A single breath

A single breath, one little smell, and I've relived a lifetimes worth of youth in a few seconds.

Something about the night. When it's quiet, and still, and the moon reveals something, a form with a silvery blue lining... the edge of that something reveals a distinct lack of substance. A pure blackness, an anti-tree which, through the trick of not even existing at all, brutally cuts the sky to pieces. Something about it is very compelling. The shape of the wounded sky; the presence of a chaotic, fractal nothing, implies a suggestion. I think about it for a while, off and on, and at the end of the night, after I'm back home and safely tucked into bed, I get it. Eternal sadness? An intentional thing, purposeful and created? That's it. And by qualifying the suggestion, I've just given it form. The sudden realization of the reality of this universal practical joke - played on suckers like me by the devil, apparently - to which I'd just supplied the punchline, threatens to overwhelm me.

After a while I've had enough of that piece of tree-shaped hole in the sky. I start walking again, into the wind, and the breath of the world shoots up my nose. The world does little things like this to me sometimes, usually without warning. I'll never understand it. The smell of the beautiful sadness of memory tries to carry me away into a comfortable oblivion. With some effort, and somewhat reluctantly, I turn away from this feeling, and it feels like I've amputated a part of myself. It hurts terribly for a moment, and then, suddenly and without even meaning to, I put myself back together and I can't even remember feeling anything at all. Sometimes I really worry about the absurdity of everything.

I finally decide to do something about the splinter in my right foot that has been worrying away at me all day, just sitting there at the limit of perception, wreaking havoc somewhere down there just above the cellular level. I realize that it's just a tiny piece of whatnot, and that it's state of awareness - if it even has any at all - lies somewhere between that of a grain of sand and the thermostat on the air conditioner. However, even as stupidly unaware as it might be, it's still a guilty little freeloading bastard that's been getting a free ride all day, and I've passed judgement on it and sentenced it to the same oblivion from which I'd just recently emerged. After the sentence is carried out and it's over and done with, I don't feel bad about it at all... well, maybe a little. As simple as it was, it was a thing with a purpose - to aggravate the heck out of me - and it was fulfilling that purpose completely. I ended that brief purpose, forever. Empathy for a splinter. Isn't that retarded?

It's late. I'm home. I'm tired. I've been running a fever all night.

I'm sad. I'm afraid. I don't belong.

I'm alone.

Everything is going to be all right.

Hilarity

Uh... it's late, or early, or whatever.  Drank too much tonight, still awake, and I missed vigil too because I decided to party with my brother.  I missed confession too, so I've excommunicated myself from communion.  It's Lent, and I'm just using it as an opportunity to screw up as good as I can. 

Anywho, so I'm a flaky undependable douche bag.  What else is new?  I'll go to church in the morning with crap sleep and zombie my way through work, and then I'll start over and give it another go on Monday.

Imagine horror as hilarity.  That's how I feel now.

G'nite.

sadness

Sometimes I think, and think and think and think, about these people I've seen who have killed themselves.  And people I've known who have killed themselves.  It's a thing, in my head.  Ah God, it's a sad thing, I don't know what to do about those thoughts.  They don't present themselves as a general rule, not as a normal thing, not on a regular basis.  It's enough to just have those thoughts for a few seconds a month, enough to remind me of how awful being awake can be.   But it ain't all the time.  It's just a sad sad thing.  I think it needs to be known at least, that sadness.  It should at least be known, because ignoring it would be giving it the ok.

Thinking

I was thinking tonight on the walk home, about how the universe is like a grid, and is twisted up where gravity is. Tightened, you know, into a more dense place, where the grid lines are closer together. Planets and stars and things, and people too. Anything with mass. Then I thought, that's what people are, and alive things. Twisted up parts of space-time that are where the life is. And especially twisted up, especially dense parts, are people, the conscious alive things. The aware things. And then I thought, that hurts, that twisted up-ness. Why should that hurt? But it does. Being alive hurts. Why should that be the case? It's a natural part of the universe, that twisting up dense-ness, which the alive-ness is. But naturally it hurts. Why? Why should that be part of the natural order of things, the pain? Or is it just me?

this chance

I often wonder why I've been given this chance, when many people more deserving than myself have met such tragic ends, lost and strangers to God. I mean, I used to refer to Christians as semi-evolved simians. I laughed at their willing stupidity, and I enthusiastically viewed them with as much contempt as I could muster, placing them on a level which might as well have been infinitely below my lofty perch of enlightened knowledge. I certainly don't deserve any kind of chance at life and hope, so why do I get one when so many others didn't? What about kids that were just as stupid as me, just as young, just as old, just as confused... and who had just as much chance of possibly coming around as I was given, but they died of stupid drug overdoses, or car wrecks, or asthma attacks, or suicide? Especially the suicides. I'll never ever EVER understand that - why I get this chance, when all of those myriad hundreds and thousands and millions of people, most of whom were far more deserving than I am, never even began to have the chance that was given to me. I don't get it. I mean, real life with hope is possible for me now, when it wasn't before, and I didn't even know it. That's a miracle. I don't understand why I'm part of such a teensy minority that got that, when most people never get the chance.

bad joke

I'd finally come to the end of yet another long, grueling night of walking around Denton and reading my e-book, when I noticed that I was out of smokes. So, I went into Walgreens to buy a pack for one last lap around the town, and the guy in line behind me tossed a box of condoms onto the counter and said to the clerk, "Hey man, these are used. Do I get a discount? Heh heh heh. Heh... heh. Heh. Ahem...

Now, let me ask you... have you ever been present when a bad joke was delivered, and nobody laughed, and everybody - the young, old, weak, strong, guilty, innocent - EVERYBODY had to suffer through the intoletrable aftermath of uncomfortable silence? Imagine a terrible, terrible weapon - one that nobody would ever actually contemplate using, because the effects are devastating beyond comprehension - falling into the hands of a moron and actually being used in a random sneak attack against a group of completely neutral and unsuspecting folk; good, honest, law abiding citizens who haven't the capacity to even imagine such an atrocious act of unspeakable evil.

As you have most likely gathered, this actually happened tonight. I was a witness. I fled the scene, but I'm willing to testify.

4 years

As I walk by the church tonight, I can see oil lamps burning through the windows. It's strange to think that four years have passed since I first stepped foot in there. In a lot of ways I still feel like a stranger there, but at the same time, seeing those burning lamps gives me a feeling of security, like those are the home fires being stoked and tended.

The Lonely Strangers

The Lonely Strangers

by

Elias Ashley Davis

The lonely strangers sat side by side on the secluded park bench in silence. Neither of them could think of anything to say to the other. Finally, one of them started to say something, but stopped. The other, reacting automatically to this attempt to make a connection, also tried to say something, then stopped. They both sat there for a few more minutes in silence. Finally, both of their faces lit up as they started to say something at the same time, but being abashed at the embarrassing juxtaposition, they both stopped. Another short interlude passed. Then what seemed like an epiphany occurred to both of them simultaneously. They looked at each other, opened their mouths as if to say something, and then stopped; embarrassed that they had both shared an epiphany at the same moment. After another long pause, one of them took a deep breath in preparation, looked the other one in the eye, and finally did say something... something very large and incredible, and pontifical, and important, with such profound verbosity that the words were deadly and beautiful. The other, taken aback by this sudden outpouring, almost said something... but then someone else showed up and said something that just killed it, so the two lonely strangers just continued to sit there, saying nothing and looking like a couple of retards.

Thoughts of you

My thoughts of you keep falling into their accustomed places, so often now that I'm beginning to wonder if what I'm feeling anymore is real, or if it's just a habit. There's no way to really know, you see, and that's a truth I've come to realize with some dismay... that the memory of life isn't organized the way you or I or any of us would want it to be - like a story, with a beginning and an arc and a moral, and characters that grow and develop, and the resolution of conflict, and then ending with a lesson well learned, leaving plenty of room for a sequel. It's mostly just this chaotic mess that only happens to seem like a poem every now and then, and we want so much for it to be a poem that we learn to lie to ourselves. And from there we build our delusions, and wreak the inescapable havoc of hope.

A dream - lost in time with Giant Monsters

First I was watching events, and myself, from the third person.  I saw a much younger and healthier version of myself standing on top of a building with the wind blowing my long hair all around me.  I was happy, and triumphant, because I had traveled back in time.  I was going to find the younger version of my wife and start life all over with her.  But someone from the future was still in contact with me, and she (I dunno who she was) was saying to me, "Are you really going to abandon your present wife, your future wife, here in the present while you luxuriate in the past?"  My point of view switched to the first person as she showed me a view of my future wife without me, growing older and older, lines forming on her face, lines of sadness as well as lines of age, but still beautiful.  I changed my mind and decided to leave the past.

Something happened though, and I got lost and wasn't able to go back.  Everything was a confusing blur, and I was watching events again from outside.  I saw a view into a shower, a prison shower.  It was shower time for the prisoners.  I saw the young version of me in the shower, and heard someone say to me, "He knows how to do it.  He's the one you want."  So I saw myself walk over and stand very close to someone who I at first thought was my wife.  I was very confused, but they weren't doing anything... just standing there, very close, as if comforting each other.  Then I saw that it wasn't my wife, but a young male prisoner who looked a lot like her.  The young version of me said thank you to the guy, and walked away.  I saw everything from my own eyes again after that, and I realized that I was looking for a way back to my own time, and my wife, and somehow I'd wound up in prison.  The young kid in prison was a version of her in this weird timeline, but she was a man instead.  But he was able to remember things from the correct timeline, and he'd told me how to get back to her.

Then all of us prisoners were in line in a very large bathroom with urinals spaced very close to each other along all of the walls.  Just the way I hate it, with no dividers.  Nobody was using them though, and the line was just progressing slowing around the room.  It so weird that I suddenly burst into gales of uproarious laughter.  I was looking across the room, watching one guy shove a cream pie into his mouth and then spit the whole thing out, intact, across the room into another guys face.  It was the funniest thing I'd ever seen.  The line progressed, and finally I found myself in the prison halls, and I was wearing a prison jumpsuit.

There were two people with me... my brother Matt, and one other person who was a close friend, but not identified.  We began to walk quickly down the halls, and that's when I realized that what was happening was very similar to dreams I've had before which have recurred, but I didn't realize that what was going on at the time was a dream.  What happened was, we were walking very quickly and gradually we found ourselves outside the prison and on the streets of a large metropolis.  My friend said, "I don't think we're supposed to be out here, did we escape from prison?"  I replied, "I've dreamed this before, this is so weird.  We're definitely out of prison, but I don't know how that happened."  Then Matt started running, and we ran after him.

As we ran, we dodged around different people.  It was like an obstacle course, trying to keep up with him.  I looked for my wife in the crowd, hoping that this was all happening for a reason and that I would find her here, and I got separated from my friend.  I heard him yelling to me from the other side of the street, "Keep us in sight!  Don't lose us!  Follow us around if you see us change direction!"  I looked over to the left across a busy street and saw them running flat out, up a hill towards a cross street.  The day was overcast and dreary, and the only color that stood out was a bright red hat that Matt was wearing, so I kept an eye on that.  When they got to the top of the hill, they both saw something that I couldn't see, and I heard cries of dismay and panic.  "Go to the right!  Turn with us, follow us!  Oh dear God, no no no!"  And then they disappeared behind buildings as they took the cross street. 

I had wound up in a public park, so I ran through bushes and around trees and down a hill into it, trying to catch glimpses of them between buildings on top of the next hill as they ran.  I glanced behind me and was filled with an immediate sense of fear and dread.  Dark clouds were churning in the sky, and I could hear a deep rumble with a more organic sound layered above it, but it wasn't something I could describe.  It had the effect of instantly sending me into a panic for my life.  I was more scared than I'd ever felt, and I suddenly remembered that this was just like another dream I'd had before.  I knew, I was positive, that there was a giant monster behind me, that it was attacking the city, and that it was coming closer, and that there was no way to escape from it.  This is what my brother and my friend had seen from the top of the hill that made them cry with such fear.  Even though I was terrified, I looked behind me again.  I saw what looked like another hill emerge above the hill I was running down, and it had bony protrusions growing out of it, and it was moving upward and would soon come into full view.  I didn't want to see it, so I turned back around and ran as fast as I could toward a copse of trees, and I hid in there.  I could see my brother and my friend occasionally through the buildings and trees as they ran, and then both of them suddenly stopped, looking in the opposite direction to the one I'd been running, and then they both started running towards me.  I realized with horror that there were two monsters, one ahead of me and one behind me, and that there would be no escape from them. 

I called out to my friend and my brother, and they joined me in the trees, just as the first monster emerged over the hill.  It was just enormous.  About 10 times as big as the Cloverfield monster, and it was looking right at us.  I was hoping that it might miss us, because we're so small, but no such luck.  It looked similar to the Rancor pit monster in ROTJ, but like I said, much much larger, and shaped more like something that walked on four legs.  It's mouth opened, and as I looked inside that gaping maw, I saw that it was large enough to swallow an entire football stadium, with about a hundred thousand attending people, and it would still be hungry.  It was just an incredibly huge, empty space for its head to be wrapped around... just unreal.  Insane.  At that moment, all three of us just lost our heads, and we darted out of the trees in different directions.  I was running in blind fear, as were they, with no particular strategy for evading these monsters, except to just keep moving.  I heard the second one roar and had to cover my ears, but I looked up at it and saw its tongue emerge from its mouth.  I was very long, impossibly long, and it just kept coming out, and I realized that it was prehensile, because it was grabbing trees and tossing them around as it looked for me, and that there would definitely be no escape with two of these tongues writhing around the landscape. 

All this time I had been thinking to myself, from the moment I heard the first screams of fear from my brother and my friend, that this was impossible, I've had this dream before, this can't really be happening, this is just a dream I've had, but it's really happening... how can a dream like this be real?  It can't, it's impossible, but here it is, happening, and it's real, and this is all really happening, and I just can't believe it.

I heard my brother shout to me, he was shouting urgently about a cave, that I should go into the cave.  I saw the cave, right there, and I ran inside.  I don't know what happened to my brother and my friend, and I kept running, deeper and deeper into the cave, wondering if the monster tongues could find a way inside.  I eventually found myself at the other side of the hill, and could see the second monster outside, with its tongue probing all around.  It must have smelled me with its tongue, like snakes do, because it instantly darted towards me.  I ran back into the warren of tunnels, and the tongue followed me.  I though that it had come to the extent of its reach because it suddenly stopped and splayed its end onto the wall of the cave, secreting this sticky white stuff everywhere, but it detached and came after me again.  I knew that it would be over in just a few seconds, so I stopped and drew a small foldable knife that I'd gotten for Christmas last year from my back pocket.  I opened it and determined that I'd at least give this giant monster tongue a good couple of gouges before it got me, and that's when it got me.

My first grave watch

I remember my first grave watch. I raced to get there at something something a.m. in the big fat middle of the small hours because I had overslept and was late. How can I describe what it was like to read that first psalm, psalm 102? I really can't, it was a surreal experience. A first time is always an important moment in time, like... like something that forms and then stays. Like writing your name in concrete. The moment is a thing that can be molded and caressed and put together and loved, all on the fly, and then it it is set in stone forever and ever and can never ever be changed. It kind of hurts to remember a moment that means something, like that night, at my first grave watch. It was like I was in a state of hypnosis. And it was joyful, even though it felt like the saddest thing I'd ever read at that time.

Baby Talk

I don't know a lot about what happened when I was baptized, or how God works in my life, or what the plan is, or much of anything at all. I'm pretty sure though that once I was baptized, things changed and I was no longer wandering aimlessly and without hope. I think that baptism might be a threshold - to put it simply - which is crossed. On the left side of the threshold, there are confusion and misdirection and anguish and despair and ignorance as the predominant properties. But on the right side, there are the Holy Spirit, and a plan, and love and guidance and the grace of God. Now, those things have to exist on the left side as well, or else how would anyone find their way over to the right side? Right?

The trick, or the hard part to all of this, is being able to start moving in the right direction to begin with... to the right, so that you have a chance of crossing over that threshold (I think it starts with really really wanting to, or wishing to). It's like... everything is flipped now, like the complimentary colors of a negative and positive picture. Despair and hope are flipped. It's hard to tell the difference though, during the course of each day, because we're emotionally retarded when it comes to knowing God (we're meaning I'm), so we (meaning I) confuse hope and despair because they're not as easy to tell apart as green and red, or blue and orange, or purple and yellow, or black and white. It's hard to tell them apart, as stupid as that sounds.

The way I'm describing this is like baby talk, I know. But it's these little realizations I have which occur to me in baby talk every now and then that help to keep me from drowning in despair. Knowing the difference between that side and this side, and being aware that after living for 30 something years on that side, that I somehow wound up on this side... well, that gives me a lot of hope. It's just hard to put it into the right perspective and to keep it there.

A startling truth

I think I've discovered a startling truth.  I regret the choices and mistakes I've made which led me to my present life condition, but I'm glad to be here. I regret getting hooked on drugs, but I'm glad the despair gives me a reason to pray.  I regret losing my only real friend, but I'm glad I got the church out of the bargain.  I regret not being a social creature, but I'm glad I have my solitude.  I regret that I don't have a financially stable career doing something I enjoy, but I'm glad I have my job.  I regret being a wreck of a person, but I'm glad I'm not dead. It seems to me that all of my regrets are balanced by something I'm glad of. On average, then, I have no regrets at all. But I'm also not a bit happy. Perfect balance. On average, I don't feel anything at all. I think I don't exist.

Orthodoxy In Space!

Thank you, Russians, for being awesome!  Ok, lets see... now all we need is a space church, a space priest, a space choir, some space readers, space vestments, space incense, space candles, and a bunch of space parishioners.  And Sacraments In Space!

Good will

I miss Leah more than it seems like my heart can bear sometimes.  It's been almost three years, but here it is.  I've been waiting patiently for it to go away, yet here it is.  It just hangs around on my heart, like a kitty using its paw claws to scratch itself a comfortable spot to settle down onto.  Only this kitty never finds a comfy spot, and it never settles down.  It just keeps on.  I have enough faith to know that there's a reason for this; to know that it's not just a product of my f'ed up'd-ness.  For one thing, I really do love her, so that's maybe why this ain't just drying out and spinning down the drain like the other times... but there's still something wrong with that love, must be.  Oh Lord, I'll try to do whatever You want.  There's good will inside of me.