Bonnie and Clyde Files 4
The river beckoned. The sun was out and lit up the channel. Clyde took point, along the bank, through the high grass, followed by Bonnie. I brought up the rear and admired the blooming foxglove and bleeding hearts. Bumble bee scouts protected our flanks. I was half out of my mind to reach my writing spot at the water’s edge, rig up the studio and get down to it! I had something I craved to write: a riff on the speculative subject if Emily Dickinson had owned a dog and taken it for long walks instead of staying almost exclusively in her bedroom and garden. Who would she have become with a dog? Who would she have become walking a dog in the rain? Who would she have met while walking a dog? Did New England women of her social class from that era even walk dogs? How would her poetry have differed?
I was practically frothing to get at it!
Bonnie and Clyde reached the spot and took refreshment in the water. I was well back, lollygagging with delight. No rushing on this river.
Then I saw it and recoiled—the horror! The umbrage! The affront to the creative mind along the river! The despoilment of the Garden of the Meditative Eden!
A can resting on a white towel! A black and neon can containing Satan’s swill—an energy drink! An extra large can.
Someone was lurking around the bend, disguised by the fallen alders, an energy drink drinker, someone who brought an energy drink to the river in the morning to drink for energy.
If only it had been a 40-ounce bottle of Old English, a can of Rainier, a pint of Crown Royal. That I could abide. That I could understand. That I could hunt down for story.
There are no interesting stories in energy drinks at the river.
I called out to Bonnie and Clyde, they hustled to meet me. We turned around and headed for home. Emily and the dog would have to wait for another time.
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