Fourteen Frequencies of We're Going To Shine

Warm bodies in a room and one dog. Radiating. Infrared prose.

Heat pouring off skin. Lungs trading air that has been inside treasure chests. Each breath a small history lesson.

The exotic plants, if there are plants somewhere near, doing their quiet work in corners. Drinking what we push out. Roots in the dark, pulling slow sips the way roots pull. Without counting. Asking what the special occasion is.

Mercy Momo, French bulldog, dark gunmetal black, moves between legs. Mapping the room through her little pug-like nose. Whiffing curious scents. Breakfasts.

She doesn't know what we're celebrating. She knows warm bodies. Shrieky voices. Someone dropped a Meyers lemon on the floor near the island.

The taste of citrus down there. Sharp and sweet. That's what she's after.

The body of a French bulldog doesn't know it's supposed to complain. So it simply doesn't.

To shine is to be seen and given a milk bone. To be seen is to be loved. Sometimes both at the same time.

Happy face has the grammar of a cult. Certain teachings will not hide this. A glass tips before anyone drinks. Spills mysterious cherry red cyanide kool-aid on a tabletop as wild ritual protection. Barks at the poison so it loses some potency.

Jonestown had dogs. Warm human bodies with high voices and therefore someone probably said: We're going to shine.

What does a cult need? Everyone shining the same color. One frequency. One story. One entrance and exit.

But thirteen people who don't exactly agree on much. That's the protection.

Shine. From Old English scinan. To shed light. But also to polish. To make something gleam by rubbing.

We rub against each other in a room. That's how we shine. Friction and light. Not sameness.

And Momo. Gleeful. Snorting. Cannot be recruited.

She has no interest in a manifesto or gestapo. She just finds the safest legs and leans against them.

When in doubt, follow Momo. She knows which bodies are warm without being too dangerous. She knows how to participate without disappearing into a deeper meaning.

Shine. Test and then taste everything before you swallow.