THE SHORT CUT

THE

SHORT

CUT

A Short Fiction

By

David A. Archer

02/15/1968

09/05/2006

It is really hard to say.

Just where it was that I began this habit.

They are everywhere…. In more of a multitude than even the vast expanse of various forms of advertisement.

In fact, I would venture that if you could stand them all “end to end” in comparison with all of the variations of advertising ploys… a person would be hard pressed to discern which to be greater; The sum total in measure of “short cuts,” or the sum total in measure of advertising space.

I wonder momentarily if Vegas has a line on that one, then realize that it probably isn’t that important to even the most desperate of bookies.

The habit itself is somewhat of a guilty pleasure, I admit. In fact, I pride myself to some degree in opting to use every short cut I happen across. Something about it just gives a lift to my day.

I could be on a perfectly good road, traveling along and knowing precisely how far to my destination…. But should that ever tempting little sign appear at the side of the road indicating a sure fire “short cut,” there just seems to be nothing more I can do beyond that sighting…except of course, go that course.

I have heard it said, that at some point a man must put away childish things.

Honestly, I just can’t begin to figure out where the heck to put them all. Where does a person put all of the short cuts? Can you imagine the storage bill? Do you first have to pack them in moth balls to insure the future visage and visitation of them around some useless family gathering will be fruitful and not filled with moth holes and the like?

When I think about it, I really don’t think that saying should apply to short cuts even as childish as they are and further even that they most assuredly originate from childish reasoning… as it just wouldn’t be fair to all of the other people using short cuts, if all of a sudden one day they went to use the short cut and it wasn’t there just because some guy thought it was time to put them all away.

I do associate using short cuts in the obsessively habitual manner which I do, to something in child hood. Mostly because quite logically, that is where the addiction began for me.

While it is that I cannot place it exactly, I do know that from youth is where the illness I bear began. And it did so in a rather innocent way I am sure… perhaps even in the effort to make it home for the evening meal so as to avoid various and unspeakable forms of trouble resulting in punishments of the sort that would shame the most hardened of war criminals…. such as eating dinner cold for breakfast, for instance.

Besides… it was always, and still is for some sick reason, much more fun to emerge at ones destination after having traversed something indescribable as per consistency and design… being the “universal” short cut.

I can trace to some degree, the beginnings of such an addiction quite simply to the efficiency I found in using them. Then further, as I have mentioned was and is the presence of excitement which I found on more than one occasion while engaging the act of using a short cut.

I can remember one in particular that lead me past a rattlesnake pit on the lip of a ledge that was hardly wider than my shoe. I’ll always remember the sidewinders being the most active of the bunch.

Another I can recall and used quite frequently, made its way along and over the railroad tracks…then through a downed area of fence… which remained like that for some years. Then of course, as with most all other short cuts, there was an alternate route a person could opt for once safely across the railroad tracks.

This alternate route was more for the use one way than it was the other… mostly because of a rather steep hill and of course the fact that it lead to an arms length near a very old graveyard…which, as anyone in their right mind could surmise, was very much the reason you used it in the morning “on the way to” somewhere… instead of in the evening near dusk (or later), on the way back.

I can remember a more recent thought regarding the very idea of the invention and have surmised that it very well may be that all short cuts in existence are somehow connected. This then further gives reason to avoid putting even one of them away. It might just damage the entirety of them all…and let’s face it, that just wouldn’t do.

I do realize that there has been some measurable damage done to various, miscellaneous properties and frivolities in the manner of wrongfully placed fencing and the like…but it is easy to see the value of the imminent domain like stature of the short cut taking precedence quite justly. They are just damn fun and handy as well.

Of course, when one appears across my back lawn I will have to do my adult duty in making sure those utilizing it know that it is only with a heaping portion of stealth that they may successfully employ that which has found its way through said stretch of property. I might even find myself with extra equipment for increasing the skill level one would need in using it as said short cut.

Maybe an air cannon with a motion sensor would do for starters?

I realize that it shouldn’t be anything so pronounced as to dissuade the use of it entirely…but most definitely should be something that gives challenge to the newly found ease in said development.

Mind you, as strange as it may seem…a person should never discount the value of even a newly established short cut. They hold great weight to many in many ways.

As I have mentioned, it is hard to tell which is the more popular in American culture when comparing advertising ploys and short cuts… but that relationship is even deeper when a person really knows that value.

For instance, it is easy to say an advertising ploy is successful to some degree when it can be seen and even heard at every turn in everyday life. But it is only when the remnants of such a ploy have found their way onto the short cuts of this nation, that any such campaign can be deemed a success beyond any reproach.

Sure, billboards along the highway or road as you drive along? No big deal… everyone does that. But to find a billboard on the side of a shortcut means nothing less than total saturation and more than likely resounding acceptance and success.

You know that advertising person really has a finger on the pulse when you happen upon such displays.

As I ponder this incredible subject, I find myself in the knowledge that there really isn’t much more to know in modern society. Beyond that is, the proper appreciation and pleasure derived from the nasty little addiction I can’t seem to resolve in the use of such short cuts.

When it is that I truly give it pause, I find myself wondering what Freud would have said about it? Could it be sexual in some mutated way? How would he have associated and described this incredible addiction?

What then of other great minds when put to such a task as analyzing even the basic popularity of such a wonderful tool? Such an unappreciated though massively popular tool unprecedented in stature and functionality. Is it of any use to ask such arbitrary questions as; Did Aristotle find comfort in his short cuts? When Alexander the Great used a short cut… did anyone complain? What did Confucius have to say about his short cuts?

Yeah, you know there are those that posture against even the idea of short cuts. Mostly out in the open when everyone is looking…but I am sure that given the situation such as when nature is calling (and using a bullhorn so to speak), you would hear no utterance of dissention pertaining to the efficiency and use of any such existing tool as a short cut from even the most righteous and upstanding of individuals.

I personally have opted to find some pleasure in addressing my shortcomings there-in... and even opting for them at times, as standard. I do so even knowing sometimes, that the short cut is full well the longer path. Patronizing myself in pretending to be in some form of denial as to the mythological aspects of such wondrous modes and means…then trapping myself in a cycle of thought which you may now begin to recognize… even knowing that sometimes I use the short cut, knowing full well it is a longer path…knowing that it is and doing so for that reason alone…while knowing somewhere inside my reasoning that it is the longer path still not seeming so along the stroll en route upon the short cut...telling myself that I know it is the longer path...but strangely realizing in the stuff of truth that it is still the short cut…even being the longer path I traverse.

Then sometimes, it is actually the shortest route to my destination.

It is more than just a moniker as I am sure that you know. Some would argue that it is even a way of life. At least in appreciation of the all encompassing nature within the very idea itself… just say it to yourself and it echoes through even your very being; short cut.

Don’t mind me… I have long since realized the facts pertaining to the simple intangible essence of the short cut, but go ahead and celebrate it a little. If you have to, begin those self realizations in celebratory romance within the privacy of where ever you feel the most comfortable and at ease.

Then watch yourself begin to realize true freedom as you soon find a bounding step in your stride and a slightly maniacal laugh of confidence thrown to the wind as if any should care, while you step within that bounding stride onto the path less traveled…or kind of less traveled, sometimes, maybe…. when addressed in open conversation, anyhow… known only as the “short cut” where ever, and how ever it manifests within reality… and duly, beneath your regal and magnificent foot each time finding newness on the age old and still un-charted, un-mapped and untamed short cut.