Hauntings Down the Toilet

I was so tired from staying up texting Anna that the ferrets noticed I wasn't very playful at work. I think being sleepy allowed our texts to go to levels of our subconscious we couldn't have reached had we been having a wide-awake conversation. We were not as alert and our guards and walls were not up. We revealed what was real and not the disguises we usually wear in the light of day. As She Wants Revenge says:

This is the time of night when the moonlight shines down and we can reveal who we truly are
Within the darkest most depraved
Of joys

And gentlemen and ladies, I think those joys look good for me!

At one point I texted: Ive missed u. Havent seen you around

She responded: Yeah well ill be around. Sorry i havent been. You really threw me through a loop last time we talked

What do you mean? At my place?

Yes. When you talked about those feathers. I didnt know how to respond. I felt something tho and was scared of it

Scared of how u felt?

Yeah

What did u feel?

She didn't respond for seven minutes. I started to read the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities, but I just kept reading the first page over and over again without even getting that it was the best of times as well as the worst of times. Every two minutes I thought I felt my Blackberry vibrate in my jeans pocket and took it out to see no new messages. My leg began to shake as if it had a mind of its own. I walked to the bathroom and started to micturate, for the snippet of relief it afforded me. Unfortunately in the middle of it all, my Blackberry actually did vibrate and I hurriedly pulled it out of my pocket. A little too hurriedly. It slipped through my fingers and fell forever into a splash of the urine/water mixture in the toilet bowl. Only for a second dd I hesitate before I thrust my hand into the light-yellow water to retrieve it. But it was too late. I dried it off with my bathing towel and tried all the buttons, but none worked. The screen turned to black, never again to shine brightly.

The New Mobile Hauntings

"Dude, you just gotta do it. For your own sake. So you don't make the same mistake."

I blinked. "Okay."

Lester was referring to the Anna-incident with which I didn't want a repeat. Lester was going away on another business trip, leaving me alone. I had his new number now, but he told me the week was going to be extremely busy and he wouldn't be able to talk very long over the phone. He suggested I get a texting plan because it was easier to communicate that way and no one cares if you text while you talk to them. But they would certainly care if you were on the phone with someone. I didn't quite understand how texting could be any better. It is still a blatant display of not fully paying attention to someone.

"Great, I'll drive you to the Sprint store right now."

"I've got a bad feeling about this," I said.

At the mall I tripped over a bench while trying not to look at the giant red lingerie-wearing model in the Victoria's Secret window. Lester tried not to laugh. A kid to my left screamed as he was being pulled away from Game Stop by his tired-eyed mother. I gulped the cool fake air, stumbling to the Sprint kiosk.

"Hello," the man in the yellow shirt, goatee, and spiked hair said. "How may I help you?"

I gripped the glass counter of the display case. "I want to get a texting plan for my phone."

"Sounds great. What's your account number?" After I gave him the required information and he typed away at his computer, he said, "Well, it says here you've had a plan with us for over two years now which means along with your new texting capabilities, you can upgrade your phone for free. And you're in luck. Today just so happens to be the last day of a special promotion where you can upgrade to the Blackberry completely for free."

"That's okay. I just want the texting."

"Hold on," Lester butt in. "The Blackberry is for free."

"Yeah, but my old phone works fine. I just wanna get outta here."

"Dude, the Blackberry is a better phone. It won't take that long. Just do it, man. I'll be mad if you don't."

He looked serious so I said, "Fine."

So now I am a Blackberry owner and a texter. I feel so unclean.

The first person I texted was Anna. I only saw her once after that fateful day. Her, Lester, and I went to see Water for Elephants in the theater. She seemed completely normal, but I couldn't look at her even when I talked to her.

Our conversation:

Me: Sorry about the other night. I dont know what i was thinking

Her: Who is this?

Me: Oh sorry ray

Her: Its okay ray. Lets just forget about it. Ok?

Me: Yeah ok. I found a dead bird outside yesterday.

And the conversation went on well into the night. It was a lot easier to talk to her via texting. I don't know how I got on without this technology before.

Fear

Sometimes I wonder if I mean anything. The parakeets at work seem to think so when I feed them, because they always greet me with a new song. But they never read anything I write. And I feel like that's one of the only things I've got. I'm afraid and selfish that they will be ignored, shrugged off, or yawned at. I'm afraid eyes will gloss over and what made my stomach church will, after processed through my choice of words, produce no effect. I don't even think Lester or Anna read my blog anymore. Here's a poem about it:

"A Possible Epitaph"

My life is filled with the tremendous
sounds of friends and enemies, chatting over
tea, discussing Monsieur Victor Hugo,
comparing me to Pierre Gringoire, the
poet and philosopher. I take a bow.
An exitlude. A kissed wave.

My life contains noiseless words,
masked gestures, scratches on the
record of an era when everyone was
someone, and no one was really anybody.

“C'est en faisant n'importe quoi qu'on devient n'importe qui!”

I am the Best of Marcel Marceau.

The Lost Art of Talking Introduced by Walking

Everyone has a story and one of the reasons I write this blog is to tell my stories and others' stories. Often I will say something profound in front of people like, "Werner Herzog knows nature like Dean Moriarty knows time," and the people will change the subject to weather or just walk away. I understand people don't have much time anymore to listen to each other, but I always feel discouraged when this happens to me.

And so I go on walks with my backpack full of heavy books. If no one wants to listen to me, why put myself in the position of being hurt by being with people?

Not to mention, when I walk alone, I have time to become coherent to myself.

Of course when I got to the library there was people there, but I still didn't feel like talking so I sat down on a bench next to an old man with a white beard and asked him about himself. I asked as many questions as I could and he told stories of his work as a truck driver, his family, and all about the glory days of hitch-hiking when he was a young man. He talked to me as if he hadn’t talked to anyone in weeks. He spurted everything as it came to mind, as if his life was at stake for the telling of his stories. He was made alive by the stories because they were him and he was the only one who could tell them. He spoke as if the hours he spent alone in the truck were spent in deep thought, cataloguing the hard facts of who he was and what he believed about the nature of himself and everything around him. His family was lucky to have this resource of such deliberate humanity spoken through words.

His speech was eloquent in its simplicity and revolved around him as if in orbit, never contradicting or unsure of its path. Unlike anyone else I have ever met, including myself, he knew how to speak. He was pure and untainted. He had no hidden motives, like the rest of us. I felt something in my body telling me this man was the only one who needed to speak and incited in me the desire to be like him. I wanted deeply to be an oracle, but I didn’t know if I have it in me. My desire already makes my words impure.

But I tried. He started to ask me the questions and I found myself talking more than I ever had before. The exchange of stories was now made complete. I spoke of everything all at once, but clearly and with wild gesticulating.

At the end the man said, "You are an excellent speaker."

My smile turned instantly. This was the first time I heard such a thing. In fact, I had heard often I was the exact opposite. "I swear I'm not," I said. "You can ask my family or my co-workers and they would tell otherwise. I do not tell them the stories I know."

"Why not?" he asked.

I thought for a moment. "Because I don't like myself and when I attempt to tell stories about my true-self they come out all wrong. I get nervous, I mumble, and say outrageous and peculiar things. I might as well be speaking a different language."

"I'm not sure I understand. What don't you like about yourself?"

I thought once again for a moment. "Because I don't think I can give others what they want."

He was silent. He let me speak, maybe more for myself, than him.

"And so I can only tell the stories of my true-self to strangers like you, because I don't want to give you anything. I do want to give something to those I care about, but since I have nothing to offer, I make up stories or tell others' stories so they don't realize how I'm not actually giving them anything. Then they'd see how worthless I really am."

"Your great gift of story-telling is being destroyed by the very fact that you don't feel like you have any gifts to offer people?"

"Yes!" And I was in tears.

"What can you do about it?" he asked as if he had no answers; as if only I did.

"I don't know if there is anything. The desire to be accepted and to be a story-teller of my true-self don't work together. How can I eliminate these desires if they are already in me? Desire comes from a longing of what isn't there. Of what I am not. It doesn't work to do anything about it because only if I eliminate the desire to be a great story-teller will I become a great story-teller."

I was silent, excepts the gasps of air I was swallowing. After a time, I explained further and he waited.

"It is like how I like this girl. The only way I can truly love her is to eliminate the desire I have for her. Otherwise I desire her for what she can give me. Once I abandon the idea of caring what she thinks of me can I give myself purely to her for her sake and not mine."

It is an untrue story of me to become a great speaker or a great lover. But maybe I'm in good company.

Lester on Love

"Tell me more. What was it like with Emma?"

"Well." He scratched his head. "At first it was all just exciting. We liked each other, but not really in a very strong way. Sure, it meant something. But we only liked each other for the excitement we provided for each other. We were new to each other and the mysteries were fascinating. We made each other laugh and smiled until the early hours of the morning. We did this, not for one another, but for ourselves. After the excitement wore off and there was hardly any mystery left, we just annoyed each other. We saw each other making the same mistakes over and over again and never getting any better. We'd talk through all our problems like we were improving each other and the next day we'd annoy each other again. That's when she finally ended it."

"You think there's any worth in it? That all seems just . . . depressing?"

"Well, the excitement was fun and good, but it just didn't last. It never will between two people, I don't think. The second part was horrible, but I think you can find someone who will be willing to work through a relationship even while annoying each other. And maybe that's love. Instead of the excitement, a sort of sacred, quiet awe of that person. This awe, unlike the excitement, is inspiring enough to forgive and let yourself be forgiven while trying to be self-sacrificial. They are more than you, at this point, even though you don't act like it all the time. And then all that is left is worry. You know you won't stop loving her, but other things like geography or time or death might just tamper with it. So you remain silent in your worry, because you don't deserve any of this anyway, but everything is out of your hands. The best part is she will always remain who she is. There's nothing she can do really, because even if she leaves, you know she's still lovely."

"You sound like you're talking about someone specific now."

"Do I?" He looked at me like George Michael in "Careless Whisper." That scared me so I didn't press him any further.

Instead when I went back home, I tried to write a poem about what Lester talked about. I divided his ideas on love in five parts and only really came up with how to say parts three and four. I'll try to keep working on the others. So here are the two:

"This Is a Love Poem"

III.

I've never felt the profound ordination,
in the pure naturalness
of the declaration,
"It is good."
Until now.

IV.

To know me is to
know your stories.
To know me is to
be sure of your divine beauty.

To know me is to
know and be sure of
the proper hierarchy—
Your name above mine.

Karmaed

I have decided to go on a journey, but not for some time. Irregardless, I am preparing now.

I borrowed Lester's giant hiker's backpack and filled it with library books. I looked out my window and saw more gray than blue and so put on a sweatshirt. The walk to the library was rough. After only a few minutes my back was aching and my steps had smallened considerably from when I first set out. Once I arrived through the large wooden doors of the museum of human existence, I unstrapped my backpack and sat on a chair in the foyer for a full seven minutes.

After the break I went straight to the computers to post my new poem and to print out a few of Flannery O'Conner's short stories. I stapled them together and the librarian gave me a plastic grocery bag for me to put them in.

I knew I wasn't about to walk all the way back home so I opted for the city bus instead. Luckily, I had eight quarters in my pocket and the bus only costs six of them. At the bus stop, I took my backpack off and set it beside me for the wait. I held the plastic bag in my hand. A young man in a black coat sat on the bench. I stood and shivered. The outside was a lot more cold now that I wasn't walking. The glass barrier inside the bus stop helped a lot by blocking the wind. I shuffled my feet to and fro. Nine minutes passed and I began to spin slowly in place. A young man with a scrappy, almond beard, accompanied by a young woman in a ponytail walked into the bus stop. They both had vacant eyes. "Hey guys, how's it going?" the man asked. The man on the bench remained soundless as I slowly rotated around. The man with the beard looked at me and said, "Wassup?"

"Wassup?" I returned.

"Oh, you know, just barely gettin' by in these times."

I nodded and continued my rotation.

When I was no longer facing them he said, "I'm just trying to help this lady out. She needs to buy diapers for her kids, see."

Again, the man on the bench remained soundless and I felt the two extra quarters in my pocket. I wasn't going to say anything, and besides, by the time I had spun completely around again, the couple was gone.

By the time I made one more circle, the bus was already pulling up. The man on the bench stood up and walked to the curb as I placed my plastic bag on the bench so my hands were free to strap on the backpack. I lifted the pack and swung it, eying the bag and the bus as the same time. The bag was on the edge of the bench, slowly tipping forward. The bus doors swung open. A man ran from out of nowhere to board the bus. Just as I got my arm through the second strap the bag fell on the ground, spilling the packets of stapled papers on the floor. I bent to pick them up as the two men paid for their tickets on the bus. Once all the papers were gathered, I straightened up, and the bus pulled away. I ran and waved my arms, but it kept going. I cursed the man from the bench who knew I was waiting, but said nothing to the driver.

There was no way I was waiting again for the next bus sedentary so I started to walk around the block. Once I turned the corner, the couple with the eyes were there, walking towards me. When they were close, the man tried to be more direct. "Hey, can you spare some change?"

"Well, I need the bus." I fished the quarters out my pocket.

"I can getchya there."

I imagined some scam where he would take me in his car to a secluded back alleyway where he would beat me and steal everything I had on me. "No, uh, I will just take the bus."

"No, I mean, I can get you on the bus." He puled out his wallet. "I've got a pass with two rides left on it." He handed it to me.

I looked it over to make sure it was what he said it was and handed him my full stack of quarters. Now, I was penniless, but if the pass worked, I would have saved two quarters next time I needed to ride the bus.

After another fifteen minutes in the cold, my body angled forward under the weight of the backpack, another bus came and I was ready for it. The couple was long gone. Aboard, I put the pass through the scanner and it worked.

A Poem for The New Times

"I Put on Shorts"

It is the time of year
when the Sun calls
upon me to sail

to the isolated mountains
and white islands

amongst the green seas

to aid in His conquest

I propel my feet
like a nuclear missile
power enough to
obliterate an entire country

until it is all wiped away