Aberrant Thought While in a Check-out Line by Ed Ahern

It’s okay to cry or smile in private,
but if among others, even strangers,
displaying our mood is at best
bad manners, and at worst
demented behavior to be evaded.

But would it not be simpler to cope
if we blatantly screamed or sulked
or laughed out loud for no apparent cause?
For we could sense the frames of mind
of all those nearest to us,
and hug or hide.

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Ed Ahern is a former naval officer who specialized in EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) and served on the USS Essex CVS 9. He resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He’s had over two hundred fifty stories and poems published so far, and five books. Ed works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories, where he sits on the review board and manages a posse of six review editors. 
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