Falling into the deep

Gilbert sat quietly. He could hear the rain falling outside, the steps of passers by all finding the same small puddle that collected a share of the run off from the cafe's canopy. His tea had gone cold some time ago, untouched. It paid his rent for the table, but other than that he had no interest in it. He sat with his hands clasped gently in his lap, unmoving, giving a sense of macabre to the story the waitress was making up in her mind to explain him, the handsome gentleman in the simple flawless dark gray suit with the thin black tie and tailored white shirt who seemed to be waiting with immense patience for someone whom he knew would never come. He wasn't mysterious at all, he thought, rather plain, simple and uninteresting. It was the world around him, and the people in it that were fascinating. It all seemed to exist merely for his bewilderment.
 
The 7:30 evening trolley rumbled by, telling him he had to go. He pushed back his chair, collected his hat and umbrella, and walked through the tables, all in flawless motion that spoke of a man with grace and power. The waitress smiled as he passed, he returned the favor and nodded as he set his hat in place, a bit down in front, opened the umbrella and stepped into the warm soft rain. It had stormed earlier, but now there was no wind. He avoided the puddle and walked purposefully down the street towards the station, outlined against the city lights, the clock tower marking time in the center of the sprawling noble and ancient structure. The trolley was slowing to a stop just outside, seeming to come a thing alive as a dozen people came and went from it. He knew she was one of those disembarking, and that she would head straight away for the platform, ticket in hand.
 
He crossed the street, the trolley clanging its bell as it began to pull away. He caught a glimpse of her entering the station, and he hurried his step. He was not anxious, but he could not miss this time. On reaching the massive door, he closed the umbrella, and tossed it into the trash bin outside, taking the opened door from the man who passed before him with a thanks, and entered the station, removing his hat and brushing rain drops from his sleeve. The station smelled of steam and hot metal, but he caught a whiff of humanity, unique as it was. He moved gracefully but with determination down the way to the waiting train. She would have boarded now. He looked down the length of the cars and could not see Mr. Benton, unsure if it mattered now. He boarded the last car and made his way forward through the first class cabins.
 
He remember this from the last time, the smells and sounds drowning him suddenly in a pressing cacophony of memories, emotions and visceral tension. He pursed his lips and refocused on the moment at hand. An old woman struggled with her bag blocking the way, he took a moment and lifted it for her, another grateful smile, and he moved past into the dining car. As fate would have it, it being necessary for them to meet having never met before, they would find themselves here in this place of legend where everyone knew them, but no one knew their purpose. The maitre d'hotel greeted him by name with a smile, took his hat and lead him to his table, his merlot having already been poured. His chair was pulled back by the gloved waiter, and he sat, unbuttoning his suit jacket, half listening to the waiter as he extolled the marvelousness of the evening's menu, allowing his napkin to be placed across his lap. He nodded, took the stem of his wine glass between his fingers, and sipped.
 
She came into the car as he finished the last of the escargot, heading his way, serene in her coppery beauty and shimmering manner as she was plain in her dress. She was removing her gloves as she approached him, the waiter pulling a chair aside for her as she settled in across from him wordlessly. The waiter offered her nothing knowing he had nothing she wanted or needed. Gilbert had fallen into her deep blue eyes from the moment she had entered, knowing all too well the spell she cast was a delicate web of dangerous provocation. He was not surprised that he felt no tension, though this moment could engulf the world with its urgency, undefused by Mr. Benton's remarkable absence.
 
After a moment she spoke with a smoky allure that indicated a coy playfulness underlined by a wanton seriousness, "Gilbert, its a shame you are gay, for I would love to ravage you just as you are...."
 
"Ah, and so it begins," he replied with a sip of wine. Of all the people in this odd place, she bewildered him most of all.
 

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My wish

Today I wish that those who feel less than seek to lift themselves up, not by pulling others down, but by doing their best, and when that is not enough, stretching out a hand for help in getting there, or for a hug to try again another day.

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The light in the abyss

There is a reprieve in the bottom of that abyss,
that comes of having no place else to turn,
nothing else to expect,
nothing else to fear,
no hope,
no desire,
only silence and despair.
 
The silence there echoes so profoundly
one's voice is lost not in the absence of sound,
but in the cries that cannot escape,
the symphony of souls lost, blind and deaf to one another,
unaware they suffer only because the other is there,
imagining they are alone, they alone know this place.
 
The sad truth being that escape is impossible
only because one will not help the other,
but would rather tear and rend themselves
than lift another from the darkness.
Some repent, bowing to an imaginary being,
others to their self reliance.
All fail for placing themselves first,
and thusly die alone, lonely, sad and disappointed
thinking themsleves having won.
 
The light is not in a god or in oneself.
It lies in the hearts of others, not one, but all.
And it is all that are required
that we might escape this abyss we have thrown ourselves into,
seeking to be nearer our desires,
when taking the hand of those next to us
is all, all, that matters.
 
It is the brave one who stops the agony and seeks the light,
who looks up, and to the other,
and sings despite that silence
and takes the hands of those next to them,
pulling them out of the shared darkness
and into one another's arms,
embracing their differences,
and becoming more for the sum,
than for the division.
 
Be the light, give it to others, find your peace,
leave the abyss.
Never return.

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The rippling of water

It is odious, he thought, to awaken this way.
A morning is rebirth
and should come with refreshed joy,
not the weight of yesterday.
Tired, bone tired, his heart still heavy
with the sadness that comes from understanding
that but for one,
he had finally found a place he loved and could call home.
 
It would be well, he thought, to let this one be.
To choose his own happiness, his own way.
Yet this one seeks him out wherever he may go,
darkening any joy he might find here,
among these people, these places.
To be left alone was not enough, he would have to hide
and that is not his nature.
To be less than made more painful
by choosing to be less than.
 
If anyone else cared enough to move this ill on,
to stand against the history for a better way,
that would be all that is required.
But no one else cares enough to stand.
Better to remain silent than be noticed and risk.
So another leaves, another comes,
the water rippled for a moment,
then again it is as if nothing happened.
Its all good.
 
Until one becomes a majority
greater than this one who is a majority
this place remains dimly lit. Nothing will grow here.
Everyone becomes used to living in silence
watching the others fall,
the water ripple,
and things remaining the same.
 
Why is it always this way?

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A man illuminated

The passage of light was softened by the distance from the windows high above in the arched way to the cathedral floor below, dusty and ancient. His footsteps echoed in muffled cadence with his thoughts, flickers of sadness edged with anger and anxiousness. He paused, taking in the moment, framed in the scintillating glow of the colored shards of glass between thin edges of lead. He could feel the warmth of the sun on his face penetrating him. Looking up, he closed his eyes. His thoughts went from this place, to that place, far and distant in time, in travel. His thoughts went to the coast, where the trader's ranged within sight of land, where he once stood on the deck of his frigate, the sounds of sails snapping, men working rope, a ship making way, and breathed the clean fresh air of the sea, the sun warming his face against the sea breeze. For a moment he was no longer here, where he was commanded, but there, where he commanded, where his fate was his alone, among men he knew and trusted. He opened his eyes and stared into the window that illuminated him, his patch of the world at this moment, then lowering his gaze he saw them waiting for him in the atrium. They turned their attention to him, first one, then all, their whispers silenced as they took him in, their coats and scabbards noisily reflecting their tension, hats in worried hand. He looked into the sun again, allowing the colors to fill him, his thoughts, and he breathed in deeply, holding his breath. He calmed himself, and returned his piercing gaze to the gathered men, renewing his confident stride towards them. Their fear was palpable, not knowing he was as afraid of them as they were of him, they believed in him. The time had come for good men to do what is right.
 
"Smartly now, there is not a moment to loose."
 

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Fear of falling

"For the first time in several years I feel safe."
 
Safe. It wasn't a word he would have thought to use, but it was the word that came forward when called on to explain how he felt. He wasn't in a dark mood, more of a dimly lit one, but the word brought an intellectual smirk, not of satisfaction, but of self indulgent irony. He knew that for so long, as far back as he could remember, he had been on a razor's edge. He had been cut badly, not once, but several times, and not wanting to be cut again brought a deep seated fear to rest near his soul, casting the gloom that gave his mood that dim sheen that cast that fear across everything he saw, everything he experienced. He had been constantly afraid. Until this morning.
 
Nothing in particular had happened to release him. He just simply realized as he drove in that morning that he was changed. He wasn't sure if he had fatigued his neurosis to the point of just not caring anymore, or if he had somehow managed to finally fall into a place where no one could get him, figuratively speaking. Truth be known, he was skeptical of this new feeling, or absence of feeling. Would a word, a call, a meeting, shatter this peace? It was telling that he wasn't listening for the other shoe to drop anymore. It was true he had tired of the constant fear, worrying, preparing for the different vignettes on how this or that fear would play out. Maybe he was just tired? Falling now would be no less painful, tragic and wrought with complications for responsibilities that would go unmet, pride lost, and lives changed. It was just no longer something he feared. Maybe that's what was different. It wasn't that he was no longer afraid of falling again, but that he had been treading water in so many waterfalls it no longer frightened him to wakefulness that he would likely go over. He was no longer afraid of falling. But then, as painful as falling was emotionally, the more he thought about it, it was not being able to rebuild after the fall that truly haunted him. The fall was just the signal that he would have to supplicate himself and start at the beginning again. The fall lead to the need to rebuild, and at some point rebuilding would no longer be possible. That was the monster under his bed.
 
And now that monster no longer mattered. It was what it was. He realized that had been his nemesis, that he might not be able to get back up next time, so he feared the next fall, and he saw it coming from everywhere. (Of course he did, after all it always snuck up on him because they lacked courage and leapt out from their hiding places without warning). But now, awake and aware, it seemed something he would be able to deal with because he no longer had expectations it would be the same afterwards. Now that he no longer cared if he could get back up, he felt safe. That's just odd. Knock me down. Fine. I'll just lay here for a while and see what happens rather than live in constant fear of what may happen. This notion gave him freedom, peace. And with that he felt safe.
 
He wondered how long this would last.

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A Ruined Man

It wasn't how he had seen it, but apparently, this was how it was to be. A stranger had come in from the cold, and his world followed her. She was a complete mystery to him, but he knew she was the one. There was a special thing she did, that smile just a touch off kilter, that turned him inside out. That's when his plan went out with the bath water, and he was just a baby, to be played however she saw fit.
 
He sat there, smitten, alone and vulnerable. She saw him, and there, that smile, but then she turned away, back to her business at hand. That was it, over, and odds were that she would never look at him again, but that smile would always be with him. He watched her out of the corner of his eye so as not to be thought to be staring. She picked up her cranberry scone and plain coffee with milk and suger, left the line, and headed for the door. He watched her leave, a part of him going with her. This was not how he had planned to fall in love. He thought it would be someone he knew for a while, came to know, came to love, or maybe like a story, someone who annoyed him, but then love would come awkwardly. But this was true love, it comes and goes as it sees fit.
 
A few moments passed before he realized how deeply he was lost in the thought of her, that nothing else was on his mind. Suddenly up, headed towards the door, realizing he had left everything behind on the table. Back to the table, slam the computer shut, grab his books, leave the coffee, throw everything else in the bag and off, yanked back by the strap caught on the chair (why does that always happen!?), pull it free, head for the door. The cold air struck him, crisp and tart. He was awakened, alert, desperately seeking. He looked both ways, up, down the street, but she was nowhere to be seen. He stood there, bag hanging from its leash, a lost puppied schoolboy. She was gone. He started up the street, and thought, maybe she went the other way. He didn't know which way to go. Back in the store, no, they didn't know her. Gone.
 
He found himself unconsciously back in his chair, sat there a ruined man. Every other woman he would meet for the rest of his life would be compared to her. He was doomed to be forever unhappy. He just sat there, bag on the floor hanging from his forlorn wrist, all askew on the chair. A sad, broken man.
 
Women, he thought, have no idea.
 

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A last glimpse before living

He saw them for just a moment before they turned the corner, drove down the street, and died.
 
She was looking back at him over her shoulder, her eyes dancing through her hair as it tousled out the open window, a sweet, mischievous smile on her sweet lips. Though the moment moved through time, for him it was a snapshot forever frozen. Silent. Filled with light, filled with emotion. He, her brother, his son, was next to her in the back seat, but for the back of his head he was not there, but he was. All of him. His two children, his love and soul, frozen in this one last memory.
 
It doesn't matter how they died. What mattered was the twisting emotions that this memory brings, the last time he saw them alive. Filled with joy and love for the moment that captured all that they are and ever were. It brought such unbearable pain and loathing for their being needlessly gone... In the time that followed he knew no solace, only that there was this life and its briefest experiences in the fullness of all time. They came, and they were gone. He knew too that memories fade no matter how much he tried to remember. When he remembered that last glimpse, he remembered everything he had ever felt with them, but the colors blurred. What never faded was the pain that followed, the undescribable searing pain that crippled him. He sought solace there in that deep abyss when he needed to be alone, for it was a place no one else could ever go. He punished himself in that darkness because the pain helped them stay real. They had been. This place was his alone. He could only go there alone.
 
She could not follow him there, his wife. She only reminded him they were not there. Her journey through that darkness was different, the pain was different, and yet, it was all the same. That they could not walk this road together set them apart, as both sought the searing despair so they would never forget, and in so doing, forgot one another. They forgot this life.
 
And so too, they died. Apart. And with their dying, so too went the last of those emotions, that pain.The sadness lies not in the dying, nor the loss of remembrance, but from the loss of this life, the one they stopped living. There was no other way, for these children were their life, and without them, there was nothing to live for.
 
A last glimpse before living, a last chance to realize that we get this one singular life, no matter how we may dream of one to come, the only real one is this one. Live. Love. Live.
 

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Leaving

It was that time of year when he thought about these sorts of things. This time it came with many horses to jump, from one to the other, in the middle of the proverbial stream. He might fall, miss, and drown. At the very least suffer mighty embarassment. No matter, change was coming, and it did not consider him an obstacle. Add to that his feeling that he should have beat this last horse to within an inch of its life, and you can see the kind of damage that had come to his calm. It annoyed him really as he wasn't much of a horse beater. Maybe it was just the few horse flies he really would have enjoyed squashing, because really, the horse while not perfect, saggy and lazy, was not too bad of a horse. At any rate, it was time to move on...
 
He looked both ways down the garage before crosssing, not to see if cars were coming, but to see if anyone else wanted to say goodbye that he would feel compelled to duck out on. He was not one for goodbyes, not least because of all these changes that crowded his mind, but mostly because he had lost the ability to trust where people were coming from after being here. These past years had been hard on him emotionally because he could not often tell to which of Janus' faces he was talking. Most were truly good people, but the horse flies fit themselves in with practiced passive aggression so well as to be indiscernible. He missed this most of all... trusting, allowing himself to trust, to fall and not be kicked, to catch and not be betrayed. It saddened him, as he made his away across the street, that this was the legacy he took with him, and not those kind, sweet memories he had also enjoyed. "One oh-shitter wiped out a hundred atta-boys," as his Chief used to say. He made his way to his car, tossed his last things in, and got in. He sat there for several minutes. He was troubled. It didn't feel sad finally leaving and this bothered him. The sadness had been spilt when he said goodbye these past few days to those he had come to love and in some way trust. But not now as he was actually leaving. He felt as he left there would be a few ripples in the bucket that had been this place, but then they would wane and no one would recall his ever having been there.
 
He started the car, pulled into the lane, turned the corner and drove out one last time. This horse was dead and he had successfully dismounted. He smiled... look, no horse flies.
 

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Being human

If you hide from what you don't believe, what you don't understand, you learn nothing, you feel nothing. If you learn nothing and feel nothing, why be human?
 

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To truly understand, think.

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.

- Elbert Hubbard
 
Reasoning with intellectual integrity does not allow one to offer flights of fancy as truth. Sound reasoners are limited within the boundaries drawn by truth as we know it, the facts and reasoned understanding. The ignorant can, and do, claim truth in whatever they wish without the bounds of truth or sound reasoning. Whatever the field, science, politics, religion, one must let go of the prevailing dogma to see truth. Whatever you think you know is only that which is available to you. Tomorrow your universe may change on a new understanding, but only if you can see. Adhering to dogma limits, blinds, and deafens us to truth. Imagination shows us where to go, but does not tell us what is really there, it tells us what we wish was there. Wishes are not truth. Seeking truth is a journey for the imaginative, dogma is a hiding place for the timid. Follow those who seek the truth, beware those who have found it.
 

The Brightness of Snow

The key turned. Ah, the correct one, and he walked into the empty physician’s lounge, from the low light of the windowless hallway to the bright intensity of the sun reflecting through the slightly tinted glass and he was blinded, reflexively raising his hand to his eyes. For a moment it looked like snow on the patio. He wanted it to be snow, to match his somber mood, but it doesn’t snow here in Mississippi, especially on the Gulf Coast during the summer. He tucked his keys on their lanyard, decorated with cow’s on a green field, into his crowded scrub shirt pocket, straightened his lab coat, and made his way over to the Keurig. He searched his pockets for his readers, finding them at his feet where they had fallen. That must have been the click that he barely registered a moment ago as he pulled his lab coat together. He smiled at his distraction. He blinked though the almost clean lenses and searched the selection. Newman’s Special Blend, with lots of sugar since there was no artificial sweetener to be had. He stirred it, and relented to his smoldering emotions with a sigh, paused to gaze at the pattern of the patio bricks, sipped his coffee, and made his way out.
 
He slowly paced himself upstairs to the neonatal intensive care unit, where the family was gathering to say good-bye. Good-bye to their sweet infant girl, burdened by a lethal genetic anomaly, all the curses that came with it, and few others for good measure. She had lived for a couple of weeks, having survived one life-saving surgery, and another for comfort. She had never been truly strong, and then she died an hour ago, silently, painlessly, fading in the loving embrace of the nurse that rocked her, in the company of all the nurses in the unit who had gathered unspoken to be with her, while her family came from many miles away. He had called dad, told him to gather everyone for the time had come, and to be safely on their way. And now they had.
 
The nurses had made all the other parents leave the unit which upset him. He felt that death was not something to be afraid of, to be protected from. The family would be with their baby in another room... But the nurses were just doing what they always do, they were trying to do right. He knew he was just being cranky, and let it go. Being afraid of death, of the emotions wrought, it made no sense to him. Death is the end of life, it happens to all of us, and no matter how sad or tragic, it is something we need to experience as humans to live, not something to be protected from. We cannot handle it when it comes if we are taught it is a time for fear and anger, that we and others need protection from our morbid emotions. But we are taught to be ashamed of ourselves, uncomfortable with our raw feelings, the pained emotions of others, and so the room was cleared even though they would never enter. But they knew, they knew a life had ended... He smiled when he saw the family’s other small children, for they understood, these parents, and wanted their children to know the life and death of their sister for what it was, the end of life, nothing more, nothing to be afraid of, nothing to mythologize.
 
The pastor came, came to them, said the right words, and bolstered the family through this trial with their strong faith. It allowed them to ignore His wrath for what they needed to see as His mercy. They needed the myth to ease their pain, it was theirs, and he said nothing. That they celebrated her life and her being family was enough, that she would be remembered and loved was all that mattered to him. He sat with the family and spoke softly to the children, asking them if they understood she had died, encouraging them to touch her, hold her hand, to remember their sister. He told them someday they would ask, and their parents would tell them a fond tale of love, and they would remember, grateful he taught them not to fear her, that they had touched her, that she was real for having been loved and touched. Through tears, her father took his hand and whispered, “Thank you…” again, and again, and he looked to his children so his meaning would be clear. He left them then, gathered in their emotions, and for the children in celebration of their sister.
 
His office door was open, emptied recently of his belongings as he was moving out, away from this place. He found his coffee a bit cooler, no less overly sweet, and sipped it as he rocked back and forth in the chair, unknowingly soothing himself. This he knew, that life has its own meaning, that death is a part of life, and that the deep sadness comes from a journey’s end, not the journey itself, for if the journey continues whatever wrong can be righted. Her life started wrong, and yet it ended right, and there was in this good human beings who chose love and compassion. They overcame fear and anger to love and hold. This is what her death told him. Do not fear death, fear lack of love and compassion along the way, most at your journey’s end. Live each day so that those who gather will remember you, and not an imaginary god and his wrath, or their pain and suffering.
 
He finished his coffee, went back into the unit, and said good-bye to the family as they prepared to leave, and lastly, good-bye to the child who reminded him his journey might end any moment now. He was not afraid, and his mind did not wander to the next life, for this one is a magical journey, and that is all he needed to know.
 
Dying too, is a part of life.
~ Marcus Aurelius

The peace of storms, the aloness of cats

The rain fell in torrents, interrupted by moments of quiet stillness in this dark of night, to reawaken with thunder and lightning, only to wane again before the hour was out. He lay awake, restless, but comforted by the symphony, noticing there was little to no wind as the storm played on. The heavy wooden thud of the large drops collecting then falling from the eaves onto the beam overhead, the musical splash of drops running down the roofline, falling into collecting puddles in the grass outside his window, the hard cacophony of drops striking the glass, the sudden and acute illumination of lightning. It all brought him some peace. He could hear the cat scurrying about, playful, mindless of the storm, and he called out to her. Like cats do, she ignored him, and continued her quest, which annoyed him for a moment, as he thought he should have gotten a dog which might have sought solace in his embrace, or at least would nuzzle and comfort him. But he had a cat, so he smiled, admiring her independence and returned his thoughts to the storm.

From this stone

The sun had found that place just right, between the limbs and leaves of one tree and the next, guaranteeing I would bake in its glory. Sweat wasn't what I came here for. I looked over to my right, and in the nice cool shade there was another bench swing, inviting me to abandon its sister for it's more welcoming embrace. I took an easy, deep draw on my Ghurka, gathered myself up and trundled the 30 feet to my new venue in the shade. I had missed this one as I drove into the park, looking for a quiet place to sit, think, and enjoy my cigar in solitude.
 
Its front edge was chipped, weathered and broken, and it sagged under me, but she settled and I found a nice quiet rhythm. A sigh, and a puff, and soon I was returned to my hypnotic revelry, watching the people go by, listening to the soft modern jazz from down the lake where a group of young people were coming together for a barbeque. The late afternoon was waning into evening, the hawks circling over the water seeking their evening's meal, and people from all sorts of places walking the asphalt path that wound around the Little Bonita Lake. I watched them, the older woman who wasn't a Mennonite, but dressed like one with hair tight in a bun, meeting up with her husband by the big boulder, he in shirtleeves, buttoned to the neck, suspenders and belt, with her bottle of water, not quite the walking kind. She sipped, they chatted, she returned to the path and he to his picnic table. The group of young, genorously proportioned black women walking together, the nature of their animated banter lost as they talked over one another, one louder than the next to make their point. A group of beautiful machines, rumbling beneath their riders passed in single file behind me, six or seven, shiny, well kept classics. I puffed, rocked, and watched. I looked for a young couple, he the tall athletic sort, she a smaller probably-had-been-athletic-but-had-let-that-go-some-time-ago, alternating walking, jogging, until she finally sat on a bench, far on the other side of the lake. I could see them as small things, he jogging back to where she had sought respite. A middle aged man in black shorts passed into my view from left to right, t-shirt in hand, glistening in sweat as he walked his cool down. I had not seen him until he was passing, having gotten caught up in watching the young couple across the lake. Two young women with their McDonald's in hand, one clearly a salad, the other clearly not, took up residence at a picnic table off to my right beneath the trees. This stage, this ever evolving diorama, was distracting me from the thoughts that occupied my mind these days. I wonder what drama their lives are unfolding? Surely it was unlike my own. And that fascinates me.
 
I am lucky. So very lucky. I am here, on this park swing, smoking a good cigar, belly full of local barbeque ribs and mighty fine beans washed down with sweet southern tea, taking a break from a job my good friend gave me some 4 years ago now, just to make some extra money to add to my already fairly extraordinary salary from my regular work. Nevermind I was leaving that regular job for a new one, and that had seen some stresses, I am one very lucky man, at this crossroad. I have a wife who, while she thinks she loves me really is just used to me, but that's okay, I'm pretty used to her too, and the love we share is its own thing, no less attached to itself. Its what love becomes as it grows old. A couple of teenaged kids who were turning out to be two pretty nice people. My life has been filled with extraordinary, ordinary, and strange people, all who in their way gave my life its palette. There were the good ones, but also the petty ones, whose life drama played into mine and cast me into a turbulent sea, each time to be pulled out by true Samaritans, who set me to rights, and from there my life proceeded even better than before. Every single time... My life has been enchanted. That has been my greatest fortune. With each turn of the screw, each seemingly tragic end, has come some new, wonderful beginning. Not because I am gifted in my own right, but because I am gifted by the people who care about me, some who actually knew me, others who did not but were good people in their own lives. I am who I am today, a decent ordinary man making his way through his extraordinary life, because of what I have learned from each of them, the good, the bad, and how I have added them to my being. I am where and who I am today because I have made good choices, but mostly because those choices were there for me to choose from, brought by those pople who shaped me. I have lived all around the world, seen things no one has seen, things others only dream about. I am healthy, wealthy, and with each passing day, I am wiser. But more than that, I have the wonderful gift of people in my life, friends, enemies, strangers, seen and unseen, who have sculpted me.
 
We come into this life a block of fine quality stone. From the day of our birth we are sculpted by those around us. Some hammer away big chunks, others chisel away fine curves, and sometimes a mistake is made and a large craggy piece of us falls to the ground to shatter, forever changing us. Some of those lost peices we love and cherish, others we could do without, some is just baggage, others tthought to be essential in our minds to our shape. Some come to polish and shine us, some to judge us as beautiful or ugly from their own point of view. We are what we are, beauty and truth are in the eye of the beholder, this surely is true. When we die, we are what we are, made by the lives that have shaped us, good, not so good, some very bad. And in this life we have sculpted others, polished, shined, judged, and shattered... This is our life: life imitating art making life.
 
Another puff, and I see I have smoked the Ghurka down as low as I would like. I rub it into the dirt, one last look around as the sun sets, toss it into the brown steel trash can by the road, and I walk over to my car, my very nice car. Lucky, lucky me. I have no doubt that I owe everything I have to all of those I have known throughout my life, those who have scultped me, and I smile. I wonder how many people might say the same about me? But more than anything else, I am excited about the years to come, the people I will meet, come to know, those who will remain strnagers or passers through, and wonder at the enchantment we will share. Life is good. We are good. Its all good in the end.
 
Or I am just one helluva lucky guy...
 

I am and I am not

I miss who I am
having become a shadow of who I once was.
It is with some sadness that I find
that hiding myself from others,
living in fear of my vulnerability,
is safer than seeking comfort and friendship.
Trust is a fragile and uncertain thing
and I have never held it in its true form.
I have always been judged harshly by others
who did not want to keep up.
 
I am not ashamed of being me. I am afraid of being me.
Not because who, or what I am is not good,
but because I am good, and I expect it of others,
not as a judgement, but as a norm.
I live in fear of judgment by others
not trusting they have my best interests in mind,
only their own.
For some that I am good is overwhelming.
By making me hide, they shine in the absence of my light,
and bring the bar down
so they need not rise to it.
 
I would rather they chose to turn the heat up in themselves
and shine brighter themselves
than dim me down, and darken me.
 
I am not alone down here.
Many have been snuffed out by the threatened vengeful.
Life is full of those better at dimming the shine of others,
as those who shine are vulnerable
for often the soul of that shine
is an open giving
seen as a probe into the fears and weaknesses
of the shallow and self possessed.
 
The irony lives in the lies we tell.
"We are all special."
But some of us are not.
"You are not special."
But some of us are.
And we may or may not know it.
But we feel it, and do not want others to know us
for what we fear we are.
Our history is replete with tales
of bullies in every place,
weak and frail humans
who prey on others to keep their own failings undiscovered,
those who feel they are not special
eat the souls of those who might be.
Like pigs after truffles, they root and root
until they pull the truffle from the ground
and devour it.
 
And in reading this the thought is
"how arrogant..."
for to even offer that I am, indeed, special,
is seen as arrogant and self possessed.
We are not allowed to be special,
only to be told by others that we are or are not.
And therein lies the oxymoron
that illuminates our deceit.
We acknowledge that others are special
so that we too may be seen as special
whether or not we or they are,
and cannot truly allow it in others
for the possibility that it makes it clear
we are not, and for no other reason.
 
And so, I sit here
dimmed by others,
hiding for myself
that I might not have my soul eaten
anymore than it already has been.
Not wanting to join the fight
for having had the specialness I had
beaten from me.
It is telling
that I will never share this tale
because I am not as special
as I think I am
and they will make sure I know it.
 

The Hanging of Honest Men

Darkness filled the air, held back along with the winter's cold by the warm orange glow flickering out of the brick lined fireplace that occupied a fair portion of the west wall of the great room, aided by the scattered candles lit by the maids as evening came. The paintings of long and near gone family, and one turbulent image of a ship about to be lost at sea in a terrible storm lurked upon the walls of the antebellum home. They seemed possessed with the ghosts that surely haunted the old house, dancing back and forth in time with the flames. Her father and mother looked down from the largest painting, brooding over the mantle for no other reason than that they belonged there.

The young woman in a sleeping gown and robe drank her tea from a fine porcelain cup with gold edging, seated in one of two deep winged chairs set before the fireplace, digging her toes into the thick carpet. She stared through the flames, lost in thought. It had been a long day. Between following shipments, dealing with warehouses and banks, holding off amorous ship's captains, and the daily toil that made up the life of one of the city's finest tea merchants. She set her teacup and saucer on the flawlessly carved Chippendale table, and nearly lost both for being startled by the finely tailored young man now in the other chair, where he was not a moment before.

"Damn it, William, you scared me near to death!"

William smiled, pouring himself a cup of tea from the covered pot set on the table, adding sugar but no milk. "Georgette, darling, forgive me," he drawled softly.

"Oh, William, you must be more specific. There are many things for which you should seek my forgiveness," she said, smiling warmly at her brother as he sat back in his chair. The maid slipped in and replaced the teapot with a fresh one. William smiled his thanks to her. Cup and saucer in one hand, he brushed his lap with the other as he crossed his legs, setting a starched lace napkin across it, and settled with his tea, sipping silently. He moved with a grace that belied his gender. He pulled the cuff of his shirt down from under the sleeve of his jacket with a snap, its lace as fine as that of his napkin.

"Pray tell, Georgette..."

She laughed,"You simply must stop insulting my friends, William, lest I find myself without any."

"Ah..." he replied, "my plan to have you all to myself is working. Whom have I 'offended' such that they would see that as grounds for dismissing your loveliness from their otherwise shallow, colorless lives?" His wordiness and sarcastic emphasis on the word "offended" did not escape her, but she ignored it.

"Mrs. Dubois..."

He rolled his eyes and set his cup clattering in its saucer, never letting go of either, interrupting her. "Is a tiresome old harpy who carries on in tears at anyone whom she feels has caused her to choose to be offended. She seems eager to choose to be offended, as it makes her relevant, and she claims it often when it concerns me."

"She doesn't choose to be offended, William, she is sensitive to slights, as you should be to her frail nature."

"What? Why?"

"You need to be gentler, William, that's all I am saying."

"Darling, I am a dandy, I could not be gentler."

"And as such you might be expected to show more discretion. For God's sake, William, speaking your mind when you should hold your tongue is not your gentler nature," she offered with some annoyance. She had turned to stare into the fire again, but William could see she was upset.

"Love, I have always been an honest man, and I dare say it is my strength. That I choose not to lie when given an opportunity to express my opinion should not be seen as a character flaw, surely. Anyone who would choose to be offended perhaps should be encouraged to be more careful proposing an idea, so as to avoid slight. We digress, what have I done to annoy your friend?"

"You came to church."

"Seriously?" He was surprised. He always came to church.

"She exclaimed to anyone who would listen that a sodomite had no business sitting in God's house, and that you should be prohibited, forcibly if necessary, from doing so," she replied.

They sat quietly, he sipping his tea, she adjusting the blanket across her knees.

"I am shocked speechless," he squeaked with a giggle, trying not to laugh outright, the sarcasm thick upon it.

"William, honestly..."

"She is a devout Christian woman, its her nature to judge, I understand that..."

Irritated she snapped back, "You understand nothing!"

Sensing her ire, he answered sincerely,"I see you are upset, certainly not about me, perhaps with Mrs. Dubois and her sanctimony, but what truly bothers you, my dear?"

She looked at her hands, realizing she had clasped them tightly in her lap. "Charleston is our home, William, we have to live with these people, as sanctimonious as some may be. Surely you can see that your open expression of your opinions, particulalry against slavery, causes offense to some of our more sensitve friends?"

"My dear Georgette, one cannot cause offense, one can only take it. It is a choice one makes. Most are annoyed, really, not offended, but offended sounds more odious and compelling. They fail to understand that ideas do not cause reason for the taking of offense. Ideas cause nothing, people wielding them do. Ideas should be discussed, it is their reason d'etre, they are meaningless without discussion." He sipped, then continued softly and casually as was his way. "That weaker minds chose to remain unthinking and discourage reason by claiming offense is itself an offense against the human mind. Unthinking acceptance of dogma cowed reason and brought the Dark Ages, where the church and fear ruled. The return of thought and the discussion of ideas, challenging dogma, brought the Enlightment. That there are those who chose to remain in the dark rather than the light is their choice, and I need not abide it. They need that dark, it supports their sense of order and control, no matter how thin and contradictory its source. They seem to feel that their ideas deserve protection, are somehow sacred and special. Ideas are never sacred, Georgette, that would be dangerous. They are malleable notions, but ephemeral and capable by themselves of nothing. Wielded by a thoughtful person, that person can change the world with an idea. Attaching an idea to one's ego is inviting ruin, for many ideas fail scrutiny. If they chose to be offended when their ideas are hammered, they should first not enter the fray, or present better ideas, rather than cry foul. If they choose to declare their ideas unchallengeable, well then, they are no ideas at all, only dogma. And dogma, its ironic I know, are notions that demand challenge by their very nature."

She had turned back to the light that filled his eyes as he spoke, and continued to study him for a few moments after he had fallen silent. She loved her brother, admired his intellect, and recognized why the college valued him so highly as a professor, but she feared for his trusting nature, and his inability to see the world for what it was.

"William, what has the church always done with thinkers, especially the brightest and most out spoken ones?"

"Why they hang them, dear sister, burn them, and when in a more benign mood, lock them in their houses until they come to their senses and deny reason."

"My point is made, William, that even the sharpest tongue cannot cut the rope with which the likes of Mrs. Dubois would hang you."

"I see... yes, your point is made, Georgette," he replied thoughtfully, fooling her not in the least. "I shall work to abide my gentler nature, to think and share only happy thoughts, to allow the insipid to remain unchallenged, and to hide among all the others, hiding who and what they really are, what they think and feel, so that everyone remains happy on the outside, while frightened to death wondering what everyone is really thinking and feeling on the inside, resentful for being silenced. I shall acknowledge only that all is right with the world."

"Good. Then its settled," she smiled, her humor easing her rebuke. She rose, setting the blanket across the chair and said good night. "I am off to bed."

"Hmm..." She kissed his cheek, he waved after her saucer and cup in hand, smiling as the oversized dog moved from the hearth and took her vacated seat.

"Such is life unfettered by reason, limited by faith. All happy in carefully chosen psalm and verse while ever fearful as God plays at dice with their lives, mocking them all the way, begging their abusive Father to kindness," he said softly to the now sleeping dog. He sat thoughtfully, warmed by the fire as it dwindled. He finished his tea, set it aside, gathered his hat, gloves and walking stick, straightened his collar, and made his way home to his rectory.

Departure

Sheer unimaginable loneliness.

It struck at the moorings of his soul, casting him adrift, a ragged open scar that drained him, his being pouring from it onto the open ground, drowning him in grief. His life seeming to spill from him with each breath, pulling hard at him, making it impossible to move or stand. Emotionally and physically exhausted, he sat where The Fates had left him, burning in a high altitude sun seated on the stoop in front of a small dusty, empty, simple hut, the only structure around that he could see. He looked in all directions, seeing dozens of paths that converged on this place, like spokes on a wheel, as if it was a desired destination, crossing the open rubble strewn field all around him. The mud daubed hut had walls unadorned over a base of faded light blue paint with white flowers trimmed along the edge. Several runs of rope and string with swaths of colorful cloth tied dancing like pennants ran from a stick on the top of the hut to end secured fragily beneath rocks some feet away. The stoop on which he sat painfully was a paled red, with more sun bleached mud slathered on top that failed to level it, its sharp texture poking through his thick woolen pants. He was a weary, handsome, chiseled man of some forty-five or fifty years, weather dried and smoky, with wind abused skin, scarred with nooks and crannies, each with its own story, scars that ran long and thick, others runnning tightly together like rows in a field. He sat beneath a brimmed hat tossed askance over a thick wave of close and messily cropped hair, cousin to an unintended beard, unsure of itself bristling across his face. He was struck hard by the intense lonliness of being here, somewhere along the walking road at the base of some unknown valley deep in the mountains, whose glacial tops rose thousands of feet high all around him, caving in on him. He knew no one among the handful of nomads he could see, spoke no languange they knew, and had no idea quite how he had managed to find himself here, let alone how to move on. Again and again he endured the intense ache in his heart, second only to the bodily pain and stench that enveloped him, dragging him down, and down again.

Angered, he pulled off his hat, scratching his head hard with both hands, then rubbing it to waken himself, feeling pain and ache with every motion, then abruptly pulling the hat back down snug before the wind and sun took what was left of his sanity. He recalled that moment only a few months ago in Bombay when this sounded like a dream of a lifetime of adventures! Travel to Tibet and see the Roof of the World, cross it, and live life to its fullest, coming out on the other side! It had started well, all excitement and laughter, parties with beautiful women swooning to hear the imaginary tales of their adventure to come, the departure all jaunty and joyful with expectation. The weeks passed and the shiny came off, no more joy, only anxiety as the middle bogged down when Samuels died of dysentery in Sikkim, and the end falling off when Umbart along with Eddington perished in the collapse of the glacier wall on the approach to this unknown valley. Now he was alone, disappointment and loneliness deeper than he had ever known or thought possible was the only voice he heard. He had fallen himself in the search for their never found bodies, and had struck his head from which he still suffered terrible headaches and periods of nausea and double vision. He was miserable.

He had no idea of the date, how long he had been invalid, who had cared for him before he woke alone in this hut, no idea where he was, how to go about leaving, or in which direction to go. He had lain there, in his own filth, capable of and caring for no more movement than to roll from one side to the other, before he woke today, realizing he was not where he thought he should be, learning quickly that he did not know where he was nor how long he had been there. From where he sat, everything was up, juxtaposed with the notion that really, nothing could be lower. His gaze rose to the windswept and snowy mountain ridges all around him, his burgeoning and cloying deep despair bringing first soft then violent sobs, making his head pound until he vomited nothing. After some moments he caught his breath, wiped the snot from his nose and looked up, feeling eyes upon him. Across the scrabbled path he saw the very short, stout, bent old man with an equally aged and bent donkey that seemed destined to tip over, burdened with a wooden cask on one side balanced by a large heavy wooden trunk on the other. The old man was himself laboring under a heavy sack tied with a thin rope over his shoulder, several layers of colorful woolen cloaks and a pointed woolen hat with a curious tuft on top, pulled over his ears, its ties swinging untethered under his knobbled chin.

The old traveler was watching the younger old man, unmoving, then reached out his hand and beckoned come, once. Without waiting for a response, he renewed his slow journey in the direction Armand felt surely was not the way he had thought to go. Feeling no sense of urgency, he looked around, gathered his few things, lamented his soiled clothes, and stood uncertainly. He looked down the path seeing the old man and his donkey hobbling away and turned to follow. He was dead tired, sick and sore. He realized he could not recall when last he had eaten or drank. None of that bothered him. He continued to be wracked with waves of grief that consumed him, threatening to incapacitate him, making his other worries meaningless. His despair deepened. Was this now hope, direction, and with each step, possibly home? He wanted more than anything for the fears to stop, the loneliness and grief to leave him, and to be home... just home.

The night comes darkly

The night comes darkly
with the dawn of dusk.
Fire and light running to the west,
shadows and ghosts on the wind from the east.
As nightfall comes
so too the whispers of trusts broken,
of personal hells loosed,
and of dreams untethered.

The night brings solitude,
silent moments that lurk in coyed hearts,
deep emotions slipping seamlessly
from the soul of unrequitedness,
to the heart of regret,
for things done, not done,
things undone,
and things felt impossible.
As it ebbs and flows,
the night brings peace to those
who sleep and forget.
For the rest,
their's is but to lament.

The morning comes
tentatively, tenuously, tenaciously,
awakening the fair and the ugly alike.
The day comes and takes,
leaving little time for gentler tidings,
leaving no notion,
to wonder for the night
that had slipped by unfettered,
and to find it coming again,
at days end
a stranger that comes darkly.

The dark comes nightly,
the morning follows,
and life is lived as it should be,
not as it would be.
Seek joy,
that the days find warmth and light,
the nights remain asleep,
and the passion silences the lamentations.
Be joy,
that you are the music that fills the halls
where the dying seek love
and the living seek solace,
and the night that comes darkly
retreats to the souless.

Illusion of thought

It rose first as the twilight of a thought, but as the moments passed, he began to think of it in more solid forms, a block of plain granite being struck with hammers, creating negative space, filling the void of the idea with a more concrete image, the chisel into the softer aspects, finally polishing the most delicate parts. He ran upstairs to the light. He stood alone in the empty room, devoid of inspiration, or distraction depending on his mood. His was a short visage of a middle aged man with a moppish bundle of thick wavy hair, darker than the unlit stairwell that lead to this brightly lit room, dressed plainly in khaki pants and a T-shirt that welcomed the challenge to void warranties, and well worn sandals. Seamless, the floor, the walls, the ceiling, all brightly lit, painfully but coldly bright, making one stand silent with eyes closed, the red image of his retina's blood supply burning into his mind.

The brightness forced him to focus his thoughts, from their usual random stammer to a cohesive discourse. This notion of free will... where does a thought actually come from? Did I chose a thought, or did it just come to mind? From where? Why can I not stop them if they are mine to control? Why do I like blue, or mexican food, or classical guitar? When I decide in my mind between things, did I choose? The voice that is talking to me now... if that is my voice, as I am talking in my mind, to whom am I talking? Why do I not choose my next thought? Is my subconcious in control, my consciousness just an illusion? He asked me to chose a city. Boston, no, Paris. Why Paris, not Boston, and of all the cities I know, why these two? Am I free to chose cities I do not know? Why does a murderer murder, while another does not? Could the murderer, with its mind shaped by genes and experience, can it really take a different path, do something different in the same circumstances? Or was its decisions forced by its physiology? Am I making choices, is choice, free will, real, or is there only the illusion of choice? Do I choose what I will do next, when an fMRI can show the decision formed seconds ago, before I was even aware? My subconcious chooses before I even know I will choose! What about the things I do that I did not want to? How do we know what, who, is in control? Which am I, cause or effect?

He opened his eyes...

Allow

Those moments in our life
when we awaken to see what is
rather than what we wish would be.
We choose in that moment
the value of truth over illusion,
to sustain the perception
or live and love what we are
who we are,
as we are.

In those moments we define ourselves.
We believe we choose who we are,
who we will be,
but more
we choose for others who they are.
We may wish to be
but we are only that which others allow.

Without us there is no they.
No one for they to draw themselves upon
deciding who they are,
who they will be,
as they choose for us
who we are,
who we will be.

For this, no one IS without another.
If no one is there to see,
to hear,
to feel,
we do not exist.

Carefully choose
who you allow others to be.
Above all, allow.

 

Ryujin

Toshizo had walked this road before, when the sky was clear and the sun warm, but now the winds were high and the days dreary. Such was the spring of the Doldrum Years, wet, cold, and without respite. So little solace along this lonely road, dark for the canopy overhead, and the river of mud that wound its way through the Sentinel Forest. He lead his horse having become stiff and sore with the hours in saddle. It felt good to walk, though each step was treacherous. The horse seemed to welome the break, having no more energy than he did, and so their pace was slow and determined. Weary, it would be evening soon, and the end of day, the beginning of night.

They watched him pass, listening to the wind as it weaved through the trees, parting over the walker and his horse. The man was dressed simply in leather and wool, clean but travel worn. His horse well saddled, encumbered only by the sword that hung ready at the front, his bags lashed securely to the back. This was no ordinary soul, but one capable of defending himself should the circumstances warrant. They had no ill intent, but their curiosity lead them to match his pace, and they watched.

He felt the prickle of conciousness, the inner voice that spoke not of anxiousness or fear, but alertness. He did not sense danger, but he knew he was watched, by three, no more than five. He admired their swift silence, moving through the woods, a lesser man would not have been aware, but he was no ordinary man. He knew of these folk, the inhabitants of the Sentinel Forest, though he had never seen one, no one had. There were no tales of fierocity or malice, but then there were no tales of greatness or cleverness either. The tales were of uncommitted mystery. No one feared them, but no one knew them. But there was something else that scratched at the edge of his senses, something he was not yet quite aware of. He continued his way.

They knew he was a ranger, one of the King's men. They knew he was in danger from the presence on the far side of the next hill, but they did not feel compelled to warn him. They had no doubt he would manage, and felt no kinship, but they wished him no harm, for they knew if things were reversed he would protect them. And so, they raced ahead, and passed the word to stir the pot, to make the hidden known. They had no love for the presence.

Further up the road, the man in the dark hooded cloak waited, knowing the ranger was approaching. His gloved hand ran down the nobbled, thick, irridescent skin of the dragon on which he sat, a war saddle between his knees. It was between his leathered fingers that the dragonslayer struck, splitting dragon flesh and bone, bringing the beast to its hindlegs with a fiery roar that burnt the treetops and illuminated the evening sky, casting its rider to the hardscrabble ground, and bringing the ranger's lightening sword to bear.

The ranger stopped, sword in hand, and waited. The presence was discovered, and it was angry.

The Regret of Age

"There was a time in my life when I knew everything and was unaware. I was unafraid, random, energized and free. Now I am aware, and know nothing, find fear is a bedfellow. I am controlled, weak and shackled," he said. They sat quietly for a moment as she mulled over his words. A light breeze played musically upon the leaves, the sun sprinkling down through the fresh green that spring had brought with the rains. They sat gathered beneath the old oak of the field, on a tapestry of fine woven wool, the old man in an armed chair.

"Is this a good thing, to have grown in this way?" she asked pensively and with reservation.

He chuckled. "Much like this gnarled old oak, I grew as was necessary. What sets me apart from the tree is regret. It follows oddly, dear, that who one wants to be is shifted to what one becomes by the forces that limit your fates." His gaze moved across the sky to her lovely face. "My dear... the tales of gallant men and women who stand against the storm, who bravely speak out their thoughts with abandon, who act freely unconcerned of the judgment of others, we tell those tales and raise these people up because that is what we imagine we are, what we wish was right. And yet, we spend our lives denying these paths to one another lest others become our better. We become what we sow, rather than what we dream, and believe in the fairy tales that say we are great. Those tales are what our dreams are made of. But this life, we make this life miserable in our efforts to bring others down so we may lift ourselves up. For what purpose? This dream an illusion. One never can hold it without losing everything else in one's hand..."

"You might be called cynical, grandfather... ", she offered.

"Yes, perhaps by the young who have not been burned in the crucible of experience and age."

"I plan to be brave!" the younger of the two women exclaimed.

"A truly great person will tell you, my love, that they want not to be brave, for when you a brave, people want to hurt you. Whom the gods will destroy they first call great. That is where courage is born, and I have no doubt you are courageous, but you will be hurt grievously if you are brave", he replied. The younger woman smiled, stood and hugged him tightly.

"You are a wise man, grandfather... but I will be brave nonetheless."

"Thank you my dear.... but that is where the regret comes. For I have not been brave. When life offered me moments for bravery, I chose instead to remain silent. I chose not to be hurt, or to have those who love me be hurt, and instead chose the lower road. I don't know that this was brave, or good."

The young man, leaning against the tree spoke for the first time, "M'Lord... Sometimes minor aggravations must be borne in silence for the greater good."

The old man looked into the younger man's eyes, "Aye, Sir Trent... but what is the greater good? To lay down when one should stand, for personal safety and imaginary freedom, or to stand and risk all so that others may find long lasting peace and true freedom? I have remained silent, and lost personal peace to gain momentary freedom. For what purpose? I regret."

The younger man nodded in respect, seeing the tear that gathered then made its way down the old man's face. He loved this man, more each day, for what he had done, noticed by few, that gave them all life, that even now the old man seemed to have forgotten.

"I think, old man, that you have been more courageous than you might allow...".

At the Dagger's Edge

Of course it was an awkward moment. Sensio in this situation at all was odd. That Vitani stood so close behind him, also uncomfortable. It was the knife in Vitani's hand pressed against his neck that made him feel most curious and out of sorts. As if being an Italian in Spain wasn't curious enough. He needed to get some control over his life, he thought.

"He knows you for the godless heathen you are, Sensio!"

"He has know this since I was a child, Vitani. I doubt this has suddenly come to his attention and warrants my having to kill you," Sensio said softly. That he was speaking softly made Vitani more anxious than Sensio's threat. Sensio had already planned Vitani's death despite being at the dagger's edge. That Vitani was not dead already spoke of their friendship, and Sensio's discipline. He pushed Sensio away forcefully. Sensio stepped away, turned slowly, his hands rising in an offering of non-retribution. Vitani knowing Sensio as an honorable man, and his friend despite their roles, lowered then sheathed his dagger.

"I mean you no disrespect, Sensio. But he sent for you, and you did not come."

"What could he possibly want that warrants this foolishness?"

Vitani stepped to then sat at the low table, spread with a small breakfast of wine, cheese and fresh bread. Sensio rubbed his neck lightly. He remained standing, alert, knowing Vitani was not likely alone, but with whom he did not know. He did not fear his friend, but he did not understand why the Monsigneur had sent Vitani for him this time. He never came at the Cardinal's bidding, something the Cardinal had long let go of. Something was wrong, and he was wary. The Inquisitors in Spain were unfettered of late, and fear ruined the day. Anyone whom someone had crossed was capable of being named a heretic and quickly taken to God's fiery justice.

Vitani shrugged his shoulders, "Perhaps if you came to Mass, you would be at peace and not so suspicious. I am the Captain of the Cardinal's Guardia. I am told to go and return with Sensio del Milenaisea in shackles, so I went, and here I am, though not sure I wish to return. It could ruin my breakfast."

"Surely the Cardinal knows I would not come, even with you. And we have no doubt you could not compel me," Sensio replied thoughtfully. He had unconciously made his way to the large window, his unfocused gaze passing over the widening vista below, filled with a morning sunlight as it was evey morning this time of year. A cart filled with wood pulled by two men struggled up the road to the villa. He ran his hand across the moss on the sill, enjoying its cool velvety smoothness. It calmed him. He needed calming.

"True," Vitani said idly, "He tires of you knocking over his fires."

"You mean the ones with people on stakes over them?"

"Yes, those fires. You are a good man, the city knows you, respects you, and admires your voice for their fate. But you have been named a heretic, and this the Cardinal knows: you are an annoyance he can no longer allow. He is aware that if you are found you will be burned and there will be anger. If you are not found, he will burn the city to find you, and there will be anger. Anger either way, but the flock is always angry about something, and one way ends without you as the thorn in his crown. Needless to say, that is the ending he prefers. He does not love you, Sensio, no more than he loves your brother, the King, though you did not hear me say that. He knows that to bring you to Tomas de Torquemada will rip this city apart, and yet he cannot let you continue your godless ways, knocking over his fires and saving people from God's fate. He wants you to come to him to confess."

Sensio raised an eyebrow with a smirk, "Seriously?"

"No, of course not," Vitani said mockingly. "He knows he will be denied by you, and that the city will be burned." He pulled his dagger out and cleaned it's blade on the table's edge. "What does he care? His home is in the country." Vitani began eyeing Sensio's breakfast.

"Hmm... seems I have a new purpose," Sensio said, turning, crossing his arms and legs, leaning with his back to the window, watching Vitani watching his breakfast. He could feel the rising sun's warmth across his broad shoulders.

"He feared as much. You know you cannot kill Father Tomas. He knows that you cannot. At least he believes you will not."

"We all know I can, and that I must. Its not dying afterwards that is the trick, a small wish, a matter for a moment's thought before action," Sensio said matter-of-factly.

"Ah... I think that is what keeps him awake at night. A Prince of the people who does not fear his death, yet plans well to avoid it." Vitani poured himself a cup of wine, and cut off a piece of the cheese that was Sensio's breakfast, now apparently his. "Even the Pope fears death...", Vitani continued, "Faith is always nervous. The more faithful, the more nervous."

"You are eating my breakfast," Sensio protested distractedly.

"The least of your worries. So now, what to do, what to do?"

 

In the end it will be morning...

He put his beer down with a thud. "Ya know, I'm not so fond of this thinkin' thing. Seems to me thinkin' is what got together this mess we find ourselves in. If there'd been no thinkin' just shootin' and slashin', the thing would be done and I could be nestled in some bosom. Thinkin's the thing that screwed the lot of us!"

"Ah, Jenoah, I can see how thinking ruins the whoring and partaking, but its thinking that has allowed me to keep your head upon your shoulders so that you might continue with the 'slashin' and shootin'.' "

A third man joined the two, pulling up a chair, tugging his long beautifully brocaded coat in place, saying to the comparatively desheveled chap, though he was speaking to the Captain,"Honestly, Martin, it's 'shootin' and slashin'', get it right chap. You should know these things by now, Royal Navy Captain and all. I have no idea how the two of you find yourselves together, considering one is a male trollop, and you, well, Martin, you are not."

Martin smiled and took the hand the giant of a man offered as he sat. "Bartholomew! I heard you died!"

"Many have tried, few have succeeded!", Bartholomew laughed.

Jenoah smiled and also shook the man's hand, which was gentle though it could crush the equally strong Jenoah's paw like a nut. His old friend was solidly built, and it is said that many have tried to kill Bartholomew, that he had died a few times, and yet, here he is.

"Captain Martin rudely asked me my opinion regarding this'n operation we are about to bestow upon the Spaniard. I think its a waste of men, time and effort, is what I think, but I too see no way around it. Honor is a terrible reason to die."

Bartholomew chortled, "Jenoah, you are always of one opinion. If it keeps you from the ladies and the wine, then its a waste of time! I am not sure that is what Martin wants to hear... surely you have an idea?"

Martin smiled, and offered, "Bartholomew, Jenoah feels that we should sail as Nelson, 'Straight at 'em'! I have the notion he is quite right..."

Bartholomew was not impressed. "If you'd like we could save you the trouble, and sink the Fianna right here at the pier, and Jenoah could get to his rightful business!"

"Jenoah, I think I agree with Bartholomew. A direct attack would end not with your debauchery, but with your feeding the fishes."

Jenoah smirked, understanding. "We will feed the fishes at the end of the day anyway, why not guns ablazin'? I think the Spaniard is wary of trickery, and the straight on attack would unsettle him. He has his fleet, you have the Fianna and Hermes, two frigates against several ships of the line. Remember Captain, the victory here is not in the sinkin' but in be in the delayin'!"

"Hmm... your point is a good one, Jenoah, and bears more thought. Leave us, if you will, and thank you for your time." Martin watched as Jenoah nodded at Bartholomew's parting words to the officer, and left them alone, rejoining his motley friends.

"He is not a learned man, but there are few lieutenant's with his experience. I should have kept him..."

Martin leaned back in his chair,"For what, Admiral, to follow you around like a puppy? He would drown himself to end the misery."

Bartholomew nodded, "As I have wished to drown myself many a time since this business began. Sending my friend to his death. Jenoah is right, and you know it. You will not survive this nasty business, but you must do it. Your affairs, and those of your men, they are in order?"

"Yes...", Martin replied, solemn now, "Yes. Only the unmarried men are to remain."

They sat silently for a while, watching those men as they paid life its last respects.

Bartholomew spoke first. "Do you think they understand, that they all will most certainly die in the morning? That they are being sent to the slaughter so others surely not as worthy may live?"

Martin remained still for a moment, staring across the room, a silence Bartholomew knew well to wait through. "I think that what they know is that life is short and miserable with death, that this is their life, and that when it ends it ends."

Bartholomew lifted the glass of red wine to his lips, "Ahh... but that's the trick, eh? When it ends, to not end it badly..."

Entanglement

Cigarette in hand, he moved gracefully from where he was standing, crossing the dimly lit room, the sun passing brightly through the dirty glass of the window panes onto the floor. He grabbed the chair, one of the two pieces of furniture in the clean simple room, set it before the window, grating across the unvarnished wood floor. He sat ungracefully, as a man tired from his labors would, carelessly, wantonly, defeatedly, and loosened his elegant cravat. He turned briefly to the other piece of furniture, a huge table littered with his papers and books, found the empty ashtray, and flicked the end off his cigarette, turned back to the view out the window, and sighed, throwing his wig onto the mantle, nearly missing and tossing it into the fire.

This is yet another day, much like yesterday, certainly one expects much the same as tomorrow will be. In one critical way it was different, because today he had ended a man's life by exposing him for the fraud that he was. He took no pleasure in it, and was weary of the work it had taken. Three relentless years. Three years of hiding, constant threat of danger, death even. In fact, Mathau had died because of this effort. It became a task he could not put aside, for its subject was so insipid that he was compelled to put an end to the charades just to embarass the man out of everyone's misery. This would make a lot of people angry, he knew that. He had already angered many, and there were some who would no longer acknowledge him for fear of association. He also knew there were so many who feared the man, and would take great pleasure in his collapse, for they too knew the truth but lacked either the courage or the means to illuminate him. He knew the danger would only worsen, given the circumstances, and that while tomorrow was certain the day after not so much.

He took a puff from his cigarette, and continued his purposeless gaze through the window into the busy street below. He could hear the streetcar, the honk of an automobile among the clomping leathery smell of the horses in front of their carriages. From this fifth story room he could see the factory near the city center, and imagined he could see the deepening layers of soot from the thick coal smoke that emanated from its horrific stacks. The factory made shoes, he thought. The steeple of the cathedral ironically posed across the river from the factory made him smile. It would all fall down. He stroked his small, closely cropped beard, flicked his cigarette again, and sighed wearily, rubbing his eyes.

The loud, forceful knock on the door startled him and he dropped his glasses as he turned with a sense of urgency at its unexpected demand.

The Bubble of Happiness

I am reminded of a moment when one of my mentors threw his hands up and said, "Everyone has to be happy, everyone on Prozac". In context this was not, and from him never would be, a Cruiseian diatribe, but I think about it often because his point is made again anad again. Everyone is so easily offended (when really annoyance is allowed, but they demand that they are offended. There's a huge difference). No one wants to see, hear or speak of the evils in our lives, the bad times, soft or hard, the suffering of others. We should be ashamed... its being empathic that makes us human, empathy is a core of reason. We become less when we demand the bubble of happiness not be broken, finding offense to deflect the blow. So much happiness is truly there that we need not coat ourselves with it to keep the cold sorrows of life away. They are a part of life, and without them life is not real. Illuminate the darkness and fill it with understanding, reason and action to amend. As Gandhi said, whatever you do may seem insignificant, but it is important that you do it. Live, happy and sad, live life as it is, not as you wish it would be.

Seneschal

It was late. It seemed a little odd, his being here and all, considering not just the hour, but that he wasn't from this part of town. He moved quietly but with purpose, as if he had been here before and knew his way. Most of the rain had dried, but the potholes threatend a turned, wet ankle. He stopped outside the door, the darkness of the alley enveloping him, he turned his head looking both ways. Not nervously, not as if he expected to see anything, he just sort of looked askance, then returned his gaze to the door.

"Murphy", he said, not demanding, not loudly, but with that same sense of purpose. In a moment  light went on over the door, it opened after the chink of a chain and a lock or two. The shadow within moved aside. He glided in without so much as a swish of his coat, disappeared into the dim light, the darkness remaining outside afraid to come in, the door closing with a whisper. 

That was the last anyone heard or saw of him. Gone, just like that. It took a while for anyone to notice, no clue was left behind, and he owed no one anything. They just sort of noticed his absence. Nothing bad happened to him, he just suddenly didn't exist anymore. Spooky, the kinda stuff that makes you leave a light on at night spooky.

It made me wonder why he was ever even here. He came, he went, nothing happened, but you were left with the sense something did happen, something very important, so much so it changed you, and maybe you were the only one who didn't notice what it was that did or did not happen, and you're too afraid of looking the fool to ask.  And every now and then a glimmer, a piece of memory stuck to the wall of your head, enough to make your heart beat harder, because YOU KNOW, but then its gone, before you can see it, hear it, feel it clearly. Sometimes you think you hear someone mention his name, but everyone seems not to have said anything at all worth hearing.

Yeah, spooky like that spooky... just gone.

Differences between friends

We sat outside the coffee shop, the slight breeze ruffling the umbrella that shaded our table on a pleasant sunny morning.  He held his coffee to his lips, pensive, his gaze far away, his  mind turning.

"We are different, you and I, and yet we remain close friends..."

Curious, I simply smiled.

"Why don't you hate me?"

"Why would I hate you?", I replied, a bit taken aback. Where was this going?

"I am Christian, against abortion, and I dislike homosexuality, the Holy Trifecta," he said smiling, "the polar opposite of your blasphemous positions."

"I think you would agree that's stating things a bit simplistically, " I offered, laughing, "but yes, I dislike those things about your beliefs. They are not who you are, they are merely parts of the whole. I enjoy the whole, even if I disklike some parts. I recognize that your beliefs form who you are to some degree, but I like you still for the rest."  After a moment, I added,  "I would counter that I dislike you no more than you dislike me for being, as you say, opposite, on these things. You are entitled to have these beliefs, as I am entitled to have an opposing position. If those beliefs were to become who you are, than yes, we would likely have little common ground."

"Hmmm... How is it you don't believe in God, accept abortion and are not abhorred by homosexuality?" , he asked, "Can't you see how wrong these are?"

"It would be easy to return the question, why do you feel as you do on these things, but I know you can't answer them in a way that would satisfy me. I have no reason to believe in god, certainly a god as defined by Christianity, and I am troubled by what religion brings to the human equation. I don't like abortion, but I do not think it is an issue for us men to debate with any integrity, and while I don't find homosexuality attractive, I would offer it is not for me to deny. I could not care less about someone being LGBT. It simply doesn't bother me.", I replied. "I wonder how different you might be in your thinking and feelings without your god; who would you be without god?"

"I can't imagine life without God."

"And I am diappointed in a world with god...", I said. "And I think this is really our only difference."

The Thomas Problem

Wendell came in nervously, for nothing was more annoying than a good example, according to Mark Twain, and Thomas was quite annoying.

"You've upset her", he said, without tremor, unknowing fists of fear forced deeply into his pockets.

"I suppose I have."

"You drove her to tears."

"Easily done", Thomas replied, unmoved, continuing his work.

"Thomas, she says you berated her publically, humiliating her!"

"I am sure it could happen no other way. She picked a public argument".

"And you..."

Thomas, having heard quite enough, interrupted Wendell's planned diatribe. "Wendell! This is a Mary problem, not a Thomas problem. You may continue to try to fix your perceived Thomas problem, but it will remain a Mary problem no less."

"Thomas, you have created problems before..."

"Again, with making your Mary problem a Thomas problem. Who was it before me, Wendell? I believe it was a Duncan problem? You brought me here to solve problems. I am trying, desperately, to no avail. This game of Mary's is quite old and familiar. Truly addressing your Mary problem means admitting you have made some terrible mistakes, something you are clearly not wont to do, for as I discover them, you beat me with them. I tire of being your and Mary's scapegoat on whom you write all your problems, such that by solving your singular Thomas problem, you will have solved all of your myriad problems". Thomas stood abuptly, causing Wendell to step back. Thomas pulled quickly at his waistcoat, and walked up to Wendell as he made for the door.

"Wendell, your failings have created quite a morass. I suggest you find your courage, admit your failings like a man, confront Mary's childish behavior, and we can all get on with our lives. No one cares except Mary, and anyone she cries to, who seek to cover their own failings. Good day, sir."

Wendell watched him leave, mouth and mind agape. He had never known a more unreasonable man.

The following morning Thomas was sacked, and Wendell felt profound for having solved all of his problems in a singular stroke. He was quite proud of himself.

 

Potato chips

"You have come in from the darkness."

I nodded. He waited. I sat. He remained seated. 

"I wearied of discussing potato chips."

Vezio's expression remained expressionless, "Potato chips".

"Potato chips."

Vezio remained as he always was, hands lightly clasped in his silent dignity, no agenda other than to understand, patient to a fault, waiting. I sat as quietly, subdued by my trials, weary of my travels, and not entirely sure I had learned anything. He waited some more. I whispered.

 "A woman walks into a bar, sits, and without a word, the bartender passes her a ginger ale with a twist. He grimaces at the new bruise on her face, much like the older one on the other side. He moves away. She sees his discomfort, and unlike before, this time she talks, 'My husband beat me, and our children again'. A man, one of several in a suit, sitting a few seats away glances sideways at her, knowing her and this despot of a husband of whom she speaks. He pushes a half empty bowl towards the bartender and says without intent, 'Chips...'. 'BBQ or regular'? 'Regular. The BBQ taste like Tabasco'. He gets his chips, she finishes her drink, she leaves, the bartender removes her empty glass and wipes her place." 

Vezio sat for a moment, then ever so knowingly nods his head. "Potato chips."

"Potato chips."

On dying...

This is my end. It is a good end, to a life well lived in service. My reward cometh! He closed his eyes, feeling less with every moment. Archdeacon Ferrand and Father Ferdinand were annoiting him. A wave of fear and uncertainty passed through him. He shook inwardly as he heard Father Ferdinand plead, "Father, take our brother, Tomas de Torquemada into Your loving embrace, forgive him his sins, and give him life everlasting!"  Yes, Father, forgive me my sins.... He felt a profound grief with this for he no more wanted to die than he had wanted to suffer these end of days, and he had suffered geatly. He found this awkward, as he should be filled with the ecstasy of his rapture, but instead of looking with joy to being in heaven with the Lord and God he felt anxious, fearful. He was afraid of dying as it came upon him.  He was ashamed... surely this was no last moment loss of faith after a lifetime of sacrifice?  It was becoming hard to remain awake, the room beginning to fade, focusing into a bright light that came upon him, and took him in. With it he felt calm again, peace and warmth, no more suffering. He felt drawn into it, and lifted! He was on his way!

And suddenly, there was darkness, nothingness. Then nothing at all.

He felt a deep sense of disappointment...

Schoolyard

It was meant as a moment of derision. Outwardly it was insulting, inwardly rather farcical, but he had said it with such earnestness that one's attention was captured. One might have mistaken him for a six year old, were it not that he was clearly a man of seventy or so.  The others in the room awaited my baited response. At the moment I was concentrating gravely on not bursting out in laughter, so wasn't able to sharpen my witty reparte quickly enough, and the moment was lost. So I merely smiled and nodded, for it was all I could muster. This was seen by the muckraking watchers as an acknowledgement that his ludicrous statement bore merit, and I became less than to them in their small game of thrones. For the more thoughtful in the room it was seen for what it truly was, an unintentionally humorous engagement with an entirely humorless and angry old man, of whom thinking less would be ill mannered. And so the conversation moved on. His stare spoke that he felt robbed of an expected response from me, and was about to demand it. Alas, no one cared for they had already judged as they were inclined and nothing really changed. This is what passes for honest discourse today. We rearrange our prejudices, thinking we have given the notion much thought.

Monsieur Cuivert

A sharply dressed gentleman of means satchel in gloved hand, he walked along the clean, well lit, deserted train platform as an heavy snow renewed its fall. It crunched frozen where the cover allowed it to collect, and blanketed the city.

"Winter in Ghent is better than winter in Bruges, oui Monsieur Cuivert?"

"Robert, I will know when I get to Bruges, eh?", coins tinkling in exchange for the morning paper, "The train is still running?"

"Ah, we will know when it gets to Ghent, eh", Robert laughingly replied. As the seasons changed, so did this familiar conversation between gentleman and stationer, in temperature, if not in comfort. Cuivert glanced at the front page which told of the death of some Archduke in Sarajevo, folded the paper and began to walk to the end of the platform so he could board the train in the first car, usually the warmest. The large clock overhead read 5:30, behind it the dawn began as a thin blue line beyond where Bruges lie to the north. The train was late. The snow seemed to fall with passion, but thankfully there was no wind.

He took but a few steps when he saw a well kempt handsome boy, what you could see by his eyes, which alone could be distinguished wrapped as he was, sitting under the lamp next to the stationers fire. The stationer was burning yesterday's papers and some scrap wood for a token of warmth, the aroma of hot coffee hissing over it. The boy's bench was under the cover, the boy yet sprinkled with snow, unmoving as if not to dispel a layer of warmth hovering about him. Cuivert stepped over and stood before him.

"May I sit?"

The boy looked up expressionless, and after a moment realizing this man was speaking to him, nodded, returning his glassy stare to the quickly disappearing tracks. Cuivert looked at the stationer, the man replying with a smile as he poured a coffee. Cuivert sat familiarly against the boy. One could hear only the snow, the crackling fire, and soft breathing as steam rose from behind the boys collar. He was wrapped warmly, a knitted hat beneath a woolen cap, his scarf pulled up snug outside his collar, a brown shabby velvet coat buttoned over a thick sweater such that it seemed he could not move if he wanted to.

"You missed your train?", Cuivert asked to the same tracks. The stationer now stood before the boy, holding out the coffee. The boy hesitated, then reached with a grateful nod to the stationer, who smiled and walking back to the warmth of his booth, rubbing his half gloved hands together.

"I know your father died... I'm sorry to hear of that." The boy sipped the coffee, Cuivert shook out his paper. He continued his soliloquy as he read.

"I suppose that puts you in a bit of a pickle, no?" The boy continued to sip, his bare hands drawing the warmth from the porcelain, warming him inside and out. "Did you know I too am an orphan? Funny thing that, once an orphan, always an orphan, so one day you too will still be an orphan." He turned the page, and after a moment continued, "Monsieur your father was a good man, and one of my best friends. He worked for me for 22 years, Claude." Cuivert paused, turning the page. "I saw Madame Evereau at the funeral. She told me you were going on the train last night to somewhere in Serbia... I think I would miss that train too, given what I read in this paper."

"I do not want to go to Serbia, Monsieur Cuivert", the first pensive wisp of a voice escaping the scarf.

"Hmm... and what is there for you here?"

"It is more that there is nothing for me there. My mother and my father are buried here, at the cathedral. There is nothing for me there. Perhaps despair, I hear they are morose."

Cuivert, smiling, did not gaze up from his paper. Distantly the light from the locomotive of his late train struggled to make an appearance.

"Your cousins?"

"Yes.... they are Islamists, they are morose"

"Ah... I think you have them confused with Papists.", Cuivert replied, followed under his breath, "They seem always concerned someone, somewhere might be happy..."

"Go to my house, Claude", the gentleman speaking gently to his paper. The train whstled, its light burning through the snow competing with its own distant cacophony for attention. "My carriage is waiting out front of the station to take you to my house. Miss Vivian is expecting you, and my children will keep you company. We will talk when I come home tomorrow from Bruges." The train was now forcing its way into the station, all light and noise, it would not be ignored

The boy remained still, his coffee becoming cold. Slowly, he stood, picked up his suitcase, and walked wordlessly, exhausted, towards the station house. Without changing pace, his hand held out as he left the cup on the stationers counter. A few steps more and he stopped with tears beginning to brim, turning wordlessly back to Cuivert still reading his paper.

"Go Claude. There is always hope, as long as you do not eat more than one of my pain du chocolat. They are my favorite." The boy watched as the train stopped and Monsieur Cuivert stood gracefully, gathering his satchel, tossing his paper into the fire and without a glance at the boy boarded the train with a private smile and a shake of his head saying to himself, "I do love my pain du chocolat".