Wednesday, December 10, 2014

in the heart of the universe

He was just thinking of so many things and so much stuff and he knew somewhere in all that stuff there were secrets and mysteries and he wanted to know so badly what they were. There was so much that was known but he felt there was so much more to know and he was trying to think really hard about what that might be. There came a point where he had thought the hardest he had ever thought before, which thinking he sustained for a moment until he had to relax his mind from the great strain of such hard thinking. The sudden release of his mind from such hard thinking caused his mind to recoil within him sending a reverberation of mindwaves throughout his brain and then his body.  Soon every part of his body had fused together with his mindwaves incorporating his entire organism into his mind creating a supermind that began to emanate from beyond the confines of his body like the glow of the sun through a morning fog. Once unleashed from his body, his supermind instantly perceived invisible forces between himself and his surroundings and between everything that he could notice. His supermind followed those forces from place to place wherever they might lead him keeping him fully conscience of the interconnections created by the forces. Soon his supermind followed a myriad of interconnected forces that lead to an exponentially increasing amount of interconnected forces eventually providing him with a consciousness that subsumed the entire planet and everything on it. From there his supermind began to perceive forces between the Earth and the moon and then the other planets and the sun and even particles of space dust and debris until he was fully aware of the entire solar system and how interrelated he was to everything that existed therein and everything that existed beyond until his supermind had reached the very edges of the universe. He even felt his interconnectedness to the nothingness beyond the universe and dimensions that existed in indescribable places and all the indescribable things that existed within them. He simultaneously perceived everything that could possibly be perceived and all the forces that existed between all that ever was and could be. He understood that there was no beginning or end neither to time and space or even himself or anyone else and that every motion of himself and every person that existed where ever they might exist was a motion that swept across the entirety of the universe and that together their arms in reality reached as far as the comets sweeping through galaxies, their legs were the stars and planets running across the fringes of all existence and their eyes were the black holes with the power to swallow everything that was. With his supermind as super as if ever could be he paused to consider his place amongst all that he witnessed. He looked up to see beyond the sun and past so many stars and planets to realize that everything was in motion and orbiting this way and that but that the singular orbits were within larger orbits and that everything was ultimately traveling through space and time for the same reason circling a central purpose that was at the heart of the universe much like electrons circle the nucleus of an atom. He peered inside the heart and was surprised to find that he recognized what filled the heart of the universe. It was much like the love that sometimes filled his own heart but so much more concentrated, intense and pure that it took on a thick liquid plasma form more molten than all the suns and stars combined. He wasn’t sure but somehow he knew this and knew that this molten plasmic love fueled all the forces between all the things in the universe and that through the amazing complex interconnectedness of everything in the universe the power of this love reached him from so many light years away and it reached everyone else and everything and was the spark of all creation and the purpose of the orbit of everything from the planets circling suns to the thoughts that ran in his mind. As he beheld this revelation it seemed that he heard the soft whisper of someone who said, “remember these things” and with that he felt his supermind begin to retract from the outer reaches of existence and pull into him past the planets and stars and through the atmosphere and from everything on the Earth and lastly from the love at the heart of the universe. When his mind had fully receded and refashioned itself as his normal mind he could feel a reflection of the love that existed in the heart of the universe in his own heart burning like smoldering embers that he nurtured forevermore. 

Thursday, December 4, 2014

a devil and a demon

He was born with a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other just like everyone else. The devil however was crafty like most devils are and through constant complaints, rationalizations and exploitation of vanities, he would feed the devil to quiet it down. Feeding the devil provided immediate relief from the devil’s assaults but it also made the devil stronger. And seeking such immediate relief deprived the angel of its nourishment of patience and discipline, which, together with other virtues, would have generated within the angel an abundance of love, the only energy in the Universe that could be created and destroyed. The angel would have shared its love with him and such an abundance of love would have given both the angel and the subject power over the devil. Unfortunately, he continually sought immediate relief from the devil’s fits causing the angel to become malnourished. Eventually the angel withered and died.  Without the angel to generate and share love, he could receive no love nor any of the benefits love would have provided. The devil was pleased to see the angel die and knew that his subject would need balance so he called upon a demon to rest upon the other shoulder. With a demon as a counterweight, the devil and the demon could do together what neither of them could do alone which was to destroy all the love that their subject had ever received. Love, being as high in mass as it was, left a terrible emptiness in him once it was all destroyed. The devil knew his subject would want the emptiness filled which the devil and demon did together by filling it with their own excrement. The excrement began to fester inside causing him to grow increasingly foul and uncontrollable, not only by others, but by himself. As the excrement continued to fester he became more loathsome and unbearable, and, his breath began to smell so bad.

Saturday, November 1, 2014

destroying mickey

It was a Mickey Mouse mask and he loved it. His mother had bought it for him for the first Halloween he would remember and somehow, his mother’s love and affection seemed intermingled with the pressed plastic that was formed and colored in the likeness of Mickey Mouse. He didn’t quite understand what it was all about but he went along and it turned out to be so exciting and fun. One night, after the sun fell and it was completely dark out, when under normal circumstances he may have gone to bed, his parents instead took him to his best friend’s house. When he got there he found that his best friend also had a similarly pressed plastic and colored mask but one that was in the image of Tweety Bird. Walking in the neighborhood so late at night with so many other masked and costumed children seeking out candy from friendly neighbors and strangers made it seem like all of the normal rules of life that he had learned to that point had suddenly been suspended for this night for no apparent reason other than for the purpose of suspending them. It didn’t make sense but it didn’t have to because it was so much fun. A few days later, he was home and had his mask in his hands. He still loved the mask and cherished the love and affection from his mother that it seemed to possess but he knew that its purpose was specific to the night that had passed. He wasn’t sure where the scissors had come from and whether he had sought them out or if they had just been near and he’s not sure why he began to cut the mask but upon the first slice with the scissors, something came over him. There was something about the feeling when he squeezed his hand and the scissor sliced through the plastic. It was a certain and distinct texture that he could feel in the way the plastic gave way between the scissor’s blades. The plastic was firm to a point but then separated between the blades in a softness that he could feel as if the sensitivity of his fingertips extended to the edge of the scissor’s blades. As he felt the cutting and slicing of the plastic a euphoric glow emanated from the experience in the form of a shape he could feel with his whole body but a shape he could not explain. It felt so unique and new that he continued to apply the scissor’s blades to the mask, slicing and cutting, savoring that texture between the blades, feeling the shape of the glow that emanated from some mystery that he wanted to grasp. To continue feeling the glow and it’s shape he had to keep cutting and slicing even though he knew that at the same time he was destroying the mask and in some way violating what he loved most about it. When the mask was in pieces and the glow had faded he stopped and felt regret fill the space where the glow had been. It was heavy and uncomfortable, weighing him down in yet another new experience that seemed to cast a shadow over everything else. The mask, the magical night, his feelings of excitement all became reminders of what he ultimately did to the mask and the symbol of his mother’s love and affection.

Friday, October 24, 2014

Fate

Life for the little boy was a bowl of discontent but he refused to be dissuaded by such details, which ultimately was the source of his discontent and Fate knew this for which reason it had marked the little boy as among its favorite subjects. One day the little boy came upon the existence of Fate and learned of its cruel intentions and further learned of his own status among the favorite subjects of Fate. Angered by what he realized were the purposeless experiments rendered for Fate’s amusement, the little boy grasped Fate’s neck in his hands and squeezed as fiercely as he could pouring every bit of strength and his love of life into his grip as he could. Fate’s eyes closed and his tongue fell from his mouth as its own life began to wither much like his neck had withered between the little boy’s hands and under the weight his determination.  The little boy was surprised to watch Fate shrivel and become wrinkly like a raisin requiring him to tighten his grip further and further until all that was left of Fate was an actual raisin, dried, shriveled and lifeless cupped in the little boy’s hands. He didn’t really like raisins but he felt he had no choice but to pop the raisin that had once been Fate into his mouth to grind it between his teeth and dissolve it in his saliva until all that was left of it was an unrecognizable mouthful of tinted, slightly chunky, spit. Having no desire to swallow a raisin, and especially a raisin that had once been Fate who so cruelly experimented with his life, he spat his mouthful of spit on the ground. As it turned out, this was all part of Fate’s plan up to the point when the little boy spat the spit on the ground, after which a passing dog happily licked it up, metabolized it and urinated it throughout the neighborhood. Fate had not expected that at all and no longer existed in order to admit defeat and declare the little boy the winner.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

He had a dream

He was older but he could still remember that dream he once had when he was little. It was entirely insignificant now but he wondered why it had seemed so significant to him then. He wasn’t sure if it was the content of the dream or the convincing reality of the dream. Sometimes he would question whether it had been a dream or an actual memory of his early early childhood. Maybe it was one of his first memories? He could not only replay the story of the dream but he could also relive the feelings the dream evoked and that stayed with him afterwards like a warm afterglow indicating some kind of meaning. He wondered if the insignificance of the dream in his present life indicated some wrong decision in life or a series of wrong decisions that he could never recover from and because of which he would never find the right path for the journey of his life. Should he even bother to try now? He wasn’t even sure of that or if there was any meaning to anything at all. Maybe none of it mattered and if none of it did, what should he do then?

Monday, October 6, 2014

the pretender

He generally dabbled in style and completely ignored the truth dressing it up to ensure that he appeared exactly as he thought cool appeared because ultimately what he really wanted to be was cool. Since he was pretending, he thought he would also pretend to have all the answers and know everything because he thought having all the answers and knowing everything was cool. Unfortunately, when the time came that he really needed answers about life, he had forgotten that he only pretended to know everything and believed that he really did know everything and relied on what he thought he knew instead of admitting that he didn’t know anything. Had he been able to admit he didn’t know anything, he could have looked for answers and would have found them. Instead, he acted according to his pretense and believed in what he pretended wondering why life turned out the way it did. But if you were to ask him, he would tell you exactly why his life turned out the way it did and it was usually everyone else’s fault.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

the blues

When he opened the door and walked in, he didn’t expect to walk into a room of blues and had never expected the blues to be as kaleidoscopic as they were.  The blues were in fact a swirling swirlness of swirlieness that swirled his familiar reality into a swirl of utterly blurred blurriness such that he could no longer tell apart his reality from a new reality he had no familiarity with and had been completely unaware of until he lost all sense of unawareness because of the swirling. But he couldn’t distinctively discern what about the unfamiliar reality that he actually was aware of which led him to a kind of unfocused thinking that required him to consider the totality of his new circumstances.  All that he was familiar and unfamiliar with became a new reality that to his surprise seemed similar to the normality he had been familiar with except it was no longer familiar and he never felt the same way about it ever again. 

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

of sesamons and sesamen

The potential of sesame seeds were not fully realized until one day, in a scientific laboratory so far underground that it was immune to international laws and ethics, a monkey was caused to successfully mate with a sesame seed thereby producing the world’s first sesamon. It was a cross between a monkey and a sesame seed, a combination that Mother Nature never intended.  Once this unholy combination was made, Mother Nature knew that more would follow and she was right.  Soon all variety of animals were being caused to mate with sesame seeds until one day, the final line was crossed and the last sesame seed animal combination was made with the creation of the sesaman.  Yes, a human was caused to mate with a sesame seed thereby producing a part sesame seed part man creature. Of all the combinations never intended by Mother Nature, this combination was the least of all intended because of all the seed varieties, Mother Nature had long ago made up her mind that she did not want sesame seeds to gain self-consciousness even if it was as part of some mutant breed of sesame seed crossbred with a human. As soon as the Sesaman developed and fully matured, it began to apply its uncanny intellectual prowess to technological advances never before imagined by humans. It also began to multiply and ravish the earth until a Sesaman civilization grew in size such that it was able to enslave the human race much like they were seen to be enslaved in the 1968 documentary, Planet of the Apes. While the course of human civilization was changed forever, humans found that their work week was reduced considerably because the Sesaman’s advanced technology largely ran by itself by pushing the “On” button and the humans, as a result, were able to divert their attention more fully towards the things they wanted to buy. And the sesamons went on to refurbish old typewriters and used them to write prose comparable to Shakespeare.  

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Master Chicken Fabulous

Master Chicken Fabulous was neither super hero nor super foe but he was fabulous and did super things always with good intentions but not always with good results.  Still, he was credited for his intentions as opposed to the results and it was his intentions that more often resulted in super good things as opposed to super bad things, the latter of which may have resulted largely from his lazy eye. Regardless, no one is quite sure who suggested he take up archery but all agree that the results were super bad. 

Monday, September 29, 2014

loser

The year of his loserdom was simply a one and a half to two year period of cascading realizations about the nature of his underachievement in life. Up until that point, he thought he was on his way and that success was just around the corner.  It may have been but he kept on waiting for that corner to turn in his direction revealing the success he had so hoped for. Other times he worked tirelessly to achieve other goals, some worthy and other unworthy, neither of which he ever achieved,  but in retrospect, during the year of his loserdom, he realized he mistakenly thought that by working towards one thing, he could then achieve another. Alas, in the year of his loserdom he realized that who he was was not embodied in the success he had hoped for but rather who he was was embodied in his failed attempts towards that success.  As the year of his loserdom was about to end, he realized that the success, which may have once been around the corner, was actually so far away that he wasn’t sure he should bother trying anymore and he also realized that he didn’t even really know who he was because as it had turned out, he had been a failure for so long without even knowing it. His lack of realization for so long was a whole other issue that gnawed at him unceasingly until he fully and truly just gave up. The disappointment he felt eventually emerged as the ever present backdrop of his life that he no longer attached to his sense of failure and it just became who he was. 

Sunday, September 28, 2014

the big macaroni

It was a big piece of macaroni, bigger than any piece of macaroni she had ever seen before.  And there it was, in the middle of her plate amongst all the normal macaronis served to her at a fancy restaurant where she sat having met her fiancé’s parents for the first time.  She looked around and noticed that no one else had any big macaronis on their plate and that no one else had even ordered macaroni.  They ordered things like chicken and steak but she had to have macaroni. “I always have to have macaroni!” she thought to herself and now, seeing where her incessant craving for macaroni got her, she wondered why. She was embarrassed, confused and not sure of what to do. She had never read any instructions in any social etiquette books or manuals that ever said anything about what to do when confronted with an enormously large macaroni whilst dining with future in-laws for the first time. “How could this glaring oversight have been missed by all the books and manuals?” she wondered to herself as a nervousness crept up from her stomach, nearly closing her throat.  Before she completely lost herself in the thoughts of her predicament, her finance’s mother asked her, in what seemed to be a slightly condescending tone, “are you alright dear?”. It was a tone that she despised and it triggered something in her that felt primal but so very right.  She inhaled deeply, forked the big macaroni and with a smile said, “Yes, I am fine. Just fine.” and then began to eat the big macaroni without any shame at all.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Meat

Car grinders were like meat grinders in that they churned out meat. The only difference was that the car grinder churned out meat with an overwhelming metallic and motor oily taste but it was that taste that carried with it a cost premium over regular meat not made out of cars. Even those who did not like the strong taste would occasionally spend a little extra to get the meat made from cars because of the extra health benefits including a high mineral content from the metal and oil to lubricate joints and bones. The health benefits of gasoline, which was sometimes added afterwards, needs no explanation.  Whereas meat from cows was called beef and from pigs was called pork, meat from cars was called cow and if you wanted a hamburger made from car, you would order a cowburger, which on one hand made no sense but on the other hand, seemed about right.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

the pigeons of justice

There once was a little boy whose tongue was ripped out by pigeons.  Pigeon psychologists theorized that the attacking pigeons somehow related the boy and his tongue to their mothers and were possibly reminded of being fed worms from their mothers’ mouths when they were little.  This theory caught on and was widely believed because the little boy in fact looked rather pigeon like, especially in the face area, and therefore could have resembled a mother pigeon.  But the truth was that the little boy had interrupted the pigeons from scavenging old popcorn that had fallen to the ground.  He had seen the pigeons pecking at the stale popcorn pieces and rushed in scaring them away.  As if that was not enough, the little boy began pecking at the ground eating the popcorn himself and occasionally turning to the pigeons to stick his tongue out at them as an expression of his victory and evolutionary superiority, of which the little boy was very proud in comparison to the seemingly lowly state of the pigeons.  But the pigeons were proud too and could not let the little boy’s offensive gestures go without retribution.  Some might say their response was excessive, but those who knew the little boy felt justice was served and were relieved that they would never have to hear from the little boy again. 

Monday, September 15, 2014

the sad little boy

Once upon a time there was a really really sad little boy. One day he went out to play and looked up in the sky to see the sun shining down and when he looked up at the sun, he saw that it was smiling at him. Eventually the sun went down but the little boy looked up again and saw that the moon had risen and it was smiling at him too. Soon he had to go to bed and say good night to the moon but just as he was going to go to bed he looked up again and not only saw that the moon was smiling at him but he noticed that all the stars were smiling at him too. When he finally did go to bed he could barely sleep thinking about all the smiles from the sun, the moon and the stars. Before he realized it, he drifted off to sleep. The next day he woke up and remembered all the smiles from the day before. He went outside to play again and eventually found a small pond. He went over to the pond and looked over the edge to see his reflection. For some reason he couldn't quite explain, his reflection surprised him and he couldn't help but smile at what he saw.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

the doorway to his mind


When he ran his fingers though his hair that morning he could feel a foreign knob like thing somewhere on the back of his head. He tried to brush is away but soon realized that it was attached to his skin.  Alarmed that it might be a tick like creature of some kind he rushed to the bathroom and through a complicated mirror arrangement he was able to find the knob like thing and see that it actually looked like an intricately crafted door knob.  Surprised he began to examine the knob and the back of his head and was even more surprised to find an entire door on the back of his head to which the door knob belonged.  He wondered if the door would open and so he gently twisted the knob between his finger and thumb.  It turned quite precisely and made a satisfying clicking sound that would only have been made as the result of fine engineering.  Upon hearing the click he gave a gentle tug and the door to the back of his head opened.  He angled and crouched and tried to peer through the door way but all he could see was a darkness that he could not penetrate with any combination of mirror angle and light source. He had to get on with his day and so he reluctantly closed the door so that he could go but the mystery of what he might see through the doorway smoldered in his mind all day long. So did the question of how he might actually see through the doorway, which he began to think of as the doorway to his mind.  But eventually he realized that he didn’t just want to see into the doorway of his mind but that he wanted to go into it; although, he wasn’t sure how that would be possible without somehow disassociating his self with his body so that his self could reach his mind in a way his body could not.  He decided that astral projection would take too long to master in order to reach his goal and that he didn’t trust shamanic dismemberment.  He figured the best way to pass through the doorway to his mind would be in his dreams at night so that very night he prepared himself for the journey.  Once in the dream state he was able to disassociate his self from his body and he was able to reach the door way that resided on the back of his head. He twisted the door knob once again, felt the satisfying click and pulled the door open to see the same darkness he saw earlier that day.  Without hesitation he stepped through and found that the doorway to his mind led him to a staircase that seemed to descend endlessly into the depths of his mind.  He could only see so far down the staircase because the descent was obscured by darkness only a few steps beyond where he stood. He wanted to know where the staircase ultimately led to and so he began the descent step by step wondering what he'd find along the way.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

the sound of all sounds

There once was a little boy who could hear the sounds.  He loved to hear the sounds no matter where they came from whether they were intended to make music or were part of environmental circumstance including weather phenomena and precipitation or if they were the voices from the animal and insect kingdoms that ruled the world.  The little boy knew that no matter what sounds he might hear or where they might come, that all the sounds ultimately came from the sound of all sounds and what he wanted to hear most in all the world was the sound of all sounds in the purest of all forms.  He also knew that he would have to search for the sound of all sounds if he really wanted to hear it so the little boy set off on a journey in search of the sound of all sounds.  His journey took him on hiking expeditions and airplanes, on philosophical quests and deep ponderings and ultimately to the face of the most gigantic rock in all of history, which he didn’t expect to find but just so happened to be right in the way of where his journey took him.  He intuitively knew for some reason that going around the rock would most likely mean that he would never hear the sound of all sounds so he sat down in front of the rock and began to think of how he might continue his journey.  He didn’t realize it but he happened to sit right down in the very same place a another self of his had sat down to contemplate a different solution to a different problem in a different space time continuum that just so happened to intersect with the little boy’s space time continuum of that very moment.  This coincidental timing infused the two selves of the little boy together causing a mind energy blossom to dissipate into the fabric of reality calling other selves to the little boy, which selves infused themselves with the selves that had begun to infuse with the little boy’s self.  As self upon self infused themselves with the little boy to become one with him, his self-consciousness recognized a growing consciousness that grew with each additional infused self.  The immaterial nature of his growing consciousness was not impeded by nearby objects of the material world such as nearby plant life, the ground he sat on nor was his consciousness impeded by the most gigantic rock in all of history.  Soon his consciousness extended far beyond his body and even into the rock until eventually it had taken upon the entirety of the rock and the little boy found himself at the very center of the rock with his consciousness as large as the most gigantic rock in all of history and growing larger and larger.  Since he was someone who could hear the sounds he thought he would try to hear the sounds inside the rock and upon hearing the sounds he realized that he had found the sound of all sounds right there in a place he never expected to travel nor was it a place he ever expected to find the sound of all sounds.  Meanwhile, selves  were continually flocking to this extraordinary  happening and his consciousness continued to expand faster and faster at an exponential rate until his consciousness filled the entire earth, then the entire galaxy and eventually the entire universe including the consciousnesses and brain activity of all living creatures, the patterns of planetary orbits and the power of light emitted from innumerable suns and stars.  As this happened, the sensory overload you might expect was avoided by the little boy because the more his consciousness expanded, the more he focused on hearing the sound of all sounds and as the power of his consciousness increased from all that it encompassed, his focus on the sound of all sounds increased and he ultimately heard the sound of all sounds in its most pure form, which sound amazed the little boy beyond any amazement he ever imagined possible.  The amazement was so thoroughly amazing that eventually he actually lost consciousness and all the moments and infusions of selves began to diffuse and go on their way to whichever space time continuum they originated from.  When the little boy was restored to his usual self and the consciousness he was familiar with, he awoke and found himself in front of the rock with the memory of all that happened including a memory of the sound of all sounds.  But, unfortunately, despite his memory of the sound of all sounds he couldn’t replay in his mind the actual sound of all sounds as he had just heard.  And while he could still hear the sounds in general, having heard the sound of all sounds changed the little boy and instead of just hearing the sounds, he began to listen hoping again to someday experience the sound of all sounds in its most pure of all forms as he did that day in the middle of the most gigantic rock in all of history. 

another weird topic

One day, Mr. Karoma felt a weirdness weirding through but he couldn’t figure out exactly what the weirdness was thereby causing him to feel perplexed and uneasy. Still, he had things to do and went about his day doing the things he had to do.  The emerging weirdness began to feel like it was going to give him a facial tick so he periodically, once every 3 to 4 minutes, would try to motion his eyes as far down as they could go trying to focus on his lower left check but like most people, his lower left check, as well as his other check, was not visible to his eyes without the aid of a mirror. When one was available he made use of it and observed his lower left check but when one wasn’t available he kept trying to look at it every 3 to 4 minutes by forcing his eyes to try and focus on that check.  He was seen by many people that day as he tried to focus on that cheek and to them, Mr. Karoma looked like a weird man.  But his weird look was not nearly as weird as when the weirdness finally did weird through and in fact, his left check did develop a rather severe facial tick causing at least one women who witnessed it to exclaim in a loud voice, “oh my!”  The facial tick eventually culminated in a series of almost violent spasms until something indeed weird began to weird through the surface of the skin making him look so weird because of the weirdness but also because of his equally weird reaction to the weirdness so as to make the entire situation a totality of weirdness unlike any weirdness ever witnessed by anyone present, especially Mr. Karoma.  As the weirdness ensued it began to take form as a kind of intangible, translucent flowingness that oozed out of Mr. Karoma’s cheek spilling onto the ground forming a puddle beneath him except it wasn’t really a puddle of anything other than a puddle of weird intangible, translucent flowingness.  Mr. Karoma was speechless and he didn’t know what to do while onlookers stared equally as speechlessly at him.  While he began to wonder what had happened and what might be wrong with him the translucent puddle of weirdness began to rise up and he thought it might go back into his cheek but instead it began to take on a shape and eventually took on the shape of what could be described as a gender neutral human-like being complete with facial features but no hair.  This weird being turned to Mr. Karoma and graciously bowed to him offering many thanks until it departed by seeming to evaporate before their eyes.  And what was really weird about it was that when this human-like form spoke to Mr. Karoma, it spoke with a Scottish accent.

Thursday, July 31, 2014

His Happy Birthday

There once was a little boy who had a happy birthday.  It wasn’t a unique day or a special day or even a very remarkable day but for some reason it was a happy birthday.  He woke up like he did every day and did the things he does every day when he gets up.  He left his house in the morning and since it was summer he didn’t need to put on a jacket like he would when it wasn’t summer and he appreciated this very much.  The sun was shining and he imagined it was probably shining on the actual day of his birth much the same and he liked the thought of this very much.  There were a few clouds like cotton balls floating in the sky gently whispering their morning greetings and if he wasn’t mistaken, they added a little special greeting to him since it was his birthday.  He waved to the clouds and said thank you and the clouds waved back with a smile that obviously expressed their kind thoughts of the little boy for his gracious manner.  Soon he was on his way to explore the world again like he did every day until it was time to come home.  Upon arriving home, subsequent to his world explorations, there were festivities large and small in his honor, each of which he appreciated the same no matter the size and regardless of the fireworks, growling lions and adulating adorers.  He was simply content that it was his birthday and that it had been a nice day. 

Thursday, July 24, 2014

cereal

She woke up, went down stairs and got a bowl and spoon out for the cereal she was about to have for breakfast.  She knew which bowl she wanted and what kind of spoon she wanted but she wasn’t sure about the kind of cereal she wanted.  She could imagine the crunch between her teeth and the cool milk in her mouth but she couldn’t figure out which kind of cereal would best satisfy her breakfast urge.  In the end she made the choice she always makes when she can’t decide which cereal to choose and so she poured herself a bowl of Good Choices, which was really her favorite kind of cereal anyways

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Flying Fish

While some people like to fly a kite and others like to fly fish, he liked to fly a fish, which was more like flying a kite as opposed to fly fishing.  One day at the park, while he was flying a fish, members of the organization, People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals, which is long for P.E.T.A., attacked him for his flying a fish ways with verbal assaults that would have not only embarrassed his own mother but that would have also embarrassed their own mothersl.  Hurt and dismembered he went home to heal in the comfort of his own bed and regenerate some parts.  Meanwhile his fish ruminated in the fish bowl wondering when he would fly again, dreaming of those sky-high views of the earth below and the wind in his scales.  He was angry with those members of P.E.T.A. for interfering with the favored routines his life.  He had a long time to continue ruminating in his bowl and ruminate he did considering how one day he might exact revenge. 

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

breakfast at the bed & breakfast

The bed and breakfast was known far and wide and visited abundantly due to the word of mouth reputation it achieved for the breakfasts it served much more so than for the beds in which the guests slept.  Among the breakfast items on the menu, that were much loved and complimented, was one item that was not loved or complimented nor was it even understood or ever ordered, which was a single serving of squiggly bread squirrel toast said to be made with fresh squirrel, powdered cinnamon was optional.  While none of the guests could imagine that anyone would order such a thing, once they viewed that the item was available on the menu (and discovered that such a thing actually existed), they considered the squirrels that ran along the bed and breakfast grounds with much more sympathy.  They also fed the squirrels with much more hesitancy wondering if they were participating in fattening them up to become part of a future meal (or maybe side dish, they really weren’t sure)for some cruel guest that might enjoy beakingfasting on innocent squirrels with fluffy tails.  Some people assumed the tails were not eaten as part of squiggly bread squirrel toast but they were wrong as the tails were eaten, but with the hair removed of course.  In fact, the squirrel tails were what led to the naming of the dish since upon deep frying the squirrel as part of the preparation, the tail achieved a rather squiggly look, but then again, the legs often curled and contorted and looked pretty squiggly too. 

Friday, June 27, 2014

the dead body

It wasn’t that he meant to find a dead body but he had always wanted to find a dead body and he was surprised that he finally did even though he wasn’t actually looking for a dead body in that moment when he found it.  His next surprise was his realization that he had never thought beyond his initial hope to find a dead body.  He had only thought about finding one but never considered what to do with one once he found one and now that he had come upon a dead body he realized that he was going to have to think fast to come up with an idea of what to do with it.  His first idea was to kick it and when he did he understood what dead weight meant and he felt a little bad but he wasn’t sure why.  Then he thought about conducting experiments on it but he figured the experiments might make him feel even worse than kicking it did.  He went through a few more ideas in his head but none of them felt like they would satisfy the unexplainable curiosity he had about the dead body.  Feeling frustrated he said aloud to the body, “I wish I knew why I even wanted to find a dead body”, which unexplainably made him feel a little closer to figuring out what to do with the dead body.  He said a few more things to the body and more and more he felt like he was on the edge of discovering what it was he really wanted to find.  Eventually he began talking to the body and carrying on entirely one sided conversations with it and forgetting he had even wanted to figure out what to do with it.  He began to tell the dead body things he had never told anyone else and upon peeling off those layers he went further down and told the body things he had never even told himself until eventually he was exploring the deepest darkest corners of his inner workings and telling them all to the dead body, grappling with understandings and working them out in the open while the dead body patiently listened.  The day went on and the sun got ready to set reflecting golden light off the dead body.  It seemed to him as if the body was glowing in the cool evening and it all looked rather beautiful to him causing him to grow quiet and reflective.  He wondered who the dead body had been and what kind of life it had led and how it came to be where he found it that day.  It was beginning to get dark and he thought he should move on, so he bid the dead body farewell and left it behind feeling thankful for what a good listener it was. 

all the weird little children

She was a contemplative little girl and being as contemplative as she was, she spent much of her time staring up at the sky admiring white clouds against blues skies while contemplating the questions she had about life, the world and the nature of reality.  Amongst all her contemplations, she wondered most about what happened to all the weird little children.  She knew that society was wholly dominated by normal people and that weird people were seldom seen amongst polite folk with manners characterizable within a very narrow range of acceptability.  They were the people that she understood everyone else was expected to be like but she figured that not all the weird children would ever be able to act like the normal people or acquire such finely tuned manners like the normal people had.  And if the weird children weren’t able to be like the normal people, what happened to the weird children when they grew up?  Her questions set her on a course that guided her through much of her childhood and into early adulthood when one day it came time for her to step into the life of a normal person.  She peered through the doorway that led to normality and observed the face of what normality looked like and found that it was largely boring and dumb looking so she closed the door and went on her own way.  Later on that day she gathered her thoughts and reflected on the choice she made and felt very satisfied and excited about her better understand of what happens to all the weird little children.

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Broken




Once upon a time a little boy went to a ska concert where he really got into the music and jumped up and down, skanked around and roughed it up in the mosh pit along with everyone else.  Everyone’s elbows were flying and their heads bobbing as they danced and jumped around, bumping into each other and even giving and taking a few good shoves now and then, which served more like celebratory handshakes in which a shared exuberance for life was agreed upon and exchanged by the later bruised participants.  In a particularly blissful moment of rapture, the little boy’s glasses unfortuitously levitated from his face as the boy twisted and turned in a tangle of bodies lost to horns and guitars screaming the meaning of life.  Upon their decent, his glasses bounced off of bodies just like the bodies bounced off of bodies but whereas people landed on their feet and kept dancing, the glasses landed on the floor where they were kicked and stepped on without regard.  The little boy kept on dancing and although he lamented the loss of his glasses he figured he wasn’t going to find them amongst so many dancing people.  When the crowd square danced, he figured they were square dancing on his glasses and that there wasn’t much chance they would survive but that maybe he could later find the lenses which he could tape to his face in order to be able to drive to work the next day.  But to his surprise, after the music stopped and the crowd began to clear out, someone found his glasses and offered them to the little boy in communal appreciation.  It took some bending and twisting but he was able to make the glasses fit his face again and the crowd sang as loud as they could to continue the celebration of life set into motion that night by the ska band.  And the little boy sang along too.   

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

The Perverted Turtle

One day a perverted turtle showed up on the nice family’s lawn doing the most offensive things the young family had ever seen.   The children cried and the mother made exclamations such as “oh my” and “well I never”.   The father recognized his duty to take charge and said to his family, in the deepest most monotone suburban dad voice he could muster, “don’t look family, it’s a perverted turtle”.  They ignored the turtle the rest of the morning and tried to act normal with each other but it was obvious things weren’t normal.  The tension in their house that morning was unbearable and they all just wanted life to go back to normal.  Unfortunately for them, the family dog had also taken notice of the turtle and it being a dog, took great interest in the things the turtle was doing.  Eventually the turtle did leave to carry on its perverted activities in the depths of murky ponds and near large rocks on golf courses but the dog never forgot the things it saw that day and the family’s life was never the same again.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Roast Beef

The roast beef tasted like cold death on a severed tongue.  It was hard to swallow because he didn’t want to have to actually chew and taste it.  The cold lump made its way slowly down his throat followed by regret reflected in night windows.  Out there somewhere there were the stars in the firmament but it didn’t seem to matter anymore.  He was lost in the thoughts of some otherworldly fog dancing illusions through his head as real as anything else surrounding him but more important than attempts of his life.  The absurdity he faced was as difficult to swallow as the roast beef so he inhaled deeply and let go of it all on the out breath since in the end, nothing really mattered at all. 

Monday, June 9, 2014

His Bankrupt Heart

He didn't mean to frivolously spend more love than he had but he had and once he did his heart suffered a bankruptcy that he hadn’t realized but eventually experienced when he was in one of those moments where all you need is love but instead the emptiness of his heart dragged him down and made him feel so heavy.  He willed himself to do what someone with a heart full of love would do but everything he did felt insincere and meaningless because he was simply making the motions, which was difficult because of the heaviness.  Without love he couldn’t sustain the weight of the meaninglessness so eventually he failed much to his own disappointment but which lead him to the suspicion that he might have a bankrupt heart.  He stood in front of the mirror and peeled back the layers of skin and muscle. With a spoon he pried open a wider space between his rips to look through so that he might see what was happening with his heart but he couldn’t actually see inside of his heart to know what was going on.  Part of him didn’t want to look because he didn’t know what he would find but he knew he had to look inside to know for sure if he had a bankrupt heart.  He slowly turned the knob and applied a gentle force to open the door to his heart and braced himself for what he might see.  Once the door was open and he looked inside he simply saw that it was empty, which he thought to himself was what he should have expected to find since he had thought he might have a bankrupt heart.  His suspicions were confirmed and he wondered what to do as he stood there in the mirror looking at his bleeding chest and the door to his heart dangling open, the hinges creaking with each breath, when suddenly a rush of something came from somewhere and swooshed past him, summersaulting into his chest, filling up his empty heart.  Feeling the weight of whatever it was, he instinctually closed the door, removed the spoon and placed two band-aids over the flap of skin that he so recently peeled back for the exploratory procedure he performed on himself.  He considered the new feeling in his chest as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and smiled realizing how much he really loved everything. 

Friday, June 6, 2014

Space

Just like it’s wrong to say that they aren’t making any more real estate, it’s equally wrong to say that they aren’t making any more space.  Along the edges of the universe, between known existence and unknown somethingness, which could also be nothingness but no one knows for sure, space farmers toil and work planting space seeds, fertilizing and nurturing them until the seeds grow into plants and the plants eventually produce an intriguing black fruit that will ripen becoming so black as to transcend all blackness until it becomes almost reflective, mirroring the vast darkness of the universe with all its planets and stars and mysteries floating throughout.  When the time comes and within a breath of wonderment, the fruit itself will seem to disappear so subtly that it's barely perceptible, as if evaporating from the outside in, shrinking before the very eyes of the space farmers who anticipate the moment but who also know that the fruit is not really disappearing at all but becoming more space just as it was intended to do and leaving behind another space seed to continue the cycle.  It’s hard to tell whether the new space is simply added on to the edges of the universe to extend the universe’s reach out into the unknown somethingness or if the newly harvested space pushes the existing space further towards the center of the universe where it is theorized a black hole converts space into the unknown somethingness that is funneled through worm holes beyond the known universe thereby maintaining an equilibrium of space within the universe.  Either way, there is nothing like the smell of fresh space.

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

friends

He tucked his fish in, kissed its head and said good-night before turning out the lights.  “Sweet dreams little fish” he said and closed the bedroom door.  He loved that little fish like any little boy would and it wouldn’t be long before they were outside again playing catch, flying kites and exploring the world together.  One day, his little fish wanted to go into town so they headed towards town to explore the world, the fish leading the way and the boy following.  The little boy noticed that the further and further towards town they went, the more and more fish there appeared to be.  His fish seemed to be rather friendly with the other fish and soon the little boy felt strange and out of place.  Disheartened, he made his way back home all alone feeling abandoned and forgotten by the little fish he loved so much.  As the day went on and was about to conclude, the little boy thought he might never see his fish again but just as he was about to abandon all hope, the fish came home and sat down next to the little boy where he was watching the television.  “Boy am I glad to be home”, the fish said.  “Let’s not go into town again, those were some strange fish”.  And with that, they contentedly watched the television together until bedtime. 

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

future cloud rancher of america


It wasn’t long before he made up his mind and decided to start a new life as a cloud rancher in Montana.  He could imagine it so easily it seemed more like a memory from the past than a dream for the future. Clouds as big as apples and just as wistful to raise amongst the blue skies of the open West.  He’d keep a good eye on them and make sure they didn’t get too rowdy, keeping them in line and all that like an experienced rancher would do. Checking in on them early in the morning and ensuring through the day they were content and growing up healthily and plump, billowy and delicate like cotton candy with good dispositions and properly schooled in the things clouds are schooled in.  He could feel it in his bones even more than his bones.  The good life.  A Shangri-La for his mind.  Happiness for his soul.  Cloud ranching in Montana.  He was on his way. 

Monday, May 5, 2014

Dr. Thompson

He was the premature reincarnation of Hunter S. Thompson preceding Dr. Thompson’s death by several years. Being premature, peculiarities possessed him like any peculiarities would in anyone reincarnated prematurely; however, the result was to partially negate the once pronounced peculiarities of the original Dr. Thompson himself leaving his reincarnated self less peculiar than he previously was.  The less peculiar reincarnated Dr. Thompson was thus not so peculiar but rather just slightly odd and as it turned out the difference between peculiar and slightly odd was the difference between brilliance and ordinary. He went on in fact to live a rather ordinary life burdened with the gnawing sense that there was something more to life, which is in fact the hallmark of a very ordinary life. Had the Reincarntor 5000 functioned as it should have back on that day of February 20, 2005, as opposed to malfunctioning several years before, the world would have had another fully peculiar Hunter S. Thompson to walk the earth and would have been better for it.  But it did malfunction when it did causing the world to be an all the more ordinary place.

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Him

A lot of people learn to dispose of their bad habits throughout life but not him. He collected and curated them as part of his own personal museum of dysfunction that was on display for all to see, free of charge and open to the public seven days a week.  For some people he was more like a theatre that blurred the line between actor and audience demanding participation as well as victimization in the unknown plot of his tragedy.  Chores ranging from janitorial to managerial were usually abdicated to whoever was near and capable or gullible or ignorant enough to accept him as a responsibility when he appeared in the storyline of their life.  Their demise was just another display culminating in the sum total of who he was, another tragic act leaving distant observers wondering how the story would ever resolve and conclude itself.  Hope had long ago been displaced in those that cared about him; displaced by a disappointment they could no longer bear.

Grapes like bees

He raises grapes like some people raise bees meaning he keeps them in a hive and polishes their wings to a blinding shine.  Grapes, however, fare less well than bees in traffic often meeting their ends upon the windshields of vehicles traveling at relatively high speeds.  Grapes sometimes bounce off of the windshields of slower cars but they burst upon impact with the faster cars leaving a grapey pulpy mess that windshield wipers alone can’t wash off.  In reality, the grapes that survive barely survive at all because of soft mushy bruises and broken wings incapable of raising the grapes to flight ever again.  And this is where the cruel irony of evolution is sadly evident.  Grapes had become such proficient fliers through their history that eventually they lost the need for legs entirely and eventually lost their legs in all actuality.  Laying there bruised and broken by the side of the road, these poor grapes slowly succumb to their injuries and yield to the call of death beckoning them to the spirit world.  What is to be learned from the sad plight of such unfortunate grapes is unknown and it is also mostly unknown that grapes even have wings.  

Friday, April 25, 2014

Honey

When the farmers made a deal with the devil to kill off the bees, they weren’t thinking of the consequences because that’s how the devil made deals.  They were just thinking of those summery picnics with plenty of watermelon sliced and ready for the eating.  They didn’t want those bees buzzing around their watermelons.  They could buzz around their flowers and their crops and even their grilled meats but not around their sliced watermelon.  That is where any self-respecting farmer drew the line and so when the opportunity came to make a deal with the devil, they were ready.  And it was simple too.  The devil said to just spray their crops with as many pesticides as they could find and that the bees would die.  In retrospect, the farmers wondered if they really needed the devil to tell them how to kill off the bees but regardless, they were happy with the results even if it did cost them their souls.  

Monday, March 31, 2014

Underwater

He didn’t know why his mom and brother were taking him to the bottom of the lake but he looked towards the surface of the water above that shown green shafts of light below and his heart sank as he descended further down.  His brother told him to stay there and he understood that meant live there and he wondered what it was going to be like to live at the bottom of the lake forever.  He didn’t take this as unkindness; although, he knew he would miss his family and all that was familiar to him.  The lake was a cold and wet place and it was dark and there were fish.  Soon his brother and his mother were back on the boat and he watched them from under the surface of the water.  He felt so close to them in that moment but he knew they’d soon be gone and that broke his heart more than his heart had ever been broken before. 

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

beyond

Traveling at near light speed had become a rather customary and safe affair.  His speed was not the problem that morning rather it was his decision to follow the subtle path that beaconed him between the second and third dimensions.  He knew the elusive inter-dimensional space was not well known but it seemed like a good idea at the time until that moment when the unforeseen space-time ripple threw him for an interstellar tumble.  Within seconds he realized he was going to miss his appointment and a few seconds after that he realized he might never be heard from again.  He had no idea what direction he had been thrown in and he had no idea how to stop the inertia he had become subject to.  Resigned to his fate he tumbled along for an unknown quantity of time watching the universe spin and spin around him until eventually, and for unknown reasons, the spinning begin to slow down until ever so gradually he slowed down and stopped in some unknown region of the universe.  He floated there looking around himself to gather his surroundings, which he noticed were completely empty of anything that could possibly surround him.  All he could see was an empty blackness.  He peered into the blackness and thought that where ever he had been thrown to was the emptiest region of the universe he had ever seen.  Then he thought that maybe he wasn’t in the universe at all.  Had he been thrown beyond the universe?  Had he been thrown out of the universe entirely?  He had always wondered what was beyond the universe and to look around it seemed to him like there wasn’t anything at all. 

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Empty

He didn’t intend to become a shell of a man and he didn’t realize that was what he had become until one day, late in life, he took an actual look at himself and discovered that he in fact had become a shell of a man.  He reached deep inside himself, deep inside his chest cavity, and felt around and felt nothing but the empty swish and swash of emptiness occasionally feeling his boney spinal cord, which he was glad to feel.  At least there was his spinal cord, he thought, otherwise he might have slumped over long ago into a lump of immovable flesh and he would have been deprived of the ability to do so much of what he had enjoyed doing in life such as reading the newspaper and…and….and….and…, and to his surprise, he couldn’t think of anything else in life that he actually enjoyed.  All he could think of was that he enjoyed reading the newspaper every morning.  It was what he looked forward to and it was what motivated him to get out of bed in the morning.  He thought some more about it and thought some more after that and he couldn’t figure out what there was about the newspaper that might be enjoyable.  Upon deep reflection he realized that newspapers mostly reported on the problems that precipitated from the progress that was supposed to fix all the problems and the dissatisfaction of life felt by so many after they bought so much of the stuff that was assured to provide so much satisfaction.  He started to wonder how much of his life he wasted with all the problems and stuff that he ingested through the syringe of the newspaper.  He felt agitated and needed to move around and dissipate an unsettling energy that overcame him.  He got up and began to walk around and eventually found himself walking around outside.  He was about to conclude that his entire life had been wasted but was soon distracted when he began to observe things as he walked around outside.  Upon observing things, he found himself thinking about the things he observed and then began wondering about the things he was thinking about and wondering what else he might observe if he were to walk some more or if he were to walk somewhere else that he had never been before.  More and more he observed, thought and wondered and wondered what more there was to observe in the world and he desired more and more to observe whatever there was to observe and wherever he might observe such things.  After spending considerable time observing, thinking and wondering he started to feel something inside of him and the more he observed, thought and wondered, the more he felt something in there.  He got curious as to what might be going on inside of him so he reached deep inside himself again and felt around.  To his surprise, instead of the swish and swash of empty emptiness that he remembered feeling before, he felt the squish and squash of strange gelatinous liquids and lumps.  He tried to grip those lumps but mostly they slipped from his grasp until finally he was able to find one that he was able to wrap his hand around and hold tightly as he pulled it from his chest cavity.  As he pulled this mysterious object from his cavity, he was more excited to learn what he might observe than by the fact that he was no longer just a shell of a man.  To his further surprise, he observed a flower unlike any he had ever seen before and he wondered how it got in there and then, as he reached back in to replace it, he wondered what other things he might grow in there.  

Thursday, March 6, 2014

strange night


It was a strange night and got even stranger when I started eating this weird bird and I wasn’t even sure if it was cooked or raw or vegetarian but I didn’t care at the time.  I just starting eating like I hadn’t eaten in so long but then I remembered I had eaten not too long ago because I had eaten breakfast earlier on and it seemed ironic that I had eaten an egg for breakfast and then I was eating this weird bird later that night.  I intuitively felt this strange notion that coalesced into new knowledge but it was new knowledge that I couldn’t believe because it revealed that I was eating the bird that had been born from the egg that I had already eaten for breakfast and my mind couldn’t possibly comprehend how such a time line could exist wherein I could eat the future bird from an already eaten egg but somehow it made sense when I realized that upon ingesting the egg into my being it gave birth to my existence which existence was the essence of the egg’s potential embodied in this weird bird that I was eating meaning that I was essentially eating myself and ingesting my own being and incorporating myself into the structure of my own flesh, blood, bones and life force.  Like I said, it was a strange night and it got even stranger and I wasn’t sure what moment marked the beginning and the end or if it even mattered.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

a bit of wondering


He set out to do something and wondered if he could persuade others to join him to engage in atrocities and bad things funded by the bitcoins he luckily received as payment for all the shoveling he did yesterday afternoon on the organic carrot farm.  That got him thinking on the nature of luck and happenstance and chance and he wondered what all the coincidences in the world meant and if they could be calculated by a mathematical genius.  And he wondered if he would be lucky enough to find such a genius to make such a calculation and if that genius would accept bitcoins as payment for his services.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

signs

The sign flashed obnoxiously in the dark alley, the only sign of its kind. Neon orange and tubular like so many other neon signs.  It seemed to advertise something familiar, something that all neon signs try to sell.  Something he once wanted but never quite had.  Something from his youth maybe or even a more distant past such as a past life.  He wasn't sure exactly but what ever it was, it caused him to stop and stare at the sign blinking on and off until it wasn't blinking anymore but rather commanding him according to its advertisement and with each blink repeating the word, "drink some carrot juice".  He opened the door below the sign and walked through slowly not sure of what he'd find.  Once the door closed behind him he stood in the entryway staring much like he had just stared at the sign wondering if there was some other meaning to what he was seeing.  Tables and chairs and people in the chairs with their arms on the tables everywhere while the people were going about their own business conversing and such with one common denominator amongst them.  They all had a glass of carrot juice, neon orange just like the sign outside.  He wondered if he had made a mistake by entering.  Maybe this was a meeting of a close group of friends or a cult of some kind, he thought to himself.  He wasn't sure what it was but he felt like he didn't belong and that he shouldn't have gone in at all.  He wanted to escape before they noticed him and were not nice to him as he assumed they wouldn't be because groups of people are never nice to outsiders.  Shifting his weight from one foot to another as he prepared to leave caused the floor beneath him to creek so subtly but it was just enough of a disturbance in the flow of conversation and drinking and general on-goings that everyone stopped what they were doing to notice him at the entryway.  As if mimicking the neon sign that lured him inside everyone offered him the same words of the sign, "drink some carrot juice".  But when they said it, it seemed more like an invitation as opposed to a command and as it turned out, they were all very nice.