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.”
Just a few more days. If I can hold out for just a few more days then the minutes carrying me up to that moment will be forgotten. I keep telling myself that. I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it. I’ve been here before, sat in this very same chair. I’ve watched and witnessed an eternity of failed attempt’s pass by. Nothing ever changes. Not even the name.
The Traveller sat dumbfounded. How was it he had managed to become lost in such a familiar world. The directions and landmarks had been worn like an old cow trail into his brain. Yet for some reason he had managed to make a misstep. The Traveller had become lost. Standing in one place and waiting for a rescue was not an option. Panic wasn’t an option either but it was going to be.
“What the fuck…”
Pat sat disinterested in the menu before him. The choices were many but the flavors they offered bland. The same old thing with the the same old spices. Pat was sick of the choices. Pat was ready to go somewhere new even if new was some greasy meal wagon in the slum side of town.
“Change would be worth a case of the shit’s’.
The Sage sat tensely in his seat. His body rigid, head bowed, forehead covered in sweat. On occasion the old scholar would let out a low groan, then catching himself making the noise, he would shift uneasily in his seat and clench his hands in pain. Before him sat a book opened to a grotesque drawing of the large intestine. A bookmark dutifully protecting his place.
From one of the dark and disembodied corners of the room a familiar voice was muttering.
Have you ever watched the world from behind locked doors? Spent the days and nights lost in a drug filled haze? In a murky quiet found absolution from the confession of the soul?
I have…
He was a tall man. From the discolored yellow socks to the last wisp of grayed hair he would have stood an impressive seventy five inches if not for a stoop. Years of emotional withdrawal from the world around him had manifested into a passive slumping of the neck and shoulders. The effect gave the watcher the impression of a passive mouse. Nonthreatening in appearance the observer could easily dismiss what they saw as a harmless old man. Someone easily taken as feeble in mind and spirit. They’d be greatly mistaken. Only after making contact with his darting green eyes would you truly see the man before you. A spark of other worldly power flowed in them. Dark emerald mixed deeply with a hazelnut burst from some alien nebula. Somehow they expressed both an anger and peace at the same moment. With a furrowed unkept tangle of eyebrow overshadowing the slumping gaze it was not often an individual could intercept his gaze. No, the only thing most people would see of the face was an insane grin. A grin that was stretched taught across yellowed teeth, and highlighted by dry cracked lips and the drip of a thick viscous drool. Even the aperture of the mouth was overhung like the eyes by a disgusting growth of long unruly hair. These though grew out vulgarly from the nostrils, and to the disgust of any curious spectator often dripped with a condensed collection of snot or mucus.
I remember days that lasted weeks. Left alone to many nights at port, to many times on dusty roads. Mirages appear and disappear like the voices in my brain. Slowly becoming landmarks burned deep into my soul. Out there somewhere I’m looking for something lost or maybe it’s just something I’ve never seen. You never know what’s waiting there just beyond what you know. Crazy ad it is, that’s exactly where I want to go…
The cold winter night A cloudless star filled sky Only naked branches on the trees No wind to rub limbs into a screeching creak or rustle dried leaves under foot The coyote bark and howl from one hidden den Over the hill another begins their baying A chorus takes up position Navigating the dry rills, bramble filled trenches, and deer worn paths I can feel them closing the distance Each twisted trunk Every darkened hole The night comes to life with slender shadows Backlit by the northern constellations Crescent moon trailed close by Venus The haunting calls of a predator coming closer in the night But they know to tread softly across my path I too have a yearning hunger that calls, and a inner desire to be unleashed
The snow that falls Lays down its beauty at my feet Hiding imperfections beneath a frozen cloak Giving silence to any city scene Innocence to the tormenting storm And still the rain do I notice more With the chilling damp that wets the soul Leaving colors blurred to gray Like troubled thoughts on a furrowed brow Errant drops go rolling down Pooling into panes of glass Reflecting back the world above
Reverberation A high pitch mixing at the upper spectrum of a ringing chime Sharp tones of metal on metal cutting away through bone and brain Screams of pain changing over into images of lightening bolts and razor thin daggers My eyes turn to liquidized jelly They melt under the constant agony of pulses spuming forth from now empty sockets The only escape is being walled into a casket six feet down insulated by the solid earth Until the volume of gnashing and gnawing grows Louder than before a chorus of beetles and worm devour flesh In this one last sanctuary of hell the spirit unable to find release from the torment succumbs