On scraps of paper

That guy holding the gun
That guy isn’t me
That guy sitting alone
Slouching over in the back corner booth
No that guy isn’t me
Licking his lips

Remember the taste
Blackpowder and gun oil
Life going around
Tracing circles at the end of the trap line
Start to finish

God

Who was your most influential teacher? Why?

I’ve been here before. I have sat in this same dust covered, mildew eaten chair. I have gazed out across this same room with its piles of magazine and newspaper stacks. I have taken pride in the organized rows of books that younger hands once carefully placed upon now collapsing shelves.

My dry blood shot eyes watch as the dust falls. Layer upon layer sediments of time flow down from their unseen creation. Still I sit and watch this world evolve, and I am satisfied.

Eternity.

A game of chess. Each volume and periodical but a piece upon the board. Every mote of dust a single move across this limitless chasm of creation. Alpha and Omega, beginning to end, the Lord plays on.

We are but observers, Watchers who share in the one body. All share in the glory or at least we should. Some walk away or turn a blind eye to the match set out before us. Spoiler alert. God wins with or without your patronage. Your choice is to accept the win or loss.

I am sorry. Distracted by the vastness of reality my mind wanders.

I do love the soapbox, and the ancient sage easily slips into conversation with the limitless unseen voices of this world. Sometimes I forget which one I am talking with or do I mean to?

So how are you doing? I see that you’ve bought yourself a new fancy since last we visited…

What?

Everyone knows they’re never as good as the last one you had. Things are cheaply made so you will have no choice but to get another. The box it was packaged in is often of higher quality. It’s a little bit of the evil this “modern” life tempts us to accept. You should vote with your money and learn to do without. You’d be better off.

Off on another tangent. This world is full of distractions. If you don’t notice different things then what’s the point in smelling another rose. You need something to reference it to.

The Dreamer dreams beneath a turquoise sky. White foam floats as a silky sheet across the sun warmed pillows of sand. The white noise of the wind mixes fluidly with the birds of the air and gentle sounds of the rippling waves.

The Dreamer dreams, day becomes night.

The flash of light and sudden blaring of a horn startled the man in the grey suit into wakefulness. He had drifted off for a second into some partial memory.

With another blast from the asshole behind him the grey man took his foot off the brake and slowly accelerated on the gas. In his heart he knew that what he really wanted was to hit reverse, and turn a small moment of time into an epic spree of self discovery.

“Fucking asshole” muttered the man to himself. “Fucking world of assholes.”

The Sage was having a rather mixed day. He was slipping in and out of the differing realities so quickly he barely had time to let the ink dry between pages. That’s the usual come the first days of spring. Rebirth brings an extra energy to the writing that the long cold winter lacks.

Pat watched as the kids helped set up the shooting line as the other adult volunteers manhandled the oversized targets into position. The gate was placed at the distant far end of the lineup. A slightly pear shaped woman shouted out commands from that location. It was for that reason Pat had placed his chair a good distance further down the field from the other spectators. She was really loud, and she loved blowing that whistle.

“I imagine she wanted to be a life guard as a teen”, Pat said out loud.

“Let’s see if that’s true”, the sage replied to himself. With the practiced flip of the wrist the book before him flipped open.

Never mind what you are thinking because you’d just become confused. The ink stained sheet of parchment that was being was never but the book was, and is for everyone present. That at least until it’s no longer. You see…

Her name is Dottie, or Dorothy depending on which frame of time she thinks of herself. Presently it’s Dot. Just a small spot at the end of a sentence.

Dot took another long blow at her whistle making both the Sage and Pat wince.

“Anyhow”, The Sage continued muttering to himself. “It says here teen Dottie had a strong passion for David Hasselhoff, and some of the others from Baywatch. So it’s a fantasy rather than a desire to actually become a lifeguard.”

With the reading of that knowledge and a slight unseen twitch of a big toe the plain covered manual labelled “Comas, Dots, and Quotation” disappeared. Elsewhere in the vast library a sharp sound of a book upon a falling book could be heard.

From somewhere overhead a disembodied voice spoke, “That ruined the cool factor of what you did”.

The Sage just rolled his eyes.

It has been awhile since our last visit to the Doorman and his doormat.

“Yes, it’s been quite a long time since anyone has come to visit”, the Doorman spoke out

“There’s a reason”, said The Sage, and with that an unseen door clicked closed and locked. “I really must remember to close those passages behind me when I go out.”

Indeed. We all must remember…

Tin Foil Dreams

Love was king and Pleasure his queen
Back in the days I thought I knew something

Like the coming of the summer rain
with thunder rattling the window seal
And the lightenings flash crisp and bright
Burning the sky with white streaks of light

Now I’m just a wasted old man
Lost in an age I can’t understand
I’m a lonesome beggar in a foreign land
No dreams of the future
Only nightmares from my past

What ever happened to chivalry and the age of high romance
Of living life truthful and roaming free
With a gallant heart overflowing with beauty and poetry

But that was back in the days I thought I knew a thing
When Love was king
And Pleasure his queen

Before the sky was a Persian blue
A time before I watched the nights bloom
With missiles and rockets and white plume trails

I long for life before the devil knew my name
Before in blood I signed my life away Odd that in youth the thought didn’t matter as much

Needles

Pat’s hand began to tremble and as if on que the familiar shaking of the rest of the body followed. Small seizures spread rapidly throughout his muscles taking with them the last bit of control.

The ground rushed up to stop his fall. There would be only a few cuts and bruises.

Into a dark and empty void his mind fell. Soundlessly…

Sediment, The Book of Pat

I’ve been here before. I’ve sat half reclined, half slouching, vainly attempting to find some form of relaxation in this mildew eaten chair. I never find it.

Dust and cobwebs drift down from the dark shadows of an imagined ceiling. Imagined because in all these years not once have I taken the broom and searched out it’s existence. No, I will never attempted to discover it’s ghost like presence. It shall remain forever lost above the mass of entwined strands.

Life is easier if you sometimes ignore the less desirable aspects about ones person.

Here I shrug.

Somewhere a voice reads out the R value of a thick matting of cobweb and it’s insulation value; elsewhere a fire-marshal demonstrates the science of combustibility.

Outside, time moves on.
Random sound flickers past unseen doorways. Abstract chittering between salesman and stooge, crooning dove, obsessed parent, a life of lost hopes and dreams filtering in. The vibrations of sound disturbing the thick muffled air of the room.

More dust and cobwebs float down.

I do not care. I’ve been here before. I will be again.

Words float about filling space in the soft white. Pages press together from single lines. Slowly at first. Unable to gain foothold upon vacant.ground. Eventually enough sticks. Eventually enough binds together to form what can best be described as…

Dust bunnies blow about. Stirred up by the faster currents of air along the floor boards.

Warped wooden boards mismatched in grain bend. Between tongue and groove the air swirls around new tracks. Trails of rolling tumble weed bound. Piling into bands beneath stool and table they build layer upon layer. In some perfect reflection of the ceiling above this miniature world will conceal what lies below. Perhaps I too will then disappear. Never again seen or ever searched for. Lost beyond the reach of the mind.