Trumpets Rise to Meet

Hi.

Sometimes I think people don't take things serious enough. Someone tries to go beyond words or pictures into a story or some imperceptible but wholly valid meaning, and you cannot stand yourself without snickering in it's direction. Sick.

Sometimes I feel like we all take things too seriously. It's just a picture. They're just words. No more or less than pass your lips during every conversation you've ever had.

I think my pictures are a slightly truer perspective into myself, because they are bad. I can't express myself as well, so you can see me trying, and see what I'm aiming for. My writing has such a control and a smug grimace to it, it's so arrogant in and of itself. It's too planned to be true. Maybe I'm backwards.

I think if there are forces out there that cause events we cannot explain, free will, emotions, attraction to art, deja vu, etc. that those forces are wholly inconcieveable. Stop trying. If you could understand it, that would defeat it's purpose, and it wouldn't exist anymore.

Could you kill something by knowing it?

(soft piano transition)

Does hearing the ocean make you at the ocean? No.

But the sounds, sights and smells can be replicated, precisely. So, the unique feeling of staring out into the ocean, at a possibly endless horizon. That feeling is all that makes the ocean the ocean to you or I.

Does that feeling exist? Is it explainable? Should it be?

No.

Just go with the flow man.

(soft violins exit)

So Lets Say You Wake Up

So lets say you wake up.

So lets say you wake up and you realize you don't have a heart, someone seems to have stolen it.

What would you do?

Would you race up from the field, letting the tall grasses graze your open palms?

Would you scramble through town, asking anyone and everyone you saw, but only recieving disaproving glances?

Nobody talks to a man with no heart.

Besides, there's nobody around town today, they're all at church right now.

So lets start over.

Lets say it's 9:37 am and you wake up on a hill overlooking the field, under a big old oak tree. You forget exactly how you got there, and you seem unable to focus. You look down and quickly realize, through your amazing deductive skills, that you are lacking a heart.

Let's assume you run into town shall we?

Why are you so unable to focus? There is no pain, but there is a strange, almost magnetic pull.

Nobody is around and you search the town for nothing, moreso just walking to clear your thoughts. Empty and yearning. Hollow and hopeful. What is this?

The bells ring and the church doors burst open and you see a throng of suits and dresses, black and white like the movies. Only one is in color. Only she is visibile.

A ghost whispers.

"If you knew I was dying, would it change you?"

You remember.

Nobody stole your heart.

You gave it to someone.

Magnetism is gravity and you fall to her earth, embraced and endless.

A kiss and you remember, a touch, a smile, an eternity.




Let's say it lasts.

What would you do?

Times Not To Dance

Sometimes, you just have to accept your legs are broken and sit one out, no matter how much it hurts.

We all get another chance.

(II?):Innumerated Passage

Ripped page stuffed into the journal of Francis Du'Mort, crumpled and stained.

Innumerated Passage
(What Can Be Read Of It)

Why did I join this goddamn war?!?! (hole in paper)

F (smear) king God, man! Who would put another human being through this?!?

T (blood stain covers words) nly thing that keeps me going is this shit journal. What the hell am I doing in this place? Dearest beloved, my god I miss you. Every explosion only brings me fear of never seeing you again. Each scream is just a reminder of the sound of your vo (smear)

Holy hell! (bloody fingerprints mark this area of the page) The stench of another human being...can be...the most revolting thing (illegible scribbles) but I guess that's what's got to happen. A man is ten times heavier when he's dying, trust me on that one. Sometimes this stagnant air becomes a calm orange dust, and it reminds me of your perfume....but I would never liken you to th (writing stops)

(writing resumes, obvious passage of time)
So the boys are all in bed, for some reason I'm just now getting my adrenaline. I can't sleep in these conditions. It's not the stench of piss-helms or the taste of gunpowder glued to my tongue. It's not the mortar or the grenades. It's something inside, I know war is no place for a...whatever I am...but somehow I feel like I could grab this. I could feel this place in my hands and mold it to my liking. This is my clay, and I have just started to work it. Formulate. Dedication is all I lack, but I compensate in persistance and careless abandon. I could do this.

(tiny scribbles, handwriting is shakey)
I can feel you, I can feel you around me.
I can see you everywhere.
Please be in that doorway on the hill.
Please be under that tree.
Please don't stand on that patch of dirt there, there's a landmine.
Please don't make a sound, they'll hear us.
I can't do this.
I am so afrai(smear)
I am so afraid.
I could have never done this.
What am I doing here?
I can feel you holding me and that's all that's keeping me still.
I can hear you talking and that's all that's keeping me quiet.
My fingers are crossed, but they're on the trigger.
My boots are too tight.
This uniform is covered in blood.
None of it is mine.
This was a terrible idea.
I cannot do this.
(illegible)
I am so afraid.
We are so gone.
We are not invincible.
We are already dead.
I love you.

(handwriting changes, obvious passage of time)
It's done and I'm over. This war is the last thing I shall ever commit myself to. I cannot believe what I...what is inside of me...my god...(smear)

(handwriting changes, very fresh ink)
Who were those men? Who am I? Their faces, always agaonized. Was mine calm? Were my friends calm as they fell? The unlucky, no more or less tact, just designated by the divine to mis-step into a grim setting.

I cannot wait until I can see you again love, I need you now more than ever. My legs are shaking, they cannot bear this tired soul much longer. These hands are heavy with caked earth, it's disgusting. All I can think of is going back to you. This has to be over. This is surely the end of me. The men, in fear, prayed to god. Now they call him a smoothe bastard. They seem so un (smear) Well I am.

Never.

Again.

-Francis

I: I'm Back

Posessions:
1. Suitcase
1. Umbrella
1. Mandolin
1. Expired Ticket

Suitcase Inventory:
1. Pen
1. Ink Vial
1. Bound Journal
24. Photographs
1. Rose
1. Glasses
1. Knife
2. Letters, adressed to Francis
2. Letters, adressed from Francis

Journal Inscription:

Hello, my name is Francis Du'Mort. If you're reading this, I have completed my pilgrimage and I am certain that I have no regrets whatsoever. I will describe, in my free time, the events that pass as I travel the coast and experience what I should hope to be a very interesting life. Should I, at any point, lose track of this book, everything I hope to discover will be a waste, for only my eyes have seen what there may be out there, and the world will be none the greater for my sight. I only hope that I can hold on to this volume until I reach my destination.

Journal Entry:
I: I'm back
Hello dear reader, I have just settled myself into my cab on the train. It was a horrible nuissance getting onto the metal behemoth, a terrible line at The Canal. Something is telling me this is more impressive and undertaking than most would care to denote. As I stood in the line of hopefuls, I was every wave I saw crashing against the steel that holds the great tracks up. I was every sliver of gravel wishing to inch forward, simply to be above the ocean. I felt like I would never leave, and I kept worrying I would weather my ticket from fingering it so much, but I finally got on, in, etc.

There is no map, there is no evidence of knowing where this rust monster will take us. I am elated at this fact.

Several of my compatriots seem confused and weary, like one just awakened. My mind though, oh it's bursting at it's seams. I don't know anything of the world beyond the steps of the very station from which I have just departed. I am open and ready, less like a sponge and more like a voracious vacuum for knowledge and experience. These first few days, I feel, will be a testing ground for the lot of us on the train, finding our legs and our brains amongst the ceaseless chugging sound and unimagineable visions just outside our windows.

I don't even know how to talk to them, we're all so different.

My goals, as stand, are to find my place amongst this lot, on this train, and in this world. Lofty, but I see no evidence that anything is impossible here. I am bright and new, fresh with powder almost, and awaiting all of the passages, and passengers, before me.

-All my love,
Francis

20 Pennies

Right foot, left foot, right foot, pause, left foot, pause, restart, left foot, right foot, left foot, pause, right foot, pause, begin again. That is the view, first person, of me walking down the sidewalk. I reverse the order so that the left foot starts the pattern first. The pauses are where my stride is not long enough to hit one panel a piece, and that catches up to me. I never step on the cracks. I pause and take an extra long step. That's when I know to restart, letting the opposite foot begin. I know, complex and un-necessary. But hey, not all of us look pretty when we skip.

His Devotion is to the City of Fun

So I saw him, I met him by association, of being in his presence. I knew him instantly because he was an open book to be read, and I was a pen waiting to find paper. He was drunken and slovenly, not picturesque and fantastic as some might portray him. He was dirty and unshaven and that was not at all attractive. His coat had holes and he did not wear them like badges, he covered them and grabbed at them because they let the cold air in and gave him chills. His singing was terrible. He was The Captain.

His beard was neither long nor red. A scruffy mess of autum leaves, but pulled into strange wirey moss, covered his chin and neck. His voice was gravel and whiskey and adventures untold all swept up in the salt air. He gestured about as though he had an audience not a boy observing, unknown, from a distance. He talked as though he had the fire in the palm of his hand and dripping from his lips, not slowly dying in front of him on another of any freezing nights in my home town. He represented everything that I vowed to hate, while being the essence of anything I could ever aspire to be. It was revolting.

I followed my footsteps in the snow every day, straight back to that same place. He was a wanderer who was rooted. He was a breeze trapped in a bottle. It was sad and I felt like maybe there were sometimes when Superman just wasn't fast enough and the world had to go on spinning just the way it always did. The Captain never worried though. He taught me everything I've come to know I dissaprove of and hate myself for doing too.

One day, I saw him down by the docks, men and all. He lit his ship on fire and stood and stared as it fell. I asked him why and he said sometimes there's nowhere left to escape to, and you have to stop looking.

He said sometimes you've already found it, and you just couldn't stop the habit.

He said sometimes love is strong motivation but weak adhesive.

He said sometimes this is as good as it gets, and it's pretty damn good.

He said sometimes it's time to thank the sea.

Then he left and I forget what he told me last, but I know it was a mystery to me until I learned to start seeing through my eyes and not my pens.

He didn't know everything, he asked me all the questions, and I already knew the all the answers.






"Oh and you, you'll be as famous an ocean
They'll try to name you but commotion,
Oh it will ravage in them whole."

Out of place and under-dressed

Sometimes when Oscar goes to his window to catch his air, he peers down at the street, almost annoyingly bright for just one streetlight.

He detests how "modern men" dress these days with their denim slacks and their distasteful cufflinks.

Wearing black to anywhere but a funeral or an invitation only dinner party, how tacky.

Sometimes he wonders at the fashions of man, and deems them a necessary evil, keeping the perpetual wheels of idealism running, whilest knowingly to a pointless and repetetitive end.

Oscar's Notes:

Mankind and His Devices
"Such masters are we, of our own domain, that we should have time to create art. Furthermore we are so vain in our infinate boredom that we spare seconds of hours of life qualifying such a thing into catagories of 'tasteful' and 'descriminate.' How ever-reaching our arrogance is."

"Who amongst any of creation, can claim to create themselves? We are gods amongst men, all of us, and if so then we are not gods at all."

"I studied a queer gentleman the other evening, pacing down my street, talking to himself about some indiscernable frailty, or the weather perhaps."

"For his own, he cared nothing of his coat getting wet, but any man can see he paid over fifty and a half dollars for that coat. What quality of rain and temperment does defy our own monetary values, or otherwise for such a matter? What line, when crossed, seperates the irrelevant from the irrevokeable?"

"This is surely something to give thought to."

-Oscar

Rubidoux

Hi, it's me again, real me.

I know we don't talk a lot, personally.

I guess everything is me talking, every character is an extension of myself, my evenings, the constant pressing urge to tell the same story satiated nightly. Have you caught on to that yet? It's all the same. It has to be me or it would be anything else at all.

Still.

I just want to make sure you're doing alright, you've been awful quiet lately. I say a lot of things, and sometimes I stop meaning them after I say them, and sometimes I didn't mean them to start with. Stop taking me seriously please, because I'm certainly not going to any time soon, it's just not in me.

I'm writing more stories, more side stories. I invented a character, named Max like I usually name my characters until I can draw them and discern a real name. Don't even ask how I draw them without knowing what they look like first. I swear I'm not losing my mind anymore, but I don't know if that means I'm back to normal or I've made normal out of something new. Guess we're always making normal out of something, so in the long run either option is sufficient.

It's going to be a long time until we can talk again, I feel at least. It just doesn't come natural anymore. I've lost something and I'm trying to find it. The one security I had while I was trying to impress you, that one solid grasp on myself, even if it wasn't on my thoughts, on my actual soul. I've lost it. And I'll grab it again, but that means some time away. I'm quiet and reserved, but I'm solid and unmoving. I'm uncaring. I'm honest though, that's a prevailing trait. You'll be the second one to know, trust me on that.

Good thing you kind of left in your own way too. I wouldn't want you to miss me. I wouldn't want you to notice even though I'd want you to care if you did.

I'm going to find myself again, my control. I can't be myself and everything else everyone always needs if I can't even be myself. One foot in the saddle though right? Life will still go on, it's nothing no human has experienced before.

Someone asked why all the "classic" novels were depressing.

Maybe it's because when you're happy you're out being happy and living life. It's just when you're sad or confused or torn that you have time to sit and ponder and write short stories. I find that characters are solid, unchangeable personalities. Strikingly one dimensional. I wonder if I am one dimensional. I don't seem to be able to be me when I am not being me, and I certainly do not seem to be able to be anyone else. I just turn into nobody and float, or I turn into a rock and dig my granite roots into the dirt.

Here's to finding ourselves.

Let's meet back up once we both find out what we're looking for, and get what we're deserving of. Let's talk about what we learned and who we are and who we're certainly sure we cannot be. Let's be impartial and unbiased and everything nobody ever is and listen to music we both like and then wonder why we even considered leaving.

Okay?

I love our late night talks, but I still feel like it's very one sided. Talk more alright? I can probably handle it.

Goodnight love.

"Max woke up and realized, someone had stolen his heart."

I'm Playing God.....Yayyy!

I woke up in a hospital. I was confused and it was night time. I unhooked chords from un-named places and made my way to the window. The moon was a face who'se smile was just a bit too smirkish for my taste. I asked it what was so funny. There were some kids in the parking lot singing songs about love and I felt like I was going to die.

Wait.

No.

I woke up on a beach. I was cold and it was night time. I dusted the crystaline terrace off my torso and shambled upto the shoreline. The moon was cool and I asked it why it seemed so relaxed all the time. There were some kids a ways down by a bonfire, singing songs about love. I felt like I could lay there for days.

Wait.

No.

I woke up in a bedroom. I was sore and it was night time. I moved the twisted sheets off and made my way over to the window. The illuminated buildings made stars and moon irrelvant and blinded the eye. I asked the city why it never slept. There were some angry folks down on the street cursing eachother's mothers graves and honking horns. I felt like home was where your heart wanted to take a vacation from.

I'm wrong again.

Yes.

I woke up in a hospital. I don't know what I did or who I am or what I want. I want to go to that window. I want to see how the moon is feeling or if I can even see him at all. I want to be young and singing songs about love and wonder why adults always seem so miserable. I want to be the cabbie who lets the man past him kindly. I want out of this bed, out of these sheets. I suppose everyone feels like this at some point.

I woke up but I can feel myself going back to sleep.

Maybe I'll wake up in a new place, somewhere better with a moon that lights the world like an old face I can barely remember anymore. Who knows. Anything is possible.

Goodnight.

Another Bonus Phillip

"Sometimes, Phillip feels that he is all alone...



...it's usually because he is."

Endsville's Midnight Press

I used to look out the window.

It would be 12:03 am and she would be standing on a table hanging papers to let them air dry and I would be gazing at the moon.

She might turn to me any given evening and ask me what I was looking at, and tell me I was stupid, and tell me how behind we were.

We were Midland's only underground news outlet after all.

A lot of people referred to Midland as Endsville, you know, like where all the old people go to live? It looked like the 20's a lot there because I guess that was what old people grew up dreaming of owning. Now it just looks old. Wonder what my old people neighborhood will look like...

We were 10 and we were Endsville's Midnight Press. Everything important was well documented and printed at the maximum capacity one typewriter could manage. Every important event, Lucy Bartowe losing her tooth, Mark Hoppkins finding a blue frog, Kenny Smith getting a trampoline, and of course the horrible rumors that there would be an end to the lemonade stand on 5th and West that gave free lemonade to kids on Saturday afternoons, was covered in detail. We had it all.

Sometimes I wondered why we did it. Sometimes I felt like we were making more history than we were writing about. Sometimes it was worth it just to watch how the moon shines on someones hair, you know, that little white aura that glows on them?

I loved her.
There was a plastic ring involved but I think I was embarassed and I don't think she understood what I was stammering and I don't think I ever tried to explain it. I can still really only write to her. Endlessly.

I could only ever say what I meant from behind a wall of paper, under a shield of ink. I still write letters. I make myself.

Me, mister lack of self control, dedication, or general interest. I make myself write letters to her at 12 am every day.

I love her.
Soon enough we'll both go back to that neighborhood I'm sure.

We'll be the old people all the kids ignore. I still don't understand death but I'm ninety percent sure it comes wether you understand it or not. I'm wholly sure love happens wether you understand it or not. We spent every night writing that paper, and didn't have a single reader. It was a secret newspaper, just for us, just so we could never forget all the important things when we become old and our eyes glaze over with dull content and our lips dry and we feel fine not knowing anymore.

I will always remember everything about those nights. Every stich in her jeans. Every slight little look. The one time she kissed me. The one plastic ring.

She's asleep in the next room now, there's a real ring there on her finger. We're growing old as fast as we have to but up as slow as we can. The kids are in bed and I'm writing another solo editorial, as the one remaining member of Endsville's Midnight Press.

All the Fixings

So I think I'll plug the seams
I'll patch the broken glass
I'll tape your broken arms
I won't let no more past.
And I'll find solution in the wrong ways
And I'll do it to the last.

So I sweat the small things still
I didn't learn a thing
I'll kiss your broken arm
You'll miss that daimond ring.
And we'll find eachother in the best ways
And we'll watch the seasons pass.

Please interlude for me
A sea of subtleties
Bandage my broken thoughts
Pull me close, make me clean.
I havn't figured out the weakness
But it prevails in everything.

So let's pursue my past
Let's learn about my laugh
Let's change for everyone
Let's end this endless path.
I've found the love I want and I seem
The same in the aftermath.



Camp was super fun and I think everyone learned a lot.
I don't feel like we fell headfirst into it like always, but I think maybe that's an even more important step in our progress. I now realize what it is that I do, who it is that I am, and how inseperable I am from the ideals I've held dear since youth. This is not about changing, this is about moving forward, there is no going back.

There is no growing up left to be done.

Goodbye

I always got the feeling that if you knew how you would die, you would be able to have something important planned to say.

I always thought that you got a few seconds to get something out between this world and the next.

I always thought if you knew what God was, or was not, you would be able to talk to him about death, and maybe come to an agreeance.

Now I get the feeling that if you know all the ways you could die, you would spend less time worrying about it and more time living.

Now I think that you get a lifetime of telling friends you love them between this world and the next, and that time starts right now.

I think that if we knew what God is, or is not, that would defeat the purpose of having God around.

I'm not leaving.

I'm moving.

I'm moving from one frame of refrence to another, in short, calculated sidesteps.

I used to think too much.

Here's some classics to tide you over while I'm away.

Classic Tyler Poems
Rainy Day

I spent today inside
Dark rainclouds formed a shade over my eyes
So I pulled ope the shutters in my mind
And, to no great surprise, I spent my day
Thinking of you

Each tiny raindrop a memory
Pouring forth until there came to be
An ocean in my room, a flood of deepest sincerity
But I could see you through the waves with perfect clarity

Not a word from your mouth now
Save your air to breathe
And come dive under the water with me

The Voyage

As I swing on the swing attached to the old tree
Near the house I've lived in for so long
I hear voices now, they are calling out to me
Like the words of an old song

They speak of a girl who is gently now weeping
She's calling me to come take her hand
She tells me now of a secret she's keeping
Of a far off and wonderful land

They tell me that there the sun sings a sweet song
The forests and brooks tell an old tale
I've lived in the house by the old tree for so lon
Do I dare leave now and set sail?

I look to her now and her eyes shine with moonlight
She sits and she looks and she prays
That I will show trust in this new world that's so bright
That I will come with her one of these days

They say it's far but 5 hours, 3 days, 9 years, I don't know
I sit on the shores of my own contemplations
I'm told I really shouldn't go...

The burden's to heavy my mind I feel breaking
My heart shall soon follow, I know
I think to the girl with the smile so breathtaking
I'm starting to think I might go...

To My Dearest Forsaken

Hi! Hey, uh, sorry I'm kind of jittery I've been thinking about this all day. I know, that defies the purpose but whatever. I'm just so excited. I miss you!

I'm sorry.

Okay, I didn't mean that. I'm glad you went. I hope things are good there though! I hope you found what you wanted. You always did seem to be looking for something...or maybe someone. Or maybe both...I just hope you realize that someone is looking for you right now too, or maybe something within you. God I can't stop shaking.

Things here are good, I've been writing a lot, you know, thinking about things. Do you ever think about us back here? I'm sorry that's uncalled for. Those lights are so bright, you'd never have time to shut your eyes.

I only see things clearly with my eyes closed, and so I will assume you are the same. But you miss out on so much of reality when things are clear, so I get it. I like those big glasses you wear.

I didn't mean to, if you were wondering. Write about you that is.

It just kind of happens a lot. I get all excited then it just kind of comes out. I bet some people wouldn't get it, but I know you do.

It's just...

How often do we get to talk right?

I know we communicate a lot, but it's usually roundabout. It's usually coded in a dialect only we know. It's usually though others who only used to think they understood.

How often do we get to talk like this, face to face?

I don't even know what to say anymore.

I want to tell you everything, I want to tell everyone everything.

But I'm starting to lose control, and I'm starting to be afraid again. Not like I was, that was aprehension, fear of the unknown. Now it's the fear of what's been done. Now I fear going on. I'm starting to think telling you everything is a bad idea.

You know I can't stop though.

We only meet here once, this space.

We both closed our eyes at the same time, and here we are.

I can see you clearly.
Please don't forget me out there.

Nobody here could be what I need when I don't need anyone.

I'm still writing about you...just not secretly anymore.

There's just no reason to be secret.

I'm only whispering now because I love to hear you breathe while I talk. I could be shouting my lungs out. We could be in space and I could shout.

I hope you feel the same way, or maybe will soon, or eventually.

You know the things I am thinking. You know my words best as I do.

An Adventure

Questions, paradoxes that, though profound, are worth less than the time wasted on their ponders. Things that rattle you at night.

I know.

I'm sorry.
Sometimes I worry about you, sitting there, legs dangling over the edge of the earth. I know finding the actual end of all things, the physical stop of creation, has not yielded the closure you sought. I know the marching, the vigor, feels like it was a waste.

I know son.
You ran off to find us that rain. That small elusive manifestation of all that is essential and clean. You meant to bring us back to our gladness, and we are, I hope you find out later. You wandered off to the mists, through the trees. You ran where others cautiously crept. You tore over in great strides the pebbles I slipped on.

And I know you'd do it again.
I just wish we knew then.
I mean how could we not know. Rain, it's multitude of solitude. It's singular weight of infinate light drops. Rain is how much someone can be missed. Rain is how many people regret not saying something to you before you left. Rain is a hug from you to everyone you left behind, because there is no other comfort for those lost, only those waiting. You gave us the blanket off your shoulders. We gave the thanks to our gods and forgot about eachother.

I know you are alive.

I know you found the end of the earth.

The only thing left is to go home, but there's no secret to that.

The only time worthwhile is time of uncertainty, because only in restless angst can we find our truest selves. You knew all along, and you ran off without a whisper of doubt, regret, hesitance. Forgive our forgetfulness. We return in kindess what the fools percieve as miracles.

I hope you found the end of the earth.

I hope you know that's not the end.
Love is a sea of tumult and grandeur worth sailing, but I think you already knew. You loved us more than we could see from even up close. Each tiny drop reminds us though. There are no faulted tears in our watery groves.

Don't let the questions get to you, just keep learning.

And How Small

Author Oscar Lowe's Notes:

Upon Meeting a Tiny Ghost Up Close
"At a late hour in my study, past the point of tiredness into the new night's rush of frustrated adrenaline, I studied a phantasm that appeared to me."

"He appeared to be no bigger than the nail of your tiniest finger, and fluttered like a tiny bird, aimless, simply in wonderment of being in existance."

'Hello little friend, what is your name?'

"He chose, at that very moment, to not respond. Understandably of course, seeing I dwarfed him immeasureably. I sat and watched him ponder his predicament, nestled atop my freshly laid ink. He occupied the space of the word 'water,' but by his tiny legs, sturdy and firm, I knew he was the ghost of a lion."

'Do you consider yourself amongst the living?'

"Again, he chose no retort, but of course he did not. A lion trapped in such a tiny corporeal form would obviously have no qualms about admitting his status of quo, but should have no need to. A true lion could eat me whole with no pauses for good grace or mannerisms. He quite distinctly twitched his front foot though, a sign of awknoledged dominance."

"During that night he found me, drifting off into a dream world, and reminded me of my essence. He flew towards the fire, and there, silhouetted, became a great eye. He watched me, and reminded me that my muse was real. That my characters, churning in a sea of possibilities yearned for the life only a pen could give them. My own acts as author are transient and meager compared to the most glorious ability man will ever posess."

"The ability to give life, is the true sign of holiness amongst men."
"We who can create with a whisper are bound to destroy with a touch, but know that the everlasting, the spirits, are watching us. We are under constant consideration, and careful lingering eye. I have searchd the world for wonders, and I found it inside in time. His careful, maticulated movements betray him."

'Sir lion, I free you from your endless, piteous duty. Go free to fly straight to the stars. Let the atmospheric bubble burn you and set you free into the infinate.'

"I opened my window, and the fellow flew out, to some higher calling assuredly."

"That night I slept like a man who had not slept in years. That next day I found more secrets amongst the trees outside this ramshackle house I have grown acustomed to. Sometimes I forget to walk in the woods and observe. Literacy and imagination are too closely tied to forget the everbounding wellspring of potential that lies in all natural creation."

"Sometimes, the universe sends us tiny ghosts to remind us that there is a universe at all."

-Oscar

Hence, the Pickle

At 9 I was groggy in my pj's, thinking about what might happen that day. I was 7 years old. It was kind of hot, but not so hot that you would submit and waste your days indoors doing a crossword or something like that, just hot enough to make your skin prickle and tinge with a light glisten. At 9:15 I was dressed and out the door, heading through my yard, but not toward the gate, just jumping the fence.

Nothing beats shortcuts.

So it was maybe 10 when the boys finally opened the door. They looked sleepy and dirty, and by looked, I mean they both certainly were. They hadn't changed clothes from yesterday and looked mighty proud of it. They had all the gear, plenty of their sister's old dolls to drop from high elevations, jolly ranchers by the bucket, and large pre-fabricated cardboard flying devices, constructed in our secret workshop in my kitchen the night before.

It was truely shaping up to be a great day.

Bumbling across eachother, they exited the front door and flanked me down the street just in case Chad Warener Lervingston was around. Beyond that point, I think we started growing up really fast. I mean really fast, like cheetah fast. I'm unsure, but I think it was right then, right before we got to her house.

We got to her house at maybe 11. By then we were 8 years old. I didn't have to wait like with the boys, she knew when we'd get there and she was well prepared. She stepped outside in that dress, too adorable for a day of being stupid kids, but it still made the sunshine a little bit brighter.

Probably worth it.

She had that same little stuffed bear with her. She used to tell me she carried it for safety's keeping. I told her that I didn't know that safety could keep things. She just gave me that look and laughed and hugged me.

She gave the best hugs.

I think we kept aging, because I started feeling awkward, like I wanted to kiss her, real badly too. I didn't though because I was still considering the possibility of girls having some secret cootie sickness.

We all made our way over to the launch pad, a special spot right outside our neighborhood where we planned all of our adventures. She looked kind of scared, but she handed me the stuffed bear with an air of confidence about her, and sternly told me to keep good track of it while she was flying, for safety's keeping of course.

I think we were growing really fast, because I felt like we were teenagers, and kind of too old to be buying into this kind of idea. This felt stupid and wrong. But we did it anyway, we strapped her up and she climbed onto the wall and she jumped.

And the world froze.

I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, the aftermath is inconsequential. The time was inconsequential. We were all that was.

For that one second, for that one instance of time and space, that one unique moment, we were all flying with her. We were ageless, growing and falling in love with the time, holding the space, and refusing to let go.

I think I'm 92 now. My body creaks like floorboards and my memory is like a dense fog, both impassable and hollow. I am still 7. I am still 8. I am still 10. I can still see that dress, not made light by the sun, but itself lighting the world, and I hold onto that memory. It is my flagpost for when all else is lost. I keep it for safety, for fear, for protection, for love. I keep it for her. I keep it for the four of us.

One day I will start growing backwards I think, once I get high enough in numeric years, and I will do it all over again.

I will do everything the exact same way.

Life is not resent or regret, life is a small, brown, stuffed bear and four kids and one last great adventure to have before we're too old to care anymore.

I will never let go of that.

I will never see her fall.

Oh What A Habit

Such a collection, what a hobby.
Innate fear instilled from unknown sources.
What a habit, waking up at 4:23.

Check the clock.
Check the sheets.
Close your eyes.
Roll over.
Check the sheets.
Sleep.
What a habit, what a curiosity.
Frozen stiff by shades of black.
What a curiosity, cowering, your shaking hands.

You do what you can to keep awake.
I do what I can to fall back asleep again.
Take me away, take it all very far away.
What a strangeness, what elation.
Release the tension, bare and trembling.
What an elation, finding it all in perspective.

With your "time will only tell" glasses.
With your "find it within yourself" logic.
What is this fear, curiosity, joy and rapture?

It is, and simply continues, a figment of your astonishing mind.

Oh Chariot

An Excerpt From A Letter
"...And it was like Christmas on Tuesdays, and like other holidays on other days, you know, the non-Christian ones that I don't really know things about but I assume are good. Never to be outdone though, Saturdays were always the secret winners. The secret looks. Our secret knowing. The kind of knowing that is worth a whole conversation in and of itself, without even a sound. We had that on Saturdays.

And we had a lot every day. It was an amazing three years. My god...was it really three years? I swear I could know people forever and think it was just a day. We never spoke, but we did in so many ways. I could feel the hint of movement in the air when the room became still as she breathed, shallow at first, then deeply as she became calm. I could paint it for you if you were here with me now, I know I could explain it with my hands. You know me, I was never one for good talk.

But this is beyond it anyway, talk that is. It's beyond me or you. It's the interweaving textures of our common existance. It's the smell of new shoes. It's the importance of ice cream trucks. It's how two people could be madly in love without asking eachothers name.

I just don't understand...you know? How could she know me? How could I possibly be the person they called? It's the tiny dotted lines drawn between us, shaded in a little bit more every time we meet. It's got to be. We all know everyone somehow, we just don't pay enough attention and follow the dotted lines. But some people did. Someone knew there had to be more to life than waking up and going to sleep. Someone knew that everything is something to someone, that anything could potentially be everything to anyone. The value placed by sentiment, love, pride...it infinately dwarfs whatever monetary or social values we have, or ever will.

I saw this girl every day of my life, for three years.

That's one thousand, ninety five days Max. That's three thousand two hundered and eighty five meals. Do you know how many times I've worn a raincoat the last three years? NONE! I don't wear raincoats! I barely use that old piece of shit umbrella anymore. And she saw that, she saw me, every day. She knew me Max.

When she didn't wake up, I was the one they called.

I just...I don't even know.

She's been with me all the time since the day I met her, you know? In the not real but kind of real sort of way? Does that make any sense? Like I could look at something, and I could imagine how she might feel about it. I felt like someone else on earth knew that I hated raincoats, and I didn't even have to tell them.

You're like a brother to me Max, and I don't want you to worry when you get this. I know I waited too long to write to you, but you know how I get sometimes. I just want you to know how happy I am. It's not even like a kind of happy, it's a real happy, like when we used to sit on the bridge and talk about the importance of popcorn in the daily life of pigeons. It's like I know I matter again, in the bigger way.

I just wanted to tell you how important you were to me. It's nothing bad, and I swear on that old pair of ratty shoes we used to carry around everywhere just to swear on. I still have those somewhere, for the record. It all just reminded me about how important you all are, all of you, people I mean, everyone. We all matter to someone. You've put up with me for 23 years now, you know that? Just make sure and think about me every now and again, it will reach me eventually, you know, through the dotted lines."

Oscar Lowe To The Scene!

Can you re-kindle my heart?

Another Oscar Lowe poem.

The Strange Man and His Son
"A strange man from a land far away
Tried to sell me his son one day
I turned down the child, but since then I've whiled
My hours calling his name by the bay."