Moon Men and Bipedal Beavers

It was on this day in 1835 that Richard Adams Locke published his final installment of essays on British Astronomer Sir John Herschel and Herschel's incredible discovery of life on the moon. In the articles, Locke outlined the apparent discovery of spheroid amphibians, goat-like unicorns and finally the 'Vespertilio-Homo', or man-bat, winged men who flew around the gardens Locke claimed Herschel had discovered.
There was a lot of speculation about the possibility of a hoax by society's more learned fellows but to the average Joe the news was spectacular and made the New York Sun the best selling newspaper during that time. The stupefied public learned of the herds of bison that roamed the moon and the up-right beavers who built huts and had fire, but the most shocking news was of the flying men who lived in a golden temple and dwelt in tranquil harmony with all the other beasts who inhabited this garden of delight.
Locke may have outdone himself, however, because while he was poking fun at societies tendency to believe just about anything a scientist claimed was true, an alarming and still current practice amongst us poor and unwashed, it was that unflagging belief that foiled his hoax. He couldn't make the story outlandish enough to make his point. It's only funny when someone gets the joke and very few people got the joke.
The New York Sun never did come right out and say it was a hoax, clinging, to the last, to the 'reports' it had confirming Herschel's work. Herschel was oblivious to what was going on in the States at the time and didn't learn about it until much later. He was amused, at first, saying that his own discoveries were never that interesting, but in the end he would grow furious when people questioned him about the moon-men he had discovered.
What Herschel did leave us with are the names for all of Saturn and Uranus' satellites, his influence on a young Charles Darwin, Herschel Island and the J. Herschel crater (which really does exist on the moon) and his improvements to the photographic process which saw him give Daguerre the key to 'fixing' his images to make them permanent. Not too bad, if a little mundane.
And so here's to Richard Adams Locke. The man who fooled the entire United States into believing that there was life on the moon. Maybe it wasn't all that hard after all. Most Americans still believe that they landed there in 1969. They are a gullible people.

Sinisterman

I reckon I've been punished enough. The years since I began to question my purpose have been filled with anxiety and fear and through it all there was a note of sadness that developed a deep and longed for solitude. I can't remember what it was that brought down this sentence or even if there is a reason. Lawrence tells me there was nothing I could have done to prevent it and I hate him for his sanguine reflections, because he can find hope in despair and I don't have that talent. I find only despair in despair and he thinks this is a narrow view.
He visits me every day and cheerfully regales me with tales from outside, his intent is that I eat his words and digest the happiness contained within them. He is mistaken in his conviction that this will bring me peace. I am interested only in myself. I don't give a damn what happens on the outside. Without his visits, however, my imprisonment would be seamless and without variety.
On the twentieth anniversary of my confinement I had many visitors but the mood was blackened when Lawrence sang a song from my childhood and then smirked as he crooned the last line, "and now we go our ways." The others sat nervously watching me but I did not oblige them with a smile. He is truly my tormentor with a grin.
I'm telling you this to illustrate my refusal to co-operate with my tormentors any more. I have turned my back on them and indicated that I will no longer accept his visits. I reckon I have been punished enough and I no longer question my purpose.

Languid, At Times

I think it's very lucky for me that my car knows the way home. I strap myself in and start the engine and the car, suddenly aware of its purpose, takes off and I sit back and wrap a layer of dense radiance around my head, covering my eyes and I don't come out until the car is parked and idling, waiting for another cue or to be turned off and locked up. It sleeps then, its hard shell turned out, for this city is no longer as safe as it once was, dreaming of roads it has never seen. It hears and communicates within the hum of trucks and vans and small compact cars that ribbon the highways and wander aimlessly down black roads, across a world barren and empty, thought so, simply, because there are no roads to investigate the damp underbelly of the earth. Among them there are braggarts who tell wildly implausible stories about deep forests, still and intact and demanding tribute, but how is this possible? There are no paths but those that ring this city and those that reach across the wastes to the other cities. Above all it stares, dimly into the future, hopelessly denied any glimpse of life after the stock yard and the compressor. And the night passes thus, half remembered and never understood until the sun comes and warms the metal and sneaks through the glass to fade the leather and crack the dashboard. Some days it sits alone, endlessly mistaking the noises it hears for a command to drive, waiting until nightfall and again slipping into the cacophonous dreams of cluttered highways, and sometimes of clear nights chasing stars while I sit wrapped in radiance riding on the back of a beast whose sole purpose is to travel and wait and to travel and wait.

Between Friends

"It was awesome, man. I said 'I got three words for you, man. Stick your job up your ass."
I was tired and just wanted to go to sleep, but I had something to say.
"That's six words, Ronnie." I said, but he didn't hear me. He was in the kitchen cutting the lids off of those two litre coke bottles, the plastic ones, to make another bong. I ran over the last one with my bike and spilled the shitty water all over the floor.
"How are you going to pay rent?" I asked him. It was a valid question.
"Oh, no worries, man. I got another job on the way home. Yeah, I'm gonna be working at Morrow's." he said as he sat down. He had the tinfoil out and was fashioning the bowl.
"Doing what?"
"Waitering. I know the manager. I give him a pretty good price on pot." He stuffed the bowl and leaned into a pillow, "You should see his wife, man. She's fucking hot."
Ronnie was the luckiest guy I knew. He could have made tons of money selling pot but he smoked most of it himself. Well, I smoked some, too, but he smoked the most of it. I was having a rough time trying to keep on top of the bills and tuition while Ronnie just fell into big pits of money without even trying.
I really liked him, though. He wasn't all that bright but I've never known a happier guy.
I met him one night at the Strand. My band was playing and he was the only guy in the place who actually listened to us. Everybody else just kept on talking as if no one was on stage. Ronnie was in the middle of the dance floor, dancing by himself, and he would yell stuff like "Fuckin eh." and "The freaks are out tonight."
He lives in his own little world.
Afterward he came over to 'party' with me and Tam. Tam just went to bed but Ronnie and I sat up all night forming something like a friendship, I suppose.
Tam likes him too, but she has limited patience for his antics. Like the time we came home and found him naked in our bed. She wasn't impressed. I couldn't wake him up, so I had to sleep with him and Tam slept on the couch. He called me his 'little faggot' for months.
And then I offerred to let him move in with us. And Tam didn't know yet.
She was in Toronto for the break and I didn't have to nerve to tell her over the phone. Worse, still, the hydro got cut off because I forgot to pay the bill. I had them put it back on but it cost me almost everything I had in the bank. She wasn't going to be happy with me.
"Hey." Ronnie yelled from the kitchen, "Want a Samosa? There's two in here."
"No. I have to talk to you about something."
He sat down beside me, cramming one of the samosas into his mouth, chutney squeezing out of the corners. He held out the other one to me but I waved it off.
"What are we going to do about this?"
"About what?" he said, smiling at me. I looked at him for a moment wishing he wouldn't do that.
"About what's been going on. I think I have to tell Tam."
He leaned forward and put the other Samosa on the table and then turned to look at me.
"Why do you have to tell her anything? C'mon, man. We're friends. Let's just keep it between us." and he put his arm around my shoulder and pressed his forehead to mine. I closed my eyes.
"Don't worry." he said, "You'll still be my little faggot."

Ayee Beefower Ee

Ayeev reesintlee bin reedeeng eh buk awn thu duvelupmint uv thu Inglish langwedj end Ayee wuz pridee tikuld wen Ayee red thu chaptur awn prununseeayshun. Ayee thot Ayee wud eksparamint uh lidel tu see haoo wee pranawunce sertin wurdz. Its hardur than it luks

It awlso acurd tu mee that cunsiduring thu constant flux uf not ownly thu speling, but thu meening uf wurdz, end haoo cwicly sum uf theez chayinjes cum abaoot, that its dam neeyer imposibul tu keep it awl straeet end that Ayee mieet haf tu maik uh feeyoo apalajees tu sum uf yoo fower beeying eh bit uf uh speling end gramur bich, awl theez yeeyurs. So heeyur wee go.

Ayem soree. Its bin ah lesin in hyoomilitee, lemee tel yoo, too reeuhlieez haoo rbitrehree sum uv awer spehling iz. End eh bit uv eh strayin on mahyee brayin too.

I promise I'll try to lighten up, in the future.

That iz ol.

Collecting Souls

Al Green had a hole in his heart and knew he was going to die young. I think that's what made him so crazy. I tried to steer clear of him but his locker was right next to mine, so it was hard.

As a teenager, life is one long dramatic twist and it's very easy to believe in thin plots and superficial emotions. Al was very different in that his mortality was with him every day, clearing his eyes to see the world for what it really was. He was a voracious reader and was always giving me books by philosophers I had never heard of. When I found out my girlfriend was cheating on me he put a consoling hand on my shoulder and said, "Fuck her, man. She's going nowhere." and I believed him because he never told a lie. That's what got him into so much trouble.
I told Al I was having trouble at work with my boss. My boss was an alcoholic and would sit at the bar all night long and get drunk and then come into the kitchen just before I closed and scream and yell at me and the rest of the crew. He would push me around, daring me to hit him and then threaten to fire me if I raised a finger in his direction.
Al told me he'd take care of it. And he did. He came in and sat at the bar, beside my boss, and matched him drink for drink all night. When the alcohol had turned him into a raging lunatic Al challenged him to an arm wrestle and when they wrapped their hands together, Al used his free hand to punch him in the face until the man collapsed. The cops showed up and arrested Al, and as they dragged him out he smiled at me.
He was nuts but for some reason he liked me.
I asked him once why he did the things he did and he answered, "I'm dead already. What do I care?"

Karl was a different sort of crazy. He applied for a job one day and asked me to fill in his application because he couldn't read or write. I was surprised by that and felt sorry for him and gave him a job. I also asked my mom if he could live with us, for a while, because he had been sleeping in an old shack near the flea market. He didn't have a family, or a place to live, and he couldn't read or write. I wondered how that could happen in this age.
I took him to a party one night and when he ran out of cigarettes he went to the store and came back with four or five cartons. He handed them out smiling and laughing, and kept on smiling even as the police handcuffed him and took him away. He never tried to hide from anything.
I expected him to steal from me and he did, but I had done him a favour so he only stole things I didn't really need anymore. I was o.k. with that.
He and Al spent a night drinking together but didn't like each other for some reason. Their versions of crazy didn't match I guess. They left each other alone, though.
Karl was killed when he wrapped a motorcycle around a light standard. He didn't own a motorcycle so I assume he stole it.

I wonder sometimes why so many people I know are dead now. For a while I thought it might have something to do with me. You would too, believe me.
As it is, they are frozen, in my recollections, exactly as they were the last time I saw them.
Karl is looking for trouble just to test himself and take his anger out on the world and Al is pushing the limits of his understanding by peering into the dark side of his humanity, bravely facing all of his fears, knowing the end will come quickly.
And they are here, with me, now. I'm collecting souls and I don't know why. I'd like to think that there is a reason for it but that opens a can of worms I'm not ready to deal with yet. For now the question remains.

The Pulpit of Self-Defeat

Restless and inadequate to the task is how an entire generation lives out the days that remember the promise of individual freedoms and look forward to a future of protracted servitude to a system that they don't understand.
As a majority most of us have given over our rights to intercede on each other's behalf and then fail at creating tangible opportunities for ourselves. Well educated and morally inexact, faith in anything seems pointless and yet it is that faithlessness which undermines personal victories. Everyone wants recognition for their individual achievements but without the risks attached to carving out that individualism in a world where the risk of losing freedoms is very real.
Who's going to hitch their wagon to yours if you don't know where you are going?

Like in art, the secret affinities, the personal victories and the passion for living come from a reductionist view. Life is not lived wholly, revealed in its final form in one awe inspiring tug that pulls the sheet off a magician's box, it is applied, it is gilt, flake by flake and with great dexterity until the task is finished and then comes the satisfaction born out of the application, delicately and purposefully, of one leaf at a time, each one representing the whole, multiplied throughout life. Every step along the way is as important as the arrival, the end of the journey.

All of this is hardly new, but despite the truth of it the malaise increases and the frustration that accompanies it wears down the practitioner. The consumerism that overtook the western world in the early part of this century hasn't made life easier, it has reduced us to infantile and helpless prey. Without the protection of society at large, many of us would be the first run down by predators we previously triumphed over. It doesn't make sense to champion natural selection when you're overweight, have bad eyesight and haven't lifted anything heavier than a newspaper in ten years.

Here's a mundane example. I was watching a popular renovation hero come to the rescue of a middle aged couple and the gentleman who had been wronged complained that he had no idea how to tell if someone was doing the job right. He said, "Why isn't someone doing something about it?" There was a time in our not too distant past when if you wanted a house, you built it yourself. I read a statistic not very long ago that claimed fifty percent of households will be renovated in some way this year. Given our penchant for buying it rather than doing it, being a contractor is a very lucrative business right now.

The lesson applies across the board, however, not only in trades and skilled labour. We view ourselves as commodities and sell to the highest bidder. If no one can use you, you'll likely sit on the shelf for a long while gathering dust. That is if you insist on being a commodity. Do what you want and do it well. Being non-committal in anything, as any child can tell you while he pleads and pleads and then has a temper tantrum just to get a cookie, will end in, not only failure, but in self-defeat. The second has much darker consequences. Believe me, I know.

Thursday

Mornings like this unsettle my mind. The sky is clouded over, with a even sheet of gray that, for all I know, could stretch around the world, covering us all and leaving a sleepy residue that won't lift until the sun burns it all away. This is the perfect weather for tainted memories and for bitter accusations and envy.

The universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old if you can follow WMAP cosmology. It is nearly flat and expansion is increasing. Ultimately that means a long slow death in ice and cold. I hate the cold and am thankful I won't be around to see it.

Angels are an alien and intelligent life form, who believe that the universe has a consciousness behind it and have set out to discover what it's up to. They still don't have any idea. They are trying to re-trace the evolution of consciousness back to the beginning. We are a small annotation in their study.

On a sub-atomic scale the nature of reality is in a constant state of flux. Nothing remains the same from one nano-second to the next. It's no wonder I can never remember people's names. I'm surprised I can find my way home at night.

Because of the way my brain works I will never be aware of as much as my sub-conscious mind is. It seems I'm lacking the right kind of opener. This is analogous to forgetting you need a corkscrew if you're going to buy the good wine. We are a screwtop kind of people, psychically speaking.

Nobody can figure out exactly why gravity does what it does.

There are people out there, right now, working on implanting computer chips into our brains so we can communicate telepathically over the internet. I had my bags packed and ready to load into the car, with a map of Antarctica in my hand, when I heard them say that it was still some years away. I've told you how much I hate the cold.

Despite a couple of millions of years of evolution, sex is still the best way to get rid of a headache, despite the old "it's not you, it's me" cliche. Actually it's the best way to cure a lot of things, isn't it?

Jane Jacobs predicted a dark age about to descend on western civilization. I've read some of her ideas and I think she's right. What now?

I just took a look outside and the sky seems to be clearing a little. Not quite sunny but on its way. I think I'll go outside.

Springsteen Vs. Manfred Mann

The sun was so hot I was sweating just standing there. I smoked a cigarette, leaning up against John's car, wondering what the hell was taking so long. Finally I saw him and Howell and Glen coming across the lot and we all climbed in. I only had an hour before my next class and I didn't want to be late. Fourth time this week wouldn't go down well with Mailbox-head, my algebra teacher.
John's Celica made him cool and the fact that he was Jamaican didn't hurt either. John had an undying obsession for Bruce Springsteen, mostly over looked by the rest of us, and he'd tell us stories about the Boss, and we tried to care.
It drove him nuts that 'Blinded by the Light' had been 'butchered' by Manfred Mann's Earth Band and I never did tell him that I thought their version was better than Springsteen's. It would have just started an argument.
There was never any consideration for the two who got stuck in the back seat. The best you could do was just nod and smile. I could see his lips moving in the rear view mirror but the music was too loud to make out what he was saying and you just didn't ask him to turn it down.
The deafening noise was having an effect on Glen, too, who was sitting beside me. He was turning green and John's erratic driving was making it worse. We barely made it to the Pit before Glen opened the door and started puking all over the place. He was always hung over, that guy. He was one of those people who get drunk for the express purpose of blinding himself. We just laughed and took turns trying to kick him in the ass as he bent over the ditch and heaved.

"I might be moving." he said.
"Really?"
"Yeah, my Mom wants to go back to Jamaica."
"That's cool, isn't it?" I said.
"It's a fucking poor country, man. You have no idea. I'd have to sell my car. Get rid of all my shit because I can't take it with me." He was looking across the lot at Glen's back as he heaved another round at the ground.
"Why don't you stay here?" I asked him. I was thinking about moving out and it came to me that John and I could find an apartment. I was always thinking about moving out. I hated this place.
"Naw. I'd have to get a job." He had all this cool shit, a cool car, a cool house with a pool and all the money he wanted but he had no idea how to take care of himself. That was the real reason he couldn't move out.
"Suck it up, man." I'd been working since I was thirteen. I still didn't have any money, though.
"Fuck you. The other thing is that my Dad is there."
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing." I asked him.
"I don't know. He's been phoning every week for the last two months. I think he wants to get back together with my Mom. She's so fucking excited about it she doesn't give a shit what we want."
John's older brother still lived at home, too. He was twenty four and still needed his Mom's help just to get by. I don't know where all her money came from but I figured that was probably why his Dad was so anxious to get them back.
Glen doubled over in another fit of wretching and I said to John, "What is that guy's problem? He's always puking on something."
"He doesn't want anyone to know, but his Mom's got cancer. He started crying last night when I was talking to him. He's really fucked up about it." John said, staring off across the lot.
"Shit." was all I could come up with.

It seemed like a minute ago nothing mattered and now all this shit was piling up around me. It felt like I was being asked a question. It felt like the spotlight was on me and I was being timed. Even now, I don't like to be put on the spot.
When Glen had cleaned himself up we climbed back into the car and on the way home we just listened to Springsteen and looked out the window.

I haven't seen either one of them since. I hate looking back at that stuff. I still don't have the answers to those questions. I just left. I keep on leaving and I suppose that says something about me, but I've had my share of shit, too.

The other night Manfred Mann's version of 'Blinded by the Light' came on and I listened to this guy say, "Have you ever heard Springsteen's version of this? It's complete shit." And I told him he was wrong, that he just didn't get it. I didn't, either.
Not then. But I do now.

Don't Take Advice From a Goat

"Tell me something." I said to her.
"Something." she said with a laugh that made me melt.
She was petite and pretty and I could understand why she inspired so much frustration.
"Why would someone like you be attracted to an idiot like Narcissus." It was a little pointed but I have to admit to a certain frustration when it comes to the choices that women make.
She sighed and said only, "Narcissus." I thought I was going to be sick. 'Love is blind' the saying goes but I might add deaf, dumb and totally stupid to the saying.
"Sure, he might be good looking but there's got to be more to it than that."
"More to it than that." she answered in a dreamy way.

"After all this time she's still in love with the guy. I just don't get it."
"What don't you get?" said Pan. "The girl's nuts. She made me crazy, too, and I can have anybody I want."
I decided now wasn't the time to remind him about Syrinx, but then she hadn't totally escaped him, either. I was more confused than ever when he sat up and belched into the night, clearing the patio more efficiently than a fire alarm, but not before two or three girls stopped by to give him their numbers.
"Look." he said, wiping his mouth on the back of his arm, "If you're hoping to understand women I'll tell you all you need to know. You will never truly win the heart of any woman by being nice to them. You can try to understand them, you can try to take care of them and you hope they'll love you for it, but the truth is, while they'll respect you, they'll never love you."
"Yeah, yeah. I've heard this one before. They want the bad boys. I asking why. Why do they want the bad boys?"
"Are you an idiot? They like the bad boys because they wish they could be as self-consumed as they are. They wish that they could act like that and get away with it. They want to emulate that behavior because everybody admires the guy who doesn't give a shit what anybody else thinks of them and does what he wants, even if it means breaking a few hearts."
"I think you're full of shit."
"Hey man, I didn't make the rules. Why don't you go ask Echo."
"Ugh. Talking to her gives me a headache."
"That, my friend, is why I don't waste my breath talking."

I set the mug down in front of her and she smiled in return. She was beautiful and aloof, but I could read a sadness in her eyes that very nearly broke my heart.
"Even after he refused you, you still love him, don't you? He treated you like shit and you still think he'll come around." I didn't want to appear insensitive but her refusal to see the reality of the situation was making me crazy.
"He'll come around." she said softly.
"No, he won't, Echo. You've got to stop this foolishness and get on with your life. Don't you want to find someone who respects you, someone who will love you as much as you love him? Someone who cares? Someone like me?" I paused and then decided to just say it. "Echo, I have to tell you something. I love you."
"I love you.", she said woodenly.
"You do?" I looked at her but then it dawned on me that she was just saying it to make me feel better.
"Hey, don't do that. Don't fool around with me." I said.
"Fool around with me." she said. She smiled and batted her eyelashes at me and I thought for a second I might faint.
"Really, do you mean it? Are you sure?"
"Sure." she answered and all at once my heart filled with a joy and a gladness that made me ache all over.
"I knew you'd come around. That guy's no good for you. I can make you happy. I may not be as good looking as Narcissus but I've got something he doesn't."
"Something he doesn't?" she asked.
"Yeah. I've got heart."
"I've got heart."
"Uh...o.k."
"Uh...o.k."
"What are you doing?"
"What are you doing?"
"Stop that. It's really annoying."
"Stop that. It's really annoying."
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
"With me?"
"With me?"


"What did you think was going to happen? You're such an idiot." Pan laughed heartily and wouldn't stop until I got up a grabbed my coat.
"Hey, C'mon kid. I tried to warn you about her. Don't take it so seriously." he said wiping a tear from his cheek.
"I can't help it. I take things seriously. That's what I do." I signaled the server who handed me the bill and I noticed that I was paying for Pan, too.
"You don't have any money, do you?"
"Money. What do I need money for when I've got good friend's like you." he said as he stood up, still laughing. "Oh Jesus, you're funny, kid. Let me give you a bit of advice. Be nice, if you have to. Hell, even be accommodating from time to time, but remember, women need a challenge. Give them everything they want and they'll leave you crying into your beer. Everybody needs a little mystery in life, otherwise no one would need for anything. Be a little mystery. Keep a little something from them from time to time and you'll never be alone again."
"Oh, really? I'll keep that in mind. Can we go now?"
Pan chuckled into the night air. "Yeah, we can go." he said.
"Hey." he grabbed my arm and pointed me up the avenue. "I know a little place close by where you can practice some of your bad boy moves and I promise no one will get hurt. You might even enjoy yourself."
"Oh yeah?" I said, not even remotely interested.
"It might cost us a bit of that money you're also so careful with, though." he winked at me and I knew it was going to be a long night.
"Sure. I guess I've got nothing else to do."
"That's my boy." he said as he struck off into the night, whistling a happy little tune.

When The Rains Came

He climbed the length of the reed, using the handholds and footholds he had dug out of the rough interior, and when he peered over the edge he saw nothing on the water except the nostrils of the four beasts, each at one of the four corners of the world.
"What can you see?" yelled his wife from the base of the reed.
"I can't see anything."
"Is the water still rising?" she asked.
"No. It seems to have stopped."
"And the beasts?" she cried.
"Still out there. Mostly just nose, now."
"What now?" she asked.
"Well, I don't know." he replied in a distracted way. He was relieved to see that the water had stopped rising but with only a few feet to spare, it had been a close one. "I guess we just wait."
"I'm tired of waiting. This reed is too small and stuffy and pretty soon we'll have to eat our shoes and I don't like the taste of your feet."
"Your's are no better, buttercup." he said under his breath.
"What?"
"Nothing, dear. Let's give it another day." he said as he rested his head on his arms.
He had never seen so much water before and he certainly had no experience with giant reeds designed to hold and protect all he could carry, all he could pack into it, and his wife, to boot. He had spent so many sleepless nights waiting for the water to flow in over the top and drown them all that he was sure the turtle swimming towards him was some sort of vision brought about by lack of sleep and the noxious smell of so many animals crammed into such a tight space.
And yet it kept coming, straight towards their new dwelling. The lack of any landmarks made it hard to judge how big it really was but soon it reached the reed and with some sloshing of water over the edge, which started his wife and all the animals screaming about the end of all things, the turtle turned out to be a massive thing, twenty feet wide across its brightly coloured shell.
It stopped before him, treading water and eyeing him with some curiosity.
"Hello." he said to the giant turtle but it said nothing in return. It simply looked at him out of watery eyes and then, finally, with a snort, it dove down into the depths and he began to wonder if it had been a figment of his imagination.
Suddenly, behind him, he heard a sputtering and a ferocious yell and he spun around, nearly losing his footing on the edge of the reed and saw water pouring into the nostrils of the beast in the East. With a deafening roar it disappeared under the water, followed a few minutes later by a cascade of escaping air and it did not re-appear again. He watched dumbfounded by this until he heard another sputtering from the North and turned just as the second beast disappeared under the waves. Following that, the beasts in the West and the South sank under the waves with much thrashing and explosions of compressed air and then there was silence.
"What's all that racket?" his wife yelled up at him. "Is it rising again?"
"I don't know. Something strange is happening. I just saw a giant turtle and now it looks like the four beast have gone under for good."
"Well that's good news isn't it?"
"I hope so." he answered but his heart was troubled when he saw the turtle surface some distance away and begin a leisurely swim toward the reed.
"Uh..." he said.
"What? What's going on? Say something, you damn fool." And then he could feel the reed begin to sway and he knew that she was climbing up to join him in his lookout.
"Hey, watch it. This thing might go over with both of us up here." he cried.
"Oh, phooey. You just don't want me to know what's going on. I'm coming up. Move over." And then she was beside him and they both stared at the turtle as it came close to the edge of the reed causing more water to spill over the top.
"Hey, watch it, you big galoot." she yelled at the turtle to which it answered, "Do not fear, my children. You are safe, for now."
"Hey, it can talk." she said, punching him in the arm.
"Yes, I can talk Mother, but you, you talk too much." said the turtle with what the man could only describe as a big turtle grin. It turned to look at the man and said, "Well, that's it. Give it a few more minutes, just to make sure those things are dead, and then the water will start to recede."
"O.K." said the man, "And then what?"
"And then? Then it's up to you. You and all the animals and all the plants and, of course, this lovely wife of yours, are all that are left and it's up to you get busy and start re-populating this place." the turtle explained.
"All by ourselves?" cried his wife,"Have you any idea how painful childbirth is? And you want me to get busy popping out generations of brats to re-populate the whole damn earth? What kind of a plan is that?..."
And she continued to voice her objections while the turtle turned to the man and said, "I can do something about that for you, y'know." pointing at his wife as she waved her arms wildly and let loose with a stream of profanities that might have brought about a second deluge, but the man shook his head and said, "No, that's alright. I kind of like it."
"Suit yourself." said the turtle and with that it disappeared beneath the water leaving the man hanging onto the edge of his reed with his wife bleating into the darkening sky and the waters receding around them.

Summer Long

Its the middle of August and all of you out there who prefer to consider your lives cursed instead of fueled by the anticipation of new things, problematic instead of adventurous and would rather wallow in the morbid allure of decay than the sweet song of beginnings are already yammering on about how summer is over. Don't talk to me anymore.
You are the same people, who in March when the temperature hit seven degrees, complained that the streets were too slushy and in April, when the gardens of the city were gearing up for an explosive assault on our senses, thought that summer would never get here.

I know what you suffer from. Back-to-schoolitis. It begins with a sickly, sweet melancholy causing all sorts of mooning and sighing, long looks out over the lake and endless evenings in the back yard refusing to come in, long after dark. Of course it ends with an unsteady upheaval of emotions cured only by a shopping spree for new clothes, calendars, pencil sets, calculators and binders full of pristinely empty three hole paper; the reward for having your summer cut short and being forced back to the classroom when its still hot and the bugs have finally left us alone. You are not in school anymore, though, so pass on your disappointment to your kids and enjoy the next couple of months. Don't worry, I have a source in the weather office that assures me that it probably won't snow until December.

Consider this. When you see the construction crews, that have been making your life miserable for the last eight weeks, pack up and pave over the enormous holes in front of your house, you'll know summer's gone. When your neighbor gives up his Speedo and stops sunbathing in the front yard you'll know summer is over. When your weekend consists of going store to store to find the sold-out leaf bags you'll be well on your way to kissing summer good-bye. Just about the time you start patting yourself on the back for not taking down the Christmas lights from last year is the time you can pause and think, "I guess its over for another year." But not until then. We've got a long way to go yet and the only people who should be complaining about summer being over are getting ready to go back to school. Better them than me. I still have camping trips to plan, friends to visit and backyard bar-b-q's to enjoy, all of them without any kids in attendance. Don't you kids be late for class.

You Are Nothing To Me

The studio was a well lit temple to his works; the works in progress, for the entire area, some fifty feet by twenty, was over-stuffed with half finished canvases that hung like corpses in a forest of trees, forgotten and left for the birds. The windows soared vertically into the gloom of the vaulted ceiling and none of the light penetrated the heavens despite the dozen or so reflectors that moored the room at each corner. It felt, to me, like a mausoleum.
In the farthest corner of the room we found him, leathery and grey, in a state of repose. I wondered if he was dead but Carmine bent to his bedside and spoke a few words into his ear and eventually his eyes opened and, with some effort, he sat up and blearily looked at us, as we stood in a semi-circle around his cot.
He immediately became animated, latching onto Carmine's arm in an attempt to stand to welcome his visitors. The eagerness in his eyes was upsetting to me. I had expected a master and was shown an old man, lost and confused, but with enough hunger in him yet to seem desperate. I wondered if his years in prison had saturated his soul with the fawning attitude he absently presented and I suddenly had no desire to speak with him. I was afraid of this.
A nurse appeared and went to his side to replace Carmine who, looking slightly hurt, shuffled off to the side and looked at me with concern. His eyes told me the worst and I knew he was offering me an apology even before he opened his mouth.
"We shouldn't have come. He has been ill and I had hoped a visitor or two would perk him up a bit."
In a matter of moments we were hustled out by an intern who admonished us for disturbing the old man, but we got what we wanted, I suppose: a glimpse into the genius behind the strange and wonderful hauntings that populated his mind. Ultimately it only removed any doubt that accidents happen and perhaps the accident of his youth was the recognition he found in Germany before the war.
"You shouldn't judge him so harshly.", Carmine said to me, days later, when we sat at the August Cafe, "No man is invulnerable to the ravages of time."
"Carmine, you misunderstand.", I said to him. "Time has nothing to do with what ruined him."
We talked late into the night about colour and form, neither one of us able to evoke in the other an appreciation for the things that made us vulnerable.
The next day I boarded a train home and from the window I saw Carmine, looking lost and alone, and I knew then that he truly was the heir to misfortune and grief, and I sat back wishing I could erase him from my mind.

Sleep Away The Past

The underbrush wasn't as thick here. It made walking easier but his pack still got hung up on every other branch and soon he called a halt. He trampled down the grass, kicked at the saplings until they bent away from the assault and he pulled twenty-five feet of vines off to the side to expose the dark and damp soil upon which he spread the canvas.
It took less time to put up the tent and tie it off, and when his sleeping bag was tucked away he sat on the corner of his new home, at least for the night, and rolled himself a cigarette.
As the darkness came on he listened to the sounds of the forest and stared into the shadows cast by the small light he allowed himself. The sway of the trees cast mottled and moving images on the backdrop of leaves and in the undulating illumination he could make out faces that smiled and winked at him until his eyes grew heavy and he crawled inside the tent to sleep.
Wrapped in the sleeping bag, tucked inside the tent, folded into the trees and blanketed with the blue and black sky he whispered his goodnights and sighed away the anger of the waking world until he slipped away, leaving no watch and giving no thought to the wheezing, creaking sounds that mimicked his breathing and was asleep before the trees bent themselves towards the malice and hatred he exhaled into the night.

Speed Up A Little Bit

The footprint of this city is not so deep, nor so wide that it can't be filled with a longing to depart for more exotic locales. I've never been one to jump to a conclusion that was only halfway to extreme, so when the invitation came, how could I refuse? I packed my bags and left to spend four days crammed into a seat too small for me, beside a woman who, despite being a lovely creature, had the distasteful ability to recreate great symphonies using only her lungs and her partially blocked sinuses. For the first thousand miles it was amusing, and during her waking hours she was a great conversationalist, however, as the border drew closer and her destination loomed in the headlights, not many of us were sad to see her go.
As the saying goes, though, I shouldn't have been counting sheep when I could just as easily have slept through the whole thing. Her replacement was a man of about forty, who, while dressed nattily, smelled vaguely of warm bread. Once my nose worked out the dilemma, finally breaking through the wall of olfactory comfort and discarding the repetitive associations it relied on, I was able to convince it that he had no bread tucked under his arm; he was all man.
Like the pictures an art teacher parades around the room, prodding his students with hints and waiting for the shift in perception that turns an old lady into a young girl, a large fur stole wrapped around her shoulders, and once my brain had registered the difference between fresh baked bread and over-warm fat guy, it wouldn't let go and I tried to breath through my collar for the four hundred miles he chatted away to me.
A romantic is a man who looks at the wonders of life in all their decrepitude and sees only the underlying synchronicity that feeds, strand by strand, our sense of well-being and oneness with all that resides under the sun. I have decided that I'm a realist, however, and I refuse to go back to those old ways. For a glimpse into the mysteries of life, a bus ride across the country will beat your senses into something like an honest machine whose cogs and gears and vibrating cams and heavily greased pistons simply do what their told all day and long into the night of your existence, while the tethered thoughts you believed were prancing out time in happily measured two steps are actually trudging around a massive gear connected to the unknown, slaves to mechanical, maniacal traditions of expansion, building up and out, creating nothing more than what you can see, the rest hidden from view.
What that means is that body odor sometimes smells like fresh bread and who wants to sit in a bakery and watch four hundred miles of nothing spread across the window.
I awoke to find that the bus had stopped, the driver had disappeared into the night and that most of the passengers were standing in the aisle with no clear indication that they were allowed to get off. I pushed my way to front and stepped out into the blackest night I have ever seen. The cloud cover was uniform and gave me no indication that there were stars waiting to reveal themselves behind it. I walked across the lot to the only light I could see and discovered an oasis of slightly stale crescent rolls and greasy coffee laid out like a banquet. My newly minted sense of defeat was losing its cohesion and I actually smiled at the waitress, who poured me a cup.
"Long way from home?", she purred.
"I'm a long way from anywhere, I think.", I answered sleepily.
"Not that far, sugar."
As the rest of my traveling companions filed into the truckstop she picked up her pad and began shouting orders at a cook I couldn't see and directing the traffic to booths lining the front window.
"Sit. Sit and Louise will be right with you. You're all just in time for the show.", Louise called out and I wondered what she could have meant. I didn't have to wait long.
The parking lot snapped to life, blazing with the light of eight floods atop the four standards spread out across the front of the diner. Revealed in that hurried dawn were two dozen forms, almost familiar but with odd shapes and angles jutting out from where nothing should have been. These mewling approximations in somewhat human form flinched under the scrutiny but continued their steady crawl and shuffle toward the bus.
I sat, awestruck by the scene, as if a curtain had lifted and I was enchanted by the seething fluidity of the players, as they climbed atop and slithered under the carriage of the bus. I absently noted a few screams of terror and a rattling of quick reactions from the audience but I was transfixed by the morbid strangeness I was witnessing. Hands were grasping at the door of the bus, long tongues lolled out of misshapen mouths, and the sounds coming from beyond the glass were muted cries of discovery and elation. They swarmed the windows, frantically clawing at the seams to gain entry but none had the dexterity for it and, frustrated, they howled into the night and that sound crawled down the spine of everyone in the diner and we became silent expecting a bad end and pain and suffering.
And then, slowly, the creatures slid down the sides of the bus and shuffled beyond the plane of light and then the lot was as empty as it had been when we arrived. Silence and despair filled the diner until Louise clapped her hands twice in the air and yelled, "That's the show, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your patronage and we hope to see you next time. Don't forget to get your souvenirs at the counter on the way out and have a safe journey."
We sat, stunned, while she marched up and down the aisle collecting half drunk coffees and cleared the plates of half eaten food. When it became apparent that no one was going to move from their seats she sighed, the long sigh of resignation born from the endless repetition that only entertainers know when they've produced their best and fail to impress.
"The show's over folks, and the bus will be leaving in five minutes. If you want to go, now is the time.", said Louise.
No one moved, thinking that a lifetime in this diner might be preferable to ever going outside again.
"Another show will start with the next bus to arrive, but not until then. It's up to you.", and she disappeared into the kitchen with a swoosh of her skirt.
Just then the bus started up, it's engine singing into the darkness and the noise startled our silence into a frenzied clamor, as all of us jumped up and fled the diner. Not a word was spoken as we jostled and fought or way onto the bus, the driver politely smiling at us the whole time.
It was then, as I took my seat that I realized that my yeasty friend hadn't gotten off the bus. He was asleep, soundly snoring into the tension and was completely unaware of what had happened. As I climbed over him the bus jumped into gear and he awoke with a start. He looked at me, suspicious and half-alert, gathered his bag to his chest and sniffled his way back to sleep.
Nobody else slept that night, and by dawn there came the quiet whispers, each organizing and re-formulating and explaining away what had happened to them in the middle of the night.
I sat, with my thoughts, evaluating and excavating a laundry list of beliefs and assertions only to come home to the fact that the machinery of life had slipped a gear and was happily firing off in the wrong direction. I looked around trying to grasp the frayed and unraveling sense of reality I could see fading into the distance but found nothing there but dust and dry rot.
As much as I want to, I might never find out what this machine does and I may have to resign myself to the harness, though it bites, and the rough stone floor, even though my shoes have, not yet, worn through, and if I'm lucky I just might be able to sleep through the night and live to see the anonymous wonders of another day. I won't, however, travel by bus again.