someone does not want to be visible). The car, she noted, drove recklessly into her street and then turned around.

Just a few months earlier, a car driving recklessly had crashed in the entrance to her home, and the driver had hijacked the car and the car that it hit had to have the driver lifeflighted. That same day her dog had been hit and killed by a reckless car as well. Reckless cars were not the norm and she tried to read the license plate.

The hood was bashed in and the driver’s arms were flailing like in anger or maybe in frustration. Filly thought that perhaps the hood was smoking. She could not read the license plates. And since she did not recognize the car or the driver, and since the behavior was drawing attention to itself, and since she was calling out scammers and liars in her stories, she took mental note.

The car did not get to stay in her cul de sac. lol BYE BYE black sheep.

Filly decided to stop thinking about that and look at other things on her walk.

There were some other noteworthy things to notice. She saw an RB. RB meant running back. She also saw B4R. These two were connected. And B4R was about the internet of things. As she wrote about this a fire engine number 76 went screaming by. (always a good sign that she was on the right track…that something was “burning up”)

That which was being built for the IoT in an open source electronic prototyping platform, was backtracking. Maybe her comments from the day before, about the Achilles heel of the internet being in the marketplace, were being reinforced by the mirror. Someone she knew, had put the cart before the horse. Filly neighed (just kidding she did not neigh). That is what she saw. She also did not stomp a hoof. The hoof (horseshoe) was still by the window. The un-trustworthiness of the internet was not something she had caused and it did indeed need to be fixed even if it made people mad that she called it out.

Filly kept on walking and noticed that several houses in a row had American flags that were curling and flapping in the breeze of the possible storm approaching.

Then Filly noticed a truck, bronze colored, with a dent on the drivers door, attempting, unsuccessfully, to back a long wooden trailer into a narrow driveway, partially loaded with loose fist sized rocks. (rolling stones) The trailer was jackknifed in such a way as to miss the driveway, and the driver, having apparently realized this, had stopped “mid reverse”.

Filly noticed that this was the same man she had spoken with the day before who had been having a “garage sale”. He was friendly. He was Hispanic and talkative. There were only two things that Filly thought were noteworthy at the sale, a large mirror, and a long well made “like new” boat.

The man had said that he had moved all the items that were at the sale, to this location, from his other location, to be sold. The boat was brand new, and he said that it had never been used.

In her analogy mindset Filly knew that there were mirrors still in operation… And the boat taken from one location to another was also a mirror.
Filly interpreted this message as someone who THOUGHT that their ship had come in, and then realized that it had not come in, and they were trying to unload it, but the mirroring kept them well in view of the retaliatory forces. Good luck with that she thought.

Filly knew that there were retaliatory forces beginning to move, because she had heard from her investment counselor, the day before, that those doing the taking illegitimately, were “poking the bear”. Not a good idea.

She also knew (because the suggestions on her timeline) of a man who led a peaceful life, and was blending in, until he became aware of an innocent one who needed help, at which point he was like Jack. What did that mean? Filly did not know Jack. But Innocence had nothing to do with age. And those who were doing evil had retaliatory forces gearing up against them.

She also did not know if forgiveness meant no retaliation. After all men were allowed and in fact, expected to protect their family and protect the innocent. Filly did not presume to know the motivational state of people and what was in their hearts or if they indeed deserved forgiveness. She knew the best way to see the heart was when someone overtly apologized and returned what they had taken wrongly or made retribution some way.

But in the absence of that, she had questions about what was the truth regarding how to treat violence directed at herself and her family. Wanting to know what was the truth about how to treat such behavior, was on her mind, when she picked the message for the day.
The message she randomly picked did not seem like it was “complacent”. Seemed like God had very definite ideas that supported her actions of putting things back in the closet. Things “left out” would not be kept, apparently. Not even a single thing. “Apparently”. The bible verse was very specific.

“In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments, about their feet, and their caps, and their round tires like the moon., The chains and the bracelets and the mufflers, the bonnets and the ornaments of the legs and the headbands and the tablets and the earrings, the rings and nose jewels, the changeable suits of apparel and the mantles and festive clothing, the glasses and the fine linens and the hoods and the veils, and it shall come to pass that instead of sweet smell, there shall be stink, and instead of a girdle, a rip, and instead of well set hair, baldness, and instead of a decorated vest, a sackcloth, and burning instead of beauty.”

Sounded to her like bad stuff was in store for those who did not listen to good. Was God agreeing with her actions when she put everything back in the closet? It appeared so. Was this quote from the bible a response to her question…because everything listed, was something that was kept in the closet.

It sounded like consequences were about to happen. Filly turned and headed back the same way she had faced originally. The day had become lighter with the sun and brighter. The house that had originally had an Easter egg wreath on the front door now had a wreath that said Hello sunshine” and Filly had made the entire hour long walk without anything bad or unusual happening. But there had been some revelations.

As she turned on to her home street, in the distance she could see a little pajama clad figure running towards her. It was tater. Tater wanted to go to Mcdonalds, just her and Filly. So they did. And later in the day they would go with Buddy as well and have fun at Chuck E. Cheese, where they would see people making delicious puffs of pink cotton candy as they left after a hours, on the way out.

Filly assumed that these people making cotton candy were there so she would know that the mirror could “see things”, (like stories about clouds that looked like cotton candy), before they were even published. She smiled. God could see the clouds before they were even a thought in her head. It was indeed good to trust God.