I crank

He had a crank problem, so I stayed home from work and took him to the crank place, where we sat on hard plastic chairs and waited till his name was called; I didn’t know it then, but all that would transpire would be the passing of a piece of yellow paper from one side of the wicket to my crank, where he stood, disheveled, skinny, confused.

The yellow piece of paper was an appointment with a crank intake worker, ten days from then, so me and my crank walked back to the car, it was autumn and the leaves were red, I was the mother of a crank, and therefore, it dawned on me, I was a crank too, indeed, I felt like a crank, I had the secretive shame like a crank, which was probably visible on my face and on my clothes the next day when I went back to work, for I worked in a no-crank zone, and everyone there, the faculty and staff, all declared daily, in overt words and gestures, that they wanted nothing to do with crank, it was reprehensible, and anyone who did crank or knew a crank was despised and feared for being a crank.

I thought it was my job to do something about the crank, to rid the crank from our lives.

I was ashamed of crank and of the words and gestures to describe crank, all my life I had heard my government say that non-crank was noble and healthy and deserving, and crank was debauched and degenerate and criminal, but it is my deepest shame that I did not protect my crank from those anti-crank words and gestures.

Now that my crank is dead, am I still a crank?

I regret more than anything my shame about crank. I missed the opportunity to love my crank as a crank, and to love myself as a crank.

So now I crow. I crank.

I stand beside my crank. I introduce my crank as crank. I introduce myself as crank. In the light of day, I crank my crank, I torch my crank, for me and my crank, for all cranks, now and yet to come.