Rob hears a what!

Bwoo-da-doo!

There's that noise in my pocket again.

This had been a reoccurring theme for Rob over the past few days. He had recently purchased for himself an iPhone, you see.

It seems to be centered in my right front pocket, but nothing extraordinary ever presents itself when I dive my hand in for a peek.

This only brings me to ponder what Rob would consider an extraordinary object to procure from a jeans pocket. Perhaps I, the assumed omniscient, am todays philosophical composer. But I digress. Rob's view on the ordinary and the bizarre, the probable and improbable, the plausible and the unimaginable, are rather skewed from yours or my own. An extraordinary pocket discovery, to us, might consist of plunging in for a toothpick, only to uproot a small family of articulate Asrai Pixies who, as a result of exposure to the sun, melt through your hands into a shimmering pool of water on the floor. For Rob, a misshapen paperclip might invoke a similar reaction of wonderment. Not to say that discovering a clan of pocket dwelling mythological creatures wouldn't ignite the engine of Rob's perplexing imagination. It would merely seem dulled by his incessant fascination with the banality of humble objects.

Bwoo-da-doo!

Again! It seems the sound has shifted its origins to my coffee table?

Rob, upon hearing the original noise, had emptied the contents of his pocket and was attempting to unstitch the pocket from its mount on the right pant of his Levi's. He, after hearing the second, had abandoned this task and was now staring perplexedly at his coffee table (although scarcely recognized as such; it consisted of four yellow crates upon which rested a single sheet of one inch press-board). Atop the table lay a few scattered flyers, an individually wrapped toothpick (opened but unused), a crooked red paperclip, a pack of assorted Bic lighters, an empty chocolate Milk 2 Go bottle, two drained AAA Duracell batteries (Rob's continuing awe at the magical marvel of batteries, more specifically these two, is certainly a story for another time), his newly acquired iPhone, an empty Denny's napkin holder, and a short excerpt he had found on the Oxford comma.

Thats an odd looking paperclip now isn't it. Was this also in my pocket? Hmm...

Unusual that Rob's attention could so soon be swayed from the mysterious topic at hand. But perhaps it is indeed within the fundamental essence of the mystery itself that an answer to this riddle can be found. For Rob, mystery is most often his creation. He studiously contemplates that which needs not more than casual glances and rare acknowledgments. To have a true mystery land at his feet (much as this sound, whose origins escape him), is far less a game than it is an exertion.

Needless to say, Rob missed the text asking him whether or not he was free Wednesday for coffee.

Bwoo-da-doo!

Rob's enjoying a dark roast

I don't see the need for it.

Earlier this morning, Rob had taken up a position on one of the couches in the back room of a local coffee shop. Rob had always found this room intriguing. The odd assortment of mismatched chairs, couches, sidetables and strewn about knick-knacks were, as one might say, right up his alley. For Rob, this room represented contemplative rapture. How these desultory objects had come to live in harmony, no less in this red-ceilinged coffee shop adjacent, was to Rob, a philosophical nirvana. To Rob's credit, any man might ponder the origins of such seemingly haphazard items. The swiveling barstool, rested upon by a young rubber-tree plant; the dated corduroy couches, brown hued; the matching oak coffee and side tables, iron-hinged, sporting skeleton key locks as if crafted for a time and place whose lore has been long forgotten; a barbers chair, the weathered leather seat in stark contrast to its brilliantly polished chrome framework; a wooden ladder, worn, spotted with the rainbow of a lifetimes use. But these erratic furnishings were not what held Rob's attention. No, not today. Today was given up to pondering the possible ins and outs of a bulbless light fixture suspended aimlessly from the ceiling above him.

Is it even plugged in? Nope.

This, one of many questions that had formed over the past few hours, with little coming in the way of answers. How easily it would be to remove the fixture from its perch. How greatly improved its practicality with the simple addition of a 60watt light bulb. How it had come to be strung over him. This was how Rob operated. His mind an unending estuary of questions, of contemplations, yet almost entirely devoid of answers.

What a curious placement. There seems to be ample lighting.

For this last, Rob is actually somewhat accurate. The flood of sunlight streaming in through the large bay window heading the room created a more than sufficient luminosity. What Rob failed to acknowledge is the existence of night. Rob exists entirely in the now. Rob's incapability of realizing either past or future, his greatest handicap. To Rob, in the most literal sense, night exists only at night. Natural lighting is sparse after dusk, Rob.

Rob didn't finish a puzzle

Peculiar.

Rob, a few hours back, had sat himself down with a bag of Jalapeño & Cheddar Doritos, a few cold cans of what was once Dr. Skipper, and a 550 piece puzzle. A short while later, with border completed, he began to notice a few things about this particular puzzle that didn't quite jibe, around about the time we catch up with him.

Very peculiar indeed.

Rob worked at his puzzle in flurries of furious motion; a blur of innumerable failed attempts at piece matching. This impassioned activity was interceded every so often by a few handfuls of seasoned tortilla chip and a lengthy pull of the Skip. As the puzzle established an ever apparent orange hue (a hue Rob was either oblivious to, or ignoring entirely), he found himself paying close attention to a few pieces he had placed aside from the rest. As he turned one of these pieces over in his left hand, a piece cut much larger than any other he had come across, the extraordinary engine of eccentric thought that was his mind began to turn. He picked up the second piece he had set apart and examined it closely.

This can't belong here, can it? No, certainly not!

This second piece, now resting gently on the open palm of Rob's right hand, although no larger than any piece strewn about the floor, was still quite different indeed.

Watercolour!

A lonely, faded, blue watercolour fragment in a box dominated by heavy greys and blazing oranges. A vagrant seeking temporary refuge in a foreign world. The last of a mysterious formation, now long forgotten. You can see the wheels spinning in his mind.

What is your story baby blue? What destined circumstance has brought you here?

With the oversized piece, forgotten altogether, now tossed off into some distant corner to be fecklessly pondered on later, Rob's full attention could be focused on this new stagnant consideration. Something I definitely don't have time for.

Rob watched Judge Joe Brown this afternoon

I'm slipping.

And so he was. This wasn't the first time these two words had joined in thought today:

Rob had recently plucked a spacious couch from its teetering demise, and plopped it down in his freshly rearranged living room. This had turned out to be a decision rife with personal controversy. On the one hand (incidentally, the very hand that had inspired his ownership), deep within the black leather, was found the most relaxing of comfort and physical delight. Yet, on the other hand (which was most probably the metaphorical appendage that had led to the couches original termination) the cushions refused to settle. No matter how valiant Rob's efforts to minimize his movements, however gently he pleaded, however soft his lullabies, as if adhering to an agenda all of their own, the cushions would slowly work him to the floor.

Comfort, rapturous or comfort, lasting?

He felt too few men had found themselves having to endure a similar struggle. Rob had become a man standing alone. A man who understood the perils of an insignificant quarrel between the sentient and the lifeless.

What does it mean?

There is no deeper meaning here Rob.

Rob meets a smoke detector

Disconnected?

He still couldn't quite put his finger on what it was that bothered him so.

I could just fix it?

This hadn't crossed his mind until now, and though he knew fixing it should be an easy solution to the issue, it wasn't. There was something sticking in his craw. It seemed more to do with the situation itself than the actual possibility of his having to replace, or simply readjust this smoke detector. It wasn't even his house. He had merely been floating around here for months, probably drawn by the smoke detector itself. The knowledge of it had swirled around his mind for the better part of the past four months, slowly consuming him. So trivial was the beast in nature, but somehow there seemed to be more. As if this simple flaw in design stood to foreshadow a looming tragedy. Or perhaps a personal revelation that would ultimately lead him to a life of troubled fame and fortune.

Maybe I have been overthinking this? ...Doubtful.

Another fifteen minutes passed. Fifteen minutes tacked on to the countless hours of contemplation scattered about the thirty square feet below the alarms perch. Much of this time spent holding up candles, burnt toast, conflagrated newspapers and other assorted smoking objects to solicit a reply from the thing. Each time met by cruel silence.

What more can I do but wait?

And so he did. Defiant as ever he stood, transfixed. A stubborn sentinel of fabricated wisdom. A martyr of futility. A self-celebrated genius of inanimate philosophy.

Red and black and cream and wires and the casing.

So few conclusions drawn in so great a time. The lethargic pace of his thoughts his Achilles heel in this battle. He may have been doomed from the start.