Tuesday, July 6, 2010

She's Gonna Dream Up the World She Wants to Live In..

His DVD is not there. Disappointed, unfulfilled, not wanting to return to the office just yet, he wanders between the bookshelves and on the spur of the moment decides to borrow a book. It occurs to him that he almost always borrows a book because he "heard it was good", or "knows the author", or "always wanted to read this one". When was the last time he picked something up without knowing anything about it, and finished reading it? At this point he laments the deliberate nature of his life, and panics that he has lost the ability to make instant decisions; to just know what he wants. He makes a promise to borrow a book by an unknown author, based purely on the blurb.

On the bus home, he gets to know the stranger. The tale is not as visceral as a Woolf, nor as intricate as a Tolkien, but the pages turn and turn. The story tells of a girl in the Witness Protection Program. She drifts from name to name, Middletown to Middletown. She can forge no identity of her own, so she lives vicariously through the people she sees. At night she repeats her name to herself... the anchor.. but she also retreats to the family she can never have in the home she can never set up.. the sails...

<Esc> <Shift> :wq

Friday, April 23, 2010

High Hopes

First, they wait to see if they have any Hope at all. When that worrying pays off, they wait to see when they will have their chance to choose. Will their rendez-vous be in jeopardy? Now they wait patiently for their chance to choose something that might not be built; that will only be ready in 5 years, if it is. They wait wondering if others are eyeing the same ones they are.

They wait to see if the ash High up there will continue to clear up, or suddenly take a turn for the worse. Will their rendez-vous be in jeopardy?

He wonders if all the worry is worth it. He considers a life without goals, ambitions, or desires, "'cos then you'd have no worries, mate."

"No thanks, mate."

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Jazz Thieves

To be honest he is a little disappointed. He begins to think that he has fallen for the hyperbole once again. Fortunately, the food by the river is as he remembered it. He is grateful that his friends like it too; they at least will not leave feeling tricked. Afterwards, as they wander aimlessly on the roads, it is a craggy old Seminole that points him and his party in the right direction. With the promise of music and warmth they keep on. Once they turn the corner they are faced with a line of watering holes, like before. People stream in and out, like before. The stage is packed, but who's playing? Who's paying? A sense of purity, unlike before. And the best part of it all? No beads.

(circa ENAR 2010)