Lines

Lines

“It’s a foot off the line. The line, see that line?”

I squinted my eyes. No line.

“Nope, not seeing it.”

“It’s as clear as the nose on your face. It’s right there.” Joe pointed to a spot on the ground.

“You’re full of bird doo-doo. Nothing’s there.”

“And it stretches all the way back to there.” Now Joe indicated a point I couldn’t see, further down the gully, through the trees, across the stream.

“Now you’re messing with me. There’s nothing to see.”

“Someone moved the sign, a foot off the indicator for halfway to the North Pole. They were sneaky and did it in the night. Buggers.”

“So what?”

“So what? So what she says.” Joe laughed an evil burble. “Mary, if everyone all over the world goes around changing the signs for latitude and longitude what trouble would we be in? We’d all be confused, that’s what, not knowing where we are on this planet.”

I didn’t see the big deal. I knew where I was.

“So it all started back with Hipparchus, a Greek astronomer, who developed the idea. And from there it traveled in time…”

Joe was a wealth of trivia. I zoned out as he made his way to modern time and the GPS we use today.
“Now do you understand?” He searched my face.

“I’m in a state of confusion, to answer your question, and perfectly happy, so don’t burst my bubble with all that scientific mumbo-jumbo.”

“You’re the reason we’re going to be taken over by the planet Xenon.” Joe yelled, just a bit too loudly in my opinion.

“Promise?”

W/C 270