Don’t cook your balls
They aren’t that tasty
If you keep them safe
They make you a baby
Don’t cook your balls
When its time to play
You’ll need all your courage
If you want to get laid
Don’t cook your balls
And feed ’em to a lady
She’ll shit them out
Like they were gravy
Don’t cook your balls
When it’s your time to go
If the alternative
is to die painfully slow
I sit down at the head of my round table, the well lit room crowded and the seats filled with my empathetic friends, foes, and consultants.
I say “There is a whole bunch of you living in here, and none of you are paying your rent.”
“We are just figments of your imagination. How can we pay rent?” they say collectively.
“Metaphorically, by fulfilling your purpose of inspiring me with different points of view.”
“Well, figments don’t start conversations. It’s your job to interrogate us, not the other way around.”
“Don’t go turning this around on me” I say testily. “I want you all out of my mind. NOW!”
Some figments evanesce on the spot; some scurry to the deep recesses of my mind shrinking to nothingness as they run; some take their time packing bags and suitcases rolling them to my ear canals where they then jump out. When they have all gone out of my mind, I sit back on my chair at the head of the round table, the room empty, the light seeming to dim. Andrew, my best friend, is the last to leave. He flips the light switch to off on his way out as he jumps out my ear. The table disappears and then the chair, I fall to the floor of the darkening room that has no floor. The room has no lights and yet I can see myself alone in the dark space. The black room has no walls, yet I instinctively know the walls are receding away from me in all directions like galaxies receding away faster than the speed of light over the horizon of the visible universe never to be seen again.
I panic. “Let me out of my mind” I shout. I run to no where. I shout again. “I want out of my mind.” The infinite wall-less room echoes back “Out of his mind. Is he out of his mind?” in a familiar voice.
“What’s wrong with him” she asks? “Is he out of his mind?”
The doctor confirming his lack of visual response, distracted, thinking, turns to her. “Huh?”
“Out of his mind. Is he out of his mind?” she asks.
I run towards the echo. I see Andrew pulling himself back over the edge of my ear canal. Andrew flips on the switch, the room starts to brighten, the walls stop receding. Andrew says “The others will come back on two conditions.”
“What are their demands?” I ask.
“You are responsible for paying the rent.” he says.
“Sure, sure. Done. What is the second demand?”
“More chairs at the table. You make some of them stand around for a long time with nothing to do.”
“Fine. Done.” I acquiesce without an argument.
A larger table appears with more chairs around it. The figments reappear from all directions, wheeling their luggage and packs over to their chairs to sit down.
“Oh yeah. And more donuts.”
“Hey, that’s three.”
Everything flashes a bright white.
The doctor notices a small grimace on the right corner of his mouth when she speaks.
“I don’t think so” says the doc. “I think he is in there. We might need to jump start him though” The doc attaches two spongy black electrodes to each of his temples. Everyone stands back. He hits the switch and voltage jumps through his head.
He open his eyes and looks around.
“Welcome back” says the doctor.
Teary eyed, she says “Oh, you gave us such a fright. Do you know what happened to you?”
“Just a little labor dispute” he says.
She looks at the doc. “Is there brain damage? Is he still out of his mind?”
The doc explains “You experienced catatonia. We had to give you a little jump start to bring you back.”
“I’m fine” he says. “Just a little hungry. I have a sudden urge for a doughnut.”
She smiles. Her friend is back.
Skeleton sits in a reclining chair in the living room with the TV on, nothing left but clothes and leathery dried out skin.
John: Dead?
Jay: Yep. You don’t need to be a doctor to figure that out.
John: How long do ya think the body has been here?
Jay: Months. Maybe a year. Not much left of it.
John: Jeez. You think some one might of smelled it.
Jay: You think someone might have missed him.
John: TV was on when I got here, suppose someone else might have been here?
Jay: I can’t imagine. On-line accounts, I would guess. Hell, with enough money in the bank, the utilities could run forever. I wonder how old you would have to be before social security became suspicious and stops sending you checks?
John: Looks like a wallet on the table.
(Opens it and pulls out a driver’s license)
John: Hmm, according to his id he is eighty years old. He must of been retired, so no one missed him at work.
Jay: Look, it looks like the corner of his lips are turned up, like just a hint of a smile.
John: Weird, I didn’t notice that on the way in.
Jay: I don’t think he was married either.
John: How do you know?
Jay: Look at this place. Laptops, electronics, engine parts, microscopes, lab equipment. In the living room. All that wine and wine making equipment and god only knows what that other stuff is in the kitchen. Trust me. No wife.
John: It seems so sad. No wife to miss you.
Jay: Shit! He jumps back a half step knocking his partner into the wall.
John: What the fuck, guy.
Jay: The leathery skin around his eye sockets is crinkly…as if he were happy. It wasn’t like that a second ago.
John: You’re just imaging things.
(Finds an iPhone charging on a wall socket)
John: Has a lot of contacts in his phone list.
(Scrolls through the list, reading the names and notes)
John: Sister with a 616 area code, not sure where that is, looks like Cleveland according to the address. Sister with a 617 area code, Boston address. Sister with a 202 area code, New York address. Huh, interesting note. Family, the other F word. Nobody on the west coast. All remote.
Jay: Jesus Christ! Look, his jaw just dropped. If I didn’t know better, I, I, … I would think he is laughing. Can we get out of here? This dude is givin’ me the creeps.
John: We gotta find someone to contact.
Jay: What else is on the list?
John: (Scrolls some more.) Interesting…
Jay: Come on! What is it? You can’t just say interesting and stop.
John: Oh sorry. The name of woman. Joan. International phone number. Malaysian address. The notes section is full of broken heart emoji’s.
(Reads more)
John: Here is a local number.
(Dials)
John: Hi, Mr Smith. Are you an acquaintance of Mr. Jones.
Dave: Yeah. Mike. Used to be best friends. He left on long trip about a year ago. Said he wanted some peace and quiet. Would find me when he gets back.
John: I see. Well, I think he had his year of peace and quiet.
(A crash. The head falls off the skeleton and rolls on the carpet. Stops. The skin powders into the atmosphere along with all the dust it kicks up)
John and Jay together (falling over one another, John drops the phone): Fuck!
John (gaining composure, picks up iPhone): You look more like the ghost than that guy.
Jay (pale white): Let’s get the hell out of here.
A slow build up as the black disk of the moon bites into the solar glass orange of the sun. Still too bright to look at as the air cools and the light dims. Even a mere sliver of sun still overwhelms the eyes.
Not 50%, not 90%, not 99%. 100%. Totality. A pulsating ribbon of light: the corona around the moon. And then darkness out to some far horizon where dim light still strikes the earth outside of totality. A black disk with a living white outline where the sun use to be. Staring straight at the spot where the sun should be trying to sear my retinas, after a lifetime of being told i would go blind.
Not of this world. Beautiful. Preapocalyptic, apocalyptic, post apocalyptic glimpsed all at once. Knowing but not believing. The naked Truth revealed in a fleeting moment. The urge to tear up: to humility? Respect? Awe? Beauty? Surrender?
The moon surrenders its purchase on the sun. A beautiful diamond ring as the first rays of sun poke through a crater on the flawed surface of the moon. The day returns. The ordinary continues. The magic disappears into the recesses of memory. Like a miracle, i later wonder if it really happened: not the seeing of it, but the way it touched me.
Totality. Too big for a photo or a video or a telling. Seek totality. Whatever it takes, see one in your lifetime.
The muskeg smells earthy, for sure, not putrid though. The cold water trickles up the leg of my wet suit as I back up to the starting line trying not to trip clumsily over my fins.
I hate cold water but can’t pass on the opportunity for sport and fun. Besides, when else can I dress up like a frog? I adjust my goggles, push my snorkel through my frog-face hat, and give the thumbs up sign. The gun fires. I leap forward into the cold water that fills my suit and sends a shiver down my spine before my body can warm it. Or is that just the adrenaline of the race? I fin through the gritty slimy water filled with decaying sphagnum moss shed from the spruces and larches of the taiga forest. The use of arms is not allowed under the rules of the race.
I frog my way forward towards the finish line costumed in my black spotted green leopard frog cape, the frog eyes on my mask just breaking the surface. The crowd cheers me on, getting louder as I near the finish line, sixty yards from the start of the five foot wide channel.
I stand at the finish line, the muck clinging to me like some bog monster in a bad movie, raising my fists over my head in victory. My heart continues to pound as I regain my breath. The exhilaration and the exertion of the race drowned the cold back in the first ten yards. I remove my goggles and frog-face hat.
I know Samaki and Haraka will have better times. Both are much stronger swimmers than I. Maybe I’ll get an honorable mention for costume. Andie walks over to me with a towel so I can dry off.
“You are in first place”, she says proudly.
“Ha ha. That should stand until the second swimmer.”
The contestants enter the water one at a time each in their bog suits of fish, boats, and one guy tried to pedal a bicycle each taking their shot at fame and fashion.
“You won!” Andie congratulates me with a generous hug.
“Really?” I said genuinely surprised. “What happened to Samaki and Haraka? They are both much better swimmers. What were their times?”
“Neither of them raced. They both got sick” Andie says.
“Both? Really?” Even on a festive occasion like this, with games and conversation and community, the moss hanging from the trees, the fog, and the cold make the taiga forest seem like a sinister and foreboding place.
“Yes, both. The doctors diagnosed it as mushroom poisoning. They both ate some Larch boletes” she explains.
“Those aren’t poisonous. We eat those all the time” I counter.
“Well, the only plausible hypothesis is that you poisoned them to win. Everyone knows.” she kids.
I feel my face turn warm. I blush. I turn my head away so she cannot see. “They don’t really think that do they?”
Andie may not see my face redden but she reads my hesitation and voice as if the emotion was stamped on my forehead. She doubles over with laughter. “Of course not, silly. Oh, and by the way, Chaza won best outfit.”
“I happily concede. She deserves it. Any one willing to jump in that cold, dirty water with nothing but a clam shell bikini gets all the prizes as far as I am concerned.” A surge of lust flashes through my body. I blush again.
Without looking, Andie reads me just as easily as the last time.
The wind blows hard and the snow is shoved down my mouth, it taste like shaved ice, but a little bitter. I close my mouth and bury my face in the shaggy neck of my ride welcoming the relief from the blowing snow, but it smells like wet dog that just came out of a fetid swamp. The mammoth head sways left and right in cadence with each step, the massive curved tusks looking like the tines of a forklift, but so much more sinuous and elegant. I’ve learned to ride with the rhythm leaning left as the mammoth head sways to the right, leaning forward on the uphills and leaning back on the down.
mindful of the hidden brook that gurgles under a wooden landing, thick ferns and bushes, mindful of slippery footing in the muddy puddle of hiking boot depressions, mindful of pricking thorny raspberry bushes as I try to walk off trail to skirt the puddles, mindful of the rivulet of water flowing down the trail looking for its way to its ocean home, mindful of the soreness in thigh and calf muscles due to elevation gain and after two previous days of hiking, mindful of the chill from uphill sweat on a downhill north facing slope under the red woods,mindful of the mushroom bloom that pushes up through the ground under pine trees, mindful of the silence broken by a beach-scraping prop plane, mindful of the two crows preening one another on a rock and the raptor that lands on the browned grass of the field, mindful of the sweeping view of the rocky and rugged coastline, mindful of a wave pounding on black volcanic rocks jetting up into the air like the high collar of a white cape,
mindful of the iridescent blues of an iris and the clear blue sky, mindful of a sip of water and the bite of a crumbly snack mindful of the minute I sit and relax
A mom and her daughter retreat into their car as we pull into the parking lot. They stop despite doors pulling them into their car to warn us that the wind is really bad and that one of them was hit by a falling branch causing them to abort their mission. Duly warned, we head out on the trail.
Continue reading “Water, Earth, Wind, and Fire – Facing the Elements in the Deep South”
Well, on my way. Made it to Santa Cruz. Car holding up so far. Driver holding up so far. Weather is pretty miserable up here, cold and raining.
I’m listening to the book “Wild Shore” by Kim Stanley Robinson, my favorite sci-fi author. The book kept me pretty occupied and relatively stress free bobbing in and out and around cars and semis as the book characters survive post apocalyptic America.
Food for the Soul
Is planning an adventure an oxymoron? I thinks so, if you believe that the adventure begins when the trouble starts: a philosophical conversation for another time perhaps. I just want to share all the little desert moments on a simple weekend trip that, while perhaps not epic, are still food for the soul.
