Tag: long read

A New Page from the Book of Pat, verse 12:08:25

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I say everything I’ve done, it’s all make believe. Pure work of fiction. Just nonsense I babble on about.
That’s because if I forget to say it ain’t so then some ass will come along and see the reality in what’s what… then I’ll get screwed again. Just like before.

I’ve been here many times. Sat in this very same mildew stained chair. Watched the cobwebs drift down to blow eroticly about with dust bunnies upon the floor. Fixated I am. I get off transfixed at the slow movement of my own decay.
Death doesn’t come easy for the insane.

Today’s extraordinarily special for me. Lucefer and the other angels have come by for a birthday party. Sadly I am the cake.
Long sensuous fingers peel back the flesh from about my eyes. Careful to avoid the layered muscles and most of the nerve clusters. Of course temptation being one of his weaknesses the devil makes sure to pluck a few strings. My mouth quivers in the ecstasy of the moment. Here the party trick of a forced smile isn’t lost upon the revelers. Skin stretches back bringing with it hair. And just like that the wrapping paper is undone.

I don’t scream though. Only the living scream, and everyone knows I have been dead for awhile. I’ve been dead for a very long while.
If it wasn’t for the guilt I believe I’d have quit playing this game of pretend sometime ago.

I ramble… I can’t help it. It came with the dieing. Someday you’ll understand what it’s like when random braincells flash their last gasping breath of memory, and somehow you’re supposed to put shit into some kind of rational order just to be understood. A few expletives would fit here. Feel free to choose your own. I won’t mind. I may learn a new word.

Let’s go back to the party.

Like a birthday cake nimble fingers make quick work of the frosting and beautifully rose shaped flowers. The sweet red cherry jubilee pulses in the open air. Its translucent strawberry gelatin shudders orgasmic from all the festive excitement of the party goers. I take a deep thought and point out to myself that even now at the end I never was much at being the life of the party.

A seething crock pot steams over rattling it’s lid. The noise of the gurgling almost too distracting to think. Pressure builds up from all those lame ass things I should have, could have, but didn’t. No regrets…
A white hot froth simmers up to a boil. Things buried tumble up from beneath. The vapor expelled casts a ghostly shade above it all.

The scene changes. Bloody hands claw out tearing loose the worm eaten cloth about me. A revenant fresh from the rapture, emotions clash with the truth. All will see things at the same instance in time.

I know the purpose of this calling. My seeing and dreaming of things in repetitive fashion. You wouldn’t understand. At least if you’re favored you won’t. So don’t be a nameless Lot’s wife and take an errant look back. What you would see following close behind is a horror that’s been promised since the beginning.

And I know you’re not ready to know what I mean.

Another World of Pure Imagination

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Hold your breath…

Make a wish…

Count to three…

So says Willy Wonka

……

In my dreams
All the things
I dream for you
They come true


If only in my
Imagination

If you cry
Sob or sigh
And form tears
In your eyes

It brings me down
And brings me round
From off my distant cloud
Floating high
On a rosy river
Beneath a rose filled sky

So
Come with me
You will see
There is really nothing there
That could
Harm you

It’s just a wonderful world
Here in make believe

A wonderful world to live in

If only you
Could open wide
And reach inside

I know you

You really want to

See a new world
Beginning

Take my hand
But don’t be afraid
To let go

No more fears
Lurking in the corners

Everything
Living here
Is alive
Right there
Inside you

When life is a zoo
Fling open the cage
Wander free
Join me
And you’ll see
Dear
Yes you’ll see
Clear

It’s just a wonderful world
Here in make believe
It’s such a wonderful world
To live in
If only you could

Reach inside

You would see that

And I know
You want to see
A wonderful world
Again

A Sunday Morning ConfessionDirect from the Book of Pat

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When I was a kid. I wore hand-me-down shoes a lot of the time until my feet grew bigger than everyone else.
Then I got one pair of shoes.
You’d think as an old man I’d buy more shoes but instead I find that I now just don’t throw old pairs away.
I set them by the door and try using them until one day glue and plastic bags no longer work to hold them together. Then I toss them in the garbage.

There are some days I get in a hurry and forget to take off my good pair.
I feed the chickens and ducks getting muck and gunk caked into the soles and tread. Large sticky mats of hay, feather, and bird poop clumping up usually in the arch and flicking onto the laces.
It’s horrible.

On Sunday morning as I prepare for church I inspect those shoes.
I see how well I did in keeping them clean during the week deciding on just how much effort it’s going to be to wash them clean.
Sometimes I can do it in the bathroom sink where under the bright lights every little speck can be seen clearly. Most times it’s so bad that I have to stand over the kitchen garbage can and scrape off the “shit”. (I tried not to say shit but it is what it is.) Then moving to the kitchen sink I use an old worn toothbrush and wooden toothpick to scrub with detergent and pick out the treads all the filth I managed to pick up through the week. Then when I think I’m satisfied I go to the bathroom, under the bright lights to see the grit and stains left behind.

If you skipped the body of my true story, just reading paragraph speaking points, what I’m saying is this…

All week we/I try very hard to respect the foundations your/my parents taught you/me. To cherish and value what you/I have. To worship God and follow His commandments as best as we/I know how.


Many days, weeks, months I do him honor and keep myself worthy to walk into his house. Yet it takes but one unconscious decision for me to fail for there is no righteous man who walks upon this earth that does not sin.
No matter how often I wash those shoes clean, I’ll get dirt on them as I walk through the churches parking lot.
I’m glad God understands and forgives.

… sometimes I just take my shoes off at the door and go barefoot because I know I am walking upon Holy Ground.

Praise God, Praise His Holy Name!

God

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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…

Wedding Day

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I’m that great friend who you always feel happy to see. That one you can always depend on to give you his last dollar. The one who listens to your story and helps you remember where you left off in case your mind goes off topic. I remember you and I can tell if you are sick or have something you’re wanting to hide but really need to talk about.

I sincerely care. Prefer giving a compassionate and manly hug. The kind that can be disarming but reassuring. The strength of which has soaked up more snot flowing tears throughout the years than Kleenex and Brawny combined.

I honestly love you for your own weakness and fears. I also am more proud than any parent when I see you conquer those unseen hurdles we all find in life.

You are beautiful. It is the greatest thing in my life to know you. You know I mean it.

I just have one thing that has bothered me. I know it’s bothering you as well because every time we make eye contact you have to guiltily glance away into some awkward place. I see the sides of your cheeks become pulled in as you grind the soft flesh between your teeth. I hear how your breathing pauses and then is released in a low nasal breath. It’s like the scent of the air about you suddenly stagnates.

I suppose it has.

Don’t invite me to a wedding. As much as I love them. I know there are two lists; One is your friends, the other is his or hers. Quite honestly I don’t ever make both. It’s great. I understand. I don’t justify the extra cost of setting a place at the reception. Just don’t lie to yourself and think I didn’t notice the lack of the formal invitation.

We both know when the service was. Get over it.

Just remember that because you didn’t stand up for what you wanted from the beginning chances are your marriage isn’t going to be all peaches and cream.

Your sacrifices are just beginning, and I get to hear all about them.

Come November, from The Book of Pat

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The soft muzzled cough brought Alice back from being lost in her usual daydreams.
It had been months since she had walked freely about the streets. Even longer since the blind run through the dark forests of another world.
If this insane self-imposed quarantine had to continue for very much longer, Alice was going to leap back through into the brightly lit hall beyond. Once there she was more than willing to try her luck at some other random doorway.
“What then?” muttered the low voice of the sage.
Alice could tell he was talking more to himself than to her.
Alice replied anyway, “Anywhere but here.”

The look of the old mages floor length beard partially muzzled by a soft swath of mask looked ridiculous. The rope ties for the ears could not reach so Alice had helped him braid the ends into the facial hair just beneath the cheeks.
The effect gave the ancient librarian a hipster grunge look.
The ink stained hands of the sage had been hard at work rubbing his face again. Either an allergy from the ink that now tinted his nose or from the dreaded Covid virus had been making the elderly gentleman wheeze and cough. He had coughed enough times that Alice had demanded the face covering.
The sage grumpily complied just to silence her complaining.
The whole request struck him funny since it came from a woman wearing no clothes at all…

The doorman had been busy hanging invisible signs about the hall. Each had been hung so that an individual entering could see them with little effort. He was certain when the complaint department was called he would be found blameless in the spread of such ignorance. Each entry had been clearly marked with a request for a mandatory fourteen day quarantine, and each infectious destination properly marked.
The Gatekeeper had even replaced his usual Welcome mat with one that read, “Masks Required”.
“Yes”, he thought, “in a reality of inexistence the flattened curve wasn’t going to catch him in another surge, hoax or not.”

Pat sat watching the falling leaves. The peace autumn brought was a welcome change from the dry hot days of summer. Still the thought to lay naked in those golden rays made his pulse quicken with youthful memories.

“The seasons change with the turn of a word,” he whispered to the quiet room. Though there was a large crowd, no one heard him.

Pat was aware that the sentence could be thought of as political, as well as environmental.
Opinions were changing. Impatient populations desperate for a miracle.
Come November another four years of greatness would be chosen. Hopefully one that meant the destruction of a party founded in racism. If not then things weren’t going to look too good for the home front.
It had been bad enough that this man-made virus was unleashed by corrupt policies of the criminal elite in the attempt of a one-world-order coup.
To have to suffer under the heavy-handed tactics of the cosmopolitan could lead to an actual armageddon between good and evil…

Pat watched the falling leaves. The beauty was not wasted on him. The mix of yellows and reds drifting down. Sometimes in soft spirals, sometimes in a direct glide. Individual leaves and groups all randomly blowing about with a kaleidoscope of color.
None of the meaning was missed.
Everything had a purpose;
Pat just had his own preference in how things should end.

All this change from the green leaves of one tree. Nothing was ever missed…

Daydreams and School work

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Alice sat distracted. A nuthatch was slowly making its way down the trunk of a nearby sapling. It’s funny head-first hopping reminded her of the her own first moments leaping through worlds. As nauseating an experience it had been, Alice was secretly hoping to get the opportunity to do it again. The only thing that was holding her back was the how and when.
Alice had gathered from the many frequent visits of disembodied voices that the portal from here to there ( where something she never knew) was always opening and closing. To use it, one simply needed to be determined and fully willing to accept the next outcome. The concept of outcome being as close to exactly what the event actually meant.
Alice couldn’t quite understand that piece of information either.
She just took it to mean 1+1=2 but to get to four the possibilities increased as well as the path. Everyone understands 2+2, or 1+1+1+1, or 1+1+2, and even 1+3. But doing the possible backwards or even not at all could cause a bit of stress. 0+4, 5-1, and so on into infinite realms could get a person marooned, even completely gone from before, during, and after. As insane as that sounded, Alice was not yet willing to prove anyone’s theorem’s just yet.
Why did everything have to involve math…

Alice could bring herself to accept that it had only been three days. What she couldn’t believe in was the constant transition of the garden outside.
She vaguely remembered the first time looking out of the window. The season had been late spring. The butterflies and hummingbirds fluttering amongst the many wildflowers and well planted rows of perennials. Annuals like irises taking over where daffodil and hyacinth had earlier flowered but now becoming just green leaves and dying stalks.
With later glances outside, Alice noted the crepe myrtles had begun to bloom with deep purples and reds. Their many branched arms spreading outward casting a welcomed shadow from the hot blazing sun.

And today as she gazed upwards in a daydream daze of building castles in the sky, Alice’s distracted eyes watched as oak and maple leaves began drifting down from leaf clogged gutters. The browned yellows and crimson reds slowly sailing down, down, down carpeting the flower beds.
Alice even noticed amongst the brown blades of overgrown grasses the aster and goldenrod turning to seed. The planting of daylilies she must have confused for irises being nothing but withered yellow and brown mulch piles beside dried stalks of gladiolas.

No. Though she was not a naturalist or expert at gardening, Alice knew the changing seasons without the need of flocking geese or migrant fish swimming up stream. Without a doubt, and without need of the old sage explaining things, Alice knew she was sitting in the middle of 0+1 or something very close to it.

Across the room the sage let out a humourous chortle.

To Alice the old man always seemed to take great interest and enjoyment during her most confused moments. It’s was almost like he knew her mind, and saw all the outcomes before she did, and thought her ignorant.

10:30

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I’ve been here before. I’ve sat in this dust filled room watching the same spider weaving her web. Sitting slouched with the wait of eternity perched cumbersomely upon my eyelids. Through the haze of blurred vision I have been witness to a life time of war and decay. Still the day is not over.

Time wanders independent of reality. Change only the product of some other force combined, separated, absent.

After all I exist as a simple closed system. Only one has ever been able to open the door or close it when through. The one is, that’s all anyone need know.

You and I live connected. Forever entwined even during the trials where effort is wirepulling or sanguineous. From the salt of the sea, and water of the heavens, you and I are. That’s all eternities secrets told upon a gentle breeze.

Rambling on, two old souls… (Here the sage began singing in his head. A song about fish bowls and endless calendars. – the author)

Invisible hands scrawl out variations of lines. Words both cryptic and plain fill margins and footnote. The simplest thoughts hidden in the most compounding phrase. Only the distracted eye can see clearly the misspelled word while the clearest mind reads on.

I know.

A tale of two, you and I. A circle folding in often looking out. Neither seeing the end nor ever beginning the race. We chase the clouds as a dog chases it’s tail.

A rambling of time ticking out life with everything existing as fundamental interactions balanced upon a needle point tip.

Pat sat patiently in his garden. The watcher was in no hurry to get anywhere.

The soft buzz and fiddle of insects drifted about on the sweet summer air.

There were birds singing and calling back and forth. They too appeared in no hurry to fly off to some distant place.

Here the rose and columbine flowered amongst the ironweed and goldenrod. A clash of season mixed with the pastel colors of the sweet pea vine.

Eden.

Only Adam strolled these garden paths. Lost in wonder. Idling away the moments… (Here again the sages attention drifted of into another song. Something of dull days and thinking that he has something more to say. – the author)

Alice sat perched high upon a stack of books. She had been busy thumbing through a few of the older ones trying to look interested.

Ever so often she felt the need to put the book down and gaze out the one window of the sages library.

It was a beautiful day outside.

Alice had asked the old grumpy man if it would be okay to throw open the glass. With a distracted angry scowl the sage had signalled a stern no.

Alice had went to the window anyhow. After a Herculean effort she had found it impossibly stuck.

The old mage laughed quietly beneath his beard. Since the change of humidity and weather he had been unable to open the window himself. Alice probably would contrive some mystic use of magic to the sage preventing her from doing what he said no too. He laughed again a little louder.

Alice had stalked angrily back to her stack of books. Secretly cursing the old mans powers over nature and time.

With a fish eyed gaze out of the window, and a pleasant tune in his head, the sage went back into his trance. ( It was at this point I, the author, came to the conclusion the sage was going to be absolutely useless today.-the author)

And time flowed on…

The Echoing Footsteps

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Words had become unwelcome aliens to him. During the long, lonesome days of summer verbal expression was of little importance. Even the occasional jotting of notes and poetry had all but disappeared from the watcher’s daily habit.

The absence of human company had begun to void all progress socially made in the early spring months. The warming heat and longer days allowed the once tight knit group of vagabonds to expand out into newer territories. Though beneficial for the group it only drew Pat deeper into isolation mentally and physically. Soon the weak feelings of trust, compassion, and fellowship would all be forgotten. Replaced by an insane anger and hate for the world as a whole.

Change was what the watcher hated most. Wether it was the sun, the season, a simple object out of place, any altering to the system was to be avoided. Only hunger and the need of shelter could drive him back into society, and force a change to the routine.

If only they knew or understood the danger. The thing they felt most at ease with had died a very long time ago. That person had laid buried in some shallow grave for more than two decades, a victim of some forgotten war. The only protection he could give to them and himself was a wall of apathy. Any attempt to break through would almost certainly unleashing the daemons within.

Enoch knew first hand what now walked the earth. The thin cloak of flesh and bone did little to conceal the seething hate and rage boiling within. It is to Enoch that the watcher often thought of. Not since the desecration of Babel, the rise of the Sumer and Olmec ziggurat, and the cataclysmic drift of landmasses had the host of legions been at peace with what he was.

Ah the good old days. Before Moses and his big ten, and the writing of the lesser others, “Pat” had beta tested every one of them with a few still in need of repeating.

How had the worm turned. Robbed of the freedom of the æther. Imprisoned to never touch the quintessence. Left to lay dormant beneath the ever increasing weight of invisible chains. The punishment was fair enough. The watcher knew he was given a very lenient sentence. After all eternity and infinity were going to be a very long wait anywhere he could be placed. This bit of community service on Ki wasn’t without it’s pleasures. The irony was because of those pleasures he was being chastised…

Pat sat waiting.

The clock on the wall had long since died, and now forever marked it’s death at one twenty-three.

It was post meridiem. The watcher knew because he had watched that last hesitant movement on August 5th as he had witnessed the first energetic second back on June 3rd one and two-thirds year ago. The time then was five seventeen post meridiem.

The uselessness of keeping “time” was as pointless as having two heads attached to one heart. When the “time” came both would get there at the same moment.

(Somewhere a small chuckle could be heard. Though the sage only wrote the story as it unfolded a turn of a phrase by his own hand could make him still giggle.)

(Old men often laugh at their own jokes while the rest of the world looks puzzled. – editor note by the author)

Left undisturbed the clock on the wall would never grow old, never change. Though the dust of ages piles up upon it face, and the corrosion of the batteries spreads to eat away within. The clock would never know or feel the changing hour

Pat was very much the same. Forever stuck at one twenty-three p.m. Physically corrupted, mentally deranged, but for the spirit always the same. Time had stopped. The movie that he saw was forever set on a loop. The actors in it always moving along, developing their character, then when the plot line needed a twist a new star would appear as the older one faded from scene.

It mattered little. The movie was set upon a continuous loop. The stage would reset, the actors would take their marks, and somewhere stage right a voice would be heard saying “Action”.

Improve.

As many loops and layers of film and tape were to be used, a good actor could always improve his skill. In that one hope both the author and watcher had learned to count upon. They both had witnessed enough footage left behind in the cutting room floor.

Even now Pat knew it was time to splice, exit stage left, and in the following drop of the curtains listen to the sounds from behind the props.

Echoing footsteps upon a wooden stage.

Bit’s and Pieces from The Book of Pat

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The mountain folk were a completely different nation unto themselves. They were proof that a drawn line wasn’t what made a mixed group of people into a country. They were proof that it would make them enemies…

The forest underbrush had nearly completely obscured the trail. If not for the occasional bent reed or bare patch amongst the bracken a traveller could easily become lost in the half light of the bottom canopy.

Other than the man made tracks he was leaving behind there appeared no other sign that any other human had passed this way in generations. That was something very disheartening and troubling. The traveller had more than a lifetime of training in tracking and survival. He had even more memories of the countries landscape. Images of before and after floated across his vision, each step made on the internal magnet that could guide a homing pigeon or smart bomb to their final destination without error.

The only problem came with the now. The now could throw a wrench into any plan. The now could be raining or blazing dry, a flooded landscape or a burning forest fire. Only the Author knew for sure what the now would be. It was in that way He made sure the traveller would stay true to the story. At least that’s how everything usually went.

Alice nether knew where she was or when she had been there. The whole tumble from the one next into the other had left her a bit addled and confused. If it wasn’t for the sugary scent of strawberry glaze frosting that was currently drifting about the place Alice probably would have stayed in that kaleidoscope frame of mind for quite some time.

Hunger… Alice was very hungry. The first sounds to reach her ears was the growling of her own stomach. Soon after that conscious thought came the pain of the tight cramping knot of her guts slowly churning. The need to separate reality from delusion was to take second seat for now.

With a quick scan of the room Alice saw that presently no one was there. The rows of shelving and stacks of literature were present. The large ancient writing desk stocked with and ink well and piles of parchment paper was located just how she had seen it. The only thing absent was the box of pastry, the old man, and the ever increasing mess of sprinkles and jam about the floor.

“Damn”, Alice thought. “Missed out and stuck here, where ever here is.”

A almost unheard voice spoke from the dimness of the library. Alice almost mistook it as one of her own thoughts spoken out loud, then as the return of the insanity from the night before. “From where does the strawberry grow? From what does the hunger know?”

“Through what path have you vaulted? For what reasoning has time yet not come?”

Alice felt as if a door had opened and with the fresh in flux of air slammed yet another doorway closed. The sudden shift of pressure bringing a bit of nausea and the threatening kaleidoscope of confusion she had already overcome.

When the room returned to normal Alice noticed a few more lit candles burning, the box of pastry opened and set within arms reach from where she stood. The strange old man was busying himself with an even stranger white container with blue labeling. Without a single gaze back over his shoulder the sage asked,”Glass of lactaid free milk, Honey? I mean Alice… I fear we haven’t any honey at this moment.”

Pat sat once again in his garden. The summer heat had came earlier than expected but not so early that it would ruin the plantings. He’d have to run the drip hose more than usual until everything had set down good root.

The sky was filled with white cotton candy clouds; Each set drifting on a sea of pastel blue.

Many years ago Pat had hung many small wind chimes about the wood that surrounded his home. He had set so many so long ago that the watcher couldn’t remember where they were exactly. All Pat knew was on beautiful days like today the effort had been worth it. The native songbirds with a musical accompaniment by the wind softly off set the rustle of the trees in the cool summer breeze. “I know that reads as a horrible sentence, each word exactly accurate and the moment perfect.”

Pat was for the moment at peace with the world.