men, women, snakes, and courage.

Here's a story some of you might appreciate, and supposedly it's true:
Back in the good old days of the British empire, in colonial India, a British family invited held a dinner party. All the usual suspects were in attendance; an authentic British colonel, an American business man, and so on, just like in Clue. The colonel was explaining how men are endowed with a certain trait that allows them to be calm and courageous in times of danger, but women lack this trait and become hysterical in the same situations. While he was going on, the American noticed the hostess whispering something to one of the servants. The servant left and returned with a saucer of milk, which she place just outside an open door. The American puzzled at this until he remembered that in India, milk is cobra bait. He concluded that there must be a cobra in the room, but there was nowhere for the cobra to hid except under the very table they were sitting at. If he said anything, everyone might panic, and the cobra might strike someone. If he got up, he might startle the snake and the same might happen. So he interrupted the colonel, saying he'd like to test out the colonel's theory by seeing if they could all keep calm and quiet over the next few minutes. The guests sat quietly as they watched the time. Eventually the snake slithered out to the milk. A servant jumped up and slammed the door closed behind it. The colonel, impressed said that the American's calm actions proved his point. The American turned to the hostess and asked how she knew the cobra was under the table. She looked at him and said calmly, "It was on my foot."

Stars

Once again, I forgot the stars. They were always there, so hard to understand, so easy to forget. I remembered dark summer nights, tarps and sleeping bags laid out beneath the clear sky. I remember stars; so many stars that couldn't compete with the lights back home, and we never even thought of them before. The conversation fell off as we turned inward and upward. The sky was an ocean and our lives but a pebble thrown in without so much as a ripple. If we held our breath we could feel the Earth turning beneath us. Our desires, though clearly vain, only magnified beneath such a clock, pulling against the reigns that enslaved us to tasks that seemed, more than ever, a complete waste of time.
I was a long way from those summer nights. It was cold. I could only see a few stars through the lights, but there they were. They seemed sad that I forgot them, but then, they were there whether I remembered them or not; It had nothing to do with me. I was ashamed to forget. something died long ago and I wasn't paying attention. How could I get it back?
It was quiet on my back porch. The occasional dog bark or passing car, of course, but still quiet. I envied the smokers who had an excuse to step out for a few minutes every now and then.
Inside the dishwasher was running, my wife was talking on the phone, and everything I needed to do, meant to do but never got around to, were reproaching me. And it's all, I need to do this, I never did that, this is due tomorrow, whatever happened to that dream, three decades have slipped by and this is all it's added up to, I need to get going, but where.
And the TV was on, I guess, just for background noise. After a long week work, and people talking just to feel important, it was more than I could bear. With all that outside, and my ever churning brain inside, I needed an escape.
The cold and the stars shocked my system into silence. For a brief second the world opened up before me as if I'd never seen it before, as I stood back and watched. But one by one, the thoughts crept back. As my ears adjusted, even the sound of the TV was able to penetrate the glass door and reach my tired ears. Something was lost.
I learned to hate the TV as a teenager. Too much time was spent flipping through the channels, not finding anything, until I could feel my life bleeding from me as my brain turned to glue. Close my eyes, and there were changing channels. It would take everything to push a simple button and tear myself away. I told myself tomorrow would be different, but it never was.
When I moved away, I had no TV and I didn't miss it. I considered myself much better off for it. I had more time to read, which I rarely did. I had more time to think, which meant pacing the room as my mind went on and on until I wished it would just shut up. I had too much time to lay there and stare at the ceiling, thinking I should be doing something until I finally gave up and went to bed just to end the pointless day, hoping the next would be better.
Having put some distance between me and the tube, I had a much better perspective on those rare occasions I did get to watch. First, I didn't take any of it for granted. A box of light displaying images and sounds from around the world, from the past to that exact moment in time but for a brief delay for the signal to be shot to space and back again, jumping entire continents. Here was power, sitting so innocently in so many living rooms. I could almost feel what my parents, my grandparents, felt as they watched it for the first time, and knew the impact this thing had on their lives. There were so many channels, so many shows, so much opportunity, so much waste.
Seeing it with new eyes, everything was magnified. The good was miraculous, in full color right before my eyes. The bad was infuriating, like sandpaper on the soft flesh of my brain. I noticed the subtle condescension of the good commercials, felt their gentle magic on me, as they humored and lulled me into the notion my life might actually be better with their product in it. I felt the slap in the face of the bad commercials, as if I was stupid enough to fall for it. The stock audio laugh tracks, rarely even noticed before, made my blood boil.
A few months after meeting the girl who would be my wife, we sat on the couch and the TV was on. Her head was on my shoulder and her hand was in mine. We couldn't come up with anything to do, so the TV was on. What was on, I don't remember. It wasn't something I would've watched on my own, but at the time it didn't matter. I didn't have to come up with some place to go, something to do, spend money, and wonder if she was enjoying herself. I didn't have to come up with something to say only to hear my voice and think I sounded like an idiot. After only a few minutes I noticed my mind slowing, quieting. For the first time in years, my mind was quiet. There I was, the warm body of a beautiful girl next to me, her free hand stroking the inside of my forearm, her perfume under my nose, and I was comfortable. I was comfortable with her, with the TV, and with myself.
I saw a vision there, something comfortable, something domestic. I saw myself coming home from work, not caring what that work was, to this warm comfort. Before this image of someplace comfortable with someone to love, all my grand pursuits, whether intellectual or artistic, seemed just as silly and the worlds pursuit of fame and money. This enemy, this TV, this symbol of an idolatrous world's vanity, revealed my own vanity and replaced it with something better.
It was strange to admit to myself that it was that flickering blue light that told me this girl was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. From that moment on, my course was set.
But years had passed. Life is full of stuff, noise, and things that need to be done. It crowds in, makes it hard to breath and impossible to see. It talks and screams and beeps and buzzes away thoughts, dreams, and memories. And there I was, in the cold, trying to remember something. The door slid open behind me. A voice, soft, holding that secrete, that one thing I was looking for, somewhere in its smooth timbre.
"What are you doing out here?"
"Just getting some fresh air."
"Come sit with me." It wasn't so much a question as a demand, but a gentle one. Her eyes were somewhere between devious and pleading. What could I do?
Inside it was warm. The dishwasher hummed in the dark kitchen. The living room lights were dimmed and a show I actually liked was starting on the TV. There were two whole days before either of us had to go to work, and there was nothing that couldn't wait for another day. So we sat down before the great electric narcotic, proving once again that all things, though easily abused, are good in appropriate moderation.

One More Day

He felt like he just woke up from a long dark nightmare. The snow was fresh. The morning was purple and orange, and growing pale. The sun approached the horizon. He wanted to feel the cold air in his lungs, and he did. He wanted to feel his feet on the pavement, and he did. His eyes let in the same world he'd seen all his life, yet somehow fresh, new, original in this one moment in time. He felt the camera pull back to show him in the frame; no longer a screen in front of him, but all around him. He breathed it in, and breathed himself out, each a part of the other. The sky was opening, the temperature was dropping, his face felt the cold, his lips felt her lips, his shoulder held the weight of her head resting on him, his frozen hands felt her hands keeping them warm. Alone, he walked to work to slog it out one more day, one more day closer to her, one more day closer to something better, one more day if life would give it to him.

alive

"I can't think," Sam thought. The girl sat across from him in the sun; blond hair with brown eyes. Someone mentioned that the coals were ready. Sam was getting hungry. With a can of orange soda he sat on the bank of the duck pond. He took a deep breath; charcoal and lighter fluid, grass and summer. He exhaled, but the self-consciousness remained. He closed his eyes and felt the sun on his back. Something inside still needed to be thawed out from the long winter. It was melting, the knots were loosening, something inside wanted to come out, he wanted to yell. He held it all in. He tossed a blade of grass and watched it spiral into the water. Where it landed, an orange shape distinguished itself from the murk and rose to the surface, then disappeared.
A duck eyed him, and approached cautiously. She would see he had nothing and turn back, he thought, but she kept coming. Another followed. Something fell in the water and she scooped it up, no longer wary of his presence. The girl, the blond, was standing over his shoulder with a hotdog bun.
Who was this girl and how did she wind up with this group? Sam hadn't seen her before, but if she was who he thought she was, he'd heard her name a time or two. He didn't think she was attached, not to any of these guys. How old was she? She could've been fifteen for all he knew.
Being twenty was hard. Nothing was clear. The line between childhood and adulthood was fine, sometimes non-existent. He never new just what he was supposed to be doing. For the first time he had to admit he didn't know anything at all.
But he could smell her perfume. Something was distinguishing itself from the murk, rising to the surface. Should he let it? Should he just give in? Or should he be more cautious?
Sam didn't know anything at all, and, for the moment at least, accepted it. This seemed good for some reason, so he laughed for the first time in months.

4:39 am

"This isn't productive," she said, "I should have stayed in bed." She sat down, her right hand across her forehead as if shading her eyes. The cat jumped on her lap to ask what's wrong and say whatever it is it's ok because I'm here.
"Silly cat," she said. She wanted to be cheered up. She also wanted to throw something. Instead, she scratched the cat under his collar.
She felt like a fly smashing her face against a window over and over again with a growing suspicion that whatever was blocking her way was very simple but she was too stupid to comprehend it.
The cat protested as she leaned over and picked up the book. The words became blurred and the symbols laughed at her. Her brain was jell-o. She set the book down again, instead of chucking it through a window, and collapsed back into the chair. She had already taken, and passed the class once, but apparently that wasn't good enough to be certified. She was doing better than the last time, but she still only got so far before it all ceased to make sense. It was as if there was a secret someone forgot to tell her, a key to make sense of everything.
She wanted to cry. The cat purred louder, with purpose, because she stopped petting him. She wanted to laugh. The clock said something way past two in the morning. She wanted to scream, but scratched the cat behind the ear instead.
So this was freedom. This was the land of opportunity. She could do, she could be anything she wanted. Oh, but wait, that is, as long as she got at least a B on her chemistry final. Didn't you read the fine print? Sure, a basic knowledge of it, and how it worked would be useful, and sure it would make her well rounded, as if she needed that. This stress would more than take care of her roundedness. Sure there was some logic behind it she couldn't deny, making it all the more aggravating, but all this, when would she use any of this? She could always look stuff up if she ever needed it. That's what they did in the real world anyway. She knew she was more than capable of doing everything she wanted if she could only get the knowledge, which she could, and the permission, which was the problem. Was this all a joke played by sadistic professors and administrators exercising their power over everyone's hopes and dreams? Exorcising the hopes and dreams from those that actually had any? Was it job security? Or was it simply a way to find out who really wanted it? To weed out the flakes?
Oh, was she a flake? Was she destined to fail? Would she have to face the facts and let go of her dream? She wanted to cry, so she did.
The cat didn't like this, so he closed his eyes and purred harder, as if to say, "see, this is how you do it. You close your eyes and purr and everything is better."
Maybe, but she didn't know how to purr. Just one more thing she couldn't do. But if she could, maybe it would be better. She began to try, but started to laugh instead. This was no laughing matter so she stopped. Laughing was the one thing cats couldn't do. She couldn't remember ever seeing a cat laugh.
"Ok," she said to the cat, feeling a bit better, "here's the plan. The test isn't until late this afternoon, so I'll get some sleep now and get up earlier than I'd planned and take another look at this then. Maybe everything will be fresh. Maybe it'll make some sense." The cat thought this was a perfectly good plan, until he realized she would have to stand up. He wasn't too crazy about that little bit, but everything else sounded just fine.
Everything was ready to go. All she had to do was survive one last final, grab the cat, skip town, and hope it didn't snow. There would be a whole month to not think about it.

February

There was a vision of a room, that perfect shade of green, white trim, and sun pouring through windows and spilling over a hardwood floor. There were tulips and daffodils. The ground remained wet from the recently melted snow, and shined in the light. The breeze lost its teeth, playing with her hair. The sun drenched her head, her shoulders, and dripped down her back. This was the sun, not that pale white thing that shied from the slightest cold breeze and hid from the full onslaught of winter. This was the sun, reaching out a hand to spring, who lay broken and beaten on the ground, healing her wounds and pointing her towards the freedom of a Saturday afternoon.
But her eyes opened to the same ugly scarred ceiling, tape-marked walls, and gray light trickling though a small slit of a window. She knew the snow was still there, wet and dirty. It refused to leave, even as the temperature crept toward forty. Rivers of brown slush and ice water waited to penetrate her socks.
The wind howled outside, ripped through the trees, and through its fury against every window and door. Its voice was like a cold hand on her back. She rolled over and pulled the blankets in tight around her.
The wind had been blowing for days, obliterating everything in its path. She listened. Behind it's howl and scream was a whisper, something quiet speaking to something deep inside. This wasn't the wind of November, blowing away the leaved and sun and warmth. This was a new wind, scrubbing the earth clean of its dross, making way for something new. It still had a ways to go, but soon, any day now, it would show itself and whisper its promise.
She sat up. Already she could feel the ice, the weight, the guilt, the regret, and that nagging feeling she wasn't what she should be loosen it's grip on her heart. Soon now, very soon, she would wake to sunlight pulling her outside and pointing her face to the sky, telling her to leave all that behind. Soon there would be a new day, a new life, a new youth. Soon the sun would greet her new and weightless life and say: it's ok, go and start again.
And still the wind blew, whispering: soon, very soon, you just wait.

airport

The engines rip air as they tear you from the ground and away from me. No taillights to watch slowly fade away. All too soon you're gone, only existing to me in my mind. I struggle to think of you there, your seatbelt fastened, hoping you don't get sick as you make your first turn, eyeing your rout and the legs you must step over when the time comes to use the restroom, preparing yourself for the hours ahead, and maybe, I dare to hope, maybe thinking of me. I struggle to think of you there, alive, independent of me, as the taste of you on my lips, and the feel of your fingers slipping from mine slowly fades. I stand, not knowing who I am, struggling to think of myself independent of you.

waiting

He always had the feeling he should be doing something. Just what he was supposed to be doing, was never clear. At the moment he was waiting to cross the street. He thought the sky wanted to snow, he could feel it in the air. Three blocks from home, tired, and hungry, he hoped a shower and a cup of coffee would give him some energy. Their were things he needed to do.
The light changed, and he crossed. The kitchen was a mess. If he could get it clean, and keep it that way, maybe he could get back to cooking real food every once in awhile. He would need to do laundry at some point, but he wasn't sure he had enough quarters. And the list could go on, the bedroom, the bathroom, the trash, and so on. But all that was just subsiding, getting by from day to day, like getting up every morning and going to work. That wasn't it. There was something there he lost a long time ago, and he needed to find it, but what was it.
It was early December and there was something in the air, an excitement he found beautiful. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment more than a blink, and looked around. The lines and angles of the building and the streets changed as he passed through them. Some sparrows hopped around the bare branches of a tree and flew away as he walked beneath. Some passed by him on the sidewalk, more on the other side, some in every car that drove by, and more, as he walked by the coffee shop, staring at computer screens and newspapers. All had that something incomprehensible behind their eyes. He tried to comprehend it, but failed. For almost a block he was in the middle of it all. Then he wasn't.
Where he was exactly wasn't clear, until he heard himself remind himself he needed to pay rent. He tried to calculate how much money he had in the bank. A half block ahead, he saw the light turn green. Great, he thought, he would get there just in time for it to turn yellow. He hated that light. It was slow and the traffic was too much to jaywalk. He just wanted to be home.
Block later, he was almost home, out of breath from climbing the hill and worried that maybe he was out of shape. The mail was mostly junk, but he separated one bill and tried to figure when payday was.
The cat was there to greet him but he couldn't pet her because his hands were full. She rubbed against his leg and he tried to find a place to stick the mail. The answering machine was full of junk so he deleted it all. He turned on the computer and felt bad because he'd all but ignored the cat. He gave a few pets and put some food in her bowl, heated up some coffee from that morning and went to the bathroom, which also needed to be cleaned.
The face in the mirror was tired and looked older than he was comfortable with, so he didn't look at it.
The computer booted up, and he sat down in front of it. Something was wrong with the internet connection so he fumbled with that until it fixed itself somehow. He needed to check his e-mail. He needed to check his bank balance. He needed to check something else. What was it? He needed something. He needed coffee. The coffee was still in the microwave. It was still hot and tasted bearable, so he took it and sat down again. He checked to see if his girlfriend was online, but she wasn't. She would be online soon, he thought, she usually was. So he played a round of solitaire while he waited. He lost. He tried again. Eventually he won, but he managed to waste an hour in the process. His girlfriend still wasn't online so he took a shower.
An hour or so later, he lost another game of solitaire. Nothing got done and the cat was looking at him. Once again his brain went through the list of things that needed to be done, but never settled on anything. Why was this so hard? It wasn't as if his life was complicated. All he really needed to do was take care of himself, to get by from day to day. But he couldn't seem to do that very well. What was he missing? Was there something somebody forgot to tell him? Then there was this thing inside telling him there was something he needed to be doing, that his life was slipping by, wasted on petty everyday concerns and chores he never took care of anyway. But what was it? He told himself if he could just get organized, get caught up, maybe he'd have the time to figure it out. But it all seemed like such a waste of time.
His stomach growled, but all there was to eat was peanut butter and bread. That didn't sound good. If the kitchen was cleaner, maybe he could cook something, if he had something to cook. He could buy something, but he new better. He would wait until he got some work done in the kitchen, or else the food would just go bad in the fridge.
Feeling a little sick and light-headed, he went back to the computer. No one was online. All he wanted was for everything to just go away. There was a time when he could sit and listen to music for hours and let his mind go where it would. He missed that. But there always seemed like there was something more important to do. Maybe this time there wasn't. Maybe this was just what he needed, but what to listen to.
It took him too long to decide on something. Nothing seemed to match the mood he was in. He would think of something, but then again maybe not. Soon his eyes were scanning the CDs, back and forth, but not actually seeing them. If he could just focus. That'll do. The music had barely started when he had a better idea. He grabbed another CD and put that on. He sat down on the couch and tried to get comfortable. It took a few tries. The music kicked in. It would work. It was something he hadn't listened to in a long time. He wondered why he hadn't listened to it in a long time. Soon his mind was gone, but not liked he hoped it would. It was wound so tight, had been for so long. It was spinning, and spinning, and wouldn't stop. It was all what he needed to do, what he wanted to do, and all the things he knew would never happen. He wasn't listening anymore. When he realized he'd missed all but the end of one of his favorite songs, he felt sad. He played it again. He sat back, took a deep breath, like taking an arm and shoving everything off a desk, he closed his eyes and listened. But an empty desk doesn't take long to collect clutter. His mind went in and out. Sometimes it was good; other times he had to clear it and start over.
Soon he remembered he was hungry, not that he cared much, but he would have to go to bed soon and an empty stomach often kept him awake. It seemed forever since he got enough sleep, which was nothing but painful when he tried to get up for work. All he ever wanted to do anymore was sleep, but he never seemed to get around to it.
He fixed himself some peanut butter sandwiches and sat in front of the computer again. She wasn't online, so ate and played solitaire.
The next thing he knew, it was too late. He swore at himself because he wouldn't get the extra sleep he wanted. If he went to bed now, he could get enough. He brushed his teeth, then went to make sure the door was locked, it was, then he remembered there was something else he needed to do in the bathroom. He tried not to look at himself in the mirror. What had he come in there for? Oh yeah. He washed his hands and took his contacts out. He checked the door; it was locked. What else needed to be done? No one was online, so he shut the computer down. What else? There had to be something. He shut the light out and went to bed, pulled up the covers. He should go to the bathroom. He did, washed his hands, and went back to bed. Was the door locked? He almost got up to check it, but was sure it was, and forced himself to believe it. Coffee. He needed to set the up the coffee maker so it would start automatically. There was nothing worse than getting up and having to wait for coffee.
Soon he was back in bed. If there was anything left to do, it could wait. He almost fell asleep, but didn't. An hour later he was still awake and getting angry. He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. Neither was very productive, so he got up.
In the darkened living room, the light was filtering through the mini blinds pinkish orange. Then he remembered. It was snowing. He pulled up the blinds. Two or three inches had accumulated already, and it was still going steady, nice big flakes falling silently, landing silently. The snow muffled the few sounds there were to be muffled at that time of night. He turned his chair to the window and sat watching it. It was quiet. So quiet. He decided not to think about it too much, and, for once, he didn't.