Of War, And Peace

In the year 1805, under a cold clear sky so vast no human grasped its comprehension, the prince stopped his horse in grateful recognition. Yes, it is she! But how has she come to be here? No matter! Question not good fortune! He spurred his beloved steed forward.

In moments they regained their old selves, sitting at her cottage table as if at a swank Petersburg soiree all over again in the Before Times. They exchanged their tangibles: he fighting the French, she fleeing the devastation of the scorched earth. But they cared little for that as each hungered for a past of prancing parties and the luxury of heated arguments of the trivial.

His old friend dared ask him of his true history and position. "Have you ever been in love?"

They had never shared such frank words in the whirlwind of peaceful pursuits and misguided chases. Maybe they were lovers yet to be known. "I've been in, what seemed to me, love. Love as real as the stars but just as distant. Only mon dieu can truly answer your question. And last I checked He's not talking!"

"But what do you say?" she asked, caring to know. "What do you say of that love?"

"Vanity forces me to confess 'Yes'."

"And without your vanity?"

"Without my vanity I am lost!"

In the retreat of night they made love, finishing the foreplay of their words. She felt his love wondrously missing, as real as the stars but just as distant. Yet she also knew he'd given her his best.

"You really are missing someone, aren't you?" she said as though the thought had just occurred to her.

As if pierced by an arrow, he staggered out a perjurious "No!" as someone who feared if the truth became known it would be used against him in a court of law.

She sat back alone in bed, relaxing her head into the soft pillow. Like all human creatures she was selfish in love and unscrupulous in its taking. So it very much shocked her holding no resentment of being unable to share his starry, starry love that she herself dreamed of. She let it go, merrily drifting down life's stream with dawn's emerging light.

"I envy her."

"Envy whom?"

"Whoever that love of yours is reserved for. It can only be given to her alone, you know, and no one else."

"Perhaps," replied the prince in doubtful stance, fearing she was sentencing him to a sexless life outside his One True Love.

It's true, he thought, the night felt like a dress rehearsal, a mere practice for the actual event. What does it mean to have sex and yet still feel a virgin? Yes, he had left part of his feeling out of the night, but it was involuntary as in one being unable to feign a rhythm for an unmoving song.

***

The prince climbed back on his cherished spotted grey, only this time the sky sullen and moody in its cloudiness. Perhaps the sky too tired of the ceaseless wars of men; a pained parent watching over a wounded child. The night’s interlude had been welcomed as desert water but now it was time for his true journey and purpose. But galloping down a muddy road that in a few weeks the Russian winter would encrust in impassable ice, reality shifted for the rider, escaping him like a shaft of wheat blown from his hand.

When he had stopped at the cottage in sanctuary the previous eve, the harassing of the Napoleonic troops was his one, concrete purpose no man could deny. And it was to that rainbow now to which he returned, to chase the never attained good of war. Only now that seemed the diversion and the night before the true path. But the prince swallowed this inconvenient muse, and as he did so the clouds turned an angrier gray.

"Idiopuric" was the word the prince invented for moments like these - so often did he live them! He was trapped by a sense of unspoken obligation - the worst kind - and of being helplessly drawn to a fate whether for ill or good. The traveler rode with two minds. He knew once he reached camp he’d be heartily welcomed by other scared souls likewise squelching their doubts, hurling no questions against him. He spurred his beloved steed forward.

***

"The forest guards its secrets in dark corners of the mind."

Deep in the Russian winter, Spring is doubtful to arrive, the gloom's permanence ruling as absolutely as the Tsar's unfeeling scepter. The prince roamed piney woods lost and unadorned. Napoleon had retreated weeks ago, the Russians bringing spite to the lands, giving up the ghost. In this the Russians are most skilled in all the world: the art of giving up.

So vast her lands, many were the souls who lived and died never knowing the sway of politics or culture that passed through the cities like outposts in a sea. The serfs remained a cruel and backwards people, refusing human progress, stalled in petty power squabbles, literally gouging the eyes out of opponents. Russian nobles cringed in humiliation at the sight of the West's rising democratic ideals, but in their pride claimed to be on a superior path of state rule that need not suffer the people's assent.

This left miles and miles of shameful woods, undocumented to the world, a kingdom no man ruled. In this shrouded conspiracy trudged the prince with forlorn feet. The gift of passing one tree was to yet find another. His spotted grey friend long gone, the victim of a lucky French musket, the prince wandered in wordless woods, a man left to himself. Oh, the horror of nature's mirror.

Sleep betrayed his hopes. Waiting behind the trees were all the bullets that missed him before, now whistling back in wrathful vengeance, furious with his treason for first dodging their purpose. If he kept his eyes open, the bullets stayed at bay, but if ever to drift off...

But then a sound, followed by the figure of a man, appeared. Both men stopped to be sure of the other, then trusting their eyes ran to a clutching embrace, each exclaiming, "Thank God I came across you! I am completely lost!" Joy drained from their faces with their true revelations. The crunching of their souls continued in separate snows.

***

So where is home, wondered the prince. No quarter in the call to duty, fogged men fighting inner demons with external death. The cottage of the woman possessed no future. The prince cursed his flagrant honesty, he could have made a contract with her. And what of his true love left unfulfilled? Is there life among the stars after all?

Sitting his back against the solid trunk of a leafless oak, the prince prayed one last time for the forest to give up the secret of its exit. But deaf are the prayers of fools. Worst of all, he knew his clever lies would fail to fool the nature of these ungoverned woods. His mouth opened wide, the ancient riddle solved: with no one to hear his scream made no sound.

He loved no love, he loved no lust, heavenly white flakes descend over him in burial. What stunning commentary he'd make to those who discovered his decayed body! For he was not a man now, but a snowflake, but one of countless many fallen made one with the land of the Tsars and stars.

----------

I Am A Chinese Sex Slave Spammer

It all started with a prank at my so-called "regular" job which I hated, a job which I affectionately referred to simply as "hell". When I'm there I wish to share the hell so I called this 1-800 number I came across where they will call the person of your choosing pretending to be anyone you want and harass that person. So I did that with Rhianna, my co-worker.

Rhianna likes her job and it's a good fit for her and she's married with three kids and is a very even-keeled sort of person. That's all great and everything except when I see an even-keeled person like that I’ve just got to rock that boat. I found out before I can fool her as I once doctored an email typing in crap as if another co-worker had replied to me, then I forwarded that on to her. She says, "Oh, I didn't know Fred wanted to do that chore." Neither does Fred, laughed evil me.

So I made this harmless prank phone call to see if I could get her goat only it backfired on me and my secret life. In my secret life there's this fancy cool strip of restaurant houses down by the beach where all the cool and/or moneyed people like to frequent. It's there I like to run around naked and flash my dick at hot women. It's my only outlet you see. But Rhianna was really smart once she found out I pranked her again and backtraced the call. Damned if all things it hadn't come from one of those restaurant houses!

So sure enough as I'm pulling my shenanigans again, a black and white cop car shows up to investigate Rhianna's complaint. Of course, I don't know this, I think they're there for me because someone spotted me. I'm trapped, cut off from my car and seriously panicked. I have to hop over a couple of fences - I can't tell if the cop is chasing me or not - but in the end I'm stuck outside au natural.

While hiding I find out the truth. A huge Chinese slave operation is going on and the businesses will whore themselves out for anyone or anything as long as it makes them a buck. It's called the "Blonde Connection" because they make all the slaves' hair blonde. So that was the reason all these places were so popular and profitable behind their swank and groovy facade. I thought it was just because everyone was so cool who ran them and their customers were likewise.

For once, the cops did their homework and discovered the operation and early one morning there was a HUGE round up and search of all the places and they took out all the blonde slave kids and arrested the bosses. The cops surprised them by closing in dressed as regular people and I remember that one really tan cop in a bikini was just dynamite. In fact, one Chinese organization soldier smarted off to her on how hot she was and the next thing I know the cops are all fully clothed as everyone is deported and shut down.

The usual suspects

Since I was stuck naked for so long I lost my regular job hell and as another Chinese Restaurant house opened up and started to thrive again I was forced to go there for labor. Again, all the ritzy, flashy people were showing up and all I had was old newspapers to cover me. I waited for an isolated moment to confront the hostess and ask to work there. She may have been a slave but you still had to be edgy and lively to front the place so I feared facing her and what she'd think of my newspaper clothing chic.

She was very doubtful of me but I was insistent knowing that because I was willing to whore myself out the Chinese overloads would find a place for me. Finally she lets me in the back to a waiting area to be processed. My sister has fouled up her life too and she's joined me in the pursuit of pressed whoredom. After a few long, anxious moments we are accepted and led down a dark hallway to an elevator and told to go to the fourth floor. Like a Dr. Who Tardis, the place only got bigger the further you went inside it.

A resentful Chinese guy gets on the elevator with us. It's obvious he belongs to the place and knows the layout but I keep wondering if he's resentful of my American sister and me or if he's just resentful in general. I was keenly aware of the vulnerability of my ignorance of the Chinese operation and knew he could trip us up if chose to so I was painstakingly monitoring his every action without trying to give away I didn’t trust him one whit in this sordid house I was to call "home."

Sure enough, I see him jacking with the elevator controls but I thought I saw how to undo what he did as he got off. But dammit if he wasn't trickier than I thought and my sister and I ended up on the seventh floor, not the fourth. Instantly I saw what a grave mistake that was as it was very plush and residential with these long carpeted hallways and mammoth room of luxury to the left where I assumed the owners lived. I had no doubt this was an area I should not tread without permission and I got so rattled I dropped the carafe of wine I was carrying, leaving an ugly spot on the expensive carpet. Shit!

I start running down the hallway only a Chinese girl - one of the owner's daughters I presumed - called me back. She was pissed but firm and told me to clean up the mess and report to work downstairs where I belonged. She did not fire me on the spot as I expected and maybe she knew that as a newbie someone probably played a prank on me to have me wandering the forbidden seventh floor. I took solace in this glimmer of intelligence but wondered if I'd ever come across anyone else like her where I was headed.

My sister went off to the whoring area because she was good at that from her previous job in real estate fucking. I however can't do sex for money even if I choose such a path. I can neither patronize a prostitute nor be one, it holds no allure for me. So I was forced into menial labor jobs and I had to hang out with a bunch of toothless people who remain in a perpetual state of filth and despair. I didn't want to seem like a snob but I am one and I need a better class of people to hang out with. But such was not my circumstance - nor was any change on the horizon to my black, windowless world.

A taste of life came my way in the basement one day where I found the manufacture of Japanese artifacts including samurai swords (though I couldn't tell the quality, which was important to me). The slave girls were very friendly to me there and like, "Oh you like Japanese stuff?" and I was like, "Yes, yes!" and they let me look around and it was wonderful even though it was just a flavor of life if not an actual feeding.

While down there I came across Successful Radio Guy who'd always been a jack of all trades and currently had a call-in show about cars, which made me very jealous of his life. As we walked along I told him how much I admired his work and then I found out this large banner hanging on the wall was one painted by him. It was a lovely Japanese scene and I envied his many talents and I was like, "Damn, I didn't know you could do that!"

Then I remembered that, oh yeah, back in the day he used to take requests for making banners only it got so popular he had to publicly quit. But he was still making them on the side apparently and he told me of his wonderful life in the outside world where his talents afforded him such a lovely ride. Not that I want to be a commercial painter but I truly envied him because I saw he was a much more developed person than I am and that's what facilitated a pathway for his talents to shine.

I also spied something else going on there at the end of the day. Some of the rich couples bonded with the small Chinese boys who served their meals and devised a way to steal them away from their lives of slavery. The boys were forced to be anonymous, wearing paper bags over their heads but the Chinese masters had outsmarted themselves this time. A couple would call in one boy, act like he never came, then request the boy they wanted to escape with. They'd return the first boy as if he were the second who they then took away to a new life free of this dark house of oppression.

"That's a way out," I surmised. "Making a human connection." But I am an unfriendly and cowering sort which is why I was running around naked in the first place. Human connection, me? But that's when I came across Open Salon when I was moved to the industrial spam section. There I could meet a better class of people (for the most part) than the Dirty Toothless Ones who surround me on a day-to-day basis. No way could I let anyone know my true circumstance so I picked a nomenclature of NormalPerson to fool everyone.

It worked great and I fooled some people into thinking I was a normal person in reality as I sat nude and twisted in my dark room lit only by the light of a monitor. It was tough reading about the Lives Of Others and finally had to pass on those posts as I continued to write in my off hours of a life imagined which everyone thought was real - and of my true life which everyone thought I was making up. The guilt, of course, caught up with me and the stealing of friendships is not a sustainable path. So I have resigned myself to a life of manufacturing spam and ill will, my blog drifting through cyberspace unknown and misunderstood and I myself praying for an early grave.

-----------------------------

Supermom Loses Her Cape

"Whatever you do, don't expect your son to entertain you. That's not his job. You are a person of high passion, dear Julia, thusly you invoke high passion in others. If your son believes he needs to entertain you he will most certainly die trying to do so."

- the mystic prophet of the Celts

The words branded her the moment she heard them, cursing the prophet as the flames of truth singed her soul. And yet, like Moses standing before the Burning Bush, she cowered before the flames in tears, realizing for the first time the life's love she'd rejected. The precious idol of her self-image had toppled and she thanked God no one was in the room to see it. But that did not stop her from feeling as if the whole of the universe knew.

But she never consulted the prophet again, lest he further wound her chances at successful motherhood - to her the most precious of all gifts. Never had it crossed her mind not to have children. She came from a strong family tradition and because she benefited from that she also felt the obligation to continue it, a heritage of love and support. Julia couldn't wait for her chance and God help any force of the universe that stood between her and her children!


Only, it turned out not to be so simple. Damn the prophet! He knew of her Missing Piece, he'd read her soul and seen all. Oh what had possessed her to go to him? She wanted to go back to her time of blissful ignorance, of never doubting herself. She'd been so sure when entering his tent! I am Mother, hear me roar! But the Lioness walks in solitary silence now.

Though unconfessed, she was secretly grateful for the prophet's words, pulling a hidden thorn from her side. Julia knew if she had children without solving the riddle of the Missing Piece of her life her children would pay. The prophet had made it all real and alive - undeniable. So real, in fact, she even failed to rejoice in the news she'd have a son. Would she in the end let down the generations who both preceded her and to follow? With great gifts comes great responsibility.


Despite the hidden thorn, previously she knew the sleep of anticipation - but those days were gone. Now her nights were filled wrestling with blind doubt. "This is too hard! You ask too much!" Her sweat soaked sheets despaired of her being made pariah in her family, The Woman Who Drove Her Son To Death. And her demon had a name: boredom. It's driving lash drove her mercilessly in her prison, precious drops of entertainment like rain in the desert. She must have it!


Like an addict's needle was her family's wealth, stringing her out in its service, keeping the Missing Piece forever out of reach. Julia told no one of the prophet's words and like all secrets it came to consume her life in search for confession. She found her confessor in a traveling circus clown. He fed her laughs as a grateful servant, melting her resistance in helpless desire. She consummated the deal with this blowing leaf never to be seen again, safe from her family's eyes.


But the plan had been for a man of the community, a rock of good faith, to be the foundation of her family.

With the unfaceable shame of reckless impregnation, Julia fled to the poor quarters of a port town on the coast of England. She gave birth to a son, John. Unable to cope, she reached out to her sister Mimi, the only possible member of her family who might understand. Together they cared for him, nursing him along, but all the while Julia drowned in the responsibility. More than anything she feared passing the misery of her life onto her son.


When the boy was five he had to make a decision. Julia and Mimi stood side by side and the boy was asked to choose with whom he wanted to live. He picked his aunt Mimi. Julia gave up contact with her son, setting him free. Better to lose his love than drive him to death. As for life, she was just in it for the laughs and good times now, an unwilling, defeated entertainment whore.


It was doing what she wanted that scared her the most. Despite being made outcast in her family, she still clung to their obligations in a guilty sense of duty. Never did she give herself permission to pursue herself and at last find the Missing Piece. No, she of the one night infamy with a traveling clown ("Of all people to sire your child, Julia!") duly punished herself in moral self-denial - and it ate her alive. Life was reduced to the endless pursuit of stolen smiles.

John was fifteen when he discovered the woman around the bend with her wicked sense of humor. He spied her talking to a neighbor woman and right in the middle of the conversation she casually rubbed her eye - right through her glasses! She wore the frames without lenses just to sneak the joke in whenever she got the chance. John was instantly in love with her. Got to love a free spirit such as she, for no one was freer than Johnny boy!


John only did what he wanted (to the great consternation of his aunt Mimi). He left the dying for others to do. Life was magical and ancient and he put all his trust in it. His teachers, his screaming aunt, even the parents of his friends chastised him to bend to the world, to be "practical". But he fiercely clung to his dreams of life, picking up where his mother had left off. Julia hadn't realized it, but in her weakness she'd been made strong and the lineage she passed to her son more beautiful than the stars.


It was to John's amazement when told it was his mother who was the fearless jokester, living around the corner all these years. They became famous friends, she feeding his free spirit, encouraging him to find his Missing Piece. She may have been broken and weak but in her John found a safe haven. Above all, she understood. Her being made pariah from the family unshackled her: find what life has to give. Happiness of the heart is not a sin!

Julia sang to John's unborn songs. Rock and roll fitted him and while his aunt famously scolded, "A guitar's alright, John, but you'll never earn a living by it," Julia shared in John's dreams knowing she had no right to judge having never found her own. That was the only wall between them. Julia saw the light in her son's eyes, but she never "got" his music, unable to travel that far down the road of life. But finding a "mate" in his mum further cemented this wonderful, mystical feeling he was on the right path. He would take her to the stars she never reached.


That is until an off duty cop came careening around the corner one night, running her over and killing her. But though they knew each other only a short time in earthly moments, they loved a lifetime and now sing together in the heavens.

---------

Half of what I say is meaningless

But I say it just to reach you

Julia

Oceanchild

Calls me

So I sing a song of love

Julia

Seashell eyes

Windy smile

Calls me

So I sing a song of love

Julia

Her hair of floating sky is shimmering

Glimmering

In the sun

Julia

Morning moon

Touch me

So I sing a song of love

Julia

When I cannot sing my heart

I can only speak my mind

Julia

Sleeping sand

Silent cloud

Touch me

So I sing a song of love

Julia

Calls me

So I sing a song of love

For Julia

Women Woes Of White Wine Willie

My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.

I was sitting on a park bench
on the edge of humanity
on a weak day after noon

I saw no friends about me

The strange, warm autumnal sun and its muted light
made me reflect time and space misspent

I watched mothers with their strollers
lovers with their stroking
and others with their roaming
between the soft shadows
and I wondered:

"I have no life, no hope, no dreams
no family, no friends, no fucking
I know why I want to die
but why do they choose death?"

***

Waves of pain wash over me, swimming as an outcast from the ark of Noah as the heavy waters rise. My radar shuts down in moments like these and I had no fucking desire to talk as Willie plops down beside me in his usual unflappable way. My glassy eyes slowly turn to see the brown-papered bottle in his hand. I lash out.

"You weak bitch!"

"One tries!" he grinned, taking a gulp.

"The minute you get a little change in your pocket you run right out and get your 'medication'. It's fucking ridiculous!"

"Doctor's orders!" He takes another unrepentant swig.

"You're just a helpless bitch!" Last thing I wanted to see was another trapped, hapless human like me. Goddam him!

"You know, Harry, for guys alone like us, dying sorta makes sense, don't it?"

He knew I knew what he meant. For some "alone" means not being with someone, for wretches like us it means you can't be with someone. Willie was right. May as well die. At least he snapped me out of my reverie - which was a good thing?

So he goes on to tell me one of his usual female adventures - or attempted adventures more like it. He really came across a live one this time.

Motherfucking-asshole-son-of-bitch-FUCKER! Get outta my face!

"That's what she says to me and I tell her all I said was hello."

Motherfucking-asshole-son-of-bitch-FUCKER! You don't fool me! You just want someone you can just shit on and leave!

"So I asks her if it OK I say goodbye even."

Motherfucking-asshole-

"OK, I get it I say, but she then gets mad I cut her off."

You interruptin' me, you sexist pig? Hey, aren't there any real men around here? Who's going to be my guilty hero and beat this creep up?

"I'm looking around and shit if there ain't a bunch of angry looking dudes headed my way."

"I know what I would have done."

"Way ahead of you. I open up my hand and bitch slap the holy hell out of her!"

Oh, aren't you the nicest man! You have the strongest hands! Please shit on me in the worst way possible!

"Then she follow me around like a cat I just fed. Was 45 minutes before I could ditch her."

I'm shaking my head with a crooked smile from the corner of my mouth. "Willie, you ever think of hanging around a better class of woman?"

"Sure I do. All the time. Those women want nothing to do with me!"

"What about that Anna chick? She had an elegance about her."

Willie stared into his bottle absorbing the blow I had inadvertently delivered. Mentally I watched him crawl inside, trying to make himself safe from the pain. His eyes looked up ahead at nothing. "Didn't work out."

This was one of those times where silence offers the best consolation and we sat sharing the park bench in wounded woe: he thinking of Anna and me my reverie. I wondered if we looked as normal to the rest of the park goers as they seemed to me. Did we look like two friends enjoying the day in coordinated company as opposed to the two lost souls of happenstance we were? A dead leaf drifted down to our feet as if in answer.

"I can't figure it, Harry. I see these great women and I think: She's too good for me. I see these other women and I think I'm too good for them. I'm trapped in limbo land, unable to make a case for myself. I don't want the woman who says she's willing to be with White Wine Willie." Willie took an extra long dose from the bottle.

The answer was obvious. "Isn't there anyone who'd be happy with just plain o' Willie?" No note of condescension was in my voice. Willie bucked up, staring me in the eye, feeling his fiber.

"Anyone happy with just plain ol' Harry?" he offered.

***

We looked away to avoid black abyss

each alone with his miseries

as the shadows edged forward

I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream.

- Dylan Thomas

------------------------------

Housebound

The pounding on the front door thundered louder, hungry for an answer.

"You freak! Go away, loser! Get off my goddam back!" No change in the rapid fire beating. "Stop it! You have no right! Leave me alone! Leave me be, you monster!"

Finally, the monster stopped - and my heart started. I drew the blinds and covered the openings into my house, sealing out the Beast completely. That was a close one! But the Beast has found me once more. I am not safe.

I have never seen the Beast, but I know it comes to kill, its urgent knock a sure sign of the apocalypse of my wicked, wicked ways. If you were to ask me how to be safe I have no answer. Feeling safe is all I can ask for. So I flipped on the TV to the Religious War Money News Network and they told me all about the Beast:

"The Beast is coming to kill us all! It cannot be bargained with, it cannot be reasoned with, and it absolutely will not stop EVER until you are dead!"

I knew it! And it's officially on the news - it must be true! I'm not sticking my ass out the damn door! But...I am pretty miserable stuck inside here all the time. Mr. Boner keeps asking to go outside and it can't be reasoned with either. We're killing people all over the world but nobody knows the exact one who is the Beast. I can't wait until he's dead so I can be free!

Your rent is overdue! sayeth the Beast

Forever trapped, I lay in the dark on my bed, open-mouthed and empty, dreaming of a life for me, to never be. Who am I? The man on the bed or the man in my head? Neither one seems true...

The phone rings...is it her? I hurriedly stumble off the bed, smacking my knee on the chest as I round the corner. "Hello?" Yes, it's her! Telephone Survey Lady. I'm all smiles as I answer.

"Hey!!! How are you?...That was really funny last time!...I know, I know. You can never leave your job or I'll die!..." We talk and laugh about news of the day, tentatively exploring one another in ways mere eyes never can. She never speaks it - she being the essence of class - but she risks trouble on her job calling me over and over like this.

Both the good and bad news is she brings out the best in me. "Oh, haha, I know! People who never leave their houses are such losers! They have no faith in life! What idiots!" Yes, I mock those just like me. I speak of my dream life as if it's real life, stealing her friendship over the line. So while talking to her is heaven, deceiving her is hell. What to do?

Somehow I have to go out and get a life before she finds out what a freaky fraud I am. Jesus, the pressure! I remain helpless in my fear of the Beast, doubtlessly hiding in the bushes to slowly devour me in perpetual agony. Who can risk such a thing? She does. She made the break into the daylight.

Nothing makes me feel good anymore...what use is all the money in the world if I can't leave my house...at night I make prank phone calls telling people they are worthless and the Beast loves only me...those who've faced the Beast just laugh and hang up...but most get angry and it is they with whom I spend my time wallowing in the gutter...after I hang up I wonder what Telephone Survey Lady would say if she'd heard me...my hearts twists in ever-tightening torment like a wet rag wrung dry...

"Telephone surveys are dumb!...Who does telephone surveys? Not anyone cool!...Know what I really think of a telephone surveyor? I think-" the line goes dead, she never calling me again. I tell myself I did her a favor, so why is it I'm dying? If she'd found out my address I was dead meat anyway. I deserve to die in the dark. What am I to her but a voice on the phone anyway, right?

And yet...

Crawling under a blanket, peaceful sleep is lost from me forever. Words slip from my mouth, I reach out to grab them but they slip through my fingers. What if I can never grab them for the paper again? It just keeps getting worse and worse; the justice of God. The Grim Reaper sharpens his scythe in snarky anticipation, sweat drips in puddled despair. I know what's meant for the likes of me. And then, as if in answer, the front door shudders anew from the furious fist.

OK, OK. I give up. Better to die than listen to one more cursed minute of that goddam pounding!

Eyes lowered in drowsy doom, I open the door to face the Beast's wrath. My jaw drops in surprise. "You're no beast! You're really - "

And then I was hushed to silence.

--------------------------

Lives Like Autumn Leaves

"Debbie come home."

A longing phrase whispered in the night, summing up a life dead-ended. Walking through the cots in a night shelter gives one the sense of God, hearing the bared prayers and soft supplications locked tight during the staged day. That was Fred's whisper I heard and whoever Debbie was he certainly has no home to offer her. She could reside two blocks away and the gap between them would still be as the stars.

Doris is a rather large black woman who spends a great deal of her time just sitting on the sidewalk a few dozen yards from the shelter. She's very approachable without an ounce of bitterness in her. In the real world she's a superstar. I measure myself against her when tempted to drink from the cup of self-pity. Even in my private moments I fear what she'd say, knowing her true light is out there.

A Baptist preacher from one of our sponsoring churches was making the rounds of the "streeters" who feel more comfortable outside than in (like me). I know I'm not supposed to speak ill of the churches who sometimes are the only ones who acknowledge we exist, but sometimes I feel we are nothing more than a check box to them to be marked off as a good deed done. I'm not a cow to be processed despite the slaughterhouse world I live in.

So this preacher goes up to Doris smiling and she responds in kind just like she does for anyone who approaches her. He starts in on some lecture of the Word or whatnot, I couldn't really hear his words but you could tell from the body language and tone he was meaning to impart wisdom - even if he wasn't. What I did hear was Doris' classic reply: "But Father, if God love me any more I'm just gonna die!"

Whitfield - only name I heard associated with him - was an actor of the finest kind. Acting is done to one degree to another here by lots of folks but I truly appreciate the ones who take it to a whole other level. Whitfield's got a story to tear your heart out, a pure victim of circumstance. He dressed the part with his suburban white clothes laced with a middle class background of one who'd done everything right but it still wasn't enough. Damn this world of ours!

But it was sheer fabrication. Whitty was an observer and seeing the tale to sell he molded in his mind the life story most suitable. Not often you get a master weaver of storytelling but they do come through on a regular basis, driven by the pathology of their situation. I doubt even a real actor could pull off the con these guys do but then actors don't have the same life and death motivation.

These guys are hell to spot. When first hearing their story your mind says, "My God! My God! Don't let that be true! Don't let that be the true face of our society!" But if you keep your mind open and remove all prejudice - a tricky thing to do to remove the advocacy - one can hear the false note that inevitably pops up: a fact too well emphasized or a point made out of concert, "Why did he say that??" Once the spell is broken you get to the heart of the matter even if you know your storyteller will never come clean, the truth too shattering, living a lie to get by.

Gerald the Russian Jew, now there was a breath of fresh air! Man, if only I could can what he's got. Gotta love a guy who yells at a WWII movie on TV: "You never in war! You just acting!" We're all looking at each other like, "Who is this guy?" He too was a con man but not like Whitfield who created a story as a buffer from reality. Gerald loved to weave fact and fiction together to the point you had no way of telling what was real or what was not. I suspect this was his way telling the world he too could not tell what was real and what was not.

He'd make these wild bullshit statements like, "In St. Petersburg all the kids learn Klingon so parents not understand what they say." Who the hell knows if it's true but it's a damn great story! But deep down I really do want to know it if is true, the crazy mind fucker. But it was watching him interact with Maria that was truly delicious. Maria, the Grande Dame as we mockingly called her, was of the ilk who preferred makeup over food. She maintained the pretense of her previous life at all costs - often to the disgust of the rest of us just scraping by.

Gerald was drawn into her like a helpless magnet. But he was a rolling stone and she an impenetrable rock, doom rising on the horizon. It did make for one of the oddest exchanges in a place of odd exchanges. Even if repressed, it was clear to anyone watching the exploding chemistry between the two, then Gerald pops out: "Maria? Your name's Maria? My dick is named Maria!" The room just erupted in laughter and shocked smiles. Steam belched out of Maria's burning red ears and Gerald surprisingly seemed taken aback by our reaction. But like I said, he was truly a breath of fresh air.

Afterwards I felt I had to say something to him about his words - even though a little voice told me not to. Like most Jews, Gerald was an old soul and had traveled paths most never knew. But I know a few paths of my own so I told him he wasn't really impressing Maria with talk like that.

"Who want impress?" His hawkish nose showed me its disdain. "I put her off good!"

He stood there ramrod straight waiting for me to catch on, the wheels in my mind spinning furiously but I was too flustered to make the connection. Then he turns on me, flushing my face and waving me off with, "Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner." Gerald had stung me well. I hate it when I try to pigeonhole people and I end up with egg all over my face. Keep.Mind.Open. Gerald the rolling stone moved on, painfully aware he had no life to offer Maria even though he wished it in his soul. So truth became opposite and he'd brushed her away.

Many are the lives I see here, detached like autumn leaves separated from the Tree of Life. Their lives turning hopelessly brown without the nourishment they need, leaving them to dry up and blow away and rarely do we see the final resting place.

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Ten thousand years ago we sang this tune with the angels

New Poll: 3% Of Americans Have A Brain!

I know, I know - seemed sorta high to me too. But Jesus called us sheep for a reason: the inability to go beyond one dimensional thinking. When asked what the most pressing problem we have today in America, 3% wild-eyed, out-of-touch-with-reality radicals said the war in Afghanistan. And who knows, those were probably Fox News Junkies in permanent fear mode, all terrorism/all the time.

So how does one control a sheep? (nevermind there's no actual benefit to it). Simple, one cracks the foundation to his home. He can't see that crack (without investigating) but he can see the resulting cracks it creates in the walls. But every time the sheep patches his wall you just shift his foundation in another direction, new cracks form and so on and so on. You'll be giggling your ass off as the wife yells at her husband for doing a lousy job of fixing things while he lambastes the government for not providing better plaster. People is funny!

At first, you're sorta scared, asking yourself: "Won't they catch on? Won't they kill me when they find out?" But they never do! And you get bolder and bolder in shifting the foundation until you jettison all regard for reality. You knock on the sheep's front door telling him you've come to care of "Those darn, crappy walls!" Husband and wife sheep gratefully acknowledge your "helping" as you take a fire ax and chop the crap out of the house. Then you wipe your hands in alleged accomplishment declaring, "That will keep you safe! Mission accomplished!" The sheep give a standing ovation.

Three percent. Is it really that high?

Not surprisingly, Americans claim jobs and the economy as the number one priority. But somehow there's a disconnect between our massive war budget and our lack of money and rising deficits. But even if we could afford this war it's still the one driving factor of our current self-destruction: lack of concern for human life. The same madness that feeds our greed cracks the foundation of our present and future. We must first remove the fog from our eyes if we are to see our way out of this mess or we are condemned to continue making one blind tragic decision after another.

Obama has been the perfect front man for the war:

When an ABC News/Washington Post poll released in early September directly asked how important a number of issues would be in deciding how to vote for Congress in November, the economy, health care and the budget deficit were all rated as very important or the single most important issue more often than the war was. In contrast, in the period leading up to the 2006 midterm elections, the war in Iraq and concerns about terrorism trumped all other issues in Times/CBS News national polls. Amid broad dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq that year, American voters ushered in a new Democratic majority in Congress.

It's obvious when an anti-Christ is waging a war as to the evil of it, but Obama has soothed the left into submission, putting them to sleep with poppy fields of a never-to-be promised peace ("I want to get out but just can't!") and praising the illusion we are killing the bad guys. We are the bad guys over there. His siren song of pretty predator drones and reluctant collateral damage leaves only the "unreasonable" as protesters. Well, you're goddam right I'm unreasonable when it come to senseless mass murder!

A faceless thing, an evil thing.

Lack of focus should not be confused with support for the war. On the contrary: Americans’ assessments of the war are grim. A majority in the September Times/CBS News poll said the United States should not be involved in Afghanistan now, up 15 percentage points since December. And most said the war was going badly, down from its peak but well above the reading in the early years of the war, when broad majorities said it was going well.

That's like saying, "Yes, I don't support having this cancer but the real problem is I don't feel good." Well, trust me, pal, you're certainly enacting a permanent solution for your disease by ignoring it: six feet underground. Americans are angry, but they are angry like someone who gets the bill after running up his credit card. What exactly are we expecting? Good times? There's no contrition, just "Get me out of this mess!" But no one wants to see if we need a new foundation, that's not even part of the discussion. Only bad people have to change, good thing we're the good guys!

It's true the world is a dangerous place and there are those bent on killing us regardless, but we're all going to die anyway. The choice remains: we can die doing the right thing or the wrong thing. It's sheer folly to believe we can control the world and yet that's our agenda and stated goal ("Can't let the nukes fall in the wrong hands!"). Instead of maintaining our beacon of light we are extinguishing it in the name of freedom and self-preservation. This I can tell you: if you don't see the reason to leave Afghanistan now you never will until it's too late.

As we continue down this path with no one standing for peace, that leaves us in our minds with the only seeming solution of increasing war as bombing operations for Iran commence. War is a burden and there's no such thing as a good one. Our blind faith in the idea it's keeping us safe is hopelessly naive. The so-called terrorists can't kill us, only we can do that. If we start doing the right thing it will snowball us in the other direction. Admitting a mistake won't kill us, but not admitting it certainly will:

Until the unemployment rate begins to fall dramatically, most Americans seem to feel that they cannot afford to focus on the war. “Jobs are the prevailing issue for everyone right now — we need to focus on jobs,” said one poll respondent, Michael Santalucia, a 47-year-old Democrat from Beavercreek, Ohio. “I don’t know how much we can do about Afghanistan right now, but we can do something about jobs here.”

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