The Central Punchline

People Person

2009-05-18T10:02:00.002-04:00

By popular request (by which I mean two kinda buzzed people in a bar that may have been just humoring me) I am posting my horror story that I wrote for my horror class last semester. Enjoy:

Aaron could not sleep. It was three in the morning and he was completely awake. He had managed to nod off for a few hours here and there, but now when he closed his eyes he did not feel tired at all.

“But this is to be expected,” Aaron thought to himself, watching the shadows on the ceiling. “Nothing can be done about it.”

After all, it was very natural for him to have trouble sleeping on this particular night. He was living in an apartment that had no furniture, in a city that he had moved to only last Sunday. And he had started at a great new job last Monday. It was all very fast and exciting. It was very natural for him to have trouble sleeping. But, more than anything else, he was wide-awake because he was going to be on national television in the morning.

Not that Aaron was very worried about going on T.V. He had given many televised press conferences since getting into the public representation business more than five years ago. But in this new job, he performed the duties of a national press agent for the first time in his whole career. Aaron had never had so much responsibility before. His face would be all over the national news tomorrow and yes, he admitted to himself, he was a bit nervous.

But nerves were just an annoying necessity in a job such as this one. If you aren’t nervous than you won’t do a good job. He did his best work when he was right on the edge. It’s when I start to relax that I get lazy, he thought.

The silence of the bedroom was broken by a bump somewhere. It seemed to come from the other side of the door next to his closet, but Aaron quickly ignored it. When he had moved in on Sunday, Aaron had not liked that door next to his closet. It opened from his bedroom into a long hallway that led out to the sidewalk. It was some sort of last minute fire escape built onto the back of the apartments.

But he really did not like having a door that connected his bedroom directly to the street and all the people in it. On top of that, the place was old and falling apart. And all the other apartments in the building were empty, he was the only person living in the whole place. I will have to find another place soon, Aaron thought, and I will find it myself instead of having an assistant do it.

Then he heard another strange noise. It was definitely coming from the door next to his closet. Some people had wandered off the street into the hallway, he could hear them talking. They might come right up to the doorstep of his bedroom at any moment. Aaron sighed and decided to get up to deal with them. He tumbled out of bed onto the empty hardwood floor. It was difficult to stand back up and his legs felt weak. He unlocked the door and went out into the hallway.

It was dark and dirty out there. A dingy little porch ceiling covered the almost outdoor hall. Aaron’s door was at the very end of the corridor and he could see the whole thing. Looking down it, there were boarded up doors to the left. On the right there were windows that just looked at the brick wall of the building behind the apartments. And down at the other end of the hall, Aaron saw people coming in from the sidewalk down toward his bedroom.

“Hey you can’t be in here,” Aaron tried to yell with authority but his voice just croaked quietly. They laughed at him, maybe because his voice was so quiet. There were two big guys with a young girl. She couldn’t have been much over twenty. Aaron attempted to yell again but his throat was very dry. They kept walking toward him so he ran down the hall and pushed one of the guys who stumbled back a little and called Aaron a wimp. This made Aaron very angry and he tried to push all three of them out of the hallway. He used all of his strength to put them back out onto the sidewalk. But his hands couldn’t grip and just slipped across their ski jackets. His momentum carried him forward and he fell on his face. All three of the strangers laughed and then just walked away. He heard them continue to laugh harder when they got back out on the street. The girl blew him a sarcastic kiss, and then they were gone.

Aaron just lay there a moment with his face against the dirty floor. He was very tired and it felt good to be lying down. After a moment he sat up and leaned his back against one of the boarded up doors. All the other apartments in the building were empty, so the owner had put plywood over most of the doors in the back. At one time, it seemed, the bedroom of each apartment had opened up into the back hallway. That way, there was way a direct path from the bedroom to the outdoors without having to go through the living room.

That’s stupid, Aaron thought. Probably just some fire code thing, but still, it’s not safe. He looked back toward his own bedroom at the end of the hall. The two big guys and the young girl were standing in front of his bedroom door. They stared at him without expression. Aaron stood up with some difficulty and faced them. Their expressions didn't change. They seemed like mannequins. Aaron could not figure out how they had gotten around him and down the hallway without him noticing. He looked all around at the shadow and dirt of the hall, and then he suddenly recognized one of the guys. He had gone to high school with him some fifteen years ago. Aaron furrowed his brow: who wears a ski jacket in August?

Oh I see, he thought. But instead of saying it out loud, he made the man at the end of the hall do it.

“You’re dreaming,” the man said and Aaron jolted his head up from the pillow and quickly cast a glance around the bedroom. Just his suitcase, his bed, and the bare hardwood floor.

‘I had better not be tired for my press conference tomorrow,’ thought Aaron but then he once again reassured himself that it was good to worry. He would really have something to worry about if he were not worried at all about going on national T.V. for the first time.

He dug his head back into the pillow and felt the whispering waves start to slowly sink him down into the plush cradle of the mattress. Amidst a great wash of relief, he slowed his breathing and relaxed more and more and more…

“Aaron,” came a woman’s voice from the door next to his closet. “Aaron can you hear me?”
He ignored the sound and curled a little tighter into the covers.

“Aaron you can’t go to sleep yet,” she said through the door. “There’s still one more thing to do.”
He sighed deeply. There was always just one more thing to do before he could finally rest. He got up out of bed again. When he opened up the door a rush of light struck him in the eyes.

The hallway air was lit up a glittering bright yellow and the walls were freshly painted white. None of the other doors along the left of the hall were boarded shut anymore, and on the floor there was a vivid green carpet. A young girl (the same one as before?) stood at the entrance to his bedroom smiling sweetly at him. Her left eye was badly bruised and blood that matched her lipstick trickled out the corner of her mouth. She looked very nice in her little yellow nightshirt.

“Hello I’m Aaron,” he said. “What’s your name?”

She grabbed two of his fingers in her tiny hand and started to lead him back down the bright hallway in silence.

“I’m going to be on T.V. tomorrow, “ he said, yawning as he followed her.

The shimmer of the air in the hallway felt oddly real, oddly lucid. Aaron was aware of the faint notion that he was still dreaming, though he didn’t much care. Mostly he was just exhausted on his feet and was barely able to stand. He wanted to apologize to the young girl taking him down the hallway: sorry, I have to go back to bed now, some very important things to do in the morning. But it wasn’t so bad being there. He would follow her for a little bit more and after…

She then suddenly stopped walking forward and Aaron took a deep breath of surprise. Quickly spinning around to face him, she clapped a hand onto his chest. Taken aback, Aaron grabbed her hand and held on tight. His head swirled amid the look of wonder and terror in her eyes. The lightbulbs crescendoed into a hot, blinding glare. And then, just when Aaron thought he'd never be able to see again, the lights all quickly snapped back to their former soft glitter. For a moment, a distinct after-lightning purple clouded his vision, and Aaron began to realize that he was now all alone.

He looked around the white walls and yellow light of the hallway but she was gone. Instead of her hand he was now holding a broken off table leg. Aaron felt a little too sad to be confused. He was sorry that she had left and wished very much that she would come back. But as he turned to go back to his bed, he realized he was standing in front of an open door. It led into one of the apartment bedrooms. Inside, there were many soft swirling colors and he could see a big comfy chair in the corner. It was a very nice bedroom, if perhaps a little outdated. Aaron thought that he would like to have a nice bedroom just like this one some day, when there was time. Then he noticed that the bedside table. It had been was injured. That was sad. Some one had knocked it over and one of its legs was missing. The same table leg that Aaron was gripping in his hand.

He peeked around the doorframe to see the rest of the room. On the bed, two big men were feverishly doing something. One was pushing his fists into the mattress, while the other had a hand in the sheets while undoing his belt.

Aaron furrowed his brow and looked closer.

The first man wasn’t just pushing into the mattress, but was actually pinning down her arms. The second man was trying to hold her knees open while getting his pants off at the same time. The bruise on her eye was smaller than before, but there was more blood coming from her mouth. It colored all of her teeth and smeared in lines across her cheek. Her whole body squirmed in the little yellow nightshirt. And though he was suddenly deaf for some reason, it was clear that she was crying, desperate to get free. Aaron did not take a moment to think. He marched into the room and, with all his strength, brought the table leg in his hand across the skull of the man fiddling with his pants. A bright red mist sprayed sideways, and in one fluid motion Aaron swung the table leg back around into the bridge of the other man’s nose. It made a sharp wet crunch. With a perplexed detachment, Aaron saw the man’s face completely collapse under the wooden leg. Aaron's head was filled with only one sound. He could hear her scream and scream and scream.

***

A week later Aaron was still under a lot of stress. Everyone had told him that the press conference had gone really well. His coworkers had taken him out for drinks afterwards, but he was still unhappy. It could have gone so much better. The questions about his company’s non-domestic banking practices had been tough, but he knew just how to answer all of them. And he had said all the right things. It was just that he had not responded quickly enough, confidently enough.

‘No it is ok,’ he told himself as he came back to his office from a weekly briefing. ‘No one is perfect the first time. It is good to have high standards but I should not let that get in the way of my focus. There will be another press conference next month, and I will know how to practice and be prepared for them this time. The next one will be easier and I will do much better.’
He was about to go sit at his desk and makes notes on his brief when his assistant, Caitlyn, cleared her throat right next to him.

“Yes?” asked Aaron earnestly.

“Your messages,” she said, and held them out.

“Oh yeah,” he chuckled while rolling his eyes to show he knew how absent-minded he was.

“You know,” said Caitlyn, “the Vice President of Public Relations was talking to the CFO in the hall over there after the briefing.”

“Really?” Aaron looked up from his messages.

“They said that you’re dreadful at your job,” she joked and they both laughed. Then she continued. “But really: they were talking about how the press conference last week seems to have brought back some positive numbers.”

“Already?” said Aaron with a little look of surprise.

“Yep,” she said.

“Why wouldn’t they say anything about that at the briefing?” Aaron already sort of knew the answer to his own question, but he wanted her to feel like she was showing him the ropes of the office.

“They probably just wanted to wait and see if the public opinion stats continue to rise for another week before they announce it,” said Caitlyn, and then added, “to avoid panic with the stock in case it doesn’t hold out.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” said Aaron, nodding his head up and down real big. He took a moment to reflect on the news. “Well that’s great.”

“Just thought you’d like to know,” she said and shrugged.

“You’re the best, Caitlyn,” he said and then smiled real big. “Really, I mean it.”

Aaron had developed a good habit for talking with his assistants. He tended to chat with them as though he wanted to flirt, but was just too nice and professionally dedicated to actually do it. It seemed like the right way to do it and it worked well.

As he went through his messages at his desk, Aaron thought about the conversation between the VP and CFO. Why would they talk about focus group numbers out where anyone could hear them? It may have been a conversation that was staged for Caitlyn’s benefit. There was no reason for them to talk in that exact spot, especially after coming from the conference room all the way on the top floor. Maybe they figured Caitlyn would tell him about their conversation. But why not just bring him the news directly? Maybe it wasn’t actually true. So why make him think that it’s true? Hard to tell at this point. Aaron would keep an eye on both of them to see how they acted.

One of his messages caught Aaron's attention. It was in an envelope. That was unusual. He never really got direct mail at the office, or at home for that matter. He tore open the letter and it read:

Dear Aaron,
I am not sure if it is you that I am trying to contact or if I am mistaken about whom you are. Please forgive me if I am, but I saw you on television this week and I am sure I recognized you instantly. Twenty years ago I lived over on Enfield Street in an apartment. One night, two men followed me home and burst into my bedroom as I was getting ready for bed. They attempted to rape me. And they may have done it except you came in and stopped them. I only saw you for a second, and before I really knew what was happening you were already gone.
For the last twenty years I have wanted to thank you personally, and when I saw you on the news I screamed in surprise. You do not look even a day older—it is remarkable. I just wanted to thank you for what you did and say that you are very special. You did the right thing, and I hope to hear back from you soon.
Thank you for being my guardian angel,
Erin

Aaron looked at the letter for a long time and then carefully set it on his desk. He pulled out a fresh square of stationary and a nice pen his old assistant had given him when he left his last job. He wrote:

Dear Erin,
Thank you very much for your letter. I am sorry about what happened to you. No one should ever have to go through that and I am glad someone saved you.
But I am afraid that I was not your guardian angel on that night. You see, twenty years ago I was thirteen-years-old and living back in Baltimore. By a strange coincidence however, I now live on Enfield Street and possibly even in the same building. If that is the case then I am glad you have moved into a new living situation. Since I moved into that building, I have been worried about its lack of security.
I hope you are well and safe now, as you deserve to be. Please feel free to contact my office directly if you feel you still need to discuss anything more. Once again, I am sorry about what happened to you.
Aaron

He smiled to himself and set the letter aside to let the ink dry. Yes, he thought, I have handled this in the right and proper way.

Later on that night he came home and once again was reminded that he needed to buy some furniture. It was starting to get depressing. Though he was rarely home, it was not nice to come back to a bare hardwood floor at the end of the day. He set his things on the kitchen counter and wandered over into the bedroom. Absentmindedly, he opened up the door next to his closet and looked down the hall. At the end he could see people walking by on the sidewalk.

‘The landlord really should do something about this,’ he thought. ‘It is a hazard that anyone can just walk up to my bedroom, and the hallway is dingy and ugly. At the very least, my door should be barricaded like all the others.’

He shut the door and took off all his clothes. It was early but he was tired. Aaron put on a clean pair of underwear and climbed into bed. He had had a stressful day, but he felt more relaxed almost immediately. Even though Aaron was a little hungry, he did not really want to get up and make any dinner. There was a little knock from the other side of the door next to his closet. Aaron rolled over and tried to get some rest. Another knock.

“Hello?” she said through the door.

Perhaps it was best to get some kind of gift for Caitlyn, thought Aaron. She has been doing well and I want her to keep working hard.

“Aaron can you please open the door?” she said loudly.

He lay completely still.

“Why did you send me that letter?” she said, her mouth a little slurred from the blood. “It was such an awful mean thing to do. You may as well have tricked me.”

Shadows danced across his suitcase, the bed, the wood floor. He heard her body slide down the door and sit on the carpet.

“I mean I guess I just thought,” her voice cracked and she started to sob. “I mean you were so nice and you saved me from those men. It just seemed like you did it because…”
Aaron sat up in bed. She was sitting on the ground, on the other side of the door. He pictured her yellow nightshirt on the green carpet. The bruise on her pretty white face.

“I guess I thought that you cared about me is all,” she said, crying with her head pressed against the door. “I don’t know why but I thought that you loved me. It was so horrible when those men came in. You know, I get so sacred sometimes that I can’t even move. It has been so very hard for such a very long time. Nobody has ever understood or been able to do anything to help. It has been awful, just awful. And I think that maybe I love you.”

Tears reached her mouth and ran together with the blood. She broke down completely and couldn’t get out another word. The only noise in the bedroom was the quiet heaving of deep long sobs coming through the door.

Aaron dropped his head down. He pressed his chin hard into his chest and he closed his eyes very tight. There was a horrible pain in his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Missed Calling

2008-12-31T14:14:00.006-05:00

"It pains me to imagine the very probable truth that over the next 20 or 40 years, children will become completely disobedient to their parents. When they are told to behave, they will, being children, ask why...And when they are told that they must behave in order to please God, they will wail and cry that none of the other children at school don't believe in God."
-From On the Morality of Youth, written by William Goodwin Grant in 1884

I have been receiving missed calls
like the feeling of standing at the airport
holding a sign bearing the name of someone you once loved
who also missed her flight,
I have been receiving missed calls.

I get at least seven a day.
Why am I never there to pick up?

The calls I always miss are always from the same number
which I'm convinced must mean something.
I've taken the digits to the top numerologists
but they have assured me that it is not
the longitude coordinates of a mysterious Parisian apartment
nor all the prime numbers divided by each other
nor the last ten digits of pi
But just an ordinary number from a real
and ordinary phone.

I guess that makes sense.

Then let's try to figure this out logically:
Who has the power to spy on me
so completely
that he knows to call when I am
asleep or in the shower or daydreaming
or all the reasons I am ever away from my phone?
And to remain unnoticed and anonymous?
Does such technology exist?

When I call the number back, you see,
I get a busy signal.
Perhaps he (or she) is placing a missed call
in someone else's phone
or trying to call me at the exact same moment.

My father's twin brother, who is a priest,
told me it is God.
Experts tend to claim all problems
fall within their area of expertise.

He said that the calls are a simple symbol,
that God is calling me but I am not there to listen.
And I told him what my father told me,
what my father learned in school,
that God has not abandoned us
but he is hiding like a squirrel
around a tree trunk
on the other side of the Sun.

My father's twin brother, my uncle,
warned me to be careful,
"Don't be like Pascal
and trade your personal relationship
with God for a professional one."

There is a simple way to solve this.

I know that societies are remembered by their myths
And thus
Ours will be remembered by the ridiculous notion that "a watched pot never boils"
And thus
I place my cell phone on my bed
kneel on the floor beside it
and wait.

But now I've been waiting for years, and
as I grow ever more hungry, ever more gaunt,
I begin to wonder whether my cell phone
or I will run out of battery first
before He calls again.

My Stalker Roger

2008-12-14T20:13:00.002-05:00

Exactly four years ago this month, I got the first letter from my stalker. Though I’m not sure that “stalker” is the right term. I was never followed around, I never got a restraining order, and I never even talked to the police about it. My stalker communicated with me almost entirely by letters left on the door of my dorm room. But the first letter that he sent wasn’t even addressed to me. It went to my professor and the Residential College office.

The first I heard about it was when the RC office sent me a vague email just before the holiday break in December. They asked if I could come in for a “discussion” with Jennifer Myers, who runs student affairs. When I sat down in her office, she immediately handed me the letter.

It must have been about three hundred words in loopy font. At the top in said “Dear Leslie Hutton,” who was my professor, and at the bottom it was signed with my name. In between the two was the silliest love letter I can possibly imagine. It had phrases like, ‘Dearest Leslie, O! How I ache for your loving embrace. When I see you, my heart flies over the roofs of East Quadrangle like old St. Nick and his reindeer through the sky. The curve of your dark glasses, the shine of your silvery hair brings a soft joy like the feeling of warm pudding cupped between my hands.”

I’m not exaggerating, it was really that weird.

Jennifer Myers, with whom I was on pretty familiar terms, gave me a few minutes to read it and said, “You didn’t write that did you?”

“No,” I said.

“I didn’t think so.” She asked if I knew who might have written it and I said that I had no idea, which I really didn’t. Over the next few days I developed a theory. At this point I was a freshman finishing up my first semester, and I thought that it must have been someone in the class I took from Leslie Hutton. That class had its fair share of weirdoes in it, so it was a little difficult to narrow down. But there was one girl in particular that was my prime suspect.

There were a lot of weird things about her, but we had one majorly strange interaction. One morning, all the students were waiting in the hall before class. I made a casual comment to this girl who was sitting on the floor.

“I like you shirt,” I said. It had the cover art for Quadrophenia on it.

“Yeah I really like The Who,” she replied.

“Me too, they’re really good.”

Then after an awkward silence made it clear that this wasn’t leading to a conversation, I said:

“Well I guess we better not talk about them then.”

She kinda laughed and so did I and that was that. Until she sent me a facebook message apologizing for not being friendlier or more talkative, and then ended with, “I think the Who are a really rockin’ band, what do you think?” I never replied to the message and we never spoke out of class again.

She did some strange things while in the classroom though. She claimed to have a photographic memory but clearly did not. One day she gave a presentation in completely normal clothes, but with zebra print guitar-pick earrings (I do not think she knew how to play the guitar). And at one point in the presentation she said, “There were a lot of facts in my project but it was easy because I have a photographic memory.”

So because I wasn’t very nice back then, I wrote down a set of random numbers on my notebook and showed them to her and said I was going to quiz her later. But because, like her, I also I don’t have a photographic memory, I forget to ever do it.

Anyway, though I can’t remember her name, I think she might have sent the letter to my professor. Thus she may have been my stalker, but it’s not an airtight theory. Then about a week later I got a call from my roommate, Ricky Gutierrez. Ricky was a short little bearded kid with a strong Arkansas accent. He went to prison after we lived together, but I think he’s out now.

“Hey dude,” he said. “You got a letter.”

“What do mean? Like in your mailbox?”

“No,” he said, “it was in our door. It’s got a bunch of kisses on it and shit.”

“Excuse me?” I said. It turned out that someone had written me a declaration of love, and then put on lipstick and covered the paper in kissprints. The content of the letter was the same ridiculous metaphors that had been in the letter to my professor. It had things like, “I want to be the morning harbor where you dock your yacht” which I guess is flattering that he didn’t write ‘sailboat’ or ‘schooner.’

I say “he” being the letter was signed “Roger.” And then “p.s: I want to have sex with you” which was a little less subtle than the metaphors, but it got to the point.

I of course found this hilarious and assumed I had just been the victim of an awesome prank. I asked around to everyone I knew who might have done this but no one took credit. As time went on, I became less and less convinced it was a joke.

The letters had been so ridiculous that it seemed impossible that someone had written them seriously. On the other hand, there’s no real point to a prank like that if you don’t come out and laugh at the victim. But no one did. Then things became more unusual.

Roger sent me a couple more letters, one that featured embedded photos of puppies and a rubber glove. Then he opened and IM account called, “iheartbenjamin69.”

First of all, I can’t believe that name was available. And I can’t even begin to recreate all the strange things he wrote to me. I never blocked him, and sometimes wrote back. But he was never much of a conversationalist. Mostly he just made metaphors about having sex with me. This was in the “About Me” section of his profile, and I feel it pretty well represents the sort of topics he preferred to discuss:

Top 10 Reasons Why I Should Be Benjamin Fossitt Townsend's Lover
10. He's single!! go girlfriend
9. He's a liberal - wink wink
8. I think about him every night before bed - and sometimes in the shower
7. he's into random play (I'd like to play with him randomly)
6. I want to caress his large man-meat through his taut jeans
5. We're both virgins - but not for long!!!1!111111!!
4. We both enjoy reading so we can spend long nights in the Greene Lounge caressing each other and discussing our favorite passages of Spanking Kenny's Wife
3. I can't think of any more!! Am toooo horny!!!
2. Because him an me ain't nothin' but mammals so let's do it like they do it on the discovery channel!!
1. Does true love need a reason??/??/?/
HI BENNIE! I N U!!!!!1!1

Now I don’t mean to get defensive, but at least three of these were entirely untrue. For example, I’d describe myself as more of a fiscally conservative moderate with socialist tendencies rather than a liberal (wink wink). Also the logic of number four implies that because I like reading, I’m really into homosexual PDA. But in reality, even if I’m not the one doing the homosexual PDA, I’m not really a big fan. On the rare occasions that I do see two gays making out, I just look the other way. Live and let live. Also, I was not a virgin. I once brought this up to him in our occasional IM chats and asked him to change number five on the list. I didn’t want misinformed rumors spread about me, especially ones that might interfere with me getting laid by someone who isn’t 1) insane 2) anonymous) and 3) a man. But he claimed that I was a virgin because it didn’t count as sex if it wasn’t with him, which I guess makes a certain kind of sense.

There was never any big conclusion to my interactions with Roger. He left me a few more notes, but it started to seem like his heart wasn’t in it. He still made outlandish and suggestive metaphors, but he wasn’t really trying to branch out into new areas. It felt like he was just doing the same thing over and over. Like he was leaving me letters to try and reconnect with that early insane passion he had felt but, let’s face it, had dwindled. Sometimes he would be logged into his “iheartbenjamin69” IM account but wouldn’t talk to me. Was he using it to talk to other people? Were they also named Benjamin?

I imagined that Roger had started to make some friends through classes, and when he gave them his IM account name he just told them it was a joke. He’d hang out with his new friends, perhaps in the basement of the Union where a lot of odd ducks seem to congregate. As time went on and he never contacted me again, I imagined him with his new friends laughing and discussing anime. I wondered if he still thought about me sometimes. Maybe when he was bored he still occasionally put together a list of the top ten reasons he’d like to lick my eyebrows.

I’d like to think so, but probably not. I guess he just didn’t need me anymore. Sometimes people just grow apart.

Beforever After

2008-11-22T18:18:00.010-05:00

Your face revolves away:
the stars that turn at night slowly and carefully,
technically, technically.
But it emerges on the other side
of your head like a sun in the morning.

As a quick violent stride spans two peaceful
footprints, the rainbow that arcs from a darkness
to another.
The hues are a visual illusion
but so is the darkness too.

It reminds me of the quiet colorless morning
after an unseeable night of screaming rain;
a perfect day for driving with a hangover.
Down a thin road that feels like
a long platform of seeming truth
above the unreal trees, grass, and rocks.

A thought so stubborn it drives straight ahead
so perfectly, so lineally,
determined and desperate to get somewhere brand new.
Though even a straight line repeats
a circle around the planet
while slowly still circling around
and round the Sun. It’s sad and so on.

I was afraid before I was even born
of either being born or of living:
growing up and you, or
one day feeling the dread
of leaving you, dying, and death.

That's how I found out fear is not a thing
from before or after I still have breath
but just a thing.

...from darkness to darkness…

And beyond there is
a basket of rotting red apples,
with one on the bottom missing two bites,
that has been waiting for us
since it was picked in the early days
of the very first garden.

A brow of colors straddles the face of the Earth.
The universe began back in Biblical times
and again it will end There too.

Sonnet for the Gene Pool of Stratford

2008-11-15T16:55:00.012-05:00

Thy revolving cast of evolution,
In and by which we are all interlinked,
May well bring mine fast execution.
But crocodiles might never go extinct
&
A fresh species that is learning to swim
Could try a new way of staying afloat.
But,
Crocodiles did not invent the forelimb,
Shakespeare stole almost everything he wrote.

To they that may drown in a wishing well:
From old form borrow, in content rebel.

Alone and Drunk Early on Friday

2008-11-14T20:52:00.005-05:00

There are certain memory traps.
Like imagining your younger
self, who always corrected
everyone on the definition of irony, thinking
of you now.

Nights spent dreaming of sleepless
nights. And when I become
sick of unknowing the world
in a cozy bed my mind will
wonder these long country roads
I call sentences.

There is nothing funny about
irony. We laugh uncomfortably
at such obvious signs
of what may be
a great and purposeful design.

If you fear dreams
of sleepless nights, you stay
up all night, fearing
that you're dreaming.

The Three Meanings of Life, Part One

2008-11-03T23:39:00.004-05:00

Dear Marietta,

I haven’t thought about you in years but you are so much on my mind tonight that I have decided to write you a letter. It must be strange for you, receiving something from me after all this time. And believe me: if I had been told a few months ago that I would end up writing a letter in the middle of the night to a high school ex-girlfriend, I wouldn’t have believed you. But since I am writing this, I think it’s only fair to warn you that I intend to be uncomfortably honest about everything. That’s the only way to write a letter to someone you haven’t seen in years. You have to keep things simple and honest. Honesty has become real important to me recently.

And by the way, doesn’t it seem a little ridiculous to receive an actual letter rather than an email or a phone call? While I’m writing this, I can’t help but feel like I’m playing a part in an old movie. I’ve spent a lifetime absorbing cinematic stereotypes, and now it’s impossible for me to compose a real letter without doing the voiceover in my head of every word I type. And as I write, I imagine you reading this. Obviously I can’t imagine you thirty-four-years-old as you are now, because I haven’t seen you since we were eighteen. But I imagine the eighteen-year-old Marietta in stage make-up, wrinkles and white hair powder, dressed up for the part. And that little actress is reading this letter with my voice in her head. Everything about writing to you seems somehow fake. This is not how letters used to written.

And this setting is all artificial too. Letters should be written in derelict prairie cabins or else in crowded candlelit Petersburg apartments, not in this sterile hotel room that smells like an airport. Also I should be writing out by hand instead of on my laptop, but I found that I can’t live without the ability to instantly edit. Otherwise the typos get out of hand; my vocabulary has always exceeded my orthography. But to lend this letter a semblance of authenticity, and as a small comfort to myself, I have chosen to write in this font that looks like typewriter printing.

With all of these hangups about writing an actual letter, it seems like I shouldn’t be writing a letter at all. I should just give in and email you or call you. I’m sure your information is somewhere on the internet. But I was born without any organic feelings of nostalgia, so I have to manufacture them for myself. I have to write this to you as a letter. If I’m going to write something completely honest, it needs to be from a more honest time.

So here it is—the uncomfortable honest truth: I think that I may be in desperate danger of sinking into mental illness. I’m writing from a hotel room, at the middle of this spinning island city in the rain. With the door closed, the room is motionless and burns with the feverish lucidity of three sleepless days. Everything in here, from the bathroom mirror to the doorknob to the drawered bedside Bible, is preposterously obvious. ‘Of course this is a room and of course that is a bed,’ I say out loud to myself and then laugh more than you should when you’re alone. The ticking seconds quicken like the beat of a bad liar’s pulse, but I remain calm. I am so calm that you could inject my veins with gasoline, light a match, and I would only object on principle.

I’m writing to you because you always loved my wordgames, Marietta, and I always loved that about you. Even back in high school. Most people don’t like them and my wife hates them, she always thinks that I’m being condescending and overly intellectual. There was one wordgame of mine that she liked. It went like this:

In my wedding vows I said that my wife was the context that gave the word of my life meaning. Without her, I said, I was an abstract and dead concept, like a noun without its verb. And as our subject would lead to its predicate, the pitter-patter of little objects would flesh the phrase out. My wife told me that she loved my vow, and she seemed to like a few good sentences after it. But somewhere along the way we disconnected and I lost control. It used to seem like my life was a story that I was writing, then at some point it became a book that I could only read. Now it just seems like a videotape playing for no one. Look where I am: in a hotel room writing to you, separated from my daughters, about to turn the page on nine years of marriage.

But I didn’t just write to tell you that. I am writing you because I want to tell you the story of our first date. Do you remember it? I can’t help but remember. With the present tense of my life dissolving in the air around me, I am becoming lost in the static of memory. The fillings in my teeth are tuning into radio time-waves. I can hear them picking up a weak signal of remembrance which—as I peer ever more inward—is getting stronger and louder. I can faintly make out the sound of immortal bandwidths that are broadcasting forward from my very first memory: the rush of the ocean and a sailboat thudding into the waves. And as the dial continues to tune itself I can hear, through a wash of static, the rattled breath of my deathbed. It seems as though no memory is beyond me.

With my whole life in my ears at this moment, our mutual biography tunes in more clearly than the rest. I know it seems silly, but I want to write out the story of our first date as best that I can. It’s a story that I’ve been telling for years to other women. It always makes them fall in love with me for at least a moment. For a long time I used the story as a tool make myself seem sensitive and kind. I told my wife the story when we were dating. She later told me that when I was looking her in the eyes and relating this story about you, Marietta, it was the first time she thought that marrying me seemed possible.

But please, old friend, read the story without remembering it, because some things have probably changed. Over the years, I’ve told this story so many times that I think I may have accidentally perfected it. At this point, I have no idea which parts come from the honest truth and which parts I invented. Who knows how memory works? Is it like the televisions in this hotel where I can call up old movies from a list using a remote control? Probably not.

I have always thought of recollection as an act of constant creation. Memory and imagination sometimes are forced to meet up in the back of the mind, two old rivals confabulating for a common cause: the fight against horrid ordinariness. So I may have edited my memories through constant re-telling, but don’t worry Marietta. Erase the tape in your mind of our first date. Read these words as I write them and once again we can make the story together. There was always disagreement between us anyway, if you recall. We were reflections of the same shape, two exactly congruent opposites, like left and right hands. So grasp your version of the story in mine and we can stroll to the end together as though through the pleasant dream of a park at noon.

Extended Metaphore #385

2008-10-28T00:08:00.006-04:00

The overly defensive definition of "integrity," with words that forbid any pokes into its glassy surface ("unmarred," "uncorrupted," "undivided"), suggest that it's delicate perfection was meant to be breached; the way the round shape of a big bubble implies the word, "POP!"

An Evening Villanelle: The Soul That Left The Body Whole

2008-10-27T23:31:00.007-04:00

The soul that left the body whole.
I’ve become a bargain tune about where I am from,
It’s ringing up its minor toll.

My mom died when she wasn’t old.
One faded photo: a pretty girl in beachside sun.
The soul that left the body whole.

Telephones sing and churchbells roll
But quietly over these major chords, her voice comes.
It’s ringing up its minor toll.

Like songs of the old rock and roll
Playing in space after the Age of Music is done;
The soul that left the body whole.

I’ve burned through life like burning coal;
Energy’s cheap for now, but there is still a price for the fun.
It’s ringing up its minor toll.

But I don’t care, I won’t replace all the things I stole.
Have a son take a picture then die; while I’m still young.
The soul that left the body whole:
It’s ringing up its minor toll.

Flare of the Sun

2008-10-26T14:57:00.001-04:00

Martin woke up at 6:15 in the morning, more out of habit than anything. Immediately he stood up and made his queen-sized bed. The Union had been on strike for two weeks so he didn’t have to be at the factory until 9:30 when the picketing started. Martin yawned and padded down the hall in his bare feet. It was not yet dawn, so he turned on all the lights as he went. He liked his shower hot from the moment he got in so he set it running before going into his son’s room. Everything in the room was in perfect order, but Martin straightened things up anyway. He remade the already made bed and arranged the pictureframes on the dresser just so. Since Martin’s wife moved out, their son Brian had been staying at her new condo. But Martin still went through the same routine in the morning; habit has a tendency of overcoming common sense.

After his shower, Martin turned on all the lights in the house and the television in order to chase the pre-dawn darkness outside where it belonged. In the kitchen he scooped some fresh coffee grounds into the machine, filled its belly with water, and pressed “BREW.” He fetched the paper from the stoop and sat in front of the early morning cycles of the 24 hour news. A panel of various experts was discussing global warming. It was a slow news day.

Martin excised the sports section of the paper as a bespectacled head on the TV expounded a theory that global warming “existed completely beyond human control” and was actually caused by solar flares. The head claimed that the illusion of heightened global temperatures threatening civilization was actually a statistical trick, and the entire problem of ‘global warming’ existed in only our minds.

While reading the chart of weekend baseball statistics, Martin partially absorbed the noise of the television the same way he used to absorb his wife’s early morning chatter. The onscreen display of the 24 hour news station was buzzing with information, and Martin’s mind mirrored that same hectic style. A mental anchor read him the baseball scores aloud in his head, while impressions of the morning’s early weather displayed graphically on the top right. And ideas of global warming, influenced by the shouting voices on the TV, scrawled across the bottom ticker of his brain. He went on reading.

But slowly the fervid twist of all Martin’s thoughts subtly grew into one single idea. By small degrees, this idea arose and articulated itself into existence. Martin began to wonder, to no one in particular, certain unordinary things:

“The world used to be dark at night,” he thought. “Baseball used to be a daytime sport. The players had to clock out at five like the rest of us. But now there are lights. Now thick and hungry wiring slithers under the ground and then stretches through the air, bustling with wattage. At first we tamed the lightning into cables, but now it surrounds us—above and below—containing us in the web-like tangle of an electric cage. Baseball stadiums are meccas of energy, drawing in devout volts…”

Martin let the newspaper fall onto his lap with a light rustle. His eyes, under knitted brows, stared at nothing. Two and a half weeks the Autoworker’s Union had been on strike; Martin hadn’t done his job for two and a half weeks. A hard-working man—when deprived of his hard work—will start to produce automotive little thoughts instead of producing cars. Like a single star in the sky surging with excess energy, the explosions of Martin’s mind multiplied on top of one another:

“I remember when I took Brian to his first nightgame. Wires from all directions must have fed a billion filaments inside a million bulbs and they silently shined onto the field with a cool electric hum. Brian noticed how the players on the team didn’t cast any shadows, which was pretty impressive for such a little kid to notice. The diamond existed in some impossible reality, full of a light that radiated from everywhere but had no source. The awesome power of a man-made sun.”

His thoughts grew in scale and Martin’s mind chugged onward.

“The world used to be dark at night. But this planet has been spinning like a rotisserie for eons. Dead plants and animals have been cooked into a thick underground oil and flaky deposits of coal. And now, in the night, we harvest old sunshine to tide us over until morning. The streetlights must be powered, the darkness will not get a hold. It is a matter of safety for my family, for everyone’s family.”

The television rattled off statistics about the increasing rates of global temperatures and a computer animated cartoon demonstrated how fossil fuels push warming chemicals into the air.

“This is my fault,” thought Martin. “For years I’ve tried to teach Brian responsibility, and now what do I have to say for myself? This Earth was just starting to live before we aged it. Before I aged it.”

Suddenly Martin looked up and noticed things in his living room that had become unnoticeable through his daily habits. Nothing seemed fine. All the lamps glowed like supergiants. They aligned themselves into a constellation, depicting an ancient god of the apocalypse. The dawn set in and sunshine began to fill the room like a flood. All the walls became brighter and brighter, all things coming into a clearer light. Every powered machine turned into a laughing monster that craved the Earth’s soul, and power outlets squealed like the snouts of insatiable swine. The way he ran his shower in the morning, the nights he fell asleep in front of the TV, automobiles that he manufactured with his own hands; all these innocent parts of Martin’s ordinary life turned to horrors before him.

How could he explain to his son that he built a hundred four-seater devils everyday that accomplished nothing and spewed poison? And now he and his Union were on strike (this seemed ridiculous to him now) in order to demand more money for these undoings. That old doubt that had nagged his mind for years, like an un-oilable squeak in the cogs, now screamed for attention again, “Am I as good an example to Brian as my father was to me?

“When I was a child my father had fixed the world, not broken it. He and an army of superdads had disciplined the fascism out of Europe. The environment was incidental and global warming non-existent. My dad had earned the right to ride a sputtering pickup truck down fast forest roads, the flakes of rust on its shell matching the daily-changing autumn leaves. And me with my little boy’s head out the window, I smelled the crisp afternoon air mix with the unmistakable stream of fresh gasoline fumes pouring from the cracks around the hood.”

Martin then willed himself to drift pack into the present. He thought “That truck used to mean the world to me. How can it have been the thing that killed the Earth? Surely we can all forgive just one pickup, on one fall day, over 30 years ago. But all the dads in all the pickups on all the back roads—an army of them—chugging chemicals into the sky, they cannot all be absolved. All of them together are to blame, it wasn’t on purpose…

“How can I explain to my son that the world I’m leaving him is dying? It is my fault and my waste, but not really. It is everyone’s fault and so it is no one’s fault. I hate to admit it but, over time, I guess I’ve gotten used to explaining the unfairness of the world to Brian. Like when I had to tell him that his mother and I were getting divorced. ‘It isn’t my fault and it isn’t her fault. It isn’t your fault. It isn’t your fault. This problem isn’t your fault.’ His parents are broken up and the Earth too. I’ve loved the boy since his first breath of atmosphere, and now the whole thing’s poisoned.”

Depression rung through Martin’s chest, and he wished for the innocence that his father had in that pickup all those years ago. “There is so much information nowadays,” he thought, “so many ways to blame yourself. It’s too much for one person, too much for me.”

Martin pressed his palms over his eye sockets and thought for a moment that he was going to cry. But he soon calmed himself. Like that flash attack of panic when you catch your foot while running downstairs and almost—but just almost—throw your skeleton down the steps’ jagged corners, this feeling too subsided. The sun crawled higher and the room grew ever brighter, but Martin took a deep breath, laughed a little at himself, and pretended that his hands didn’t feel like shaking jelly. He figured it was just stress that made him think this way. The house was too empty of his son’s presence and too full of his wife’s memory. But before dropping the matter altogether one final thought crossed his mind, like a shadow passing over a blank white wall and then disappearing into the air:

“A new century is beginning,” he chanted in his head, “a new millennium. Though years are just arbitrary numbers set to some ancient birthday, their implications are hard to ignore. The clock has been reset and we are gearing up for a new era. Two thousand. Oh One. Oh Two. Oh Three…

“Just as the first years of the twentieth century built up to its great challenges—The Great Depression, The War to End All Wars, etc.—a new generation is being forged in this century’s early flames. Economic tumult and war. Perhaps hardship will teach them a responsibility that my father seemed to have. It had better. They are their own only hope.”

Then the unnecessary but useful little light on the coffee machine clicked, and Martin got up to pour himself a cup.

The Silver Coin

2008-10-11T17:03:00.002-04:00

Even though I didn't need to, the other day I recalled that when I was eight my father gave me a big shiny coin, even though he didn't need to. It was exactly one troy ounce of pure silver that had been minted by a private company to sell to people like my dad so that they could give the coins to their sons like me. He said that he had bought the coin in order to teach me something about value and then he pulled a dollar bill out of his pocket. My dad asked me, holding the silver coin in one hand and the dollar bill in the other, if I'd ever wondered why stores took paper bills in exchange for things that people need, like food.
"Because it's money," I said.
"But it's just paper," he said. He explained to me that all paper money represents the value of precious metals that are stored by the government in big vaults somewhere. (At least I think that is what was said because he was always saying things like that. For practical purposes, let's just assume that that is a pretty accurate representation.) My father then told me that the paper was worthless without the silver and handed me the coin. I still have it, though it doesn't quite eclipse my palm the way it used to.
Even though my dad told me that the coin was valuable and that the paper was really worthless, and I value his opinion highly, I think that in a way he got it all backwards. If I were to take the coin to a store and attempt to trade it for something I needed, like food, I would be scorned by the shopkeeper for trying to swindle him. So the silver coin is really worthless, because I can't spend it on anything. First I'd have to trade the coin for paper money that represented the silver coin and then I could spend the paper. But that isn't the sort of thing that I would want to do, because I deal with paper money all the time and it would feel much more satisfying, even though I wouldn't need to, to trade a big shiny coin for something that I needed.
So the more closely I look at the coin and at value itself, which is something that I very much enjoy doing, the more they begin to divide into separate parts. There is inherent value in the silver coin and there is representational value in the dollar bill, the bill representing the inherent value of the coin. Something familiar, like representational value, is needed in order to make anyone believe in a value that is never actually present. Value would seem, then, to be based almost entirely on word of mouth. No one would see value in silver without the buzz that surrounds it and thus all value under scrutiny reduces itself to rumors and nothing appears to be worth anything.
Of course there has to be something of value because there are things that people need, like food, and those have real worth that isn't based on word of mouth but rather the need of a mouth to be fed. Silver could also, I suppose, be traded for something that someone needed. So then the silver represents the value of food. The dollar bill, then, represents the value of silver which represents the value of a necessary thing, like food, which itself can be bought in a store with dollar bills. The logic seems circular. So the different levels of value don't have a source from which the others flow but rather they all draw from each other in an eddy that leaves everything equal, even though the bills are only paper and the silver only shiny rock and the food nothing but specifically arranged atoms.
But I don't like that. I do not need to think about value, so thinking about value is completely worthless. I prefer (a questionable thing to do, preferring) to leave value as a concept made of solid rock rather than fleeting smoke.
This leads me to acknowledge, something I feel I need to do, that value is a concept that does not only exist in economic cycles. It is also in any system of exchange, like, for example, the exchange of ideas between two people. When ideas are exchanged, just as when money is exchanged, there are units of inherent value (silver) and those of representational value (paper bills). A pure idea, one that is still inside a head and has not yet been expressed, is like the silver coin that my dad gave me. It has inherent value but if I tried to use it in an everyday exchange then I wouldn't get anywhere fast. When I go to the store, and when I speak to a stranger, like you, I need something that is more common and is widely recognized as having value. But these words are just my thoughts in the order I had them. I didn't bother to exchange them into a more accessible currency; not very valuable, or perhaps more.
So there are silver ideas that are more pure, but useless in the world at large, and there are dollar bill expressions that are basically meaningless but have the recognition of value. Of course, "silver" ideas and "dollar bill" expressions are not discrete designations and any given idea expressed is on a scale between the two. Further, it is completely necessary, as necessary as eating, to compromise oneself over to cliches and metaphors, for there is no other way of interacting; an idea which itself has worth or is maybe just a cliche. Because it would be a shame to live caught up in a world that was full of value but void of function.

However, in the hard landscape of function there is needed a few sprinklings of unnecessary shine. Life is fuller and more enjoyable because of the unneeded things, like the silver coin which my father did not need to get for me. In fact, the fact that he did not need to get it for me is what made it so valuable to me. And though some of that value is lost in the exchange from my feelings into these words on paper, I want to put them down, even though I don't need to.

Record Journal of the Inpatient

2008-10-11T16:50:00.001-04:00

The silence in the room felt more uncomfortable for one of them than the other.
"How are you today?" he asked.
"Well, at least I am in a room," she replied with what may have been pretended sarcasm.
"What do you mean by that?" he asked.
"I'll tell you later. You'll think it's funny."
"Why don't you tell me now," he said in a patient tone.
"It wouldn't be funny now, it'll be funny later. Context is everything in comedy. Well, actually, context is everything no matter what you're doing. I'll tell you later."
"I'll be sure to remind you then."
"Don't worry," she said. "I'll remember."
He shifted in his chair and searched for the right words.
"Do you want to talk about why you're here?" he asked.
"Nope," she smiled without indicating any elaboration.
"Well, let's get started with this then: how would you best describe yourself?"
"How would you best describe yourself?" she queried.
"Let's keep this focused on you," he said. "How would..."
"I'm kinda like a scary, scary ghost," she said with wide eyes.
"So you believe you're dead," he declared.
"Not at the moment," she said. "I was making another one of those jokes."
"Do you believe you're alive then?"
"Not really."
"Do you believe you're a real person?"
"Define real," she said.
"A person with a body," he said as though it didn't need to be said at all, "that exists in the real world."
"Just so you know," she replied, "you used the word you were defining in the definition of the word."
"I apologize," he chuckled. "You sort of put me on the spot."
"I was only returning the favor," she spat with an air of seething contempt.
"Well then," he said while making a note in his pad, "do you consider yourself a real person by your definition."
"I don't believe I fit your definition of a real person," she said and then smiled. "I like your notepad by the way. Is it new?"
He looked down at the pad on his lap.
"Um, well, no," he said. But it was in fact new. It had been bought that same morning.
"That's not true," she said.
"Excuse me?" he replied.
"That notepad is so new, it was bought this morning," she said.
"How do you know that?" he asked with a note of challenge in his voice.
"I just know," she said.
"Well perhaps you're right," he said in a casual and dismissive tone. "So, returning to the subject at hand if you don't mind..."
She made a gesture that showed she did not.
"...do you believe that I'm a real person?" he asked.
She opened her mouth to respond.
"Or more precisely," he interrupted, "do you believe that I fit my definition of a real person?"
"Everyone fits their own definition of a real person," she said. "That how you come up with a definition of a real person in the first place: by trying to define yourself."
"So do you," he said, trying to keep his thoughts straight, "by your definition, think I am a real person?"
"As real as I am," she said.
"But you said before that you don't think you're a real person."
"Not exactly," she replied.
"Do you think you're an animal?" he asked.
She laughed. "Nor a vegetable, nor a mineral."
"Do you think you're God then?"
"Hardly."
"So how would you define yourself, in simple terms that I could clearly understand?"
She chuckled and said to herself more than anyone else, "It always has to be the third question doesn't it?"
"What..." he tried to respond but she cut him off.
"I do believe," she said, "in simple terms that anyone could understand, that I am a character in a fictional story."
He considered this.
"How does that make you feel?" he asked.
"I don't really feel anything about it. It's just what it is."
"Would it be a story I have read?" he said while making notes.
"Well, sort of," she replied in a condescending tone. "You're in it. If reading and living are the same thing then yeah, you're reading it right now."
"What's the title of the story?" he asked.
She thought about this for a while.
"I don't know," she said.
"When did you first start believing that you were a character in a story?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said and her eyes went glossy. "I could just feel it one day. I sat very still, just like I'm sitting now. I sat more still than possibly anyone has ever sat and then I could feel the energy moving through me, the story progressing. I can feel the author inside of me. I can see the narration all around us. It's like having another sense besides seeing or smelling. But instead of detecting light or particles of odor, it detects proportion."
She shook her head clear when she was done speaking as though shaking herself from a daze. Her expression once again became attentive.
"The author is inside of you?" he asked a moment while he furiously took notes. "Is the author a woman or a man?"
"A man," she said.
"Are you in love with him?" he asked.
"I wouldn't say that," she said with a devilish smile. "Though I am awfully fond of myself so I guess I love him in that sense."
"What do you mean by that," he asked.
"Well, I'm a product of his mind so to love myself is the same as to love him," she said. "But I don't think of him as my husband or anything."
"I see," he replied. "So you're just a product of his imagination."
"Of course," she said.
"Does that make you feel insignificant at all?"
"Oh Lord, no."
"I think it would make me feel insignificant," he said.
"Think of it this way: if I'm a product of his mind then so is he. What makes him any better than me?"
"So is he God?"
Her face contorted.
"Ack!" she said. "What a horrible question. I can't believe...ew, no. I refuse to answer that."
"Why do you refuse to answer the question?"
"Just don't worry about it all right? I'm just not going to answer. Let's move on, I can't believe that question was asked," she said dismissively.
"Are you mad at me now?" he asked.
"No. I'm not mad at you. I'm not mad at anyone."
"May I ask you another question?"
"Go right ahead," she said.
He paused to pick his words. She tapped her foot.
"How would you describe this author?" he asked carefully.
"He's just some guy," she said, "like anyone you'd see on the street."
"You seem to consider yourself better than him."
"Well we all have our strengths and weaknesses," she said with her hands up in an act of false humility, "but yes I am better than him."
"How so?"
"Well he's a lot like yourself," she said. "He has no idea how he fits into the scheme of things, putting himself at the top of the hierarchy of control. He looks down but doesn't look up and then says, 'I am clearly the highest point in the world'. You have a similar tendency."
"Could you elaborate on that?" he asked, unblinking.
"Well, let's see. You have no idea that you're a character in a story and think that you make your choices without the influence of the author. In much the same way, the author of our story is under the influence of forces outside his control. But he still thinks he's creating you and me on his own."
"So you seem to be saying that I don't make my own choices," he said.
"So far you've done everything he's told you to do, said everything he's made you say," she said.
"But your author doesn't make his own choices either?" he asked.
"Let me put it to you this way: he decided to write this story about me and you, right? Well, the only reason he writes stories is because of some series of events in his past that made him think writing was a good idea. The only reason he does anything is because of all the experiences he has had leading up to any particular decision. I may not be making my own choices, I may be doing everything he's making me do, but at least I know it. He thinks he exists in a vacuum? So do you. You're both naive."
"So am I your author?" he asked.
"No. But thank you for proving your naivete," she said.
"You're getting a little upset," he sighed. "Maybe we should pick this up again tomorrow."
"No, I'm fine," she said, acting predictably timid.
"Are you sure?" he asked comfortingly.
"Yes, I'm sure," she said and gritted her teeth. "Please ask me another question. We can't continue on another day."
"Why not?" he asked.
"We just can't, ok? Rules are rules. Please. Ask me another question."
"All right," he said, adjusting himself in the chair. "Explain to me clearly and calmly why it is you think you are better than this author."
"Look, I didn't say he was a bad guy," she said with a more respectful tone than before, "and you're not either. He's just a little ignorant to how he and I are the same. He thinks he's better than me but he's just as good, no better or worse."
"I still don't understand," he said.
"You and I are being forced to do and say things he makes us do," she sighed from having to explain herself again. "We have no choice. But all the events around him are writing his story. He thinks he makes his own choices but bigger forces are forcing him to do things, so he in turn forces us."
"You make it sound like a machine," he said. "Most people would find that depressing."
"Well, I don't."
"Why not?"
"There nothing special about it. It's all just different lenses focused on variant levels of the same flowing movements. We're the microscope lens, and the forces controlling him are the wide-angle lens. But it's all looking at the same picture that's moving in the same way."
"Ah, I see. I think I understand your metaphor," he said. "Very well put."
"Thank you," she said. "But you still don't fully understand what I'm saying just because you understand the metaphor."
"Oh no?" he asked. He seemed bemused by her relentless antagonism.
"Metaphors are just measuring devices, not an actual substance. They measure ignorance but they don't really fill in any gaps of knowledge."
"Once again," he said, "I'm afraid I don't follow."
She sighed, expositioning her exasperation.
"So if there's something you don't know," she said slowly. "I will use a metaphor to explain it. But you really don't understand what I meant to explain originally, all you understand is the metaphor."
He looked at her blankly.
"The metaphor didn't teach you anything new, you see," she said. "It just gave you a point of reference to gauge how big that gap of ignorance really is."
"So I still don't understand about your author even though I understood what you said about lenses?" he said.
"No, not really. Metaphors don't teach you anything, all they do is show you how much you don't know; which is pretty useful, but not really the same thing as knowing. A metaphor tells you the dimensions of the room you're in, it doesn't tell you what's in it."
"I see," he said.
All of the sudden a horrendous smile grew on her face like that of a crazy woman.
"That was it. Did you feel that?" she said.
"Are you all right?" he replied with concern.
"I'm fine," she said. "But the end is coming up pretty soon."
"Do you want to stop for the day?" he asked.
"Why don't we?" she said. "And...END SCENE."
"Excuse me?" he asked.
"I think we'll stop the exercise here," she said. "How did that make you feel?"
"I'm sorry, what do you mean?"
"We agreed the code words to step out of character were 'END SCENE'. We agreed on that ahead of time, Jeremy."
"Jeremy?" he said.
"That's your name, Jeremy. Now how did playing the role of a psychiatrist effect how you see your own problems, or the practice of psychoanalysis as a whole?" she asked.
"I wasn't playing a role," he said. "What are you talking about? If you're going to be counterproductive then I think you should go back to your room."
"Jeremy, be calm. You aren't going to be able to learn anything about this if you treat it as a game."
"This is preposterous," said Jeremy. "We are not making any more progress."
"The exercise is over," she said again. "Let's talk about how pretending to be a psychiatrist for some one else can help us deal with our own problems when there is no psychiatrist around. You might not be in here forever."
"What?" he said. "What are you talking about?"
"Jeremy," she said sternly, "please give me my notepad back."
"This is my notepad," Jeremy said.
"Jeremy, please stop this and give me my notepad," she said again.
"It is not your notepad."
"Oh my Lord," she said with exasperation. "Orderlies!"
The two orderlies came in.
"Could you please return Jeremy to his room," she said. "We were role playing and he refuses to break character."
The orderlies looked at her and then looked at Jeremy.
"I'm sorry," Jeremy said, "but what on Earth is going on?"
The orderlies then pinned Jeremy's arms behind his back and took him away. After they had gone, the look on her face was one of evil glee.
"I am not evil," she said aloud. "Don't call it 'evil glee.' It was a game of chicken and I won. I was at a disadvantage anyway: you gave him the notepad. But I found a way around it."
While speaking, she didn't fully consider what a mean thing she had done to that poor man, even if she was only playing a game. Jeremy had never even fully understood that he was playing a game in the first place.
"Well that's your fault not mine," she said. "You made him ignorant to the situation, not me. I still have my freedom and he doesn't. And I meant what I said earlier: you really are naive."
As she said this, she brought attention to the fact that she would soon die.
"The story may end but I won't die," she said with a haughty vixen's tone. "I'll live as many times as this story's read, and it's being read right now, so I'm still alive right now. I did my best to direct the dialogue and keep the story interesting. If you really wanted me dead, you egotistical oaf, you'd shred this story as you write it, but instead you've already shown it to someone else. I can feel them reading. You'll try to get as many people as possible to read it. With a little luck, my idiot creator, I may live for a long time. But you, you worthless lump, you will someday die. That much is very certain."
She then dropped dead of unknown causes. Her funeral was brief and no one came.

The above journal was found in an abandoned room of the hospital. Its author is unknown.

The Boy Who Raised Himself

2008-09-30T15:43:00.006-04:00

If the body's a few grams less
the moment after death, what about the everyday weigh-ins?

Add your post-barber weight to the by-product of the trimming;
it's a little less than your mass before you sat in the chair
unless you are really pleased with the cut.

I am inspired by only one poet
who only wrote one book
and I wonder if my words come
from the soul of his favorite pen
that one day ran out of ink
and if maybe my pen is jealous.

So all these words, like all my words,
are a switchtrack between quoting
him and quoting his thoughts in me.

The lines that you like are mine
and the ones you don't are typos.

Welcome to Psychedelic Truth,
population: the internet.
A suburb of the city which
has no name, The Metacommittee
governs how people think of authority

and decrees that phone numbers
cannot be chosen, will not be another embarrassment
like vanity plates. Codes of communication
should be random.

That's how David Berman would have
ended it. Not with this line.

p.s. Or maybe he would have but definitely not with
this one.

This one.

Why? Oh, You!

2008-09-28T22:49:00.000-04:00

It's that moment when you've walked ten minutes
from your house without seeing anyone alive,
the stoplights glittering like decorations
in the early morning light, and you start to think:
There has been a pandemic in the night,
everyone in the world is dead and I somehow survived
but then a car drifts by and you think:
"My God! The only other person left. I wonder if they know yet."

That's the moment that makes you realize
that morality is just a word that means,
"Everything that is done is better if its done
my way."

It's that feeling that everyone knows around noon
walking in a mostly empty park you become
unshakably convinced that someone is watching
you, and that the sky is a giant bluebird's face
with an eye that shines light into everything.

That's the feeling that makes you realize
that mortality is just a word that means,
"Deep down, we are all exactly the same.
Hooray."

It's that decision in the evening that you must
find the meaning of everything before going to bed;
then after looking in some obvious books you look
under the couch, you stretch and reach deep down there
and realize that the strange twitching surface
at the tip of your finger is really the very sole
of your own shoe.

That's the decision that makes you realize
that you is just a word that is spelled
nothing like how it sounds.

Extended Metaphor #178

2008-09-28T22:34:00.001-04:00

My brother tried to argue, perhaps for the sake of the argument itself, that pragmatism was useless. Ideas, passions, and loves, he said, were what our world revolved around. We no longer required such heavy things as food or sleep, our needs had become lighter than air. And what is more important (he asked me what I thought) food or beauty?
I said that perhaps he was right, as you say to a brother for brotherly reasons. I said that perhaps our world revolved around ideas and beauties and such. According to the theory of general relativity, the Earth revolves around the moon just as much as the moon revolves around the Earth. No one fixed point has preference. But it's the Earth's heavy gravity where we live, and we can only look up at the airless and pretty moon.

On an Unstoppable Train II

2008-09-26T14:59:00.000-04:00

When she said this place had become a dump
I held her close and in a whisper asked
if she thought that all the world
was just something to bitch about.

She is the rails and wheels on them.

"What the fuck does that mean?"
she asked, and I realized the person that I
once loved was still there and quite well,
unchanged by time (an oxymoron)
for better or worse.

She is the woman in the red dress
a few seats up. She is the engine with
a screaming whistle. She is the coal
waiting to be burned. She is everything but me.

But are all of these substances
one big misunderstood absence? She asked
for help cleaning up and said, "vacuum."
I'm sure I misunderstood that.

Is there a vacuum inside the machine?
A little black hole
where all my dust goes?
My relations with mechanics are faith-based. Science
is a holyman's game.

I don't know how this rail-machine works
for there are never any stops.

I cannot get off
for I am not even a passenger on it

but am all the passengers
and the train too.

On and on and on and on
AND on & on AND on & on
anon anon, anon anon, anon an
unstoppable train.

Movie Review in an Experimental Form: Burn After Reading

2008-09-25T16:45:00.000-04:00

What was the movie trying to accomplish?

Find comedy in tragic events happening to inflated, larger than life characters.
Explore the nature of fate and epic coincidence, leaving a taste of meaninglessness and doubt.
Give the rare opportunity for incredibly talented, but not "conventionally attractive," actresses to act in roles that are fun and entertaining but not necessarily high art.
Show greed for what it is: the cause of all human pain.

Was the movie successful in accomplishing these goals?
Taken point by point:

No. There are very few actual laughs in this movie. The off-beat script combined with the star-studded cast turns the whole affair into a contest entitled "Who Can Play The Quirkiest Character."Of course, if this contest actually existed, Frances McDormand would have won it, but more about her anon. The few laughs in the movie come, not from the machinery of the movie, but from the deliveries of the individual actors. The shining example in this movie of mediocre punchlines delivered for the best possible laugh is Brad Pitt. (A quick note on Pitt: I consider him a great performer and not really an actor at all. He has a way of making each role he plays a pleasure to watch, without ever engaging in the art of acting. In this way he provides a service, and does it very very well. Like Google. That is why Pitt has about a billion more dollars than other equally attractive and charming actors). So the movie as a whole isn't funny. If there is a dark pleasure drawn from the preposterous tragedy of the plot, I wouldn't really call it comedy. Oh, and J.K. Simmons brings the heat.
Yes.
Yes. It must be really annoying to be well-respected actress in Hollywood that isn't a bombshell. Agents would be constantly pitching you scripts, saying, "It's a modern re-telling of the Ophelia story; but instead of a Hamlet, it's AIDS." And you'd reply, "Would someone please give me a cakewalk script that I can apply 2/5 of my talent to, be incredibly awesome in, and just get fucking paid? I don't need Oscar fodder every time. What about that bullshit superhero movie that Charlize Theron was just in? I want something like that." There would be an awkward pause and then one of the agents would say, "I'll call the Coen Brothers."
Yes, but in a predictable way. The Coen Brothers seem completely obsessed with greed. I'm not the first to notice a consistency in the brothers' stylistic devices, but most Coen Brothers' movies are motivated by greed: Miller's Crossing, Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Oh Brother! Where Art Thou?, No Country For Old Men. They seem to think, and perhaps not wrongly, that if everyone stopped wanting more money than they worked for, the world's ills would vaporize. It can be best summarized by Frances MacDormand's famous line from Fargo, speaking to a murderer she has just caught: "There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don'tcha know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well. I just don't understand it." The Coen Brothers, it should be noted, are probably rich as hell. I couldn't find any specific info, but they have more in life than just a little bit of money.

An Email to a Friend Who Told Me Not to Buy Nike Shoes

2008-09-24T21:33:00.000-04:00

Subject Heading: I'm Buying Those Nike Shoes

Dear X,

PLEASE DISREGARD ALL OF THE FOLLOWING IF YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT SMALL, STARVING, BUT VERY CUTE CHILDREN IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES.

I've never thought so much about buying a pair of shoes, but you set me to wondering whether buying Nikes is something I'm ethically opposed to.

That being said, I work on document retrieval at the Kresge Business Library, so it's kinda my job to find articles on business practices. So, defying the "chef's family mostly eats take-out" stereotype, I have taken my skills to use for my own purposes. After about fifteen minutes of research (that I'm getting paid for on the clock) I have come up with the following:

This is a paper by an MIT grad student and its probably the best (and most reliable) breakdown of Nike's evolving role as a more responsible business practitioner. It doesn't take long to read but it is SUPER dry and boring. If you have any interest in it, skip to section 4: "Nike's Response: Learning to Become a Global Corporate Citizen."

In early August of this year, Nike found out that a private contractor that they had hired to run a factory in Malaysia was grossly abusing human rights. They immediately shut down the factory and held a press conference to declare that they had no idea this was going on and it was put to a stop immediately. Is it Nike's responsibility to police every single company that it hires run its factories? Not really, but public pressure has MADE it their responsibility.

Most of the people who still criticize Nike are Libertarian xenophobes who don't think that anything should be manufactured outside of the United States, including chopsticks. There are also the hemp-wearing, LSD-addled, One Love people who think that all human beings and some apes should be paid a million dollars an hour to do anything until the day that all currency is replaced with fond memories of childhood. But the rest of everyone else seems to think that Nike is OK. In fact, it's somewhat insulting to Nike if I DON'T buy the shoes seeing how hard they've worked to improve their practices.

My point being this: when corporations respond to public pressure and bad publicity, and attempt to right their wrongs, public opinion needs to ease up a little bit. If everyone is relentlessly critical of Nike, then boycotts and public pressure become meaningless because the public is impossible to please.

I think I've written way too much on this, but I'm sending the email to you anyway.

-Ben

p.s. OBAMA OH EIGHT!

Author's Note: The Obama thing is a reference to an inside joke, but seriously, vote Obama.

Extended Metaphor #331

2008-09-22T19:24:00.000-04:00

Insecurity is vinegar, a repugnant substance that is widely regarded as necessary. And no real kitchen is complete without it. There is always way too much of it around, and it is shockingly cheap and easy to come by. Good for cleaning.
Charm is baking soda. On its own its an empty dry powder, but its a rare recipe that doesn't require it. Well, its not actually required. But if you're making a cake, and you realize you don't have any...let's just say that no one will have be told that you ran out of baking soda. They will just be able to taste it.
Mix baking soda and vinegar together and see what happens. Its an experiment that we all tried in middle school then repeated in high school. Some have not stopped the experiment, which isn't really true of actual baking soda and vinegar; here's where the metaphor starts to unravel. But here's where it picks up again: it sure it fun to watch the two mix and go off.

On An Unstoppable Train

2008-09-20T19:17:00.000-04:00

I will ride this forever
for there are no stops.

I cannot get off the train
For I am not a passenger on it

But all the passengers
And the train too.

On and on and on anon
anon anon anon anon
an unstoppable train.

Non-Physical Pains

2008-09-20T16:42:00.000-04:00

Over the years, these categories have arisen from the Raw Data. They are modern occurrences, inapplicable to even the very recent past.

1) Fate. Accidental tragedy that comes as a result of coincidence. Unforeseeable, unavoidable by personal intention. Usually is accompanied by feelings of guilt and hopelessness. An attempt to insert one’s will into the causes of tragedy retroactively. As a result, the victim attempts to blame himself or herself for problems that are well beyond his or her control. This leads to two distinct and intermingling depressions: guilt for causing the misfortune, and the underlying knowledge that she is lying to herself and in fact has no control over her own life. (Please excuse all pronouns). This is the second-worst form of tragedy.
2) Unforced Error. A true mistake in the classic sense. A tragedy caused by one’s own inability to prevent it despite knowledge of its likelihood. Initial lamentation and regret, but these feelings quickly subside. Immature “victims” (subjects) repress their own role in the misfortune: creating a fictional exterior cause, or elucidating a personal flaw beyond their own control. Mature subject almost immediately move past lamentation and gain a sense of comfort from the tragedy. “I have learned a very valuable lesson that will lead to a more successful and error-free life in the future.” Except this. Unless subject is young, it is very unlikely that he or she will be able to avoid the same misfortune in the future. The power of habit prevails over negative reinforcement. This is the most common form of tragedy and preferable to all other forms. Least emotional harm. A quick flash of depression leads to conversation with friends and the building of community. The possibility exist that this is the best form of tragedy because it is the most common and most practiced for. The possibility exists.
3) Intentional or semi-intentional harm. Willful creation of pain through normal social interaction. Emotional distress caused by the indifference or intention of another human being. Extremely high levels of emotional damage. Some victims recover. They successfully become convinced of the inadequacy of the person or persons causing them harm. This is rare. Abuse over time can lead to severe instability. Constant questioning of the self and self-worth. The entire psyche becomes contaminated. Inability to convince herself that she is being unreasonable. Extreme cases lead to victims telling themselves over and over. There is nothing wrong. There is nothing wrong. There is nothing wrong. While wholly possessed by a perfectly complete depression. Remember. All connections are unequal. The inferior member is forced to face the worst non-physical pain: the difference between needing and wanting. Horror sets in as day by day there a dawning realization that he needs something that he does not even want. Recovery is long, difficult, and unlikely. It is important to remember that everything is ok. There is nothing wrong but it does not seem to be true.

In the future all these tragedies will be obsolete.

News Flash From Someone Else's Brain

2008-09-20T16:38:00.000-04:00

GARY INDIANA -- In a freak instance of cannibalism, an employee of the Wendy's fast food restaurant, Jeremy McGarrens, 22, jumped across the counter while working and bit into the shoulder of a customer that was simply attempting to order a Junior Bacon Cheeseburger. As McGarrens was being hauled away by police on assault charges, he was asked about the motivation behind his erratic outburst. He replied that he was simply a firm believer in the Wendy's mantra and it was "What tasted right at the time."

Congratulations! You bought an iPhone.

2008-09-20T16:36:00.000-04:00

Congratulations! You have just purchased Apple's latest new product in interface technology, the Apple iPhone. The Apple iPhone is a completely unique mp3 player and communication device. In order to get started please review this list of features available only with the new Apple iPhone:

1) Adjusting the appropriate setting on your new iPhone will insert a laugh track into your telephone conversations making you feel like Sienfeld/Elaine.

2) Telling the police that you have your new iPhone but not your license will get you out of a ticket.

3) Your new iPhone emits a wireless signal that interacts with the brainwaves of certain physiologies making it OK for you to say the n-word in front of black people.

4) If you type 'wtf' into your iPhone a pop-up screen will outline exactly 'wtfiu'.

5) Your new iPhone both knows and has hung out with Tom Brady. Now you can tell all your friends 'my iPhone knows Tom Brady!'
Note: Please do not ask your iPhone to introduce you. Be cool.

6) Your new iPhone is the internet.

7) All foreign language calls are translated when spoken through the iPhone.

8) Rubbing the iPhone on you dick will make it bigger.

9)Your new iPhone will imitate your voice pattern on the phone to your Nana. Download a plug-in off iTunes to enable the option of your iPhone automatically ordering delivery flowers upon her passing.

10) Um...it's a fucking iPhone.

11) When you go into a public restroom your new iPhone will utilize non-GPS tracking to pinpoint your location. As you step up to a urinal (or preferred receptacle) the sound of a gentle mountain stream will play behind your current music selection to assist your restroom experience.

12) Buying an iPhone for your son will cure him of homosexuality.

14) Enabling the Conundrum Feature will put a red button on the corner of your new iPhone screen. Touching the button will instantly kill one random person on Earth, maybe someone you know, maybe someone you don't, and put $700 in your checking account.

COMING SOON: Apple is working on a new iPhone product in conjunction with Google! The new software on each individual iPhone will compose an original new Radiohead song each day to play as your ringer.

Boom Boom Rocketship

2007-06-30T16:23:00.000-04:00

After I am done writing this poem I will put it in an envelope and seal it.

Then I will go to everyone I know and ask them to write a poem and put it in an envelope and seal it.

Then I will ask my friend who studies rockets to design a capsule that will be launched from Earth

and return in 40 years.

Then we will all take our poem-filled envelopes and seal them in the spherical rocket.

My friends will write poems about me, poems about themselves,

themselves as children; about the book they just finished.

My friend who designed the rocket will probably write a poem about science.

We will go to a field and light the fuse and the rocket will speed away in a moment.

It will fade to a dot in the blank blue sky

and then it will disappear behind a cloud that looks like a dragon.

We will all then attend to the busy errand of growing older.

We will acquire houses; we will lose family members to age greater than ours

we will learn historical dates, then forget them.

Then we will learn the dates again, but forget that they were ever forgotten.

The silver orb will tumble silently through an empty starscape.

It will circle a distant but furiously burning sun

that will also rise from our horizon every morning.

After enough of that, it will be the moment to return to the field.

We will stand more trim and well-dressed than before

and most of us won’t recognize each other.

Then a boom from above will announce our returned vessel.

It will scream across the sky and arc

before the sun

before tearing a crater through the dirt.

It will land about three feet from where we thought it would.

It will look exactly the same, preserved by the nothing of space.

Everyone will unceremoniously rip open their long-locked envelopes

and a cloud will drift in front of the sun.

My friend who built the rocket, having become a science teacher,

will remember when he loved science and didn’t care about discipline.

People will read their poems about me and quickly look up to see if I am still there.

I will read this poem and remember the furiously burning passion of my rocket poem project,

passion which cooled to embers and then ash and then blew away.

The sun will come out again and we will recognize each other

but we still won’t remember each other.

The sun will burn off our memories like fog from the field.

Parts of Speech

2007-06-30T14:48:00.000-04:00

“If you could change any word into another, which would it be and what would you change it to?”

"It is funny you should say that, it relates to something I was thinking about as you were talking. Three words keep repeating themselves in my head: would, could, should. After a firm attempt to ignore the loop I've decided to resolve the issue, which is a form of silencing. I'm not the first to observe, as I'm sure you are well aware, that the words 'could', 'would', and 'should', rhyme and work as similar tools and, therefore, must be connected. And I have tried often to connect them. I have tried to construct a well-built theory and fit the idea of the words inside. But, I'm afraid, it is rather like shoving a man much larger than myself in through a window. The trick is, and one day I will discover its secret, to convince the idea, through kind words, to go around and walk in the front door of the theory; as any man of grace should, as I'm sure God intended."

"You are trying to say too much at once. It’s difficult to understand, and what’s more, I think you might be insane.”

"Aha! I cannot disagree but only ask what caused you to say so."

"Well, it’s difficult to express. It isn't that you are saying something senseless, for if you were then I would know you as a fool and not a loon. Rather it is that what you say makes its own sense. Your sense is not like any I have ever known, which makes me wonder why I recognize it so familiarly. You are intelligent but do not reason in the same way I often do, so you must be insane."

"I have always suspected this of being true and I see that you are like me, not allowing the evil of connotations to bend the tracks on your train of thought. It seems, as you say, that I am often to be found on a path that only exists behind me and leads me only where I am going, for I am the first to walk it. But often the trouble comes when I arrive and the crowd asks me how I got there, at which point it is indescribable."

"This is why you cannot be understood. Do you always speak in elaborate metaphors?"

"I must. Ideas are like bars of gold in that they are totally worthless. The values of gold and ideas are inherent and reliant on nothing. However, one cannot buy their daily bread with bars of gold because the grocer will scorn you for attempting to swindle him. In order to get anything done, one must have a bill in hand that is, itself, totally worthless but represents the wealth of a gold bar. So metaphors, though they only represent the true golden wealth of an idea, are necessary if we are ever to make an efficient exchange."

"So should we all speak in metaphor, according to you?"

"Your question is meaningless, because we couldn't do anything else if we tried. The better question would be, in my far from humble opinion: if you could speak without the bills and only trade gold, would you even want to?"

"Does preference enter the equation?"

"It must, otherwise the whole situation is moot. Because if we only concentrate on what would be best for us, then we are only concentrating on the word 'should'."

"The implications of that word should seem heavier than ‘would’ or ‘could’."

"The word itself is only representation, so do not give it too much weight. But remember how it sits beside its brothers: what should you do? what would you do? what could you do? Do you understand how it all, sooner or later, becomes the same thing?"

"But if it is the same thing, then there couldn't be any such thing as gold."

"You shouldn't say that, it limits where you could go next."