Gravity, saints, and a funeral.

Okay, I went. For your family's sake. Could I have sat there longer? Maybe. Did I seek attention? I will let you know later after consulting with the mirror. Look, I just don't think that so-called service was for you really, though your family did dedicate it to your honor and memory. It was merely a show for the god(s) they worship—what, three of them too?—though I could be wrong. They talked too much... And sang. I wondered if the leader was just a frustrated artist... And the bowing down and kneeling and beseeching for forgiveness of sins from a deity or deities supposedly watching from a distance... On top of saints...names I have never encountered in some inexpressible, magical way and, thus, have no real connection with. No thanks, but I can connect better with others I have also never met: Lewis, Da Vinci, Dickinson, Van Gogh, Hepburn, Bukowski, Carlin, Rowling, and Poe, to name a few.

How were we supposed to remember you in all that din? But I do. Sorry, I had to get out of there and talk. Did you sit with me in the car at the same time you were probably visiting other places? Or were you communing with them and their god(s)? Did they even know you? I know you like talking to people, but did they ever really talk with you? Did they really see you? I saw you. We talked and laughed and drank coffee... It was real. I heard the sadness and fear in your words....the despair about your world... You were no saint, though you smiled... No one really is. (Not even Mother Theresa. She did what she could, her work. I read up on her, you must have too. Although I did hear you could apply for sainthood, especially now that the church has recently lowered its price. Maybe the stars could be saints, though we only know too well they already are deified by folks.) Besides, if you were so full of courage, you would not have hidden... And if not for yourself, you would have forgiven...for your children.

There is so much more to say, but anyway, if you weren't lying to me, you said you talked to the wind too, like I do. It goes where it chooses, doesn't it? But while it's nice to soar with it, sometimes we have to ignore its whims. Or blow the air ourselves to keep it moving when it is very still. There are responsibilities here on the ground, gravity bounds us, you know. But you could ride along with it all the time now, and go to places you have ever wanted to visit. We were going to take trips together, remember? Now you must be looking at all the grandeur the earth offers, all at once too. Do they pale in comparison to the cosmos? Oh well, maybe you can tell me all about it over coffee. Just try not to startle me when you stop by, or I might spill paint on me or something.

Look, I don't mean to suggest that I was the only one who knew you. I probably only know as much as you allowed me to perceive... Sure, family, friends, and relatives cared for you, some maybe even more deeply than others; we all just have funny ways of showing it. But you must now see us in all our nakedness from where you are? One day the rest of us will too. Though we can only wonder this time from down here things that haven't been revealed about us...about the world, from its microcosm to the macrocosmic...that is humanity. We'll talk again soon.

Coffee or tea for absurdities.

She received the card. I wanted to wish her a bright year and she got it. She let me know five days before my birthday, but I only got her voicemail. I called her two days later and we exchanged gratitudes: I, for her birthday greeting, and she, for my new year wishes. Three days later she died.

You see, it was not  supposed to be like that. It was not even supposed to end like that, not just yet at least. In fact, it was only supposed to be a new start. Those are the kind of thoughts one holds when the New Year rings at least. And if your heart still bleeds...

The New Year felt light, 2014 felt right when it rang. But nobody knew what was coming. Nobody knew the pain she was feeling. How could we have known? We were all caught up with trying to live that we failed to pause to see who was dying, who had been dying... Though everyone knew all along: she was the elephant in the room. Yet no one could stop her insides from bleeding... How do you stop a slow death wish that had been at work for a while?

I told her to let me know as soon as she was ready to go... We could have coffee outside for a change. (Or tea. But how she loved her coffee; it was what she often offered me.) Then we could torture the guys with a few rounds of scrabble since it bored them to death. It was a nice little plan for when it got a warmer because it was still frigid here, and she did not like to be out in the cold like that. It was a simple invitation, not an imposition, so she would not feel the pressure of being put on the spot, that if she declined again like the hundred times before, she would not be eaten up by the dreadful twins...

Oh, what funny business guilt and shame operate. They probably kill more people at a faster rate since they like to hang about always hungry. But who knows, the folks that have passed on are probably the ones alive, whereas we, still stuck here on earth, might be the ones who are virtually dead. Or manipulated at least. Like marionettes or guinea pigs. We are born only to die in the end. Sounds familiar? But we are forced-fed first... And forced to sleep at night when we should really be awake. I never understood it. And if we overeat or oversleep we could die even sooner. Whose the grand master of this great, big plan? We can only guess. Yet it is called life, so there is always a flipside. For now, I would have to believe I am alive just to live and maybe extend my stay, then die at a later time. I also have to convince myself that there is an after-life. Another flip. If I don't, why buy into the idea that there might be a chance to ever meet again the people who are gone. Like grandpa... Like her.

The month of her death has proved significant; I will take it as a sign. Or a nudge. In the direction of life I choose to follow. Because it is all I have until I get to the other side, and possibly meet them...and/or the grand designer, if there is a puppeteer... If not, oh well, I would have to flip things again.

I saved her voicemail, by the way. So I can always hear her. The time she was here... The time we had tea. We did have tea, you know, though we both loved our coffee as we exchanged stories...

Still, fuckin people are dropping like flies, and when the punchline ends and the whole thing blows over, it might just be a damnable joke from a sick, bored king... If not, then it is a funny thing, this life. Of course, you still have to keep breathing until your time is up. What tiresome absurdity.

Fish.

A man walks to the middle of a stream. Like an offensive lineman, he strategically places himself. But not to hike a football or whatever is in his hands: his hands are empty; and there is no invisible quarterback hunched behind him, no other player hanging around him. He is the only one standing at the ready for this game. He lowers his hands in the water and remains very still. He waits, then waits some more. He is in perfect position when the time comes, and it comes just as expected. He closes his hands on the fish and does not let go. His grip tightens as he steps out of the water. The camera pans to the creature tossed on the ground. Its eyes bulge out; its mouth, wide open. Its movement starts to slow down, yet it is still flapping, gasping for air...fighting for the only life it has ever known until the man skewers it.

I saw the scene in a movie once. Today, I was reminded of it. She was on the bed with her head flailing and tubes planted in her mouth, hard at work, to keep her breathing. But unlike the fish, she gave up the fight a long time ago. Not in the emergency room, but in her own skin... She had often told of stories of kings and queens and the rise and fall of cities. How she loved stories and history. Yet, her eyes betrayed her as she sipped her tea. She did not want to be here, she did not have to say it; I read it as I sat across her, sipping my coffee. She had waved the white flag and wanted to leave; she had longed for it. She could not live here any more, and so she left. She had been gone, even as she continued to nurse her plants; she loved the feel of dirt, but not this earth. One day, I, too, shall pass. Though perhaps somewhere beyond this place and time, we would meet again. Maybe in the pages of history and over a cup of tea. Times would be perfect then, just the way she dreamed it. For now, I raise my cup and say goodbye to the woman I once met and exchanged stories with; I hope I did justice to her as she remains in the garden of my memory. And for now, I continue my journey.

Rose Garden.

by: a.paige

Go on. It's okay. You are well now, though you are the sixth child. You have been healed. For whatever reason, life didn't deliver the child before you.

Your mother is reborn; you meant every word you said. The weeding was tough, as though you gutted yourself..., yanking at your heart, which you held even tighter. Oh, the thorns! Still you trusted your mind and did not let it close..., letting it be guided by which you tried so hard to protect..., strengthening their bond, even as you began to release them... The mind and the heart in perfect union now, yet still allowed full independence. To think..., to act..., to feel..., to shed tears... To live again. You watered the barren ground and created a garden. And in offering your heart, your mother has revived hers. You gave her a garden, and a rose has grown there since.

Go on. It is all right now. Grow a rose garden. Write. Paint. Create. There is no one way. But act on it, as with anything else. Go ahead. Plant your seeds. Dig... Water... Prune... Then watch your garden grow.

***For her name is Rose, dedicated to my mother.

Wonder...wander... What's your story?

I'm a not a fatalist. I do believe in willpower and magic and hope...for a better place and justice. I just can't smile with happy people all the time and think positive away the demons at play...while we try to survive the best way we can—some of us in yachts and castles, and others beneath bridges...in tunnels...or on benches, and still others stuck between walls in the middle. And still others...the helpless ones imprisoned in silent rooms...who are silenced by those who are drunk and deluded with power, like God...

Hunger...

I just cannot think positive away the demons at play. But I can help keep human garbage at bay and pick up my share the best way I can, and maybe tune in and lend an ear to see the inaudible, invisible cries...that I, too, might understand their pain...that I might extend a hand or walk a mile...perhaps. And when that still isn't enough, I hope for a better place.

Will power's persistence in this befuddling existence—that is magic. And only because of love, without which what other means must we employ our ultimate will? Where did we get it from—this love?—who instilled it in us humans? I used to think I knew so well, but the wind changes course... Now I only think about it too, sometimes. But I, like you, won't know the end of the story until I get there. Until then, I must keep going and live this thing...this role...this play...on this stage, and not waste so much time thinking about the director...since the time given us is short.

Yet I just can't smile with happy people all the time and think positive away the demons at play. But don't hate me. I'm just a realist, not an enemy. I am not against you, just maybe your ideals sometimes. Meanwhile, I still smile and look up at the sky, whenever I'm not tripping on and picking up garbage.

J.R.R. Tolkien said: "Those who wander are not always lost".

And so, I wonder sometimes.

Organic nocturne: Cool world.

by: amica paige

She heard the radio play Spacehog's 'Space is the place', which took her down the memory lane of her underground days. Cool World was the place to be then.
At least if you chose not to jiggy with it elsewhere or retire early at home with the remote control or a tome, or hang out at a friend's rat hole after the last coffee shop had closed past ten, and should you have chosen to delay your trip at a 7-eleven beside the gas station for warm nachos yellowed by melted cheese from the pump. It was where you danced the remainder of the night away freely and someone else began to sway beside you without smug imposition, and you two ended up organic...dancing together through dawn's wee hours, with neither a strategy nor an agenda. It was where you met both cool and ugly people, and those that made you want to sleep with the bears, if they let you, rather than suffer another drab company; and those that perpetually slumbered, literally, on the stained couches leaning against the adjacent walls in the corner: perhaps the last three characters slept with each other there, though she couldn't say for sure. She never even saw their true colors—the couches—since the only source of light in the scant place were the few moody spotlights in the ceiling that casted shades onto its nocturnal floor and occasionally flashed hints of the fetid, sullied sofas defiled by butts, smokes, beer, puke, armpits, and sweat.