A Thousand Stories : Volume 5 : Stories 0401-0500 : Orange

a thousand stories

j. blasso-gieseke

a thousand stories volume 5 : stories 0401-0500 : orange

j. blasso-gieseke

Books in the Series A Thousand Stories volume 1 : stories 0001-0100 : black volume 2 : stories 0101-0200 : gray volume 3 : stories 0201-0300 : white volume 4 : stories 0301-0400 : yellow volume 5 : stories 0401-0500 : orange volume 6 : stories 0501-0600 : red volume 7 : stories 0601-0700 : purple volume 8 : stories 0701-0800 : blue volume 9 : stories 0801-0900 : green volume 0 : stories 0901-1000 : brown

a thousand stories

Published by Charybdis Press charybdispress.com © 2021 Charybdis Press All rights reserved First Edition No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher, except in the context of reviews.

Many stories in this book are fiction. Any characters resembling actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Cover: 16 point Meridien Title: 14 point Futura Text: 10.5 point Caslon Layout & Design: J. Blasso-Gieseke ISBN 978-1-957399-04-1

For You and Baba, and the Muse too, and Hermes three

The author would like to thank Niall Twohig, Francesca Ferranti, and Josephine Blasso for their editorial aid, and Matthew A. Brown for his suggestions on the Preface. The book was made better by their time and attention. Still, any faults found in the stories are wholly my own.

Contents 0401. The Meta-Information Age 0402. The Worst Evil?

0403. The Sleep Station 0404. The Unweapon of Love 0405. Agita 0406. The Three E’s of Veganism 0407. The Effortless Fluidity of Fishes 0408. The Astronomologer 0409. The Joy of Struggle 0410. Aspic Comic 0411. F.A.Q. for the New Symbol Besed 0412. What’s the Analysis, Corporal?

0413. Socialist Sexuality 0414. Working Title 0415. The Mayfly 0416. Nuzzle 0417. Na Zdorovie 0418. 120 Years 0419. Echolocation 0420. Marijuana 0421. Pure Land 0422. Manufacturing 0423. Its True Name 0424. The Mute, a Short Play in Three Acts 0425. Journal Entry 8/25/19: The Wastes of Time 0426. The New Excommunication 0427. The Psoma Bed, a Product History 0428. Lovelocked 0429. Social Anxiety 0430. The History of Progress in Western Civilization 0431. The 1,002nd Day 0432. Autopilot Road Trip Through Our Personalized Bubble World Echo Chamber 0433. We’re All Technicians 0434. Double Identity 0435. A Talk With a Conspiracy Theorist 0436. Why I Don’t Wear White 0437. The Challenger 0438. Asshat

0439. Tell Me Why 0440. Sculpture Propositions for Storm King Art Center 0441. The Prophet 0442. When You’re Nothing, You’re Everything 0443. The Zodiac Circle 0444. Visualizing Wealth Inequality 0445. Worker Co-operatives Are the Future 0446. Grace’s Names 0447. Grandma Shirley 0448. Telepathy 0449. Go Seigen Go Sagan Go 0450. Crippled Bodies 0451. Crippled Minds 0452. Oiler 0453. Okkult – Side A 0454. Okkult – Side B 0455. Well, Here We Are, One Year Later 0456. Medicare for Dogs 0457. Red Light, Green Light 0458. Found: Monte Cristo Word Salad 0459. Santus 0460. Marquee Façade 0461. Voter Suppression 0462. As I Brush My Teeth 0463. Calibrixia 0464. The Message of the Cypresses 0465. Get a New God 0466. Creative Exercise 0467. Dono Jubbecause 0468. Slug to Snail 0469. Ukraine 0470. Wrestling With the Idea of My Personal Library 0471. On Becoming a Necromancer 0472. The 96 0473. The Purgatory of Convalescing 0474. Comes the Scatonaut 0475. The Chosen One 0476. The Chosen Ones 0477. Complicit With Plastic 0478. The Deadline 0479. Failed Geographies 0480. Tanka to Haiku 0481. I’m Glad I Didn’t Become a Veterinarian

0482. I’m Glad I Took the Uncharted Path I Did 0483. Frottage 0484. Yes and No 0485. Our First Date 0486. The Sound of Color 0487. Deus Ex Machina 0488. Contented Farts 0489. The Na’vi as a Post-Civilized Culture 0490. A Brief Sketch of Western Human History 0491. A Brief Sketch of Western Human Futurity 0492. En at Mahat Mahat 0493. The King of the Wood 0494. Gerropa, the Lacustrine Lord 0495. Stopping the Rise of Strong Unitary Executive Power 0496. Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth and a Colonoscopy) 0497. Lyrics from Goats’ Satanic Moth Angel EP 0498. Tarot Reading 2/1/2020 0499. Tell Brak 0500. Beginning in the Middle

a thousand stories

0401. The Meta-Information Age

We all live in the so-called Information Age, which means we all live in a sea of information, which makes information the medium in which we swim. And like water to a fish, living in the Information Age means we’re no longer aware of the information surrounding us. And, to extend the metaphor further, if, like a fish, we swim in a sea of information, the gills of our minds take the oxygen of data and let the rest go.

We say we’re living in the Information Age, but the truth is, we were always living in the Information Age. Ever since our minds developed, we’ve been awash in information and have been selectively choosing the choicest bits to help us successfully navigate the world around us. We’ve always lived, to coin a word, withinformation. Even the most basic minds of the most basic plants, fungi, and animals exist withinformation, though they wouldn’t know to call it that.

Our awareness of living in the Information Age comes from our self-awareness. But the Information Age isn’t the Information Age; it’s the Meta-Information Age. The Meta-Information Age is different from the Information Age because, in it, we live simultaneously within the information of the natural world and within the information of our human world. However, in the Meta-Information Age, the information of our human world has so effectively colonized the information of the natural world that we no longer acknowledge that we’re part of the natural world. For many, and to the detriment of the planet, there’s nothing but the human world.

0402. The Worst Evil?

“The worst evil? Against mankind?” Satan repeated. “That’s a good question, a real good question. I never thought about that: The worst evil?

Hmmm. There’s so so many. I’m glad you asked it, though. Just give me a minute. Let me think.”

Satan folded his hands behind his horned head, leaned back in his office chair, and kicked his hooves up on his brimstone desk.

“The worst evil? The worst evil? Hmmm,” he muttered to himself, as he stared unseeingly at the stalactites above his head.

“Ah, I got it!” he exclaimed, dropping his hooves off the desk, sitting up straight, and composing himself. “Ready?”

I nodded.

“The worst evil I ever perpetuated against mankind has to be the common cold,” he said proudly.

“Really!?” I asked underwhelmed.

“You don’t think that’s evil enough?”

“Compared to genocide or torture? No.” “I hear what you’re saying, but you have to remember the common cold used to kill a lot of people. I mean, a lot. Definitely more than genocide.”

“But it doesn’t anymore.”

“I know, but it really tortures a lot of people now. I mean, they need sleep to get well, but they can’t sleep because they can’t breathe. It’s a vicious vicious circle. They have to become mouthbreathers just to survive.

They get sicker and sicker, spread it everywhere. It’s awful. I love it. You would’ve thought You-know-who would’ve picked up on that design flaw and… Well, there you have it. I work with what I’m given.”

I shook my head in disbelief.

“What? You think I’m getting soft?”

0403. The Sleep Station

The Medidroid pressed the TORPOR icon and raised it to NREM SLEEP. The bed responded immediately, rewarming the patient to normal body temperature and removing the pulmano-gastro tubes and waste lines.

The Medidroid pressed the NREM SLEEP icon and raised it to REM SLEEP. The patient’s eyes darted rapidly under their lids.

The Medidroid pressed the REM SLEEP icon and raised it to WAKE. The patient’s eyes fluttered and opened.

The Medidroid pressed the LIGHT icon and raised it slowly.

The patient’s irises slowly constricted. He blinked and looked around to get his bearings.

“Please remain still. You may be disoriented,” the Medidroid said in a familiar, soothing voice.

The patient turned to look at the Medidroid. Its kind, female face smiled down at him beatifically, looking just like his mother.

“Welcome back,” it said. “Do you know where you are?”

“In bed in the Sleep Station,” he said.

“Very good. And how do you feel?”

“My throat hurts,” he said, trying to touch his neck, but his chest and arms were held fast by restraints.

“That’s from the tubes. We’ll get you some juice to soothe it soon. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Do you know how old you are?”

“I’m nine.”

She smiled down at him.

“Yes. Your mind is nine, but your body is twenty-nine.”

“No, it’s not!”

“Listen to your voice.”

It was true. Even though the tubes had made his throat sore, his voice was deeper.

“Now, look at your hands.”

He picked his head off the bed and looked down at his large, hairy hands and screamed.

0404. The Unweapon of Love

Today, many of us are frustrated by the lack of a substantial enemy.

Any attack against politicians and the government, or lobbyists and the interests they serve, or businessmen and women and the corporations they work for, never harms the institutions themselves. Physical persons who work for these insubstantial institutions, and the physical properties that contain them, are replaceable and interchangeable. And any physical attack against these physical persons or physical properties will only serve to strengthen and substantiate them while allowing more layers of physical and legal reinforcements to surround and protect them from future attacks. Therefore, anyone looking to fight these insubstantial institutions must realize that there is no longer a physical person or place to put a physical knife into. There is no king to kill, and violence, murder, and assassination will never change the institutions themselves.

Further, tyranny has become diffuse and banal. Tyrrany no longer resides solely in presidents or prime ministers or C.E.O.s, or any of their cronies or lackeys, or any of their soldiers or police. Tyranny resides in every one of us. And physical violence against all of these physical persons and all their physical properties cannever be achieved. We cannot exchange one physical weapon for another and continue the cycle of physical violence by other means. We cannot exchange physical violence for psycho-spiritual violence and believe we are better and more just. All violence must end. Our weapons of violence and hate must be replaced with something more effective. We must replace them with the Unweapon of Love.

Sic semper tyrannis.

0405. Agita

Agita is that queasy, heartburny, gassy, overfull feeling you get after eating too much or eating something that doesn’t agree with you. We’ve all been there, when your stomach feels like it’s going to pop and you want to be in bed, wearing something with an elastic waist, chewing on antacids, in close proximity to a toilet.

But agita has another meaning, at least in my family, who pronounces it “ah-jit-uh.” They say, “You’re giving me agita,” which is the same as them saying, “You’re giving me a stomachache.” They’d say this about someone’s words or actions whenever they had enough of it. It’s like they were eating that person’s behavior and that behavior was making them queasy, heartburny, gassy, and overfull. It’s a great way to tell someone: Enough is enough. You’re giving me indigestion.

Saying “You’re giving me agita,” is better than saying “Shut up!” or “Fuck off!” or “Leave me alone!” You’re saying those things, but you’re not saying them directly. You’re saying: I’ve had enough of your bullshit. I’m full and my stomach hurts.

What I especially like about the expression is that it places the revulsion at the level of the body. When you say someone’s giving you agita, you’re expressing pain at the core of your being, in your gut.

Another related, but rare, saying reserved for the worst offenses is “Agita mort,” which means, “You bother the dead.” This is always said in hushed tones as if it were sacrilege. No one wanted to disturb the dead, lest they return to haunt you…

0406. The Three E’s of Veganism

Meat, dairy, and egg consumption are deeply imbedded in our culture.

My choice to become vegan came when I understood the Three E’s of Ethics, Environment, and Economics and wanted to make a change for my health and the health of the planet.

Ethics The raising of food animals is a cruel and exploitative system for the animals and people involved, as both are treated as commodities from which profits are made. To maximize profits, the animals are forced into a system where they’re treated as livestock instead of intelligent creatures with complex social systems and are kept in stressful and overpopulated feeding lots before being killed and rapidly disassembled by a class of overworked and underpaid killers.

Environment In order to feed and rapidly grow food animals, thousands of hectares of deforested land is required for corn, alfalfa, and soy production. These monocultures require fertilizers and biocides, which poison our water and soil. Both crops and animals require large amounts of water, which depletes our reservoirs and aquifers. And animal waste contaminates our water and poisons the air with methane, a gas that traps 80 times more heat in our atmosphere than CO2.

Economics In order to support this unnatural and inefficient food production system vast government subsidies are required. These subsidies are paid for by our tax dollars. But the taxpayer pays for more than the subsidies. They also pay for the externalities, the health, environmental, and social degradations caused by these industries. So, while these companies net large profits, the taxpayer is left picking up the tab.

0407. The Effortless Fluidity of Fishes

He felt like he was in a giant aquarium. The car glided through the traffic of bikes, S.O.V.s, cabs, and large delivery vehicles with speed, ease, and efficiency. The driver navigated the crowded conditions without incident or accident. The same elastic dance could be seen on the sidewalk with the pedestrians and their pets. Everyone slid past one another with the effortless fluidity of fishes.

The car pulled over.

“We’re here,” his guide said, exiting the car and entering the crowded sidewalk.

As he stepped out, he looked up past the tall skyrises and dancing advertisements to the small blue sliver of sky between them. It seemed very far away.

“This way,” his guide called, waving to him from the middle of the flow, then turning towards the embassy, walking with a rubbery sway.

He stepped forward and felt his body gently buffered by the other bodies on the street. Keeping his eyes on his guide, he walked towards her with elastic movements. His legs glided and his shoulders rolled as he weaved between people in a gorgeously choreographed dance. He made no contact with anyone. There was only the seamless lubricity of movement.

He caught up to his guide outside the entrance of the embassy.

“That was fun,” he said, smiling.

“It’s awkward at first, but you get used to it quick,” she said. “Because of the crowding here, everyone has to wear magnetic sensors and all vehicles have to be installed with them to repel contact and avoid impact.”

“I can’t wait to do it again,” he said.

0408. The Astronomologer

The Astronomologer typed in the place and time of her clients’ birth and the hologram projected their planets and the exact arrangement of stars at that time.

The Astronomologer calculated their natal horoscopes, compared the two, and found them congruent.

“Well?” the bride-to-be’s father asked.

The Astronomologer leaned back in her seat and took them all in. “I don’t see anything wrong with this pairing,” she said.

The couple grabbed each other’s hands and let out a squeal of delight.

“Pseudoscientific nonsense!” the bride-to-be’s father exclaimed. “You’re a quack, madam. And to think we travelled all this way for your advice.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” the groom-to-be’s father said, standing angrily. “This is absolute rubbish. We’re from different planets. We’re both different species. We came here today hoping you’d put an end to this nonsense. But your verdict will only serve to encourage this foolishness.”

“Believe what you want, but the stars don’t lie!” the Astronomologer said defiantly.

“How can you be so certain?” the bride-to-be’s mother squeaked around the bulk of her husband.

“Look here,” the Astronomologer said, expanding the view of her daughter’s horoscope hologram. “These are the Horns, no? The sixth sign in your zodiac. From the perspective of your planet and your people, this star pattern is in the shape of a pair of horns. But from any other perspective in the universe it isn’t. Now, do you see this star in the Horns here? This star is the same star in his zodiac sign here. Do you know what the odds of that happening are?”

0409. The Joy of Struggle

Every one of us is at a different point of political, economic, and social awareness. Right now, most people are staunch capitalists of the farright and center-right. The far-right Republicans are going to fight any and all challenges to the status quo because they’ve been the longest beneficiaries of capitalism’s largesse. And those who haven’t, but love the ideal of rugged individualism, will continue to vote against their own selfinterest. Meanwhile, the center-right Democrats will pay lip service to reforming capitalism by making it appear more egalitarian. Many people will subscribe to this because it’s what they’re most familiar with. None of these people are necessarily cruel or misguided, even if the results of their voting happen to be. They’re just at a different point. And that’s what a true democracy looks like: different people at different points of awareness. And that’s why, in a true democracy, it’s important that other options are made available to people. It’s why we need a progressive left party to challenge the other two parties. And as both parties continue to move further right, we need this party now more than ever to offer an alternative political, economic, and social system that supports everyone.

Bringing this about will be difficult, but I think the difficulties can be surmounted if we see them in the spirit of what Henry Giroux calls the “the joy of struggle.” We have to embrace our roles as progressive leftists with joy and live our values openly so that together we can create a world we all can live in.

0410. Aspic Comic

The frame is a window. Outside looking in, reveals a man’s face. Inside looking out, reveals his back.

High, he turns and walks. The human stride. The lift and elongation of body. He moves from bedroom to bathroom. Stands before the mirror.

Mugs.

Laughing at himself, he leaves. Descends a stair. Sights and sounds.

Fingertips dragging along surfaces. The senses alight.

Crashing onto a couch. Benday dot patterns spill out of his mind.

Coagulating into a woman’s face, à la Lichtenstein, looking down at him.

“Where were you?” she asks, lying on top of him. “I was looking for you.”

They converse animatedly. Speech balloons multiply, swelling, taking over, until they’re all that’s left.

Words fill the page until language collapses into and, and, and, &, &, & the ampersand becomes them sitting together sipping tea, laughing at each other.

They speak without words. Ur language. Grunting. Mewling. Braying.

Barking. Pretending. Silent playacting.

They go outside. Break the cell and enter the world. The pulse of existence.

They sit beneath a tree in the grass. He plucks a blade. They see a universe contained inside. He blows it from his fingertips.

They undress. An Adam, an Eve. Embrace, kiss, and coitus. Yin and yang.

Lingam and yoni. In and out. Ebb and flow. Come and go. Ejaculating a universe inside her.

Dressed. They reenter the house holding hands. Their surroundings are new. Fresh.

The seasons change. Nine months pass. The cry of a child.

Inside looking out, the man holds his child. Outside looking in, he points and waves goodbye.

0411. F.A.Q. for the New Symbol Besed

HOW is besed pronounced and HOW is it made?

&

Besed is pronounced bee-said and it’s made by rotating the ampersand (&) -45° and mirroring it on the Y-axis ( ).

WHO created the besed and WHO else would use it?

I, J. Blasso-Gieseke, created it, and I’m uncertain if it’ll be used by anyone else, but one never knows.

WHAT was the besed created for and WHAT do you hope becomes of it?

It was created to compliment the ampersand’s logogram for the word “and.” I have no hopes of it becoming anything more than what it is: a logogram for “but.”

WHEN was it created and WHEN, if ever, will it enter common usage?

The besed was created the same day my good friend Tony Brown was born: August 8th, except it was born in 2015. I don’t believe there’s a high enough demand for the symbol to enter common usage, but it does make a nice companion to the ampersand from which it was derived.

WHERE did the name come from and WHERE would it be used?

The name comes from the B in “but” combined with the Latin word sed, which means “but.” It could be used anywhere a but is used, but it would most likely be used in lists of exceptions, excuses, or endless stalling digressions.

WHY was it created?

The besed may seem a logogram of decadence created by someone too lazy to write out the three letters in “but,” but I would argue that it’s a rather noble symbol with a tidy, elegant design.

0412. What’s the Analysis, Corporal?

“What’s the analysis, corporal?”

“The analysis? The analysis, sir, is absolute anal lysis. Someone’s ruptured the dam ass ring; and the sphincter’s collapsed; and a diarrhea tsunami’s headed our way.”

“Sounds a bit excessive, son. Couldn’t you have just said the shit’s hit the fan?”

“I could have, sir. But that wouldn’t’ve given you the full scope of the situation at hand. My hyperbole was calculated, composed, and aimed at accurately conveying the actual height, width, depth, and weight of it.”

“I see.”

“This is far worse than shit hitting the fan or someone shitting the bed, sir. It’s beyond being up shit’s creek without a paddle. It’s even beyond saying we’re in a shit storm without an umbrella. And it’s way beyond saying we’re flogging a giant shit piñata with a stick and standing under it with our mouths open. This, sir, is like being in a category F-5 shit tornado while standing naked in a leach field.”

“That bad, eh?”

“That bad, sir.”

“So, we’re really F.U.B.A.R.ed.”

“Sir, this is beyond fucked up. This is like being so drunk that you piss and shit your pants while throwing up and aspirating your vomit, and as you slowly asphyxiate on your own puke you somehow remain fully conscious and painfully aware that your death was preventable and all your fault, and that it all could’ve been different if only you had changed your life earlier when you still had time and the love and support of your wife, friends, and family, and —” “I got the picture, son. Thanks.”

0413. Socialist Sexuality

The sexuality of today is what I want to call capitalist sexuality. I’m using the word capitalist to draw parallels between our political and economic system and its influence on an important aspect of our lives. Capitalist sexuality is the vertical, top-down sexuality of power and dominance. It’s a sexuality of violence, competition, and control, wherein participants seek to conquer sexual partners like so much territory. Capitalist sexuality is almost never spoken about in public, but when it is, it’s always framed in the quantitative and qualitative language of bragging. The language and imagery of capitalist sexuality displays itself in the public sphere through advertising as a taboo of seduction, titillation, arousal, and desire that a supply and demand market economy can harness as a tool of control.

This makes sex transactional: something money can purchase, power can take, and crime can control. This suppression, frustration, and vice forces repressed sexuality to erupt to the surface through virulent pornography, which is either watched openly with pride or watched closedly with shame.

For most of us, this is the only way that sex has ever been known. And for those who excel at playing that game or who are comfortable operating within those parameters, no alternative is required. But for those of us who feel the appalling limitations of that system and strategy, or who have been deeply damaged by it, should know that there is a horizontal sexuality of equality wherein one’s sexual needs can be communicated, expressed, and explored safely and openly without prejudice in a relationship or relationships.

0414. Working Title

When I started writing these stories, I called them super-short stories to set them apart from short stories, which the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America specify as being under 7,500 words. The stories were also shorter than flash fiction stories, which are often considered to be under 1,000 words, and shorter than microfiction stories, which are, depending on the source, under 300 words, or, sometimes, under 100 words. But I never liked the names flash fiction or microfiction. So, I’ve been calling my stories super-short stories for lack of a better name.

I wanted to use this story to find another name for them. Since they’re 260 words each, I thought I could riff on the Roman numerals CCLX and make a name from it by adding vowels to them like Hebrew.

Some examples are cacalix, cecelox, cicilux, cocolax, cuculex — and all sound ridiculous.

Then, I thought about using the Latin word fabula, which means story. I liked the idea and sound of that. It’s good to have an alternate one-word name for super-short stories, which, though alliterative, is still a mouthful.

Searching around for a working title for the book, I thought about calling it A Thousand Fabulas. But since no one knows what a fabula is and since A Thousand Super-Short Stories sounds stupid, I thought A Thousand Stories was a good, simple title. Then, I thought of an alternative: Book of a Thousand Stories with its acronym B.o.a.T.S., the book that launched a thousand stories…

But I think I’ll just stick with A Thousand Stories.

0415. The Mayfly

Aristotle named the mayfly an ephemeron for the brevity of its life. It is the mayfly’s ephemerality that has made it the symbol of the transitory nature of life. The shortest lived of the shortest lived are the Dolania americana of the southeastern United States, which dies five minutes after emerging.

Here’s the process: The mayfly nymph emerges from the surface of rivers, lakes, and ponds, moults into a dun that dries into an adult imago spinner that takes wing to join the dance of a mating swarm. After copulation, the males die. And after laying their eggs in the water, the females die. This is the end of their life cycle, but it’s not the beginning.

The beginning starts with the eggs in the water. From these eggs, nymphs hatch, grow, moult, and later emerge as duns.

Although the mayfly may, on the surface, appear to live briefly, they do not. The majority of its life is spent unseen underwater. And because we only see the mayfly’s winged form, we believe they’re short-lived. But we mustn’t trap the mayfly in that final cycle of birth and death because the births and deaths of the mayfly are many. Indeed, where does the mayfly end when they are a vital part of the ecosystem they inhabit?

It’s only by confining the mayfly to its adult winged form that it succeeds as a symbol of ephemerality. But they, like us, are irrevocably part of the cycle of birth and death, the endlessly changing continuum of life that has neither beginning nor end.

0416. Nuzzle

“Shiara, hold up,” Quantor said, stopping and taking deep breaths.

“What is it? The owlbear?” Shiara asked as her hands began glowing with eldritch energies.

“No. That’s just it. I can’t smell anything.”

“It’s probably your cartridge again.”

“I just changed it two days ago. Who knew being a barbarian death tracker would be this expensive. They run out so quickly.”

“You can play without it. I do.”

“It really gives me an edge. And not many people have the upgrade.

Besides, I’m a tracker: heightened reflexes, heightened hearing, heightened sight, heightened smell. It’s part of my character.”

“So, change it out. I’ll wait.”

“Alright. Give me a second.”

Quantor took off his V.R. helmet, blinked in the light, and cradled it in the crook of his arm. He quickly stripped off his gloves and pressed the eject button on the Nuzzle. He pulled the Ol-Factory cartridge out, shook it, smelled it, and tossed it into a nearby wastebasket where it clattered on top of more cartridges.

Quantor reached out of the ring and grabbed another cartridge. It was his last. He shook his head thinking about the cost as he tore open the plastic wrap, crumpled it, and tossed it towards the wastebasket, missing it. He shook his head again, frowned, and popped in the cartridge and clicked the compartment closed. Then, pulling on his gloves, he settled his helmet over his head.

Back inside the virtual forest, Quantor sniffed the air. He could smell the rain and damp leaves around him. “Alright. I’m back in business. Ready?”

“Ready.”

0417. Na Zdorovie June 6th was the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion at Normandy.

The American narrative, now the Western narrative, the narrative I grew up with, is that America won World War II. In all the stories I listened to from my grandfather and his brothers, I never once heard about the Russians or their involvement. But, a careful look at history will reveal the central role Russia played in defeating the Nazis.

This fact is still largely unknown by Americans. As for Europeans, a poll taken directly after the war showed that many survivors believed it was Russia who had won the war. But a recent poll shows that more Europeans today believe it was America. These polls reveal how insidious capitalism is when the narrative of a world war can be co-opted for antiCommunist propaganda.

Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, like any country, can be criticized for its human rights abuses from Stalin to Putin. However, none of this should take away from the sacrifice of the Russian people, who lost some 27 million in their fight against fascism. I write this not to underplay America’s involvement and the sacrifice of the many men and women who proudly served at home and overseas. Without the war, my grandfather would have never met my grandmother, and I would have never been born. I just think it fair to recognize the complete story of this costly war.

For the sacrifice of every Russian to win the war against fascism, I raise a glass of vodka in salute to my comrades.

Na zdorovie!

0418. 120 Years

I’m a late bloomer. Instead of a day late and a dollar short, you could say I was a decade late and ten grand short. I was never known for my timing, and my search to discover who I am and what I want to do with my life has taken much longer than expected.

I’ll be 42 this November. Other than my mother’s father, who died from diabetic complications, all of my grandparents lived into their late eighties and mid-nineties. Since longevity runs in my family, I’m probably a little less than halfway through my life, barring no major accidents or illnesses, of course.

Given my terrapin pace, I’d like to live to 120.

Here’s the logic: If I could spend the first forty years trying to figure out my life as I’ve been doing, then spend the next forty raising a family, and then the next forty dying, I’d say I’d have lived a perfect life.

As I slowly march towards the completion of this book, I can say that I’ve achieved the thing I’ve been searching for. The next thing I’d like to do is find a partner and start a family. I really want to raise and educate a child, but I’d like to have the energy of my twenties and thirties throughout my forties and eighties. My body aches now. My mind’s slower than ever.

If I become a father, I wonder if I’ll have the stamina to keep up with my kid. And it saddens me that I’ll die in their forties or fifties.

0419. Echolocation

Like bats, we’re all living in the dark and flying blind. As we navigate the obstacles along our flight path, we use the only tool available to us: our ability to sound things out by bouncing ideas off of each other to better understand our collective environment. As we think, talk, and listen, we can adjust our actions in real time to avoid major crashes. But as the stakes get higher, and the world becomes more complex, and our family, friends, and communities fragment under the stress and struggle of daily survival, we often don’t have anyone to talk and listen to, and we no longer know who to trust.

In times like these, we have to be wary of the demagogues, the bullshitters, who believe they have a full accounting of the world. They’ll be the first to tell you that their intention is to lead everyone safely through these ever-changing and benighted times to a promised land beyond. The catch is: You must only follow them. But we mustn’t be conned by these confidence men. They’re as lost and alone in the woods as we are. And they’re all batshit crazy to boot. We must remember that the demagogue’s power comes from our fear and isolation. But we mustn’t become slaves to any one person or policy. We must tune out the megalomaniacs so we can better hear the voices of people at home and around the world, because it’s only through our collective voices that we’ll be able to communicate the shared visions of our common world.

0420. Marijuana

To celebrate story 0420, I wanted to write about marijuana but not fetishize it. I’ve never been much of a pothead or smoker. Bowls, bongs, bubblers, and joints have never been my thing. I will, on occasion, smoke from vaporizers or pens, which mellow the smoke’s harshness for my virgin lungs. But that’s about it.

Since I’ve always been a lightweight, it doesn’t take much to get me high. And when I’m high, I’m nothing but high. Meaning, the resulting hyper-self-awareness often makes the experience overwhelming. I have no way to compartmentalize the high or work around it. It becomes the center of everything and dominates my consciousness. So, when I’m high, I shut down all exterior functioning to concentrate on the high. In other words, I can’t be social and high. I can either be social or high, but not both.

This intensity means that ingesting marijuana is never a casual event for me. I take getting high seriously and plan accordingly. These days, I may take a couple of hits from a pen before sleeping, letting the high guide me into Dreamland. Or if I have a day and want something longer, I prefer eating an edible.

Edibles are by far my favorite way to get T.H.C. in me. I much prefer that big body high to the heady high of smoking. But with edibles, you have to be patient and careful with the dose. It’s easy to take too much.

And once you’re in, you’re in, and you have to ride it out until the bitter end.

0421. Pure Land

I remember waking up, huddled in the warm, moist earth. It was dark all around me and I couldn’t see. Then, something called out to me, and I opened myself up to meet it, and a part of me rose out of the mud and into the water, striving slowly and patiently towards the source. When I broke the surface, I unfurled myself, and spread out upon it, breathing the air and feeling the warmth of the sun. But something in me wanted to see. So, I sent forth another part of myself and my eye flowered opened.

Above me was great Amitabha, smiling down and filling me with his infinite radiance and light of joy. I immediately felt myself drawn up to him. My flower raised its eye upon its stalk to get closer. He was the great golden sun stretching from horizon to horizon, encompassing the entire sky, adorned in shimmering robes of pink, orange, and yellow, which matched the soft, gentle hues of sunrise and sunset. I basked in his glory and sent his joy down to my roots.

Wondering how I came to such a place, I instantly recalled all of my former lives and remembered myself saying with conviction, “Namu amida butsu. Namu amida butsu. Namu amida butsu.” And Amitabha, in his infinite mercy, heard my prayer, and called me to join him in his Pure Land.

Looking around me, I saw endless lotuses from horizon to horizon, floating as I was, atop the Bardo Pond. I greeted them silently then returned to the light.

0422. Manufacturing

The first “Aha! Moment” I had when I started working in manufacturing was: Everything around me is manufactured! This came as a shock because it was something rather obvious. Had I been told this fact or had I been paying attention, it would’ve had less of an impact. But for days after, my mind reeled at the thought that everything, from the clothes I was wearing, to the car I was driving, to the house I was living in, to anything and everything, had been manufactured.

As I started looking closely at the things in my life, I could see the materials they were composed of: stone, wood, metal, rubber, plastic, glass, fiber, etc. And I could see the methods of extraction, processing, and manufacturing used to create them, just as I could see the designers designing them, and the marketers marketing them, and the sellers selling them, and the shippers shipping them across the country and around the world. I could see the flow of commerce, the exchange of money, as products went from raw materials to entering our lives, bodies, and homes.

The second “Aha! Moment” I had came on the heels of the first: Everything manufactured is made to be used and thrown away. Everything has built-in obsolescence. Everything is on its way to the landfill. Once the manufactured object finds its way to you and the money trail ends, no one wants anything more to do with it. I realized that this system, which glorifies the market, refuses to take responsibility for anything outside of it.

0423. Its True Name

Henry searched for the pond’s true name. He knew the name people like him had given it. He knew too the name that the people before his people had given it. But Henry knew there was an older name. A name that went back to the dawn of its creation, when the glaciers retreated, carving out its hollow, and leaving it full of water. He knew it probably had many names, or a single name that stretched and danced over vast epochs of geological time. He knew it was a name he could neither say nor pronounce, because to say or pronounce it would mean that he would have to live as long as the pond had lived, and he knew that could never happen because he was a man of flesh and blood who was bound by death and time. But Henry knew enough to know that the pond’s true name could be found in the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the place. He knew it couldn’t reveal itself to him all at once, because he knew that the narrow mind of a man, the mind that he possessed, could never absorb it in full. But he also knew, that a patient mind open to the name could have aspects of it revealed over time. And so this is what he sought to do by exploring it throughout his days and sleeping near it throughout his nights. And as he did this, he received parts of its great name and unknowingly added a part of his to it.

0424. The Mute, a Short Play in Three Acts

Writer’s Note: The actors are free to ad lib as they see fit to maximize comic effect, especially the father and his requests.

ACT ONE In the kitchen of a small house, the father, HARROLD, follows the mother, HARRIETT, and his daughter, HARRIETTA, with his eyes, until, under some unknown compulsion, he speaks for the first time in years.

HARRIETT and HARRIETTA (talking).

HARROLD. I… HARRIETT (dropping an object). Oh, my god! Harrold? Harrold did you say something? Harrietta, did you hear your father say something? (To both of them.) Say something.

HARRIETTA and HARROLD (simultaneously). I… HARRIETT (ignoring Harrietta). Yes, Harrold. Go ahead. Use your words.

HARROLD. I… HARRIETT. Yes? HARROLD. I… HARRIETT. YES? HARROLD. I want a glass of water.

HARRIETT. Oh, my god! Water! Yes, water. Of course, Harrold, you must be parched. Harrietta, did you hear? Your father wants a glass of water!

HARRIETT runs to the sink and fills a glass of water and runs it back to HARROLD. She puts it in his hands and signals him to drink, and he does, VERY slowly, as mother and daughter watch him until he’s finished.

HARROLD (smacking his lips). Ahhhh!

HARRIETT. Can I get you anything else? Do you want more water? …

ACT TWO

HARRIETT and HARRIETTA are running around the house trying to satisfy every increasingly bizarre request HARROLD makes…

ACT THREE The son, HARROLDO, comes home to find his mother and sister exhausted and the house a mess.

HARROLDO. Hey, just ’cause you decided to speak again, doesn’t mean you’re the goddamned pope!

0425. Journal Entry 8/25/19: The Wastes of Time I think it’s easy to confuse all of this with self-loathing, to see the self or the body as the fundamental problem. It’s our uncertainty and our corporeality. It’s the corporeality of our uncertainty. There’s so much to know and do, infinite lifetime’s worth. But we only have this one life, this one body, and its limitations. It’s easy to loathe that, easy to hate our horizons. But we are what we are, what we need to be. No one else can fulfill this function. Our part can only be played by us. It comes with the baggage of self-consciousness, the things that make us weak, and the absolute knowledge that we die. It’s easy to think nothing matters, that everything is meaningless.

But this is only half the story. The flipside is that everything down to the smallest atom matters and nothing is meaningless. It all counts.

It’s easy to drown in both perspectives. But there is a middle way.

If all of this is a waste, then you can waste your time with anything that gives your life meaning. And meaning, personal meaning, can be found anywhere with anything and anyone. And when one is creating and living their meaning, Everything and Nothing no longer holds sway. When we effectively occupy the middle ground between Everything and Nothing, we can accept that we’re a part of Everything and that it all comes to Nothing. We can inhabit that space, that waste, and find purchase and purpose by doing the things we want to do, no matter how strange.

0426. The New Excommunication

In the not too distant past, someone who broke the laws of their tribe, society, or religion could be punished with excommunication, where the transgressors would be sent beyond the pales, into the wilderness, to fend for themselves. This was effectively a death sentence, because communities were essential for protecting people against the elements, animals, and other people. But as the human population expanded and the wilderness dwindled, and as animals became less dangerous and people more homogenous, the threat of excommunication lost its power.

Today, we no longer send lawbreakers out into a deadly freedom.

Instead, we send them into a deadly captivity. Excommunication has become incarceration. But excommunication has lost none of its stigma when it transferred from outer to inner punishment. The lawbreaker who is incarcerated retains the stamp of excommunication after they serve their sentence and return to society.

After being kept out of their communities for years, former inmates return to the unfamiliar world of their homes like people out of space and time. They’re given no support, no education, no jobs, or resources to help them re-acclimate and navigate their changed environment. Their communities, wary of repeat offenders, receive them reluctantly and make finding housing and employment almost impossible. To add insult to injury, most convicted of a felony lose their basic rights of citizenship and are barred from voting and holding public office. These indignities keep recidivism rates high and the prison-industrial complex profitable. These indignities make America the largest penal colony in the world with the highest number of prisoners per capita.

0427. The Psoma Bed, a Product History

The Psoma Bed was invented for side sleepers to make room for their shoulders on the flat plane of a standard bed. This feature, along with positive contours for the abdomen, kept the spine in line, improved sleep, and reduced morning stiffness and fatigue.

The success of the standard Psoma Bed led to the development of their patented ciliated hospital beds that allowed ease of transferring patients from gurney to bed, bed to bed, and bed to gurney, reducing lower back injuries to hospital staff.

Psoma then further developed their ciliated beds for long-term hospital patients, which undulated and massaged their bodies, helping to prevent bedsores, improve circulation, reduce muscle atrophy, and speed up recovery.

Later developments saw the ciliated beds convert into mobile chairs, which further facilitated the ease of patient movement around the hospital, eliminating the difficulties of sitting, standing, and lying.

The Psoma Bed-Chairs were then developed and sold for the home market replacing the first models of Psoma Beds in most households.

The convertibility and comfort of the Psoma Bed-Chairs saw an expansion into the luxury air travel market after they were adopted as the bed-chair of choice.

With the advent of lunar, and later Martian, travel, all Colonial flights were outfitted with an expanded platform of Psoma Bed-Chairs that now contained built-in hydrating, feeding, and waste removal tubes.

Today, with interplanetary and interstellar travel, Psoma is still the leading Bed-Chair brand used to safely cryopreserve star travelers in suspended animation throughout the duration of space flight.

Psoma, the most trusted name in Bed-Chairs for millennia.

0428. Lovelocked

To love life, to love all living things, to love others, to love one’s self, to love everything as one’s self, to be completely and absolutely lovelocked, we have to understand the Love of the Mother and the Father that undergirds all things.

To do this, we must know the central role we play in the expression of that Love, Their Love, our Love. We must know, fundamentally, in our bones, that we are the embodiment of Their Love. We must know without question, without hesitation, that we are Its avatars here on Earth and in the Universe. We must know that Love exists because we exist.

We can choose to be agents of disconnection, darkness, and death.

We can choose to exist as selfish singularities. We can choose to be blind mechanisms of hunger and lust. We can choose that path and pathology. Or we can choose the path of Love. It is our choice, to be lovelocked or loveless.

When we choose to become lovelocked, we choose to become both the expression and the expressers of Their Love. We are the expressionexpressers of Gaia, God, and the Universe. We are Them and They are us.

When we choose this path, we choose it in our name and in Theirs.

Do we want Gaia and God and the Universe, and, by extension, Us to be agents of destruction only, or do we want Us to be agents of creation too? Do We want Our light, life, warmth, and kindness to surround Us? If We do, then We’ve already chosen.

0429. Social Anxiety

I have social anxiety. I wasn’t aware of this until recently, but I’m certain that’s what I have and have always had. For years, I’ve been calling myself asocial, antisocial, a hermit, a recluse, a solitaire, but this was and isn’t the whole truth.

Recently, I’ve been noticing that I have no desire to leave my house — ever. I don’t leave my house after work during the week or at all on the weekends. I park my car Friday night after work and don’t get into it again until Monday morning.

Whenever I have to leave my house to go grocery shopping or pick up something for the house, I make every excuse to put it off. It has to come down to it no longer being a choice, like there’s no food in the house or I absolutely need to finish up a renovation that I’ve been dragging my feet on for months.

I don’t even like going out to see my friends. I thought this was just me getting older and having more responsibilities, but I know it’s more than that; because even though I enjoy my time with them when I’m with them, I’d still rather be home. This is why I often try to get my friends to visit me.

It’s a lonely way of life when I have to work myself up to go anywhere.

I don’t even like committing to plans in advance. When I do, I find myself endlessly worrying about them and trying to think of ways to get out of them.

0430. The History of Progress in Western Civilization Dearchy and Slavery Classical Antiquity to Late Antiquity Circa 8th century B.C. through 6th century A.D. Total time until slaves became serfs: ~1,500 years The rule of god-kings and emperors over people in an empire.

Slavery ended with the collapse of Rome but lingered on for centuries in other parts of Europe and would later be resurrected by European Colonial powers.

Monarchy and Feudalism Late Antiquity through the Middle Ages to the Renaissance Circa 6th century through the 10th century and 1355-1650 Total time until serfs became workers: ~1,000 years The rule of kings and popes over people in a kingdom.

Feudalism ended with the Black Death and the rise of the merchant class, but lingered on for centuries in other parts of Europe, though feudal conditions would resurface wherever tenant farming and sharecropping were exploited over the next several centuries.

Oligarchy and Capitalism Renaissance to today Circa 1650 to 2050 Total time until workers became free: ~500 years The rule of the aristocracy and the wealthy over people in a nation.

Capitalism ended with the Climate Collapse and Sixth Mass Extinction, but lingered on for centuries around the world as corporations continued to oppress people for profits until citizens finally recognized that the injustice of corporate welfare was robbing them of the justice of social welfare.

Anarchy and Socialism Today to the future Circa 2050 to ?

Total time for sustained freedom: uncertain due to the environmental damage caused to people and planet. The co-operation between all people. The rehabilitation of the commons and the institution of worker co-operatives.

0431. The 1,002nd Day

Scheherazade slept through the morning and woke for the first time without fear. Still, when she woke, she woke with another story composed in her head and smiled at the wit and cunning of the tale.

Rising from her pillow, she looked around. The Sultan was gone, no doubt to begin the wedding preparations. She was sure he would attempt to awe her with opulence. She knew he wanted a ceremony that would cost the total wealth of a minor kingdom. The vain man loved celebrating lavishly while his people suffered the indignity of poverty.

She shook her head. He clearly had learned nothing from her tales. But at least she got to keep her head. How many women did he have executed over his insecurities? She made a quick calculation and shuddered at the numbers dispatched by the headsman’s ax. And all because his first wife, and several women of his harem, had had an illicit affair with some Moors.

Luckily for her though, she had managed to outwit the weakling with her tales and forced him to spare her life. But what a life she had won!

Before, all she could think about were stories and survival. Now, all she could think about was spending the rest of her life with this repugnant man.

Scheherazade sighed, rose from her bed, and walked to the window.

Gazing out across the sky, she saw the silhouette of a bird in the distance and imagined it was some handsome and intrepid prince on a magic flying carpet coming to rescue her.

0432. Autopilot Road Trip Through Our Personalized Bubble World Echo Chamber We can’t go through life on autopilot anymore. We can’t press a button and lean back in our seats and let our cars drive us where we want to go.

We can’t take anything for granted, especially as we rapidly approach the age of self-driving vehicles.

We must remain awake and aware behind the wheel and fight the forces that are lulling us to sleep in our private homes and in our private vehicles.

In our private lives without a public dimension, we have to ask: Why is there no investment in public housing? Why is there no investment in public transportation? Why is there only ever investment in the personal and private over the communal and public?

To ask questions is to remain alert. We have to question the systems of convenient conveyance whether they are political, social, or technological.

We have to question the media and its message. We have to follow the money flowing into and out of our public coffers controlled by public officials who shape our public policies.

If we do, we’ll see that corporate and private profits exist because wage slavery and public austerity exists and continues to impoverish us all.

Then, we may realize that we live in a Personalized Bubble World Echo Chamber, moving from our bubble house to our bubble car to our bubble job and back again, never leaving our bubble world, as we listen to our personalized music and watch our personalized programs on our personal devices synced to our personalized interests.

Wake up. Ask questions. Burst the bubble.

0433. We’re All Technicians

It’s easy to forget, but ever since we developed tools, we’ve been technicians.

To be human is to develop and use technology. To be human is to be a technician. From the first stone tools to fire to the wheel to the plow to the combustion engine to the Hubble Space Telescope to the Large Hadron Collider to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, we have been building technologies that have reshaped our world, our knowledge, and our culture.

Like our everyday use of story, the use of technologies and our role as technicians has become so familiar to us that it remains virtually undetected. But if we look closer at our lives, we’ll see how we constantly interface with and manipulate the world around us through technologies.

Let’s look at a typical morning in America: You wake to an alarm clock. Today, it’s probably your phone. You shut it off and check your messages and mail. You’ve just woken up and already you’re a technician of your alarm clock or phone. Maybe, like me, you like toast with jam or honey for breakfast. You drop your bread into the toaster.

When you press the lever, you’ve just become the technician of a toaster.

If you use a spoon or knife to spread the jam or honey, you’ve become a technician again. If you make coffee or tea, you’re a technician of a coffee pot, a French press, a teapot, a stove, or whatever. We’ve just barely begun the day and we’ve already masterfully used several technologies.

We’re all, inescapably, technicians.

0434. Double Identity

Hollywood’s lack of originality led one of the studios to remake a classic film about double identities. The star chosen for the lead role was known for both deeply embodying her characters and giving them incredible psychological depth and subtlety and being notoriously difficult to work with. The costly delays of her emotional tantrums had set many productions back and sent many over budget. With her last few films flops, she was going to be terminated, but after hounding studio execs and promising to reform her ways, they decided to give her one last chance.

However, during the shoot, the director became infuriated with her on-set antics and had the crew secretly film her whenever she acted out so he had proof of her behavior. Later, when the director and producers confronted her with the footage, she said it wasn’t her but her near-identical stand-in.

The star then accused the director and producers of trying to get her fired.

They apologized and confronted the stand-in, but she too denied the accusations. In her paranoia, the star began filming the stand-in between takes to catch her in the act and prove her own innocence. The stand-in, catching onto this, began filming the star between takes, until everyone on set was filming each other. After the production imploded, the studio execs tried to recoup their losses by collecting everyone’s footage and giving it to an editor. The editor put together a film that tells an original story about perspective, paranoia, and identity, and has since been nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

0435. A Talk With a Conspiracy Theorist

“I’m a conspiracy theorist,” he said. “The Earth’s flat. And we’ve never been to the moon. That was a fake. 9/11 was an inside job. You know about thermite don’t you? It burns hotter than the sun. Aluminum mixed with… You know about metal. What is it?”

“Magnesium?”

“Magnesium? Maybe. Either way. Buildings don’t fall like that; jet fuel doesn’t burn hot enough. And vaccines give you autism and Alzheimer’s.

How old’s your niece?”

“Seven.”

“Seven. How many shots do you think she’s had already? They give you worse stuff than they cure. And don’t get me started on the chem trails. I know the guy who used to load the canisters onto planes at J.F.K. For real. Do you remember when Prince died? You know, the musician?

How long ago was that? About three years ago, right?”

“I think so.”

“And who else died that year?”

“Bowie?”

“Bowie? No. Merle Haggard. Merle Haggard died either before or after him. I don’t remember. But Merle Haggard and Prince died from chem trail exposure. Watch the planes in the sky. I’m serious. They spray aluminum, boron, and strontium into the atmosphere. There’s something in their molecular structure that allows them to create storms. Have you heard of the H.A.R.P antenna? That’s what they use to control them.

They create high and low pressure systems. You’ve seen the hurricanes.”

“That’s global warming.”

“No such thing. They’re just trying to scare you. I’m telling you.

Watch. I’ll send you links on YouTube. Once you go down this rabbit hole, there’s no coming back.”

0436. Why I Don’t Wear White

Some people can wear white. I don’t know how, but they can. These people can walk through a field of mud and come out clean on the other side. I truly envy them. I do. I wish I had their ability to repel dirt, to look clean and fresh all the time. But, unfortunately, that’s not my lot.

I learned early that anything I ever wore that was white, from my t-shirts to my tighty-whities to my tube socks, quickly became gray or yellow or some sickly combination of both. It was as if my sweat corrupted the cotton. This gray-yellowing even resisted bleaching and dry cleaning.

Growing up, I did everything I could to avoid wearing white. But as a kid, you only have so much control over what you wear, or at least in my house I did. For me, nothing was more embarrassing than going out in a pressed white shirt for some holiday or family event and staining it with food or drink or something-or-other in an area that couldn’t be hidden by my jacket or tie. My self-consciousness still spikes whenever I see white clothes, as I imagine the nightmare of staining myself and standing out.

As I got older and began buying my own clothes, I immediately moved my wardrobe to earth tones and dark colors. These also work better with my skin tone, which is a maggot-belly white. For me, it doesn’t matter if it’s before or after Labor Day, if I wear white, it should be considered a white on white crime.

0437. The Challenger

The Challenger found his first opponent: the night sky.

He called out his challenge, demanding a staring contest. “First to blink loses,” he yelled. “Ready. Set. Go.” And he started staring intensely at the night sky, opening his eyes as wide as they’d go to hold the sky’s stare for as long as he could.

But the strain was too much. He blinked first and cursed his loss.

The Challenger walked on, searching for another opponent.

Over the horizon, the full moon rose, brightening the sky.

“There you are,” he yelled, and challenged the moon to a race. “First to those mountains wins. Ready. Set. Go.” He spun on his heel and started running.

But as long and hard as he ran, the moon slowly gained on him, until it touched the mountains on the distant horizon, and disappeared beyond them.

He slowed his running to a walk then stopped. Breathing heavily, he put his hands on his hips and shook his head with disbelief at his second loss.

The Challenger walked on, searching for his next opponent.

In the night sky, he saw the Polestar.

“I can’t be bested three times,” he said to himself. “I must win this one or give up my position as Challenger. I need to choose the proper challenge.”

“First to move loses,” he yelled at the Polestar and sat and closed his eyes. “Ready. Set. Go.” The Challenger sat immobile until he felt the light and warmth of the sun.

When he opened his eyes, the Polestar was gone, and he had won.

0438. Asshat

“Dirk!”

“Xavier?”

“I thought that was you. It’s been a long time, man.”

“It has, hasn’t it?”

“What’ve you been up to?”

“You know, same old shit.”

“I haven’t seen you since, what, college?”

“Yeah… life.”

“Oh, this is my son, Max.” “Hey, Max.” “Woah, I know you. You’re —” “Excuse me, X. Great seeing you, but I gotta run.”

“That was weird. Do you somehow know Dirk?”

“Yes and no.”

“What do you mean yes and no?”

“I mean, you know... Let’s just forget it.”

“No. We’re not going to forget it. How do you know him?”

“If I tell you, do you promise not to get mad?”

“Of course.”

“Well, he’s Asshat.”

“Asshat? What’re you talking about?”

“He’s kinda famous.”

“Famous for what?”

“Are you sure you won’t get mad?”

“I’m getting mad right now.

Spit it out.”

“He’s famous in, uh, you know, porn.”

“You watch porn?”

“Not really, but I’ve seen his stuff.”

“You’ve seen Dirk having sex?”

“N-n-no. Just pictures. He’s famous for having women sit backwards on his head. That’s why he’s called, Asshat. It’s really funny. He has a website and everything.”

“You really think those photos are funny?”

“Well, kinda… Don’t you?”

“No. And now I know you watch porn.”

“Dad...”

“I mean, I knew you did, but now I know know. And there’s no unknowing that now. And now there’s this thing with Dirk. I don’t even know what to say.”

“Dad, it’s alright.”

“You know, he was a bit of a freak in college.”

“Dad, I can’t believe you know Asshat!”

0439. Tell Me Why

Can anyone tell me why I’ve had the Backstreet Boys song I Want It That Way playing in my head for the past week? I have no explanation for it. I don’t remember hearing the song recently, but as soon as my brain stops busying itself with whatever odd thoughts it likes to keep itself busy with, the refrain from the chorus begins looping in my head.

Now, I don’t know the lyrics. I can hear the music, some muffled singing, and an occasional word. It was only tonight, when the song started up again, that I heard them singing the words: Tell me why.

When this song was released and the Backstreet Boys were at the height of their popularity, I was on a steady musical diet of Metallica, Pantera, and Slayer. For those of you who weren’t weaned on heavy metal, anyone who listens to heavy metal, whether they know it or not, has signed an unwritten contract, presumably with the Devil, to decry, defy, and deny all pop music. As my music tastes have matured, my stance has mellowed considerably, but still, I’ve never embraced the Backstreet Boys.

Even typing the name Backstreet Boys fills me with a mild revulsion.

But none of this explains why this song is playing in my head. I must have heard it somewhere, and that sneaky, pop-y, hooky refrain must’ve secretly snagged itself on my subconscious. That’s the only explanation I can think of, unless of course it’s the Devil punishing me for not staying true to my heavy metal roots.

0440. Sculpture Propositions for Storm King Art Center Type: Found Sculpture Title: II III IV Material: Trees Description: Along the Moodna Creek Trail can be found a fallen tree that has wedged itself between a forked upright tree. If it hasn’t already been claimed, I’d like to claim it. The title explains the process through time: Two unseen trees stand in the woods (II). One dies and falls over wedging itself in the crotch of the other tree creating the sculpture (III), which invites a viewer to look at it (IV).

Interactive: No Type: Art Sculpture Title: Bird Shit Collectors Material: Wood and Metal Description: A wood and metal tree is erected near a forest edge of the North Woods. Hung around the trees are bird feeders filled with a wild birdseed blend. Under the perches are fastened black powder coated metal panels that the feeding birds will shit on, creating abstract “paintings.”

The panels will be removed and replaced annually. The removed panels will be fastened inside tasteful clear acrylic cases and sold to Bird Shit Collectors at the gift shop.

Interactive: No Type: Scent Sculpture Title: The Nose Knows Material: Metal Description: Inside a metal plinth is a heating element, whisper quiet fan, and isoamyl acetate, an ester with a banana-like odor. The heating element will warm the liquid and the fan will blow it out of the plinth. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and the smeller, first smelling the scent, will have encountered the edge of the invisible sculpture, and by smelling their way around the sculpture, will give it three-dimensional form.

Interactive: Yes

0441. The Prophet

My friend Harry gave me a copy of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet as a gift when we graduated college together. It was his favorite book, and, after reading it, it became one of mine. A few years after receiving my copy, I read the chapter On Marriage for my friends Ter and Liz in lieu of a best man speech at their wedding. The book has always held a special place in my heart because it connected me to people I love.

That’s why when I arrived in a Paris hostel after flying in from Beijing and saw the book on the bed of one of my bunkmates, I knew the magic of the book was going to connect me with someone special. When Francesca appeared and claimed the bed with the book on it, I struck up a conversation with her. She told me she loved the book and had come to Paris to see a play based on it. I asked her about the play. She said she knew little about it other than that it was in French and being performed in the basement of an old church. I asked if I could go with her. She asked if I spoke French. I told her I barely spoke English. She told me she was fluent in Russian, English, Italian, and French. I told her she was the perfect person to see the play with. And she was.

It’s been fifteen years and Francesca and I are still friends. All thanks to Harry sharing The Prophet with me.

0442. When You’re Nothing, You’re Everything

Almost everyone habitually clings to their lives, identities, and perspectives.

For those like that, there are no alternatives to the life they know. For them, there is only their reality. And to protect it, they’ve developed many defensive and offensive strategies. They maintain sharp, fenced, and fortified borders around their ego and body that are actively patrolled by armed, vigilant guards, effectively creating a prison fortress around themselves. And in doing so, they’ve made themselves precariously precious and singular. Fearful of death to both their ego and body, they no longer know the meaning of sacrifice, and have lost touch with the sacred and the holy.

But there are those of us who know that the desire for immortality, for an unchanging invulnerability, is a fool’s game. We understand that there is more to existence than our individual life, identity, and perspective. And in the spirit of sacrifice, we place these upon the altar again and again, because we know that the holiest thing to be is to be nothing, because when you’re nothing, you’re everything. And to be nothing, you have to sacrifice your pride, your central self, your ego. Once this single center is eliminated, your center is both nowhere and everywhere. Those of us who have sacrificed ourselves in this manner no longer fear death, because we know that to die is not just to become nothing, it’s to become everything, because both are an interdependent whole. To live paradoxically as everything and nothing within an individual body and ego is what it means to be God.

0443. The Zodiac Circle

The Zodiac Circle begins with a writer, artist, or writer/artist taking the role as editor. After completing the text and/or picture for their zodiac sign, they find another writer, artist, or writer/artist of a different sign and follow the steps below: 1. The writer/artist that is chosen has 2 weeks to work on a piece for their zodiac sign. Any style (prose, poetry, prose poetry, etc.) or medium (drawing, painting, photography, etc.) is acceptable. There are no limits except that the writing must be no more than 250 words and the final image must be no larger than 8.5 x 11" scanned and submitted at a minimum of 300 d.p.i. All submissions will be sent back to the editor, who’ll collect them and organize them into the final book.

2. When the writer/artist has completed the piece for their respective sign, they must select another writer/artist with a zodiac sign that hasn’t been chosen. If that person accepts, they will introduce them to the editor and the group. The chosen writer/artist then follows Step 1 above. However, should the writer/artist not be able to find another writer/artist to join the Circle, the previous writer/artist will be responsible to search again. If this too proves unsuccessful, it will fall back to the previous writer/artist in succession back to the editor.

3. This continues until all twelve zodiac signs are completed.

4. Once finished, a book will be produced by the editor, who, along with the writers, artists, or writer/artists, will celebrate coming together as a constellation in life and on paper.

0444. Visualizing Wealth Inequality

To imagine wealth inequality in this country and around the world, picture two identical equilateral triangles, one points up , the other points down . Now, overlap them so that the points are touching the middle of the opposing base so they form something that looks like the Roman numeral for twenty.

The triangle with the point up represents the population. The triangle with the point down represents wealth. The apex of the point-up triangle is where the billionaire class resides. It’s at this point where a minority possesses more money than the bottom half of the population. As we know, money equals power, and money, through neoliberal capitalism, has concentrated money, and the power it gives, in the hands of the few. These individuals wield enormous influence over the decisions and policies that affect our everyday lives. It is this disparity in wealth that allows vertical structures of hierarchical dominance and exploitation to continue to rule over our society. But it’s wrong to think that this is the only way our society, or any society, can be structured. Society can be structured horizontally in an egalitarian way that benefits all people.

Now, let’s imagine wealth equality. Picture the two overlapping triangles again and, with your mind, quickly press the upper and lower bases towards each other. When population and wealth unite, wealth becomes evenly distributed across the population. This means the minority rich will have less so that the majority poor can have more. By structuring society to share its wealth, all of us can live richer lives.

0445. Worker Co-operatives Are the Future

One way to move towards an egalitarian future is through the creation of worker co-operatives. Worker co-operatives are businesses owned by workers. To understand why worker co-operatives will play a positive role in shaping our future, let’s look at a few reasons why this business structure helps eliminate inequality: First, worker co-operatives create a horizontal workplace where the surplus value of the business, i.e. the profits, are no longer captured by a minority of owners, C.E.O.s. board of directors, and shareholders, but by the worker-owners themselves.

Second, worker co-operatives create a democratic workplace where each worker-owner participates in the decision-making process of the business and gets one vote. Decisions are made based on majority consensus.

Third, worker co-operatives create a communal workplace where the skills of communication and collaboration are necessary to balance the needs of the individual worker-owner with the needs of all the other worker-owners.

Fourth, worker co-operatives create greater socio-political awareness.

As worker-owners rely on each other for their success, they understand that their success relies on the successful integration of government, other co-operatives, and society at large.

Fifth, worker co-operatives create personal empowerment for the worker-owners in direct contrast to the powerlessness that comes from regular employment. In a worker co-operative, a worker-owner no longer works under an owner, but as an owner.

Sixth, worker co-operatives create aware, intelligent, and responsible members of their co-operative, families, communities, and national and global society. To be a worker-owner is to understand the interdependence of all life on earth and to end the toxic individualism that plagues us today.

0446. Grace’s Names

I don’t know if all dog owners, or pet owners in general, are like this, but I have many names for my dog, Grace. I call her Grace, but when I say it, it sounds overly formal. Like someone calling me Jason instead of Jay, it just sounds wrong. The only time I call her Grace is when I’m calling her back to me after she sprints after something or someone. She was a stray found on the road as a pup and still to this day has very bad manners that I neglected to train out of her while raising her. So, I only ever say Grace with an exclamation point: Grace!

She’s a mixed breed with a golden coat. When she was little, I called her Nugget, because she reminded me of a gold nugget. She quickly grew out of that name as she quickly grew. Nugget’s now the name of my niece’s pug.

Somewhere early on, I began calling her Bub, along with the longer Bubba, and whenever she went on a tear and started barking at me and biting me with her sharp puppy teeth, I’d call her Beelzebubba.

As she got older, I began calling her G and G-Dog, which, for whatever reason, quickly became G Doggowitz, and sometimes, but not always, M.C. Doggowitz. M.C. then morphed into Madame Doggowitz, when she was behaving like a refined lady, which she does sometimes to my great surprise. Most times though, I drop the honorifics and call her Doggowitz, which was inevitably shortened to plain ol’ Doggo.

0447. Grandma Shirley

Whenever we visited my grandmother at her apartment in Brooklyn, she was always listening to Cousin Brucie on CBSFM from a small transistor radio.

Whenever we arrived, we’d always find her at her kitchen table smoking her L&Ms and drinking iced tea made from a powdered mix.

There was something so unchanging in this that it gave her apartment a sense of timeless stability.

Whenever my mother left me and my brother with her mother so she could “go up the avenue,” grandma would always make us bologna sandwiches with Heinz ketchup on Wonder bread for lunch.

Whenever my mother left me with her mother for a day or more, grandma would always bring me to the toy store to buy me a Hot Wheels car. I still remember turning the carousel on the glass counter near the register to make my selection.

She would also give me money to go to the candy store “on the corner.” I’d always spend the money on a couple of blue quarter waters: colored and flavored sugar water.

In the summer, when we stayed outside and I played with my brother and cousins, grandma would watch us from the “stoop” and “holler” at us to “stay out of the gutter.”

My grandma was a Sadge like myself. Her birthday: November 24th 1919.

When she reached the middle of her 85th year, she told my mother that she had lived long enough. And, as if she willed it, two days later they found her dead on the couch with CBSFM playing in the background.

0448. Telepathy

Jerry held two fingers to his temples and concentrated on the mind of his wife, Sarah, in the kitchen.

He did this several times until she finally noticed him.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Telepathy,” he said.

“Telepathy?” she chuckled. “And what were you trying to tell me?”

“You tell me.”

“I don’t know.”

“Nothing came through?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But I did get your attention.”

“You did.”

“And?” “And nothing.”

“Okay. Let me try again. Concentrate,” he said, putting two fingers to his temples again and concentrating. “Anything?”

“I think I got something that time.”

“What was it?”

“That you love me unconditionally and that I’m the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“That’s exactly it,” he said, shaking his empty beer can. “I knew you were telepathic.”

He stood and walked to the kitchen and kissed her on the lips.

She held him close and kissed him harder.

“You say such sweet things with your mind,” she said.

“I try,” he said, putting his can in the sink and turning to the fridge to get another.

That Friday, they were at a dinner party at his boss’s house. He didn’t mind his boss so much; he just hated the stuffy atmosphere the other managers created. It all felt fake to him. Sarah confessed similar sentiments about their wives.

As he thought of her, Sarah’s eye caught his, and from the middle of their respective groups, Jerry held two fingers to his temples and concentrated on the mind of his wife.

She got the message and smiled.

0449. Go Seigen Go Sagan Go

It is said that the game Go was first created as an astrological device used to track the movement of the constellations in the night sky by placing black stones, representing space, and white stones, representing stars, on a 19 x 19 grid. From these origins, the device was developed into a strategy game that has been played continuously for over two millennia.

After discovering that there was an afterlife in the field of ideas called the noosphere, Master Sagan one day encountered Master Seigen before his Go board. Master Sagan’s curious intellect made him sit before the Go master to discuss the game. As the two men talked, Master Sagan was struck with an idea, and asked Master Seigen if he’d like to play Go on a board 93 billion light years in diameter, which is the current calculation for the diameter of the universe, to recreate the universe in its entirety.

Master Seigen agreed, and the two men began their game with Master Seigen placing the first black stone.

The two masters went back and forth playing the game for incalculable eons. Master Sagan formed moons, planets, and suns into solar systems, solar systems into galaxies, galaxies into local groups, local groups into clusters, and clusters into superclusters, as Master Seigen filled in the rest of space. The game was a joy for both men to play as they worked their way from the edges back towards the Milky Way to our Solar System, where Master Sagan whimsically placed a single pale blue stone to mark our home.

0450. Crippled Bodies

When the two space explorers landed on the planet, a motley band of aliens arrived on crutches and carts or in mutual support, to surround their ship and raise imploring hands towards the vessel.

Scanning the crowd, the explorers saw that the group was composed of different races, all of which were various combinations of hunched, limbless, misshapen, and disfigured.

“Just look at them,” the first explorer said.

“A real pity,” said the second.

“What do you think they want? Food? Water? Money?”

“Maybe they’re begging to be freed.”

“From whom?”

“Someone incredibly cruel.”

“If that’s the case, it’s our duty to free them.”

The explorers nodded in agreement and opened the door.

As they walked down the ramp, the crowd screamed and fled as fast as they could.

“What do you think scared them?” the second asked.

The first shrugged then said, “Listen.”

In the distance, they heard drumbeats, and through the dispersing crowd, they saw a large, turtle-like creature ambling towards them.

The explorers drew their laser pistols and took aim, but as the creature approached, it yelled, “Hold your fire!”

The explorers eased their fingers off their triggers as they realized that the turtle wasn’t a turtle, but a large palanquin carried by four strong men. A wizened old blind man sat in front of an armless woman on a throne beneath a cloth-covered lattice carapace.

The woman rapidly kicked the twin bass drums at her feet.

“The queen welcomes you to her queendom,” the old man said. “And asks you to please put away your weapons.”

0451. Crippled Minds

The explorers held their pistols firmly on the old man.

“Not until we know what she’s done to those people,” the first explorer demanded.

“Done?” the old man asked.

“Look at everyone here, including yourself.”

“What about us?”

“You’re all… cripples. Did she do this to you because she’s a cripple herself?”

The queen kicked a rapid response and the old man laughed.

“She says that we may have crippled bodies, but it is you who have crippled minds.”

“Meaning?” the first explorer asked.

“Meaning, we know what this must look like to you. Allow us to explain. But first, put away your weapons. No harm will come to you, unless, of course, you do something foolish. But do have a look around, you’re outnumbered and outgunned.”

The explorers looked around and saw that the band that ran away from them now encircled them with weapons drawn.

The explorers holstered their pistols.

“Thank you,” the old man said. “As you have stated, we are all cripples, though we don’t use that word because it suggests that we are abnormal, disabled, broken, or deficient. Trust me, we are not. We are normal, able, whole, and sufficient, and together we stand strong in mutual support.

Our colony was founded by our queen to welcome all castaways rejected for not fitting into the established norms of their people. That is why they came out to greet you, but believing you might be raiders, they fled to arm themselves. Know that we will do anything to protect each other, our queen, colony, and home.”

0452. Oiler

“That’s right, baby, just the tip,” Oiler said, holding his grease gun towards the engine.

“What’s that? You want a little foreplay first? How ’bout I rub your nipple?” Oiler said, rubbing the tip of his grease gun around the Zerk fitting.

“Do you like that? Thought so. Now, I’m just gonna kiss it. Ready?

Mwuh!”

Oiler popped the tip over the top of the Zerk fitting.

“There we go. Now, I’m gonna get you all good and greased.”

Oiler gave a couple of pumps.

“Oh, yeah! There we go. Can you feel that? Can you feel all of that inside you? I know I can.”

Oiler pulled off his grease gun.

“What’s that? You’re calling me a three-pump chump? Ha! Girl, do you know how many nipples you have? If I have to service all of them weekly, you know I have to conserve myself. Can’t spend it all in one place.

Got to spread it around. Besides, look what I just found.”

Oiler rubbed the nipple of another grease fitting.

“Ah, you like that don’t you? What did you say? You want some more?

Just can’t help yourself, can you? Ha! I can’t blame you, baby. You know I got the best damn grease gun in the whole damn galaxy. Just let me —” “Oiler! What the fuck’re you doing down there? Quit fucking around and get up to the brig. The engine master’s looking for you.”

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.”

Oiler embraced the engine and whispered, “Sorry ’bout that, baby.

But I’ve got to go. Duty calls.”

0453. Okkult – Side A

Detective Ramirez stood over the bodies of twin brothers Luther and Lucas as the sergeant explained that, “the boys’ father had found their bedroom door locked, knocked several times then broke down the door after not hearing anything. He found them dead, like this, apparently stabbed in the heart. We haven’t located a murder weapon yet.”

Detective Ramirez knelt to inspect the bodies of the teenagers where they laid heaped in front of an open stereo. It was an old system, probably inherited from their father. He inspected the record player and found Slayer’s Haunting the Chapel. In the CD player was Darkthrone’s Transylvanian Hunger. The cassette players had Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas in one deck and an unlabeled tape in the other. Sensing something about the latter, he removed it and placed it in an evidence bag.

Back at the station, the detective questioned the parents. They told him that their sons were in a band called Okkult with another kid, Jeremy Something, who they believed was into devil worship. They were putting an album together when they had a falling out with Jeremy, who wanted them to pledge a suicide pact when the album was completed. When the boys refused, Jeremy cursed them, vowed to murder them, and left.

After the interviews, Detective Ramirez drove to Jeremy’s home.

His withered mother answered the door. When questioned, she said he’d been missing for weeks, but he always came and went as he pleased.

The detective asked her for a recent picture and put out an A.P.B. for him.

0454. Okkult – Side B

Back at the station, Detective Ramirez listened to the cassette tape. The music was awful, but after some research online, he understood it was lo-fi, black metal inspired by the bands in the boys’ stereo.

As the tape played, the detective felt like he was being watched.

Turning quickly, he thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He quickly shut the music off and pocketed the tape.

The next day, he returned to canvass Jeremy’s neighborhood. At a nearby park, a kid told him about an abandoned house in the woods, where Jeremy, Luther, and Lucas used to hang out and torture animals.

As the detective walked to the house, he felt like he was being followed.

Inside the house, Detective Ramirez walked through decaying rooms scrawled with satanic vandalism and animal skeletons.

In one room, he found an open hatch to the crawlspace and entered.

Sweeping around with his flashlight to clear the cobwebs, he saw something reflecting the light. He crawled a little way inside and found a battery powered tape player with the lid open. Beyond it, Jeremy’s body lay against the foundation wall, a large knife impaled in his heart.

The detective put the tape back and closed the lid. “I brought your tape back. You can rest easy now. No one’s going to take it again.”

Outside, the detective gathered busted furniture and wood. When the pyre was stacked, he lit a cigarette and ignited the pile with his lighter.

Sitting on a broken plastic chair, he watched the house burn.

0455. Well, Here We Are, One Year Later

Reader, I know you probably don’t care, but exactly one year ago today, when I started this project, I projected that, by midnight tonight on New Year’s Eve 2019, I’d have a thousand stories written. But, as you can see, I’ve only reached 455.

I know you’re probably thinking: Jay, buddy, I’m reading all of your stories now, in the future, after you’ve reached your goal of a thousand stories. You knew you would. So why do you feel the need to tell me that you didn’t meet your 2019 writing goals? I honestly don’t care how or when they were written. It doesn’t affect me.

But that’s just it. I’m here to tell you that it does affect you, because the next 545 stories that I’m going to write in the coming year are not going to be the same 545 stories that I would’ve written this past year had I written them. That’s why I wanted to pause here for a moment, so you and I could reflect on the 545 stories that I didn’t write.

I wonder what they’re like? Sadly, I’ll never know. And you’ll never know, either. We’ll only ever know that they weren’t written. But those unwritten stories are out there right now in some other universe in the multiverse. And some other you in that universe in the multiverse is reading them right now.

But the you here in this universe doesn’t get to read them. Just as the me here doesn’t get to write them. And that’s just the way it is.

0456. Medicare for Dogs

Thanks to Bernie Sanders we can imagine a future when all of our healthcare needs are paid for by our taxes. It’s easy to do, just imagine a time when everything from your medications, to your doctor visits, to your dentist visits, to your emergency room visits, to your mental health councilor visits, to your nutritionist visits, to your gym visits, are all free.

Now, imagine that the only worry you have to have is showing up and staying, or becoming, healthy. Next, I want you to imagine that the stress of dealing with insurance companies and co-pays and deductibles are a thing of the past.

Now, I want you to imagine that all those things are available for your dog, or your cat, or your hamster, or your bird, or your whatever.

I want you to imagine that the healthcare you now enjoy in this easily imagined future is also available to your pets. I want you to imagine that an emergency room visit isn’t the site of emotional and financial trauma where you have to make life or death decisions for your beloved friend based on the affordability of its treatment. I want you to imagine that your pet has the right to the same dignity of healthcare as you.

Then, I want you to imagine what lifting this emotional and financial burden off of the backs of doctors, dentists, and veterinarians would do for them, because, if you didn’t know already, as of 2019, these three professions have some of the highest suicide rates in the country.

0457. Red Light, Green Light

Once said it could not be unsaid.

She sat there mute and unmoving, in shock at the trauma caused by the destructive impact of his words.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking from the road to her. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I really didn’t.”

But she didn’t move. She didn’t even blink. It was like she was holding her breath. It was like she was dead, because a part of her was.

“I was trying to find a way to tell you,” he said, looking from her back to the road. “I never wanted you to find out this way, honest. I was racking my brain, waiting for the right time.”

Still she said nothing. Still she sat their motionless, her hands splayed out across the tops of her thighs, her eyes staring dead ahead.

“I’m actually kind of relieved that you know now,” he said, looking from the road to her and back again. “You can’t believe the pressure I was under.”

She nodded her head slowly and turned to regard him.

His eyes left the road to meet hers. They were calm, serene.

He smiled.

When he looked back to the road, he was racing towards a red light.

As he stepped hard on the brake to slow down, the back end of the car rose as the nose dropped and the tires squealed to a stop.

“Sorry about that,” he said, smiling again. “So, are we good?”

She looked at the red light.

“Light’s green,” she said.

And without looking, he accelerated into oncoming traffic.

0458. Found: Monte Cristo Word Salad

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0459. Santus

In the Land of Imagination, there once existed a god named Santus who watched over all the children of the world as a strong and wise paternal figure.

Over the years, Santus slowly became infected by the banal and earthly concerns of adults, who wanted to infiltrate and commandeer the consciousness of their children.

It was the desire of the parents, the early capitalists, made of the bankers, burghers, shop owners, and tradesmen, to produce good children amongst the laboring class, meaning children who listened to their superiors, followed rules, and worked all day without pouting or crying.

As adult consciousness fought to mold child consciousness in its image, the dull and unimaginative adults latched onto Santus as their spokesperson, weaponizing him to force their desires onto all children. But doing this strained the neutral and equatorial god to the point of rupture.

When Santus snapped, he broke into two entities: The first, Santa, a kind, bearded old man, went to live in the North Pole of his personality where he would reward children once a year for their good behavior.

The second, Krampus, a wicked, bearded old man, went to live in the South Pole of his personality where he would punish children once a year for their bad behavior.

With both Santa and Krampus doing their bidding, parents around the world now controlled their children through a system of reward and punishment, just as their superiors controlled them, and in so doing, have created generation after generation of subservient worker-consumers ready to do the bidding of their masters.

0460. Marquee Façade

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0461. Voter Suppresion

In our American “democracy” most citizens believe that our system is based on the principle of “one person, one vote.” However, closer inspection of our system shows that this is not the case. Here are a few examples of how voter suppression is actively practiced by politicians of both parties during presidential elections.

Voter suppression begins with state primary elections. In order for anyone to vote for candidates in either of the two major parties, Democrat or Republican, they have to be registered to that party. Independents, voters not belonging to either party, cannot cast a ballot for the presidential candidate of their choice.

Voter suppression is strengthened by “gerrymandering,” a practice wherein politicians actively redraw, or “redline,” voting districts to ensure that votes in their district fall in favor of their party. This is supported by voter roll purges, closing or limiting access to polling places, enforcing draconian voter ID laws, non-standardization of voting machines and ballots, holding Election Day on a Tuesday in November without making Election Day a federal holiday, the list goes on.

Voter suppression ends with the votes cast by the 538 electors of the Constitutionally mandated Electoral College. The American system is not “one person, one vote.” This is called “the popular vote.” The popular vote does not decide who our next president will be. Instead, the electors cast their ballot for the president based on the way voters have voted within their district.

Voter suppression, in all of its various guises, works to keep the two parties in power and the voter disenfranchised.

0462. As I Brush My Teeth

As I brush my teeth, I realize I’m brushing bone.

But immediately, in the back of my mind, the fact checker in me mumbles something about teeth not being bone but modified skin.

I ignore the voice, though I know what it says might be true.

As I brush my teeth, I think I’m brushing and burnishing my skull.

The thought makes me smile as the fact checker in me says, “Teeth fall out.”

“But I’m maintaining my skull,” I say back to it and pirouette before the mirror.

And I can’t help but think about the futility of me brushing and burnishing my skull or bone or modified skin, because I know that one day everything that is me, teeth and all, will lie decaying in the earth, my elements absorbing back into the soil.

Then, the fact checker in me says, “You’ll probably be cremated.”

I worked in a crematorium for a few months. I saw what the fires of the retorts do to the human body. I saw bone reduced to a fragile matrix of calcium, which I’d sweep out of the oven into a stainless steel box that I’d empty into a stainless steel tray that I’d sift through with a magnet to pull out all the nails, hinges, and hardware from the casket before dumping the chunky cremains into a pulverizer, which would brake the brittle into a fine powder that I’d pour into a plastic bag that I’d slip into a plastic urn and place on a shelf for the bereaved family to retrieve.

0463. Calibrixia

“Babe, I just had the strangest dream. I was wandering around a dark, old castle and was attracted by a light coming from one of the rooms. Inside was a beautiful woman, who was very sad. She told me her name and asked me to remember it and say it when I was awake. If I did, she’d be able to escape her nightmare prison.”

“So, say her name and free her.”

“That’s just it, I forgot it.”

“You forgot her name?”

“Sadly, yes.”

“Well, try to remember it.”

“I’m not sure I can.”

“You must.”

“Let me think...”

“Anything?”

“I think maybe it started with a K. Kuh-something? No. No, that doesn’t sound right. Kah? That sounds closer. But, I really don’t remember.”

“How many syllables was it?”

“I’m not sure, definitely more than two. Ka-la? I think it was Kalasomething.”

“Kala-something?”

“Yeah, Kala-something. I can see her face, but, for the life of me, I can’t remember her name.”

“And all she said to you was to remember her name and say it when you woke up?”

“Yeah, she said she was trapped in a nightmare prison, and to be freed, someone had to say her name when they woke up.”

“But you forgot it. And now she’s trapped there forever.”

“You know I’m bad with names.”

“But this Kala-something’s relying on you.”

“I know, but I forgot.”

“You can’t forget something this important. She’s relying on you for help. Are you going to fail her?”

“I — I don’t know what to say.”

“Say her name, you idiot!”

0464. The Message of the Cypresses

It was early evening and the wind was picking up.

As she walked to the cypresses at the edge of the garden, she remembered the morning she discovered his true nature.

Waking to find him missing from their bed, she searched the house and the garden, but he was nowhere to be found. Returning inside, she sat beside their son, watching him breathe and coo softly in his sleep through a prism of tears.

When the sun rose and the wind began dying down, something in her told her to return to the cypresses in the garden. Exiting the doors, she watched the man she loved coalesce out of thin air, his eyes wide with horror at her discovery.

“I told you I was never to be followed,” he said on the verge of tears.

“It was part of our agreement. I trusted you.”

“I know,” she said crying, “but you were gone.”

“I told you that if you ever found me missing, not to worry or search for me, that I would return soon,” he cried.

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“Now that you know my true nature, I must leave you,” he said with finality, drying his eyes.

“You can’t. We have a child together.”

“He’s coming with me.”

She lay down painfully beneath the cypresses and looked up at their brush tips black against the sky. She called out to her son, saying that she loved and missed him.

Then, the tips of the cypresses moved with the wind, writing in cursive: I love and miss you too.

0465. Get a New God

If your god is jealous, get a new god.

If your god is selfish, get a new god.

If your god is dishonest, get a new god.

If your god is greedy, get a new god.

If your god is petty, get a new god.

If your god is unsteady, get a new god.

If your god is vengeful, get a new god.

If your god is hateful, get a new god.

If your god is boastful, get a new god.

If your god is entitled, get a new god.

If your god is unforgiving, get a new god.

If your god is unloving, get a new god.

If your god is unkind, get a new god.

If your god is domineering, get a new god.

If your god is condescending, get a new god.

If your god is angry, get a new god.

If your god is arrogant, get a new god.

If your god is violent, get a new god.

If your god is absent, get a new god.

If your god is rude, get a new god.

If your god is crude, get a new god.

If your god is lewd, get a new god.

If your god is cruel, get a new god.

If your god is ungrateful, get a new god.

If your god is unreliable, get a new god.

If your god is irresponsible, get a new god.

If your god’s not a god of laughter, Or a lover or a singer or a dancer, Then join the G.a.N.G. and get a new god.

0466. Creative Exercise

We all know the importance of exercise for our bodies. We’ve learned to discipline ourselves to exercise because we know that a strong, healthy body makes us look and feel great, while providing us with the energy to tackle the challenges of life.

But there is more to us than our bodies. Inside many of us there’s a part that remains weak, flabby, and unfulfilled, untapped and ignored to our own detriment: our creative and expressive natures.

We all have the desire for creative expression, but many of us don’t know how to exercise it. Or, having taken the creative leap of selfexpression, are embarrassed by the results. We often feel that what we’ve made isn’t good enough and that if it isn’t instant genius, it isn’t worth developing. With our first failures, we never try again and give up on selfexpression or relegate it to a disposable hobby.

Think about the drawers, shelves, and closets filled with abandoned projects. But creative expression, much like your body, takes time to develop and requires discipline and patience. When you exercise, your body strengthens itself through repeated use. Our creative faculties are much the same.

Art is the expression of our inner world into the outer world.

When we create, we are filtering the raw materials of life through our experience and knowledge and expressing them in a specific medium. As we repeatedly use our creative faculties for expression, we strengthen our ability to continually express ourselves, and in so doing, make art a part of our lives and everything we do.

0467. Dono Jubbecause

“He always said, “Dono.” So that’s just what everybody in the neighborhood called him. They spelled it D-O-N-O, even though he pronounced it dough-know. Maybe his name was originally Donald or something.

“What’s your name?” they’d ask. “Dono,” he’d respond with a shrug. But he gave that answer for everything. You know: Don’t know. “Where’re you going?” “Dono,” he’d say and shrug. He never looked you in the eye when he said it. He’d just say Dono, shrug, and look away; it was one action.

Sometimes he’d say it over and over again. He’d hold up his hands in a shrug, stare at the ground, and say, “Dono. Dono. Dono.” That was one of his tricks, you see. He was letting you know he didn’t want to answer you.

Especially if you caught him doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing; it was a dead giveaway. But he never did anything bad. He did like to drink, though. Had a taste for cheap gin. People always bought it for him. Everyone around here looked out for him. In all the time I’ve known him, the only change he ever made to his answers was when anyone asked him a question with a why. Like: “Dono, why’d you do that?” Or: “Dono, why’d you do this?” Then, he’d respond, “Dono. Jubbecause.” And that’s how he got his last name. And he would respond to it, too. If he was here right now and you said, “Hey, Dono Jubbecause!” He’d look at you and nod. He knew… I’m gonna miss him.”

0468. Slug to Snail

“Hey!” the old man called to the young man jogging past him.

The young man jogged back to the old man, winded. “Is there something I can help you with? Just ask and I’ll do it. I’m trying to improve my karma.”

“For reincarnation? Is that why you’ve been running all around town helping people?”

“Yes, I want to come back as something good.”

The old man chuckled and patted the bench beside him. “I thought so. Have a seat.”

The young man sat down.

“How old are you?” the old man asked.

“Twenty-three.”

The old man nodded. “I was a lot like you at your age. Always running around helping old ladies cross the street, carrying groceries, holding doors open, etcetera. But no matter what I did or how hard I tried, I couldn’t improve my karma. Do you know what I started at when I started helping others? — A slug.”

“A slug?”

“And do you know where I ended? A slug.”

“A slug? Really? How long were you doing it for?”

“Over twenty years.”

“Twenty years!” The young man exclaimed before his face fell and his shoulders dropped. “So you think I’m wasting my time?”

“I can’t say. It might be different for you. But it does seem that karma requires more than helping people the way you’re helping them. It requires a different type of work.”

“Like what?”

“Like sitting.”

“Sitting?”

“Yup. Just by sitting here for the past forty years, I’ve managed to raise myself from slug to snail.”

“Snail! You’ve got to be kidding me!”

0469. Ukraine

I’ve recently become more aware of Ukraine than I’ve been at any other time in my life. It started when HBO released its mini-series Chernobyl on May 6, 2019. In this fascinating drama, the nuclear power plant disaster was fictionally portrayed to great effect, reminding me, and hopefully all of its viewers, of the dangers of nuclear energy. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima are names that should remain in our minds as warnings against the use of this form of energy.

On August 12, 2019 a whistleblower submitted a formal complaint about President Donald Trump’s illegal use of power when he withheld military aid to Ukraine. President Trump did this to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden, one of President Trump’s political rivals in the 2020 election, and his son, Hunter Biden, about Hunter Biden’s appointment to the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company, when Joe Biden was Vice President under Barack Obama. These actions taken by Trump and his handlers led to his impeachment, the third in U.S. history, on December 18, 2019.

Unfortunately, Ukraine remained in the news into the new year. On January 8, 2020 Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down Ukrainian International Airlines Flight PS572, killing everyone onboard.

The 156 passengers were from the following countries: 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, and 11 Ukrainians. The passenger aircraft was shot down during Iran’s retaliation against the United States for President Trump’s illegal drone strike, which assassinated Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Quds Force commander major general Qasem Soleimani.

0470. Wrestling With the Idea of My Personal Library Having sold my house and having started the long tribulation of packing up all of my belongings, I began earnestly rethinking the premise of personal libraries that I discussed in story 0291. To be fair, I don’t think I could live without books around me, but I have to say, packing up a library is an awful lot of work. As of today, I’m at 75 boxes and counting.

The thought of moving this heavy “paper weight” across the country has given rise to new ideas, like opening a co-operative bookstore and using my library as its initial stock, or selling all of my books for fundraising. No matter what I decide, I’m definitely going to start using public libraries more, especially as I try to strip down all off my accumulated excesses to a healthy, usable, and movable minimum.

To be honest, I’ll probably keep buying books, but it’s gotten to the point where I don’t read everything I buy and often buy for the sake of buying. The Japanese have a word for this: tsundoku. Looking at my books as I box them up, I see all the titles I never read and will never read. I think about all the money I spent on them. I worry about them and our shared karma. But when I think of them back on a shelf, I know just seeing them will trigger thoughts about the authors and the stories they contain and memories of where and when I was when I bought them or who bought them for me…

0471. On Becoming a Necromancer

Anyone who knows anything about magic knows not to dabble in the dark art of necromancy, but for those few curious and sensitive enough to follow its lightless path into the abyss and back again, a few cursory words are in order to let you know what you’re getting into before you do.

The necromantic arts are an abomination to life for two reasons: First, because it seeks to reanimate and bind the unliving to the living world, and second, because it seeks to break the cycle of life by extending it into undeath. These two goals are achieved by means of black magic.

As most mages know, black magic is one of the primary sources of magic along with white magic, and is neither good nor bad. White magic is the source of all creation and black magic is the source of all destruction.

The two exist in harmony when the forces of life balance the forces of death.

The black magic of necromancy is of a different order because it repolarizes the life/death dynamic to make the living unliving and the dead undead. Because necromancy corrupts the natural order of things, its study and practice is condemned by all sane practitioners of the magical arts.

But in every generation there are always a few who are attuned to this heaviest of magics, and will follow its occultide into the depths below the elemental and essential Earth magic to where it pools in its hidden cryptide before diving into the mortide where life becomes death and death becomes life.

0472. The 96

“So how’re things going with Jared?”

“Alright, I guess.”

“Just alright? I thought you were really into him.”

“I was, but he’s a bit… weird.”

“Weird how? In person? In the bedroom?”

“Both.”

“In what way? Did he want you to do something freaky?”

“I guess you could call it freaky. I mean, it was and it wasn’t.”

“What was it, then?”

“I don’t even know what to call it. It was harmless, really, but strange, really strange.”

“You’re killing me with the suspense. Tell me.”

“Have you ever heard of a thing called the 96?”

“No.” “Well, me neither before last night. He took me out to dinner. We had drinks and tapas. Then, we went back to his place, where he says to me, ‘I want to try something new tonight. Something I always wanted to do.’ So, I think maybe he’s into something kinky.”

“Like bondage?”

“Like bondage.”

“Which you don’t like.”

“It’s not my favorite. But you know, I’ll roll with pretty much anything.

So, we’re on the bed and I ask him what he wants to do. He smiles and hugs me, and, I think, starts crying. I don’t know. His eyes were moist.

Then, he says, ‘I want to 96.’ I ask him what it is and he says, ‘It’s the opposite of a 69, where we lay in opposite directions, back to back, and rub our heads on each others asses.’”

“That is weird. Did you do it?”

“Of course.”

“And?” “What more can I say?”

“And you got nothing from it?”

“Nothing.”

0473. The Purgatory of Convalescing

When we fall ill, it’s quite literally like falling into Hell. Our bodies, racked by discomfort and pain, torture our minds with the awareness of our own existence. To be ill is to know ourselves to be alive and trapped in a diseased body we can’t escape.

But, as Nietzsche says, whatever doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger.

And when we eventually turn the corner and begin to feel marginally better, the body and the mind escape Hell into the Purgatory of Convalescing.

This state is similar to the state of falling ill, except the duration always seems longer. Falling ill can take time, and if it does, the signs are usually hidden. Becoming healthy always takes time, making the Limbo in between health and sickness a very strange place to occupy, because health, like illness, always seems to suddenly appear.

When we’re ill, we may remember what it was like to feel healthy. But we can only remember health if we’ve recently been healthy. Being ill for long periods of time erases the memory of what it was like to be healthy.

Likewise, being healthy for long periods of time erases the memory of what it was like to be ill. This memory loss is one of the reasons why we suddenly fall ill. And it’s why the Purgatory of Convalescence seems to stretch on interminably towards health. Further, it’s why when we return to health, we never remember if we’re returning to the original Heaven of our health, or if we’re returning to some lower, weaker order.

0474. Comes the Scatonaut

Comes the Scatonaut with a living corprosophy whose mission can be summed up in one iambic couplet: To muddle the spectrum of light to brown To weigh impossible airy heights down Or this: I yam that I yam The birth-life-death plot has only ever been but an instant, a brief tumescence that swelled to rupture like a delicate eye splitting open at the surface to see and be seen in a flash and flush of effulgent green before being pulled and shaken from the soil by mean and calloused hands that peel, slice, boil, and eat it. Then, shit it back out.

I saw this. Saw it all. And heard it too. Heard the birth-death cry silenced and swallowed, quick to decay. What a feeble instrument this most well untempered and unclever clavier clipped short by the cleaver of Peter Quince: knowledge, like beauty, is always stubbornly there in the endlessly stable change of form. But the voice grows hoarse, too hoarse.

Hoarse and coarse as the yoked co-arses are coerced along this rutted course, lapping and lapping until it or they lapse and collapse into corpse.

But skim the surface and all the illusion of beauty and knowledge will be blotched and lost. The long note of this organ has remained a dream within a dream accessed through sleep, inspiration, and prayer, but those visitations have, and will always be, a bit rare. Those promised celestial heights of the soul could never break free from the dense, clinging gravity of heavy bodies heaving torturously to life on heavenly bodies.

0475. The Chosen One

The story opens on the Chosen One, an awkward person, indistinguishable from the mundane masses surrounding him. — Let’s pause here for a moment. In all probability the Chosen One is a young, privileged, straight, white male, but, occasionally, they might be otherwise. — What makes the Chosen One special is the fact that the Author focuses on him and his indistinguishable life, making him distinguishable. The Author creates the Chosen One, and because the Chosen One can’t live a boring life, — otherwise, there’d be no story — his life is made exciting by giving the Chosen One adventures to fulfill his destiny. Through his struggles, the Chosen One learns about his abilities and gains character. — Note: The Chosen One almost always starts off cowardly, weak, ugly, and shy, but, through the trials of his quest, becomes brave, strong, handsome, and bold. — The Chosen One will also learn that the inner qualities that make him great were within him the entire time; he only had to believe in himself. The Chosen One, however great he is, cannot complete his journey by himself, and will require the help of his family, friends, and most importantly, perceived enemies, who later become friends. But the most important person other than the Chosen One himself is the Chosen One’s Chosen Enemy. The Chosen Enemy is usually an inverse version of the Chosen One himself. And the Chosen One can only defeat the Chosen Enemy after overcoming himself. With the shadow self of the Chosen Enemy defeated, the self-conquering Chosen One returns the world to order. The End.

0476. The Chosen Ones

Sometimes the Author doesn’t want to focus on a single Chosen One and so may decide instead to write about Chosen Ones, plural. Though there may no longer be a single Chosen One, the Author, in all likelihood, will still make one of the Chosen Ones more of a central figure than the others. This character will probably still be a young, privileged, straight, white male, though occasionally they might be otherwise, and everything about the Chosen One still applies to them. This character will form the head of the group, who will act as his appendages and body. One reason an Author will choose to write about Chosen Ones instead of a Chosen One is to spread the sacrifice across more shoulders. By creating a shared martyrdom, the Chosen Ones can represent the whole of humanity instead of the soteriological Singularity of a Chosen One. This reframing brings more color and complexity into the social dynamics of the group, as the Chosen Ones are often different people from different backgrounds coming together by chance or fate to overcome a common Chosen Enemy. The Chosen Ones must learn to work together despite their initial differences and rely on each other’s strengths for their survival against their common Chosen Enemy, who can now be raised from a simple, local threat plaguing the Chosen One himself to a complex, existential threat, allowing the stakes to be raised even higher, because it’s not just about the life of a Chosen One, or the lives of the Chosen Ones, it’s about saving life itself.

0477. Complicit With Plastic

Many years ago, I remember George Carlin telling a joke about plastic.

The punchline went something like this: What if the entire evolutionary trajectory of humans was to produce plastic for the Earth.

Looking at the plastic pollution in the world today, this almost sounds like a paid advertisement from the Plastic Industry Association, Progressive Bag Affiliates, or the American Chemistry Council. I know it isn’t. Just like I know he’s saying: it’s ridiculous that humans believe themselves capable of killing the Earth. But despite Carlin’s usual deadeye accuracy, this joke seems to miss the target.

I remember waiting for Carlin to come back to it and flip it around and tell us how the plastic industry is killing wildlife and destroying ecosystems around the world, but he never did. That wasn’t the point of the joke. The point was to remind us how small we are and how limited our impact is.

And that’s how the plastic industry wants us to feel. “Everything’s okay, just recycle more,” they say. “You can use it once and throw it away.”

What they don’t tell you is that most plastic can’t be recycled, and that it usually ends up in landfills, rivers, and the ocean, which has become a waterfill for much of our waste.

The problem is that we’re all complicit with plastic. It’s everywhere.

That’s why it’s up to us to pressure politicians to pass legislation to replace plastic with alternative biodegradable materials. And considering how plastic comes from petroleum, it means distancing ourselves from that omnicidal industry as well.

0478. The Deadline

She sits in a room in your head collecting the best memories to play for you as you die. She works under a very tight deadline, but she’s used to it; she’s a professional. She starts once your body begins to fail. If you’re analog, she begins rapidly reviewing reels and reels of your old memories.

If you’re not, she reviews the endless footage stored in the cloud of your failing gray matter.

She reviews it all, everything you thought no one would ever see, everything you thought no one would ever know. But she’s not there to judge, that’s not her job. And besides, she doesn’t have the time. She’s there to give you the best final film of your life. You have to judge yourself.

You have to judge if you lived the life you wanted to live. She works hard to do just that. She selects all the best moments, cuts and connects them end-to-end, and plays them as a final film for you as you die.

And as you watch the film of your life, you see all the highlights, all the bright moments, all the things that made you you, all the people that made life worth living. This editor is so good, you’ll see things that you didn’t even know you saw when you saw them, and you’ll feel things you didn’t even know you felt when you felt them. And you’ll be thankful for everything and everyone in your life. But you’ll be especially thankful for the editor who showed them to you.

0479. Failed Geographies

The idea for this series of artwork came during my home’s demo as I was pulling up the floor in the living room/dining room and saw the rich blacks and browns of the tar and asbestos tiles beneath the linoleum. I selected 4 x 4' sections of floor and nailed them to two-by-four frames and hung them on the walls.

The name came to me while I texted my friend about them. What will you call them? he asked. Failed Geographies, I replied. And that was it.

I typed it without thinking. The name spoke and I listened. But what did it mean?

My friend, whom I was texting, lives in California; I live in New York.

Here geography failed us but technology overcame that obstacle. This was the first failure and triumph.

My friend then pointed out how some of the shapes of the artwork were uncontained by the Cartesian grid. This seemed true as the breaks in the wood panel penetrated the substrate and the asbestos tiles sat above the grid lines. Here the topography broke out of two-dimensions and entered Euclidean space. This, then, was the second failure and triumph.

Over the course of my home’s construction, I became more capable than I was before, as my daily struggle became a source of intimate insight.

This, then, would be the third failure and triumph, as what seemed at first a cursed place became the very site of my transcendence.

Thus, in a failed geography, no one ever arrives because one is always where one needs to be.

0480. Tanka to Haiku

When I found a set of three greeting cards of a geisha traveling across Japan, they seemed to be telling a story.

I thought first of Lady Murasaki and imagined the geisha to be her.

But a little research revealed that this couldn’t be the case. It would need to be someone more modern and not attached to the Imperial Court.

Perhaps it was Asano Akiko, the famed Japanese feminist and poet.

Akiko wrote in tanka, and though she was a trailblazer for the form and highly admired, the cards seemed to suggest someone else.

Then, I landed on Takajo Mitsuhashi, a more modern poet, who stopped writing in traditional tanka (5-7-5-7-7) and started writing in haiku (5-7-5).

At the time Mitsuhashi made her transition, the haiku was reserved solely for men. So, when Mitsuhashi and three other women, known collectively as the “Four T’s,” started writing in haiku, it was a subtle rebellion.

It may seem to the casual reader that removing the 14 syllable lower phrase of the 31 syllable tanka to focus only on the 17 syllables of the haiku was a relatively minor coup. But it was a bold and necessary step in the poetic liberation of women at that time, though they remained outside the accepted circles of the male-dominated form for years to come.

With this in mind, I imagined the geisha to be Mitsuhashi and the story to be her transformation from tanka to haiku, from Tokyo to Shinshoji Temple in Narita, where she’s from, and where a statue stands in her honor.

0481. I’m Glad I Didn't Become a Veterinarian

Looking back, I have to say, I’m glad I didn’t become a veterinarian.

Let me preface that by saying, if I had, somehow, become one, it would’ve been by the skin of my teeth, which means, barely.

And if I had become a veterinarian, I’d be a bad one, probably made bitter by taking all the required exams. I was always a terrible student, even for classes that were interesting and taught by teachers I liked. My attention span would last about four to six weeks into a semester. After that, my mind would become restless, and I’d start reading books unrelated to my course work.

I’d probably also be a bit bitter because of all the money I would’ve spent. If you think about university: You pay a place to be told what to take and where, and then they grade you on your performance on taking the things they tell you to take. It’s a racket. When I write it out it sounds crazy, like paying someone to punish you. No thanks.

The other reason why I’m glad I didn’t become a veterinarian is that once anyone learns you’re a vet or are on the path to become one, they always talk to you about their pet’s problems. They stop seeing you as a person with a life outside of your profession and will ask you your opinion about their cat’s vomit or their dog’s diarrhea. They’d never talk about their own vomit or diarrhea with human doctors, but with vets, no subject is taboo or off limits.

0482. I’m Glad I Took the Uncharted Path I Did

I’m glad I took the uncharted path I did, because when you’re on an uncharted path, almost no one understands what you’re doing or why.

And when you’re on your own uncharted path, you quickly find out who your true friends are. Because when you’re on your uncharted path, the people around you have to have faith in you and your abilities to get you where you’re trying to go, even though you may not know what or where that place is. Your true friends have to believe in you as completely as you believe in yourself, as completely as you believe in them on their uncharted paths. You have to believe in each other and the places you’re going, even though those places may change day-by-day, month-bymonth, or year-by-year. You support each other because you know there are many obstacles along your paths, and that, as true friends, you’ve vowed not to become another obstacle on each other’s path. Because each knows that it’s the faith of your true friends that sustains you through the dark nights of the soul, when you’re tormented by difficulties and doubts.

Those on uncharted paths know they can’t help their true friends get to their destination by lighting a lamp ahead of them. Instead, everyone on their uncharted path knows that they’re each a lamp unto themselves, and that their shared faith in each other is the fuel for their lamps, the only source of warmth and light to be found in the cold and dark places you tread both separately and together.

0483. Frottage

Niall, the second face of JaNus, suggested we use frottage for our first artistic collaboration. Frottage is the technique of laying paper on a surface and rubbing it with charcoal or pencils to create a reproduction of the surface beneath. Frottage was developed, practiced, and expanded as a Surrealist technique by artist Max Ernst.

Niall developed his own style and theory through practice, as I developed my own through mine. For me, it was a study of the intimate spaces of home and work that drew me, literally, into what Perec called the infraordinary.

It is on this plane that I’ve been approaching novel and familiar surfaces to see what they reveal about the everyday spaces I inhabit. Each surface reacts differently to the technique, offering up new insights into the world around me. Through it, I’ve learned about myself, the materials, and the places I’ve touched. With each scribble, I closed the loop of intimacy between the triune of surface, paper, and self.

The paper becomes the medium for the face of the surface to reveal itself to me, through the pressure of my hand on the charcoal, I reveal myself to it. Through touch I reveal and am revealed. This both masks and unmasks the familiar. It shows what I know to be there on the surface, but also reveals hidden depths that I couldn’t see before.

The act of frottage is a way of examining the blind spaces within surfaces. The technique reveals what is often overlooked, reminding us that the sighted have eyes that seldom see.

0484. Yes and No

Yes is a necessary companion of No. The Yes written about here is different from the yes of acquiescence that we’re all born with, the yes we inherit under the yoke of the many power structures in our lives, from our parents, family, and friends, to our teachers and coaches, to the government and the military, to the police and the law, to economics, to our genetics, race, and nationality, to our religion, science, and culture.

We’re all under the influence of many unseen and established forces that demand our weak yeses. To any of these, a firm No draws a line in the sand, holds up its hand, and confidently denies the institutions, people, and places we cannot abide. This great and audacious power of negation gives us the ability to select the people and environment best suited for us and reinforces our own inalienable sovereignty.

But while this is a necessary step towards empowering ourselves and improving our individual liberty, the utterance of No only avails itself upon the systems and structures created by man. These systems and structures are not, as we’re told by those in control, immune to change. These systems and structures can and will change over time, regardless of the schemes the authorities establish and enforce to resist it. And it’s because of this that a timely placed No can advance the fortunes and freedoms of all futurity. And by accepting change and our own impermanence, we can learn to use the Yes of love and absolute acceptance that embraces everyone, everything, and nothing.

0485. Our First Date

There’s a television on and the people around us are talking too loud and I got distracted.

You’re speaking.

I look back at you, watch your lips move; note the curve of your face and the color of your hair. I study everything except your eyes. (They’re too much.)

And I got lost again.

I look away, over you, past you, to some far point on the wall. I let my vision blur to focus on listening.

I can hear you now, your words, as if for the first time. But it’s too late.

I missed the beginning of your story. And you’re too far in for me to ask you to start again.

I always thought I was a good listener. This failure to be one makes me self-critical and aware.

I look back at you. Listen harder. (If that’s possible.)

I shut my eyes for a moment, hoping to salvage the conversation. But the thread is gone. You’re speaking of someone and someplace I don’t know.

I’ll just have to ask you a question that will make you repeat part of what you’ve already said. I’ll do that when the time is right. (I might still be able to recover.)

But right now, without context, I can only gage my reaction by the pitch and tone of your voice.

I smile, brace myself, and look into your eyes to see if you know I’m lost.

Your eyes narrow and hold mine for a beat.

But you keep talking and I can’t tell if you know that I don’t.

0486. The Sound of Color

I started painting abstractly because I was captivated by the “sound” of color. I could “hear” color communicating to me non-verbally. So powerful was its “voice” that I was compelled to enter into a dialogue with it.

After hearing color’s call, I had many ideas that I wanted to pursue. I painted fast to get the ideas on canvas. But always upon completion, the paintings never felt finished. Unsettled, I would paint over the paintings, or reprime them, and begin again. As I struggled to complete the paintings, I discovered that what I wanted or imagined as the end result was never what I ended up with.

By doing this over and over, I built into the painting a history of my trials and errors that mirrored my experience. As each successive layer was applied, another layer of time was trapped in and on the canvas. These layers became events in the life of the painting, and, over time, it developed a personality, almost a consciousness, and a voice that communicated through the colors, shapes, and textures on the canvas.

After I learned to listen with my eyes, I discovered that painting was a dynamic process between myself, the paint, and the canvas. Painting became a dialogue through the medium of paint. In order to achieve a completed painting, I had to give up my preconceived ideas of the finished painting and learn to listen to the painting, to help it tell its own story to the viewer. Whenever I listened, the painting told me everything I needed to know.

0487. Deus Ex Machina

“I used to send signs, portents, and omens to the faithful to let them know when I was coming. And when I arrived, I’d always put on a real lightshow to dazzle them and shake them awake with my presence. There were plenty of theatrics when I was younger and showing off, but it didn’t take me long to realize that it got in the way of getting things done.

Now, I hate all that fear and trembling shit. To avoid it, I just show up looking like everybody else. That way, I appear, tweak this, that, and the other, and get out. That’s how all Creators should be with their creations.

I’m trying to lead by example. Like you, many of my creations have, by creating new worlds and universes, become Creators themselves. I don’t want them behaving like the old me. I want them behaving with dignity and compassion towards their creations. That’s why I gave this universe a scientific origin story: the Big Bang. With that, I wrote myself out of the narrative. It was the easiest way to transfer power to you, to make you masters of your own destiny. With that story, and your own storytelling capacity, I knew you wouldn’t need me like you once did. So, I disappeared inside everything. You can’t see me anymore, but I’m still here, watching the world through your eyes. And whenever I need to nudge you in a different direction, I do it through you. You, of course, think you’re doing it yourself, but it’s always me.”

0488. Contented Farts

He has dinner and dessert at his friends’ house. They talk and laugh and have one more drink. With the hour getting late, he thanks his friends for their hospitality and says goodnight. He walks to his car, sits inside, starts it, and releases a contended fart.

He puts the car in drive and starts towards home. At the first traffic light he stops at, he cracks his window, takes out a cigarillo, lights it, inhales, and blows a plume of smoke out through the crack. He drives home, smoking and thinking thoughts. He tunes in to and out of the music on the radio. He smokes the cigarillo to nothing, rolls down the window, and flicks it out into the night. He leaves the window open to air out the car, rolling it up when he pulls into his driveway. He puts his car in park, shuts it off, and releases a contented fart.

He takes out his keys, opens, and enters his house. As he closes the door behind him, his dog jumps happily to greet him. He pets her as he enters, then lets her outside to pee, waits for her, and lets her back in. He pets her some more as he walks into the house and empties his pockets.

He heads to the bathroom, washes his hands, and brushes his teeth. He enters his bedroom, turns on the light, opens his closet, and undresses. He changes into pajamas, turns down the covers, and slips into bed. Turning out the light, he releases a contented fart.

0489. The Na’vi as a Post-Civilized Culture

When first watching James Cameron’s movie Avatar, the Na’vi, the native inhabitants of the planet Pandora, appear to be a primitive people. But a closer look reveals characteristics of a post-civilized culture. The clue lies in their queue, or hair braid, which is a potent organic technology.

Through their queue, the Na’vi can directly link and bond with the fauna, people, and soul of their world, which they call Eywa. This suggests a technological advancement superior to Earth’s pre-civilized and civilized people up to and including the humans of the 22nd century. The Na’vi’s interactive organic technologies and integrated lifestyle find no correlative in mankind’s extractive mechanic technologies and disintegrated lifestyle.

When watching Avatar, we first side with the humans trying to survive on a hostile alien planet. But after protagonist Jake Sully is accepted into the world of the Na’vi in his avatar, our allegiance begins to change until we’re fully on their side. Now, we do this despite being human ourselves. That this happens at all should alert us to the fact that a shift in our collective consciousness has occurred. It seems we’ve turned against the worst excesses of colonialism and capitalism and are willing to side with an alien race that holds the same values as we do: a deep respect for people, life, and planet. As we continue to wrestle control away from the oligarchs, their corporations, and our captured government in an effort to balance the patriarchal proliferation of power with maternal reintegration, the Na’vi remain blue beacons towards an integrative future primitive civilization.

0490. A Brief Sketch of Western Human History

The earliest stories we told ourselves were of how we were born from the Earth like we were born from the womb of our Mother. Our primary awareness was that of the babe and the child, continually looking back to our Mother as the sole source of guidance. The mother was good and provided for her children and she was rightfully worshiped for thousands of generations, as we grew fit, strong, and successful.

Over time, our confidence grew with our knowledge to master our environment. Our intelligence brought us surplus bounty and the knowledge of herding, domestication, and agriculture. Mankind became sedentary and our great nomadic wanderings settled into cities. Our connection with the Mother weakened as our power grew and we learned to provide for ourselves.

We began to search for new gods to represent our growing strength and looked away from the animals and our Mother towards the sky. We raised into the heavens our own magnified masculine image and began to tell stories of powerful patriarchal deities. We molded ourselves in the shape of our idealized Fathers and, as we built upwards, the pantheon of gods was reduced to a singularity in heaven.

God became the goal, and life was a struggle to grasp the elusive purity of air. The earth became vulgar and rude, as did the body, and both were denied for the spirit and the sky. Mankind began to labor against the Earth and the body as we created newer and more potent technologies to reach the place of our Father God in heaven.

0491. A Brief Sketch of Western Human Futurity

After we reached the place of our Father God in heaven, the summit of our achievement provided a new perspective we never expected: the understanding of our true position in the cosmos. The deo-, geo-, and anthropo-centric models that formed the foundation of our narrative had collapsed. Earth was not the center of God’s kingdom, neither was our galaxy. We were alone with each other and our planet. A planet that was a planet amongst sextillions of planets, in a galaxy amongst billions of galaxies, in a universe whose scale and scope remain beyond the limits of our comprehension.

At that moment, we were forced to look back to our Mother and to see how precious she is and to account for the destruction we caused in the quest for our Father. And it was there, in the godless heavens, where we realized we had to return to the Mother to reintegrate and rebalance our hyper-masculine spirit with her forgotten femininity.

As the planet collapsed around us, we woke up and began working together to turn back the tide of destruction we unleashed through our excesses. We did not abandon competition for co-operation, but instead contained it in arenas where its victories could no longer pollute and plunder the planet and people. We formed coalitions and set up a series of global checks and balances to provide fail-safes and safeguards against the worst extremes of human behavior.

Together, we brought our one and only planet back into a functional equilibrium that was capable of sustaining all future generations to come.

0492. En at Mahat Mahat

I floated like a ghost over gray dunes. The night sky above was filled with unfamiliar stars. I neither knew where I was in the universe, nor did I know where I was going.

As I drifted over the colorless landscape, I realized that perhaps I was dreaming or astral projecting or both. But dreams, astral projections, and astral projections within dreams never bring you directly to your destination, they always bring you somewhere near it, like an establishing shot that eases you into a scene. And so it was here.

As I crested a large dune, I saw a naked, gray man sitting cross-legged before a small pool of water in the valley.

As soon as I saw him, I appeared across the pool opposite him.

The gray man looked up at me with gray eyes. Then, looked into the pool.

My eyes followed his.

The surface of the pool reflected the night sky and stars above.

“En at mahat mahat,” he said, gesturing from the pool to the stars.

It was no language I was familiar with, but as I studied the pool, I understood it to mean that the stars above were reflected in the water below. Moreover, that the stars in the water were the stars above in the sky.

I repeated the words back to him.

He nodded.

“As above, so below,” I said, pointing to the stars then to their reflection.

He tapped his chest, pointed to the pool then the stars and said, “En at mahat mahat.”

We are a reflection of everything.

0493. The King of the Wood

When James George Frazer time travels to the sacred tree at Nemi to meet the King of the Wood, he’s promptly attacked by him. Luckily, Mr. Frazer is quick on his feet, speaks fluent Latin, and is able to tell the King that he’s not a runaway slave, but a free man, and therefore cannot seek his crown.

The King lowers his swords and seeing the strange manner of clothes Mr. Frazer wears asks him where he’s from. Mr. Frazer tells him Caledonia, north of Britannia.

The King is impressed by how far Mr. Frazer has traveled. He tells Mr. Frazer that he was originally from Carthage and was brought to Rome as a slave. Because of his strength and stamina, he was sold to Lentulus Batiatus, and sent to a gladiator school where he was trained as a dimachaerus. He won many contests at the Coliseum and quickly gained a reputation as an exceptional fighter. After one contest, when his troupe was being transported back to Capua along the Appian Way, he escaped and made his way to Nemi. He had heard the story of the King of the Wood and, being a slave, he knew that if he reached the sacred tree and killed the King, he would become the next priest-king of Diana. After this was achieved, he took up his mantle and has since been repelling attacks launched at him by his former owner, who wants to silence the success of his escape. But it’s too late; his story has already spread to other rebellious gladiators.

0494. Gerropa, the Lacustrine Lord

Deep in the Okefenokee Swamp is a lake, and deep in that lake is Gerropa, the Lacustrine Lord. On full moons he wakes, rising from the muck, stretching the surface of the blackwater thin before erupting large as a hillock.

Across his vast, slick body, pocks and dimples catch and hold water in which adult frogs gather to croak in chorus amongst swimming tadpoles and clusters of spawn. From the great mound of his body, their tongues fly out into the night, capturing nocturnal mosquitoes and moths.

These monthly feasts feed Gerropa, who is too large to feed himself.

As the frogs eat, so does Gerropa, who absorbs nutrients from their urine and feces through his skin. Gerropa does little but rise and settle with the lunar cycles. And over the course of the nights when he rises, he does little except watch the moon pass overhead with his large, moist eyes.

No one knows how many years Gerropa has been alive. His age remains elusive, but it is estimated by several notable cryptozoologists, myself included, that he is at least several centuries old. To have seen him is to experience deep time and to imagine an older, purer Earth.

Though we know frogs don’t possess consciousness like we do, it is an interesting thought experiment to put oneself into their perspective and imagine how they see Gerropa. To them, he must be a kind king whose presence calls them from all over the swamp to eat, copulate, urinate, and defecate, sustaining each other in a cycle of mutual benevolence.

0495. Stopping the Rise of Strong Unitary Executive Power The American political system has three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. The president, vice president, and their cabinet compose the executive branch. The Senate and the House of Representatives compose the legislative branch. The Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, and District Courts compose the judicial branch.

Each branch is designed to provide checks and balances on the others so that no single branch becomes more powerful than the others. For instance, in Article II, Section 4 of our Constitution, impeachment is the process by which a president or high-ranking official in the executive or judicial branches can be removed from office by the legislative branch.

Under George W. Bush’s presidency, the War Powers Resolution, passed in 1973 under President Nixon to prevent war, was effectively overturned in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks, when Congress passed the Authorization of Use of Military Force granting the president authority to go to war against the parties responsible for the attacks without the consent of Congress.

This push for executive power has also come with a push for executive privilege, which makes the president and members of the executive branch immune to subpoenas from the legislative and judicial branches.

This immunity, recently abused to the point of obstruction by President Trump, is now beginning to look more like the divine right of kings or the infallibility of the Pope, opening the door for greater tyranny and abuse by future presidents.

A constitutional amendment must be passed to restore balance between the branches, and to prevent the continued, unchecked rise of strong unitary executive power.

0496. Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth and a Colonoscopy) Last year, I had my wisdom teeth removed. Sitting in the chair at the orthodontist’s, he told me to count backwards from ten as he administered the anesthesia into my I.V. I think he had the timing wrong, because I was still awake when I hit one, then zero, then negative numbers, then nothing.

I just disappeared and woke up a few moments later, even though some forty-five minutes had passed. I was really groggy when I came to, but I marveled at the profound and utter nothingness I had disappeared into.

The year before my wisdom teeth were extracted, my father was diagnosed with colon cancer. He successfully underwent surgery and chemotherapy and has since been given a clean bill of health. Since I now have a family history of colon cancer and was in my forties, it was time for me to get my colon scoped.

The prep was the worst, as it consisted of twelve hours of consistent, or rather inconsistent, diarrhea. Compared to the prep, the procedure was easy. I showed up, got undressed, donned a robe, went into a room, laid in a bed, was given an I.V., rolled into another room, where I was positioned and given anesthesia. Again, I disappeared only to wake up moments later back in the room where it all started, marveling at my disappearance, and thinking that this is exactly what death must be like: You’re here, then you’re gone, then you’re back again moments later, just not in your original body, but in the body of a baby.

0497. Lyrics from Goats’ Satanic Moth Angel EP

1. Goats

4. The Night

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels come with him, he will sit high on his throne.

And all the people will gather before him, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep to his right and the goats to his left.

The legions of Hell Are preparing to fight To murder the Lord And vanquish the light For the day will not save them And we own the night For the day will not save them And we own the night

2. Sinister Left. Behind.

Left. Behind.

Left. Behind.

Left. Behind.

Left. Behind.

Left Behind.

3. Satanic Moth Angel Satanic Moth Angel Satanic Moth Angel The sword on your wings Will slay the Creator Satanic Moth Angel Satanic Moth Angel The sword on your wings Will slay the Creator Satanic Moth Angel Satanic Moth Angel The sword on your wings Will slay the Creator Satanic Moth Angel Satanic Moth Angel Satanic Moth

5. Sundeath The death of the sun Saving no one The death of the sun Saving no one The death of the sun Saving no one The death of the sun Saving no one 6. Face Down But my very feelings Changed to repulsion And terror When I saw the whole man Slowly emerge From the window And begin to crawl down Down the castle wall Over the dreadful abyss, Face down, With his cloak spreading Out around him Like great wings.

0498. Tarot Reading 2/1/2020

The closing date for the sale of my house is less than two weeks away. The sale of our family business should conclude in about a month’s time. After that, I’ll be free to wander the world and concentrate on writing. As these important chapters of my life come to a close, I wanted to perform a tarot reading to see what lay ahead.

I cleaned a table and set out a silver cup filled with ash and water to represent the feminine elements of earth and water. Next to it, I set an empty silver cup in which I placed a candle to represent the masculine elements of fire and air. I focused my attention, unwrapped my cards, shuffled three times, and cut once.

I performed a simple reading of four cards for past, present, obstacle, and future. I drew the first card saying, “This is my past,” and placed it on the left. The card was the Three of Cups reversed, which means achievement and end. I drew the second card saying, “This is my present,” and placed it in the middle. The card was the Ace of Swords, which means a triumph to an excessive degree in everything. I drew the third card saying, “This is my obstacle,” and placed it sideways over the Ace. The card was the Lovers reversed, which means failure. I drew the fourth card saying, “This is my future,” and placed in on the right. The card was the Seven of Wands, which means successful valor over many enemies.

Things look hopeful!

0499. Tell Brak

Tell Brak is currently the oldest city in the world, dating back to around 6,400 B.C.E. It was discovered by, of all things, a U.S. spy satellite. It’s located in Syria, a country long violated by the endless wars of the U.S. The photo I saw of Tell Brak was colored to show its perimeter and internal divisions. It looked like an animal cell with the main city as its nucleus. It looked to have vacuoles and mitochondria too. I don’t think the similar appearance between a city and a cell is a coincidence if we think of how cities and cells replicate and spread.

Imagine the city as a single-celled organism. Now, imagine the city enveloping its fields of wheat and cattle, just as a cell once enveloped, but did not consume, the first mitochondrion. Imagine the mitochondriafields becoming a synergistic part of the cell-city. Now, imagine the mitochondria-fields feeding the cell-city and allowing the cell-city to grow and multiply. And in growing and multiplying the cell-city becomes more complex, and the cell-cities multiply again, and begin to specialize to become organ-cities. And the organ-cities consolidate and cluster to form a body-nation. And the body-nation grows more specialized organ-cities as it swims, then crawls, then walks, then thinks. And during this process of evolution, the cell-cities maintain an independent mind and identity over the course of its history. And those who have survived tell the story of cell-cities and body-nations that grew rapidly and aggressively to engulf other cell-cities, cell-organs, and body-nations in a rapid, aggressive expansion called cancer.

0500. Beginning in the Middle

So, we’ve reached the middle of the book, the midway point, the heart, the core, the center. And I have to say that this point of the book feels a lot like this point in my life. Meaning that the middle of the book is like the middle of my life. I’m middle aged right now. I’m 42. If I live to 84, I’m halfway dead.

At this point, I suppose one way to talk about the book and my life is to say that I’ve reached the acme, the apex, the apogee, the capstone, the climax, the crest, the crown, the culmination, the head, the height, the heighth (sic), the max, the meridian, the peak, the pinnacle, the summit, the tip, the top, the vertex, the zenith of my life and this book. But I think that speaks poorly for what’s to come. If I speak about my life and the book that way, it only means that it’s all down hill from here, which seems untrue, and I refuse to accept that outlook.

No, dear reader, this book is a long awaited beginning even though it comes at the middle of my life. In fact, this book could only be written here and now and not before. The timing of my life and the writing of this book are perfect. And though my body and mind will most definitely slow in the coming years, you are reading the writings of a man in his prime, who is beginning to become a writer in the middle of his life.

About A Thousand Stories Reader, I wanted you to know that I started writing this book as a collection of science fiction, slipstream, and fantasy stories with some horror, humor, and romance mixed in. But as the book and I deepened our dialogue, we realized that the format was perfect for pretty much anything. This makes the book impossible to categorize because it now includes: abstracts, acrostics, album reviews, alternative histories, analyses, anatomies, aphorisms, artworks, apotheoses, autobiographies, autozoëographies, biographies, blessings, board games, book reviews, business ideas, calendars, catalogs, chronicles, codes, color themes, comic skits, comics, commentaries, confessions, constrained writings, curses, designs, dialogues, dreams, economic commentaries, etymologies, eulogies, examples, exegeses, experiences, explanations, exposés, fairy tales, fake album reviews, fashion critiques, films, filmographies, forewords, formulas, F.A.Q.s, grammars, guides, hagiographies, histories, instructions, interviews, introductions, inventions, jokes, journal entries, legends, lessons, letters, letters to the editor, lists, lists, and more lists, lyrics, magic spells, mantras, manuals, marquees, maxims, memento moris, memories, menus, messages, metacommentaries, metafictions, metaphysics, monologues, morality tales, mottoes, musings, mysteries, mythologies, notes, oaths, observations, oracles, orders, parables, performances, philosophies, phone calls, pitches, plays, plots, poems, polemics, political commentaries, prayers, predictions, products, product histories, projects, propositions, prose poems, provenances, P.S.A.s, puns, reflections, religious commentaries, reminiscences, reports, requirements, revelations, routines, rubrics, ruminations, rules, sayings, scripts, shows, sketches, social commentaries, songs, strategies, studies, tarot readings, tasting notes, theories, tour guides, transcripts, transmissions, trialogues, trial logs, urban legends, utoposcales, visualizations, websites, westerns, wishes, word plays, and word salads. Essentially, it’s a book that’s a composite of me, and the time and place in which it was written.

Hope you enjoy.

50650>

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To discover the hidden message on all ten covers, arrange the books as follows: 12345 67890

$6.50 ISBN 978-1-957399-04-1