Something and something else

For all our lives we search for something…something that lasts…something that distracts…something that gives meaning to the wretched banality of a day largely wasted doing things we do not want to do…something….we’re just looking for something that makes us feel whole again…something to connect us to the uncertain tumult that pushes today into tomorrow…something that can rule and order and disturb…something is a something else, somewhere else, someone else…something can be hopeful or simply resigned…glorious or defamed…something can be within or just perpetually beyond our grasp and field of vision…something, anything, to buy some more time, to restore that which has been lost…to put a halt to some irresistible force nudging us closer and closer to…something unspeakable…something wonderful…something weak and strong, something resistant and something accepting…something sacred and something profane…something here and something there…sometimes all we want is something that is ours…something that will be lost and forever our own…

A particular terror shadows my every heartbeat. Its a singular terror - a dread about losing something that is already gone.

C. or K. However it begins...my true beloved. I stand, immobile, paralyzed, crippled and overwhelmed, fixated on that expired moment of bliss, that first instant our eyes met. Oh, my love, that first glance has since inspired in me unparalled joy and insoluble melancholy.

The joy and tragedy of human existence is revealed by our ability to feel things intensely. All of this sturm and drang or ebb and flow has revealed this one undeniable truth - I love you with all my heart and soul.

I awoke this night, interrupted by the vivid image of most beautiful and luminscent blue eyes. I thought of you. That terror rushed through me. What if...what if that's it...what if that's all I am left with...a recollection...a faded dream...and exile, forevermore. This is the terror that woke me this night. This terror, pumped from a broken heart, shall course through my veins for the rest of my days.

And if I never will again be touched by your presence. I know now, even if it is far too late, that I can feel this deeply, love this intensely, and not be left ruined by desire. I know now that one can love and be utterly stricken by terror.

My sky collapses ever so slowly,

I remember still that instant our eyes met;
its the remembrance that kills,
its the enduring image of your immaculate blue eyes that torments me so.

The ground beneath my feet shifts, buckling and twisting;
the tremors of an unsettled soul,

I long for much and have given too little,
I awake every morning under the pall of grey clouds,
unsure of when they shall part,
unsure of when this interminable collapse will halt,
unsure of when I can hold and caress you,
unsure of when we can be complete.

My sky collapses ever so slowly, darling.

You said go slow i'll follow behind if you're lost you can look and find me time after time if you fall i'll catch you i'll be waiting time after...watching you through windows....you're wondering if i'm okay...drumbeat out of time if you're lost you can look you'll find me time after time....if you fall i'll catch you i'll be waiting time after time...

The song floated in the background. In the foreground sat the two, at a table, with two coffee cups and averted eyes between them. She's looking at the passing cyclists, speeding by, in a race against the clock and each other. He's looking at the tree, which springs from the concrete in a most unnatural way, sway to the whims of a gentle favonian breeze, perhaps wondering when this flourished sapling shall wilt and perish like all mortal things.

It is love that mortals imbue with an undeserved immortality. They like to believe it shall triumph over their basest creature desires, that it shall outlive their most egregious errors, and that, in the final place, it is in love that they shall find ultimate redemption. Love, at the height of its metaphysical glory, is but a marginal consolation for a life squandered.

But love is the most mortal of all things. It does not endure. It comes to be like an explosion of a far away star seen in an empty night sky. But soon all that shall remain are the ruins and remnants of something that has passed. And the heavens darken again. Love is most intense in that initial instant, when the leaden weight of mortality seems to give way to something lighter, something capable of transcending its eternal limitations. They feel as if gravity, that humorless tyrant, no longer takes hold. They feel as if the Dream can be true, for now and forever. "Forever" for a mortal life is a resilient illusion. For what is forever, if like that tree springing forth from a concrete forest, it will all perish?

They sat there again. Each taking turns sipping from the others mug and turning their averted gazes elsewhere. She turned to the young, perky barista working feverishly on a caffe latte for a customer. He turned to the young man in the suit hammering on his laptop keyboard. It is interesting how people see themselves in those they encounter. Is she like me? Does he enjoy the things I enjoy? People are wondrously selfish creatures. However, their perspectives aren't always focused on assorted trivium and miscellany. This need to see themselves in others is, at bottom, a parasitic impulse. It is not blood nor flesh they seek to consume. It is time, youth, and potential -- all of which need to be recovered or redirected. They want to see a younger, more beautiful, more intelligent version of themselves in others. Their own paths have narrowed or they believe it to have narrowed and seek to deform others to widen it.

The barista catches her gaze and gives her a smile - a smile she has provided on countless occassions in a day, per company protocol. She returns the gesture and adds a polite wave. The smile on the barista's face fades and shes turns to another customer.

He simply stares at the young man with the laptop; it is an indifferent gaze marked by the slightest hint of puzzlement. The young man reciprocates with a withering look, as if wanting to say, young men tend to do, "what's this asshole's problem?" This rather belligerent reply did not change the spectator's gaze -- still indifferent and with the slightest hint of puzzlement. The young man, concerned that he was courting certain trouble or the undesired attention of a predatory character, quickly averted his gaze and quickly packed away his computer and notepad and left in a haste. He turned, at last, to his tablemate. He opened his hitherto pursed lips and threatened to speak, but abstained to do so at the final instant. Those unsaid words wafted between them as the song in the background continued to fade into its final concluding notes.

Time after timmmmmme.....

Long flowing blonde locks,
wise, illumined blue eyes,
my love, my spectre,
all time, all space, all of the world mourns
the passing of your unspeakably cruel beauty.

why must such unparalleled beauty remain ever elusive? why must i remain still, unable to move, unable to speak? why must i be doomed to this interminable chase and never to attain what i most desire?

Strange moonlight,
where have you taken my beloved?

The girl behind the circulation desk

Remember me?

No.

I felt an effacing chill run up my spine. So this was that horrendous feeling, that feeling worse than death.

Her cold blue eyes shredded my eager smile. She was obstinate and refused to be moved. She wanted me to go and never return.

Should I surrender to my accursed fate and walk away? I didn't.

I pulled out the necklace. It was a silver chain with a pedant in the shape of a bird, a pelican.

Here, this is for you. I remember you collected these.

Her eyes warmed again and, yes, a smile broke through. She put it on. The fair skin of her cheeks illumined with blush. I reached out and stroked her right cheek. All was well again...until I woke up.

There's truth to be gleaned from fiction. That's what I have always believed. The most expansive ambition is one which refuses to be sated by material. The most impressive ambition lies between a fragile heart and an exhausted mind - spent, left with nothing in reserve, they continue on. They endure. Sure, they'll be obstacles. They'll be doubt, self-abnegation, and recriminations that emanate from all sides. Sure, not everyone will be thrilled, not everyone will be in agreement, and not everyone will appreciate the work. In spite of all that, it must be done. Great joy echoes throughout magnificent writing. It is the author exalting in precious freedom and extending an invitation to his reader to do the same.

All life is encounter. Words are nothing without encounter.

Chernobyl

The child was conceived in Kiev on the day of the Chernobyl incident. Father was a diplomat. Mother was an art professor. By the time he was twelve, they both had passed away. His mother battled ovarian cancer for five years and succumbed when he was seven. His father, who found large doses of alcohol to be a gradually diminishing comfort, drove into the Dnipro and disappeared into its murky water.

The child conceived in Kiev on the day of Chernobyl possessed an uncanny gift. Whether Chernobyl is the source of this gift is a matter of pure speculation. What can be known for sure is that upon being orphaned at a very young age -- and subsequently moving in with a distant relative in Canada -- the child cultivated a fiery attachment to personal independence. He developed an intense sense of self. He embraced confrontation at an age when other children abhorred it. He was assured that truth was exclusive to his mind, while others were misinformed. This article of faith acted as a foundation for his actions. It was to be the mission statement of his gift and its expression in the world. This gift, which could have potentially redeemed the child and the world itself, indiscriminately laid ruin to all things that contravened his individual world-view. At a very young age, he ceased to be the child and aspired to become the wisest of all tyrants.

He blamed it on Chernobyl. He blamed Chernobyl for having taken the warm bosom of mother away. He blamed Chernobyl for pushing his kind, quiet, and gentle father into the depths of despondency. Lastly, he blamed Chernobyl for his accursed gift. He wanted to transcend Chernobyl by doing what it could not -- namely, the utter obliteration of all that was false and oppressive in the world. Nature's oppression, he felt, was most absolute and, hence, most unbearable of all.

He held himself to be a personage of high regard. He believed his intentions were noble and his cause just. Too much was wrong. Too much had gone array. The world was poisoned beyond all half-measured solutions; only one remedy was left. It was a remedy that only the wisest, noblest, and most courageous one could execute. Only he had to gumption to overturn time.

The remedy was a reset. For the child of Kiev born on the day of Chernobyl, the only world he ever knew was an absurd aberration. It shouldn't have been left standing. He should have never been born. The wretched moments of today bleeding into tomorrow were the cruel jokes of a sadistic clockmaker. For the child of Kiev born in the shadow of Chernobyl, a just world could never see a tomorrow. Time, that timorous tyrant, was to be the child's eternal foe.

---

The child born in Kiev when Chernobyl blew its top admired only one person in his formative years: his cousin. His cousin was born with a name and died with another. Only the latter survived the passage of time. The name was Bobby Orr. No, not "Number Four Bobby Orr" of Perry Sound, but Bobby Orr of Surrey, BC, cousin, playmate, and confidant to the great tyrant.

Six years separated the child from his older cousin...

Stress

Stress hormones accelerate the breakdown of telomerase - a coating protecting chromosomes - in mammals.

An excess of stress hormones causes the body to shut down non-essential functions - including the immune system. This is an explanation of why ulcers, caused by bacteria carried by two-thirds of the world population, occur in some cases but not in all.

Stress and excess body fat also kills brain function. Neurons are less likely to fire while the body is under chronic stress.

Relax, kick back, and then do some serious work.

Sky blue, getting lost in vibrant blue,
oh, what wonders, getting lost in twin blues,
my only obsession.