Symptomatic 2

After striking out on the live social scene, I returned to spending a couple of hours each night at my laptop, writing a little, chatting with people I had never sat next to, and checking out the news in English on Latin American countries, but especially Mexico because it was fresh in my mind. I learned the country was suffering a number of difficulties resulting from battles among drug families, and about a disused justice system presented in the dramatic documentary Presunto Culpable, but most of the news I could find concentrated on mishaps in the north of the nation. Very few newsworthy events outside of the education arena appeared to be happening in the south. Any discussion of the situation in 1994 had a historical flavor to it, as if the most recent revolutionary fervor had now joined its brethren on the shelf and in the books. Upon switching to travel guides and noting there was still a call out to come and enjoy “the best the country had to offer,” I started communicating with the woman in Texas, discussing the possibility of being in her area and seeing if we could meet and size each other up. She must have concluded I had formed Plan B because I could tell by the way she said it “might be nice” without conviction in the tone of her words that she was being duplicitous as I was and both of us were too shy to admit our possibilities had expired.

Snowblind

I was freezing and my planned cruise to Central American ports came at a good time, but it made the return to this Arctic more unbearable. For five days, I drifted in a paradise of idleness, which helped to unstiffen joints, while my brain produced static impulses. There was nothing I had to do, and now that I have to, I don’t want to. I am aware of animation that lies waiting under this icy white blanket, but long for the beauty that lies fully exposed under black pin-pricked skies and radiant tangerine politics shared by smilers who express little need for the tangibility of current events while inexorably donning their consequences. We all must move forward, but some, like certain crabs, have chosen to shift sideways, and still, it gets them there. I must get away more often, but timing is everything, and now I require hot coffee.

Symptomatic

Met two women last month while out having a drink or two one night, and I guess that means I still have it; only I didn’t get it. The first said her name was Beth, and that she had recently settled in New York after a long stint of teaching English in Mexico, and when it came down to it, she wasn’t really looking for companionship, but what she said in parting caused me to whither, and I was glad to see the last of her. A little while later, I shared a drink with a woman named Samantha, who was on a side trip to the east coast before heading on down to Mexico. I knew there was no future in chatting her up, but I did for a while, mostly because I was trying to find out what the big attraction was South of the Border. Last week I was reading through CraigsList and read an offer that titillated, but I didn’t respond because when it comes down to it, I am looking for companionship. I am acquainted with a couple of women, one who lives in Boston, and another who lives in Texas; both of whom in prior communiqués have invited me to come visit. I might just take up the offer of the lady in Amarillo because if reality doesn’t measure up to fantasy, I could easily move a little further south.

Creepypasta

The machine was off for three minutes and forty-seven seconds, which doesn’t seem like so very long, but something happened in the world during that time, and it was an irreversible action. The Engineer had spent four hours and thirty-seven minutes aimlessly surfing the Internet when he should have been mindful of his watch; then, foolishly he dozed. Two Girls, One Cup and the little girl from The Ring danced in his dream, which creeped him out a bit until he was awakened by the silence. He shivered, realizing there would be consequences, and he had to go to the bathroom. Tormented by need and responsibility, he wavered. As the machine whirred to life, thoughts of suicide crossed his guilty mind.

Ars wipe

We all knew what was coming next. One of us would disappear for a while and the rest would forget the missing member almost entirely. All he would receive would be announcements. His in box would overflow with invitations to participate in the success of others.
They might find him inside his sealed up Lexus in the garage, or maybe not.
They might wonder from time to time, or not.
It was regarded as declasé to inquire.
One single, soft slip and all his work would be disregarded. The pundits might recall Ars longa, vita brevis, but who had time to practice punditry?
Years later, all would appear in the database, but rarely on a search engine, and Mom would say, “Don’t cross your eyes. They may stay that way.”
We could always count on Mom’s perception, if not her affection.

Standard Op

At the end of the year, I felt like Edward Hopper’s White clown in Soir Bleu. Does that make me a cliché? I probably won’t make it to the Whitney to compare notes. I sat alone in my big house. Didn’t drink anything stronger than green tea, and tried to ignore all the noise outside on the streets.
I’ve got a new job, but as it's only a stop gap, I don’t even feel like writing about it. I will say this. I haven’t had to work during the greater part of 2010 and I set about grounding myself, but now out of boredom, I sought something to do.
The girl from the Seven-11 turned out to be a wash. She went away as high as she came. I thought there was something more there. She wrote an interesting little poem, but it must have come from before her mind went blank. It could have been addressed to anybody, and probably had been presented to several gobs before me.
My mother told me in a dream that she tried to call me, but couldn’t get past the long distance exchange. I don’t have a working land phone. Perhaps I only imagined that conversation.
My father concurred.
I wrote a few pieces myself last year. They didn’t amount to much. Expecting less time available for same these coming months, but feel an urgency to talk to someone, something, a screen.
I could take on a new persona, but if I become disconnected, I will just drift.
I need prompting.
Here is a resolution. I will bear witness to a stone’s worth of truth each and every day. Whatever shines may find its way to this page.

The Stranded #1 on Issuu

Open publication

See also: The Stranded on ComicVine

The Drugs Don't Work

Next to you in the swirl of sheets, and the warmth of your slight form in the dim light of morning, I would forget your young woman’s old man features and the veins visible and traceable across your cranium. I would make plans for the day, knowing full well you wouldn’t be up to any of them, though you might ask me to read to you later in the afternoon. You didn’t cook for me anymore then, and sadly I could not pay you back for all the time before when you did, as I would burn boiling water. All those clothes that no longer fit you are not taking up space here, and I am sure Saint Vincent de Paul’s people have provided some worthies with extra warmth; although I will say I was offended when they insisted I prove I had had them cleaned. I still look into the books from time to time, but the stories’ characters have moved on as we have, I in my simplified actionless days, a holdover from ours together, and you to some place I am not prepared to be at this moment in time. Oh, dear God, how I miss your beatific smile in spite of all that could go wrong doing so.

Why? 2K

I can still hear the screaming, like it was yesterday, when it was in fact over ten years ago. I was on the other side then, trying to make my way through. Everyone remembers it differently. Everyone believes they dealt with the issue, but it was a cover-up. The truth is at one minute after midnight on 1 January 2000 all the computers located in the area of Greenwich Mean Time did crash, and hour after hour around the globe the rest of them followed. All the geeks were too busy celebrating their ascendance to hear the screaming.
There was a twenty-four hour portal which many of us, barely holding on, stepped through, and after it closed, there was no going back. In the middle years around ’05 it was easy to pass as an average citizen; so many were looking the other way.
Now with all the available micro-works, it would be simple enough to return, if anyone wanted to, but not me. I’m having too much fun. Would a bit of charcoal thrown from a grill fire want to jump back in and be wholly consumed? I think not.
We, who came through that day, all bear our scar like some glorified war wound, when the truth is: as we recognize each other, we keep walking in silence, never allowing our shame to rise to the level of guilt. Like a pigeon on a sill or a cockroach in a picnic basket, I go about my parasitical way until one day you might look in a mirror and not be able to tell if I were standing behind you or we were the same person.
Although I recognize many of you, I won’t give away your secret. Thrive and prosper. None of the civilians could cite the reasons you know all that you do. We are all living on borrowed time, on the threshold, as it were, between what was and what was meant to be, and so long as we keep our balance, no one need take it too seriously. In fact, the sound I took for the memory of impassioned screams may have just been the wind passing through a keyhole.
Yes. Indeed, that's all it was.

On the Ionian

He dropped to his knees and kissed the ground. Would she still be there? He had no reason to believe she had waited for him, but something in his gut told him he deserved a second chance.
The fog had lifted around half past two in the morning, and the man who rented out the boats had stayed as he had said he might. Business was bad these days, and the frail old codger depended on the three or four visitors who came his way each month.
Edward watched as the man put the money in the little drawstring sack he wore around his neck. As they climbed into the boat he thought, “What a life! This geezer must survive on barely more than bread and water, and still he remains.” No doubt, he too felt the lure of the islands.
Two dogs picked through scraps in a small pile of rubbish on the beach. Obviously, they managed their meager existence through watching out for one another. The larger of them deposited a bone or something in front of the other and returned to the pile in search of his own meal. There were no gulls scavenging at that time of the morning.
“What must the old man think,” Edward wondered, “Seeing me drop to my knees like that?” He had entirely forgotten himself for just a minute or two and lost his composure in his happiness at being once again on Corfu.
As they rowed out to the smaller island, he considered the gifts contained in the bag stowed in the prow. Would he don the mask in an attempt to take her back in time, or would the gesture appear too frivolous? If he overcame his doubt, there would be time enough as he ascended the stone steps, but if he recalled the sound of her breathing, in those moments, he would not be able to stop himself from whispering her name, thereby rendering the playful mask a redundancy.