memories

They were syrupy memories that kind of oozed down his brain slowly and seeped down deeply causing him to occasionally stop whatever it was he was doing and pay attention to each detail that made itself apparent in all dimensions of sight, sound, feeling and significance. Those dimensions coalesced together and aged so finely that they eventually began to glow causing a paralysis within him as he savored these old memories of friendships long deceased.  Maybe those memories wouldn’t be so disruptive if they didn’t stand in such contrast to the watered down future that became the daily routine of his life. He wasn’t even sure if it really was his life that was so watered down or if it was just the future in general and whether those old friends were living watered down lives as well.  He wondered where they were and whether their memories where nearly as thick and syrupy but while he might wonder he really didn’t want to know so he never attempted to contact them. Maybe they weren’t living as some diluted version of their younger selves and knowing that would place the blame squarely on himself for the choices he made that ultimately didn’t follow the trajectory he had begun so long ago. In the back of his mind he might actually know that the blame was his but that was too painful a truth to bring into his conscience; although, he also wondered where he went wrong. What bad advice didn’t he think through and adopted as his own because of a blind faith assumption that people knew what they were talking about? He could think of a few but it all felt too late to do anything about. He could throw out those assumptions now and in part he already did, which is why he knew he went wrong somewhere but there were too many consequences piled on top of consequences that he had to sort through before he could ever be free and from the bottom he was looking up from, it all seemed too far away to try to do anything about so he went on living his watered down life, watered down every day just a little more.  

the best ceviche in the world

All he really wanted was the best ceviche in the world but instead he somehow ended up with piles and piles of the unwanted detritus from circumstantial consequences. Eventually it got to the point where he felt so cluttered with stuff he never even asked for or wanted that he began indiscriminately hauling thing after thing to the curb where it piled high and was obviously visible to any passersby. When he finally finished carrying the stuff out he noticed a sense of vacancy that he looked forward to enjoying. He looked at the pile of stuff and it seemed like more stuff than he had ever remembered taking possession of, as if it had expanded and multiplied once out in the open. He had hoped that people would want his unwanted things and would take them from the pile to keep as their own. He left the pile alone for a while and eventually wandered back to see if anything had been taken and to his satisfaction he noticed the pile had somewhat diminished and he felt a further satisfaction that maybe other people could use the things he wanted to get rid of. Eventually everything was gone except for some scattered papers that he thought he should pick up and put in the garbage. He picked up a few of the papers and noticed an unfamiliar bowl of average size that appeared to having something in it. He picked it up and examined it looking at it, smelling it and eventually tasting whatever it was in the bowl and it was exactly what it he thought it might be. It was ceviche and from what he could tell, and to his surprise, it was the best ceviche in the world.

the generation of the destruction

Not everyone of the generation of the destruction clung to the memory of how things were. Many people did and they were miserable because they could not adapt to the new reality but there were others who hadn’t been served well by the false notions of progress and superficial happiness of consumption that was unreasonable and unsustainable. There were some who celebrated the destruction because there were aware of the lies and had always struggled against them but their efforts seemed futile until the destruction. The destruction was the great revealer of what was important and what wasn’t. Subsequent to the destruction, it was necessary to build a new foundation of principals and security. Those who experienced the freedom offered by the destruction adapted well and quickly found meaning as they engaged to establish the new foundation. They also felt a sense of satisfaction in their accomplishments as opposed to a sense of loss for what had been destroyed. For many, the destruction lifted a burden from their shoulders and cleared their schedules that previously kept them from what was truly important. Those that were saddened were the same who had been, prior to the destruction, preoccupied with avoiding the emptiness of the world they had built, incorrectly believing that they needed to continue to build and build and build upon what they already built so that they could outpace the emptiness not realizing that no matter how much they filled the world with their ideas that it would still be empty. Their ideas were an insatiable cancer that caused the emptiness and so the emptiness grew until the peak of emptiness was reached, the peak beyond which it could be sustained and the destruction naturally emerged as a consequence. Eventually, those people succumbed to the secondary destruction, which was more subtle in that those people eventually just disappeared. They couldn’t reconcile what the destruction revealed about themselves with what they wanted to believe. Before they could create their own truths by merely wanting to believe, but ultimately, the truth of the destruction arrived and dealt a justice that was truly blind and also cruel and without mercy because it didn't care about anything and just was. Mostly those that were willing to face an uncertain future remained together with those that were always uncertain. They simply focused on what could be done in the moment finding that they stumbled upon many moments of peaceful happiness along the way and they found that sufficient to continue on. 

wishes and honesty

Halfhearted attempts at recognition to simply appease rather than appreciate what he offered in revealing sincerity was all he could gather for an audience. He accepted their insincerity in return hoping he was wrong but all along feeling that they never really look at what came from his heart. He was willing to give it all but it didn’t seem to matter and so he wondered if everything he had to give really wasn’t that much in the end. He was as sure of his mediocracy as he was at their insincerity, a nagging truth that he could avoid but which colored the backdrop of everything. He looked for the nothingness of black velvet but the uncomfortable glimmer was always there illuminating and casting shadows. That’s just how it was he determined, some were and some weren’t and he just wasn’t. He just wanted to be but wanting to be only amounts to wishes and wishes were as ordinary as most people including himself so he wondered why he even bothered to try. He wondered if it would just be better to exorcise his wishes and replace them with the acceptance of his limitations. Save his time and energy for the indentured work that always called and from which there was no release and wish only for numbness from the aches and pains that graceless service offered. He would appease the Gods just like everyone had appeased him. Halfhearted attempts at the life they destined for him regardless of whatever sincerity they offered. 

the shape of sound

He watched the sounds dance across the water as they gently kissed its mirrored surface ever so slightly, not even causing a ripple and in the same instant, lifting off to then ripple through the air until reaching his ears. One after another and sometimes multiple sounds at once arrived to his ears sounding so right to him, repeating the same dance over and over that he was watching them perform so elegantly. The beauty of the sounds and connection between what he saw and heard placed him in a space where he simply fell into an order unlike he ever experienced before and all he could think to himself to describe the sensation was that everything felt so right to him unlike ever before. He relaxed and his body relaxed and his muscled and bones relaxed and his mind relaxed letting go of so much he didn’t need to hold onto. The more he relaxed, the more he observed the dance of the sounds across the water and the sounds that reached his ears and he began to further observe the nature of this phenomena whereby together this interaction between what he saw and heard created a wholeness that was as real as any shape he ever witnessed yet as intangible as anything that never existed. This dichotomy inspired a desire within him to perceive this intangible shape of sound between his hands so that he might grasp both the feeling and meaning, so that he might further experience the sensation to where he felt he was being led so that he might understand a new mystery he hadn’t known before. He reached his hands outward imagining he could hold the sounds like he would hold a ball or sphere of some kind. Just as he felt his hands were in the right place he could almost sense the shape that he was trying to feel but he could also sense that it was slipping between his fingers and wasn’t quite there as he moved his hands closer together and then drawing them apart trying to find where and what the shape was. Anticipation built and seemed to gather on the tips of his fingers as he felt so close to grasping the shape but then bordering on frustration when he couldn’t feel what he thought he should be able feel. Before he actually became frustrated, he broke his hands from their place, bending his elbow and motioning his arm so that he could run one of his hands through his hair. He didn’t realize that as his fingers moved towards him, they traced invisible canals through the air in which the sounds fell, following along the paths of his fingers eventually running through his hair just like his fingers, between strands and along the skin of his scalp. The sounds awakened new sensations that at first he didn’t realize were caused by the sounds but as his scalp and hair could feel a sense of the shape he was seeking to feel he connected the feeling to the sounds he was observing. He ran his fingers through his hair again causing additional canals to open and they also filled with sounds multiplying the sounds that began to entangle like tendrils in his hair and follow every motion of his fingers. Everywhere his hands moved, the sounds would follow, moment by moment continually increasing the paths for the sound to follow, touching him and connecting him to their elusive shape. An intensity began to build and he touched his hands to his chest and the sounds followed; moving his hand up along his neck and jaw and the sounds followed; touching his face and then moving his hand over his mouth, pressed against his lips in an astonishment at what he was feeling and the sounds followed. He tried again to grasp what it was that he was feeling, moving his hands to try and hold the shape he thought the sounds embodied as the sounds began to encircle him. Concentrating on the shape, his lips parted and his mouth opened unknowingly inviting the sounds inside him. Dancing across his body and through his hair until they kissed his lips much like they kissed the water, with barely a disturbance, and then making their way in his mouth and down his throat further and further in. He felt something familiar stir within him, as if he might locate the shape inside of himself. He inhaled taking more sounds in. He swallowed, taking them further within himself and then exhaled breathing them out through his mouth and nostrils. The sounds were then coursing from the water in a steady stream towards him, wrapping around his body like thousands of rivers all converging over his mouth and flowing inside of him, filling him until he was wholly filled with the sounds and then they flowed out of him, a pattern repeating over and over until he was barely distinguishable from mass of sounds that seemed to be burying him. As he filled more and more with the sounds, they overflowed until they began to come out of his mouth and nostrils and eyes and carried with them his sight as far as the sounds would travel. He was able to see what the sounds could see and he felt the sounds barely kiss the surface of the mirrored water so gently as not to even cause a ripple and it was the most perfect moment he ever experienced, watching the sounds dance across the water until they danced across his skin and filled him, then carrying his sight to also dance across the water together with the sound. His hands outstretched further, grasping at the shape and it was in that moment he felt it but it was more than he anticipated feeling and it was larger than his hands could hold, the weight of the shape overflowing into his arms and like a wave they overcame his body and his whole body felt and discerned the shape and the shape was beyond what his body could sense but his sight extended his senses allowing him to comprehend the nature of the shape and he felt so satisfied at its understanding. In moments upon such understanding the sounds began to recede and withdrew themselves from within him and his finite sight was restored and his senses again confined within the skin of his body and they no longer danced across the water. He could no longer feel the shape of sound but it was imprinted upon his mind and whether he could feel it or not, he knew the shape of sound forever after. 

the great minds

He often observed the great minds as they floated here and there and he always observed the great minds with heightened curiosity whenever they would coalesce together at their randomly regular occurrence of the gathering of the great minds, a formal meeting with no particular schedule where the great minds would discuss stuff. He wondered what made them great instead of being like all the other minds and he wondered what made them any different than himself. One day he was watching them float single file down the hallway one by one as they entered the conference room for one of their gatherings and he had the idea to simply get in line. He figured if he just acted like he knew what he was doing, no one would notice and as it turned out, it worked. He soon found himself in the conference room with the great minds and he took a place towards the back of the room where he might float unnoticed. He could hardly believe he was about to witness what the great minds were about to discuss and he listened so intently. After the discussions began he waited for the truly great thoughts and ideas to be shared. As time moved on his anticipation increased and he could hardly wait to hear what he could only imagine would be so amazing but upon the precipice of what he thought would be the delivery of something truly amazing from the great minds the attention suddenly turned to him as one of the great minds intoned in an observing manner that their new guest hadn’t shared anything yet and that they would very much like to hear from him. After his initial astonishment that he had been discovered and not thrown out he began to stammer and stutter not knowing what to say. He searched but there were no thoughts to form the basis of words to speak. As he was about to form the thought to simply float out as fast as he could float, a voice came out from among the great minds asking him again what he thought. He was surprised to find that the voice was sincere and in that sincerity he found it within him to lose focus on his astonishment and relax so that his thoughts could form and he could share them. He wasn’t sure if the great minds were waiting to laugh at him or expel him from their gathering but after he finished sharing his thoughts on the matter he heard comments of agreement and new thoughts shared that were built upon his thoughts. He listened and listened as the discussion ensued without further acknowledgement of his presence in the room and he realized that not only did they not throw him out, as he would have thought, but that they weren’t ignoring him either. Rather, they continued on with the meeting as if nothing out of the ordinary happened which he realized was because they accepted him. Eventually, the meeting ended and the minds began to float out in single file just as they had entered and he wondered why the great minds weren’t upset with him for attending their gathering uninvited. Deep in these thoughts, the mind in front of him interrupted him and said, “It’s always nice when someone new decides to come in.”

Radioactive Man