Today's Turd

 

Somehow I forgot to write here yesterday. Must be early-onset Alzheimer's. 

It was only this morning when I woke up that I realized, "huh, I didn't write yesterday." For a whole twenty-four hour period, the thought eluded me so completely, so thoroughly, that I carried on as though everything was normal. How does such a thing happen? Where in the vast valleys and dark, tumultuous canyons of the mind can remembrances hide? There must be billions of synapses, neural pathways and cells. Not one felt the need to take action.

You might be asking yourself, "well, what was he doing; why didn't he come here to greet us with even a brief hello?" The truth is, I don't even know. Oblivion by accretion. The slow accumulation of tasks took me down like a million paper cuts. I lingered in bed for a while longer than usual after another night of unproductive sleep, and then sprang into action when we realized we needed more firewood to feed the stove before the fire went out. So I trudged into the cold morning and collected the wood and, as soon as I delivered the pieces to their final resting place beside the stove before they greet the great flames, I detected a colossal turd trying to evacuate my colon. So I trudged back into the cold morning—because here on the farm the bathroom is outside—and deposited it to its final resting place on its journey to become compost.

I have to alert you that I only have fifteen minutes left this morning. The bread has just entered the oven. Before bed last night I prepared it by mixing two ancient grain flours, a bit of salt, water and sourdough starter. It stayed in a cupboard overnight to rise and now is baking. 

A lied. I have to go now. Today's turd has been detected.