There is a red glow, off in the distance. Around it nothing but the pale darkness of the earliest morning hours.
Clouds obscure the shining moon and leave only a soft glow hanging from each drop of dew in the early morning fog. The outlines of the trees blurred as he drove past them, and the shape of the forest arose out of the dissolved shapes.
I had a thought: all of us are aware of the glow. It's off in the distance, just over the horizon or beyond the forest or on the other side of the mountain. We all chase it.
Wildly and frantically we search for its source.
We invent anything we need, if it'll bring us closer. We think of any explanation, if it'll give us some idea of what we're looking for. We kill each other for it, we are jealous of those who we judge to have found it, we are annoyed by those who dismiss it.
And then a realization will be made, that this red glow has no source out there - and the hunt will abruptly end. Maybe at that point, we will stop looking around, and start looking within.
We will find that we're all we've got.
Either that or we'll all shit ourselves at the prospect of there being no objective truth, frantically scatter and trample everything in our path, searching like ravenous wolves for something or someone to idolize.
Maybe I'm being too grim.
He's home now. Safe and sound. In case you were worried. You... you weren't worried, were you? Didn't think so...
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Chapter Something or Other
The world was twice my playground.
He stared up at the ceiling. Of all the things he did well, staring was at the top of that list. In the Olympics of staring, he would've taken gold.
He stared up at the ceiling. It began to move, left to right, like reading the world. The world was drunk, not he. And thoughts came and went. They were drunk, not he.
Manhattan.
Everyone is scrunched together; and yet they all hate each other. One thousand years from now they write the following about Manhattan in the Encyclopedia of History:
"Manhattan was a place where millions of people lived in a space barely suited for thousands. They scrunched together like animals forced into far too small a cage. They bumped into one another, because there simply was never enough room. Shoulder to shoulder, chest to back, one on top of another, and all of them so scared that the one to the left or front or the one on the other's head was going to take from them something. No evidence has yet been uncovered as to the reasoning behind the arrangement."
Looking up at the ceiling.
I wondered. I want so badly to rise above the mediocrity. I want so badly to appear that I do. I want to badly to be great.
He wanted so badly to become fantastic.
But I couldn't help him. Not this time. Because this time, there was no answer. He simply had to reconcile the fact that there was no saving those who did not want to be saved.
And there you may find the quintessential problem.
The problem is not something to be verbalized.
The problem is not something to which there is a solution.
He wrote. He drank. He hated and loved and felt.
But he was not great.
And as he wrote, I thought to myself: am I great. What do I care? Nobody recognizes greatness. Nobody even knows what to look for.
He decided to have another shot, whether of his liquor or someone else's.
He stared up at the ceiling. Of all the things he did well, staring was at the top of that list. In the Olympics of staring, he would've taken gold.
He stared up at the ceiling. It began to move, left to right, like reading the world. The world was drunk, not he. And thoughts came and went. They were drunk, not he.
Manhattan.
Everyone is scrunched together; and yet they all hate each other. One thousand years from now they write the following about Manhattan in the Encyclopedia of History:
"Manhattan was a place where millions of people lived in a space barely suited for thousands. They scrunched together like animals forced into far too small a cage. They bumped into one another, because there simply was never enough room. Shoulder to shoulder, chest to back, one on top of another, and all of them so scared that the one to the left or front or the one on the other's head was going to take from them something. No evidence has yet been uncovered as to the reasoning behind the arrangement."
Looking up at the ceiling.
I wondered. I want so badly to rise above the mediocrity. I want so badly to appear that I do. I want to badly to be great.
He wanted so badly to become fantastic.
But I couldn't help him. Not this time. Because this time, there was no answer. He simply had to reconcile the fact that there was no saving those who did not want to be saved.
And there you may find the quintessential problem.
The problem is not something to be verbalized.
The problem is not something to which there is a solution.
He wrote. He drank. He hated and loved and felt.
But he was not great.
And as he wrote, I thought to myself: am I great. What do I care? Nobody recognizes greatness. Nobody even knows what to look for.
He decided to have another shot, whether of his liquor or someone else's.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Chapter(?) Three
He moved the bottle of wine from the tabletop to the floor beside him. A spill could be catastrophic.
He ranted about money in his own head. How is it that it cost him just a hundred dollars less than he worked for to get to work to work for the money that he's paying for having worked? Is this a sick joke?
Distinct possibility.
Someone once said, "If you have money problems, you have no problems." He was either half-retarded or had no money problems.
The wine began to have an effect. So he took another swig. He regrettably had no glass available.
Another swig.
He discovered that the wine glass is an overrated accessory.
There are so many questions that I'd love an answer to. The limitations of my own mind are of unlimited interest to me; just to understand whether I've the remotest chance of receiving a reasonable reply to my incessant inquiries would satisfy me.
Maybe.
He stood in the attic, blowing smoke upwards towards the grate above the garage, constantly reminding himself that he'd been much more careless last time he was caught. The last thing he needed was his mother's animosity as he prepared to leave tomorrow. He'd seen so little of his family despite his best efforts.
There is no name for the feeling. It's not exactly anxiety. It's not paranoia. It's not curiosity, or restlessness. It's not fear. He struggled to put a word to it; as he struggled, I found an answer. But it was not one he'd accept. It was not an answer which held anything of substance.
More a passing thought than anything substantial, I realized the following: all of human emotion is based on vagueness. It is the uncertainty that breeds all the words we have for emotions. But it is never one alone that we feel.
We are always on the borders of them all. It is like some sick ven-diagram, wherein all these things overlap and we are stuck dancing like scared animals around and around the borders, slaves to our own rationality.
I'd be better off as a dog.
Cigarette. Swig of wine. Sleep.
He ranted about money in his own head. How is it that it cost him just a hundred dollars less than he worked for to get to work to work for the money that he's paying for having worked? Is this a sick joke?
Distinct possibility.
Someone once said, "If you have money problems, you have no problems." He was either half-retarded or had no money problems.
The wine began to have an effect. So he took another swig. He regrettably had no glass available.
Another swig.
He discovered that the wine glass is an overrated accessory.
There are so many questions that I'd love an answer to. The limitations of my own mind are of unlimited interest to me; just to understand whether I've the remotest chance of receiving a reasonable reply to my incessant inquiries would satisfy me.
Maybe.
He stood in the attic, blowing smoke upwards towards the grate above the garage, constantly reminding himself that he'd been much more careless last time he was caught. The last thing he needed was his mother's animosity as he prepared to leave tomorrow. He'd seen so little of his family despite his best efforts.
There is no name for the feeling. It's not exactly anxiety. It's not paranoia. It's not curiosity, or restlessness. It's not fear. He struggled to put a word to it; as he struggled, I found an answer. But it was not one he'd accept. It was not an answer which held anything of substance.
More a passing thought than anything substantial, I realized the following: all of human emotion is based on vagueness. It is the uncertainty that breeds all the words we have for emotions. But it is never one alone that we feel.
We are always on the borders of them all. It is like some sick ven-diagram, wherein all these things overlap and we are stuck dancing like scared animals around and around the borders, slaves to our own rationality.
I'd be better off as a dog.
Cigarette. Swig of wine. Sleep.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Chapter 2
He stared up at the ceiling fan. I half expected someone to walk into the room and ask him what he was looking at; I assume he'd tell the truth: "a ceiling fan". But nobody entered, and he lay, oblivious to the world around him.
He began to mumble, and each thought took him in that direction as far as it could before the next thought consumed him. He was consumed; over and over he was consumed. I guess he had a lot on his mind.
He heard soft whispers that slowly brought him back. And slowly he did return, and forget, the thoughts that had only a minute ago consumed him. But not before he was consumed.
He drove, carefully avoiding potholes or anything that looked like a pothole including shadows and small bumps. Hitting potholes made a bang he felt in his spine. The sound made him itch.
Home: soup, television, phone calls, internet, music, bed. None of it satisfied him. And as he struggled to figure out why, staying awake until he hadn't the strength left in his face to keep his eyelids up, I was the one who answered the question:
He wasn't even there; he didn't realize it, and of course I'm speaking figuratively. He was there physically. (Why the physical and the figurative seem like opposites is beyond me; it seems to me the physical shouldn't be confused for the literal, which is the opposite of the figurative, but they are anyway I suppose.) Anyway, he was there physically, but he'd been consumed, and so regretfully was not a potentially satiated entity.
Because he wasn't even there.
Where was he? Here's my guess:
He was in the belly of a great beast. The lives and loves of many greater men than he had been consumed by it; and now he joined the ranks of the best and the worst, and the in-between.
On second thought, nobody's here, or there, or anywhere; They're all in there. Welcome to the belly of the greatest beast ever to have existed. Welcome to humanity. Have a happy life.
When the world is ending, and everything they know is coming down around them, will they stop to ask for directions to the gates of heaven?
He began to mumble, and each thought took him in that direction as far as it could before the next thought consumed him. He was consumed; over and over he was consumed. I guess he had a lot on his mind.
He heard soft whispers that slowly brought him back. And slowly he did return, and forget, the thoughts that had only a minute ago consumed him. But not before he was consumed.
He drove, carefully avoiding potholes or anything that looked like a pothole including shadows and small bumps. Hitting potholes made a bang he felt in his spine. The sound made him itch.
Home: soup, television, phone calls, internet, music, bed. None of it satisfied him. And as he struggled to figure out why, staying awake until he hadn't the strength left in his face to keep his eyelids up, I was the one who answered the question:
He wasn't even there; he didn't realize it, and of course I'm speaking figuratively. He was there physically. (Why the physical and the figurative seem like opposites is beyond me; it seems to me the physical shouldn't be confused for the literal, which is the opposite of the figurative, but they are anyway I suppose.) Anyway, he was there physically, but he'd been consumed, and so regretfully was not a potentially satiated entity.
Because he wasn't even there.
Where was he? Here's my guess:
He was in the belly of a great beast. The lives and loves of many greater men than he had been consumed by it; and now he joined the ranks of the best and the worst, and the in-between.
On second thought, nobody's here, or there, or anywhere; They're all in there. Welcome to the belly of the greatest beast ever to have existed. Welcome to humanity. Have a happy life.
When the world is ending, and everything they know is coming down around them, will they stop to ask for directions to the gates of heaven?
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