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Believe me, a highly strung brain such as yours demands occasional relaxation from the strain of domestic surroundings. Forget for a little while that children want music lessons, and boots, and bicycles, with tincture of rhubarb three times a day; forget there are such things in life as cooks, and house decorators, and next-door dogs, and butchers’ bills. Go away to some green corner of the earth, where all is new and strange to you, where your over-wrought mind will gather peace and fresh ideas. Go away for a space and give me time to miss you, and to reflect upon your goodness and virtue, which, continually present with me, I may, human-like, be apt to forget, as one, through use, grows indifferent to the blessing of the sun and the beauty of the moon. Go away, and come back refreshed in mind and body, a brighter, better man—if that be possible—than when you went away. ↗
GUYS! Would you give it a rest?" Kevin shouted at them, "You're standing there feeding off each other! Dad – you're trying to prove to Ted why me and Dani are a Bad Thing – because you just can't bring yourself to admit that it isn't, even though you can SEE that it isn't! You know it! And Ted – you're pushing my dad's buttons on purpose because you're not so sure yourself how you really feel about us - her, me, any of it! So both of ya just SHUT THE HELL UP!" He turned back towards Dani, "Dani – you're beautiful and I love you – but this wasn't one of your best ideas. Now everyone just be quiet while I hit the stupid little white ball and make it go into the stupid little round hole! GAWD!" All three of them stared at Kevin while he swung. The stupid little white ball flew straight and high, and landed on the green. Apparently a little focus – no matter what it was directed towards – was just what Kevin needed. ↗
There will be others, many others. You’ll try desperately to digest a single word through the acronym-laden gibberish, while beginning to wonder what the point of all this is, and also why you didn’t feel that staple you just sent into your thigh. You usually do. You’ll wonder what your company even does. After six years, you have no idea what an information system is, do you? Maybe you should ask. Maybe that’s how this ends. You’ll imagine how poetic it would be to simply unmute yourself and say, “Sorry to interrupt, guys, but what’s an information system?” Still, your mind will drift further, envisioning how much more tolerable this call would be if you could just slowly masturbate during it. So you do. You masturbate during it. And it’s beautiful. Masturbating, invisible within your three-walled fortress. Invisible… invisible… practically invisible. ↗
He wondered where his mind had wandered this time, what life it had lived as a trail of neurons sped through networks of possibilities particle-fast, too rapid to catch without a hadron collider, causing super quarks of weirdness and leaving him with only a vague after-image like a melting dream. He had to accept that he couldn’t catch all his thoughts, all the things going on in his body, the processes which slipped by in the background just leaving a shadow, an itch, the grain of sand that probably wouldn’t become a pearl, a blazing after-trace that lives a second then is gone forever. All those possibilities occurring in a second of frantic life: it never ceased to amaze him. The world was an incredible and beautifully constructed thing. However, there wasn’t really time for a wank. ↗
An oceanic expanse of pre-dawn gray white below obscures a checkered grid of Saskatchewan, a snow plain nicked by the dark, unruly lines of woody swales. One might imagine that little is to be seen from a plane at night, but above the clouds the Milky Way is a dense, blazing arch. A full moon often lights the planet freshly, and patterns of human culture, artificially lit, are striking in ways not visible in daylight. One evening I saw the distinctive glows of cities around Delhi diffused like spiral galaxies in a continuous deck of stratus clouds far below us. In Algeria and on the Asian steppes, wind-whipped pennants of gas flared. The jungle burned in incandescent spots in Malaysia and Brazil. One clear evening at 20,000 feet over Manhattan, I could see, it seemed, every streetlight halfway to the end of Long Island. A summer lightning bolt unexpectedly revealed thousands of bright dots on the ink-black veld of the northern Transvaal: sheep. ↗
She was crouched in the corner of the room, eating something off the floor. It was the old woman dressed in endless black. When she looked up this time there was no question she was there for me. She had the face of my mother but much older, her ancient decayed mouth coming closer for her good-night kiss. I steeled myself against her putrid smell, the mouthful of bitter dust, but as her lips touched mine it was like biting into a purple black plum whose fruit was brilliant red, like an explosion of intense joy. Its childhood smell wrinkled my nose with pleasure, its sweet juices ran down my chin, turning into a beautiful black ocean where I floated safely, not lost as I had imagined, but securely tucked away deep in space. ↗
With a deep breath, I decided I was not going to let any of this irritate me. I was here for one whole month, and I was going to enjoy every moment. I proper my arm in the open window, inhaled the warm, salty air, and took in the early evening scenery. Off to the right stretched the blue expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. The miles of sparkling clarity reminded me of the waters of Bermuda. My family had gone there two years ago for summer vacation. Gwenny and I had swum and snorkelled until our skin turned wrinkly. On the horizon I caught sight of a fishing boat with lines and nets thrown out. A moped passed us, beeping its tiny horn. I wondered how fast we were going. Cade glanced over and gave a slight nod to the older man as he went zipping past. We continued along the coastal highway with the ocean to my right and overgrown brush to the left. We passed a small village of stone cottages nearly hidden by the overgrown greenery, and I inched forward in my seat to catch a better glimpse. Eventually, the van reached the other side of the island and pulled off the highway onto a gravel road. We drove under the beautiful archway of bright red flowers growing on thick green vines that I had seen on the Pepper House's website. We circled around a stone fountain with four carved goats spouting water from their mouths. Cade stopped the van in front of a Mediterranean-style whitewashed stone house covered in more beautiful red flowers. He turned the key and silence filled the cab. "Here we are," he said, flinging open his door and getting out of the van. I sat for a moment and smiled. Here I am. ↗
I was still a newlywed and certainly wasn't to the point where I felt comfortable yelling, "I'm going to shit my pants any second!" But the sweating had started, which was followed by the tears. "I'm not feeling well, and need to get home," I told him. "Ok, but I have to obey the speed limit because of all the kids in the neighborhood," he replied. I was pleading with him to hurry up when he came to a complete stop. I screamed at him, "Why are we stopping?" He rolled down the window. "Retreat." I could see the flag lowering in the distance, the beautiful orange sun setting behind it. In the opposite direction I could see the roof line of our home - so close, yet so far away. As Retreat played, I surrendered. I pooped my pants. I took one for the flag. Now that's patriotism. ↗
#ibs #military #patriotism #poop #beauty
Suddenly, he wanted some credit for it. He wanted someone to thank him for not crapping on the institution of love. He wanted someone to thank him for not being yet another dilettante. He wanted someone to thank him for quitting poetry. He wanted some great poet to thank him for quitting poetry instead of desecrating it with his amateurishness. He wanted some unborn child to thank him for not conceiving her and not leaving her a hope chest full of mawkish villanelles. He wanted some sort of organization of martyrs to give him an award. He wanted to be decorated for not putting up a fuss. He wanted to be the president of forgettable people. He wanted there to be a competition for the least competitive person, and he wanted to win that competition. He wanted some sort of badge or outfit or medal or key or hat. He wanted to be asked to stand. He wanted to be considered. He wanted to be considered in earnest before being ignored. He wanted all the insane and beautiful and passionate people in the world to take one moment of silence in gratitude for the ones who had ceded them the stage-- he, the unread poet, the sacrifice, the schoolteacher-- he wanted one goddamned moment of appreciation. ↗
