A Barren Peak pt. 2

The trail was a lot easier. I could move and look out with my shemagh wrapped around my face. Now the sun was out and we weren’t in the shadows. We tried to head away. But at some point you are just going up. And then we are running right towards the great yellow globe. And it will burn you. Icarus was a fool, I mutter to myself. I shouldn’t let the story make me think any better. Because I could burn, and I squint up towards the light and then back down. Brian has taken a lead way ahead so I strap back into my feet and legs and get moving.

As we move along the trail it is pretty flat. Sparse junipers mark the surrounding area with a vertical tumble on the left and the range’s face to the right. I keep my face down most of the time just wanting to rest every 10 minutes. But we press on and Brian likes to remark how some of these trees are about 2,000 years old. I look at them and can’t even think what 2,000 years of living. If I’m lucky I’ll get to 70. If I’m out of my mind to 100. The amount of lifetimes that tree lives is ridiculous. And it just sits there with the day and night, as it pleases, passing by like a goddamn whim. That tree is something I think. And we end up going through a switchback and back up instead of straight.

As we start the climb up I look around and notice how sparse things are getting. As we get higher and higher it becomes a theme. In fact, at one point past the devil’s thumb, there is nothing but shale and sunlight. There is no hiding from the yellow and the rock makes you think of barren deserts. It gets cold and windy.

Devil’s Thumb comes quickly. After a rest we look at it. It pokes out of the trail and range just like a thumb. The story goes that two friends went up to devil’s thumb one day. One friend snuck a shotgun into his pack. When they got to the point and rested he shot his friend and killed him. The murder of Devil’s Thumb. I sort of look around. I want to know what a place where someone has died looks like. But it is just wind, rocks, and trees. There is some vertical cliff face and a lot of gray with clouds in the sky. Its so quiet I can’t even hear life. We are slowly moving away from anything living. And maybe that’s the thing about this spot. The great silence that sits on it. On its haunches just looking out towards the sky and desert. All the purple beneath it. Death sort of shakes it head back and forth and inhabits the spot. Maybe that’s what this place is. But for now that image only lasts a minute and I go into this rendition of a rainy night on the mountain. One of the friends is shouting at the other and then he pulls out the shotgun. He begins to cry and then shoots his friend in the chest. The body tumbles down the mountain where, it won’t be found until 1 month later. Bones picked so they shine white in the daylight. And the teeth are in a frown. The man is gone and he wanders the range eating nuts and drinking from streams. The tale of Devil’s Thumb I suppose.

We move past and take refugee among rocks where the final ascent towards the top begins. From here we will be in open climbing almost vertical. Lifting our feet towards the sky. Even dragging them to get through the thin air. Its like sharp ice and it cuts in your lungs. I couldn’t even imagine doing it in the winter. My lungs would become cut and bleed. The blood would spit from my mouth and I’d die at the top. It makes me shudder. While we rest I drink water and eats nuts. Slowly looking below. Starting from the top near the horizon and moving my eyes down until I’m looking at strange fields of colors. It doesn’t register at first but it is nearing autumn and the leaves on the aspens and birches are starting to change. The yellow and orange dips playfully through a series of wild movements. It makes a strange snake below. Like it is looking for food. A mouse or a fox. It moves quickly and trails out and down. And out and down the colors fade and are replaced again by the desert. Brian finishes the preparations and we move back out and towards the top.

We start the ascent and it’s barren. There are no people here with us. Just the wind and our footsteps. Each one becomes harder than the next and it feels like the entire ascent takes just as long as everything else we did before. Each switchback cuts into me. The great mess of shale lies neatly along the face of the mountain. When I saw it all from far away it seemed razor thin. Now the path is wider and is secure. I keep myself wrapped and concentrate and moving to each resting point. Brian sticks his poles in the ground and I follow. Every so often he points to a rock. The rock has a hole where it looks like someone took a drill and bore down into it. “It’s a lighting strike he says.” The path up is littered with rocks like this. I think about how long lighting has been hitting this mountain. And then how long these rocks have just sat here. It’s so long. I have to shake it off of me. We make it to the peak.

From here at the top a flag waves and there is a weather station. The wind blows. As we walk further there is a giant hole in the ground. Here we station ourselves to rest for a bout an hour. Eating lunch and talking to the few people that have made it up. At the top it is beautiful. We are in the sky. We are touching the sky and clouds are here. The elevation is 12,000 feet and things are so clear that it hurts my eyes. Standing at the top gives a view of the entire world below. It almost feels like seeing the entire state all at once. We are in the middle and it stretches out alongside all sides. The land is so small and quiet. Pahrump and Las Vegas are both there. Far along stretches the border to California and there are no mountains higher here. We stand and in the light there is nothing but everything. And the simple beauty of the mountain touches everyone’s eyes. We sign our names in a box and then prepare our things for the way down.

---

i'm not the kind of lover that's easy to forget.

i had plans today. what the hell happened to em'

It’s been hot today and very unproductive. My mom decided that saving the world—or her power bill—means turning the dial down on the water heater. Something I didn’t even know was possible. So now, showers are cold. And if there is hot water it lasts about a minute before all of it has dripped out of the faucet head and swirled so sadly away. Not that it’s important. Whatever, the cold water can be nice. In a hot house especially. They left for Brianhead and now what. Now I guess I am just here as usual. I slept for a while, until about 11. Then I did my usual stroll down the stairs towards a microwave, maybe a banana, orange juice, television. TV has got to be the worst thing ever. And I don’t even care. I just sit for a while and have no idea what the hell I am doing. Like when you wait for your body to react to something really hot or really cold. But when something is so intense that it takes a lifetime because the signals get all mixed. That’s what my television experiences are turning into.

I eventually make my way back up, back to the computer. Back to the same internet and back to the same what the hell is with the content I exist in. Or no, the content is really my society as a whole. But jesus christ it is some of the most mundane or stupid shit. And I can’t really complain about it. I’m not. Just amazed I guess. So I listen to music and give up on that. It’s the heat I tell myself. I swear it’s the haze this house can become when all the windows are open. When the sun graces the hallways and rooms and begins to throb gently. The wood is throbbing I say. The windows are burning they say. And I say that I must lay down. So I do. And I did. And I was in front of a fan the whole time but a fan only goes so far when its not mounted on a ceiling. Now a ceiling fan, that’s a wonderful contraption. I’m going to put it up there with my top ten favorite things. The stationary one that was limping in my bed, it blew in front of my face and that was it. The rest of me heated up and I swished around uncomfortably for a long time. I read some Collette but gave up on her because she is French and I was in no mood for the French and their ‘thoughts’. I’m lucky to interact with the female species in a day, dis-regarding family. So sometimes regarding the idea of the pure and impure, being either I say. Well shit, not really a problem in this camp so I said fuck it and bookmarked that bitch. Then I passed out and woke up. In and out of my own dull throbbing. The sun made me shift and then I curled up in at least three different positions.

None of them exciting ladies. I swear. None of them the least remote of enticing. If you’ve seen a man who cuts his long legged pajamas when he is high and drunk because ‘he is too hot,’ well, you’ve seen something incredibly ridiculous and unattractive. Ask those who have witnessed the look. Where the pants were cut unevenly with a pair of scissors, that go above the knees and look like something Pauly Shore would rock. I kid you not, my boxers are longer and they stick out giving this fucked up layered look for shorts. Like I wore a white t-shirt under to give an ‘effect’. What the fuck Julian? That’s all I ever tell myself when I look in the mirror in the mornings now.

I remember at some point two conversations. One long and one short. By long I mean long for me in terms of a phone conversation. Usually a phone pickup is signaled by huh, oh, okay. Then I register something rather vague with the person on the other line and hope we meet so all confusion is put aside. Jake called to talk about the show. We talked about other things and I heard the most epic burp I have heard in ages. For real Jake, that burp made me think of Volcanoes. And then, in an instant it was done and I was back in the throb and my cut-offs. The second one was Edris. He wanted to know when to meet. Which, I have slowly become less and less apt and congregating with anything or anyone. Its just a matter of developing taste. I like watching structure collapse. Not that I mean it in a malicious way. I mean if you separate yourself and watch something emerge and then submerge. Or be free but then existing in a space that it didn’t anticipate. Its like a flower that tried to bloom but didn’t and the wind blew it away. Its rather pretty in its light of day. The light of the day, and sometimes even funny. So I didn’t really have an answer for Edris but I told him I’d figure it out. So I will and we will congregate and go to the show. And then the girls. Oh, the Venture Brothers comes to mind when the man writes, “The bitches were in fine form.” And oh yes, the bitches will be in fine form gentleman. If they aren’t then were screwed and Perry can just suck himself into a monastery and in about 5 years when my own delusion is wiped away I suppose I’ll join him. But its funny really. Who you would fuck? Cause it really is funny like that. Page through your magazines and do it. Stewie did it at a funeral with all the babies. You can do it too.

After my shower I walked around and dripped. And then I clothed and managed to listen to the new Killers album twice. Though I cant say almost complete. I mean I can and what I meant was not complete but almost. Real cheeky Kid, real cheeky. Then I made a stab at writing more for the Funeral Procession, but really, I couldn’t. I just sort of stared at the harmonica scene and lost my mind in a slow roll. Like Sisyphus, I feel it all the time. Not to take him with me. I’m sure all of ‘you’, feel like him at points too.

And that’s the silly point, really. Keep on pushing that retarded boulder up the hill.

---

i see London, i see Sam’s Town.

we take our thirst and drink it all down. and we take our homes and tear them all down

It is hard. It is hard. It is hard. I don’t know how to settle that. Sometimes I feel my whole body starting to shake and tremble. And it gets louder and more pronounced inside of me. It becomes part of something on the take of catatonic. But I am not. Around me everything else; everyone around me is still. Deep in I can’t follow. All I do is sit on the surface of it like staring out at a lake. The lake is in a desert and it is hot. The sun is beating down but for some reason I can’t stop chattering. I can’t stop moving on the inside and fluctuating on the outside. I jerk and string about. I don’t know why.

The desert is there because it is hot. Not cold. But once I looked at a desert frozen over and with ice and snow all around it. It was the prettiest thing I had ever seen. I wanted to live there in a giant house. With a huge fireplace and orange flames. I wanted to move around in the morning eating fresh fruit and picking the logs out of a great chest to throw onto the sandstone hearth. But this isn’t the desert I see.

I am not sweating. There are no clouds in the sky. All around me is silence except the loud body. My body. And it won’t quiet itself. I try and breathe and it won’t. And I even try to pass out. But my stomach forms a strange pit. Like it is separate from the rest of my body. If you picture a house that is multilevel. With that one higher plane and then the lower. It is like my body is all the lower plane and then at a point in the middle it is raised for the higher level. So my stomach separates in two and I don’t know what it all becomes. But I can’t sleep. So I can’t drink or dream. I can’t pause or tell myself stories with my eyes closed. Instead when they are shut I think of the same room with the same person and we are talking. Normally it would be fine but there is that riot going on inside my body. So it’s a mess to talk to anyone.

The desert lake is peaceful if I am not there. But when I stand on the edges the water ripples. Slowly at first. As time passes and the sun seems stuck; in its one spot the lake grows more and more furious. It takes all the calm and tries to infuse itself but it fails. Because I am standing there and I won’t stop. And then finally in the most horrible part of it all.

Everything stops and I retreat back and further into something. And I think to myself that there was some action. Or something I was completely capable of to conquer the shaking of my body. To control it. But it retreated and I am left with a strange aftertaste in my tongue. Like when you sleep for a real long time. And you wake up, its dry, and the air is bitter.

I know that somehow I could have swept my hand or said a word and then it would shoot out like a rocket. Like its own ray of light and tumble along the desert blowing wind and sand in every direction. But I never get it; and I stand there thinking that it might happen again. What am I going to do when it happens again?

---

oh why, baby
why do we run.
why don't we take our lives and run.
tell me
the world is gone
then i can cry in shame.

we tore down our house
and gave it to that man.
with the beard,
who had scars and rings
all over his hands.

baby, we lost it all now.
i lost it all now
and found the deep night that existed down below.
my place is shame,
your husband is shame.

we tore down his life
and gave it to you.
with the long black hair,
who had rings and gold
all over her hands.

time is here
to blow me away
with the wind,
the wind.

and the people will say
that the husband
left in shame
your shame.

we tore it all down
i was thirsty and dead
and you were dead.
and all the time passed us by
until the shame melted away.

and we were gone, until
were gone.

A Barren Peak pt. 1

We woke at 4:30. Downstairs there was a slew of food waiting. All placed out at the table. My mom was messing around and Brian was trying to put everything together in his mind; like trying to stuff a tent in a bag. Not literally, just with what was floating around in the air. We left and I snapped on the lights of my car in the dark and we rode to tacos and then the freeway.

I munched on chicken tacos while we drove towards the mountain. The night was cold but pleasant. There wasn’t a soul on the road at that time. I listened to my music; the droning guitars and placed myself outside of who I really was for a while. Just enjoying the air and alone. The silence. The ending of something. The mountain would be the most difficult thing I thought to myself. For a moment I was back in. I adjusted the knob on the CD player and then back. In. And the great black that surrounded us. It wasn’t murky but crisp and clean. It echoed like a day that knew it was its own. And in this day you may humbly walk through. But if you cross the night it will leave you forever and there will be nothing of substance in it anymore. The night shook at the time when the sun would creep beyond the mountains. And ever through the hike it would slowly chase us. Like we were honored guests of the dark. It was protecting us from the burning of the new day. It was a companion, and I knew it and cherished it. At the base where the mountain was sagged and in its end we parked one car.

Here Brian stopped. We had gone through a series of small canyons and were now at the end of the climb. Brian parked his car, retreated to the back, placed all his gear in the backseats and with a smile he entered the front. We drove about 30 minutes away from this spot to the beginning and disembarked. Brian drank some strong liquor to challenge the mountain. He smiled again but I turned him down. Waiting for the fear to slowly creep in my bones. My bones is rattling I would tell myself. It’s a scary fucking thing. To be at the mercy of the mountain. When you are up there, there isn’t anyone or anything and all but down is the escape. You can either sign an agreement and make the way to the end or put on the loudest thing you brought with you over your ears and dive hoping to god that he picks you up and places you in heaven before you come crashing down a mess of pine trees and then hell.

The start of the climb is an avalanche chute. It has to be like 2 miles, 3 tops and it shoots straight up the side of the range towards the face of the highest peak. It continues, as you move further and further up to get steep. I remember watching Brian’s feet to make sure I knew how to place my footing. It is a long way down through jagged cliffs and then a running stream. I didn’t want to fall.

The chute starts with a climb through gravel along the ski run in Lee Canyon. Then at the top where the chute starts is a mountain stream. At this time some of it was frozen over; the water had splashed on rocks and broken bits of shale. I wore my shemagh to cover my face and a warm cotton shirt. My legs were stiff and we had to watch our footing so we wouldn’t slip. Icicles lined some smaller cliffs and outcroppings and they were beautiful to see. Frozen and stiff like my legs. They were tough as nails. I couldn’t break them with my hands and the cold made me shiver. They were clear like diamonds. The water was so clean that the ice was solid and made me think of ice up in the artic. The running water was the only thing that cracked the silence. But it’s a stretch. Because at some point it just becomes part of it. The wind can be a loud man. And so can water. But when you are alone there is nothing and it becomes part of the stuff that makes you know there isn’t a man around.

I loved to look at the green ferns and the creeping plants that lined the sides of the stream. All along the edges was more shale and sharp stone. I asked Brian why the rock was so sharp and jagged here. Everything I touched scratched my hands and made me wince. He told me that these mountains were young. Still children out of formation and the wind hadn’t been given enough time to smooth and shape them. Instead they were hot like our blood and shoved their fingers and fists straight up in the air towards the sky. The jagged outline that ran across the sky and the bright sun that tried to tame them. In a million years maybe they will quiet. But now I cut my hands and steadily followed Brian up the chute. Climbing up the cliff faces and pounding my boots sideways in the ground to hold me from falling back and tumbling on the vertical slope.

At the top we took our long rest. We threw our packs down and there was a view of the mummy. His great head. Then bulging stomach and later as it extended perpendicular to our range, his legs that shot out and cut across. The road below twisted like a snake and there was no one. The only living soul was next to me and we were both quiet. We unpacked, ate sandwiches and drank water. The sun started to catch up with us. Gracing the top with its yellow rays and beckoning my body to sleep and wake up in the afternoon. But it was already ticking to fast and we had to pack. Listening to the beat of our hearts. We looked out and stared at the peak that was 5 miles away. I sighed but Brian pressed on and his spirit woke me up and I gathered all my stuff and stumbled down another face until we made our way to the thin mountain trail and started the second part of the climb.

---

leave your perch.

butter face

This is from a while back. We started the night--Carlo, Edris, Perry, and Myself--drinking 40's and then Kurt showed up and we walked down to his house and hung out with everyone there. We played some poker and made bets. Perry lost and it came down to eating a stick of butter from Kurt's fridge.



Perry said he smelled like a lobster the next morning.

time well spent

This comes from my latest issue of egm. A custom sequencer program to a guitar hero controller. This kid is awesome.

---

pretty mary k, went to the store and died that day.

long day / short night

Woke up today after not sleeping much and realized the great pain that it was to get up and go down to there. That place that isn’t so bad but is when you’re up and in the clouds. I again showered, slumped about, then dashed out feeling every part of my body in revolt. It was like this until through the daze of Antics did I manage to become close to the whole and exit my vehicle and into the weather of the day. I was soup in the sun and in the cold of the class rooms I solidified into a substance I can’t begin to talk about. Its uncomfortable and I wish I was in my bed. But I listened to my teacher tell me that I can’t use contractions. That I can’t because it ain’t proper and its not what a man in the this here damn world of academia would [should] use.

I didn’t think experiences like that actually happened. They obviously do. Maybe in the past I was so consumed in not existing that I don’t have much recollection of the subject.

So I decided then to write about a couple of things. Though I ran out of paper because I didn’t want to write on the back. Ascetically I like it; I suppose if I was desperate I would change my tune. And I wish I had some tunes right now and was basking in the warm sun. But alas the world is not always a bendable thing and sometimes I am forced to its rigidity.

I purposed myself in history. But history was rather a stream of consciousness examination which I decided would be the centerpiece for some great writers. Which I actually never decided. It’s just a mark of talent when it becomes fluid, precise, and simple. Joyce is a master and so is Sei Shonagon. Though they differ, both offer a fluid beauty; it is wonderful literature.

The fact that exists as follows. There is stream of consciousness that is a lazy but not in a bad way for form of writing. Its simply writing with no clear aim or goal. Where as if it is practiced and studied it becomes something more. Where a subtle sort of direction exists yet still maintains its form of play and style. It concerns with the direction existing right below a surface; faintly realized by the writer but still oblivious enough for the effect. Like standing on a bridge and it is solid but you feel yourself falling. Or looking up at the sky and not being on the ground anymore. A form of control. I wonder if any of that actually holds any bearing.

Then you can get into the writing that is a form of shaped something; far more a ‘thing’ than a simple existence. And from there it breaks down further and further.

With history taken care of and my pinky finger slowly numbing I succumbed deeper into the wish of falling slowly asleep on a bench in the warm sun. With sunglasses on to block the bright light and to take a form of gradual dis-existence. Dis-existence, the form of being but not because I don’t know it and am caught in something else. Sleep is the best form, though I wouldn’t know for sure; what is coma?

Maybe a better version of sleeping.

---

What approaches in the coming days? Well a long ordeal of a climb in the mountains and a show on verges of criminal and the old. Where the wild things are is what comes to mind. Hopefully I don’t get kicked’ eh? And then perhaps I can jam in a place where the jams are good.

Read all of Babylon Revisited yesterday. Fitzgerald is so different from Hemingway; its weird and I mean it in the sense of energy behind things. F. Scott has a more academic feel. Hemingway is more charged and it feels like it’s a gut reaction and form. But I haven’t actually put enough together yet. I’m really tired. Maybe later.

---

In the grass we met. I showed her a flower. It was yellow and had some dust from the walk. She smiled and put it in her hair. Then I grabbed her hand and we ran towards the mountains away from the house. In the light we ran and it grew dark. It grew light away and dark in front of us. In front of us was a great shadow. And we retreated towards the shadow. Retreated away from the day.

---

we are bright. we are light. we are immortal in this time of day.

town excerpt 3

We smoked for a while on the edge near the wall. The stones were cold and I could see the town below and the tiny yellow lights. Sara kept her head nudged in-between my neck and shoulder and she had most of the fleece blanket. She would purse her lips together when she smoked and her long hair would sit back and I would run my hands through while we just looked out for a while.

There was a tiny bit of silence and we were still. It was so nice and I kissed her interrupting a drag and she kissed me back then on the cheek and I smiled while I stubbed my cigarette out and she curled her toes up on the stone wall. The stones were cold but she told me liked the feeling.

“It’s so nice. I feel alive.”
I nodded and just kept looking out.
“Sometimes I don’t want to be here.”
“What do you mean?”

“I just get overwhelmed and this great feeling,” and she made a scoop out of her hands and then scooped everything. “And I want to stop but nothing else stops moving. So then I just don’t want to be alive.”

“”You want to kill yourself?”

“I just want everyone to stop once in a while,” she said. She sighed and got up and then we were sitting lined up and her back was straight. Right now there were only the clean clouds in the sky like Monet. It was like it had rained and everything was washed away and if a train breezed by great white puffs of smoke would have clear outlines on the outside instead of just fuzzy white ones that no one could figure out.

“I guess it would be nice.”
“Don’t you just want to breathe sometimes?”
“Yeah,” and I shrugged. “But when the hell is that going to happen.”

She poked me in the stomach and flashed me a smile before she lit up again and I was seeing the girl that made me want to run away to Europe. We would shamble along like gypsies and find the wealthiest barons and kings and live with them. The idea was wonderful in my head but so far away and not to be touched that it just tried to crawl but kept dying. I frowned and she put her fingers on her lips asking me to be quiet.

“Ssh. You’re being so loud.”
I screwed my eyes and looked at her hard.
“What are you talking about?”
Then she tapped her head.

“All your blasted thinking. Just sit with me and let’s be still. I held her again and we watched the town below and smoked a while on the edge near the wall with the cold stones and the washed away sky above.

---

When morning hit my face was sweating and the sun was coming through the window at a blasted angle that heated the whole room. I had forgotten to close the blinds when I got in last night; electing instead to just fall face first on my bed and sleep. Then the dreams hit but they weren’t very important because I couldn’t remember them. Sara was at home probably in her black underwear and a white t shirt and she was sound asleep in a dark room. I ran my hands through my head and wiped the sweat and continued to lie there. The air conditioner didn’t give a hum. There was no cold air. Things were too still. I just lied there. Then I thought about her again and fought an erection until the sun was all over the bed and I wanted to just melt and disappear. I hated having to deal with this kind of nonsense. Eh sun? Why don’t you just let me be? Why don’t you just let everyone sleep a little longer?

Then Sara’s wish about everything; everyone just stopping pounced and I was laughing because I was disrupting it. I got up and went to the shower and let cold water run down my back and I spit from my mouth and drenched my black hair in the cold.

Then I ate some toast and ran my toes on the cold floor and looked outside to a bunch of birds. There was so much green and over I could see the hill and in front of me was the ivy and giant oaks. My backyard stretched for miles and my house was huge and alone. There was no one and I missed everyone so much. I felt tired and laid down and fell asleep under the fan. I had the best sleep of the day so far.

Sara woke me up with her knocking on the back window. She had hopped over and ran through the grass and I could see her hands were brown. Her face was beaming and she had two bags with her and she started to kiss the window. So I fumbled with my own body until it regained consciousness and then opened the French doors and then plopped back down to silence while she rested and stood all at the same time.

“What are you doing?”
“I got woken up early this morning.”

She patted her stomach and she was wearing a tank top and a skirt.

“Well I’m hungry and my parents are out doing shopping so I snagged all of this.” Then she brought out an entire lunch; a mess of stuff and she managed to even bring a bottle of wine which I decided against because I was still tired and my eyes weren’t adjusted.

“You aren’t going to drink any?” She raised me a glass and I shrugged.
“I just don’t feel like it right now.”

She pointed over to a sandwich. “It’s vegetarian. Right? You don’t care. I didn’t want to hurt any animals today.”
“Sounds good.”

We ate. I picked more than devoured and she sat on her butt and rested on my cool floor with the fan overhead spinning and making little noise. We looked at each other and my god she was beautiful. She was simple and had no makeup and she reminded me of the world and everything that was great and grand. I thought about Hemingway and I had read a while ago about why he didn’t kill himself for the longest time. Because when stuff is bad you know how good it will go back to getting. Something like that I thought while I ate a peach and slurped the juice. Stuff was good and it had been bad and good. And there was a mountain of life behind and in front but I was fine and still here with Sara eating lunch.

We smoked and sat on chairs outside looking at the grass field and the town was near and her bike was far away near the dirt path. She smiled and we spent the rest of the afternoon just watching and being still without the world to bother us about moving on.

---

my eyes are closed and I can see what could exist if I was you.

sitting with an empty day ahead

Tried working some more on it. So far it’s a bunch of confusion. I have two separate tries in two different vague works but they are different styles. And I’m not sure where the variance lies or which one I like better so I am sort of stuck at the moment in an attempt to figure it out. The first one seems more polished and sounds certain. While the other has a better rhythm but is chaotic and might be lacking in personal thought. I’m not sure how to distinguish the idea of action and description with the bulk of knowing what the character knows and feels. If that comes out in the action and description and what is penned on the page or if it is stated. Or I just don’t lack the sublties of getting it down right. So the Funeral Procession just stares at me in two iterations and I want to know where to throw myself at. I figure maybe just best to write out the whole second one but then that leaves me with a harder choice because I have two done and then more polishing and the idea of it ever leaving my hands and falling through and being read by the outside force that exists apart from this desk and these words.

Where did the break in the story happen; stylistically I ask myself and probably the best answer was from when I started reading again and noticing more slight variation then I had before so more heavy influence is on me. But the rhythm julian, that flow is so important and everything sounds nice and its tighter and makes the story ripe and rich with living organism. Like a human actually put it together in all the pain and shit around them and it mattered. That’s what the second one will be I guess if I get to it but the first is done. And the ending holds the vestige of what the second one is. So its rare because the first piece is crazy one piece until the end when I started the switch and then the second is holding on to itself as one piece but what if the end becomes something different like the first and I get this crazy fucking cycle of writing the same story over and over again with minor difference and fluctuations but it keeps changing in rhythm flow and style. Jesus f’ing christ there is so much ahead.

---

I sat in my room and in my bed again and turned my head so the pillow was nice and propped on my neck. But that didn’t last and then I was completely flat lying down and thinking about stuff. I didn’t want to get up and I wished it was still dark out and that the sun would stop being so bright and shiny all at the same time. Then there was my clock which told me it was morning and my stack of books and my thirsty desk and my floor with paint splattered on it and it was all empty and the world was alone and I wanted to sleep and close my eyes again.

So I tried to move to the couch but it didn’t change and I thought about some days ago when I had felt completely tired and wrote out a long essay about Camus and his ideas on how there are four different types of people and what each of those specific persons does to deal with the existential problem; that there is nothing y hay nada.

The Camus paper turned out around 2 pages I think? But I wrote it and was completely unsure as to the thoughts and the ideas so I just took a spill on my green couch and let it suck me in so I could be like a green snake in the rainforest but frogs would jump and I just imagined instead that I was in the outskirts of the world; near the end but not so close so I was in a cantina that a friend of mine owned and he was off playing cards and I was just lying there with a book in the night with the fan whirling up ahead and the cool air plastered all over my face so I eventually closed my eyes and when I awoke again it was midnight and still dark and it was all lovely.

Then I headed back towards my bed and sleep and it was morning and I did the thing but turning halfway in a curl so my body was a C and then I wished I had woken up to the dark because I like watching the sunrise and sort of enjoy being part of the changeover of the day and in the sunrise room.

Well now after being on the couch and thinking about those past times I looked through a stack of books and smoked a cigarette near the window blowing the smoke out and thinking about the smell of bacon which permeated throughout the house from downstairs. Then I considered rhythm and prose and all of the above and wanted to escape to Colombia until I wasn’t the same and I came back as a wraith or hidden and in the life as a separate person but I had to escape the trickster me which probably wouldn’t happen so we just decided to sign a pact to become the other part of Camus’s plan back in January where we became the struggling creative and making everything more and more. Which made me think of legos and how I loved to build and then they disappeared too and where was everything?

I had some toast and was downstairs. I was tired so I slept and wished I was in the hills with something more substantial but again nothing and the nada and it all permeated and I want to simply exist in it but for that to happen requires either one or the other. The first being that everyone and everything stop existing except for myself. That way I am in nothing with no struggle to bind me out of it. Which is interesting because struggle and want is what destroys the idea of simply existing in nothing and that way you can’t live in it and you are caught in this insane loop until you die unless that it happens. Or then you get the second where if it happened it would be insane because the world would simply be nuts to agree on it; to all decided that the only way everything and everyone stop existing in the sense of the struggle is to not fight it and then that leaves everyone existing in the nothing with nothing to pull you out. Which is also horrifying I suppose but rather pretty in other terms and its all a giant choice out there that might have already been made so its only a surface level choice where you go deeper and deeper and realize that it was all there to begin with.

Now that sort of left things at the couch and the fan down there where I just then decided. This is enough and I read a book and showered in the hot water and thought about things some more and went to my desk and picked up on waves of nostalgia of beautiful girls and the wintertime and finding one and then eating late at night while talking about stuff and having sex in beds and in cars and smoking on the outskirts of town and sitting on bluffs and looking past mountains and then taking long trips in the winter during break before the leaving and the fall of the time and a different time after. Of everything in the past.

---

I read some of the Atlantic and there was good fiction and essays in it. But now I am confused and don’t know where what I write belongs and maybe it just belongs with me and then from there it spreads instead of having it belong to the magazine and letting spread from that point. The only problem is I am far less connected than a magazine and reach such a small sum that the impact is still great and noticeable but in the society and life it requires more and then I need it to be there so I suppose its just a matter of finding it.

I am starting to have a great love for stringing together everything like those paper loops you make as a kid and for a party hang them above everything. Or great electric wires that hover above the city and stretch from one end to another with a simple AND in between and a THEN to channel. Its neat and I’m taken to it and it makes the writing far more enjoyable and less of a chance at trying but see here; this is alive and it flows and bounces and chuckles and dives. And we all live it and read it and take it to being alive.

---

the town is lonely. why don’t you give it some company?

untitled

It’s so windy out and the terror is upon us all that the world will swallow us whole. Oh I want to live cried the person and the person stuffed his mouth with ice and water and tried to drown just so the person could swim away.

And the terror was windy and the gales blew the person into the hands of everyone and the person cried and wanted to be alone but there was nothing and that nothing was worse than alone.

And the nothing struck the face of the person and the person stroked the soft red stinging cheeks until they were pale and fearful again and then the wind struck again and it was like this that the wind blew away the pain and everything until the person was naked and alone in the wind and dark and doing nothing but looking at hands and legs and sharing no more tears with anything.

-Everything is so alone. And I am so afraid.
-What is there now but the wind and dark and the beating of my heart.
-And where will I go and will there be anything or anyone to pick me up.

And the striking of the face calmed the person down to realize the utter sighs and lows of everything and even that the death with its face full of smiles and grins and its bony hands reached out and would touch and touch. And it touched and the person shuddered and then the person shook.

And the shaking was so much and it hurt and the body lapsed over and over again until a spear was thrown at the person’s chest and the blood poured and spilled forth.

And the blood stained the ground and there still something and it banished nothing and made the wind sigh and go away for a second until it came back stronger and blew the blood to the corner of the place and the place was lost and red and now had color and was no longer black.

And the black was lost in a corner so it was now with a friend and the color spoke of drizzling rain and life and the swirls of other colors and the person clutched their chest and heaved in and out struggling to keep eyes open.

But nothing could keep eyes open the end came and the person was finally ready for death and the nothing and it soaked it all up and the black was gone and replaced with.

white.

---

"he killed himself with a double-barreled shotgun because a writer's life depends on doing the writing. when that stops, the writer does too." --Frederick Busch on Hemingway Without Guilt

Spring Break Freak Out and the Western Adventure Excerpt 1

Yesterday I dozed and nodded. Then I spent time staring at a stall wondering if I should sit and let everything by me pass away. The door was green. And it was battered and written all over. Then I reached in and wrote on the roll of toilet paper, Mark wore green pants to school. Mark was a model student. Until he lost his green pants. And told the teacher she was a whore. Which, in the case of the story; the teacher was a whore. Mark had lost his pants sleeping with the teacher and she had failed him in English. Fuck you Mark said and called her a whore in class the next day and promptly walked out of the room naked from the waist down. She peed herself and all the children laughed.

---

Today I woke up. I sat around and sort of curled up halfway in my bed and wished I was like this and it was 3 am. But it was morning and the sun was breaking through my blinds. Light is playful; and you get mad at it like a child when it won’t leave you alone. That’s sort of why there is something great about the dark. It doesn’t really touch you but its still there.

Though when I was finally up and running hot water over my head I could see the steam curling around the top and then it was really neat. The cold air from the vents blowing out made sort of a funnel and I could see air. See it and realize I am breathing this. This is good, eh?

Then it all went nuts when I stepped outside in the heat and had to a shoot a man for stealing my car. He had thought he was being sneaky, but in the back seat he was dripping blood and my gun was smoking. All alongside the edges outside where the red paint breaks into sun-dried metal there is a key mark and a dent. He had tried to pry the fucking door open! I pried his chest open with a bullet and dropped him off at the emergency room near the stop sign and green trees. There wasn’t a soul outside. There wasn’t any ice and instead just dried puddles. No water.

---

I’ve got quite a bit on my plate. Norway paperwork and scholarships to take a look at. Then there is a pile of change that needs to be moved from its spot to another spot. And then from there to a wooden chest with an X marked on the top. Then I need to listen to that Killers song and ruminate over the girl in the video who looks like someone I knew a long time ago.

Not quite sure about the work spaced out. Was going to ditch and run to San Diego on Thursday to Saturday but that was given the death blow. An axe to the head; like an apple sliced in two. It just turns brown if you try and put it back together again. So I scheduled work and thought about deliveries for parts and then tallied up what the total would be when I’m through with that. Hopefully a nice sum to chuck at the insurance companies. I want them to buy lunch; a sushi lunch with cold beer and pretty girls.

---

Eye imagining looks like an undead city. And the greens and reds that work from dark to light—going from the outside towards the middle—are like nether soup. I have two love spots on my corona. They are the bites of a dragonfly that tried to force its way into my brain and lay eggs. But on the way I grabbed it with my fingers and plucked it out. Then, without any tools I bit its head off and spit it to a nearby child who fingered the head and licked it. The kid shook and then shivered. It didn’t have much of an escape and sprouted wings; losing pieces of dried up flesh; like dry mud that cakes off. The wings were a pretty dark blue and shined in the bright sunlight.

The child flew away; her pigtails bounced up and down and she laughed and pointed at me.

“You should have let it finish!”

“Na, its fine. You’re having way more fun than I ever would have!”

---

I thought about Sunrise Room yesterday on my trip back up to my fortress up in the hills. It was interesting; I haven’t put much into its re-emergence as of late; god I was last working on it early May. But then I placed an important style point to where I will later go back. And thinking more about it. I think I had that in place but at the time wasn’t ready to try it out; every time I did I was too afraid and it failed miserably. Now though I can chuck a word or two out at the title and put it as it should be. Then go back and tirelessly re-write chapter after chapter.

---

I think I stopped for a while in my mental development; I mean earlier in life. Now I am back on track? I wouldn’t know how to really tell though.

---

We stopped outside and I sat and listened to the jazz blare through the speakers of my car while The Navigator plucked a ripe orange from the mini tree he carried with him. The orange dripped juice down his chin. He rubbed the map and then his temples then his eyes. He rubbed me the wrong way when he showed all of us where we were and where we were supposed to be.

“No, see here?”
I nodded.
“Its all wrong,” and then more juice dropped. “Sorry.”
“Look what about some lunch first. Huh? You all want some lunch?”

The three birds that were in the back all shook their heads. Waving their beaks around.

“Hey look they want to eat.”
“Just like I said.”
“But what about the map and the trip.”
“You want coffee?”
“Sure.” He went back to looking over the map. Tracing his fingers over the pencil lines. He kept shaking his head and muttering to himself. There wasn't much cool air in the car. It was hot and dry. The dust burned his eyes.

I tripped when I was tipping my sunglasses back on my nose and walked from the dusty parking lot over to the abandoned convenience store. There weren’t any kids. Only an old man and his daughter who was about 22. She was beautiful and I waved at her and she smiled. Then I tipped my hat and kept walking on in.

“I haven’t had sex in a very long time,” she whispered in my ear. The man at the counter didn’t hear and he smiled when I showed him the two coffees in my hand.

“What do you say? You wear that hat and I’ll keep these boots on. We make a cowboy like that.” Her blonde hair ran down to her butt and her breasts pressed into my chest while she played with her hand. There weren't any marks on her face and her eyes weren't brown. They swirled green.

There wasn’t a single drop of water in the car and the juice dried up while The Navigator cursed at the birds for smelling like shit.

"You all smell like shit! Eh? Did you know that? Well now you do."

Back in the car we made room for The Beautiful Woman and she wiped her lips with her hand and then shook the hand of The Navigator before smiling.

“We put Grandpa in the trunk with a jug of whiskey and some crackers. Hope you don’t mind.”

“It’s not my car lady. I just steer it,” and he thumbed his chest while looking at me and squinting his eyes. There wasn't a drop of water in the car. The tree was bright green and he poked me in the rib while she smiled. "What about the birds?"

“She’s coming along for the rest of the ride,” and i started the car.

---

ride the apocalypse. into the setting sun.

a town excerpt 2

Upward on the rise he looked out almost all the way over from his chair and on top of the steering wheel. The break in the mountains gave a clear view of the coming plains and the valley. It was green and rich with apple trees. The roadside lined with marked signs advertising the sale of apples. Men with worn out feet and smiles on their faces waved to cars that passed by at ninety miles an hour. In an hour about ten people would stop and buy a bucket or two; load it up in their trunk and be off.

“Lemme see those,” and he waved over at a man who was beat up from the sun and had dusty black hair and was chewing on a bottle cap.

“I wanna taste one. That okay?”

Before the man nodded he bit in, chewed and swallowed.

“Thanks.” And he handed him a twenty dollar bill and filled his car with apples which he ate for the rest of the trip populating the sides of the long road with half eaten cores. They called him Modern Johnny Appleseed, a model consumer of the twenty-first century.

---

So we went round round grind last night. Met up and charged through the ranks of critters. I saw some stunning artwork and changed my thoughts on the design of the game. The artists really took special care and I look at the spells and think; there is an intended minimalism here. The world we are inhabiting is ravaged and torn by countless wars. Things are simple and quiet and unless you reach the higher pinnacles stuff isn’t flashy but instead useful. And I like the cartoon feel. You are playing a game not living in another world. The purpose of this game; have some fucking fun. So I did. And the more I get the more it gets more fun.

Then I thought about the meaning and realized it would be completely empty if I wasn’t sharing it with friends. The whole thing is a shared experience; everyone shares experiences and you give them meaning by being together in that. It’s fine for a barren place to exist but its fun in the barrens if you are beating up the hapless wanderers who are not grouped. The essence of a moral group. The beauty that we are doing this together. We are fighting a foe; something some other group has created and saying f^u. Fuck you man. I tore this up.

---

I don’t enjoy writing summaries of things. I don’t think I really knew that until I embarked on my want to be a writer. Jake says; don’t say that man; you are a fucking writer. And Perry asks me if I wrote fifty thousand words today; which always makes me laugh because that’s a shitload of words Perry. Seriously. A goddamn novel.

Summaries just consume me in a repetition of the writer’s work. I don’t want to re-write Salinger or Murakami. I don’t mind having a discussion about the shit. We can talk about style and meaning; les’ talk about the point or purpose. But I don’t want to write a lick about it. Or not in a sense that--college writing for dummies who have square pieces of paper so you won’t cut yourself--wants me to write it.

---

Words are playful.
More so than people.
In fact objects themselves are playful; more than people.
You are a playful thing; but I can’t play with you.
You play together.
But I own the words.

---

Poetry is medicine. Prose is medicine. Words are medicine. So is art and love. So is sex, and touching and kissing. So is talking about that tree or climbing over a rock. Biting into an apple and smiling in the sun. Swimming is great. Makes you breathe; grabs your heart and twists it in your hand. It’s all the best medicine.

---

We went out over the hills beyond the town so we couldn’t see anything. We couldn’t see the road or bright cars; not my house or Sara’s. I unwrapped out of my pack two sandwiches and we ate in silence. I nudged her every couple of minutes and she would swat back making me grin with bread and lettuce hanging out of my mouth. When we finished we leaned back and sat on the grassy field. I watched blueberries over by a fence and Sara whistled while patting on her leg. The sky is full of stuff. Full of clouds. The sky is full of stuff. Full of faces. The sky is full of masks; and hidden places. Full of fury and light. The sky is full of night; and day. It’s full of timing and bird play. The sky is full of sorts and bobs. The sky is where we watched the balloons rise.

Then I leaned over and whispered in Sara’s ear and we undressed and slept with each other. We fell asleep in the field until two hikers came by and laughed. They squinted away while we grinned under a blanket I had brought. And then Sara waved and they waved back after laughing and scattering like mice. There wasn’t a single frown; or a single snicker.

We leaned into each other.

“Hey.”
“What?”

I coughed and she poked me in the ribs.
“I like this place.”
“You mucked around in graveyards too much,” and I put my hands behind my head and watched the light in her hair. Like beetles that were fire and they buzzed. I mucked around with my eyes till she started talking again.
“But you should have brought some wine or something. I am thirsty and water isn’t enough.”
“How bout’ when it’s this cold?” I made a large distance between my feet since my hands were behind my head.

She scratched and picked at my hair.

“You are weird. I want to go walking.”
I shrugged and packed everything up. It all fit nicely into my pack. The blanket stuffed out a bit so it dangled like cat’s tail.

Sara led the way walking across the direction of the hills pointing to the west and then circling around the great trees that someone had planted a long time ago. We went back into town and I kissed her at her door before smoking a cigarette.

The night was chilly. I couldn’t see much smoke. I chattered and walked around before I heard the window creak open and I plopped on up. Bounding like a monkey. There wasn’t a sound heard. Her parents watched tv downstairs and we read a book. Then she sighed and we spent the rest of the Saturday sleeping.

---

You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon?! It's the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs.

robots don't have passports!?

Woke up; decided to stay up. And that was that until noon when I showered and watched an install screen for thirty minutes. Why was I watching it for so long? Honestly, I was amazed at how large games have gotten. When shit is 5.84 gigs I even grow a beard in surprise and guffaw a bit. But slit that. I worked quickly and had an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

---

Today I roamed around a bit outside of the grove and when I finished my work Renie told me that if I wanted apples to help myself. “We don’t spray them with anything.” So there I was just biting into the sweetest green apple I’ve had in my life. Then I leaped up and played in the trees. Reaching out through the shades of leaves to grab apples from the highest branches. I filled my bag, dropped it down. Dropped myself down and went around looking at the mess of holes. Birds like to chomp away. They think its delicious. There weren’t any ants. There weren’t any aphids. I got behind the wheel again and surprised myself with that damn song. Then I tipped my cowboy hat and squinted while staring at the sun and drove away from the orchard with a pile of apples in the front seat and wishing; that the further I went the more time moved back but I stayed the same. And when I was done with the shift I ended up in the Wild West and was on a horse instead of driving a car.

There is also now a box of beer in my kitchen. Sara might have a couple and smoke with me outside near the peach trees. The backyard smells like rotting peaches and I can only sit there for about ten minutes. Then we sort of kiss and talk; she runs her fingers through her blonde hair and smiles. “You should get a cat huh.”

“I don’t like cats.”
“Me neither. Good. That was a test,” and she smiled playfully.
“You want an apple?”
“Where’d you get those?”
“Climbed for em’,” I said.

She smirked and bit in. The juice dribbled down her chin and she didn’t frown. She didn’t even put the cigarette out. I just sort of watched it balance on the edge of the granite stool before she finished and we both chucked cores into the grass. “I want to go south sometime.”

“How far south. Eh muchacha.”
“South America sounds nice.”
“Too bad you don’t care much for peaches,” I told her. She smiled. Then she crushed the cigarette out.
“You better take me sometime.”

I nodded and we went inside up to my room. Then she called her mom and we watched a movie after. It still wasn’t dark when we were done.

---

Tomorrow I am going out to this orchard. You’re more than welcome to come; but probably will here from me in person rather than these words. Bishop has the most awesome travel logs going right now. She is in Romania. Vlad serves dinner at midnight near a café by the stone gargoyle fountain. If you are polite he brings this delicious desert. Its these brown donuts filled with peach or strawberries and they are topped with cream. But not really a hole in the middle, more of a semi-round, semi-flat pastry. No dusted sugar and you sip cold water from the mountains. Vlad is nice once you get to know him. I mean, he is the impaler, but come on. He can justify that shit. Besides when you are done there is a pretty hill full of ivy and big pine trees near the top. You can sit and stare at the river while the old boats shift around with lanterns.

---

Managed to tighten up The Funeral Procession. Now I sit reading it paranoid its full of things but no emotion. But really, it has to be. It can’t be 31 pages of just lanterns and guns; but the music moves me and that is right. Its just hard to gauge. Like I am typing away forever into nothing because there isn’t a handle or button nearby that opens a door full of men with glasses all reading the manuscript. Not that I want those men reading it anyway. Those kind of people falter under construction and plague stuff like Murakami for being simple. Not that he gets a lot of bad reviews; but there is a point there. They fall for Proust; which is a silly analogy because I have read that yet. But I do know he is flowery so that’s what I mean. And verbal and technical. Those men do they look for that and nothing more. Or am I just shortchanging them. Eh, I guess I shouldn’t worry too much about it. Really the writing should speak what is up here. And I am pointing towards my brain with an imaginary finger.

---

This is funny, BroRape. And so is Perry eating a stick of butter; when I get it up anyway. Have to get it from Kurt.

---

Oh it’s interesting too to see writers who like to write short stories. They end up framing stuff in awesome fragments. So like, a whole scene before the characters start one action from the other gets framed. They start in an apartment that is framed with this really simple but vivid description. Just minimalism at its best. Like denying what isn’t there and being specific about the mundane stuff that is. Then from there they make dinner and the man and woman sleep with each other. Then again it sets off to frame and action. And they play with it really well. Best example is Murakami at the moment; because I am staring right at The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, and I was flipping through pages just soaking in how he writes.

---

Robot rights!

town excerpt 1

Working on The Funeral Procession. Taking a break. Its so much in front of me all the time and I just look at it and get tired. I need energy. Or something. I don’t know what. Was going to go climbing but the weather is shite. The air conditioner is starting to piss me off because of the sound it makes. I really don’t like suburbia. It bothers me; it reminds me of being itchy. Jake could relate if you threw him in a pile of grass clippings.

---

Yesterday we wandered around for bit up on the north hill where the cemetery meets the airport. There is a great big chain link fence that wraps around; it’s supposed to be the dividing line. Its dumb as a barrier; kids like me are the only ones who want to muck around in both places and a chain link fence isn’t going to stop us. You put up a ten foot wall that is smooth on both sides and your getting somewhere. But no one who weighs three hundred pounds is going to try and climb much of anything so that fence is pointless. I can hop it and get to the tarmacs if I want.

We ate lunch near the pond at the break of tombstones and cremation urns. The urns are stored in a huge vault near oak trees that line the entrance. I think they put the pond in just to entertain all the old people that come walking on through. I don’t really smile when I see them. I don’t like old people and I wish they didn’t like me. Instead they try and sucker you into stuff. And I guess I am supposed to feel bad but what the hell. When you were young did you like old people--Old person?

Alongside the western edge we planted some sunflowers and then watched em’ grow for a bit. They didn’t do anything in the ground and we got bored so monkeyed a bit in the trees and walked back out hopping over the fence and signing our names on the abandoned outhouse that sits in the middle of the desert. There isn’t anything for miles around. Mountains creep off into the distance. If you had a horse you could actually make it somewhere new but on foot you just have to wander back into town. We smoked for a bit in the alley and crushed our cigarettes out when someone walked by.

I am eighteen but Sara is still underage and people like to give us both crap. I don’t mind really because I like to yell at people. They are all dumb anyways and I don’t care. Sara might cry though and I love her so it’s stupid to do it any other way. We talk about the cemetery when we are through and I drop her off at her house before walking home with my hands in my pockets. I whistle the thieving magpie and smoke again before I go inside.

---
i want it all to have happened, but then i'd be dead.

"because i couldn't find the food I liked"

Today I woke up at 6 to help slow down the progression of me being late to World Literature everyday. I got in and she had no voice. We all left. To say the least I felt defeated. Fuck you rain, I’ll flow like water if I want and when they build a dam in front of me well I’ll stop and smell the roses. To put it mildly I was disappointed.

There is a theme outside; that theme being sunken-ness. Outside its rather crafty with splitting winds cutting into the groups of people I see roaming around. And then I think about what lies ahead. Really though, until 7 O’clock. That’s the point at where the sun is tipping its hat in these times and telling me the night is upon everything. I want to go climb a mountain. I want to slide my feet into boots and go riding into the sunset with that blazing yellow friend of mine. Where does he go? We used to talk like someone flipped a switch and turned it off. Nature has a brilliant fucking light-switch eh?

There is a really neat cut; after you pass through tepid water of rippling tadpoles and bouncing frogs. Sort of like a commercial selling jellybeans you come across the cleanest finest grain sand. Its all red and battered thousands of years by the wind. It’s so nice that the black ants moving across it seem delighted. When you shoot further in and veer to the right scrambling across the ledge of a small elongated boulder you duck beneath a tree and find yourself looking on both sides at sheer fine black-rock. It makes me think of a safe house. If the end of the world were coming that’s probably where I would go. Just leaning against the rock reading a book enjoying a cup of noodle soup and saying the hell with it. If you wanna burn earth, than burn. It’s your fucking planet, I’m just a guest.

You sort of near the cooler parts when you venture inward. There you will probably run into people scaling both sides. Though the funny thing is I either see them sitting or resting on some outcropping of red stone or hanging midair just shouting hi below and dangling like spiders. Maybe if I went sometime and wore a set of eight legs they would laugh. Too often they poke their heads and are surprised; but you wave friendly enough and all is well.

Then the fun begins; near the end of my favorite place comes a favorite climb. Precipice of red stone and loose gravel lead to a summit; the top holds a nice view of the whole city. I always end up going too late so I can never keep…going. Not that the view is the same; and somehow I think I am going to end up finding treasure along the way. I guess it is neat to tackle the whole thing and tell it a story when you reach the top.

Oh the mountain listens.

-----

Today I plan on removing the prejudices I have against all of this. Instead, look; (laying my hands out as if I want to show you something). I read Kafka’s story about The Investigations of a Dog. It’s not my favorite of his, I am not really an avid fan but he is good and there are a few stories I really enjoy. In the Penal Colony, The Hunger Artist.

The dog made me think that flying; well we all want to fly. And I remark that upon my imaginary partner of conference and she agrees. Let’s fly. But even that tiny dog species in the story comes down and walks for bit. Stretching its legs before shooting off into the sky for more thoughtful meditation. Well come on down she says after biting her lip and holding her index finger between her lips. I mean if you have to, that is. I just sort of nod and say; Hey, I like to stretch my legs from time to time. So here I am just lying sort of low and dreaming about whatever I want. Because down here even amongst the throngs of people I am free to lazily tuck away and just fly in thoughtful silence. There are so many they don’t care; not few enough to engage. Pretty nice in that regard and more so towards a peaceful sort of rest with how tired I am; waking up early and all.

I read some literary theory. The first real theorists that the book states is some Russian guy who wrote a famous essay titled Art as Device. Stating I suppose that art has a purpose, driven by its creator and engaged by whoever wants to take it upon themselves to digest it in a fashion. The formalists or functionalists, I think is what they are labeled as define all the literature as a weird playing and structuring words and language in a non-common way. You, us, in most everyday speech talk commonly; there is your Russian division; commies.

I wonder where it will end up is what I say to myself.

And then the wind blows me away.

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welcome to the Sunrise Room.