Thunderous…that’s what silence must sound to the gods…as if some daemonic wolf dressed in white pantomimed a primal cry for help…What if mortal supplications were given without word, without sound? What if their offerings were done without noise or fanfare? What if their prayers had nary a lyric or verse? What if all that lay between man and the sky above was endless pure silence?

Wonder

I wonder sometimes...

how different things could be...
if I was not the plaything...
of time.

I shall be expired one day
And I shall look back
with regretful eyes...

I wonder sometimes...

An image occupies my most intimate thoughts. In the shadow of fading light lies a vast body of water. In this boundless water resides every imaginable colour; they swirl and dance until there exist no distinctions, no possible differentiation between where one begins and another ends.

These deep waters also contains qualities: courage and cowardice, genius and stupidity. Cowardice and stupidity can be found on the surface, stopped by a glance, while genius and courage are in the depths. Dive...dive...dive...get down low into the dark obscured depths...

A rudderless ship wanders the surface...only the diver can know what wonders await in the deep.

===

An object of inward focus. The strength of the human mind resides in this uncanny ability for focus. It is of little consequence that the objects of our focus yield no certainty or absolutes...The matter is one about depth and profound persistence...the diver may never attain the pearls she seek. It is the dive, not its yield, that emboldens her soul.

Waiting...

Waiting…waiting…

Standing in line at the DMV, waiting to renew your license. Standing in line at the box office, waiting for tickets. Standing in line to order lunch at a sandwich shoppe or for a cup of coffee.

Waiting…waiting…

What are we all waiting for? What are YOU waiting for…? CALL NOW!

Oh, we, the impatient. We want it now. We want it now and the way we want it. I don’t want it a minute ago or a minute from now. I want it now.

Waiting…waiting…

All good things come to those who wait. Isn’t that cliché out of step now? All good things do not come to those who wait; it comes to those readily willing to bitch and moan and complain until a more qualified cog comes to address their immense grievances.

Waiting…waiting…

We’re waiting for God—OT? What good comes from complaining? Much profit can be attained since one can extract advantages by endlessly airing grievances. Yet such boons are fleeting, obsolescent things. Good does not come from endless complaints. The good is not, as Thrasymachus implied, that which is good solely for the self. It is more expansive, yet more focused than just profit. It does not appear initially to be desirable or necessarily advantageous. It comes to light as challenge, absence, and perhaps even failure. It does not float unconnected from ephemeral matters, some transcendent shape looming above and beyond the actions of men.

Men shape the good and earn it through their works. It is not given from above nor stolen forevermore by subterranean darkness. It is in our hearts, our minds, and our hands. It is fragile and sensitive. It is enduring and stoic. It takes on the qualities of those who labour for its sake. The good is not achieved by waiting alone. Yet it cannot be earned by those unwilling to wait.

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.

The Big One

She gave him an ambiguous expression before leaving.

"I love you and I have to go."

That was it. She was off to Prague and he, as always, held still at home. She took flight because she could not stand the idea of home, that dull process of sedimentation that befalls etiolated and miserable things; staying still was not an option. But he chose to stick it out. As much as it was no longer home, as much as all things he remembered and romanticized had disintegrated, he chose to endure and to continue on. He would refer to the thoughts of Rilke, Kafka, and Neizvestny on the subject of human endurance and artistic creation.

"Be poet enough to deal with it. Only dilettantes and philistines cry foul about the human condition. Lennon said give me a tin can and a stick and I'll make something beautiful from it, because that's what artists do." Despite the rhetoric, her departure hurt him.

When she left, his old enthusiasms waned and novel ones were slow to emerge. He worked and returned home to read, then slumber, awakening, off to work, home, and so on. From his youngest years, he read avidly. Greek philosophy, Roman history, medieval theology, penny novels, mysteries, Shakespeare, Rimbaud, Kant, legal theory, Camus, Penthouse: his palette grew more and more extensive as the years passed. Upon her departure, he read everything, some of it for the second time, with one notable exception. Her letters were left unopened, unread, and without reply. Words passed through him without register and were of little comfort. Not much else filled his time apart from the dead tomes and the hours at a job he loathed. He was stuck. He needed to take flight.

"Prague, man. You gotta go to Prague." He stood there emotionless per usual, eyes gazing at some distant ghost, and gave no response. Was he deep in thought? Was he zoning out? Was he bored and on the verge of going comatose? This was the annoying ambiguity of his emotionless visage. After some time, he turned to me and gently shook his head. No. Of course.

"How about Edmonton?" This disturbed him for a second. A look of puzzlement escaped before posturing melancholy could detain it. The thought so perturbed him, he left his desk for the break room. My words, well the thought of going to Edmonton, inspired something in him. It may have been disgust and revulsion, but it roused him nonetheless. That was at least a first step.

He returned from his brief sojourn with a coffee cup with an image of a killer whale leaping out of blue waters, the letter beneath read: Victoria, British Columbia. Okay. That was not as subtle of hint as he liked to believe. Then again, hints should never be too subtle. I made a similar trip to the break room and fetched my rendition of the mug - killer whale and so on with one difference, beneath it read: Vancouver, BC. I filled it halfway with coffee, returned to the desk, and touched it with his. We were heading for the West Coast.

----

The Big One was this mythical earthquake. It was to be the final violent orgasmic encounter Juan de Fuca tectonic plate with the North American Plate. The beauty of the Pacific Coast would be left in ruins. The sprawling metropolis of Vancouver would become a wistful memory, buried under so much rubble. The vibrant and majestic sea to sky landscape would be left forever grey and lifeless. It was going to be the end of everything.

"If you live there, if you choose to live there, you can't possibly talk about it. It's like that apocryphal story about Muhammad Ali in Zaire. He would never, ever, under any circumstances watch George Foreman punch the heavy bag. Foreman was this ungodly puncher, so much so that heavy bags, weighing about 75 lbs would wear out beyond repair in a single training session. Ali, who had to cross through a courtyard in front of the Foreman camp in order to get to his own, never laid an eye on the apocalypse awaiting him. If he was going to fight the man, he couldn't internalize the possibility of being the heavy bag. It was to remain a myth, an unfulfilled reality. That's how people in the West Coast treat the Big One."

The Big One. Yes, the barriers between us and death are tantalizingly flimsy. Imagine if the ground, terra firma, lost its fixity and swayed to the whims of chance. "All that is solid melts into air," so on, so forth. Modern man was constructed to believe in a singular paradoxical truth: he has sovereignty over all things, but remains hopelessly exposed to the whims of tumult and fortune. He may be king. But he'll be dead soon enough. Long live the king, reaper.

Straight down Highway Number One, through the Rockies, down into the Okanagan, and straight out of the Fraser Valley, and nine hours later, there stands the metropolis known so affectionately as Vansterdam. Vancouver. The Big One's estranged love. When will fortune bring the two together in a twisted romantic comedy crescendo? "I love you and I must destroy you." I should tell him there are much worse endings than Prague.

As we sped down Hastings Street, a fading sun slowly descending the western horizon hit us dead on.

"I hate sunsets."

"Why?"

"They've been fucking reified, romanticized beyond the point of nausea."

"So, you don't really hate this sunset, just its representation in our -- how did you put it, again? -- vacuous, money-poisoned collective consciousness."

He looked none impressed.
....

"So where did it all do wrong?"

"What do you mean?"

"Weren't you Mr. Acadamic-Varsity-Do-Gooder-Extraordinaire? Now you're you."

"There is an art to wasting time - letting the world-progress sweep us along into the dustbin of history."

Pseudo-Benjamin. But, there was more.

"Either you stand for something or you'll fall for anything. Belief has nothing to do with it."

I gave him a quizzical look.

"Like an accountant. An accountant believes in money. Money makes the world go 'round and all that hackneyed bullshit. They don't stand for money. They count it, make it, reposition investment portfolios, funnel funds to offshore accounts. They don't stand for anything. Their actions, their words, their very being mean nothing unless its attached to wealth. Accounting mastered nihilism. It is nihilism at its very height. The Last Man poured into a suit."

I peered over at the newspaper laying in his lap. "Accounting student, 22, decapitated by economist," read a headline.

"But that's flawed," I started. "People are willing to die for money or risk their necks for it. Take for example mercenaries or gangsters. That's the insanity of the thing, of an addiction; you'd rather perish than to be without it. Its a rather radical proposition. How can you say they're not invested in money? How can you be so sure its sheer vanity or appearance? If it's real to them, what else matters? If it's real to them, surely that's their stand, that's their belief, and they've made it mean something for them. What standard can you employ to judge their actions?"

His eyes lit up. He enjoyed disagreement. I suspect, on a odd level, it aroused him.

"What you're saying is money can become a substitution for virtue?"

"I did not say that. I'm saying that some do displace virtue with money and why should we be able to judge them."

"It's not about judgment. It's about an ethic of care. To love money alone is to neglect all else. Everything else is forsaken for it. Environment, culture, education, art, love, trust, friendship, peace, justice, equality, and so on. They're all commodities. They're are subjugated, laying far below the exalted mighty dollar. This is what concerns me as it should concern you. They don't care whether the poor peoples of the world are living worse than slaves, they don't care that mere kilometers from their suburban homes are homeless destitute people who cannot afford even the most austere comforts, they don't care, they just don't care. Money is value. All things are judged to have value according to money. If you have no money, you are of no value. Then you are Bestand. If you do not serve money or obstruct their pursuit of it, you are superfluity. And finally, you can be led to the ovens and they won't blink an eye."

Care. I liked that. I wanted to help him reveal more.

"Noblesse oblige," I said with a mischievous grin. "That'll always mitigate the radical evils you have so breathlessly enumerated. I appreciate your passion. And your point on care is well taken. But the portrait you have painted is stilted. It's nothing but a straw man. Plus, most people are just trying to get by. You can't say that the person buying groceries from Wal-Mart to save enough money for the rent is responsible for genocides in Africa. That extreme butterfly effect employed by the radical left not only is an imprecise analysis of the situation, it alienates those who progressive discourse should be engaging, namely those who don't constantly partake in these debates, the folks just trying to get by, those just trying to live and love and see another day."

He took pause and gazed outside the side window at the bustling lunchtime crowd moving along Blanshard Street. The silence between us lingered for sometime. I turned the car onto Cook Street, heading South towards the Strait and the coastline.

"We become hopelessly entangled in lies when trying to live truth." Then, he let out a resigned sigh. He sprung that nugget on me as we zipped past the outer edge of Beacon Hill park. That was it.


---

Standing there surrounded by the fractured remains of a world torn apart, he dreaded the thought of having to clean it up.

"Aw, shit, this fucking sucks."

Yes, always eloquent and unfailingly precise. He waded through the ruined miscellany in search of her. He believed he could instantly recognize her big blues even through the dust and soot. The question was whether those big blues were still with him and the traumatized world.

---

"I am become Time, destroyer of all worlds."

Nothing could be said, at least nothing that would be heard. The creatures stared dumbly, unmoved by words, numb to any attempt at communication. This was the dustbin and Time stood still at last, finally exhausted, with no distance to travel. So, they stood there agape at the sight before them, absolute negation, entropy rising tantalizingly close to its limit.

"Heat death," he said, as if privy to my inner thoughts. "Our fevered egos could go only so far. Here lies their destined end."

Time no longer dictated matters. Survival is indistinct from a lyrical melancholy, to go on was to go on suffering. To endure was to take on the duties that come with that pain. "Bury the dead and heal the living," was the wisdom gleaned from Lisbon in 1755. The dead was so numerous; they were inseparable from the rubble, from the world left behind. Bury the world and heal, what's left to heal? Time was now a needless thing. And Space? Space was chaos. Chaos was space.

The stakes facing an aspiring ad man

He unwilling to sell
is doomed to relegation.

He who liquidates
is left with nothing.

Outrage, upon closer analysis,
is invariably a contrivance.

Needless Needle

It was revealed to him,
that he was the needle,
and they the haystack.

He embraced his needle nature,
and ceased with contrivance.

It's an allegory, well not really

"Quit being so insistent."

"Hmm, that's a curious thing to say. What do you mean by it?"

"Quit trying to get your point across with such, uh, erudition. It just bores the shit out of the rest of us."

"Are you speaking for everyone?"

"I'm representative of a shared sentiment, yes."

"You are the elect of the group?"

"No, just the spokesman."

"Does your authority come from the group? Or have you surreptitiously usurped it?"

"See, this is what I mean, the endless polemics and rational baiting. Can't you simply converse without all of this contrivance?"

"Its simply inquiry. Half of life is inquiry..."

"And the other half is experience without all the preponderance, you know, sensuality, frivolity, and mystery in the raw. You have made a habit of appointing yourself the Royal de-bunker. Just let things be in the meantime, it'll become clearer with time."

"I'm no hedonist."

"No one is telling you to throw all caution to the wind. Just look at the other side. Without Dionysus, Apollo would be awfully listless. Without darkness, light would be awfully unimpressive. And so on."

"The task of the philosopher is to search for truth and to teach. The philosopher is not to engage in any activity unrelated to this pursuit of knowledge."

"There are many paths, friend. Not all of them can be formalized. Actually, the best ones cannot be formalized as doctrine or as truth(s). There are paths which neither known or unknown, which can be understood yet arouse perplexity. These are the paths of life most vibrant and vivacious. These are paths of life lived and not simply contemplated."

"Truth is knowable. Life is unknowable. Only when truth is indistinct from life can the philosopher finally rest."

"Phooey, let go of your dialectics. Boot Hegel and Marx from your consciousness. They have clouded your faculties. There can be no absolutes for us beasts of burden and necessity. We can only grasp fragments. Ah, what boredom must burden the man who believes he has reached all absolutes and attained the endpoint of all pursuits. Such delusions are beneath you, friend."

"But without a final end, a grand unity, meaning disappears. This is endless relativism and fruitless striving, as man's particularized mis-perceptions lead no further than shadows dancing along a cave wall."

"Ah, the sun. The little parable left out one consequence: staring at the sun can damage your vision. Blindness. Myopia. You stare at it long enough and it'll be true, if only because you cannot see anything else. Look elsewhere, the forms are there as well, but not purely as forms."

"That is patently silly. It is an allegory, not a parable."

"Ha ha ha, fair enough. But, enough with this. Let's get you a drink and we'll start this great divergence."

"Great divergence?"

"It happens all the time, every moment of every day of every life. We just can't keep track of them all, because, like with anything, you have more fun when not keeping score."

"Beer me."

"Gladly."

Method and structure, borrowed or stolen

Without method, all pursuit is blind. Blind pursuits, however, are often the most fruitful. Without structure, all work is fractured. The fractured fragments of what passes for work are the impetus for heightened creation.
Without method or structure, the writer must borrow another's in the meantime. She must understand the borrowed material adequately in order to reverently desecrate it when the time comes.