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### Cloaks and Maidens; Gods and Trains

### by Christopher Dutton

All contents herein are the sole property and copyright of Christopher Thomas Dutton and are not to copied except for individual personal use. Quotations are allowed for other written, video or audio works with written permission. No commercial use is allowed except with written permission of author. Alteration of contents is not allowed. For further information or commercial requests contact the author. Thank you.

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Dedication

These stories were written over the last twenty years; one, Razor Jack, as recent as this summer of 2011.

It becomes difficult to then decide who, at what point of time, most influenced my writing for these small chapters of my life to evolve.

Though I have spent many hours and long nights over these words I have in no way come near the dedication and resolve of one writer I have had the privilege and gratitude to love and know over these years.

That man is Jeff Bien. Through extremes of financial hardship and ill health he has written all his life in a pursuit of his artistry; a dedication as all-consuming and as unique in its expressions as any Van Gogh or Rodin or Rilke.

The night I met Jeff through his brother Barry, my first writing instructor( and I might add, also a great influence to my emerging 'heart'as well), Jeff said to me in a

private conversation after class "Writing... or any art for that matter, though not bartered or sold, thus remains priceless".

Those words influenced me from then on. Indeed they perfectly fit my emerging philosophes of minimalist living and an exit from the 'marketplaces' of work distorted, battered and diluted to fit the wants of an ever unsatisfied consumer addiction to passing fancies.

I never again merged the "best of me " with the "good enough from me".

I have failed all but myself.

And for that emergence of soul I thank Jeff and dedicate this book to him.
Introduction

A mind roams within its own restlessness; indeed, it defines itself by the limits of its own self-imposed walls. Or are they bars?

Can we see beyond what we have experienced... can we thus imagine what is not previously an undercoating of a scene; of a portrait done over and over again, gripped in the poverty of a bad painter?Language comes from the past; it is a thing of the past. How then can a thing of the past imagine the future; describe the future; bring the future to mind? It cannot.

History repeats itself because the shadows of the bars of the cage repeat themselves. Humans, whether writers or readers, forget to squint.

What then is fiction? Fiction is half-built upon non-fiction. Which, of course, is the past described with a language of shadows. The truth of the Past as seen in the shadow of bars. In this book, none of these stories are true. They cover a range of human experience from homelessness to spiritual triumph to near-schizophrenia obsession. I imagined them all. Yet somehow from a past of my own where none of these states existed. If they have validity, it is not from the "facts", from the shadows of the "real" imagery of bars limiting my imagination. I have squinted well to see places and things and people which could exist. Emotionally.

We make fiction for the same reason we make gods. To awaken aspirations. Or deviations.

My "beings" are now as the half-immortals of the Ancients; created but not safe. Nailed upon a Cross of Wills.

I "willed" them exist; shall one more madman or madwoman will them to remain in existence? Thus immortal if carried one by one into further generations of time?

Now... by common consent...I and you, the reader, shall, perhaps, bring them, by our wills, to existence and immortality. I, existence..the Reader, immortality. It is the Reader, not the Writer who holds his Nero's thumb up or down, nay or yea, and thus gives continuing Life or Death to these Beings of My Creation.

And, alas, there are so many whims to this that I can not but be the good Christian and smile before all you Lions.

Fiction, then, is far more humbling than non-Fiction. For non-Fiction is of the Past and having once existed (though vague and cloudy in its future interpretations) will thus continue so. Who denies the Past ...its past?

For this, the Thumbs do not vote.

But in Fiction the Sons and Daughters of My Creation have no past, thus they begin without "a Beginning"...they appear, they conjurgate,...into Reality...into view...into consciousness...into the Arena...indeed, even into each Reader's soul.

Awaiting Resurrection.

" It is the foot that tells the heart of the tale."

Garry Bissel

Index

Chapter Title Page

1 Bob 9

2 Iron George 20

3 Monsters 37

4 Cloak of Insignificance 45

5 Self Journey 60

6 Maiden Voyage 66

7 Lawnmower 95

8 Razor Jack 104

Bob

Two weeks off the booze for Bob this time. How many times had he quit before? Five? Six? Each time going back at it in a fatalistic plunge away from the misery of a dry, empty existence without it.

He was fifty-three now. He still worked at the same line job at the castings plant where he'd been now for...shit...how long? Since he was 17 anyway.

Lived in a little apartment four blocks from work. No car. No TV. No phone. Everything went on the one thing that kept him numb enough to still want to stay alive.

This time quitting was a little different, though. It was plant shutdown for two weeks. Over the Christmas holidays. Most people travelled; or stayed at home; families and such.

Bob just drank. Hard. Especially the last six years. After Sylvia died. Cancer. That's where their little house, savings, car had all gone. Pissed away. In a way it was a funeral pyre. After Sylvia's death Bob only saw the emptiness of what was not there; keeping it all would be like not filling in a grave.

Bob liked working though. It was hard, sweaty, fast-paced work. Cleaned him out everyday. Kept his mind too busy for pain. The only bad time in the day was the ten minute sober walk after quitting time at four. But two fast beers and that was over.

Five or six more beers then he could walk to the liquor store. Take that home. Drink it then or go back to the bar and then drink it later. Not all of it. Some he always left for the morning. For the sickness, the dry heaves but mostly to avoid the walk to work sick and sober. Thinking.

Trouble was he was getting older. His body couldn't take it; he had to drink more in the morning now. His bosses noticed it, talked to him, warned him. He'd dry out for awhile. Let everything cool down. But the pain of sober would win in the end, defeat him. Again. And again.

Two weeks before shutdown it had been bad. The drinking. Real bad. He'd only been to work 3 days out of the two weeks. Went in the last day, more or less just to get his vacation cheque.

The boss had laid it on the line, get help or don't come back. Bob had cashed his cheque but not went to the bar or liquor store. He was scared.Really f^&%'ing scared. He knew without that job, he'd die. Not from hunger but because he somehow knew it would be the end. Oblivion. Only a few months of the kind of drinkin', he usually only did on the weekends would finish him.

Isn't that what he wanted? For some reason, he wasn't sure. He didn't want pain...but maybe it was....hell, he didn't know.

From a pay phone, Friday at 4:10 pm, he had phoned AA. Went to a meeting. More meetings. He didn't talk much. Didn't really listen much. Tried not to think. Just sat. Safe. Maybe there was hope. Not so much about drinking. He knew he could stay quit for awhile. More like hope from the other. The pain. The hole. Strangers couldn'treplace....well, her.....but the hole didn't seem so big.

They weren't religious or anything but the god stuff kept coming up. Bob didn't like the word God. He always heard the word Sylvia right after. And death. And why. And then he'd have to stop thinking again right away. Do some really hard not thinking cause he didn't want to lose this chance. Screw god he'd say to himself and throw it into the hole.

In between meetings he wandered. The streets. Coffee after coffee. Sometimes he'd meet someone he had seen at the meetings. Talk a little. Christmas. Jesus, he thought he would kill himself then. But there were meetings Christmas Eve; three on Christmas Day; he got through it. Same with New Year's, even a little...better. Not happy. Not that. Less pain maybe.

Now it was Sunday. Tomorrow was work. He wasn't scared of temptations after work. Buddies 'dragging' him to the bar. Nobody liked to drink with Bob anymore.

Sunday. He'd went to two meetings. One at ten in the morning. The other in the early afternoon. The last meeting had been a discussion type. For Bob there was too much 'Higher Power'; too much god again.

He'd left right away. Not hung around talking after like he was starting to do. Walked past a couple of coffee shops but he didn't stop at them. Some of the members might go there. He walked to one a long way from his apartment; his work. Close to downtown.

He was heading for the door for the door when he saw a young man in his early twenties sitting on the pavement. Everything he wore was obviously not new but at least clean. He was tucked up inside a green parka; his knees drawn up to his chest to keep his legs from blocking the sidewalk; arms around his knees. His head was bare. At his feet was a hat, a bit of change in it. His eyes met Bob's briefly, smiled a little, then he looked away.

Bob stopped. Searched for change in his pockets. Only twelve cents. He put that back; opened his wallet. Shit. Only twenties. He started to move away, the wallet still in his hand, open. He was going to tell the boy he'd get change but the kid never looked up again.

Shit. Bob threw a twenty in the hat and turned away. He went into the coffee shop and ordered a coffee to stay.

The waitress who served Bob was about thirty, pretty but tired or sad looking. Bob didn't usually say much to strangers but when she put the coffee on the counter he asked her how her holidays had went. "Ok" was all she replied but she didn't look up when she gave him his change.

He took his coffee and went and sat by the window. Taking a sip, he looked out and saw the young man he had given the twenty to walk away.

Towards the liquor store. 'Shit' Bob thought. Then the young man walked past the liquor store and disappeared around the corner.

A man walked into the coffee shop with a young lad about 7 or 8 years old. the lad excitedly ran around the counter and hugged the waitress, obviously his mother. He starting telling his mom all the stuff he and his dad had done that weekend while she makes him a hot chocolate.

She took it over to a table for him to sit down with. His parents stand for a minute beside him then the mother turns to his dad "Met your sister yesterday. She said you quit drinking; going to AA last few months. I didn't know."

He replied " I guess I didn't say because I have to do it for me, cause I wanna change or it wont work. Didn't want it to seem like, well you know, I was just doing it for you...get you back or something."

She looked like she was going to cry and touched him on the arm. Gently. "I'm glad for you" was all she could say.

" You've been through hell with me" he continued " I don't know if I can ever make that up to you. Maybe just by being a better father to Jimmy..." He stopped unable to say more.

She looked upon his face as he looked at their son. She spoke softly " I.... I...." , he looked into her eyes now, "guess maybe you should come home now. If you want to.....well, we could talk about it..."

All he could do, or say, was to hold her in his arms.

Jimmy , watching all, the way a child hears and sees without appearing to see or hear, glanced up at the ceiling and whispered "Thanks God."

Bob looked out the window, a little blurry eyed. Two people were coming into the coffee shop. Three actually. It was the young man again with a girl carrying a young child about two years old.

They ordered coffee, a milk, three soup and a sandwich. The young man pulled a twenty dollar bill out of his parka and payed for it.

Sitting down with their order on the other side of the coffee shop from Bob, he watched as they took turns feeding the soup and sandwich to the young child. The young fellow saw Bob and said something to the girl. She looked at Bob and smiled. In a warm way. Gratefully.

Bob couldn't recall the last time anyone had smiled at him that way. When they were finished, the young man took the baby out the door but as he did he nodded to Bob and said "Thanks".

The girl, however, came over to Bob's table and said "Thank you very much, sir, we really appreciate it. It was a nice treat."

Bob asked " Do you live around here?"

" Yes, we have a little apartment around the corner." She hesitated, then added " Both John and I work but it's all only part time these days. And hard with babysitting and all that. John used to play the guitar at the corner...you know...a buster ..to help out but the police stopped him. Nobody seems to care if he just sits there. He doesn't like to do it a lot but sometimes...well...I guess we're not the best with money."

Bob was going to say 'I know the feeling' but he thought better of it, not wishing her to think he meant the twenty bucks he'd given them.

"If you want ...I mean...could you use a bit more?" , regretting in a way the sentence even as he was saying it but reaching for his wallet nonetheless.

She put up her hands "No. No.Thanks. I didn't come over for that. I just wanted to thank you".

" Sorry" then he laughed " I guess I'm not used to being a nice guy".

" Well you were nice to us. Now you can take the rest of the day off, ok !? And thanks again." She turned and left but first there was that smile again.

Bob watched them walk across the street but before he could collect his mixed-up thoughts, the man beside him at another table spoke up " Makes you wanna quit readin' the paper don't it?"

Bob looked at him. He was dressed like a workman , coveralls, layers of old clothes, worn boots, a hat dusty with white, a coat frayed everywhere as work coats are. Grizzled face, unshaven, maybe 60, maybe not. His eyes seemed quite young.

" What ya mean?" asked Bob The fellow pointed to a paper dissected and strewn about at his table. " Too much bad news. Makes you want to give up on humanity. Then you see something like that family and you or that little boy over there happy for his parents."

Bob looked over at Jimmy now working on his second cup of hot chocolate while his father sat with him. " Yeah , I suppose but..there's not much hope on the big scale of things is there?" Then he added " God seems to have left the planet" . 'Shit' he thought' why the hell did I say that?'

" Suppose so " replied the workman. He rose to leave. " Got any grandkids?"

Bob hesitated. Almost a mistrust came over him. He didn't know why. Still the old guy's eyes seemed friendly. Safe. " One. A little girl about three. Haven't seen her for awhile...... " adding " been busy" as a hurried afterthought.

"Got a picture?"

Bob took it out of his wallet and handed it to the man.

The old guy looked at it, smiled, then his eyes went from soft to searching as he looked up at Bob.

" When you look at this picture, do you see evil?"

Bob snatched the picture back. " No" was all he could think to say.

" Then you see God" the old workman replied. With that he smiled the same smile as the girl before and left.

Bob sat awhile over another coffee. He thought a lot about charity, forgiveness, hope. Then he rose up and went over to the pay phone to call his daughter.

An excerpt from the novel Iron George

Iron George

In a couple of hours, George awoke. With some difficulty he raised himself up to lean on his elbows but with a groan slid back down to one side. From here he could get a glimpse out from the City Central Park. It was about ten o'clock in the morning and the traffic he glimpsed at beyond the blown rubbish was at its usual pace.

Like any large city, the streetslaid a square moat between all the old warehouses near downtown and the area of filth and neglect which Iron George had called home for five or six years. These streets were always filled with moving squealing carnivores as pitiless in their steel to any flesh before them as could be said of all the other pitiless creatures which darted around them.

The old warehouses were almost alive in their death appearance as well; they were skeletal giraffes squeezed to great heights for a taste of sunlight; their toeholds of concrete measured in feet between each broken goliath. Their ill and winded breath a moving air which found refuge in the Park. There it let free from a mad dance all the debris and litter it had picked up wild in the alleyways and streets; always the street cleaner in the best and worst of fiscal times.

So many like iron George lived in and upon this moving man-made sand; so many creatures came into this arena, leaning, shuffling, cursing, but never pushing, never enclosing. For if you lived here, you at least knew the value of space in a city where most had little knowledge of that need amongst so much of their own wants. Hands in pockets, around purses, in packages, at noses, armpits and crotches. Flourishing upper limbs in aimless direction or direct in seemingly mad purpose. Eyes rivetted on spaces not objects, seeing only the half focus of grayness, being afraid of large colour, eyes moving like deer amongst wolves, or like vultures amongst all.

Feet moving, feet itching, feet silent beside hats tilted by a few coins. A few coins.

Iron George felt into his coat pocket. Damn. They'd even taken the few coins of change he had gotten from the booze store night before last. He looked over into another cardboard heap like the one he had rolled out of sometime in the night and could see that stranger, Moses, was still asleep in his own.

George had been lucky. Those four or five goddamn punks would have likely kicked him to death last night. All fucked up on drugs or somethin'. Mad cause he had no money or booze. Or did it cause no one cares a shit for anything down here anyway. Fair game. But then Moses had showed up and scared them off, without even showin' himself. Had started shoutin' and yelling like there was a bunch of cops running into the Park. So the punks ran. Turns out Moses had done a little ventriloquism in college. Threw his voice around sounding like different cops.

George had laid on his side watching the shit kids run away and waited for the cops but it was only Moses that had arrived and helped George move away in case that gang came back. Helped him clean up the blood and vomit . Helped him put together some shelter nearer the bus shelter for the night.

George coughed. And regretted it immediately. Moses did not stir.

An empty bottle laid near Iron, its label still intact enough to attribute the muscular pain relief of a methylated solution.

He picked it up, looked at its dryness and tossed it near the stranger's 'house'. Its clatter stirred Moses who immediately sat up and looked over at George.

"Thou art awake, friend. Tis a delightful thing, such sleep."

Iron looked at him "You right in the head, pal?"

"What does thou..er... what do you mean, George?"

"The thou crap."

"Sorry. An old habit. From where I came from."

George shrugged "Where did you come from then, Mo ?"

"Want some lunch?" was the reply from Moses, his hand following his eyes into the green sack.

Out came an apple and something wrapped in well-used foil. Crackers.

"I will try a cracker, maybe." He pointed at his side, "This might give me a little trouble with my chewin'."

Moses nodded "How are your ribs?", then bit into the apple.

"How's your fuckin' steak?"

They laughed together; though George not so hardy or loud.

After lunch, they gathered up the green sack as well a box in which Iron carried some photographs, utensils, a folded Father's Day card, one sock and an extra hat.

They had decided to head towards Saint Joe's hospital about four blocks away even though Iron thought it was pointless to even try. George had protested during their short meal that it was useless, as he said " They never take the walking wounded; the walletless walking that is. Only had to take emergencies and it ain't an emergency if you're walkin' is it, boy?!"

Still, Moses said he wanted to see if they would take a look at Georges' ribs anyway. He had looked in his wallet " I've got maybe twenty dollars, George, do you think that might be enough for a visit?"

George laughed, or at least started to, : "Hah! Might be enough to tip the fat fuckin' nurse on the way out, I suppose!"

So of they went moving slow down the street to lesson the pain for George. They finally came to a corner, and looking down the street, could see the front entrance; its revolving door swallowing and spitting out occupants at a steady rate.

George leaned against a battered and blue newspaper box, letting his wheezing settle a bit. He pointed towards the door, "There's a security guard there. If you look like a bum, he takes you aside and makes you show him some cash or a credit card before he'll even let you up to the front desk."

"Any other doors, George?"

"All around I suppose. Locked most, I guess. But what's the fuckin' use , anyway? They can throw ya da fuck outa them as fast as out the goddamn front one."

Moses nodded, then asked " You smoke, George?"

George answered surprised " What!? No. Well used ta, but the cost of most sins are well beyond my means now. Why?"

"Well, you do now" replied Moses "Be right back" and then Moses went back into a small seedy-looking tobacco shop they had passed a few yards back.

He returned patting his jacket pocket " Got them, George. Now let's go , if you're ready for a little more walking?"

"Where to?"

Moses pointed while helping Iron stand up away from the mailbox, "Down the street and then cut around to the side."

Doing so, they came around to a more neglected side of the large hospital. Here there was a small yard which went from the sidewalk to the concrete wall. A few trees lived their existence inside this sanctuary, their purpose to serve as anchors to the various picnic tables and heavy chairs chained to them.

A windowless door opened to this "garden", propped open around noon time for the employees to go in and out over their lunch break. The rest of the time it was only opened by any patients or staff going out for a smoke.

Moses and George did not walk up to the door but remained out of view till the few smokers who had been there returned back into the building; the door now firmly shut.

"Come on now, George. We have to get up there before anyone comes out again."

"Yeah but what's the use?" was Iron's winded rebuttal "the door locks when it closes. See, no handle."

"Just light up" and a cigarette pack with a lighter was handed to George.

A few long inhales, a "damn, that's good" and then George started to waver a bit.

" Whoa, whoa, George, slow down a bit " said Moses as he grabbed George's shoulder "Not part of the plan to pass out here. Here, lean against the wall but just puff on them, don't inhale so much."

George did as he was told and was just going to ask what the hell is the plan anyway when the door opened. A patient by the look of the yellow pajamas and pinkish house coat. A thin and chalk faced woman about forty but at least with a friendly smile.

Propping the butt can in the door to keep it opened, she lit up and then Moses and her immediately began a discourse on the perils of hospital habitation, emergency waiting rooms, disagreeable nurses, disappearing doctors and all other numerous deficiencies of the hospital.

George just smoked but over the course of the conversation he realized that Moses had subtly led the woman to believe that he, George , was having a smoke during his atrocious wait for medical attention.

So convinced it was natural for her to hold the door open after her smoke so Moses and George could enter as well.

They allowed her to wander away down the hall, then headed in the same direction.

"Now what?" whispered George, intrigued.

Moses answered "We get closer to Emergency then rig up a little accident."

"What kind of accident?"

"You'll see" replied Moses, his eyes darting into cubby holes and detours.

A few hallways crossed, some turns taken, and then a sign loomed above them, its bright red letters embossed on white, EMERGENCY WARD, with an arrow giving a direction as straight ahead.

At the same time Moses gave a little whoop of glee and snatched up a towel embroidered with the crest of Saint Joseph's Hospital. Someone had left it on a hanger intended for coats.

"Quick back this way, George.

"Christ's sake" was all George could offer in complaint as they turned and walked back to a door which opened up to a flight of stairs.

Moses listened for footsteps, there were none. He then helped George down to the next landing. " Now, George, lay down here and moan like hell."

"What!?"

"Do it." With that, Moses dropped the towel at George's feet and bounded back up towards the door, yelling for help.

A couple of hours later found Iron and Moses in a large office; its interior panelled in mock wood and a good number of framed certificates inscribed with a flourish of Latin.

George sat in a wheelchair, the tight wrappings of a wide gauze visible under his now open shirt. Moses had placed himself in an office chair, the type found in any corner of any office where the visitor's brevity is held more considered than his comfort.

They faced a rectangular wood desk, its top covered in documents, mementos, paraphernalia and a photograph all turned from their view; a wall as if it were denying belonging.

Said objects faced a small man, his shoulders just wider than the width of a padded chair which itself had the look of opulent vinyl.

He was middle-aged, though at this hour the small creases about his high cheeks and brow seemed as if roots of which his smoky brown eyes gather nourishment; the nose normal, though a slight left tilt; his mouth of the same proportion but given to small twitches as if his tongue was continually checking the sharpness of his teeth.

He wore a suit of a shade of office manager blue. His tie was of office manager stripes. His white cuffs constantly peeking out like blinking eyes as his hands moved from desk to pen to papers and back again; a match for the mouth.

Suddenly all the twitching and blinking came to a halt; his eyes glanced over George but then focussed on Moses "What troubles me is why did the Security Guard here, not see you enter he hospital?"

To punctuate this remark, there was indeed a guard standing a few feet from the desk in that stance of a poised alertness they do so well in the presence of a Superior. At this remark his tall stature became even more taut; his eyes tightened on their grip of the vagrants' collars.

"I do not know" replied Moses, his smile straying in the guard's direction " it was very busy at the entrance way. I, myself, did not notice him. Perhaps he was on a break?"

"Impossible. The front emergency entrance is never unattended." This statement was given almost as a question towards the security guard as it was a rebuttal to Moses.

Security's mouth opened in reply, the truth protected by a Union, "We are shorthanded , sir. I did leave a couple of times for the rest room but I instructed the Head Nurse to..." A glare and a scribble of a note silenced security.

The Administrator shifted his attack from the other arm of his chair. "Why did you wander past the Emergency Admittance desk? Seems to me most people do stop there. The clerks or nurses have no recollection of you two..er..gentlemen being there."

Moses replied " Because it was of no emergency, at least, medical."

"Why did you come into the hospital then?"

"To apply for jobs."

"Jobs?"

"Yes, employment."

"What sort of jobs?"

Moses smiled "Being a little unencumbered with certificates, I presume something in the line of janitorial was within our talents. We were looking for Administration.

"I see" and wrote JOBS on his notepad followed with a few aggressive periods. Then his face gathered even more sternness and thrust at Moses " Look. The bottom line is, the doctor who examined..er..George, here, did not think the injuries as recent as is claimed. He felt they were more like twelve hours to a day old." The hands grasped each other at the desk as if slowly smothering a small bird, the eyes patient for movement from Moses.

Moses returned " Why did he treat him then?"

"What?"

"Why did he treat him then? He believe the injuries did not occur here, so why did he bother to treat them?"

"His observations came as part of the diagnosis, part of the treatment, the x-rays etc. Once in motion he could hardly be expected to stop halfway."

Moses smiled "And when did you personally receive that information?" After treatment or before?"

The Administrator leaned back to consider an answer but Moses resumed " Tell me, have you spoken with whoever dropped the towel on the stairs?"

His reply began "That is unlikely to happen because whoever..."

Moses cut in "Look at it this way. We are here but were never seen to be here. My friend slips on a towel which was never there. He has injuries which did not exist from here. Yet here he sits bound by the diagnosis of your own staff."

The Administrator looked angry " I never said your friend here had no injuries, I said..."

Moses opened up his hands in a gesture of bargaining "What do you want?"

"What!?"

Moses brought his hands together, fingertip to fingertip, paused a moment and stated "The reparation of any crime is sought in two ways; one, persecute the criminal so that the crime is 'balanced', by money, blood or servitude, into non-existence or; two, persecute the victim till the original crime itself is denied. Either way the slate looks clean. Which do you seek?

The Administrator had that same puzzled look a king might have when he learns the Fool has run off with the Queen.

He thought better of asking Moses any more questions and drew out a form from under his note pad. "I wish the matter closed. Though there is much doubt as to the Hospital's liability in this incident, we will allow treatment for today and subsequent follow-ups to be covered at our expense.

His signature on this form waives away any claims to legal process or hospital liability." The form was handed to Moses.

He read it. "There is only a small item missing."

The Administrator looked wary. "And what is that?"

"Lunch."

"Lunch?"

"Yes, lunch."

"Where, here?"

Moses grinned "No, no. I imagine you are much too busy. We've taken enough of your time. In the cafeteria will be fine."

"Lunch" The Administrator restated, his face obviously reflecting his feelings of such an absurd demand. The monetary repercussions of a verbal explosion smothered that volatility and he replied in restraint "Lunch. Very well, then. Please sign the form, George and I'll have the guard take you both to the cafeteria."

Moses handed the Administrator back the form

"Would you mind, please, including it on the waiver?" His eyes were merciless.

"On the...Oh. Very well" and 'Lunch for two' was added, initialled.

Duly signing his name, George was wheeled out the office by Moses with curt instructions from the Administrator to the guard to see them to the cafeteria.

As the guard was closing the door, he heard the administrator's final instruction "And for Christ's sake see that they don't choke on anything!"

Monsters

"Childhood ends when we stop believing in monsters and start making them"

An old monk lived by himself in the forest. The monk was considered by many to be the wisest, most enlightened master of his time. Indeed so much so that even an official as high in rank as a provincial King would often converse with him by letters and trusted intermediate.

This same King had an elder son , his heir, whose manners and demeanor were beginning to be fit more for the gutters than the Court. After consultation with the old monk , the King decided to send his son there for some teachings.

The son had not been there very long when he became restless and inpatient with his new life style. It was too austere, too disciplined, too quiet for a young prince used to the noise, chaos and pleasures of the Court.

He knew he could not return to his father on solely that complaint so his mind dwelt on a way to discredit the monk himself.

He began to notice that on the days the monk travelled to the river to get water, he took a very long circulus path to get there.

One day he asked the monk about this to which the monk replied "Directly between the hut and the river is a small valley; a clearing in the forest. In the centre are some pine trees. In them dwells a dragon. This dragon will devour anyone who sees it in its lair. It does so as to remain free from man's interference. That's why it is best to travel around it instead.

The young man laughed and mocked at the old monk. Then with disbelief as his companion, and despite the old monk's cautions, he went to the valley to see for himself.

Round and round the valley he went; in and out of the pines; he found nothing; no dragon.

Returning to the monk he again began ridiculing the old man and calling him a fool, a coward and worse.

To this the old man only replied "Perhaps you are fortunate in not having the eyes to see the dragon. The dragon in seeing you did not see him, saw no reason to devour you.....or" at this next sentence, the old man's eyes narrowed "perhaps you yourself cannot see yourself being devoured by the dragon you cannot see."

This made the prince even more hysterical ....and delighted as well; for here he had absolute proof that the old man was nothing but a mad fake.

Without a moment's loss he set out for the Court to get his father and persuade him to come see for himself what a simpleton his father had been writing to all these years.

However, on the way, he ran into some pranksters, friends of his. Four do-nothing fellows who had collected around the prince at Court. Furthering their own idleness while furthering his slide into debauchery and idleness.

When he told them all of the monk, they too roared and it was decided to return and have a little 'fun' with the old man.

They found him in the hut and after much hilarity (fuelled by some bags of wine brought along) decided to drag him down to the 'dragon's lair'.

Meanwhile the King had heard of this by way of a trusted servant who he sent from time to time to spy upon his son; not trusting him in hisemerging wildness.

Calling up a couple of dozen guards he too headed for the hut. Unfortunately the way was difficult in the coming dusk and with delays etc it was not for a couple hours till they finally were able to come upon the youths in the valley.

What they found appalled the King. It seems the young men had first tied the old monk to a tree, as if to bait the 'fake dragon' out. The old man would not look up so they trussed him cruelly with his feet and hair so that his head was pulled up facing into the meadow.

Even then the old man fouled their attempts to 'see out at the dragon' for he kept his eyes tightly shut.

Becoming even more cruel in their drunkenness and determination they sliced away his eyelids with a knife. Through blood-streaked eyes he was now forced to watch out into the moon-lit meadow.

The youths then spent the next hour making horrific noises and lewd or grotesque shapes at the monk trying to terrify him that a 'real dragon' was coming. They whipped at him pine boughs(dragon wings);scorched him with burning sticks (dragon's tongue) from a fire they had going. They dug into his flesh with broken branches as if a dragon was indeed about to tear him to pieces.

In grieve, horror and anger the King roared at the guards to seize and bind up the youths. With his hands he undid the ropes twisting the monk. It was his own tears and his own regal robe that wiped the stains and blood from the old man's face and body.

Then with a great wrath he turned upon first the four friends and ordered them beheaded

Before, however, the command was carried out, the old monk spoke up "Sire, I plea for some mercy to be shown upon these fellows. Wicked and useless as yet they are , I do not think they would have been so bold, so inconsiderate of reprisal had they been by themselves. They thought they acted under a Prince's protection. I beg exile for them, that their influence may never again degrade your son."

"So be it " said the King and waved at half the guards to see it done. Then he turned upon his son, his anger twice fold "YOU...YOU SHALL.."

Again the old monk interrupted. "A moment again, Sire, I beg. In some of your son's doings I must take blame."

"I saw the turning of his heart, his eyes beginning to be shadowed by pleasure and deceits. There is an old saying 'Childhood ends when we stop believing in monsters and start making them"

His eyes turned upon the prince." You could not see the dragon in you beginning to grow; could not see the dragon eyes as they saw you; the chance for evil to take hold; you did not know the dragon as it slowly began to devour you. A child's innocence in a man's heart lets him believe, lets him see the monsters beginning to grow and thus he continues to sweep them out from under the bed. A man's guilt in a man's heart begins to blind him and gives the dragon root into a darker soil."

He turned back to the King." In a way, through my lesson, I brought him to this path, my Lord. I goaded the dragon to emerge, that you ,and especially he, may see its emerging evil before it was too late."

"But your eyes" spoke the King "you will likely go blind".

The monk smiled "Better only one to go blind than millions of others plunged into the darkness by the rule of a man sightless of all humanities by a dragon devouring his heart"

The King shook his head "What shall I do with him then ?"

The old monk replied " Nothing .He is still my pupil and I will have as much need of his guidance as he has of mine"

"It will be as you ask then, old man" spoke the King. Turning upon his son however he added in a low menacing voice " But know these two things. One, that as of this day, you are removed of all rank, including heir to the throne. That has passed to one of your brothers until the day that this eye ( he pointed to the old monk) can see a pure heart in you and tell me so. Know also, that his fate shall be your fate. Whatever happens to him, accident or design happens to you. If he falls down a cliff, so shall you. If he is devoured by wild animals , so shall you. By his teachings and mercy, he has both saved and claimed your life, watch where he now goes and for your very life and soul, be not far behind."

With that the King and his guards strode away, leaving the young man to gently guide the old monk away from the ' dragon's valley ' and back toward the moon shadowed hut.

Cloak of Insignificance

It has been called the cloak of insignificance or more poetic, the mantle of minor pittance.

It was something, he claims to have only borrowed from some man downtown many years ago. Though he was vague to recall his name on the exact place of exchange.

Pressed a bit, he would come to some scattered images of cold gray day. The streets littered with snow pushed to less obtrusive places. The places where busy leather covered or rather sealed in snap on rubbers do not tread. Do not wander aimless by or stand pointing toes in varying degrees every half hour.

He had come to an office. High above the cold gray street. Coloured in panels shiny enough to be fake. Extra walls of red or yellow cloth placed in meaningless geometry unless you could float above it. Then one might see that a maze had been made to deny the subtleties of human contact. To shield all vacant eyes from vacant eyes. To stream the contained into areas of narrow pass. A washroom, a cooler, an exit were all that was allowed in common. Specialists must be isolated or all will be general diffusion. Too common for the business at hand in tiny disassembled pieces. Like gravediggers, the work must be passed hand to hand over the walls.

He had come here to be interviewed. To be shown the symbols of power; the discreet nods of success. He was to be displayed; a pirouette before a selective audience. The audition not for volume or expression but rather a critique of likeness. To see how he held his tie when bent to the water cooler. Which leg he put on top when crossed.

Any words spoken were unimportant. It was his eyes that were studied. Clear yet of no resolve in depth.

Firm yet quick of change. They must dart but never probe. Anticipate yet never hunger. They must lie between a wolf and a dog. A jackal.

He did well. Very well. Around the table, hands were offered and nibbles taken. In this world, all eat out of each other's hands. One must learn how not to bite; how not to drool.

At the conclusion, refreshments were offered as if a wedding feast. Coffee and tea entered on a table wheeled by a quite young and shapely woman.

The type of person one envisions serving coffee here; though edicts pinned to cork boards state otherwise.

And then a man's success is cast away by the workings of a thumb. He spilled coffee on his suit jacket.

The girl offered napkins to wipe the stain. The clones offered nothing.

It was unspoken. A mumble of 'we'll call' but he knew what had trickled away forever. Amongst the Mandarins, uncourtly manners are outcast; exiled. It is reasonable. One must ask, "How can a man handle millions if he fumbles a cup?". One must never ask the reverse. Or one might wonder why the girl still serves coffee.

Disgusted, angry, he flings his jacket to the bin as he re-enters the street. It is quick to bring him a chilling welcome. Hesitant, he hovers whether to shirk its reminder or plunge to the bin. Remove and return to his back, a more painful reminder than the wind's cold.

An old man has weathered his way out of a nearby hole of alley. He has the grizzled bearded face of someone who waits at a bus stop corner too long. Pale eyes that would disbelieve if its blunt head saw a corner of change. A face not forgotten the blush of hope; just replaced it with the faint rouge of opportunity. As if hope is too large a bit to swallow whereas opportunity can be opened after the last knock. After a long peek has been weighed. In the streets the quick die young. The old ooze along cracks; mold to the front of square blocks. And watch. Not vultures. More like unwinged pigeons. Their survival depends on their eyes and their reading of the moving menu before them. To know when to shuffle, when to peck, when to coo. The old man has seen the stranger and the coat. He has watched. He begins to shuffle. He begins to coo.

They never steal; they never beg, these old men. They trade. The old man offers to the stranger the gift of superiority, of Christian fellowship, of sainthood, of complacency, of philanthropy in exchange for a rumbled cloth stained with mishap.

The man is sipping to this bag of offered spirits. He has not felt this grand since he as a pre-mandarin. Occasionally some fleets of higher humanity touch his realm, but for the most part he simply enjoys the intoxication of bettering himself. And better is a comparative phrase. The old man offers an easy ladder for his ego's scale. Not the economic gap. But the wilful one. The man's will to clutch success. There are other mandarins; other towns. What has he to do with a jacket soiled with the stares of pompous asses? He has money to buy easily a dozen but with vast inner resolve he will strive to have money to buy a thousand. And fling coffee on one a day.

He is determined to never have the deflated soul of this old bum. To metaphorically wander the forgotten alleys of mediocre management. Remain always among the ineffectual who crowd the water cooler mumbling of misfortune like wretches round some oil can fire.

Ha! If he can't ride fortune's rail then he'll grasp destiny's reins with his own two hands. A slip on the rung is no plummet. He will never fall to the broken waste that whimpers before him now.

With these thoughts cavorting behind his smile, he reaches in and offers this grovelling blemish more appropriate wear.

A ritual from the lowest to the highest begins. Whether tattered or silk, whether miscreant or king; first the ceremony of exchange must be observed. From the pockets of worn, the old man removes the bits and things skimmed from a life lean at the streets. Many are valueless, broken, but all have a common touch. His touch. His memory. His existence grants them some uniqueness separate from all other bits and thing homeless. A discards hostel, he has done for them what a street cannot. Made them beautiful simply by the dignity of being wanted.

This done his old coat is handed to the man. The new jacket placed to his shoulders, a debonair tuck to the sleeves. The old man is ready. Delighted. An anticipation. To return to a less hunger stance. Lean into some renewed charm. And watch.

A thanks and the bum shuffles away. The man walks also away. A couple blocks deep in the thought and thoughts of how he shall whittle a new ladder and what office building he will lean this against. To scale up to the boardroom and astound all with his daring dash.

A shiver. Damn cold. Then he realizes he still carries the old man's discard. Looks at it. Sniffs it. Not too bad. Gingerly checks the pockets for "crawlies'. None. 'Clean old bugger' he thinks. 'Should I go back?Another day. Too cold now. What the hell I'll put it on'

It fit perfectly. Though he had been a few sizes bigger than the hobo, the jacket had been oversized for the old man.

When he had arrived home with his stories, his wife had been disgusted over the exchange. Saw no irony or humour in it. Told him to throw it in the garbage. But the man thought it had some sentimental value in its history. If he ever needed it, which he doubted, it might remind him of what the day had meant. Its significance as a turning point in his life. He dreamed of how reporters would reverently touch it when his name became household.

So he kept it around. Never took it back. Stored it for awhile in the back of the closet. Then middle. Then front. Just to see it hanging there. Every day. Brought closer to his everyday existence. Sometimes touch it. Once or twice he put it on. Secretly when his wife wasn't around. She still grumbled at him to toss it.

But it was already too intimate with him now. Never could he remember any piece of clothing having this kind of grip on him. More and more, esp. on weekends, he would feel almost guilty for not wearing it. For being ashamed to walk down the street displaying an honest part of himself.

It was like a flag or a banner of some hidden rebellion, awaiting the call for resurrection. Like a crucifix hid in a box in some tyrannical regime.

And the day came. As if a squire receiving knighthood he felt the scratch of nobility upon his shoulders. And walked tall down the streets. Though no one hailed or cheered, he imagined their looks were of much contemplation. Imagined they saw him as a well heeled writer or a man on a quest. Perhaps a narc in plain clothes. Or a starving artist obsessively intent within his work.

He wore it more and more. Seldom to work. There he was not ready to share its dignified tales, or so he told himself. He had twinges in knowing that no new chance had arisen for promotion. The Great Ladder was as slippery with the bile of constant failure as before. No new Sittings gonged for his suit of attendance. So he was afraid they may scoff at his miracle raiment. Demand that it had brought no tenfold payment.

For himself, he felt this ridicule would bring no important consequence. They could say what they would of their reality; the coat itself told of a deeper story. It was for the sake of the jacket; the coat he could tolerate no cut or tear. It was sacred in a metaphysical realm. A shield which kept his soul warm from the mock of those who judge a man by some height of climb. Those who do not know the Don Quixotes, the mystics, the Crusaders, the mad Poets, the Dalis.

Would not comprehend this flag that he wrapped about himself and tread softly forth. Where he walked and talked he became known to sight and nod as a man. A man of the streets. No longer some vague notion of conquistador or matador but a fellow mucker. A watcher from the cheap stands. Tickets to the same audience bought cheaply as are all lower castes. The common coin of international repression. The faded ones. The men of insignificance, significant in only their flock.

One on the street is hollow to a glance. Twenty quicken the pace of any passerby. A hundred simply standing, simply watching will put an entire police force in whirling red motion. Coffee stains long forgotten, he would almost choke or sob at the immense power in worn corduroys hovering perfectly still.

Who of his old friends, or fellow clutchers, would even grasp the profound meaning of the things he had placed in these pliant pockets. Scraps of quotes, thoughts of his own meaning, directions to places and persons that probably have ceased to exist, pictures from magazines of art, notebooks, expired tickets, cancelled bus passes. All of some touch

or brush with his memory. Some connection; a bridge from step to step to keep clear the journey. A man must know what he is to know where he is going. And a man must know where he has been to know what he is. Fullness of pocket reflects fullness of life. What is outside the pocket is empty. What is brought in is swallowed to the wholeness of its significance. The man has no scraps in his pockets. Scraps are things of little or no revelation until they are experienced. Then they become memoirs, relics, holy. Holy because they are borne by a pilgrim cloaked against the raw dry wind of significance. To be free of the push and pull, the drawing out of a man's juices, it is necessary to scurry from shelter to shelter. The goal is clear but the way one of grim and hardship. Without the cloak and the map of Things, a pilgrim will stray and plunge the edge of Randomness.

And too he liked to place old flowers in his lapel. To simulate that tainted air of genteel that he saw gestured by some of the street men. As if to say they are more than nothing, they are an ex-Something. Like war veterans, somehow crippled in the successes of life. They still remained insignificant but the statement gave a blatant reject of any stare. It said " I delight my nothingness, my nonexistence enough to decorate it; like an angel hung on a yellowing grimed window. You of your everything are still shamed and carry your existence cowered drab in the wind." Like an eternal War of the Roses, it marked in the colour of given blood, the price millions have paid in dignity.

And conflict struck at the man always. His insignificance could not be won over easily at home. His wife demanded the man before the old coat had been cast into their lives. The meanderings; the wanderings; the philosophy of simple dignity were a great seethe of discontent. Jealously thread its vicious pin and gave attempt to sew a straighter jacket.

At times he tried to return. Placed his calling to the back of the closet. Wore some new thing. But he would come and go unrecognized. Significant. And there are many places where significance is not known or welcomed. It is not that those who are insignificant would deny anyone a change to be significant if they so choose. It is, rather, against those who would come and go. Who would hover between the subtle crosswalk that divides. They know too much. It is not what they would tell on the outside that makes them dangerous; it is what they might say on the inside. To the others content in their insignificance. Beguile them. Twist them. Seduce them with visions of Babylon. After all even the insignificant, the pilgrims are human. Base to temptation and sin. A wandering from the Path. So they are afraid of the bad apple that rolls in and out of the barrel. 'Let him be gone' they say. ' No brother is claimed here. We wish only the Devout. Devout from heart not mind. Bring not the poison vapours clinging to your new robes.'

So they shunned him. The Shunned ones. But if he wore the old coat, his treachery was invisible to them. They saw it and believed the Bearer to be true. He was then. Though a poet of his heart seemed always twisted in indecision. A small portion of significance he was unable to subdue. That could not allow him to step free and shuffle long to the gentle dance of open air. To the market place to coo and peck and watch.

For now he understood the ways of insignificance were wide in their scene. That time is the true Teacher. That years must be lavished on a single lesson. That the rungs of significance are counted in clicks. And the top is the bottom like a hamster's wheel. That the climb is illusion. That the saved ones are those who step out and gather the seeds of contemplation instead.

That the world is not mad, just dizzy. That insignificance is not to hide but to become invisible to the storm. And there to reach out for what tumbles discarded. And there to read the map of Things to find the way out of the cage of significance.

But that small part in his heart held him from this. Though the Saved ones were blind to it, he was not. Even with his old coat, packed with maps, shuffling the watch of insignificance, he knew he still loved her.

And she saw none of his insignificance, only the portion of significance she had watched shrink and shrivel over the last five years. As if she had watched a jackal shrink to a mouse. In her blindness, or rather squint of sight, she believed she fought him for his life and their love. Argued, cajoled, begged, tooth and nail. No real avail. He was if a candle sputtering out; she could not wax him any higher. He seemed intent on being nothing; a disgrace to her. A bum. Him and that filthy rag.

Finally one night, the argument boiled to new flame. As always, his defence of mumbling philosophy and obscure quotes from some old dead insignificant made no sense to her. Her confounds trembled to a climax. Like a gauntlet slammed to the table; her menace resounded: "That's it, Tomorrow either the coat goes or I go!"

The next day she found them both hanging in the closet. Him by a rope. The coat tight in his rigid grip.

A gesture of little significance.

Self-journey

"Guilt is the strongest prison; he who is a fugitive from himself is never free"

Once a man came upon a very small monastery in the mountains. As he was very eager about learning the monks' ways, he was taken on as a novice.

Over the years he became a 'model' monk, obedient, peaceful. A great lover of Nature and his fellow man.

The other monks however noted a fault or at least a strange behaviour by the new monk. Whenever they were visited by an outsider, esp one of some rank in society such as a soldier or government official, the monk would 'disappear.' Returning, coincidentally, only after the departure of the outsider; bearing mushrooms or wood or some other excuse as to his disappearance.

When the Head of the Order came to visit, the other monks brought this to his attention and the new monk was brought forward to him.

After some discourse , the new monk confessed that he had initially fled to the mountain to save himself from retribution for some felonies he had committed. He still feared being discovered by an outsider.

Upon hearing the confession, the head Monk offered no advice or recrimination 'cept these words: "The same hand which will flick the caterpillar from the garden will hold the butterfly in awe."

The new monk went along for some weeks as the same but that sentence never left his mind. Then one day the Head Monk returned and the new monk went to him asking what the sentence meant.

The Head Monk replied again with only another sentence: "A drowning man will always curse the river, no matter how great his thirst."

Again the new monk left, baffled as before. Again he returned later to hear the Head Monk say: "The kite is held up by the string as much as by the wind."

Returning weeks later the new monk begged explanation which the Head Monk, noting the sincerity of his anguish over his past, relented to.

"A man is made in time of past, present and future. The string of your past has helped to lift you up to a higher spiritual level than you would ever attained without such a past. In the present, you seek, thirst for righteousness and its peaceful serenity, yet you would deny the very ying and yang of the Tao upon which you float; the weight of karma for your evil deeds. The future you fear in spite of your metamorphosis. you do not know if you are worm or flight without a testing beyond this nest."

Upon hearing this the new monk got up quietly and walked away from the monastery that very moment. In fact he was never heard from again until one day the Head Monk received into his hand a letter. The envelope was very much crinkled and dirty for it had passed from hand to hand through many miles, carriers and even years till finally reaching its rightful reader.

It read:

"Master, I write to you this once from the prison of which I have been sentenced to for my natural life time.

When we last met together I finally heard the full truth of what you were saying in my heart. I knew I must return to the place of my crimes.

I did so, going to the authorities to confess all my crimes. Eight times I was taken before the Courts, seven times I was ordered to be executed than each time the execution order was stayed at the last moment.

Finally on the eighth appearance, I was sentenced to a life imprisonment ; my punishment deemed to be to die in prison rather than upon the block.

I will not deny that I have had many times of misgivings and regrets for my decision to return. Gradually, however, a peace and acceptance has come over me.

At first I had grieved what I had thought I had lost at the monastery. The mountains, the freedom, the air, the wild woods, the sanctuary of brethren and solitary. I came to see, however, that these things, precious as they were, would have always remained as new paint upon abroken chair. I had sat in the monastery always precariously, always in fear.

Indeed fear was more my constant companion than my brothers. Dread was my first master not yourself. This you knew. That I had not really escaped all this in the monastery. That I had carried my prison all the way up the mountain.

For guilt is the strongest prison, he who is a fugitive from himself is never free.

I did not return to the place of my crimes to seek leniency but rather to put an end to fear. Now finally I am free. Free from fear. There are hardships here but they are little compared to the daily task I had everyday at the monastery. The task of constantly rebuilding the stone wall which walled my very conscious, my very soul from even the loving, healing looks of my brothers.

And fear as a cement has no permanence; the stones of my shame, my regrets were but shadows always in my mind though very heavy for me to lift up again and again.

In close I thank you with all my free heart for your guidance. You showed me the path to joy is never found running from fear."

In ten years time , the monk was released from the prison, his sentence changed to permanent exile at the monastery. This happened because of a few discrete entreatings from the Head Monk to the Emperor and because it was learned that the monk did not use for his personal food or comfort any of the small amounts of money he earned working in the prison. Instead, he had them sent anonymously to the widow and children of the man he had murdered.

No guard accompanied him on that return journey.

MAIDEN VOYAGE

She lingered some while at the bathroom mirror. Rummaged some old tins which had been dug from a dusty crevasse of corner in the vanity. Tins of make-up or perfume or rouge given as discards or samples. Or even sometimes as presents by friends who have never actually accepted her reality long enough to study it. Study a face, a shadow of shade hollow around intelligent eyes. Other parts of her face a little too full, not fat, just a slight puffiness as if life had brought no crave of obsession or grasping her face at cheek and now had remained still round of the adolescent false air of anticipation. Her eyes, however, had sighted other worlds; losses of things never found.

Her nose slight pug but not to be offensively so. Wide enough to draw in her fresh share of air without the need of that accelerating lift that narrow nostrils must do.

All this the friends have not seen. She knows this as she has not worn makeup ever. Yet these presents do redden her face, bring blush, an angry blush to know they never perceived the superficial let alone began to interest her depths. It would anger her that their purchases were not in anyway an intimate journey into herself. That they had in no way stood somewhere and probed her likes and dislikes, needs, quirks, wants, desires. They had merely spoken a name and attached some pick of their own convenience to it. They were gifts to a woman who was not there; not offerings to the wondrous expand of soul that was. They said: "I love you as unimportant as you are".

But tonight, she lingered at them. Not over the past, the memories of what little they were. But rather to their necessity of possibly altering a future. A future she desperately willed to flow more turbulent than her past. Yet even in that thought she realized her mistake. Her past was not smooth or tranquil. She had sinned, she had killed, she had burned, destroyed, crushed. She had waged war on a paltry world undeserving of even the tough of her heel. She had commanded great hordes of minions in wild barbaric garb to scale the walls of mockery, fling their haughty idols to the clay and dirt. She had wandered dark banks wraith-like in a full moon's reflect. Wove songs and spells and rhymes that brought the dead back to life. The very rocks to unfold, stretch and follow her unearthly ties. Hungry stars rearranged themselves, each step she took, panting to be noticed. To be called down, descending and immortalized into her deep blue cup. To be released from a frozen void gathered in her swirling warmth, to feed upon the passionate heats of danger, power, conquest.

Trees spoke her verse, or rather she brought forth from them their slow, agonizing creaks of language. Words never spoke so terrible the effort to put forth. With the entire tremble of its being, a tree may only articulate two words an hour. Yet she would stand and hear of their despairs over their lifetimes.

She had danced and cavorted with creatures forbidden, unknown to our times, little things of great wisdom and saddened thoughts. War things, grotesque in furs and chants of hate. Beautiful creatures white clothed, defying time, spilling sand, searching, searching. She learned their ways, not all evil but certainly now forbidden to narrower mankind.

She was witch, she was adulteress, temptress, murderess, consort, matriarch, goddess, the whore of Babylon in infinite variation of arm, claw and face. She was the spearhead gone the thrust of woman kind. In a new direction, that mankind now trembles the eyes of her revenge. History not repeated but revolted.

Her past. Her past thoughts. Her past vague dreams and recollections. Her past subtle leans of verse and story. She did not, would not think of all these horrors as a conclusion. No, the conscious would not allow it. Great walls stood between intent, will and act. Walls that shadowed mountains. Unscalable. But all walls have their chinks, their minor holes. And here tiny things can swarm through. Wiggle with scaly legs and escape. And some traffic of justice or injustice can prevail. Some balance can exist, be something more than just a great resistance, a stance of rigid.

She would tell her stories, read her books and most of her friends thought they were innocently delightful. But a few friends hovered the gaps between one sentence to the next. The placed ended but not finished. Where towns were ransacked but never rapine. Where hairy squat men danced to war but never slaughtered for glee.

A tainted absence in these stories like the attic of a long ago abandoned house. The cobwebs of its entrance never disturbed. Never visited. Never forgotten as well.

These unknown parts, these were the little messengers that slipped through moral barricades. And warned of bursting pressures of a seething mass which begged attendance.

So she wished to alter her past. To step from the cold white garb of virgin goddess to the naked heat of intimate reality. Not to be immoral for the sake of wantonness or reprisal against herself, but in the hope that a laying of hands upon herself would stall the leprous seethe of bitterness. As if the fruit is becoming too past ripe, past delicate sweetness. The skin beginning a folded look; wrinkled; the pulp behind drying of its nurture. The stem to the tree hardened; closed to the natural flow of life sustaining nutrients, now cut off by nature's change. The tree must save all for winter's onslaught, it can spare no more for a fruit which has not the will or courage to fall.

It was not justice. To hold the fall and for a time, the pickers marvelled and congratulated its beauty. The swelling of its determination. Its uniqueness amongst the others squashed to a dirt-like pulp by the herd lulling below the branches.

Alas, though, time and seasons are no friend, no ally to the fruit or the woman. To know in the shrivelling darkening core, her being was hanging, forgotten, and will drop away with the lasting cold winds. Unwanted. Untasted.

So tonight perhaps she would allow this conversion or saving. She assumed it was a question that hovered in his mind. She assumed that all that was required was for her to simply lean towards the direction and he would open the door. He would ask or imply. All that was required of her was simply to hold at bay centuries of walls and a lifetime she had spent keeping them in good repair.

But she had doubts. Hence the cosmetics. Did he really want her? After months of speaking of friendships and relationships of no commitments; no complications. Months of taking him to the

wall. Showing him the majesty of its purpose and duty, how they had marvelled over its heights and intricacies of construction. How everything she ever wrote did NOT, as she violently argued, have any taint or evil to it.

There she had done it. Began to doubt, to argue, to deny the worth of what she was trying to attain. She knew it when the word evil jarred her throat. Bad was a word of restitution. Could be bargained for. Could be nullified. Evil had no soul, no limits. Once done was unrequitable. A black mark, a chain, carried forever. Almost as if a piece of the soul was ripped away. An arm from a child. Both remained what they were but never intact.

Was her desire, her plan evil or bad? And must she debate this argument for the hundredth time. Let it be. She wanted to say if it is God's will so be it but she couldn't. She knew the result if God entered the debate.

She heard the doorbell ring. In an odd manner, like someone trying to play a song, she smiled. That's definitely him. Looked in the mirror. Looked in her face. Looked in her eyes. Looked in her soul and decided. And as she lightly stepped to the door, inside she felt a vast breath of new air sweep the plains as walls tumbled down in a birth of dust.

Movie and supper. As they drove and chatted, she wondered in her separate mind how much good and terrible damage had been done with 'a movie and supper'.

You could say her separate mind, since she had always been capable of following a conversation; a meeting; television, etc. with one half of her brain only. The other half kept separate was always free to explore, to see, to ponder from one end of a universe to the final foot of her soul.

She had wondered if in fact this ability had kept her 'down' in life. That if she had remained whole to this part of life, that she might have built upon it more to stifle the boredom which she conveniently dealt with by hiding in her 'separate' half. But it was the place of her stories, her books she wrote. What is a mere world, a mere one plane of reality to compare to this?

So even now, she only needed half to listen and talk a bit.

Later perhaps at supper the conversation may be deep or wide or challenging enough to require all her skills. For now this idea of movie and supper intrigues.

What if the movie hinges on a subject the two people are at odds about? Or a topic which is deeply felt to just one, not two? Or the movie portrays a solution not thought of? Or not wanted? How many couples have went to a movie intimate and come out strangers or the reverse?

What if a man went to propose; that was to be the design of the evening. But saw a film about men trapped days and days in a mine disaster. Would it undermine his question? Was the question to come? Why was that movie picked? Did not the subconscious whether hers or his or theirs lead them to this sign? In always its obscure nudging hints and sub-urgents.

And supper. Could the place picked hint or lead towards or away from anything? Its atmosphere; its very layout in entrance and exit. Some places are very gentle, very obliging to walk into and very harsh and forbidding to exit, especially to exit alone like a slight of ramp, the descent hardly perceived especially in the wave of warmth and melting conversation. But later in cold determination, emptied, the incline sharpens, sharpens. Huge clawing steps are required as all eyes peer the back of failure.

Or sometimes the long interval between an order and the relief; the deliverance of the food, this can cause agonies or at least a growl of things unsaid. Normally, perhaps each has been quite able to carry a topic, a conversation, for extended periods. But maybe those times what was being said was spoken of as a shield of more painful cuts.

Or maybe simply that the lay of the place, its decor, the lamp, the couple at the next table half sleeping in each other's eyes whether of ecstasy or boredom, these things did not fit what was being said. And overpowered the words, brought then to lay amongst the wares of the table. The only thing left to do was to look for them, move a spoon, fidget with a napkin. Search for them furtively as if embarrassed to their loss the way a man might fidget for a wallet while the waiter searches the wall paper across the room for clues. Beyond here, too, the couple look. Time and time again they scrutinize the next table, a plant hovering large, the ladies room door, a passing waiter's platter.

It is no use, no avail, they are lost. You know they are truly lost when the last place they look into is the ice they shake in their drained glass.

But always, always the words return, found. The waiter returns them buried in steaming food. Nostrils fill like literary giants and out will spill enormous platitudes like "Here it is" or "That was quick".

She giggles at that thought.

He laughs too; glad to hear his witty remarks are keeping her in a good mood. Continues his conversation as they turn the next corner.

That was quick alright her amused half thinks. Shorter than twenty-five years of it. Or so each of the couples will think as they continue the evening. And ironically it did not have to be this tragic. But neither has the knowledge or the comprehension to admit that individually they cannot conquer these looming things. Who would admit to being defeated by an oddly flowered chair? How wrong they are to think of everything as conflict, a war of people against people. Maybe originally it was. But now there was too much. Too many things had wrestled control. These things had no purpose, no end, no means except that of any determined biological single entity.

Propagation. They must not kill their host but rather become absorbed to its being. So that the host has both a desperate need of the things and yet at the same time knows nothing of their presence. So that the host would know no fear or revulsion as the things multiplied and gathered to his or her being. And though in the end, the host would die (sometimes accelerated by the sheer weight of his things), his things would still spread, as if infectious things, carried to other hosts.

The things had no malicious intent. They were bloodsuckers, leeches perhaps but normally not fatal. But their designs brought about a singular odd effect which could in the end proof fatal to the race of hosts and thereby an end to their own propagation. That effect was an attempt always to alter or interfere where two or more people gathered. Since the things believed rightly or wrongly, that two people apart would harbour more than two people together. In groups of the host much is shared and thereby less things are allowed exist.

Obviously, there would be many counter arguments to this but things cannot be reasoned with. They know no metaphysics; simply crowd reality and like jealous dogs prefer to encircle only one master or mistress.

So at the restaurant if the couple only knew that it was things, jealous; possessive, controlling things that stole their words. Hid them like errant children interfering with a step-mother or step-father's potential for match. A disruption so subtle, yet so fatal to the union of the hosts.

But they don't know. Don't know that some discussions must be made outside, in open hills. Where things can't snatch at them. Use them. Twist them. Where the wind ensures their full strength and carry.

They don't know so they leave, surrender away from each other. To the greater glory of cruel, biting things. They will never return as a they. The seats go empty. Waiting the next victims.

"Want some popcorn?"

"No, no thanks" she replies.

"What not?"

"Spoil my supper".

"Yeah, that's my plan. Besides, it'll put hair on your chest."

She had to admit she adored that sideways grin of his. A smile like he owned the world.

"You like girls with hair on their chest?" She threw at him.

He laughed back "Only if I get to try to rub it off on mine".

The movie was some stupid love triangle thing. Stupid to her anyway. She preferred epics or something with lots of visual, historic battles or pirates. Still he liked it. The agony of human relations was sort of his interest. And some of the scenes were daring enough that was for sure.

So she stayed drawn to them. Both halves of her brain. Almost an analytical observation. Debating, discussing between woman and woman, the steps, the intervals of process.

The girl had taken him back to her apartment. They had hardly got in when she just turned to him, unzipped her dress and stepped out of it.

She hardly knew of she had the nerve to do that. What if he blushed and stammered at her to put it back on. Mumbled they should 'talk' about this step while his eyes desperately sought for a book, a paper, a cup. Something, anything to put between them. Besides her dress was two pieces and buttons. She might be able to go in the bathroom, take it off, then step out but never could she stand in front of him fumbling with buttons while he, no doubt out of nervousness, made some stupid joke.

Now they were on the couch. Her half under him, one leg wrapped around his lower back. Her upper torso half off the couch. Him bent down; passionate kisses to her arched neck.

I hope she knows a good chiropractor, that must hurt like hell the next day. I think I'll hold out for the bed.

In their rising passion, the couple almost tumble to the floor. He grabs a coffee table but inadvertently knocks a vase over. It breaks in two. "Fuck, sorry" he says glancing past her breasts to the floor. She laughs. "Keep talking dirty like that and we'll smash the whole room up".

Well, there is one thing to remember she thinks, lousy dialogue doesn't seem to slow down a love scene. Yep, there they go at it again like ...What was that I read a couple of weeks ago ... Oh yeah, the twin backed beast writhing in its own agony of sin. Well certainly looks like their in a fair degree of pain. Maybe, it's like a good bowel movement. Feels better than it looks. Now there's a romantic revelation. I don't think I've got the right attitude over this.

That young couple over there certainly do. Yuk, passing candy that way.

It's all so confusing. Sex, people, relationships. So many rules. So many broken rules. And those who will live in unbroken rules are miserable. And those who wander or huddle on the other side miserable.

It all seems like a popcorn cup. First time, when people first enter to view the passing by, the cup is filled of warm savour. Like a perfume of anticipation it wafts, drifts everywhere. Drawing others to wonder their share; and with gingerly lightness and a level eye, it is floated like a cloud across dark mountains below. So full, so plenty, a few pieces can be lost and no one cares. They even giggle their own clumsiness if more than a few kernels tumble away as they move to their seats. Move in an awkward yet universal side step dance. It is the things again, the seats, that constrict their movement and attempt lay claim their pleasure.

There is, also, the cup itself if you look to it. Its bright unhandled colours. Usually a yellow and a happy face in there somewhere. To tell us that all that is needed once the cost is paid is a little coating, a little dash of something pleasant; something always offered and taken. Such a slight thing, yet this is not fraud. The dryness, staleness, the monotony of what lies below is still there. And was always desired. Otherwise it would only be icing without cake. Oppressively sweet with no filling. Would not last the entire scene. So the yellow and the painted face remind all that to pass them by may lead to the viewer being unimmersed to the scene. A slight hollow regret that hands will move relentless but would remain futile to fill.

With the cup full, the hands can hover close. Peaceful in their purpose. All senses alive. The eyes, ears for the scene. Tongue, nose, touch alive to the cup. All in orbit about a universal mind soothed by these offerings; a mind subdued and unresisting. Absorbing, no need for combat here. The consumer's face a slight yellow tinge reflected from the cup; its mouth grinning between intervals of work.

This little dash so wondrous. The hands kneed it downward. Revolve, mix the dry popcorn a few kernels at a time. Almost desperate to keep the intimate coating moving away from the fingers. To spread its influence through all. To the end. So nothing dry or brittle is take in and disturbs the lulling mind.

And the same time, the plucking of the coated fruits begins to slow. The plucker's hollowness, half-sated; he must begin to plan for the 'levelling' out. For no more fruits can be procured, the scene has flickered past its halfway mark. The fingers decrease their tempo, the mouth has more time, all begin to plot an emptying at the crucial time. Somewhere between the scene's end and the cup's finish must be allowed a discretion; a respectful waiting period. No one wishes to be plagued with an unemptied cup.What's left unwanted.

The scene over; the lights on, no one wishes to carry the stale congealed cold cup out to the parlor. A display of their inability to consume. To search through the moving crowd for a stationary barrel.

Nor will they have the courage to simply hide the half full thing. Since what if a passerby spills it? Won't all know then their failure and worse their shame of their failure? Won't they be asked why they dared to purchase more then they bargained they could exhaust? Would it be an exaggeration to picture them thrown to the streets for committing society's original sin: Failure to deplete and thereby leaving unwanted contradictions in the exchange of supply and demand? Where all one can supply must be consumed to another's demand so that there is no wounded to litter the field and taint its glory.

So duty must finish what desire began. But here at the end; at the empty cup lies some pain or at least discomfort. What was begun full, new, waxed smooth, this has become disfigured. There are worn edges of use, fractures in the wax from constant shaking to stir the coating. The face struggles a bit to hold a full smile. Pressures of probing for final deliverance have altered it's charm. The wrinkles, the fades mark a bitter cup. Like a melancholy clown drunk to his wine an hour after a showing. His career long since lost its coating.

But the cup has some victory. The fingers have done the bidding too well. Like slugs from a search of snake they have fled to the bottom of a well. The coating lies pooled; a few unripened leftovers cowering in its lap. So here too is shame of something unconsumed but at least it is small and common thing.

There are gluttons who will scratch at the residue with salt encrusted nails and suck them clean; but they are rare.

Fewer still, are men (or women) who will reach within another's cup beside.

From there remove fruit and with that stolen brush attempt to gather all the coating from their cup. There is no name low enough for these. Who tamper with the supply and demand of another. Then would leave them to face the truth.

Most with the depleted cup simply lower it down. After a few glances as to its usefulness now degraded to something less. To ensure that the cup is indeed empty of all purpose. They will lower it and casually suspend it in their hand. Above the floor. As if it is still half full; still worthy of a hoard to themselves.

Then in some loudness or fast moving change in the scene, when all eyes are rivetted forward into the present, the cup is dropped.

With perhaps a twinge of consciousness, or shame, or a glance sideways. Just to see if the very tiny echo of breath gasping from the cup as it collides the floor, is heard.

None hear or if they did they are silent of it as they site poised with their cups.

"Ah feast! They are certainly quick here" he exclaimed when their meal arrived.

"Yes, yes, they are" she replied.

To herself she thought; it's not going very well, I'm not sure what I've done. We were so quiet in the car and here. It's not like him. Maybe he's nervous, I didn't even know if I want to know but I wish he'd ask. So we could talk about it.

"Listen, I need to talk to you about something. But I don't want to upset you." His eyes glanced at her.

"Go ahead, please".

Odd, she thought he really is nerved up. He's digging up his potatoes like he lost his speech in them.

"Well, you know, I started in that tennis club a while back. Well, you and I are real good friends and you've helped me a lot. Got me back on my feet and I'd really like to continue our relationship. And will, no matter what. But there is something else right now. It has no effect on us, really, but I started seeing this person, a girl from the club about a month or so ago and I think that it is getting serious but as far as our friendship. That's important to me..........

Odd, that plant, the way it grows. One side full, too full, the other side skimpy; half bare. Like someone has been picking at it all its life. Some kind of cruel fate. To be on one side or the other. Overshadowed, frail, forgotten. The trunk of it. So straight, thick. Knows the direction up that's what they say about huge pine trees. People, I wonder, how many see the delicate balance, the intense effort the tree makes to remain unswayed, stay true with the heavy dark luscious growth dragging at it and the ineffectual balance of the thin side. They shouldn't leave it like that. Trim it. Or turn it. So the weakling is hidden. Gone, forever. Let the brazen growth rule the image of the tree. Right now people only see a tree in immense conflict. With itself. If the morons perceive anything at all.

"I think she's quite a charming lady and I know you'll like her. I was hoping that we could all get together........"

Oh I just hate that. To be in some restaurant or place and see some delightful painting. But you know you can't buy it or even find out where they bought it. Beautiful frame, white? Ivory? A tinged effect. Like an old bridal gown never purchased. Those odd style things almost Victorian. And gold flecks on the frame like someone took gold coins and put them on a railroad track and got the train to go over them, over and over again, till powder, dust. Then they threw it at the wet frame.

And the picture. That café. Everything shades of green and yellow. Spring, a new beginning. The sky, that was done well. That blue or rather blue shades that keep folding into each other. But no crease, no overlap. Simply a very subtle darkening; draws inward. No spiral but a calm journey. A few steps. on the table, on the canopy. On the roof, into the sky, through the sky, free to step into the painting.

Wouldn't those people be surprised. The three at the table in the right corner of the painting. Two women and a man. Were they happy when the artist did this? Were they there? Did he have to add them? Is an empty café even allowed in the art world? Did he know them? Their names? Did he imagine their lives, their conversation?

One man, and was one his wife, the other a lover? Or lover and sister? Or lover and long time friend? Perhaps they would come together for help; perhaps the man had some terrible sickness like cancer. And his lover could not bear it, the sickness, the nursing, the dying. Came to get rid of him. To the life long friend, who secretly loved him and now was to receive him only because there was little left but she knew with her whole heart that love weighs not pros and cons. Love acts, she wanted and must help him because she loved him. Damn anything else.

The lover left first. After leaving money as guilt payment. They had taken it. He had it. To lessen the life long friend's burden. Then after a long talk with much tears and depth, they left too. For her small apartment, three blocks away. He could barely make it. She half carried him staggering along, both stopping every few minutes while he retched blood into her hankie.

He died two months later. She the only attendant at his funeral. She was very sad but a little less so with the knowledge in her heart of who's name he had truly loved when he closed his eyes the final time.

"So you see nothing's changed for us. Anything you need or want help, just call. I'm free anytime. Course with Helen and I moving in together we........."

She had seen it. Yes, she thought it did happen. In the small violet coloured vase. At the table. There was something in it. A word, a word had fallen inside the vase. Or rather some word someone here had spoken had got caught. Got too close to the tiny vortex or whirlpool that exists around the opening of a vase. It was not air. It was a time-space web. As the bottom of the vase pushes out against reality more than the top there is a distortion effect. The Ancient ones knew this. Always put something like flowers or corks to catch anything; drive it back. But now all that is forgotten. No one knows. So the vases are left with their vents exposed. Where helpless or dangerous things can accumulate. Years old. Waiting for release. Angry.

But it was not the word that had went in. It was a fly she had seen. A fly after something. Something for her. The fly returned to the top of the vase. Its hundreds of eyes fixed her in an enormity of concentration since it had to climb a huge evolutionary ladder to communicate with her.She knew it! It had something for her! A word it had found decaying, rotting in the vase. A word it had swallowed and was now attempting to regurgitate to her. Following some mission, the source of commands which it had no comprehension. Some force all beings are connected to in motive but seldom understand the will.

The fly concentrated with it. It's legs twitching, wings still as it churned its tiny bearded mouth trying to comprehend the rearrangement of the letters.

"Are you ok? You haven't eaten much. I hope this doesn't upset you. I want to still be friends. You're such a nice girl and ...."

There it was! Just before the fly flew away, it had spilled the word to the rim of the vase. She saw it and knew its use instantly.

She grabbed her purse and stood up. The vase rolled to the floor and smashed.

She looked him straight in the eye and called him the word. A filthy word. A disgusting thing men liked women to do. But for a man to be called it, it was very degrading.

It was a long drive home. A very long drive. He said nothing.

She said nothing and thought nothing. Both halves stayed cowering where she willed them. She could not afford any discussion, any debate, any emotion in front of him. She kept herself slightly out-of-focus knowing that a clear perception of anything would jar the delicate balance of all that was contained. Any single hint in her mind or heart of a human emotion and she knew she might crumble. She must not let him see until all was again rearranged neatly.

He dropped her off. She held to the elevator. When the doors closed, she felt all inside began to storm towards her eyes. She smashed the walls and screamed at them all to wait. Before her floor, the elevator stopped. Two teenage boys got on. Looked at her. Moved away. It was the first time in her life, she had ever seen the look of fear directed at her.

She didn't get far past her apartment door. She shut it and fell to the floor. There was far too many of them locked up too long. She could not perceive any single voice in the din. They were all too angry. Too hungry. She just laid there outstretched on her side like a suckling thing and fed them tears.

Till sated, they began to speak without whimpers and beg her attention. She curled them to herself and whispered her promises.

And now it was almost pleasant out here. Curled to the floor, close, very close to the apartment door. With the soft ones, the gentle ones huddled about her. She wished she could stay all night.

Because behind the bedroom door, the dark ones waited. And they would wait. The ones who had sent the fly, they always waited.

And she knew she must; she would go to them. She would lie in her bed and give a little fight but only a little.

And then the dark ones; the wild ones would come and dance on the ceiling and scream and chant and go on hunts.

And drag him back to her and tie him to the ceiling.

And she knew that tonight she would have to let them kill him.

Lawnmower

When Gon Lo was walking up to At Peace's house, he came upon At Peace kicking at his lawnmower.

Gon Lo asked At Peace what was wrong to which At Peace replied, "It won't start".

Gon Lo knew something of mechanics so he bent over to look at the machine. "There's a loose wire", he said triumphantly.

He re-attached the wire, gave the lawnmower cord an energetic pull and away the engine started.

At Peace finished cutting his grass, switched off the motor, thanked Gon Lo and invited him in for tea.

While sipping at his tea Gon Lo couldn't help but ask At Peace why he was kicking the motor as he had been quite surprised to see At Pease lose his temper.

"Because it wouldn't start" was the reply.

"Well, why didn't you just ask me to fix it?"

At Peace retorted. "I did. Being angry brought your response."

"But, At Peace, forgive me for a criticism, but how can you talk of harmony and serenity yet have such an outburst as that?"

At Peace looked long at Gon Lo then replied, "What you are looking for, Gon Lo, is remorse, regret, guilt. These you look for in my eyes with your eyes. You came to my house looking for someone at peace and found he was not, as you thought he should be. The path of your past tells you, 'This one must have shame' for that is how you have learned to judge yourself. Not in the present as present but judging the present only when it is past. Hence shame. You judge others likewise.

"Then why have you no shame?"

"Do you ask why I have no shame onto myself or before you? For if I would have less shame without you than with you, is that not even more shameful? Am I then even fit to be my own judge? Can a witness lessen or greater the crime itself?

At Peace spoke up "What I mean, At Peace, is had you come upon myself angry in such a way, would you not have chastised me for allowing myself to lose my temper?

Perhaps, perhaps not, Gon Lo. What is the way of the Way?"

"Flow, uninhibited, uncontrolled, undirected, all thing have their own 'way' in the Way" answered Gon Lo.

"Yes. If I take a fish out of water what happens to it, Gon Lo?"

"It dies"

At Peace continued "True, yet the fish needs the air in the water to breathe, to live. If I took a small tree and planted its roots in a bucket of water, what would happen to it?"

Gon Lo answered, "The tree would drown."

At Peace nodded "True. Yet without water in the earth the tree would go brittle and die anyway."

Gon Lo replied "So what does all that mean to anger?"

"Well, perhaps too much anger is harmful yet perhaps as well no anger is harmful. Perhaps the true 'way' is to remain a little of everything. Look at the river. Water can freeze, water can flow, water can evaporate. If it did not evaporate, the sea could not rejuvenate the source. If it did not flow, there could be no sea. If it did not freeze, the river would empty before the warmer times of replenish."

Gon Lo interrupted "At Peace, listen. You say all things must have all things to ' be of the Way'. What of evil, then? Must all things have evil in them?"

"Let me tell you a story, Gon Lo. Once, in times past, the turtle and the rabbit decided to have a race.. Arguing over where the race was to take place, they let the sparrow chose the way.

Now the sparrow simply flew to the nearest mountain top and back in a straight line caring nothing for what lied below his path.

So the race began. The rabbit, of course, was at once in the lead but soon he came to a huge swamp. In no time his fur was clogged with mud and all he could do was keep his head above the drowning slime. To go further was impossible. He remained stuck, clinging to a half-submerged log.

Now the turtle reaching the swamp was able to swim across it quite easily. Once, however, he reached the beginning slopes of the mountain, he was soon in trouble. As the jumbled rock edges become more and more vertical, he began to have difficulty scaling them. Eventually he slipped down, flipped over backwards and got lodged into a crevasse. Stuck, unable to move, just like the rabbit still clinging to the slimy log.

Now all the animals at the finish line waited and waited; hours went by but no rabbit or turtle. Everyone was getting very concerned and it was decided to find Sparrow and have him go on a search.

Just as this was decided, however, a lowly ugly frog came hopping up to the crowd at the finish line. At first his interruptions of croak croak were ignored (most of the animals finding frogs and toads a little too reptilian for their social gatherings) but then..finally..some one..quite rudely..asked him what he wanted.

" Well" he began in a frog throaty manner " I..croak..thought..go..and see..what..hap..croak..pen. Went to swamp. Halfway across..saw..croak..Mister Hare..caught in mud. Cant move. Then I swam up to hills. Hopped up towards..croak..mountain. Seen Master Turtle..stuck in..croak..crack..croak..cant move either..they both go nowhere..croak..you better..croak..save them..with lots of helpers..croak!"

Then he hopped away, ignoring their thanks, since he was not used to any attentions by the animals 'cept maybe the stare of the Heron.

It took a lot of effort to free their friends. Some turtles went out and swam under the stuck rabbit and 'floated' him back to shore. Other turtles, two for each rabbit, took rabbits over to the mountain where they coaxed, swore and heaved with their paws till turtle rolled over and was free.

The race was never run again nor actually even spoken of for all the animals were a little reluctant to declare old ugly Mister Frog the actual winner!

You see, Gon Lo, old Froggy was a little of a rabbit and a little of a turtle; that's why he could go where they could not. Whatever we are, we cannot nor should not be all of one thing, nor all of another...or we will end up stuck in one place. A round peg cannot move once it falls into a round hole...it is always better to be a little square near round valleys and a little round near square holes. One rock cannot flow around another rock but water can. Yet how far can water be tossed up the mountain?

Imagine the gardener who never stopped hoeing, no flowers..imagine the carpenter who never stopped sawing, all sawdust.

Gun Lo pondered for awhile but he still thought to 'corner' At Peace so he asked " So in order to have peace in the world, there must also be war in the world?"

At Peace answered " Who spoke of opposites? Sometimes Less is More or More is Less yet how can a thing that is opposite of another thing become more of the thing that it is as it becomes more of that of which it was opposite of? If I am a man with no feet, I yearn all day to walk elsewhere. If I am a blind man with feet, I stumble into danger all day. But if I am a blind man with no feet, I am content to sit and be at peace. Of the three, we would call the last man the Lesser, yet, we find he is More in his heart.

We look at 'things' and see separation, opposition, conflict, abrasion, erosion.

Look at words of things like water, mountain, cloud, stream, rock, down, sky, bed, sea, rain, up, valley, rise, mist...take one away and none of the others will exist. Yet, how is a rock like a cloud?

War is not peace, nor is peace..war. But there is a way that the one becomes the other. Peace can be at war with itself..and for a time War can be at peace.

The 'real' danger in looking at one thing and saying ' That's what it is..or worse..that's all it is', is that you forget it is also a great many other things as well.

So when I tell you to be many things, I am only telling you to be what you already are.

You always saw me as At Peace..to see me as At Anger surprised you..but it did not really surprise me to see myself as At Anger. In actual fact, we should not really be surprised that 'things' on the outside turn out to be many other things as well.

Often...... we call water..glass..but see so little of what actually lies below."

RAZOR JACK

Even a billion dollars is only so manypennies...yes, the bulk of it will make most men bow over...but not all...it is coinage yes but it rarely makes change.

Razor Jack (sometimes called R. Jack or Razor or just Jack but never ever R.J.) lived in the dump. A dump called the Swamps.

From time to time, before the dams were made, the great Missiani River, swollen in spring rage, drunk with aqueous spirits, would lurch out of its three foot high gutter bed.

This created the Swamps, an undevelopable piece of low land in the centre of the growing City. A flooded plain used to collect all types of human refuge and discards.

It was because of these floods that this lower area never became populated with anything more than shanties and tents.

It had never become an official dump either. No city can have a dump anymore. Just 'had' a dump.

Pushed some garbage under some dirt. Made a hill. Then a bigger hill.

Added a tree. Then a few more trees.

Then rezoned it. To pre-Commercial or Semi-Development.

Then waited for cash.

While the City and its 'Non-dump-for-sale' waited, there was a special level of 'developers' which did move in.

Hobos, tramps, bums, alkies, drifters. Not the homeless. The homeless stayed closer to the security of larger buildings, social assistance, soup kitchens, crowds.

For the homeless, fortunately or unfortunately, being of less choice, more victim, remained attached to the perpetrators of their semi-criminalized state(or so seemingly decreed by a society judging innocence in direct per portion to purchasing power)much in the way victims of dysfunction remain forever at the scene of their relationships.

So just hobos, tramps, bums, alkies, drifters. A mixture of labels, not necessarily to distinguish a level of social class in the Swamp but because society has always been more gracious in the giving of names, than in the giving of charity.

Canst thou praise thy god within thee

whilst cursing all human amongstthee?

But these men didn't want charity. At least half, maybe more , were there in between 'stakes' or jobs. Living day to day on pennies rather than the hundreds of dollars normal people daily waste upon existence.

These hobos, these charity-leavers, buy their own freedom, their independence with only their own golden blood; trade and discard in their livelihoods as easy as the broken parts of a chair are given into a communal oil-can fire.

Razor Jack was one of these. A choice of drifting. A choice in living. As a drifter.

Willingly. As willing as most anyway.

Empty men need have no fear of shoals.

No drifter has ever looked up at a car speed by fast in some dreary mud rain or watched the well-dressed, the well-fed enter a restaurant and not had a flighting wish.

Just as the well-fed and well-dressed might for a moment consider a day whose price tag does not hang heavier and heavier upon their will.

Yet the word "drifter" was not entirely true. At least in a geographic sense. The label 'drifter' did not always just mean someone wandering from town to town every month, week ,or day.

Some drifters rarely left. They wouldn't call it 'their town' but they may have reached an agreement within themselves that no other towns offered more. Razor was like that. Having travelled the USA east/west and north/south, even Alaska and some of Mexico , he had settled Mid-West. The winters were harder but the people weren't.

Besides 'drifting' meant more like hunting. Though these men weren't predators, they weren't pin-striped hyenas or tie-necked jackals. Nor, however, would anyone sitting or squatting near their dusk to dawn oil can fires call them : 'wounded deer'.

A million peoples enslaved is each man giving consent

and each man ....

.....enslaved is a million peoples giving....... consent.

More like wounded wolves.

Wounded by a society which does not price loyalty 'cept when men-boys are needed to trade armed death for a world change in political lines or small economic adjustments.

Like wolves, these hobos are a clan and like wolves they roam. Once in a clan it does not matter if a hobo is there at the fire or a thousand miles away at another, he (or a few shes) are of the Clan.

Make no mistake these men are men. They will anger and weep and pain and go mad and hate and avenge. They will at times kill each other.

But unlike the jungles circling their Jungle, killing is not their livelihood.

When a tramp kills his fellow tramp, face to face, eye to eye, half bottle or iron pipe or his grandfather's pen knife at a throat or head or belly, he has a reason, a very good reason; even if his reason is his own madness.

These men could kill personally, vengefully but never could they kill by assigning human lot numbers to a cattle car; profiting in the trade of World poverty; slitting a throat with an email.

In the business of the world, most

men are paid handsomely for their

ugliness; compassion is still the

poorest of vocations.

So murder amongst the tramps was rare; as they never kill for money. Life is held dear; known to be precious; when its all you have yourself.

Razor Jack was one of a clan. A gathering of the ragabonds and survivors of a continuous war against the Individual, the Independent. In self-made refugee camps of strong wills and bent cardboard. Like in his very name, Razor used to laugh " Corroded but not corrupted."

The longer you are a tramp, the larger your clan. Even though a good many of your clan are as likely dead or near-dead as ridin' rail cars or hitchin' tractor trailer rides across the USA.

When one lives a life of full freedom, with nothing in your hand to slow down a grab for a car rail ladder going by at 15 miles an hour, memories become your best if not only possessions.

Most unfreemen prefer to forget. To forget is to lose the ability to foresee an unchanging future. The 'road always travelled' over and over again can, in its repetition, whimper for change. For choice. Most unfreemen do not prefer choices, though they claim otherwise.

Given a choice, most unfreemen will not.

So this Clan, even with maybe most dead, stays as real in the last drifter's mind as the stars over his rucksack pillowed head. The clan is men and women, tales and stories, gossip and wonderings, true ordeals and laughable exaggerations.

Tramps die a hundred ways then show up next week at the same fire where their demise was sworn true for a hundred bucks.

Student: Teacher, what do you believe in?

Teacher: I believe in what you believe in.

Student: But what do YOU believe in?

Teacher: Again I believe in what you

believe in.

Student: No. No. I mean what do you

personally believe in?

Teacher: I personally believe in what you personally believe in.

Student: I do not understand.

Teacher: The burdens of one's religion or philosophy must rest

upon more than just your own shoulders; they will rest upon others as well.

Student: Then his religion must only be the religions of others?

Teacher: No, his religion must include the religion of others.

Student: I do not believe that.

Teacher: Nor do I.

He was called Razor Jack because he had made razors. Well, not actually the razors.

He was a tool and die maker; a machinist; he had made the tools that made the razors.

He had made the metal stamps; the cutters for the machines that others operated to stamp out thousands of razors an hour.

It had been a good job, he was no slave.

Supported him through two divorced wives, no kids, four or five houses, a dozen or so new cars, a drinking problem for fifteen years and many solitary (preferably)fishing trips into nearby state parks.

But after he was about three years sober, when his second wife left him for her ex-brother-in-law on her younger sister's side, he had gave it all up in disgust. To save, he would say, the best parts left of his soul.

In the heart of a man you will

find only one of two things...passion or emptiness.

At 43 on December 07, 1956 he had got out from behind the eight ball. His words. Do the numbers he would laugh.

Sold it all and wrote her a cheque for it. Sent it 'cept for a hundred and thirty bucks and three packs of smokes. Rode a rail out of town.

Never looked back. Never wanting to look back.

To succeed where one should not succeed is a failure. To fail where one should fail brings a different reward.

There are some who will never turn around on any road, even one which plummets off a cliff. One must remember that the road less travelled is also seldom first

chosen.

Wasn't just her though. He'd always felt bad when he would go through the plant and stop and watch somebody operate the equipment stampin' out a razor a second. Or the ones that formed the plastic arms. Or glued that to a plastic sleeve with the razor in it.

Their working lives contained in inches. A wrist movement, a foot pressed up and down on a pedal. Over and over and over again for years.

They couldn't even think. If you thought about something else too much ya got hurt....or quit.

Jack didn't like being part of that. Like he made the whips for the Pharaoh.

He felt good now that his hands were cleaner in the Swamp.

To free the slaves in and out of my mind I must first put on the chains of self-mastery.

Sixty-five years old or so now, Razor Jack had only two 'vices' left. Tobacco. And Cribbage. He'd work for food. Maybe get a month's cash ahead. Then work a little more for his tobacco. Maybe an extra day or two for any gear that needed replacing like his old down army surplus sleeping bag or his small tent tarp or maybe a pair of socks.

Then quit.

Places kept hiring him back though. Machining or welding. Most foremen said Razor could do more in a day than most half his age in a week. Didn't kill time, didn't dog it, just worked his ass off, as many hours a day as any Company could give him.

But just a few weeks, maybe a month.

Some plant shutdowns where a lot of precision stuff was needed done quickly, the foreman would even go into the Swamp lookin' for Razor Jack. Take a few wine bottles maybe to ask around. And smokes for Razor.

He was usually easy to find anyway. Evening. Near the oil can fire. Playing cribbage. Sometimes he would take the job; sometimes not. Usually if the foreman was desperate, he'd help even if he didn't need a stake ahead right then.

Tell the foreman to hold the cash awhile.

Not really good to have too much money in the Swamp. Thievery, muggings were rare especially when you had a clan of good guys around you.

But borrowing could become a bit of a hassle. Not that Razor minded. If he had it and someone was in need for food, they got fed. No borrowin' involved.

But booze was something else. Lot of guys had booze problems but it was ok, under sort of control so long as there was not too much easy money around. And borrowin' ...or begging....was too easy money.

Who cares if they got drunk but drunk hobos make mistakes. One really. They didn't drink in the Swamp. Where the other guys would protect them from themselves...or thugs.

Lot of frozen drunks, lot of knifed drunks for a few bucks, lot of drunks fall under a train trying to catch it...all because they are drunk...and alone.

Drunks like company but the wrong kind. Once they're broke or too drunk they're not wanted anymore in the bars and....they get dead on their own a lot of times.

Razor Jack still never drank no more and he didn't like to have too much money 'cause he hated sayin' no to other tramps borrowing it for booze but he also hated what happened to some that he did give money to.

So he'd rather play cribbage. Never played uker or poker or canasta or anything but crib. Never played it at work either. Only at the oil can fire.

It was a soul thing. Penny a point. He liked to win. He liked to lose. 'Cause losin' you could bitch about your hands...and banter with the other guys when they bull-bragged about what champs they were. Winnin' , well then Razor got to bull-brag...plus sometimes there was a feelin' like Christmas dinner or fishin' with yr grandfather. Like ..life's ok.

Penny a point. No one ever paid anyone. The penny was to make it seem serious, more than a kid's game. Not payin' was a way of saying the game is enough on its own...the good-hearted abuse on the losers usually payment enough!

Funny thing, though, for all his love of the game, Razor Jack never made a crib board. You'd think he would, being a machinist. Instead he kept buyin' them and he kept givin' them away. Liked to check out all the dollar and dime stores around the downtown core for new ones. Almost a weekly thing.

Despite the way we handle our human

affairs, carnage has no value. In

every human relationship, one should

fence as precious, a tiny place free

from the grope of our oxen fingers.

A rose in the ruins harbours less

bitter memory.

Get a few groceries. Mostly bread and beans and coffee. In fact, Razor was livin' proof a man could live on canned beans forever. Wasn't just they were cheap; he liked the smell of them cookin'. Smelled like freedom.

Sometimes had a soup at a diner. Sometimes instead get a block of cheese for grilled sandwiches done best on his little iron skillet forever greased with bean juice.

And, of course. A small pouch of tobacco; papers.

Stores got to know him so well, the assistant manager would always come around with some new crib board they had got in.

Razor Jack could never resist them.

There was another little' problem Razor had. Over the years he had gone a little senile, maybe some might say..full on crazy. Reality, 'cept for his beans, cribbage and tobacco had changed for him.

Remember it is not what you will be...

destiny is a mirror...

of yourself walking to it...

your destiny becomes

what you already are

He saw the world now as mostly malevolent towards its own society; almost medieval in its contrasts of good and evil, power and subjugation. An extreme of callousness, tribalism and oppression. A world devouring itself in its unrelenting hunger, where everything was either pursuing or fleeing its own tail or its own mouth. Everywhere around him had the smell and look of a living crematorium feeding itself with itself. Like those fantasy books ya read where a kid steps through a mirror and suddenly almost everything has a dark shadow land attached to it. An ominous destructive purpose. Most of Jack's world was now black, some gray , with an old photographic-like glow in the centre where sat his cribbage, tobacco, Clan and soul.

I suppose today we would call it dementia or Alzheimers. Back then ya just got old and odd.

We are not called to be guardians of

our own treasure...we are called to

be the pirates of that treasure.

Didn't effect his work though. Or really his personality. To the Clan or 'newbos' he was as gentle and kind as ever. Talked less and less to strangers 'cept maybe the familiar waitresses or shop girls who had always been friendly to him.

One thing helped too. When he wasn't playin' crib, he was playin' crib. That is, in his mind. Like chess players who play solitary games and the layouts of pieces in their heads. Razor jack would deal out the cards, look at his hand, have the plays, count the points of four hands, keep track of the score. All in his head. The only thing he didn't do only in his head was count the points. That he would do out loud.

So wether he was cookin' beans or running' a die press or machinin' a bearing piece or walkin' downtown or just sittin', he was scoring points out loud. "Fifteen two. Fifteen four. Pair is six. Fifteen two. Fifteen four. Fifteen six. Double run and pair makes fourteen. Thirty one makes two points. Jack point for one. Pair is three. Twenty-eight is a go. Fifteen two, pair is four, run of four makes seven. Play eight. Seven makes fifteen for two......"

On and on and on. Clear enough said for others to find amusing. Low enough said not to be overly obnoxious close by.

For Razor, unconsciously, like a mantra or chant, it kept his demons at bay.

Yet, over time, something more was growing inside his mind. Something of a realization. As an abstract puzzle condenses, forming into a reality. Perhaps the 'points' counted in his head added up to a summation of prediction.

'Cause Razor Jack was losing crib partners. Sometimes there would be enough for four-handed. Sometimes three. Then down to two. Back up again. Then missing again.

Something evil, hideous was killing Razor Jack's cribbage partners. One by one.

They'd be around for awhile. Maybe a 'newbo' adding himself to the Clan. Maybe an old Clan, drifting in from Chicago or the west Coast after bein' gone for a year or two.

Mostly drinkers. Not all. But mostly. For some reason drinkers like cards. When they're broke. Or really drunk.

When they were half drunk or had some coin, they went downtown. And, eventually didn't return. Word would get back. Limpin' Johnnie or Chicago Bill or Dutch or Hosey or Hero the Hank or whoever had got it. Bought it.

What had ' got 'em' was a little confusing to Razor Jack.

See' he never went downtown the way they did. Since the early days of driftin' to the Swamp, goin' that way had given him a weird feeling. Almost haunting. Not really a superstitious man, he had nevertheless gone always the longer, more circuitous route to downtown. Walked.

He only took a bus if it rained while he was down there. Or to work if an early shift. Walked home unless it was really far. Though a lot of foremen often gave him a lift.

But his hatred of the 'thing', the unknown dread that was taking away his cribbage partners one by one over the past three or four years was getting larger than his fear. And crumbling the final painted paper wall between the realities in and out of his mind.

I am alive and the single enormity

of that unknown destiny is simply

the courage to address it.

Razor Jack was no coward. Never started a fight but ended a few. Took a lead pipe to the head one time to save a buddy's life. Most times he diffused a lot of fights just by standing between two now puzzled looking antagonists mumbling cribbage points.

He had decided to end this. Once and for all. Two more guys had 'got it' was the word in the Swamp. Not even cribbage players.

The wind bends but does not tremble.

The will to be noble creates a giant.

He'd had enough. Built a forge out of bricks from a nearby demo-ed building. Coal from charred wood at a burnout. From the huge stock of steel bean cans near his tent tarp (the aluminum ones taken for cash scrap) he melted them down, carefully skimming off the bean and charred paper slag from the surface. Poured the hot steel into forms made from sand, mud, water, clay. Hammered out the shapes he needed on a piece of railroad tie using a hammer with a broken half handle.

Leather straps from old boots discarded. Rivets from old nails taken out of boards lying around the demo-ed site.

The only thing he bought was a whetstone. Took him three days to bring the three foot long sword he had made to razor sharpness.

Another two days with sand polish to get the helmet, shield and breastplate to a beautiful polish.

There was no insignia, no embellishment, no crest.

The greatest general on a dead horse

leads less than the lowly private who walks on ahead.

This was not the task of a General or a conquistador or a baron at games of jest. This was to be, simply, the task of a soldier amongst fallen comrades.

Oddly enough no one asked Razor Jack about what he was doing. Maybe a few jokes, a puzzled glance. The sword should have brought some concern but speculation was a foreman or someone had paid Razor to make the whole kit as a den ornament.

Friends, I make you laugh but who

will fool the clown?

What went on in Razor's head no one can say. Reality being pushed completely out, there was now only room for cribbage points, a machinists turned medieval armourer and vengeance. Only the last perhaps was new to Razor Jack but, then, not really. Having grown a soul and watched other men suffer in theirs, this was more a summation then a change of destiny. What has always remained obscure or confused in analysis becomes, now, clear in the act. We'll just say something 'snapped' in Razor then snapped back into steel. For even a crazy man can see further when he stands up then all men do when they are sitting.

Show me a man or woman who can hold

his fellow life above his own and I

will call that greatermuscle...heart

Before a clear autumn day was to begin, Razor Jack got up before dawn.

Made a fire alone. Drank a coffee, had a couple of smokes.

Put all his little ruck sack bag of stuff, plus eighty-four dollars and eleven cents on a small table by the oil can. Left a note telling all the Clan to split it up if he wasn't back by nightfall.

Then he had one last smoke while he burned up his last crib board.

Donned his armour and sword and walked into the Darkness in the way he had never gone before.

Old 10493 locomotive was in the last week of its pre-scrapping. It worked a random run-line between a main harbour and the outer City. With two factories closed, the small cartage that it did was making it uneconomical to run. Trucking was cheaper now.

Bob Jones (Jonesy),engineer and Ralph Buchanan ( Big Buck)fireman were doin' a run early morning.

The small train came up from the harbour near downtown and headed into the bridge tunnel over the Missiani River. An old style narrow thing of a tunnel, single track, gloomy, literally only a foot clearance on either side being originally built in the early 1900's for the narrower engines back then.

Jonesy was just reaching for his thermos of coffee when Buck yelled " Holy f'in' shit, what the fuck is that!?!"

Ahead in the opening at the other end of the tunnel was a brilliant glare of light.

A glaring reflection of large mirror or polished metal directly in the centre path of the locomotive's main headlight.

Jonesy put the train into emergency brake but at forty-five miles per hour, there was no way it would stop in time.

As both men dived to the floor not knowing what they were going to hit, Buck could only flash through his mind that he swore it was a man with a shield and a sword he had seen through the glare and his squinting eyes.

What neither crewman could hear, below the sound of screeching steel wheels against rail, was the steady counting of a cribbage game.

Look no longer down where I lie

I will not be old until I die

Only at that last moment

will I exchange a soul's liberty

for an ancient look of body

...the way high dawn burns away

a light mist

uncovering the swags and jags

of history's lines...

my valley of time

thrown up into the sky.

