It Probably Optimistically Doesn't Factor Into the Whole of What You Are Considering

Beachfront property. My backyard. Your mole with air inside. A slide trombone plumbing new depths. 

It cannot begin with yelling. But if it does, you should know that soon things will change. Soon, all the anger in the world will hold no sway and some will only bleat openly into the wind. At the wind. With the wind. 

A small egg bearing the largest chicken. What is it, dear chicken, that you have to bring forth? Is it not what you thought it would be? Has it been ill prepared for, or lacking in consideration? Long thought, the discussion ends with oneself full circle. The ends meet and there is wholeness. Wholeness abounds where nothing lacks, where the sun shines equally upon the parts that run ragged all features of solitude, and wipe clean the slate of good fortune. 

In a rumbling automobile I can hear each part performing its task. They all make some sound or other. I hear, discern and know them all. One more skill couldn't hurt.

You look different today. Is it possible that you're going through something? Through it? Not merely by it or around it, but straight through the muggy whatsitcalled. I'm glad for you. You do look taxed, but you are looking, and so you shall find. 

Ring.

Have to Read Quickly

Here's my reading method: light the cover on fire when you begin, and try to finish reading before the entire book is aflame.

Plastic Soda Pop Cup

Seated, misplaced or abandoned at my side, on the picnic table in the park, was the plastic vessel for a soft drink from Taco Bell.

“So,” I said, “Do you have anything to say besides advertising for your unhealthy goods and services?”

“I might,” it said. “I just might.”

“You might, eh? Well, what?”

“Well, what is your name?” it redirected.

“My name is Tyler. Now what do you have…”

“And where do you live?”

“Nowhere. Would you ans…”

“And what do you do…you know, for fun?”

I just stared at it for a moment. I could smack it off the table and into oblivion. I know, it knows, we’re all sitting here learning so much…whatever…I place it diagonally about a foot and a half away from me.  

“That’s the first time I’ve been relocated since being sipped by my former owner. Thank you,” it said.

“Why “thank you”? I asked.

“I was getting tired of being there. Something about the knot in the wood below me. Disorienting.”

“So now you feel clearer?”

“Clearer about some things.”

“What in particular?”

“What is it you said you like to do again?”

“Nothing, I live nowhere, and I’m asking the questions, unless you want me to help you into that trash bin.”

“Whatever you want,” it said.

Moments went by without speaking. Minutes. I looked around. Joggers jogging, dogs being walked or bear sized dogs taking their owners on a ride that was more than they bargained for when they were just puppies and cute. I noticed the ring of moisture the cup had left behind after I moved it. I dipped my right index finger in it and traced the circle. I got a sharp splinter for my troubles, graciously bestowed by the wood of the table. The plastic cup spit. It sucked in its breath and launched a bit of dark brown substance onto mu upturned index finger as I examined the splinter. The liquid began to fizzle on my skin. It tingled. I shook most of it off.

“What are you doing? Soda is not helpful right now.”

“My mistake,” it said.

“If you had any water to clear away the blood, that would be fine, but…”

The next in a long series of interruptions came not verbally, but garbly as the plastic cup seemed to be sucking in breath from the outside in order to make a vacuum powerful enough to blow bubbles on its inside. After a moment, it somehow swished its liquid from side to side, making it rock in place, and then stopped. It spat a clear liquid that hit my offended index finger with astonishing precision. This liquid did not sizzle at all. It simply seeped quickly into my skin, as if it was unsure of whether I would try to flick it off like I had the soda. Pushed from within – by the liquid? – the splinter was being edged out of my finger. It fell back to the table it came from and I cocked my finger to flick it off.

“Are you su…” the cup began, but I had already let loose my finger. The splinter had become wedged between a small crack in the wood, so when my middle finger made contact, the pressure exerted against the splinter drove it deep within my middle finger.

“I bet you would not have chosen to do that. I tried to warn you.” The cup looked a bit proud. But it hadn’t moved an inch or visibly altered its already mould perfect posture.

“Yeah, well you’re just an uppity cup. Huh, my other finger does feel better. I don’t know whether it’s because my middle finger hurts more or because your strange liquid actually worked.”

“You may never know.”

“Would you try again?”

“No.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because,” and with that the cup spun on its base and faced its label the opposite direction. It began gurgling softly to itself.

“Please?”

“No.”

“Why not? I could dash you all over this park if I wanted to,” I said, but I wasn’t yet finished with a cup that had the power of speech.

“I’ll try something else if you answer my questions,” it said.

“Fine,” I said, waving my finger in the air, not wanting it to make contact with anything that might push the splinter deeper. “What’s your name? Are you male or female?”

“I have none, and it doesn’t matter.” The cup spun back around, let loose one huge bubble on the inside, and continued, “Have you ever wondered about your life, where you’re going, and how you are doing right now in the grandest scheme of things?”

“Of course, what’s your point?”

“Well, I wonder how you think you are doing in the grand scheme of whatever.”

“I don’t know. Well, I suppose. I have a job and a life where I have fun…sometimes not, but mostly I do.”

“Oh? What kind of fun?”

“You know, I have friends I do things with, family I am close to.”

“Oh, that’s terrific.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“So that means you’re doing well at Life?”

“I don’t know.”

Quiet. For a moment.

“Suppose you’re not doing well at all, you only think you are?” the cup continued.

“Well, then, someone ought to tell me. Could you please just release me from this spli…”

“What do you wish you had that you do not?”

“I don’t know. A wife. Security. A family.”

“And those are hallmarks of what you might call success? I’m glad my job is so easy. Be filled and then empty. Penetrated with a straw for a while, have the contents sucked out of you, and then it’s to the trash bin and maybe the recycling plant or landfill. It’s quite straight forward mostly.”

“I guess we’re more complicated.”

“No you’re not. You’re just human. You just do more things. Doesn’t make you complicated. You are good at pretending.”

“And you are good at insulting,” I said. Feelings hurt by a plastic nothing. I stared out across the park’s pond. The sun was going down. Why am I here?

“Why are you here?” The cup asked.

“Good question. I guess I should go.” I picked the cup up…I’ll assume it’s a he…I picked him up and headed for the garbage bin. “Now take out my splinter. Please.”

“So you can throw me away? No. You must take me to your home now. I will live with you. In your cupboard or on your night table, occasionally refreshed by the sudsing waters of the dishwasher, but no, I will not be tossed in any landfill or melted down and reformed this time.”

I tossed him in the garbage bin.

“Goodbye.” I called behind me, already on my way down the path towards home.

“Hmmm, interesting how this turned out,” I heard the cup mutter from the bin. He raised his voice so he could be sure I’d hear him. “Good luck! I know it’s creepy crawly and massively jumbled out there, but keep your head up, your fingers away from wood, and your spirits tuned high.”

I stopped. “Thanks, I will.” I turned around. I walked back to the garbage bin and looked at him. He hadn’t moved. He was just sloshing bits of the remaining liquid inside him up into the air, catching it again in his straw. I reached in and pulled him out. I looked at him some more. He said nothing. I said nothing. We walked back to the picnic table. I placed him back where I found him; in the original moisture circle. It was almost gone by now, but I found it without difficulty. The cup began blowing bubbles inside itself. I picked it up again and put my lips to the straw. It was the sweetest soda I’d ever tasted. 

Children follow Children. And as we are Children, we are led to dance.

We are all just children. No matter how we primp or strut or throw ourselves around, you can take a steak knife and cleanly slice away the layers of pretension. So do not be confused. He who pretends to be what he is not is of no threat. No jive or insult from one who is too hurried by life should be taken too deeply within. Just step aside. And let your troubles roll by.

Of People I Have Known

There are corridors one travels upon while seeking effortless slumber. They are all flavors, all colors. They are high and hard to get to, or they are low and fitted for a crawl. I have met many fellow journeymen and women along these ways. We have spoken briefly. With most it is a simple hello. With others a more detailed conversation can be attained. Nothing here can be boarded up or shut in. The windows only grow wider with each expedition. I happily have traversed many hallways. All are different. Some are not physical. Some only pose as doorways until you cross them and they reveal themselves to be simply vacuums for air. 

Of the Love I have known, I pause sweetly to look in. The room smells of roses and there are flickering images that dance about too quickly to decipher their content. 

The last word of every sentence is Love. It is always there. It is left hanging in the pause between breaths, or it is caught quickly by the trained ear somewhere amid a torrent of words. 

A Child's Realm

Each child’s realm comes dancing along.
Skipping, merrily, encoded in song.
The places our young offspring roam,
Are no environs for those who spit and scorn.

But watch what he does,
When the young boy does play.
As he prances and dances
Through the length of his day.

It’s magic, you see
To set Love so free.
It is the twinkling of their eyes,
That bring us revelations, large in size.

From a wellspring of joy
They happily romp!
To play with cat, dog, mouse
Or leaf pile to stomp!

No power can stop such boldness.
No darkness can dampen such light.
Each beauty born without trying,
Each soul reaching its peak before dying.

Not too soon, not too soon
A child’s spirit does intone,
To ward off devices
They see cause adults to groan.

The special place in each child’s heart
Lies wrapped but unfolding each day from the start.
So seek to revive such inner beauty
Before someone calls you old, mean, and far too snooty!

Someone Stole Our Ghosts

I miss the eerie, chilly, breezy after touch effect of glancing through some ethereal appendage of one of our bodiless friends. They are the keepers of our history. They speak an endless stream of whispers as they string up the past to dry on the sun drenched clothesline of time. It is from there that they analyze and modify the outcomes of our future. I miss their daily warnings, warm tidings and courteous manner. Something happened to them to make them leave.

I only experienced a bit of the bright, shining wave that struck my small town, wiped all power and electronics, but kept everything in a smooth, rolling, bright-as-sunshine glow for five days straight. I was locked in my study, serving my role as Transcriber of the Ancients. The old souls would come and speak to me, entering my home whistling some dancing melody, or tapping lightly on many surfaces at once. Oh, how I enjoy their company.

The ghost that visited most often had named himself Barnaberus. Not his name while is physical life, all ghosts choose new identities that will not keep them tied to the personality they graduated from the physical with. Their work binds them for great lengths of time with humanity, but they still evolve. They still can grow. Barnaberus was a huge prankster. He used to silently enter my study and light a week’s worth of work aflame. As I’d dash for water and put out the flame, Barnaberus would appear, wheeling in the work I’d done to replace the ethereal counterpart that he’d swapped and created the illusion of a blaze. That, and he chewed gum loudly and smacked his lips quite loudly if I ever began to doze during one of his twelve hour, constant stream of thought lectures on this or that kingdom, or some brilliant personage long since past.

I hadn’t seen Barnaberus for…counting…6, 8 days since the start of that bright whirlwind of light. I couldn’t do my work without him. I needed him to give me an accurate and full account of the historic deeds of the town called Mollweather, which was full of uniformly strong willed people, for the next series of my writings.

After a crumbling round of overcooked eggs and toast, my attention locked on finding Barnaberus, I decided to walk the streets, hoping to gather some clue, some vague intuition that would lead me to our ethereal brethren. Each person I passed seemed a little dazed, their gaze just shy of focused. If I stopped a man or woman to enquire as to whether they had any helpful information, it would take a moment for their eyes to shift in my direction. Always they looked like they would have rather stared straight ahead and continued on whatever path they were, seemingly, aimlessly treading. Growing a bit desperate, after at least fifty or so similar encounters, I shook a man who was walking with his arms stuffed full of fresh bread. I don’t know why I shook him, I just had to get a different response than I had gotten up until then. I grabbed his shoulders and shook. For an instant, his body seemed to prefer no resistance. It went along quite easily with my pull until suddenly he stiffened up and bellowed, “Stop, you madman!” and as I released him, he took ten paces further on his way. On the eleventh step he stopped, spun in place, looked me right in the eye and said, “I don’t know why, I don’t know why they’ve all gone. I just know it’s all for the worst. Some years ago they left for three days. That was lonely enough. I wish I could know why.”

I apologized to the man and offered him a cup of tea for his troubles if he didn’t mind the company. Thankfully, he accepted. The man was right about the loneliness without our ghosts. It was painful, like a bit of the wind of each breath was constantly being siphoned. In my kitchen, Enan, as I came to learn the man called himself, sat easily, if a bit crookedly on the chair in the corner next to the icebox. “What were you doing when you first noticed they were gone,” Enan asked.

“Just writing,” I responded.

“About what?” he asked.

“Well, I’ve been doing heavy research with Barnaberus for the last few weeks on the old town Mollweather.”

“Hmm. What were they like?”

“Heroic. All of them. Not a single weak-kneed slouch in the bunch. From all I’ve learned, I guess the town ran peacefully for at least six generations, since the first family moved there and staked a bit of its land as theirs for a town. Great people, the Mollweathers.”

“Mmhm.”

All thought seemed to cease for the moment. Or perhaps it simply slowed to a pace just below consciousness. We sipped our tea with a hazy synchronicity. Silence rang through the moments. As I was about to set my tea cup on its saucer, a knock, that would have startled even the most hearty Mollweather native, bounced soundly through my home. I had already leapt up involuntarily. I stood half erect and simply waited for a few moments. Enan looked at me, set down his cup, his shirt wearing the renegade liquid response to his surprise, and then nodded towards the door.

As I crept towards the door, still a bit unnerved, a loud whisper rushed through the slight crack between the portal and its frame. “Sibelius! Sibelius! Run! Run, you’ve got to run! Let me in, quickly!” I eased the door open to find my neighbor, Frank Muzzlehorn, frantic and weary in ways I’ve never seen his usually calm personage.

“They’re coming for you! All of them, and you’ve got to leave sooner than now! What have you been working on for the last few weeks?” All Frank’s words were bound and thrown out as one.

“Just some easy research on Mollweather.” I said.

“Good. I don’t know what they’re after, but take what you have of that and hide it. Then come with me.”

I raced to my study and began opening the panels in the wall that held my most precious documents and began to quickly, but with poise and control, as if the documents themselves might become upset by rough handling, and began to add the Mollweather documents to the space.“A race from death is never enjoyable, nor complete without companions. Enan, I dare to request you might jig along beside us?”

Enan nodded and introduced himself to Frank while I stuffed the last of the documents into the panel. As I reached for the removed panels to replace them, an enormous liquor bottle, lit aflame with a rag in the top, sailed through the large window pane in front of my desk and splashed liquid nightmare on most every surface. I watched in slow motion as the liquor flame bounced squarely on the middle of my Mollweather documents, consuming from the middle to both ends. A voice invaded my consciousness, interrupting my startled frame of mind. “Stop. You cannot move and cannot escape. You are ours.”

“Like hell,” I screamed aloud. I thrust my hand deep into the flames, securing a burning grasp on one hundred or so equally burning pages and withdrew them from the heap, threw them on the floor and stomped the flames out with my feet. I grabbed my bundle, matched papers with the bundle, and grabbed a cold bottle of liquid from my top drawer, and an old, wooden pistol from the bottom.

“I don’t care who they are, but we are never caught.” And we tore out the side door, our hearts unsure of what progress these events might unfold into, and bounced straight into the jaws of death itself.