Tag Archives: happiness

Writing a short story for a book review in a History college course…

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Walden Two: Just Another Religious Cult?

In the very books in which philosophers
bid us scorn fame, they inscribe their names.
——Cicero: Pro Archia XI.xxvi.

“Here it is,” I said, holding a Webster’s dictionary in my lap. “Utopia… well, there are three definitions. Which one do you want?“ I turned to my longtime friend, Jessica, and waited for a response.

She looked at me, and with a sarcastic tone, replied, “Whichever one suits you, how about that?” We often discussed the way people have the tendency to only make remarks or statements that defend their position. No one wants to be proven wrong. This time, though, I told Jessica I wanted to find out how good a utopia could be. She argued that I was not going into this project with an open mind, that I had decided long ago utopias were “nifty.” People always remember what I want them not to.

“Okay, smarty, here’s the whole definition. ‘Utopia, imaginary and ideal country in Utopia by Sir Thomas More, from Greek ou: not, no; and topos: place. One, an imaginary and indefinitely remote place. Two, often capitalized, a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government and social conditions. Three, an impractical scheme for social improvement.’ Wait, here’s a good one, the definition for utopian socialism, ‘socialism based on a belief that social ownership of the means of production can be achieved by voluntary and peaceful surrender of their holding by propertied groups.’ That’s exactly what Walden Two is, a utopian socialist community.” I had found the definition I wanted!

“You don’t have to shout. I’m right here. So I guess you’re trying to convince me of something. First, you say a utopia is ’imaginary’ and ‘impractical.’ Then, you try to cover that up with another definition about a utopian society full of ’peaceful’ people. Can you imagine President Reagan asking everyone to peacefully give up their property and bank accounts for the good of our society? Be real.”

She’s right, I thought. There’s never going to be a…

“But don’t you see,” I burst out, “that’s what Skinner is saying. There will never be a political solution to forming an almost nonpolitical society.”

“Okay, but my point is this: do you really believe Americans are going to give up discotheques and funeral homes for SOCIALIST living? Remember, this is the land of Richard Nixon, J.C. Penney’s and apple pie. I just don’t see everyone wearing robes and traveling in buggies.”

“Very funny,” I snorted as I picked up a copy of Walden Two looking for a passage to help me out. “Listen, ’What would you do if you found yourself in possession of an effective science of behavior?’ You didn’t get the true message of the book. This isn’t a real utopian society. And, this isn’t a socialist government, either.” Jessica gave me a questioning stare. “Well, not much of one, anyway.”

“Have you decided what you’re going to write your paper on yet? I thought you were going to write about All The President’s yen…I mean, Men.”

“I was, but the professor said that 80% of the class would probably write about the same book so I decided not to do that one. I’d say everyone in the class has already read about and knows about Watergate. Too  easy.” And besides, I thought, why write a story on a great president? If I could write a convincing story on a socialist society, then I could try proving the worth of a phone—bugging president.

We sat in silence for a few minutes. I went over my notes on B.F. Skinner, searching for some supportive evidence on the idea of my paper.

Meanwhile, Jessica read the Wall Street Journal. As I looked at my notes, my mind began to wander. I asked myself, Is there such a thing as a utopia? Would anyone want it if they had it? How can there be a perfect society when we, the components of this society, aren’t perfect? Is Skinner’s ’science of behavior’ the solution to a utopian society? I just couldn’t find a reasonable answer.

“Lee,” Jessica asked, looking up from the paper, “did you know the Indian tribe that ate the first Thanksgiving dinner with the Pilgrims doesn’t exist anymore?”

Still lost in thought, I responded, “What did you say?”

“I said, did you know the Indian tribe that…”

“Hey! That’s it,” I said, nearly jumping out of my seat.

“That’s what?” was her response, angry with me for interrupting her (first) discovery. She knew I was about to go into a long monologue and she’d never be able to finish her thought.

“Didn’t you read some book about an Indian named Black Elk or some such?”

“Yeah, and…”

“Well, I seem to remember you saying Black Elk was in touch with God or some spirit. Wasn’t that his argument for returning to the tribal life, because of our losing ’harmony with God?’”

“He didn’t argue for tribal life. He just stressed the importance of a spiritual life. If you want, I can get the book for you.”

“No, that all-right. I think I have something, though. Let me find the page I’m looking for first.” I began thumbing through Walden Two. “Here it is. ‘Walden Two isn’t a religious community.’ There’s some more here somewhere… oh yeah, I don’t know if I told you but in this book, Skinner isn’t the builder of Walden Two. It’s this guy named Frazier who formed it. All through the book, Frazier is defending Walden Two against the doubts of Skinner and a colleague of his. Anyway, Frazier goes on to say, ’It would take me a long time to describe, and I’m not sure I could explain, how religious faith becomes irrelevant when the fears which nourish it are allayed and the hopes fulfilled—— here on earth. We have no need for formal religion, either as ritual or philosophy.’ Don’t you see? He’s saying the same thing that Black Elk said.”

“Uh, Lee, are you sure you know what you’re talking about?”

“Come on. You’re the one who’s studied Hinduism and Buddhism. They all have this belief in God or…what is it the call it?“

“’The absolute experience.'”

“Yeah, well, isn’t Walden Two a sort of absolute experience? I mean, according to all that’s in this book, Walden Two and the science of behavior are like the Brahman or nirvana of Hinduism. I’m not sure if Black Elk used this word but it’s like the manitou of the American Indians. They all seek to reach an ultimate goal, the perfect reality. Just think, to Christians, the reality is God and we fall short of God. Thus Christians must always try to become perfect, god—like. They believe we never will on Earth. Neither does Skinner.  His science of behavior stresses the need for improvement in every aspect of our lives. You know, the funny thing is Skinner has combined science and religion in his philosophy, and he admits this in so many words, too. Yet, he flatly denies religious beliefs in his teachings. I copied this passage out of Collier’s Encyclopedia. Read it.”

“…the aim of Indian philosophy is not a mere intellectual
apprehension of reality but an intuitive experience of it.
Emphasis is consequently put, in every system of Indian
philosophy, on the need for practical discipline. An aspirant
to philosophic wisdom must be not only intellectually alert
but also morally pure. Metaphysical contemplation is possible
only for one who has cultivated such qualities as equanimity,
self—control, and contentment. All schools of philosophy,
orthodox as well as heterodox, are agreed that a seeker after
metaphysical truth should cease from harboring a thirst for
the fleeting goods of this world, and should turn to the
eternal reality for ultimate satisfaction. When a candidate
is considered morally and emotionally ready, he enters on the
enterprise called philosophizing. Guided study, rational
reflection, and continued meditation constitute the technique
of philosophizing in India. This process continues until the
metaphysical truth is realized. That such realization can
come to one in this life is the teaching of many schools of
Indian philosophy. Even those which believe that the final
realization comes only after death nevertheless teach that he
who has received philosophic knowledge leads thereafter a
transformed life …. The integration of the new with the old
has been the technique by which Indian philosophy has grown.
In the struggle of ideas there are no vanquished. Some ideas
become dominant not be conquering others but by absorbing them
and thereby becoming richer.

While Jessica read the passage, I started realizing how far our conversation had gone. We had started talking about the possible existence of utopias. Now, I thought, we were discussing religions and philosophy. What I needed to do was explain more fully how I thought the two should be or have been combined in Skinner’s Walden Two.

“What do you think?” I asked, hoping Jessica would give me some way to finish what I wanted to say.

“Well, I studied this last fall in Religious Studies class. I still don’t see what you’re getting at.”

(Occasionally, I get people to say what I want.)

“I guess you really need to read this book to see everything I’m saying but that’s okay, I’ll tell you anyway,” I said wryly.

“Sometimes, your humor escapes me.”

“Let’s just say I feel in control right now,” not unlike Frazier in Walden Two, “and I’m in a good mood.”

“Ignoring your ego problem, what do you want to say?”

“Okay. Well, aside from the fact that a utopia is impossible…no, let me say this. I’ve been thinking about it and I decided what a utopia is. I wrote it down here somewhere…I found it. A utopia is ‘the balance between recognizing our mistakes and acting on and correcting them in the least amount of time. As long as we’re constantly striving for perfection at some maximum rate then we’re doing the best we can. Depending on what level our success rate of correcting our errors has reached, we will be in a state of utopia, not perfect, but as close as is humanly possible.'”

“Did you mean State of Utopia as in State of Tennessee?”
“NO.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“I didn’t really think about it.”

“Think about it, then. I’m not going to let you get by with a thoughtless statement.”

“Uh, well, a state of utopia is kinda like being reborn as a Christian.”

“You’re still being vague,” Jessica said sternly, displaying her impatience at my not thinking through everything I’d said.

“Okay, okay. Give me a break. Let’s see…hmm. You know, Christians consider being reborn as the highest goal on Earth…and, well, everything after that is soft of a self—improvement and recruitment program.”

“Yes?”

“Well, and this is a deep subject…”

“Very funny. I’m not in the mood for your jokes right now.”

I laughed despite her anger, “You’re too much sometimes.”

“And you’re not. I’d appreciate it if you’d finish. I’m really interested.”

“Oh, sorry. What was I saying?”

“You were talking about Christians.”

“Anyway, it seems to me that Skinner is no better than anyone else who wants to be immortal.“

“I see what you’re saying but not exactly.”

“Fine, I’m not finished.” Jessica smiled when she realized how harsh she’d been and how silly we both were about our seriousness on such a light subject. I thought about the guy is Skinner’s book who had been so objective throughout the visit to Walden Two that he refused to believe he had any feelings about it.

“Before you finish, Lee, I’m curious. Do you believe all this stuff?”

“Kinda.”

“Okay, I just wanted to be sure.”

“Whatever. Where was I? Oh yeah, my question I haven’t answered. Is Skinner advocating using people for an experiment? Yes. Is he saying he’d do it? No. Well, he has a lack of faith. As I once told you, I believe there are a few men who control the direction of our world. And women, too, of course. Anyway, my goal is either to make sure these people are going in my direction — that is, where I believe the world should be going-—or that I make sure I’m one of these people. What do you think?”

“I think you’re crazy!”

“But don’t you see what I’m saying? If, as I think you’d agree, we live in a world of predestination, then the only way I can test this belief is to try to see where I fit in the Plan. I know this’ll sound stupid but if I don’t fit in the Plan the Plan doesn’t exist. If there is no Plan then my belief is wrongly founded. I do, however, have faith in my fellow human, and that if one is told to do something, he will know whether to do it. If there’s no Plan, then I want to help make sure that I am there to tell people what is and what will be so they’ll know what to do. Am I making sense?”

“Yes, but I hope you don’t believe you’re as perfect as you just made yourself out to be.”

“No, no, no. I don’t believe I’m perfect. I never will be, you know that. But I feel I know a number of things, that together with other people, you included, by the way, we will help head humanity in the right direction.”

“If there is no Plan?”

“Right.”

“Okay, what do you believe is your place in the Plan?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Guess.”

“Well, that the goal I choose in this life is already known and I will do what’s right in accomplishing that goal.”

“That’s it?”

“No. Also I believe these people who control the world don’t really control it. I mean they have been chosen by God, or whatever you want to call the Creator, they have been chosen to pass messages on to the people as to what to do. We all have the choice to how we’re going to accomplish that goal on the whole. Yet, there are a certain number of people in the world who have the responsibility to make sure general objectives are carried out. As you’re probably thinking, mistakes are going to be made. I feel God has left a lot of room for mistakes, and thus, of course, for improvement. Who knows, Hitler may have been one of the chosen people. In a way, we’re all responsible. In a way, it’s the preservation of the species, but it’s more than that — it’s improvement of the species for the improvement of the universe.”

“You’ve never told me this before. When did you think of all this?“

“I hope you won’t get mad but I’ve been saying it as I’ve thought it. I’ve been fighting for the right words for months, though. I still haven’t gotten all my beliefs into perspective, though I know they fit in the same picture.”

“You know something, Lee. This has been a neat conversation.”

“I’m still not finished, though.“

“How much more do you have? I’d rather wait if you’re just going to keep making things up as you go. No offense, of course.”

“None taken, my dear. No, I do have a few more definite things to say.”

“Okay but hurry. We only have a little while before we have to go.”

“Have we decided what to do?”

“I thought we were going to see ’The Wall’.”

“Oh, that’s right. Which reminds me——do you think Skinner took acid, from what I’ve said about him?”

“What do you think?“ she asked, smiling.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,“ I replied, knowing her answer intuitively. We often communicated ideas and feelings without actual words. “Anyway, I believe Skinner sees himself as one of these chosen people. From what I can gather, I believe he is, too. Just by reading this book, I understand him to say that all religions are a science of behavior. He even said that the control is in the hands of the wrong people. I believe there are nor wrong people just those who, for one reason or another, have chosen the wrong goals in their lives. Skinner also comments that Jesus was a ’personal emissary’ sent to reveal God’s plans to put God’s people ’back on the track.’ Here’s what Frazier said in the book. Oh, in the book he as the one show said that about Jesus. Anyway, Frazier said, ’”0f course I’m not indifferent to power,” Frazier said hotly. “And I like to play God! Who wouldn’t under the circumstances? After all, even Jesus Christ thought he was God!”’”

“I hate to cut you short ,Lee…”

“No you don’t,” I said, laughing at a joke of ours. We’ve always kidded people who say “I hate to say this but…” because they do want to say it.

“Yes, but you haven’t decided what you’re going to do your paper on, and we got off track a bit from utopias, don’t you think?”

“You just brought us back, didn’t you?”

“Everything goes in a circle,“ we said in unison, laughing.

Swashbuckler, “the magazine for mad people”

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While clearing off my desk to create space for a graphics tablet, I found a stack of some papers of a previous life (before marriage), including a laboratory book from an “Analytical Chemistry” class, notes from a computer programming class, material from a Sociology class and bunches of my writing, including the following copies of one of my underground magazines called Swashbuckler, a spoof of the ETSU college newspaper and poke at the ETSU literary magazine, with devoted fans from whom I accepted guest writing from time to time.

Swashbucker – Volume 2 – Number 1

Waxing the Caddy

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While our friends in another part of the world — a part-time merchant marine and a being from another planet — sort out where they’re going, let’s take a break, shall we?

A bottle-shaped volume of Founders Dry Hopped Pale Ale (35 IBU’s, 5.4% alc. by vol.) finds its way down my gullet, gulp by gulp.

Young men are completing their requirements for Eagle Scout.

A young woman is completing her winning entry in the Science Fair (Wait!  Don’t tell her that she’s won — the judges haven’t critiqued her entry yet.).

People are poised to tour low Earth orbit or take a trip around the Moon, mere years away.

And an actress gives money to help starving people in the Sudan, yet another celebrity sealing her place in history as a person who’s assisting those “over there somewhere, but not in my backyard.”  Some would call it spreading the gospel, evangelising, or doing one’s duty to serve a mission, share a vision and teach civilised survival skills.

These are mere words.  They are the humble expression of my education, my subcultural training.

In the larger culture, the main channel where innumerable ideas flow past before I can blink an eye, many subcultural practices and beliefs influence my thought patterns.

I return to old thoughts that belong to Rick, the former writer of this blog:

Am I the grasshopper or the ant?  Am I the Eagle Scout who displays behaviours consistent with the moral and ethical teaching of the subculture in which I was nourished, where women were objectified as almost virginal in their demeanor and respected as nonsexual mothers/daughters/sisters, or am I the boy who sneaked peeks at the Playboy magazines hidden in the top of my father’s closet, where women from all walks of life were objectified as sexually desirable in their posed photographic fantasies?

When the genders are equally participating in a fun game of sexually explicit skits on stage, should objectification of any sort sneak into my thoughts?

In that ol’ nature-vs-nurture discussion about the formation of personalities, what are the patterns, the personality archetypes, that lead some people to a life of church-based conformities and others to life without rules that discourage comfortably displaying the body, au naturel, and the actions bodies take to relieve sexual desires?

When two subcultures meet, such as the two described above, how do individuals of different subcultures first greet one another?  What are their ordinary social interaction behaviours in office/school/outdoor environments?

I know I have traveled this path of words before but did I make any conclusive observations?

I have no grand, sweeping statements that try to box all personality types together, forcing them to operate under a set of rules for homogeneous behaviour.

I know better than that.

What can I say?  Tonight, I enjoyed the simple pleasure of watching the performance of local actresses on stage, who sang original songs (accompanied by two male musicians), read original stories, and danced in levels of dress (or undress, if you will).  Forgetting the lyrics once or twice, hitting the occasional note offkey and not on purpose.

Burlesque in the land of cotton and spaceships.

Creativity without question.

The main singer with the stage name of Rosie Profane, sounding like Laurie Anderson at times and looking like a grownup Miley Cyrus, was assisted by Pan Asian Cuisine (Christina Sanderson) and the Lovely Aunt Sofonda Peters (apparently a popular character actress of the Posey Peep Show, exemplified by the warm applause and wolf whistles she received).

Other than the staged reading of the Vagina Monologues (which always makes me want to say the Martian Chronicles, for some reason), I rarely get to read, hear or attend a public event where one is asked to think up a new euphemism for female masturbation such as occurred earlier this evening.

The title of this blog is one such poetic cliché for relieving the former medical condition of hysteria.  Another one shouted out tonight was “freeing the slaves,” a reference with historic meaning here in the Heart of Dixie so soon after Juneteenth but also more generally in terms of feminine empowerment.

At the end of the workweek, I had the choice of listening to a tribute band perform the tracks for the album “Back in Black” by AC/DC, a band I never really cared for in my secondary school days, or seeing Rosie Profane bare her personality, her bosom and her derriere, a performance for which my father’s Playboy magazines prepared me.

Dad never cared for rock-n-roll.

Tonight, Dad, I raised a flask of Bushmills in your name while Rosie Profane-ly declared full freedom of expression by singing a song for a military member serving this great country of ours, where an Eagle Scout can watch a striptease act without an ounce of guilt and later write about it for the [uncensored] world to read.

With mass media outlets around the world reducing their staff, including our local newspaper, the Huntsville Times, blogs like these, as well as other social media formats, become the voice of the people.

As a cartoon caption recently stated, “He’ll keep doing it for free as long as we call him a content provider.”

Here’s your free, friendly mention of a local staged musical performance in a former cotton mill, just short of a full-fledged critical review, courtesy of humble ol’ me.

My choice of euphemism?  Hmm…how about ripening the peach?

When flies pig out

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We put out our ciggies and grumbled.  Five minutes break and it was back into the heat of the storage room of the big box store.  We not only had to restock the shelves of the storefront but also had to act as a local distribution center for the smaller brick-and-mortar storefronts around town.

Our unofficial leader, the lead thug, da man with the connections, Cliftonyte, nodded across the alley.

“Lookie here, guys.  We got us a dame carrying the biggest schlong I ever seen.  Hey, snookums, you get that off of King Kong or what?  ‘King Kong’!  Huh-huh.  That was funny if I say so meself.”

The woman in question set down her load and motioned Clif’ over to her.  “I don’t know who you are but as far as I’m concerned, you’ve lived one day too long.”

Clif’ laughed and flicked his ciggy butt at her. “Here’s a little fag fer ya.  Bet it’s all you can handle!”

“Clif’, man, we gotta get back inside ‘r the boss’ll have us all fired.”

“You don’ worry none about the boss.  She works for my family.  She’s like my sister’s husband’s wife’s brother’s husband’s wife, or somethin’ like that.  Watch me take care of this shite dirtyin’ up our dock.”

We walked down the dock with Clif’, acting like we knew what we was doing but keepin’ our distance between him and her.  As far as the big red shiny thing sittin’ on the ground a few feet from her, I was curious.

I nodded and the rest of the guys walked around the woman to sit what this half-machine, half-animal object was all about.

“So, big boy, looks like your gang is backing me up instead of you.”

“Naw.  They’s just keep you cornered in case you chicken out and try to run.”

“Before I kick your ass to the Moon, I want you to know my name is Agirita.  I’ve had a rough few days.  I may be tired but it’s turds like you that give me energy.”

“Don’ matter to me none whether your dog died and they repo’d your truck.  I bet your mama wears Army boots and likes skanky tacos, if you know what I mean.”

“You know, you are the second baby boy I’ve encountered this afternoon.  What is it about grownup men who left their brains in kindergarten?”

“You think I got no brains?  You think I’m stupid or somethin’?  I’ll have you know I have my licence to cut your guts up and feed ’em to your daddy and make him lick your mama’s boots on the Internet.”

“Ooh.  I’m scared.  Besides, my father’s dead, you worthless waste of breath.”

By this time, they had circled each other twice.  We were peering into the mouth of the machine thing when I thought I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.  “You guys see that?”

I heard a swooshing sound and turned to watch Clif’ and Ag-uh…Ager something start swinging at each other, both landing some pretty hard blows but standing their ground.

The swooshing sound returned but this time it came from behind me.  And a smell…like rotten flesh hanging out of one of our dumpsters next to the butcher shop that hadn’t been cleaned in a few weeks.

I followed my nose and slowly rotated my head so I could keep one eye on the fight and one eye on what the fellows had dug out the machine thing.  Maybe…

“Guys?”

They were gone.

I snapped my finger to get Clif’s attention.  “Hey, Cliftonyte, man.  Where’d the guys go?”

“How the hell should I know….ooph.”  He took a kick in the shin.  “Hey, time out here.  They go back inside?”

“No, Clif’.  You’re between us and the dock.  You’d’ve seen ’em walk past ya.”

We all heard a blop sound, like someone making a big burp.  Stuff flew out of the back of the machine and all over my legs.  “What the fu…”  I could see the nametags and ID lanyards of the guys mixed in with a bunch of goo.

“Clif’, man, this is weird shit.  I’m going back inside.”  I pointed at the Ag lady.  “Anything comes of this — the cops get word a fight’s goin’ down — and we’re all goin’ back to jail.  Anybody ask, I’m tellin’ them you and this thing did it.  Clif’, let’s get out of here quick.”

Clif’ nodded and waved me aside.  “Hey, I own this block.  Ain’t no problem gonna happen if you keep your cool.  This fine lookin’ dame’s just gonna walk on past us like nothin’ happened, aren’t ya?”

She shrugged.  “Hey, it’s ass-kicking day and you’re my special guest.  I don’t think you’ve received the grand prize yet.”  She swung around to land a massive kick in Clif’s groin and BAM! something shot out from the machine, grabbed Clif’, and sucked him into it.  Her kick missed and she fell.

“Where he’d go?”

When my best buddy had told me not to take drugs that make you trip, I thought he was just pulling my chain.  Now, though…  it’s like flashbacks from one of my worst trips, when ghouls and goblins in ghost stories of my youth came to life, nightmares having conversations with me while they ate my soul.  Hours and hours of torture and then I woke up at a friend’s flat, soaking wet with sweat, half my shirt in my mouth.

“That machine thing just ate him!”  I was freaked.

She laughed.  “It what?  Are you kidding me?”

“Then…then…then…” I couldn’t find words, me the smooth talker.  “Then where do you think he went?  Vanished into thin air?”  I sliced my ID badge through the reader next to the warehouse door and pulled on the handle.

Suddenly, and I mean suddenly, I felt a searing pain in my ankle and a voice in my head that spoke only one word.  “Die!”

And I did.

In those slow-motion movie-like flashes of light before I died, I felt myself jerked off the dock, dragged across the ground, flung into the air and then darkness enveloped me just before I had this last thought: Had I clocked out before I stepped out on the dock?

Onion peels and deep tree roots

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In layering stories, weaving plots, and tying together subplots over decades, one has the itch to share a few secrets every now and then, planting clues in old poems and short stories, repetitious use of words as Morse code to set a rhythmical, mystical trail for a few to follow the satirical setting, the rest to brush aside this hints, obvious or subtle, in light reading of throwaway fiction.

And to get the author to ignore the wrinkles that won’t go away in the thinning skin wrapping digits pounding first mechanical and then electrical typewriters, leading to keyboards attached to homemade computers and finally to laptop computers that fall apart into phabletised gesture control and voice recognition just before thought reading and writing turns narratives into multiple, simultaneous tales spread directly across whole central nervous systems rather than just a few sensory organs for input/output stimulation.

The resultant ploy: reality disappears into the noise floor — everyone’s dreams, wishes, fantasies, and wherewithals prevail.  Make a wish.  Dream a dream.  We’ll make it all come true for me and you.

Rosie Profane live at Flying Monkey or Black Jacket Symphony reenacting AC/DC’s Back in Black after a dose of Pixar’s “Brave,” for instance.

When national politics has lost its appeal and less than 40% are listening to repeating parrots parodying each other, when no candidate has any chance of getting one’s vote, one turns one’s attention to more pedestrian treats to quench one’s tastes, no matter how high or low they appear.

Simple plots hide complex cynicism draped across cryptic tombstones and bestsellers are rarely the best literature available but, most of the time for most of us, suffice.

Simple Simon met a pieman and became a computer game.

Between fear and love became a book.

Truly Madly Deeply

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I am the nightmare that nightmares are afraid of.

Why?

Why me?

A month and a day after we buried my father.

Agony does not begin to describe my feelings of loss.  Fear of the future.  Longing for lost moments when my father and I seemed to float in complete silence, not saying a word but having the type of father-son relationship everyone wishes for but rarely receives.

So many “buts,” “ands,” and “ifs.”

If only I had paid more attention to the change in his skin colour.

And what about the sharp twist in his diet?

But I could have been there more often at the end…

But I wasn’t.

And there are no more moments alone with my father, watching the world swim by.

If, if, if…

Can a monster cry?

Can a being such as I am, constantly hungry, forever thirsty, shed a single tear?

Look at me, a stranger in a strange land, traveling with the most unusual companion to ever spend time with me, never once cringing in fear or running away.  In fact, this small creature cares for me more than my mother ever did.

Mothers like mine weren’t born to nurture.  It’s like, “Look, honey!  I’ve got a bunch of fertile eggs, thanks to your sperm.  Let’s give them the world, let them learn lessons the hard way, fight for their future, just like us.  Swim, my little ones, swim!”

Do you know what it’s like to be cold and all alone, no parent to guide you, no siblings to watch out for you?

You think you’ve got problems?

Imagine you’re a tiny fruit fly in a big rain forest.

Or a little squid in a vast ocean.

There’s not a lot of room for love in situations like that.

So you can see why I became the monster that I am.

I only know an eat-or-be-eaten world.  There is no live and let live.  Or “if you’re not with the one you love, love the one you’re with.”

Yet, I’ve got these feelings I’ve never had before.

Sure, I’ve had my share of chemical attractions and mating dances with those of my species.

But this time…

I don’t know.

Can it be possible?

Can a nightmare feel love?

Can a horrible, nasty, ravenous One, a type of Cthulhu or Chupacabra, a Shiva or Hades, have “feelings of an almost human nature?”

I may be foul and was birthed in the unspeakable depths but I am educated.  I have heard the strains of your species’ music playing through the murky waters of my adopted home beneath the currents swirling around your planet, far from my birthplace in what you could only describe as the pits of Hell.

We shall see.

As long as this delicate creature keeps me fed, I do not care.  She is my maid, my cook and my devoted servant.  For that, she deserves not only my thanks, but a bit of compassion.  Should I find myself starving, she won’t be the first one I’ll eat, I promise you that.

I put these thoughts into the fingers of the person writing this story for you.  He is my slave, whether he knows it or not.  Your species is so easy to influence, it’s almost embarrassing to take over your world.

But who’s going to stop me?

Who’s going to notice me laying my own fertilised eggs in the fountains of your city?

Who’s going to see my little hatchlings adapt to chemically-poisoned water, what you would call approved fluoridated and chlorinated tap water?

Who’s going to watch me transform my next eggs into species that emulate the invisible germs that crawl in and out of your body without a bit of worry from you?

This isn’t Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

I’m not here to steal your resources or farm your bodies and your livestock for my planet in a nearby arm of the galaxy.

No, it’s much simpler than that.

I’m here to become you.

I’m here to turn this planet into one big, happy version of me.

Some will call me Gaia.  Some already have.

Don’t compliment me too easily.

You see, I’m going to eat a lot of you before this planet is mine.

Then, one day, after I’ve slithered and slipped into your food chain, I’ll get bored.

I’ll want to expand again, explore another part of your solar system, stretch my tentacles ever so quietly into an unsuspecting ecosystem.

But there’s a long time, relative to your lifespans, before that day arrives.

Meanwhile, I have a lot to accomplish.  Outposts to settle.  Supply lines to defend, that sort of thing. (I’m not the only one of me in the galaxy, you know.  Some of us are a lot less educated and a bit more eager to feed our constant appetite.)

I thank you for reading this, whatever you call it, a “blog?”  Sounds like one of my kind.  Blog?!  Ha! Ha!  Arrrgh!  My name is Blog and I’ve come to eat your dog!  Here me stomping through your bog!  Boom!  Boom!  Ah, hahahahahaha!

Class rings and calendars

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Going through my mother in-law’s drawers as we packed up her belongings, throwing away nonfunctional appliances, opened up vistas, windows into the past.

For instance, this simple pocket calendar (my favourite calendrical timekeeper format):

I suppose the year was 1946 when this was issued, a time when the U.S., Europe, China and Japan, amongst others, were mending global relationships.

In 2012, war on that scale is more a memory, a chapter in a history book, than anything else.

Now…well…we live history every day, don’t we?  Our lives, our individual lives, are ours to call our own, with many wanting our attention to make their lives seem more important than what we have planned to think and do.

Jostens, for instance, was once willing to trade a metallic perpetual calendar for a moment of your time thinking about class rings, announcements, awards and other objects that a commercial jeweler and stationer could provide not long after national rationing had reduced the frivolity of consuming items in daily living in exchange for items in daily killing to preserve a relatively peaceful way of life.

These days, the areas on this planet where we can openly play wargames amongst ourselves dwindle.

When average citizens can share their daily lives, the minute details of their subculture, without fear of oppression by bullying forces keen on preserving their wealth and prestige at the expense of the average citizen’s meager means, then what is war for, exactly?

What about a class ring?

I had a class ring once but sold it to take an older woman on a weekend snow skiing trip.

The ring meant more to my parents (who used their hard-earned cash to purchase it for me) than to me, a person who rarely sees the value in status symbols, fleeting as they are in the grand scale of our species’ history.

But without class rings and graduation announcements, I wouldn’t have this piece of nostalgia in front of me.

Somewhere, someone is wearing a piece of jewelry made of the gold from my class ring.  There may also be someone who mounted the citrine stone, once ordaining my class ring, that closely represented my secondary school primary color — orange — as well as the birth month of the girl I spent most of my time with.

There are stories to tell, observations to make, cats to feed and laundry to fold.

Yet, here I sit, imagining the year 1946, a year of promise, when the UN was formed and a year before the CIA was formed.

Syria’s independence from France was declared.

Project Diana bounces radar waves off the Moon, measuring the exact distance between the Earth and the Moon, and proving that communication is possible between Earth and outer space, effectively opening the space age.

The precursor to Sony was founded.

A Greek referendum supports the return of the monarchy. Later, George II of Greece returns to Athens.

Italy became a republic.

The World Bank began operations.

The interim government of India takes charge.

The ISO (International Organization for Standardization) starts setting standardised standards for standard bearers everywhere.

In the first Basketball Association of America game, the New York Knicks defeat the Toronto Huskies 68–66 at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens.

The Casio Company is founded by engineer Tadao Kashio.

One calendar year — what a turning point!  Even 22 years later, 1967, the last year of the perpetual calendar, seems so far away sometimes…

Double Chocolate Stout

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“In our part of the country, we keep to ourselves,” the woman with the dark eyes behind the counter of the fishmonger’s shop advised Agirita.

Agirita was mesmerised.  “Your eyes…”

The woman moved both hands up to her face and removed the large octopus orbs from her empty eye sockets.

“With these, I can see.  But I must replace them every day.”

An ancient magic, Agirita thought.

“I have in my possession the eyes of a giant squid.  But they are large, like your head, too big for your…”

The woman shook her head.  “No eyes are too large for my vision.  Show them to me.”

Agirita nodded toward the old man.  Hunched over a wooden crate, he lifted himself onto his leathery legs and shuffled over to his cart, the donkey looking at him like the old man was wasting his time in this part of time.

He reached into the cart to pull the squid’s head closer, hoping to carve the eyes out with his machete.

When he grasped the squid, he felt muscle tension against his hands, as if the squid was still alive.

He looked back at Agirita.  She motioned impatiently.

He turned his head toward the squid and noticed its colouration was changing, as if the squid was trying to blend in with the old man’s cart.

He shook his head and stepped back, cautiously backing up to Agirita.  “We have made enough money selling the fish to the restaurants.  I am finished here.  You may take the squid off my cart now.”

She shrugged her shoulders and apologized to the fishmonger’s seller.

Agirita did not notice the change in the squid’s appearance but she was amazed that it did not smell badly, sitting as it was in the hot sun on the back of a donkey cart after more than two days on the deck of the ship.  But these were momentary thoughts that came and went like her apprehension when the men on the ship disappeared overnight, not a splash or shout to be heard, giving her a brief fright but then realising the profit of the ship’s haul was hers if she could operate the bridge herself, steering the boat toward an abandoned harbour she knew from her youth, far from town.

“Okay, old man, but this squid is mine if I remove it from your cart.”

“I am more than happy to let you claim the squid for you and you alone.  But I must take my donkey and my cart back with me.”

Agirita slipped an arm under the squid, where its tentacles met its head, and lifted.  At the back of her thoughts she felt as if the squid assisted her and climbed out of the cart on its own.  She simply thought, if she had to speak aloud, that the squid had lost a lot of water weight and was much easier to lift out than when she and the old man dragged the squid off the ship and onto his cart.

“Adios, amiga!”  The man climbed onto the cart, grabbed the reins and made a tch-tch sound.  The donkey slowly walked forward, taking the old man as far from the giant squid as he hoped he could possibly get.  He sent a silent prayer to God to protect the woman, the fishmonger and everyone in that part of town.

Agirita pulled the squid toward the fishmonger sales counter.  “This is the squid and you can see that it has very big eyes.”

The woman stepped from behind the counter and felt her way across the squid’s body, sensing a slight coolness to her touch, as if the squid was shying away from the sight her fingers provided her.

“I have never seen an animal such as this.  Very strong, yet very flexible.  Nothing like the little squid and octopi we get every day.”

“No, Señora.  In my many fishing excursions, no boats have caught such a creature.  I have yet to find a buyer because no one wants to eat plain squid flesh.  Besides, the suckers are too big.  The head and mantle are much too enormous to fit into a cooking pot.”

“Hmm…”  The woman felt the temperature of the body underneath her fingers pulsate.  She stepped back.  “How long has the squid been out of water?”

“It’s still fresh, if that’s what you mean.  It hasn’t started rotting at all, as a matter of fact.”

“I am not interested.  I will keep the eyes I have for today.”  She pulled the dark orbs out of her shirt pocket and returned to them to her eye sockets.  “Thank you for sharing your catch with me.  It is not mine to own.  Buenos dios!”

“May I use your bathroom before I go?”

“Of course.”  The woman returned to the counter and pointed behind her.  “That way.”

Agirita returned to find the woman missing from behind the counter.  She walked to the cafe next door but the woman was not inside.

Agirita shrugged off the woman’s disappearance, stooped, lifted the squid’s head and mantle onto her right shoulder, and walked toward the main shopping district in town.  She had no idea where she was going.

Neither did she know that the squid was walking on its tentacles behind her, having also changed its skin colour to that of a bright metallic red.

Passersby driving in a hurry thought they saw a woman pulling a strange mechanical device behind her, sort of like a tandem bicycle but something more, a tracked vehicle like a military tank, possibly.

Agirita did not care.  She felt a strange affinity for this creature captured in a random net haul in deep waters not far offshore.

In some ways, the creature was like her, an oddity, belonging to no one, wanted by no one, in strange, if not hostile, territory, dead but not dead, alive but not alive; although they both shared the same planet, they inhabited completely different worlds.

She remembered a big box store across town that often sold merchandise to discerning customers.  Maybe they would be interested in buying…if she felt like selling the giant squid by the time she got there.

After all, they had a history together by now, more than she’d shared with just about anyone, her close friends in name rather than in anything concrete she could name off the top of her head.

She stopped at a fountain in the center of a traffic circle, gently placing the squid’s upper body in the chlorinated water.  Noticing that the squid’s body was quickly getting dark in colour, she removed the squid and placed it on the steps leading up to the fountain.  The squid’s skin tone changed to that of the stone steps and she felt a sense of calm, as if the squid truly was still alive and giving her good vibes.

She heard a gurgling sound and looked behind her.  A goo had squirted out of the back of the squid, dropping what looked like pieces of the fishmonger seller’s clothes onto the lip of the fountain.

Agirita rubbed her eyes, feeling tired from the last couple of day, sure her imagination, heightened by sleep deprivation, was giving her hallucinations.

She looked back at the goo and it had slipped on over into the fountain, sinking onto the floor.

She took a deep breath and stooped down to pick up the squid again, catching her pants on the lip of a rock jutting out from the fountain, ripping large holes in both legs.  The bottom of the pants were literally hanging by threads so Agirita tore off the bottom of the jeans, earning her a wolf whistle from boys driving around the traffic circle in their Vespas.

She bowed to them and then gave them a not-so-friendly flip of her fingers.

She waited for a break in traffic flow and walked the squid over to a narrow alleyway where she could quietly carry the squid across much of the town unobserved.

A man, dressed in camouflage clothing from head to foot, stepped out in front of her several blocks later.

“Hey, sweetheart.  Where are you going with that contraption?  Isn’t it too big for a pretty  señorita like you?”

“It is certainly bigger than you will ever be, little man.  Think you can scare me with your pseudomilitary gear?  I have eaten and spat out more men like you than has served in our army.”

“Is that so?  Well, I have bedded uglier women than you out of pity.  But you…no way!  Charity has its limits!”

Agirita set the squid down and approached the man, noticing he was palming a switchblade.  “If you are so tough, why the knife?  Are you afraid of little girls in dark alleyways in the middle of the day?”

“This?  This is nothing.  I use it to frighten old ladies who are so attracted by my charms they become pests this time of day, swarming around me like bees to honey.”

“Well, tough guy, put away your toy and I’ll play with you.”

The man tossed the switchblade to the ground a few inches from one of the squid’s arms.  “You are like my sister, all talk and no action.”

Agirita began a spin to place a kick to the man’s groin but by the time she spun around, he was on his knees, his legs cut in half.

“Mother of God!  What was that?!”  His screams echoed down the alleyway, the houses around them empty except for a few old people taking afternoon siestas, their hearing aids neatly set on crocheted doilies next to their antique beds.

The bloody switchblade lay on street cobblestones next to one of the cutoff legs.

Agirita wondered what kind of insane man would slice off his own legs.

“Señorita!  Please, help me!  I am dying.”

Agirita turned to look back down the alleyway from where she had come, recalling a busy intersection not far away.  Surely…

A thump interrupted her thoughts.

She swung her head back around quickly and one of the man’s arms had dropped to the street next to his legs.

The man’s eyes were wide in panic, his head shaking, pointed straight at the squid.

Surely not…

“Please, please, please, Señorita!!!  Do not turn your back on me.  Your contraption is killing me, whatever it is.”

“The squid?”

“Yes, Señorita.  If that’s what you call it.”

“It’s dead.”

“Dead or alive, Señorita, I do not care.  Whatever you do, please, I confess my sins to you right here and now.  I am dying, thanks to that thing there.”

Agirita leaned forward and held the back of the man’s head because he was swaying.

“Thank you, Señorita.  Underneath this long-sleeved shirt is a tanktop that belonged to my father.  He died in the Great War of the Uprising and all I got was his tanktop and the switchblade.  Please take both of them from me now.  I am a bad man.  I know that now, and I don’t deserve them anymore.”

“No, I do not want your things.  You need them.”

The man’s eyelids fluttered and his skin paled while blood pulsed onto the cobblestones around Agirita’s boots.

“Señorita, you must obey the commands of a dying man.  It is a tradition in our country I need to hang on to.  Please take these things from me and do not tell people what a bad man I was today.  Tell them the shirt and the knife were given to you to honour a great father, Pedro Alejandro de la Joven Una.”

“Okay, I will do that.  But, may I ask, what is your name?”

“For you, and you alone, I give you my full name, chosen by my mother, pregnant with me when my father died, to honour my father’s favourite thing in the whole wide world.  My name, Señorita, is Doble Chocolate Cerveza Negra Fuerte, but my friends know me only as Fuerte.”

“An honourable name, Fuerte.”

“No, it is not.  My father was an alcoholic but when our country was at its lowest point and needed the most devoted soldiers, my father left our home in the middle of the night, not even bothering to kiss my mother goodbye, to serve his duty and earn the first steady paycheck of his life.”

“At least your father wasn’t killed by a stray bullet in a gunfight he was not involved in.”

“Señorita…cough, cough…I am feeling dizzy-headed.  I think I am seeing the light of the train coming down the tunnel to take me home.  Please pray for me, Señorita.  I am guilty of the highest crime our nation has devised.  I am dying, Señorita, and will do so as a virgin.”

Agirita almost lost her grip on Fuerte’s head.

“That’s right.  When I reached puberty at 12, I lied to my priest that I had enjoyed intercourse with a young woman, which he passed on to the government auditors and for which my mother was given a government subsidy in thanks for me replenishing the stock of our shrinking population.  The young woman became pregnant soon afterward and everyone assumed it was me.  I have carried this lie with me the rest of my life.”

“Fuerte, you will not get a full government burial.  They will burn your body if they find out…”

“Señorita, only you know this and why would they trust the word of a woman covered with the blood of a dead man and a switchblade on… the… ground… nearby?”

With a last, long effort to get the last word spoken, Fuerte’s body went limp.

Agirita slipped the one-armed shirt off of Fuerte, lifted the tanktop from his torso, removed her blood-stained shirt and replaced it with the tanktop.  She dropped the switchblade into her pocket after wiping the blood onto her discarded shirt before she dropped it into the pool coagulating below her.

“Hello?  Can anyone out there hear me?!”  Her shouts echoed briefly and the alleyway went silent.

She waited a couple of more minutes but nothing stirred except flies descending on Fuerte’s disembodied legs, arm and torso.

She slipped off her boots and pushed them past old food scraps into the bottom of a rubbish bin.

Taking another deep breath, Agirita hoisted the squid back onto her shoulders and hastily walked on down the alleyway, far from strange men who liked to cut off their limbs in unexplained rituals of self-pity.

She did not see the squid grab the body parts during the first unsteady steps she made as she got up to speed, leaving her shirt and Fuerte’s blood as evidence of an event no one noticed and thus, was never reported.

Like his father, Fuerte seemed to disappear without telling anyone goodbye.

As A Man Thinketh

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The life of, statistically, all wrens goes unrecorded.

Yet a wren hops across the metal roof of the sunroom in search of tasty insects (not, however, the large beetle that was slowly traipsing through the leaf debris of the forest floor next to our driveway earlier this afternoon), feeding the tiny chicks out of their shells in the coconut hull lined planter hanging below the eave of the house where a dead tree fell in the last windstorm and crushed the gutter, scattering the bird and rolling the tiny wren eggs out of the nest and into the edge of the planter which I pulled down and rolled the eggs back into the makeshift nest a few weeks ago and rehung.

The crushed gutter looks like a kid with a busted lip, pouting.

The tree I sawed apart the next day in good time. A modern Paul Bunyan I’m not. Daniel Boone or David Crockett, neither. The rope-thick trunk of a poison ivy vine that once adorned the dead tree is draped across the back deck like a snake lying in wait for the wren, its limbs and dead seeds like some macabre sepulchral being slithering out of the primordial ooze and into the civilised landscape of modern culture where Colin Quinn gives an oratory on the long historic short of our species from a comedic perspective in lower Manhattan.

I give the wren credit. It sure is careful when it approaches a nest out in the open, acting like it’s being watched at all times, from any direction. You know, like reclusive survivalists of our species in their natural environs.

Instinct or carefully-honed habit of life in the wilds of [sub/ex]urban woodland?

No matter.

Clouds gather, like clouds tend to do, on the horizon, foreboding doom, death and destruction.

Bells toll for the insects gulped down by illiterate, nonhistoric wren chicks.

Death is life.

Chinese rockets can blast nuclear warheads or people into space, the latter of more importance this week while the first female taikonaut gets her own water closet in Earth orbit.

The wren cannot comprehend rockets, spacesuits, weightlessness or any other joy besides the duty of feeding its young.

The wren does not know about Mercury rising or rising mercury in barometers, rare earth, or how rare Earth’s atmosphere is.

The two natural gas powered outdoor barbecue grills under cover below the wren’s nest are as meaningful as the house that hosts the smorgasbord of meals for the continuation of the wren’s family tree.

No matter.

A woman transfers freshly-dead fish onto a donkey cart with the help of an old man whose only interest is getting more for his share of the fish than what he would have received for the shipment of Salvia divinorum he had dug up earlier that morning and dumped out of the cart at the woman’s urging.

“Nobody wants your worthless weeds, old man!” she had spat at him in disgust.

No matter.

He did not need the money. He was happy for the companionship of the young woman, the first person of the opposite sex to talk to him in many months.

He remembered a quote from a book written in English by James Allen, given to him by the parish priest to encourage learning, “Until thought is linked with purpose there is no intelligent accomplishment.”

Whatever this woman wants must be important, the old man thought, like the insects that give their lives for a few wrens hosting a variety of insects on their bodies observed by an invisible author, all having the chance to reproduce themselves genetically, the transformation of their states of energy part of the zero-sum business of the universe.