73 Beats

Once upon a lifetime ago,

73 heartbeats spent climbing up the sky-

'Go' with throttle up!

            Mike found the free verse push-pinned to the cork-board at the back of the roll-top desk in his fathers' real office, the one he actually worked in, not the one that looked like it belonged to the CEO of a three hundred million dollar company. This had been added on as an efficiency apartment nearly twenty years ago, and was cluttered like a college dorm. No, more cluttered than most college dorm rooms with which Mike was familiar, his own included. There was a method to the madness, but it still looked bad when his personal assistant had to winkle the old man out of his hermit crab shell to get ready to meet with clients...

            The paper was scrap, picked up from somewhere, at lunch perhaps, the invoice for- Mike turned it over and saw that the company had received sugar, coffee, bottled water and other things from Superior Catering Services on the 19th of last month. Judith had signed for it, had probably had it scanned it into the paperless system by the time the old man had swiped it for the impromptu haiku, but- he checked it out again and counted. Nine, ten and five; what sort of poem was this? The sort the old man would write. His own rules, a lament about that old shuttle disaster and more of his space-shit!

            Mike stopped, just a little ashamed. He knew why his old man was like this, and why... He let out a massive sigh, a quarterback sigh. Then, true to Mr. Hoagland and his AP English from just a few years ago, he snagged the perfectly good writing pad from under a this month's operating reports. He wrote his old man a note, and then revised the poem to make it into a Haiku-

Once, a lifetime past,

73 beats spent climbing sky-

'Go' with throttle up!