Saturday, February 5, 2011
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.
Friday, January 21, 2011
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.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
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.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, November 15, 2010
A Close Relationship
It is all my mother’s fault. I’m in this wheelchair because of her. She insisted on dressing me up for high tea with her friends. She kept me hidden from the sun’s harmful rays throughout my childhood. She published a book of children’s stories she let it be known were inspired by our close relationship. She demanded I erase entries made in my teen-aged journal, and burned it when erasing proved ineffective. When she was about to remarry, she decided I was a liability, and one afternoon held a pillowcase over my face until I stopped breathing. I didn’t die as expected, but the loss of oxygen to my brain crippled my legs. She then left me stranded here in this institution when she went off on her honeymoon.
Now, you say she wants to visit me?
Tell her I don’t know where I can find the time. I’m too busy writing my book. You might advise her it is based on our close relationship.
Now, you say she wants to visit me?
Tell her I don’t know where I can find the time. I’m too busy writing my book. You might advise her it is based on our close relationship.
Friday, November 5, 2010
New Data Coming In
What else should I be, and where? I’ve been taking an online course in computer programming, but I almost never leave the grounds. I have Anthony Rother muzik piped through the house now and it keeps me edgy and somewhat frantic. A cover letter with my resume, such as it is, sits unsealed on top of the television that rarely gets turned on. Also, I’m probably drinking too much coffee.
I keep running into a young woman at the 7-Eleven. She’s all emo, but in a good way. She told me she was punk in the eighties, and though her appearance belies the age she would have to be, I believe her. She might be recalling the nineties and just got her decades mixed up. It took her long enough to open up.
She smells like attar of roses, and claims I’m fortunate to have met her as she is today because when she was pumped full of teen spirit, in the days before Kurt Cobain turned himself into a memory, she says, she never used to bathe regularly, and though her au natural odors were offputting, she enjoyed the privacy they afforded. She could walk through crowds with aplomb and did not have to stay down in a hole.
I haven’t had my hair cut in months, and the other day when I just threw on an old flannel shirt to run up to the store for some cigarettes, I met Andrea there, and she told me I looked like Kurt, and that was the highest compliment she could pay a stranger. I reminded her that we couldn’t really consider ourselves strangers by this time, and she said, “Yeah, whatever.”
I was stocked up on dry noodle soup and invited her over for lunch, and she said she’d have to think about it. I asked, “Do you work?” never thinking she might still be going to school, and she said, “You mean for money?” So what was there to think about?
Andrea is about to change her mind. I can feel it. I’ve changed mine.
I decided to have my hair cut, and send out the resume. I don’t want to remind anyone of Kurt Cobain. It’s going to take a while, however, to leave off the digital music and the coffee. Those kinds of things are habit forming, but if she does show up at my door, I know there are some Pearl Jam and Nirvana albums in the record collection gathering dust in the basement.
I keep running into a young woman at the 7-Eleven. She’s all emo, but in a good way. She told me she was punk in the eighties, and though her appearance belies the age she would have to be, I believe her. She might be recalling the nineties and just got her decades mixed up. It took her long enough to open up.
She smells like attar of roses, and claims I’m fortunate to have met her as she is today because when she was pumped full of teen spirit, in the days before Kurt Cobain turned himself into a memory, she says, she never used to bathe regularly, and though her au natural odors were offputting, she enjoyed the privacy they afforded. She could walk through crowds with aplomb and did not have to stay down in a hole.
I haven’t had my hair cut in months, and the other day when I just threw on an old flannel shirt to run up to the store for some cigarettes, I met Andrea there, and she told me I looked like Kurt, and that was the highest compliment she could pay a stranger. I reminded her that we couldn’t really consider ourselves strangers by this time, and she said, “Yeah, whatever.”
I was stocked up on dry noodle soup and invited her over for lunch, and she said she’d have to think about it. I asked, “Do you work?” never thinking she might still be going to school, and she said, “You mean for money?” So what was there to think about?
Andrea is about to change her mind. I can feel it. I’ve changed mine.
I decided to have my hair cut, and send out the resume. I don’t want to remind anyone of Kurt Cobain. It’s going to take a while, however, to leave off the digital music and the coffee. Those kinds of things are habit forming, but if she does show up at my door, I know there are some Pearl Jam and Nirvana albums in the record collection gathering dust in the basement.
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