Blog Love Omega Glee: Spring Brings Singing Things (20 March 2012)

Francine saw her first robin of the year back in January, but she's still pleased to see another today as she walks in the park. It struts across her path, its red breast standing out among the various greens of the field, before fluttering and flying away into a nearby tree. From there it chirps, building into song. Francine whistles at the robin as she goes past. Despite the clouds overhead, Francine can feel the equinox in her bones. Spring has sprung something within her and it wants to sing too. She slops through the damp grass, her boots leaving impressions on it, just as its reach for the sun has left an impression on her. Making her way to a bridge above a stream, she pauses and leans on one of the bridge's railings, looking down into the water as it flows by below. It flowed that way before she existed, and it will likely continue to flow that way after she is gone. Her thirtieth birthday looms only a few days away, but she feels like a newborn today. Maybe Manuel wound up something in her, she wonders, though what she feels isn't for Manuel in particular. "Great guy, but he's frozen in time at about the day Kurt Cobain died. Plus he has kids. And the kids have moms. He'd probably want more kids, and there's too many people on this planet as is, so no thanks. Each person should only have one child at most, but Manuel seems to want to have his own private army of offspring. He can be fun though," she says, thinking of the other night, or at least what she could remember of it.

Francine walks across the bridge. A male jogger comes her way and Francine watches him subtly, admiring him, even turning to watch him disappear as he jogs past her. "Yes, spring is here," Francine says, "I'm noting the asses of joggers. This and Manuel confirm that I've woken from my winter hibernation where the opposite sex is concerned."

Noticing she's not the only one in such a mood, Francine notes more birds singing, squirrels chasing each other up trees, and even a couple buds on those same trees tentatively beginning to open and resume growing after the winter. She leaves the park, and walks down a street lined with huge oaks and even huger houses. From this point, the houses get larger and larger heading east until reaching their zenith in Minting Gully, where the families who own most of the wealth remaining in the Cleaveland area live in fortified compounds, among rolling hills, growing ever more paranoid of strangers, and only venturing downtown to conduct business when necessary and to watch games played with live humans, usually minorities, who are paid exorbitant sums to wreck their bodies for the amusement of the rich, some of whom own the teams and, of course, make even more money for playing their spin on chess with living pieces.

Francine looks at one of the large houses she passes and wonders why someone would live there. The average American family has gotten smaller over the past few decades, but ironically the houses have gotten bigger. "How many rooms are in that thing?" Francine ponders.

She'd need twenty housemates just to be able to afford the heating bills. There's enough space outside; how much space does a person or a family need inside in order to feel properly sheltered? The labor, the materials, the maintenance, the use of natural resources, it all seems a bit too much a waste just to display one's power and vanity. Francine couldn't imagine wanting to live in a mansion. This is not a failure of Francine's imagination, but a tribute to her thoughtfulness. Though ever the individual, she still thinks of others and what consequences her actions might have upon them.

Which brings us to her next thought, as she turns back into the park, after seeing enough big houses: "Whom will I fall in love with this year? And how will that fuck up my life, and, no doubt, his as well, this time?"

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.