The Witching Hour

Sarah stood beside Jane's bedside, sullen and afraid. Her sister lie there motionless, unable to hear her  voice or see the tender look of kinly concern on her face. Machines hissed and beeped around her in the dark with a cold deliberateness. Tubes and wires plugged into Jane's body keeping her alive, but tethered; a captive Lazarus. Her sister had surfaced in and out of waves of deep delirium for days now, and she lie there barely breathing as Sarah held her torpid hand. Oh Jane, she thought, just hold on. She remembered when they were girls and they'd gotten caught in a heavy autumn rain on the way home from the market late one afternoon. Janey just stood there smiling, her hair like a wet mop hanging heavy from her head as she began spinning in circles with outstretched arms. Why does everyone always run from the rain, she'd asked. It must be so lonesome to be a raindrop; falling, just falling with no one to catch you. All the puddles, just piles of fallen down raindrops. Sarah had been so short with her that day, calling her names and yelling at her to hurry up and get out of the storm. When Jane didn't walk fast enough Sarah told her she deserved to get sick. Two days later when Jane did get sick Sarah still felt she deserved it, but she couldn't help blame herself a little for wishing it on her. Out of guilt she made her tea and soup to help her shake the chill. In her memory she could still see little Janey's pale skin; her sickly blue lips and fingernails.

The door opened and an older nurse entered the room. Aww miss Sarah, I'd told ya it'd do ya good to get some rest now; ya heard me didn't cha dear, she said. She spoke with a Jamaican accent that Sarah found soothing. Nurse Lamb was in her early 40's and she had a matriarchal warmth and confidence about her that made Sarah feel at ease. I know, Sarah said, it's late. It's da witchin' hour, Nurse Lamb replied as she took Jane's pulse, looking at Sarah in a way that suggested she should take heed but at the same time maintaining a calm insouciance. It's not a time ya want ta find yarself weary, she added. My sister would've liked you Nurse Lamb. She has a thing with lambs, ruminants she calls them. Mmm hmm, dey're a sacred creature in many mythologies girlie. Nurse Lamb's eyes were always gentle yet focused and she had a grace and precision about her movements. Even the way she noted Jane's vitals on the clipboard evoked a calligrapher or a scribe. Before she had realized, Nurse Lamb had checked Jane's pulse and blood-pressure, taken her temperature, replaced the bag of fluids hanging at the top of Jane's bed and then sat down beside Sarah. With a smile she said, ya sistah's gonna be fine Miss Sarah, go get yarself some sleep. Jane's doing enough sleeping for the two of us, Sarah said. Nurse Lamb smiled, stood up and was gone.

She had a point, it was late. Sarah hadn't slept since she'd arrived back East. After the flight mixup, her broke-down car and the mad dash to the hospital, it had been well past a day since she'd slept. Maybe it was time to take a break, she thought; there's nothing I can do right now except wait. She got up, kissed Jane's clammy forehead and tucked her sheep under her sleepy arm. Outside it had started to rain and Sarah stood under a shelter designated for smoking near the exit of the hospital. It had been a while since she'd seen rain like this. On the West Coast the rain falls gently, like cats. Not like the dogs she saw coming down now. Everything felt heavier here, she thought. Since I've landed it's like gravity wants to get to know me better, hanging off my shoulders pulling me to the ground to say hello. I don't want to be your friend, she said aloud.

Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to intrude, said a voice emerging from the shadows. Startled, Jane turned toward the voice and saw an elderly man deeply inhaling a cigarette that glowed red as he pulled the air through it. When he exhaled his face was covered in a thick fog that never seemed to completely clear. His feet shuffled awkwardly as he said he was just leaving. Oh, no, I'm sorry, I wasn't talking to you; I didn't even know you were there, Sarah said. That's quite all right, I'm leaving just the same, the man said. Sarah still hadn't been able to get a look at his face even though he stood only a few feet from her. She could see his shoes as he shifted his feet. They were pointy and hissed as they moved across the concrete. At the tip they were red and glimmered like rubies. The rest of the shoe seemed to be a snakeskin that shined luridly even in the night. The rain made them glisten as though they were alive. He made Sarah feel a strange repulsion, like magnets turned the wrong way.

His shoes clacked loudly against the concrete as he walked away. Sarah watched him turn and slowly walk out toward the parking lot, without an umbrella or a proper coat. She thought it was strange that he moved so nonchalantly. What a creepy guy, she thought. Just then he seemed to stop. Sarah couldn't tell for sure because of the rain and the distance, but it looked like he had stopped moving. Was he facing her? No, he couldn't be. Why would he be? Sarah laughed and thought about the absurdity of the question. He probably dropped something, or realized he'd forgotten something. It had been more than a few seconds and he still hadn't moved. A discomfort moved in on her like an unwanted embrace. Looking out in the distance she saw the deep red glow of his cigarette and she realized he was facing her. Her heart struck like lightning. Alone in the smoking booth she felt scared and vulnerable. The dense smoke from his cigarette still hung around her and wouldn't leave. She reached into her purse to call her mother - thinking that might scare him off - and when she looked up he was gone.

It began raining harder, sounding like television static as it hit the ground. Ok, I think I'm ready for bed, Sarah said.

Here

The sun was setting bluely, casting shadows over the mountains, the thin clouds twisted like snakes above their peaks. The sky looked frozen and icy, like the inside of a freezer. Headlights twinkled by as cars passed. Madeline sat peering out the window in her bedroom, where she lay wrapped in soft fleece, burning a cinnamon scented candle and listening to a broken-hearted soul-singer on her stereo.

Staring.

She just sat staring out past the glass and past the blues, past the shadows. She felt the frost of loneliness bite at her feet, and unaware, she began slowly rubbing them together. Her heart beat slow and faintly, like a dying clock. She could feel it ticking with each revolution of the earth. Her blood, tenacious and red, streamed through tight canals and fell into the mysterious dark ocean of her heart. She felt time pass over her, creating waves, changing tides. Her mood was her moon; orbiting; pulling; exerting its gravity on her. The cold night - a mirror for her mind - was still and quiet, ungrasping. There was lightness in her limbs. She felt her fingers becoming zephyrs.

The music sailed like a ship on the red sea to her heart, bobbing and buoyant. With eyes like lighthouses she stabbed out at the darkness looking for the glint of truth's amity. Her long extended breaths became a wind making snow angels in its sails. A feeling of connectedness washed over her and her feet felt warm.

---------

Jane, familiar with the mythology, knew what an Incubus was. But...she wasn't asleep. She looked back at the sheep and noticed the sign around its neck said "here." What's here, she thought. You, the wooly ungulate said, again without speaking. This wasn't happening. It wasn't real. What's real, asked the curly-haired ruminant with unmoving lips. Frustrated by the sheep's equivocation, Jane stood up and brushed the dirt off of her dress. She saw a splinter stuck in the bend of her arm and pulled it out with a cry. Behind the lamb, close to the horizon, the two moons had intersected, creating a pale blue eclipse. The moon furthest from her was colored a milky sapphire. As she looked to the sky she found it like water, except murky and crimson. It undulated and rippled and its pink clouds moved like the crests of waves. It was as though someone were actively painting it different shades of red. Why was the sky like that?

The sheep began moving away from her down the rusty dirt-road, a lantern around its neck. Some yards ahead the sheep stopped and turned its head as if to say follow, without saying follow. Jane began walking after the sheep, thinking the sheep less like a lamb and more like a shepherd.

Reflection

Josephine had spent the last 20 years of her life alone following an abusive relationships with her husband, who'd left her before their second child was born. He was a misguided man, troubled by a life of repressed inadequacies and fears. He compensated by exercising an assumed authority over Josephine, usually physically, but emotionally too. The stress of his job and his inability to cope with the expectations set for him led him to drink. He'd get mean when he drank and he'd project all of his fears and insecurities onto her, blaming her for his problems. She loved him dearly and devotedly. Her love blinded her and she made excuses for him, helping to enable him through continued forgiveness and an undying belief in his capacity for change.

One night she had come home from work a bit later than usual, and she found the front door open. Inside the lights were on, illuminating the battered kitchen, which had inherited the full brunt of his outrage. The refrigerator door was ajar and half hanging off its hinges, broken glass and bleeding condiments littered the floor. The counter dripped with tomato sauce that had half dried and crusted, making it look like a giant oozing scab. Dishes had been ripped out of the cabinets and hurled across the room; pieces of broken ceramic and glass were scattered all over the floor. Scared, she moved quietly toward the bedroom, hoping to find him asleep. As she approached the door, also ajar, she heard muffled cries from inside the nearly darkened room. Josephine peered around the doorjamb and saw her husband sitting on their bed with his back to her, weeping and rocking back and forth with his head in his hands. Beside him were photos of her that he had taken when they'd first met. Some of them she had forgotten, others she remembered well. One from a time they had gotten dressed up to see a fancy play - she was wearing a black dress that he'd bought her for the occasion; another one of them together with Jim's dog that had died; a vacation in Vermont; the time they went to Disneyland. On the floor an empty bottle of whiskey lay lifeless and hollow. Looking up slowly, through his tears he saw her in the reflection of the mirror. She froze as his eyes me hers in the glass. Her heart leapt fearfully up into her throat, full like a frog's.

The silence swelled around them like a rising wave. Staring at her reflection his lip started to tremble below his wet face and his hand reached toward the mirror weakly. A remorseful sob choked him as he tried to speak. Her hands raised to her mouth to cover her pity while her loving eyes welled up with tears. I'm so sorry, he said, his voice cracking, wet and mired with blood from his conscience's dagger. Now both arms reached at her reflection in the mirror and she thought he looked like a terrified baby. She entered the room and sat beside him, taking him in her arms. He clutched her and sobbed against her and repeated the words: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Later, when she was pregnant, he'd told her if he was going to have a kid he wanted a son, so when Sarah was born he told Josephine he was leaving her to find a woman who could give him what he wanted. She begged him to stay, shamefully pleading please don't leave, please. After weeks of much abuse she'd convinced him to stay and they tried a second time to have a boy. Months later, when the sonogram showed it was another girl, he told her to abort it. When she refused, he left.

Sarah remembered her mother telling her that story. She couldn't believe she was racing to the hospital. She always wondered why her mother had been dealt such a dreadful hand. She'd always admired her for her perseverance, for raising her and her sister all alone.

Just let her be alright, please. Please.

Anamnesis

Peter walked along kicking a rock, first with his right foot and then with his left. His old boots were worn and moth-eaten, weathered like the rock cantering across the dirt road. Behind him the sun was setting, a golden dusk blanketed his back. He felt the light hanging warm and heavy from his shoulders like a cloak. His hands in his pockets moved nervously and his muscles tightened to brace the cold. He disinterred a tender remembrance. He could still feel her small hand against his, still see her green eyes blooming with love; her smile held him hostage. What are you thinking, she would always ask him. Once she'd asked him whether he thought she was weird for always asking him that. She said, isn't it strange that when it rains really hard it sounds like an audience clapping? He'd loved her; still loved her. But she was gone. Ensconced in his heart, her memory made his mind pale and myopic, like a foggy vista.

He couldn't believe it was December already. It had been almost a year since they spent Christmas together. It snowed that night. They sat in front of a window slightly open, little pieces of snow flaked off of the night breeze and melted on their arms while they leaned against the windowsill. A happy silence fell through the air and a gusting wind played in the snow, kicking it from the corners of rooftops and shaking it from trees. Inside, warm in each others' arms, they smiled beneath the multicolored Christmas-lights that hung from the walls. In the next room a candle burned and in the darkness a faint acoustic guitar whispered to gentle vocal melodies. They'd gifted their hearts to one another that night and there was nothing more to want. With her he had proclaimed his love readily, and truly. Perhaps too readily, he thought, as he walked down the road alone beneath a starless sky.

Hey! Look out! Someone yelled from the darkness and a set of headlights swept over his body as the sound of halting brakes rushed at his ears. An incredulous looking woman glared at him from behind the car's windshield. She raised her hands with her palms facing the sky and shook her head from side to side. He'd stepped out into the street, too absorbed in his thoughts to have noticed he was astray. He placed his hand softly against the hood and looked at her apologetically before saying I'm sorry. What are you doing out here with no lights on you, she asked. Trying to get myself killed he said, with a half smile. She reached into the pocket of her military-green jacket and removed a wrinkled piece of paper. Leaning over she handed it to him through the passenger side window. It said St. Michael's Hospital. Do you know how to get to the hospital from here, she asked. I have no idea where the fuck I am, my phone is dead, I need to get to the hospital and all I have is this address. Peter, sensing the urgency in her request, wanted to help her. He asked for a pen and began hurriedly writing the directions on the back of the piece of paper she'd handed him. Anxiously she lit a cigarette and inhaled it impatiently. She took the paper from him and squinted at it under the light. You expect me to read this? Who the fuck taught you to write, she asked. My father; he was a doctor, Peter replied - this time with a full smile. Wait. You walk out in front of my car, give me some tough-guy reply and then after I tell you I'm trying to find a hospital you give me these illegible instructions and another smart-ass reply? What the fuck is wrong with you, really? She cut the wheel and rode off back the way she came. Watching the tail lights trail off, the smell of cigarettes and exhaust still poisoning the air, he remembered Lauren had said the same words to him the last time they spoke.

What the fuck is wrong with me, he thought, as he watched the car vanish into the darkness.

----------

The sign said anamnesis.

The sheep stood still and hushed. Jane could hear the woods crack and pop. She felt a strange pressure against her left arm but it passed quickly. The dirt they stood on was rust colored and it seemed to glow like a cooling ember. Most of the forest was bare, with gnarled and knotted trees frozen in place like petrified contortionists. Orange leaves the size of hands drifted past aimlessly. A burdensome brume loomed behind her thick as sheep's wool. A page torn from a book fell from the twisted branch of a tree and landed between her and the sheep wearing the sign. She looked at the sheep as if to ask permission and then bent down and picked it up. It said "Setting: a strange forest. A burdensome brume; a page torn from a book fell from the twisted branch of a tree and landed between her and the sheep wearing the sign." Confused Jane began looking around as she staggered back a few feet closer to the fog. As she did, a loud humming sound stung her ears and sheets of smoke swirled around her. The sheep began bleating and Jane's ears began to ring. She stepped forward toward the sheep, trying to escape the mist but tripped over a root. Disoriented, she looked around as she lie on the ground and saw a pair of legs treading toward her, dark and dripping with shadow. They moved as though through propulsion, like expanding inkblots discharged from a squid, diffusing through the mist. With every step the humming became louder and she could feel her insides being pulled toward the approaching blackness as though she'd swallowed a handful of magnets.

The sheep's head burst through the clouds and grabbed hold of her collar, pulling her out of the fog and away from the heavy inky boots. Gasping, Jane asked, what was that?

An inkubus, the sheep said without speaking.

Where am I?

Silenus

Sarah stood at the bus stop bracing the cold morning air, her blond hair tussled with the gusting breeze. The wind's prying fingers combed through her hair, rummaging, as though through a purse. It was still dark on the street: the sun hadn't yet encored. She retreated into the meager shelter of the bus stop and crossed her arms, slowly stamping her feet to try and trample the chill. Her only company were the infrequent joggers quickly panting past. Fumbling through her military-green jacket in search of her phone, half out of curiosity and the other half compulsion, she saw it was 5:54. The bus wouldn't arrive for another 6 minutes. To distract herself she thought of things she hadn't addressed from the night before: words that weren't said. Sarah's mother had called - the third time that day - heralding bad news from a different timezone. Her sister was sick and had been hospitalized due to what doctors thought was walking-pnuemonia. While in their care some complications arose - the cause of which were still being investigated, her mother announced - resulting in an infection in her blood: sepsis. Jane, Sarah's younger sister, since she had been born was ravaged by immunodeficit disorders. She had a rare congenital disease that required open-heart surgery while still in infancy. Sarah always suspected that her sister's surgery made her susceptible to newer and more frequent maladies; they cut her open and exposed her insides to all sorts of foreign bodies that normally wouldn't have had a means of entry, leaving her to fend for herself with only the frail and underdeveloped immune system of a newborn. To Sarah it was obvious Jane's life would be a constant battle against invading illness seeking refuge, looking to make a home in the fertile soil of her soul. To sickness, she was a sanctuary - an unexplored country rich with resources, vast un-patrolled borders and no standing army.

Lying in some darkened hospital room alone and beset by exhaustion she imagined her sister sallow and shaking, a persistent perspiration on her skin as though she were some dying amphibian estranged from water. How could the hospital be so negligent, she wondered scornfully. How could they not have detected the infection sooner? With a history like hers how hey could they have been so careless to allow this to happen? All of these questions had one resounding answer: they should have known. Her thoughts were hijacked by the hum of the approaching bus.

--------

Jane, waking bleary eyed and feeling made of feathers, glanced at the clock on the wall and saw it was 9am. She felt hot and her clothes stuck to her skin with a disgusting dampness. Slowly she turned her head west toward the window and saw the sun had risen. Part of her wished it hadn't. Secretly she prayed for the days to stop, for everything to stop; the itching in her blood that felt like small spiders and lice crawling through her veins; the seething pain in her lungs that burned like hot coals when she would try to breathe; the nausea and lightheadedness that made her weak. She often wondered why she hadn't died when she was a child. How much easier everything would've been if she had. A story about a king and a centaur in the woods rustles through her mind, somewhere between her pounding temples.

Slime oozed from her pores like uncooked eggwhites. She imagined her fever cooking them; fluffy white chunks falling from her skin - a delicious psoriasis. She was delirious. The vancomycin in her IV felt like antifreeze and made her cold. The sound of a machine mimicking her heartbeat beeped slow and weakly with an almost musical cadence. It sounded to her like the electronic bleating that would emanate from an electric sheep. She'd seen her first sheep at a petting zoo as a child, and ever since, she'd developed a deep attachment to the wooly creatures. Their warm presence made her feel less alone, less afraid; like sheep, who derive that same satisfaction from other sheep's company. Turning her gaze toward the chair beside the hopsital-bed, her hot blood painfully pooling into the other side of her face, she saw a stuffed sheep grazing on the cushion. It seemed to bleat in time with her heart. She was definitely delirious. The sheep's black eyes stared back at her blankly, but its mouth seemed to be moving with her pulse. Maybe it was just the throbbing behind her eyes making it look like that, she thought. She wanted to reach out and pull it toward her but to do so she would have to sit up, and to sit up would cause a sharp pressure change in her head - sending a torrent of palpitating pain raining down on her skull and out through her ears like pounding timpani.

On the table beside the chair a bouquet of flowers, imperceptibly wilting, marked the passing of time. Floating above them a pair of balloons with shiny metallic backs drunkenly danced to a tempo slower than her bpms. The balloon is full of helium, she thought, like my head. The bleating, rising a few octaves, became louder and higher in pitch, like the voice of a chipmunk. Lazily, her eyes returned to the sheep - now blinking its dark eyes in time with its mouth - which stared at her stuttering as if it was trying to tell her something. You're scaring me she thought, please stop. Seeming to read her mind but intent on disobeying, the sheep became more animated; blinking and bleating faster. Like an oven her lungs began heating her blood with each breath until it was boiling; beginning to melt her muscles as her heart pumped hard in her head. She was panting, fire fell from her lips. Her vision started to blacken, like the eyes of the sheep, who sat staring at her as though they'd traded places: her eyes dark and blinking; mouth open; white teeth clenching; she felt her mind turn to smoke.

The balloons listlessly orbited each other as her consciousness waned. She awoke wearing a glowing dress in a dark wood, two moons hanging large and low in the sky. A sheep stood before her wearing a sign around its neck.

It said

Shut-Eye

He sits alone, the indentation of a friend's company still silhouetted against his mind. Hungrily, he pours a third bowl of cereal and munches on dried strawberries and crunchy flakes of bran. The scraping sound of the spoon against the ceramic bowl chimes like a bell in the silence. The milk has become faintly flavored with the taste of berries. From the street the sound of passing cars roar out into the darkness. The old windows gently rattle in their frames while the curious night air presses itself against them. "It's warm tonight," he thinks to himself. "So strange that Winter is almost here."

He recalls tales told of denials and belated admissions, and he wonders what secrets he'll confess to himself in time. For now though, he seeks refuge in routine; sadly. The world is a place that fosters foolish consistencies, always seeking to assuage nature's penchant for serendipity. Outside a mangy cat stalks a darkened alleyway, moving with providence and equanimity. The light from the full moon gilds its path - a sallow candle. A dirtied newspaper kicked up by the breeze startles the creature and it dashes off into the darkness.

On his bed he begins to feel his muscles grow heavy, turning to quicksand. His mind starts to still. Writing becomes less of a pleasure and more of a pain. Two tightened pupils start to swell and paint his eyes black. They pull down his eyelids like drawn curtains, trying to keep out the light.

He begins drifting. Having told himself he'd just rest his eyes for a moment, he lowers his head. He remembers his mother. Smiling, he recalls how he would make fun of her when she would say that. "You mean sleeping," he'd say.

"Resting your eyes is another way to say sleeping."

Chocolate-Covered Locusts

William Wonka

Fatigue. Physical and mental depletion plague me; locusts. If only chocolate-covered. Consider the marriage of chocolate-rain and a swarm of locusts. Willy Wonka would be elated. Would Al Sharpton?

The Egyptian plagues seem like Yahweh's idea of a Halloween-party. It's rumored he called Costco for untold amounts of red food-coloring, plastic frogs, black-lights, fake insects and candy corn. They had a 2-for-1 deal on the candy corn.

Turns out there was so much candy corn left over, that he re-plagues it on Americans every October 31st.

"This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me at my Halloween-party, or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you and against your children and your people, so you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth. For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. You still set yourself against my people and prevent them from apple bobbing at my party. Therefore, at this time tomorrow I will send the worst plague that has ever fallen on Egypt, from the day it was founded till now. Give an order now to bring your livestock and everything you have in the field to a place of shelter, because the candy corn will fall on every man and animal that has not been brought in and is still out in the field, and they will die. […] The LORD sent candy corn and candy pumpkins, and lightning flashed down to the ground. So the LORD rained candy corn on the land of Egypt; corn fell and lightning flashed back and forth. It was the worst storm in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation."

— Exodus 9:13–24

Le Penseur

Unknown

I've been thinking a lot lately. Mainly about how I think too much. There is something lost when absorbed in thought. Presence, largely, but also alacrity. For as long as I can remember overthinking has always tormented me. In my youth it may have made me precocious, but now it stifles me. I sit like stone with my chin resting upon a closed hand; contemplative. I remember a small statue that fascinated me as a child, The Thinker. I didn't know then - nor do I know now - what it was about that sculpture that spoke to me. There was something simultaneously solemn and sad about the pensive piece of rock*.

Amongst our group of friends I was always the careful one. The one with foresight. That's not to say I wasn't just as reckless or that I was too afraid to take risks, I was just more conscious of the consequences. I used to chalk that up to being good at quickly weighing pros and cons - making an educated decision. I used my mind's capacity for reason to mitigate potentially painful situations. Now, I'm not so sure. Caution is bereft abandon's exuberance.

With thought, there is pain. Thinking gives rise to worry. It is both the cancer and the cure. Without it, against the recognition of our oblivion, we would be indomitable. To exist in a fragrant ignorance, intrepid flowers in bloom. Unaware and unassailable, unable to wilt. There is a beauty in nescience. To think is to step out of time - to disassociate. To divide yourself against the likeness of all things. It is often forward looking. When it isn't, it is looking back. Never present. It is longing and regret. Anticipation and guilt. Fear. There is always a degree of distrust involved, a skepticism. That things are not what they seem and intuition is not to be trusted. And also an arrogance: the idea that we hold the keys to the true nature of things.

For me, it is a creeping doubt. The idea that there is something I've missed. That I'm so hopelessly wrong I cannot know I'm mistaken. I've become fearful of my ignorance - the very thing I expected to seek refuge in. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. Which makes me realize ignorance is not the answer. The answer is less thinking, more action. Be impulsive, be present.

Stop scrutinizing and hyper-examining.

The recurrent thought that I could've said or done something better than I had. The possible existence of a superior alternative or a more rewarding outcome inspires feelings of inadequacy. These entrenched expectations have become insidious, unrealistic. There is always a voice whispering while I speak, distracting me, trying to quiet me, forcing inward rumination. When silent it invites me to speak and then, talking over me, stabs at me with cold condescension. There exists a derisive buzzing that only I can hear. It hangs and circles around me mockingly - instigating a chase. Always able to evade my pursuit.

I think if I sit still enough I can fool it.



*A quick Google search reveals a funny coincidence. The Thinker, initially named The Poet, is part of a larger piece called The Gates of Hell.

Centi

Robert Wiles

Life is hard. It's strange; beautiful. For some it is too long - for others, not long enough.

It is a thing worth dying for.

I spoke with a friend tonight about some serious subjects. Of love and loss, madness and cruelty. Of life and death and agency; of suicide.

At the moment of a suicide one exists as both the perpetrator and victim of a murder. It's the ultimate act of escapism. A decision with a grave finality; for the suicide. For the friends and family of the deceased it is a decision with a more enduring gravity. My Grandfather committed suicide when I was in third-grade. It was my first experience with the death of a loved one. I remember trying to wrap my head around the idea that someone could go away and never return. I remember thinking it was unfair. It was years later that I pieced together the circumstances of his death and realized he had killed himself. I can't imagine the pain and loneliness he must have felt. Perhaps it wasn't pain at all. Maybe it was numbness. A sense of futility; the desire to stop marching on.

It's an interesting question, philosophically. Does someone have a right to commit suicide? Does your freedom of will grant you the choice to opt out of life whenever you choose? Is doing so selfish? Is it more selfish than those around you who would wish for you to live in misery so they don't have to feel the pain of your death? Why is talking about it taboo? All of us are going to die, right? Why is it wrong to want it to be on your terms? Part of me though, feels it is irresponsible. No one exists as a separate entity. To suggest otherwise is a denial: we are all composites. We are influenced by those around us, and exert influence outwards back on them. You're your pet that died when you were young, something meaningful a teacher once said, a trophy you won in high-school, the first album you ever bought, the first person you ever loved, your first real friend, your most bitter enemy. Your actions affect everyone close to you, and everyone close to them, and everyone close to them. To murder yourself then is to murder part of them.

Ok enough rumination on suicide, sheesh. I've been talking with a local artist who I've commissioned to do a piece for me. I'm excited; she does some beautiful work. Speaking of beauty, I heard someone somewhere speaking about it the other day - describing the moment of apprehending beauty. They said "Beauty is something that makes you keenly aware of existence. Not just your own existence, but that anything at all exists. You can feel time moving when you experience something beautiful - you can feel yourself moving away from the moment before it and you feel there will soon be a time when you are no longer experiencing it." I think it's a pretty solid definition. There's something unique to the affect beauty has on its beholder. It communicates a connectedness. It's briefly able to clear away difference and inspire awe. There's the sense that at least for a minute, everything is okay. It begs you to simply be.

It is life...and it is death.

Ass Burgers

Ass Burgers Crossing

Last night I saw Greg Dulli and Steve Kilbey at The Independent. I was undecided about going until late in the day, but I'm glad I did; the show was phenomenal. Before the show I'd never heard of Steve Kilbey or his band, The Church. Dulli and Kilbey each did their own songs, but sang them together, ending with a few they'd written collaboratively. The ones I enjoyed most were Steve Kilbey's opener, Under the Milky Way, and Dulli's Step Into the Light - a song that would take on new meaning later that night. 

On our way out, The Profuser and I remarked to his lady that the man leaning against the stage looked like the retarded lovechild of Ray Romano and Al Pacino. Everybody Loves Tony Montana. Outside I bid them farewell as I braved the cold, waiting for my friend from LA. She jumped out of a dark Nissan Maxima with tinted windows and caught me off guard. I hugged her deeply and we talked and shivered in the cold night air for a few long minutes before moving to the candle-lit bar across the street. 

The server was somewhat dismayed that we'd entered the bar and made it known that they'd soon be closing. I suggested we had time for one quick beer and requested two Trumers. I sat listening to her, still trying to shake my chill, exchanging stories and getting caught up on the chapters of our lives missing from each others books. Both of us seemed to be doing well, happy. Our time ran out at the bar and we made haste to my place, reminiscing as we walked. We spoke of old friends, old pets and old times; memories stuck like crushed insects against the walls of our minds. While we walked a sensation of unreality swept over me. Memories of passing through the streets of the Lower East Side with her on my arm, the crispness of the autumn air, forgotten times when her lips knew mine. A nasty nostalgia pierced me deeper than the cold.

A sense of uneasiness crept around the corners of my soul. I'd been badly hurt by her before. Patches of black ice still decorate my heart. I was happy to see her but I couldn't relax; a feeling that has gained influence in me lately. I've noticed that as I've grown older these past few years I feel an increasing sense of discomfort in social settings. I question whether this is the result of a stressful work-life, a lack of social stimulation (from working too much), or some delayed onset low-level Aspergers. Even with those around me with whom I'm familiar, at times I feel unnecessarily anxious - without cause or reason. Unsurprisingly, smoking exacerbates this phenomenon. A stoner, tried and true, she suggested we smoke. Not wanting to be rude, and wrongly thinking myself able to manage, I obliged. After all, Etta James was presiding, what could go wrong? Almost instantly things began to get strange. I knew the sprinkles I put on top were a bad idea. I felt she was talking too much, divulging information too quickly with the precision of a discharged shotgun. I in turn, became self-conscious I was speaking too little. When I began to speak, to make up for my perceived lack, I became conscious I was speaking too much and repeatedly lost my train of thought or ended sentences abruptly. I was ruined by the lone crystal.

I began to think my perceived awkwardness was the result of my inaction. Maybe she wanted me to show a sign of affection, to take her hand or press my lips to hers. But what if I were wrong? I shuddered at the thought of even trying to manage rejection in the state I was in. But what if I was wrong? What if she felt rejected by my inaction? I couldn't tell. What I could tell though, was that thinking about it was making things worse - I appeared distracted. What if I were wrong though? Such a painful refrain. She played me YouTube videos of things she'd been involved in, one of which she'd directed. I was in awe of her. I felt proud for her, happy she was doing something she loved. Happy she was doing well. Feelings of love thawed my frosted blood and I looked up at her, nearly unable to resist the urge to physically express this to her. My arms and lips begged me to build a bridge to hers. But she didn't notice my gaze - her eyes were held captive by the glass screen. The moment flew away like a frightened yellow bird and indecision took hold again. I asked to see another video, to try and recapture the momentum, but it was too late. I cursed myself for my emotional impotence. I resented myself for my cowardice; my lack of confidence. Shame and dejection rained down on me, and I shivered with ignominy. 

She said it was cold.

Then a moment of misunderstanding. I'm still unsure whether it was hers or mine. The characters we played were shameless and shameful, though I know not which was which. Doubt and uncertainty are wicked mistresses in those witching hours. She called a cab. I said goodbye the same way I said hello. She, like the last time she said goodbye. 

I turned out the lights and played one last song.


Whenever the light shines
And the stillness is shaken
And the drug of your smile has gone
And left me alone
I need it bad, I need it now
Won't you come and give me some?
I need it sweet, baby please
Won't you answer the phone?
Step into the light, baby
Just give me the word
And I will begin
Step into the light, baby
And see the trouble I'm in
The light has gone
My love has gone
The good times have gone
Away
I have to ask, I need to know
Was it ever love?
I need it sweet, baby please
Come and give me some

Step Into the Light - The Afghan Whigs

Holy Bicurious Bagels Batman

I was supposed to drag my dirty laundry down the block to the laundromat, but because it's after 8:00, I'm going to be remiss. Exercising while sick, unsurprisingly, leaves you with no remaining energy at the end of the day. The thought of lying in bed makes me wet. Actually lying down makes the bed wet.

Having wrapped up The Dubliners, I'm looking for a good book to read. I think I might be on a short-story kick for now; they're more compatible with my current schedule. So if any of you out there have a recommendation, don't hesitate to let it be known. I'll even take recommendations that aren't suggested-reading. "Write with no pants on," or "try to swallow a hard-boiled egg whole" would be great for starters.

A friend asked me if I'd be interested in entering in a triathlon with him. If it's the two of us, would that make it a di-triathlon? I told him I couldn't because I'd never learned how to swim. Swimming always seemed to me a kind of regression, evolutionarily, since we as a species long ago left our amphibian brethren. I'll have no part in it. A biathlon on the other hand. That's where bisexuals compete, right?

You know what word looks strange? Negligibly. Look at it. It looks like gibberish. You know what word sounds strange? Indubitably. Say it. I like this -  this post has become interactive. How about we play a game? It's called 'what word am I going to end the sentence with.' The rain in Spain stays mainly on the...

Very good!

It's a bird, it's a...

Nice!

What's that? I've used the same word twice? Nonsense. The first answer was plain and the second was cinnamon-raisin. What? Those are bagels? Oh, you wanted sesame? Well, open sesame, I'm going to land my plane in the hatch and give you a spoonful of my tart plain yogurt. Let's try and make this more intricate. I'm going to continue writing normally, but every so often I'm going to switch a word out on you - like those old knock-knock jokes involving a repeating banana eventually traded for an orange.

I'm not sure why I'm so scatterbrained today. Maybe it's the medication. But can a nasal-spray do this? It's indeed a fine and mysterious mist, ejaculated straight up into my nasal passage. Have I been nasally inseminated? Is that banana possible? A provocative question no doubt, can a banana fertilize an egg? What if it's been hard-boiled? Cool Hand Luke ate 50 hard-boiled eggs. What most people don't know is that after consuming such an eggsessive amount of cholesterol he had a massive coronary right there on the spot. In his honor, they developed a Newman's Own Defibrillator. Had it actually been Newman's own, he'd still banana alive today.

If only Batman were there; he could've saved him. Cool Hand Luke sounds like a plausible character name in a Batman movie. Much better than Robin, certainly. Why hadn't Paul Newman ever banana cast as Batman? At the very least they could've done a Batman, Cool Hand Luke cross-over. I would've called it Batman: Cool Banana Luke's Banana Banana. Holy shit. That's almost the theme-song to the Adam West Batman series. Bananananananana bananananananana, ba naa naa. Instead of throwing Batarangs, he could throw Bandana-rangs.

Orange you glad I didn't say bananarangs?


.....banana-slug:

The Wanton's Bird

I think Shakespeare was mistaken when he said parting is such sweet sorrow. 

Maybe he meant "parting is such sweet sorrow." Or more likely:

O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day!

Most lamentable day, most woeful day

That ever, ever, I did yet behold!

O day, O day, O day, O hateful day!

Never was seen so black a day as this.

O woeful day, O woeful day!

Two people close to me have each had their love lost and torn apart. On these matters there is little anyone can say or do to lessen the pain. The heart, stung and swollen - like gums full of Novocain -distends and loses sense of itself. There are few things as visceral as its numbing ache.

It's hard to remind ourselves that the orchard walls are high and hard to climb. We know it all too well. 

All of us, poor prisoners in our twisted gyves. 

There are no Lonely Dolls

I'll have no time to write this evening; Q is spending the night.

I've purchased edible panties, scented candles and fresh strawberries from a local farm. Let's see where the night takes us.

As I write this, while riding along the 280, I see a man in a blue Accord driving one-handedly beside the bus. His phone - which he'd been texting on a moment ago - is unlocked on his lap and all his concentration is directed at visually inspecting an electronic marijuana-vaporizing device to determine its dysfunction. I can tell because of the way he keeps shaking it frustratedly with his head cocked. I pray Darwin doesn't take him now and send him veering into the bus. His brazen irresponsibility and dedication to distraction is remarkable. He may have a bright future with the Republican party.

There have been some truly beautiful sunsets the past few days. Right now the clouds look like radioactive strands of cotton-candy. Smoky blues and deep purples glow numinously beside blushing nimbuses. A compulsive glance at Instagram reveals these sunsets aren't localized to the west coast.

Funny, I always thought the sun set in the west.

An old friend, a ghost from a former life, has alerted me she'll be in town this weekend. It will be nice to see her. She's had a strong influence on who I've come to be. True, enduring friendships are far and few. For most of my life making friends hasn't been something I've excelled at. I enjoy solitude more than most and I am vehemently opposed to smalltalk. My stone tongue sits still in my mouth even when I try to make it move. My love for sports is non-existent and I often share little in the way of common-interests with those I meet. I too readily embrace femininity and flout at imposed gender expectations and their sanctions. For these reasons I'm typically viewed as soft or lacking puissance.

I've always felt it is a greater measure of power to have it and not exercise it than to desire desperately to prove it.

Show me an inflated blow-up doll that hasn't been fucked.

Saturnus

I think I'm getting sick. 

Perhaps I swallowed a wasp while I slept. Sometimes when I sleep my mouth hangs open as though in a state of awe, allowing insects entry and thick sputum to seep out. Or maybe it was that piece of gum that fell from my mouth in the gas-station bathroom. The 5-second rule has its limitations. 

The sky last night was alight with fire and possibility. Clouds glowed overhead like a brilliant flaming aurora, warming the cool night air that drifted in from the Pacific. Pinks, golds and shades of crimson bruised the clouds before chasing away the dusk. 

We traveled to Saturn and climbed a steep set of stairs. We sat on green benches and spoke beneath the blanketing shadows. Smiles flickered from our faces like lights illuminating darkened windows; revenant love resurrected. A streetlight started beside us, attracting small winged creatures buzzing with curiosity. A charcoal colored cat patrolled our perimeter, warmly brushing against my leg while we whispered. 

On a corner under a starless sky we embraced. The earth shook beneath us. 

My arms coiled around her like snakes. 

Her heart drummed in my ear; mine raced to meet it. 

Drunk and clumsy from her touch, I forced a rambling farewell and ambled away.

Gravity, or Bloat-Baby, a Space Odyssey

Turns out alcohol, guacamole, tortilla chips and ice-cream are not the cure for a fucked up stomach. Who would've guessed? I'm so bloated I look like I'm pregnant: I have a bloat-baby. By the end of last night I had so much gas that I was able to propel myself forward simply by flatulating. It was a sight to see. I was a bloat-float humming through the streets like a dirigible, tearing the ozone asunder with my anus. A woman mistook me for a disembodied spirit, and cried out with horror as I approached. By the time I was walking home, after the bar had been shutdown, I was staggering through the streets clutching my stomach as though my water were about to break. It's morning and the swelling hasn't quite subsided. I wonder if I have a shot at entering in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

At some point last night, in between drinks and location changes, we went to watch the movie Gravity. I had been interested in seeing it since viewing the trailer last month. The premise of the movie is simple enough: Sandra Bullock adrift in space after the destruction of a satellite during a routine maintenance mission. I had no idea how well executed the film would turn out to be. Aptly titled, it is a movie that pulls you in toward it, tirelessly. It's a movie so atmospheric that at times you ask yourself how Cuaron did it. The cinematography and effects were stellar - it's almost unbelievable that the film wasn't shot in space. Easily one of the most immersive 90 minutes of cinema I've seen in some time, Gravity is a spectacle to behold.

From the moment the film begins, it starts to attritvely strip away the viewer's sense of comfort, replacing it with disorientation. The camera floats hauntingly, like a phantom, seeming to breathe and undulate in space with the actors, giving the audience a sense of weightlessness one feels in water. Having torn away your equilibrium and knocked you off balance, Cuaron obliterates your sense of safety by demolishing a space station with a maelstrom of debris, hurling you out of orbit with Bullock, afraid and alone. Spinning through pitch darkness - panic and dread slowed down and stretched out by the vacuity of space - you feel there has never been a character more hopelessly lost and forlorn. It preys upon that deep loneliness lurking within the human psyche, the feeling that we aren't in control and we're running out of air. Alone.

What's beautiful about the film is that it exploits fears not limited to the confines of space; these fears float in the vastness of our minds, stinging like jellyfish: existential woes, feelings of a looming doom, helplessness, inefficacy, devastation, alienation. Cuaron does this well through his use of first-person and close-ups of Bullock's face from within the helmet - behind the glass instead of in front of it - conveying her sense of abject desolation. I've never before seen a movie more able to sustain dread and desperation, to induce anxiety. Gravity depicts a ceaseless struggle from start to finish. Just when it seems things cannot get worse, somehow, they always do. A truly terrifying piece of cinema, at the end of which, the viewer is ravaged and depleted by an out-of-this-world odyssey. An oddity, perhaps, is that the film's plot is utterly contingent. It doesn't matter whether Bullock lives or dies: it's entirely about the struggle. My only interest in her survival was that it was necessary to keep the story alive. The visuals and the vertigo, the cold breathless terror and the atmosphere (or lack thereof) are the story. Bullock's character is merely the conduit through which we experience them.

Aren't we all.

Nothing Changes but the Changes

I have excruciating gas. My intestines feel like balloon-animals painfully wrung through the hands of a curious toddler. Can someone call a doctor? I suspect a ruptured intestine would be a pretty shitty experience. 

I don't know what I've done to deserve such a disobedient stomach. Always, at every opportunity it thwarts me. I think the ghost of a menopausal woman is haunting my digestive tract. I'm in need of an exorcism; a hysterectomy at the very least.

Oh well, all things shall pass, sometimes like kidney-stones. 

This weekend the weather is exceptional; skies of the clearest blue. The kind of days that invite revelry and dancing.

Always we pretend; fortifying our paper-thin narratives behind bullet-proof glass before locking them away in a bank-safe, where we spend our idle hours gazing at their shiny symmetries. Investing deeper, buttressing our beliefs, raising the stock-price. Foolishly we ignore the fact that there is no safe place. There are no guarantees, no assurances. 

There is only swelling possibility - for agony and ecstasy. Cherish the contented moments you are given; you know not which one will be the last. Surrender the painful ones, they will pass.

I've been struggling lately, to continue to write. I feel - maybe wrongly - that when writing well one should not have to try. That the truest expressions of beauty and poetry happen when there is no intention. A tree swaying in the breeze, a child excited by the waves on some sunny shore. 

I feel that sentiment may be one I've expressed previously and it throws into question my ability to communicate an original idea or avoid repetition. Not that repetition in itself is a bad thing. After all, the seasons are quite repetitious, as are our years. Or rather, we expect them to be. We force our insecurities upon nature's artistry and shape it to our notions of what a season should be. To the world there is no Winter, no Fall: there is only a change. As creatures resistant to the very notion, we grasp and scramble for a way to describe this phenomenon - to categorize it - so the change acquires the quality of being static, controllable. When the weather gets colder in October, each year it happens differently from the last. Yet every time we call it Fall. We may remark, during the course of idle conversation, that this year is colder than the last or that it's unexpectedly warm this time around, but generally we purposefully erase the difference and trade it for sameness. 

How strange it is to consider the truest expressions are those spoken in passing, made about the weather. 

Summer's Almost Gone

I saw a small tree this morning, no larger than a bureau, consumed by the cold flame of fall. A dozen desiccated leaves clung timidly to the tips of its lissome limbs. Little colored hands tender and trembling, hung from branches like gallows. Their fragility cried out, crunching under the weight of my gaze. Lurid leaves, agued and luckless, awaiting the cold steel of the current's sharpened scythe. 

I wondered what it is about precariousness that stirs my foolish blood. Perhaps it is that we too are phantoms - as transient and ephemeral as falling leaves - at the mercy of the reaping wind. Beholding a creature drained of all virility, its puissance ransacked, serves as a reminder, or rather, a reflection; the smell of oblivion blown on the breeze. 

Winter is coming. Slowly sweeping away the length of summer's shade. A season best suited for lovers, the heat of their hearts' affection enough to keep them warm. 

Spent alone, one can hardly shake the chill.

------------

"Summer's almost gone

Summer's almost gone
Almost gone
Yeah, it's almost gone
Where will we be
When the summer's gone?

Morning found us calmly unaware
Noon burned gold into our hair
At night, we swam the Laughing sea
When summer's gone
Where will we be
Where will we be
Where will we be

Morning found us calmly unaware
Noon burned gold into our hair
At night, we swam the Laughing sea
When summer's gone
Where will we be

Summer's almost gone
Summer's almost gone
We had some good times
But they're gone
The winter's comin' on
Summer's almost gone"

Summer's Almost Gone - The Doors

Breaking up With Breaking Bad

I've got nothing.

I've got the blues because there's no more blue meth. I re-watched the finale, like an estranged lover leafing through old love letters, searching for solace. There's something uniquely saddening when a great television-show ends. The idea that this intangible thing - moving pictures of people projected from a screen - in its absence, can make you feel as though you've lost something. It is as though it creates an addiction to feeling: of anticipation, excitement, affection, fear, frustration, sadness. We feel them everyday in our own lives, yet somehow it's easier to feel them vicariously. As though it were safer that way. Is it that our emotions are more forthright when given to another than when we experience them for ourselves? Or that sharing them, even with someone imagined, fosters a sense of connection capable of releasing us of our loneliness? There's something analogous to love there, but I'm reluctant to type it. That a TV show could cause feelings of love sounds foolish, yet here I am; inconsolable and grieving. My eyes are as dry as a sponge in a September monsoon.

I'm afraid on Friday I might drunk-dial the cast, or send them texts late at night telling them I miss them.

People say I'll find something else to watch, that there are plenty of good shows in the sea. I think things were different between me and Breaking Bad though.

We just had so much chemistry!