Do You Dance?

“Do you look up at the sky

When the full moon’s burning bright

And wonder why the night won’t fade away?

Do you ever feel the rain

Like a thousand drops of pain

And wonder why the sun won’t shine today?

Do you walk?

Do you run?

Or do you fly if you have the chance?

When the music starts to play

Do you turn and walk away

Or do you dance?”

 

 

 

            It was an almost perfect June day for a wedding. With the exception of a grey sky, and the ever so slight chance of rain, the outdoor ceremony went off without a hitch. The clouds themselves seemed merciful, blocking out the late spring sun and allowing for cooler, much more reasonable temperatures. At times like this, it seems better to welcome the threat of a storm than to bake in the glare of a sunny day. With the choice of a quaint garden setting, next to a rippling stream and cobblestone mill, it was easy to see why the bride and her groom had decided on this place to exchange their vows. There was great beauty to be found in the simplicity of this tiny cove and the minimalistic approach made regarding décor. A few flowers on a few fold-out chairs and an arbour splashed by a veil of white were the only accents outside of the natural beauty. There was an elegance in the easiness of it, a charm in the choice to go green.

            When soft symphonies began to flow from an orchestra hidden in technology, all sat ready for the march of the bride and her entourage. As ceremony would have it, the mother comes first. She passed from behind me, her shuffle was silent but her presence immediate. The long black strapless gown was stunning. The short matching jacket danced in the same colour but it was lacy, each interstice woven together sweetly, resembling a web of ebony, close to her frame. The dark set fit her perfectly and she turned every head. Although the reason she chose this dress was clear (it was arresting), I could not discern her rationality to go black. I always thought black was for funerals and that the mother of the bride was “supposed” to match her daughter’s attire (or at least accent it). While the bride was breathtaking in her gown of white, her mother was almost as beautiful for a woman in black.

            I had to ask the bride and groom just who had decided on the colour scheme for the reception.  The newly married couple had the final say. Every table, every chair was garnished in dark midnight purple. It seemed black to me at first. I almost immediately realized how well the mother of the bride blended in. White flowers and clear glass accentuated circular tables iced with shadow. The groom’s party was charcoal grey and the bridesmaids a rich burgundy, the emphasis so much on the amalgam of colour and style. Everything matched up perfectly, a blend of slight winter and harvest moon. Right down to the napkins, there was great attention to detail. I could tell how much thought and preparation had gone into this event. Without exaggeration, it was one of the loveliest weddings I have ever had the privilege of attending.

            She floated out onto the dance floor like a free spirit. Her grace was not only in her moves. You could see her radiance, her happiness. I watched her on occasion throughout the night. She had ditched her jacket so that she could spread her wings to fly. Despite any lack of brightness in the colour choice of her dress, she was emblazoned. I had met her several times before this night, but I never realized just how exempt she had made herself. She was exempt from worrying what anybody thought or said. She didn’t wear that black dress because she was trying to punctuate a colour scheme. She never thought of any message it might convey. She wore that gown because she loved it. She wore it because she wanted to, and nothing else.

“When the radio is on

Do you sing your favourite song

Or do you change the station just to hear the news?

In the small hours of the night

Do you give in to the fright

Or do you let the sound of silent wings free you?

Do you follow your dreams?

Do you follow your bliss?

Do you hold out your heart for the ultimate kiss?

If you live your life in black and white

You can let go of your fear of flight

Remember

Surrender love”

 

            He was wild. He was turbulent. He just didn’t give a damn. He was reckless in his recklessness and as high as the highest high. We met in English 101, the year before I met his cousin. He may have been a string bean, but his delirium seemed to grow more each day.  His vehemence was met only by a surging anger. This rage seemed directed towards everything, but mostly towards himself. He did nothing against his own will. He didn’t care what kind of clothes he should have worn to school. Sometimes panamas were good enough for him. Bathing consistently was for pussies. A clean house a mere challenge, a race in tepid destruction. He refused to do what they said or act as they said, he even claimed not to think as they thought. It was his pleasure to go against the grain, to stand out against the norm. He was rebel and hobo all tied up in one.   

            For all his nonconformity, he was not carefree. Apparently, he just could not find it within himself to dance. The weight of the world was heavy on his shoulders, as frail as they were. In his attempt to repel society, he also repelled people. Friendless and separated from family, alone he stood . A lone wolf, one might say. He dropped out of school as an act of treason and started collecting the perfect solution when avoiding social interaction, guns. His manifesto was loud and clear: fuck the system, fuck the Jones’, fuck the world that they have made this out to be. In a quest to be an individual, his anger turned to hatred and his hatred turned to a couple of years in a mental institution. He had been trying to free himself, to stand up against “the man.” The end result was forced conformity on a ward, conformity to his new label, and most of all, a silent conformity within the cage he had built around himself. Instead of being different, he turned out like every other loser who loses their way, utterly human.

            One day, he just up and disappeared. I never got to see my friend again. His release only seemed to have released his propensity to hide even more. Inside his mind, he pushed away anything that might have saved him from himself. In trying to reject the world around him, he succeeded in rejecting the only things that might have helped him. When you shove away the people in your life, when you strive to stand alone, that’s exactly how you end up. He was left with little but the clothing on his back. While he must have imagined this was the best way for him to be, his actions and choices made him like everyone else. Those who believe they are special enough to demand the world treat them so are fodder for foolishness. He wasn’t special. He wasn’t a rebel. He wasn’t even good at being bad. He just turned out to be crazy.

            I didn’t hear from him when his cousin died. He sent no condolence, made no attempt to express the loss he might have felt. I am not sure that he even gave a shit. He spent most of his adulthood  trying to be unlike the rest of us. He wanted to be dissimilar, to not conform. The world was an awful place and anyone who rested in it was an asshole, controlled by society. He only managed to isolate himself from everything that matters in this life. For well over a decade he wandered this planet on a bender. In trying not to care, he gave up everything one could care about. His attempts at nonconformity led him straight into a hell from which he could not escape. A few years ago came the news. He had taken a rifle and removed himself completely. He said goodbye to no one, for he had no one to say goodbye to. Although his reality may have been simply in his mind, he ended up achieving the very thing he tried so hard to eliminate. In rejecting the world, he had only dejected himself. Unfortunately, he turned out like every other person who decides for once and for all to stop the noise and the pain. He was not unique at all. Just like his cousin, he ended up dead.

“Do you walk?

Do you run?

Or do you fly if you have the chance?

Do you breathe to live

Or do you live to breathe?

Do you feel the rhythm of romance?

Do you laugh until it hurts?

Or do you sing like no-ones listening?

When the music starts to play

Do you turn and walk away

Or do you dance?”

(Do You Dance? Amy Sky 2005)

 

            Its fashionable to try and be one of a kind. The world has become one giant competition to see who can out-martyr themselves. When did being unparalleled become the norm? Does that mean that not conforming has become conforming? Isn’t saying you don’t want attention a secret cry for just that? We accentuate our position. We punctuate the freedom that we think we own. Nonconformity has become an idiom, the hip thing to do as you get older. The property in being off the grid has become in itself an expectation.  Just because you are part of the group that doesn’t like groups doesn’t mean you’re not part of a group.  We have no choice in this life. We fit in the best we can and sometimes that means you have to conform. We do it at work. We do it while driving on the highway. We even do it at Christmastime gathered around a freshly cut tree.

            Conformity is all about influence. Whether internal pressures or external factors, we are constantly shaped by our environment and the people within it. When we change our behaviour, or what we believe in, in order to fit in with a group, we have conformed. We have changed. This change is usually in reaction to both real and imagined forces. We want to fit in, to be liked. We want unity because of our desire to be correct and to find comfort in our social role. Unfortunately for many people, conformity is more of an issue than a solution. Nonconformity can work exactly the same way. People try so hard to be an individual, to avoid societal averages, that they lose themselves in the emptiness of it all. Either way, there is always a strong chance that in our perceived idea about our individuality, however it may be, we lose touch with what it really means to be free.    

            Freedom from conformity is not a state of action or denial, it is a state of living. When you walk out on a dance floor and don’t even stop to consider what others are thinking, that is being free. To invest in the beauty simply for the sake of beauty, that is integrity. When you give a damn, that’s obedience. The only true influence we ever meet is our own, but we are often too afraid to look in the mirror. The opposite of courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even dead fish float upstream. The reward for your conformity is that everyone likes you except you. On the other hand, there are pathways to madness for every man. Many try to rebuke the world, to go it alone, but they forget that failure to comply may just as well jail your freedom. Such things tend to be the enemy of growth. We need to stop trying and just start being. Trip the light fantastic.

My late friend once told me, “I’d rather die than dance.”

Not me.

 

 

 

 

Photos

http://www.homelifesimplified.com.au/the-art-of-non-conformity/

http://transcendentalismvinson.weebly.com/non-conformity.html

Plato's Cave

 Original post
May 20, 2020

 

“What people want to see never has anything to do with the truth.”
(Roberto Bolaño, Chilean writer)

            We can only perceive that which our mind is able to comprehend. What people tend to see has little do to with any truth they may believe they understand. It would appear that you can know and not know at the same time. It would appear that you can hold two opposing views. It would appear that one part of the intellect does battle with another, knowing something to be true when we recognize it isn’t. People rarely see truth, they see constructions. They hold several opinions at the same time. They rebuke others while they do the very same things. What we know is just like shadow, bouncing around Plato’s cave searching for some philosophy. At some point, I would assume aging has somewhat of an effect on our imprisonment. I had always just accepted my reality, never questioning whether it was accurate. Maturing seems to have given me reason to look beyond what I think I see. Getting old has opened my eyes.

 “A group of prisoners are chained inside a cave all their lives, facing a blank wall. The prisoners can only see shadows projected on the wall - of objects passing in front of a fire behind them. They give names to these shadows. And because the prisoner’s have known or seen nothing else in life, these shadows become their reality.” (Radhika Mia, Indian writer)

             Plato’s cave, or the Allegory of the Cave, first appeared in the Greek philosopher’s masterpiece Republic (375 BCE). The work is written as a dialogue between Plato’s brother Glaucon and his mentor Socrates, who narrates. Within his  hypothesis, the cave “represents people who believe that knowledge comes from what we see and hear in the world.” Any evidence we know comes from “experiment and observation rather than theory.”  Plato argues that “believers of empirical knowledge are trapped in a ‘cave’ of misunderstanding.” Through this symbolism, Plato was able to address “the effect of education (παιδεία) and the lack of it on our nature.” Anything that corrupts our belief system, and the very ideas we have regarding our reality, we seek to purge from that which we have fabricated. This state of distortion, regardless, we believe to be the truth. It is a false representation.

            In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato “distinguishes between people who mistake sensory knowledge for the truth and people who really do see the truth.” In the cave, three prisoners are bound in chains, only able to face forward. A wall of stone is their lifelong view. They have spent their entire existence in this position. None have been able to escape so they have never seen beyond their reality. A fire rages behind them, casting shadows upon the wall before them. What they see is their only truth; a shadow of the real truth. In time, the shadows become familiar. They name each one. These apparitions become their entire world, they have never known anything else. One of the prisoners manages to escape. He is quite lost at the onset. He does not recognize the world around him. He adjusts. He begins to embrace the new reality. The shadows all lied to him. His former life turned out to be rather useless.

            Plato asserted that “knowledge gained through the senses is no more than opinion and that, in order to have real knowledge, we must gain it through philosophical reasoning.” Our emancipation allows us to think for ourselves. Recognizing that our former view of reality is incorrect and invalid, we begin to see a different view. This intellectual journey is necessary if one is to discover true meaning. Some remain. Some refuse to face their shadows. They hold on tight to whatever falsehood they can. We cling to what we think we know. Rather than an enlightened position, many would rest in their manufactured accuracy. They are held in their very own prison, a prison from which they could escape but do not.

 “On the walls of the cave, only the shadows are the truth”
(Republic: The Allegory of the Cave, Plato 375 BCE)

             For Plato, the issue rested in human perception. The captive who escapes the cave is like a philosopher who has been confined by their intellect. Freedom from one’s chains can lead to freedom from one’s erroneous reasoning. There are those who refuse to see the light. Some do not wish to be free. They do not know of the better life and they care not to see it. We are all bound by our senses. The impressions can be lasting, often unending. We must learn how to turn ourselves in a new direction and in so doing change our interpretations. We struggle against the human condition, while most manifest the same. They seem unable to free themselves from a “phenomenal state,” just like those prisoners in that cave were not able to escape from the chains. Freedom in thinking may result in facing a reality we do not understand. In the Republic, the escapee returns to that cave to share his circumstance and free the others from their burden. Those prisoners do not see things that way. They do not believe a word he says and even threaten to kill him if he sets them free. Not everyone wishes to escape from their bondage. Some people cannot face the truth. Not ever.

 “We are finally living in Plato's cave, if we consider how those who were imprisoned within the cave - who could do nothing but watch those shadows passing on the back wall - were convinced that those shadows were their one and only reality. I see a profound similarity to all this in the epoch we’re now living in. We no longer live simply through images: we live through images that don’t even exist, which are the result not of physical projection but of pure virtuality.” (Jose Saramago, Portuguese writer)

             I am convinced that getting older should lead us to an appreciation of clear thinking and enable us to find revelation through study and the search for our own truth. It appears that people over 50 are much more reflective than during their youthful state. Age, if you allow it, may offer itself as a window rather than a wall. The more we mature, the more we offer ourselves to the truth. Still, some refuse to go that way. They are comfortable in their blind ambition. Often, I compare Plato’s position with growing old in general. Once you cross the line, I believe the universe will be much more friendly. Hindsight occurs when one learns to walk away. The idea behind Plato’s cave has its merit. Enlightenment will leave the cave behind you and may find you thinking for yourself. It can implore us to look beyond what we think we see, what our senses tell us we see, and reveal what is really there, waiting.

Some people cannot see truth because they have created their own.

 

Photo

 https://www.kidpid.com.doc/platos-allegory-of-the-cave/

 

 

 

Sources

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave

 https://www.philosophyzer.com/the-allegory-of-the-cave-by-plato-summary-and-meaning/

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave

 https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm

 https://web.stanford.edu/class/ihum40/cave.pdf

 https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/hide-and-seek/201906/platos-allegory-the-cave

 https://medium.com/@radhika.perrot/what-i-learned-about-the-human-condition-from-platos-cave-50e18d8e2d77

 

Breathe in, Breathe out

Originally posted
March 17, 2015
 

 

"I always think tomorrow will be better

That there will come a day when I arrive

That the list of everything I've got to do

Will be a page of empty lines

I apologize

To myself for living in the future

And letting what’s ahead get in the way

Because if happiness is always down the road

Then I'm missing it today

 

  

Breathe in, Breathe out
Slow down, slow down
Everybody look around
Life is where we are now
so Breathe in, Breathe out"
(Breathe In Breathe Out, The Afters 2013)

            We are the things we know. We are every book that we have ever read and every song that we have sung. We are our favourite television program and the movie we just saw on the weekend. All the people that we have met and each conversation we have had are part of our makeup. What you gather from these things becomes a portion of who you are. You are the smell of fall in the air and the snowflake falling softly to the ground. You are the sun you see and the stars that shine and the breaking dawn. You are what you eat and you are what you speak. You are the words that are spoken to you. You are your family and your friends, your mother and your father and your spouse. You are the stranger you gave change to on the street and the child you tuck into bed at night. You are what you think and feel and reject. You are a collection, the sum of everything you have experienced. You are what you acknowledge and what you have learned. You are the totality of all things that have met you in this life.
            It's no wonder people seem to be so screwed up. There appears to be more violence, apathy and disregard than I can ever remember. Perhaps the rise in population explains it. On some statistical level, there just seems to be more chaos. There are just far too many people in this world where we live. It is hard to find your way when you are constantly battling the masses for air. All the hate, all the anger, all the senseless selfish existing we do, they are part of us as well. We are a mixture, an ever-evolving, ever-growing mass of this and that. When we hurt, we are. When we love, we are. Every second, every moment, from the time you wake in the morning to the last flicker as you fade to rest, each contact, every dream makes up more of you. The hopeless, the priceless, the pretty and the sour, these are the things that prove we are alive.
            I have learned to pay attention to the things that cross my path on a daily basis. I am aware of where I am, who I meet each day and any interaction I may have with someone else. I am all the good and all the bad and all the ugly. Some may claim I am awake, or enlightened, or whatever, but the truth is I just don't want to miss a thing. I refuse to allow a moment to pass me by without at least trying to catch it. I am constantly watching and observing this life. This transformation from a once dull bulb into something slightly brighter came at quite a cost. I evolved because I adapted. The amalgam of all my experience turned me into something else, someone else. The milestones from our lives tend to build into higher walls. Each supporting the other until we feel that we are safe. We are the sum of our benchmarks, not to note them, but to live better because of them. To find beauty in the ugliness, peace in the chaos and God in all the hate is the only way I have learned to have some semblance of happiness. I am convinced, despite all evidence to the contrary, that life is beautiful. 
 

"A father's love

A wedding dance

New Year's dreams

A toast with friends

A soldier coming home from war

The faith the hope of so much more

A brand new life, a mother's prayer

Shooting stars, ocean air

A lover's kiss, and hard goodbyes

Fireworks, Christmas lights

These are things that make us feel alive

These are the times that make us realize

Life is beautiful"

(Life is Beautiful, The Afters 2013)

 
            I had always loved my Mother deeply, but I had never taken the chance to tell her in good time. It took her almost dying to open my eyes. Long before the breast cancer and that fatal heart attack, we almost lost her back in the mid 1980s. She herself talked about the shadowy Reaper who stood in the doorway of her ICU room. When she finally was able to return home, my notions of her began to change. I suppose that the idea of losing her was a catalyst for me to take notice. We spent hours on the phone talking, almost daily. We would sit and play cribbage on a hot summer afternoon. We laughed, we cried, then we laughed right from the start again.  Although we had always been close, a friendship formed. It was unique. It was special. It was the only way I could get past the idea of eventually losing her for good. I pulled her closer, I made an investment. I took the time to take her to Costco or made daytrips just to see her face. With every encounter over the last years leading up to her death, I catalogued my Mother.
            It was important for me to have no regrets when it came to my Mom. The same instinct drove me regarding my Father. Both their stories are significant to me. They will always be part of this wonderful universe and I was privileged to share some of their time here  with them. I try to view the world around me in the same manner. I don't just see something, I look at it. This art of observation would not have been had I not known my Mother. It was through the fear of losing her that I discovered  the joy of seeing in the now. At the end of every day, I still think of her. Sometimes I use the city lights to look upon her face, framed for goodnight. Her challenges, her death taught me so much, but only because I was listening. One of the most important milestones of my life was realizing that I can see God the very same way. I suppose one might say that when one door flew open, all the windows did too!

"Light up the sky

You light up the sky to show me

You are with me

I can't deny

No I can't deny that You are right here with me

You've opened my eyes

So I can see You all around me

Light up the sky

You light up the sky to show me

That You are with me"

(Light Up the Sky, The Afters 2010)

                                                                       
            I have not failed to notice my sensitivities. I have moments of such bliss that I am frozen in place. Through years of trial and error, I have finally reached a plateau where I know that everything will be okay in the long run. I will be okay, whatever comes. Life used to be a lonely thing for me, an ache that never went away. These days, I am overflowing. It is everywhere. It is the moon, the dust and the spider, twirling and spinning in a cosmic display. We are all a part of this vast unknowable, also tumbling around but only by chance. When I stop myself and I focus, I can feel the world alive around me. My eyes have been opened. All the things that I had been looking for were right here with me all along. I started to pay attention to the people in my life, then I started to pay attention to this life. Like rapids, harsh and strong and flowing, one moved into another until the entire spectrum of it all found me. At dead centre, no matter how I didn't want to see, I discovered those things most Holy. I recognized that God is the underlying consciousness that binds all reality. I am not a Deist, but I have come to understand that God speaks to us through the things we know. It is not only through pages, or voices from up high. The words are mostly silent so you must train yourself to hear them. You must train yourself to listen.
           Every person on this planet, every rock, all the cosmos are but a collective, a forward moving mass of energy, matter and darkness. We are one, I suppose. This is why it is so important to experience as much as you can while you can. We need to stop and take the time. It is only how we love that really matters. Life is fleeting and I for one don't want to miss a thing. Every tear I cry, every moment of laughter is a tiny part of something greater than what we can know. Every person's story, their mere existence, makes them unique and special, no matter how the pages read. From a tiny fly on the window pane to the death of my parents, all things ebb and flow into each other. Each moment of the pain, all of the splendour blend together at the heart of it all. Every moment, every second of existence cries out that there is more. There is more to find in moments like this. Being aware of the world around you is an open door to the universe. There is no limit to what you might uncover. If God speaks to us through the things we know, then He is part of the things we know. He is waiting to be discovered, to show you that you don't need permission to be happy. You are supposed to have love and to be free. It's okay to make mistakes. Its okay to get angry, its okay to fight. You are allowed to hurt, to think and to scream. Stop and smell the roses or cry yourself to sleep, but there is no need for us to be downtrodden. This universe flows through us. Even God is within. There need be no fear, no cause; there is so much more to this world than what we know. Take it all in. You can take it fast or you can take it slow, but either way life is a beautiful ride.

"Here we are on top of the stars

Never thought we'd ever get this far

We live for moments like this

We come alive in moments like this

Here we are this is the time

Like a dream coming to life

We live for moments like these

We come alive in moments like these"

(Moments Like This, The Afters 2013)

 
             I think the only thing that got me through the death of my Mother I had already set in place years before. I made an effort to be not only a good son but also a friend and confidant. I spent time with her. I made an investment. You could argue that her cancer scare the year before her death drove my commitment, but I had been applying myself for years to this pleasure. The last moments I spent with her are bittersweet in my mind. The memory of her lifeless form on that cold table continues to haunt me when I let it. She is a finite story only she can write and a mixing of sadness and joy at the thought of her. The words "I miss you" cannot convey the pain I must hold deep inside. I could not bear it any other way. I have to tell myself how lucky I was. I remind myself how much less this life would have been without her and how beautiful she made my way. When I need her, when the emptiness comes for me, I remember. For a moment, we were here together.
 

 
"We can't own it
We just get to hold it for a while.
This Life.
We can't keep it
Or save it for another time.
This Life.
 
What we give is all we have.
How we love is what will last.
And this hope we know will carry us through
This life."
(This Life, The Afters 2014)

 

 
 
 

Mare's Nest

Originally posted
March 7, 2012

"But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things - and the things that are not - to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him."

(1 Corinthians 1:27-29, NIV)

            The first rule of existence should be, "Keep it simple, stupid." Despite how complicated life is, for me, these are words to live by. I wasn't always so willing to embrace the unconventional idea that less is more. I do not speak only of the material world and those things which we may gain from it. There are greater areas of our lives that require an uncompounded approach. As Leonardo Da Vinci said, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." 

            The greatest tool for lifting the burden of such complications is to focus on simple things; those things which bring the most joy and meaning. When we simplify, we eliminate those elements which are unnecessary, allowing the necessary to have a voice. We must chip away, through the process of elimination, as the sculptor carves the stone before him, piece by piece. The way to a life of simplicity is in learning to let go.           
            The complex nature of life can be subjugated through abandoning the needless wants of life. When we reduce the clutter, the chaos reduces itself. Simplicity will come when what you want and what you need are one and the same. At base, life is very simple, but we make it complicated. We hold to ownership and belief, trying so hard to get more. Instead of getting more, we should be wanting less.
            While it is important to rid ourselves of the more physical mare's nest, we must also rid ourselves of spiritual complications. We must free ourselves of old trappings and ideologies, allowing the true nature of the Divine to shape us. We must rid our center of the daily grind, ever striving for silence and balance. As Socrates warned, "Beware the barrenness of a busy life."
            We must be content with what we have. We must celebrate the way things are. When you see you have everything, then you want for nothing. Truth be told, there are many more things which we do not want. When we stop to recognize all we do have, we reduce to the simplest terms, and return to the base ideas formed in childhood. The simplest approach is usually the most fruitful.

“Simply the thing that I am shall make me live.”

 (All's Well That Ends Well, William Shakespeare 1604-05)

            It was complete chaos. My mind, my body and my spirit all screamed of disrepute. I was confounded to sanity, whatever that may be. I could not find myself, all dazed to the voices and flashes and fury of a mind outside itself. I do not know if I was crazy, or going that way quickly, but for the first time in my life, I was scared by what might happen. I felt as if I was dying inside.

            In the fall of 1995, I just about went out of my mind. Not only was I still grieving the loss of my partner, battling the after-effects of an addiction to Demerol and Morphine, and trying to find my way, untreated for Bi-polar disorder, but a greater battle raged within me. It was for my very soul. In an almost literal manner, I felt like Faust. His battle with temptation, knowledge and the devil was becoming my daily lot in life. I was deep in study, trying my best to understand the religion of my parents and why it seemed to shun me. If Jesus didn't want me, then I was left no other choice. I went in looking for answers and ended up in torment when I found some. The truth crept in and made me quite mad.
            It was a difficult thing for me to let go of Jesus. Since childhood, His presence and teaching made up the entire gamut of my ideas on God. Even when I studied theological paradoxes and alternate history back before Doug died, I still managed to maintain a strong affinity for the Christian way of thinking. When I reluctantly began thinking for myself, absorbing concepts and ideologies from outside my faith structure, I began to fall apart. I couldn't handle the truth.
            Through the works of Karen Armstrong to John Dominic Crossan, I started to understand outside my conditioned intellectual and spiritual position. The writing of Tom Harpur, Anthony De Mello and even philosophers like Plato and Socrates, slowly reshaped my thinking and shed an unwanted light on the corrupted history apparent in God's relationship to humanity. As my relationship with what I had once considered infallible turned to a complicated weave of lies, dogma and bias, I recognized that not all was as it had appeared to be. I felt as if the Spirit within me had exited, leaving me to war with both God and the devil.
            The ways of man, his thinking and rebellion against the Holy, had always been tools of this devil in my judgment. God, throughout Scripture, warns us of the foolishness gained in the world. When these "heretical" and "evil" notions became part of me, I wondered whether Satan had gained a stronger foothold in my sensibilities. Having been cast to the pit for my sexual make-up, and sinful nature, it mattered little to me if the heat was turned up. As the flames of my damnation licked at my heels, I started to understand more fully. I wanted to know why and I demanded from myself surrender to whatever I should find myself facing in the end. I never even considered I would have to turn away from Christianity altogether. Such turmoil caused a great schism and drove me deeper into a place of darkness in my mind.
            It was as if a virus had been released into my system, attacking almost everything I had been taught to believe and embrace. With reluctant dissension, I allowed it to run rampant, corrupting my faith and its foundations. I experienced a moral and spiritual collapse, all the while the religious wisdom I had always been exposed to started to reform into a new truth, a new way of thinking. I realized the chaos of this conversion could only be quelled in letting go of all that had once been for me. Rather than balancing on an intellectual and spiritual fence, I had to make up my mind and jump to one side or the other. I could not serve two masters. For the first time in my Christian life, I questioned. I questioned God, I questioned Scripture and, without exemption, I questioned the Christ. I was swallowed whole by guilt and shame.
            There was no other way for me. I was trapped in a catch-22. It had been made clear to me, through Scripture and the Church, that God did not want me as I was. Even though I had surrendered previously to the idea of grand reshaping in order to have righteousness before Jesus, there was little questioning that I was not welcome in this kingdom of God. I had to let it go.
            This was not an easy thing for me to do. I consistently rebuked myself and this new positioning. I felt as if I had flung myself into the pit, all the time forgetting I had already been cast there by God Himself. I had to start from the beginning all over again. As if reborn, I focused on simple ways and the universal truths held by all religions. With the help of my Minster, Reverend Derek Shelley, I found a different door to knock upon. A different path to follow. I had to recognize the commentary for what it was and the message for what it is. I had to be deprogrammed in order to survive God.

"If you love something, set it free; if it comes back it's yours, if it doesn't, it never was." 

(Richard Bach, American Writer)

Little Monster

original post appeared
July 9th, 2019

          Mid-winter 1957 brought heavy precipitation to the Wingham area. Extending south, well past the tree line and down into Southern Ontario, the cold of a Canadian reality covered the fields and roads with proverbial blankets of snow. At 18 years of age, Ivan found himself defying the season and heading out into the storm. He had prepared the day ahead for his journey, filling the gas tank and checking the engine in order to avoid any complications along the way. His black Volkswagen Beetle had made the trip to Toronto several times before. He left his parents’ farm, believing the white curtain of  falling snow had dissipated, at least long enough to make a good start.

            His sister Joyce lived in the metropolitan Toronto area with her new family. Although the travelling might not have been as favorable as he would have liked it to be, he knew the way and that would have to do. He left Wingham behind him and travelled south on Country Road 86, cutting east on County Road 178 towards Newmarket, Markham and eventually the big city. Just west of Orangeville, it began to snow again. With country music on the radio and condensation forming on the rounds of the windows, he drove on. It was a heavy storm and he was glad that he did not have to be walking in it. He faced the roar not knowing what was to come. 

            It wasn’t bravery, or even stupidity, that made him stop for two hitchhikers. With frozen thumbs begging for comfort, they lingered on the side of the road. He knew what it was like to be abandoned to this kind of nature, standing while praying that a ride might come along. His compassion had him pull over and welcome them into reprieve. They looked like regular Joes, and seemed friendly as they thawed in the heat of a German-built sanctuary. Ivan thought to himself how odd it was for a pair of men to be out in this weather. From the looks of them, they were ill prepared for a blizzard. 

            North Bay is a lovely place to visit, but I wouldn't want to be kidnapped and forcibly taken there, no matter the season. If the car had not run out of gas, there is no telling what might have happened. The distance north, and banishment to the back seat, made for uneasy travelling. Little was said as they took control and forced him down into the rear of the vehicle. The black vessel became a prison, and a trip to Toronto turned into a journey into fear. In North Bay, just before the attendant pumped gas into the car, Ivan managed to escape and find a telephone at the adjacent garage. Before the days of 911, explaining what had happened seemed to take as long as the ordeal. Eventually, the police arrived and held both culprits to determine what had occurred.  

            A modern tale might find both men imprisoned for their actions, but in the 1950s, the cops let them both go without so much as a ticket. If the police had their way, they would have charged Ivan with picking up hitchhikers. The end of the misadventure found him stranded in a strange city, with an empty tank of gas and freedom, sweet freedom. Any money he had brought with him was in the hands of his attackers, with no one to help him get it back. A call home and a $15.00 cash transfer managed to fill that tank of gas and return him to Wingham. Despite the inaction of the police officers, the Wingham Advanced Times reported “local man kidnapped.”

My Dad never picked up a hitchhiker again.

It was a defensive fear.

            Monique was cute at first, and her long black hair and French appearance only added to the illusion. We became fast friends and decided to find a place where we could live together. Even though we had only just met, we took rooms in the same house, along with three other students. Radio Broadcasting seems to attract the strangest and most unique of personalities into the fold. As a first-year student of the art, I too was burdened with distinctive qualities, but I tried desperately to hide them. Five roommates got along well enough and familiarity eventually led to party mania. I was always good at throwing a wild shindig. Food fights, Pictionary on the walls and blind hedonism always made for the most thrilling of events. The next day, it was hard enough to remember the night before without having to attend a class on Radio Programming or Advertising 101.

            In trying to appease the second-year students, and kiss some major ass, Monique and I decided to have a gathering for all the Radio scholars. The evening would have been well worth a ticket to see. From turning my then cat Opus into an alcoholic, a visit by the police and a 13-foot Opus the penguin, from Bloom County, drawn to perfection across my bedroom wall, it was historic in its debauchery. Come Monday morning, it was not a challenge to find someone still recovering from Thursday night. By the lunch hour, it was clear our plan had worked. It’s interesting how puke and unlimited free weed can bring a people together. The new bond was very visible and it seemed that everything was right with the world. Just when you start to tell yourself that all is well, something always comes along to define how wrong you had been all along. Often, it proves you a fool.

            I had no idea Monique had a crush on me. I hardly noticed her, the consequence of a homosexual heart. If I had known her motive, I may have seen things a little clearer. I might well have questioned her claims before acting on her word. Apparently, sometime after the police left on Saturday night, Monique and Tim, a second-year student, wandered downstairs for a little hanky panky. The next time I saw her that Monday, she took me aside and accused Tim of sexual assault. “He raped me,” was her greatest condemnation. With no reason to doubt her, I approached the head first-year instructor, Ray Wilmot, and shared Monique’s confession. Of course, procedure would need to be followed. He would have to talk to Monique, determine the severity of the event, and contact the police if so warranted. I was content that I had done my duty as both a friend and citizen. No means no, pal!!

            Come Tuesday morning, the whole world had shifted overnight. When the police were to be called, she changed her story completely, defending the same man she had accused only a day earlier. She claimed that I had read into the entire situation and went forward without her permission. The police would not need to be called because no rape had occurred. Although I later spoke to Tim and apologized, no other mention of the occurrence was heard over the entire time I attended Fanshawe College. He understood I had been misled. I just wish I had recognized it while it happened.

I have made it my mission in life to never be fooled like that again.

It’s an offensive fear.

            I’m no longer a fan of the bar scene. I’m not entirely sure, but I think that may have something to do with my sexual orientation. I spent so much of my youth jumping from one saloon to another that I burned out years ago. I spent much of my academic life, after high school, sitting in a bar with a few buddies or crashing at friend’s place after a night of dancing with tequila. In my day, Joe Kool’s was the place to be on a Thursday night. Located at the corner of Richmond St. and Central Avenue in London, Ontario, for more than 30 years it has held its place in the heart of Richmond Row. The Row consists of bars, high end clothing stores and restaurants, all up and down Richmond St. Students with Daddy’s Gold card keep this area alive. Across from Joe’s Place is Victoria Park, and just beyond the park on Wellington Road lies City Hall and Centennial Hall. Victoria Park is, for the most part, square. It might even be more rectangular if I really stop to think about it. Every Christmas season, hundreds of motorists clamor in a pseudo-circle to catch a glimpse of the season set to lights. The park becomes a winter wonderland. In the summer, the park used to house male prostitutes prowling all the cars as they drove around and around and around. A constant call of the wild. Late into the night, gay men cruised this area looking for casual sex. Occasionally, you would hear that someone ventured into the park by night and got bashed.

            I never thought it was a good idea to have a gay cruising park mere feet from the most testosterone-driven hangouts in the city. The university football team, known as the Western Mustangs, frequented the area and especially Joe Kool’s. I never understood placing one’s own safety after getting laid. I even believed that if you got caught doing your thing by some drunken hoodlums, then you deserved everything you got. Gay people are just like straight people that way. Some can be so stupid. I’ve had my share of casual encounters, but never once spread-eagle on a park bench. I certainly would never consider a place so conspicuous and close to an obvious threat to my safety. When my first partner worked next door to Joe Kool’s, at the variety store, we would sit in the front window and count how often a car would circle the park. Almost every night you could spot someone trying their best to release their beast. As a closeted gay man, at the time, it made no sense to deny yourself to everyone, then strut about a public park looking for someone to have sex with you. It was all mostly gross, if the truth be told.   

            We had finished up our night on the town and the four of us spilled out of Kool’s and onto the pavement. You could hear the screaming right away. High-pitched roars rang across the street from the monument located in the middle of the park. Being drunk only helped to convince us that a woman was in trouble. We scurried against the traffic light and, like superhero wannabes, ran straight into a scene I have never been able to put out of my mind. The kid was so skinny and frail, and there was no question of the damage being done to him. He just laid there bleeding, his pants ripped, torn down to his ankles and his underwear barely holding by a thread. Three young men, not yet in their 20s, stood hammering their victim with physical and verbal assaults. The boy just kept screaming for someone to help him. When my friends realized that a faggot, rather than a woman, was in peril, they turned around and walked away. I did not hesitate, not even when they abandoned me.

            Sometimes you have to do what you have to do. I said that to myself when I laid out the leader with a kick to the balls. His friends disappeared faster than my foot. When he hit the ground, I hit him. I kept bashing his face like he had been doing to this child. Over and over, I kept asking him how he liked it. I couldn’t stop myself, some rage within me proceeded to kick the shit out of him. Eventually, he withered back into the hole he crawled out of. When the police got there, then the ambulance, the offenders were all gone. They made their escape and I heard nothing of their capture or incarceration. As far as the police were concerned, I had simply scared the three suspects away. As they loaded that poor kid onto the ambulance, he waved at me through all his blood and tears. I would save him again in a heartbeat.

It often takes a fiend to defeat a fiend.

It can be a projective fear.

          In the early 1990s, I attended Lambton College in Sarnia, Ontario. My first partner and I both excelled in the Media Fundamentals course we studied. In fact, I was so advanced beyond the other students that the Student Association hired me to oversee forms of media which had been greatly ignored. I was put in charge of any promotional aspect, all print, all radio and some television (but to a lesser degree). During my incarceration, I became close friends with the receptionist in our office. Tammy McBean was very average in appearance but came across as a lovely person. She, for all intents and purposes, was a good friend and we grew even closer as the years passed. She was in love with my then-partner Doug. At this time, Doug and I were nowhere near out of the closet. We hid it. We hid it by silence. We hide it by lies. It was a different world back then and we adapted to survive. Sometimes at the expense of others, often at the expense of ourselves.

          I let Tammy believe she had a chance with Doug. He just carried on as he always did. She was ruthless in her pursuit. He was ambivalent, and not for the reason she always thought. She just assumed that Doug did not wish to engage with her due to her appearance but this was not the case. Both he and I used her proclivity to cover our truth. I set it up and he would entertain her. Her hormones must have blinded her because in hindsight, things would not have  been that hard to imagine. I still can’t suppose how no one, not one person figured it out. Doug and I were inseparable, we did everything together. We lived together for almost six years but did not have six friends we could be ourselves with. We were popular and very social but in the most secret of ways. Not one of the people from that life, including our families, really had a clue. Eventually, we relocated to Toronto and began a new life. We said our goodbyes and we went on with it. In under a year, Doug was dead. A victim to gravity. It was a large funeral.

          I had not seen Tammy in well over a year. Here she sat beside me as they filled in his grave with rocks and dirt and things. I had said my piece and joined her as she waited in my car. Like a fool, my guilt revealed me. I told her the entire truth, as the bulldozer dumped another load of earth onto what was left of my partner. She fucking lost it on me. She tore me a new one. I just sat there while she flagellated all over me. I have reconsidered my approach on that day. I wish I had been different, different enough to keep my mouth shut and my alliances intact. I did not. My grief refused to allow me to deny him. I told every single person who would listen. Unfortunately, Tammy was heartbroken by my confession. She made it clear that she never wanted to see my lying face ever again. I suppose I deserved it. It’s easy to condemn yourself, especially through the eyes of another. Perhaps it was a mean thing to do to her but we did the best that we could given what we had to work with.

          Coming out was hell for me. Not only was I overwhelmed with grief towards Doug but I had to worry about what each person would say and do with my revelation. I didn’t care if they didn’t like it. I am still convinced our homosexuality was one of the main reasons behind his death. There was no way I would give that approach power, not ever again. I told all my friends, I told my parents, I told Doug’s parents too. Outside of my immediate family, the news did not lie well with others. From Doug’s Dad, to Tammy, to all my media associates, I was spurned for the privilege of being me. Yes, I had to mislead them but in the end, I stand vindicated by the decision. I can only imagine what might have been if we had come out to them before he died. Doug’s body was still frozen when the condemnation started. If they all dismissed me so easily after Doug’s death I can only imagine  the chaos coming clean would have caused. I have not seen Tammy McBean since that day in the cemetery. Almost a quarter of a century has passed and I know nothing of what became of her. She could be dead and long gone for all I know. Still, I remain guilty with regret. I wish the world had been different so that Doug and I could have been different. This was not the case.

Sometimes you are the monster.

It’s a deflective fear.

          People come and go from our lives like rapid fire. Some leave behind good things, things more positive and joyful. Others trash the place, bringing nothing but gladness when they finally do depart. Some people are saints, most people are monsters, to one degree or another. Sometimes we don't recognize the monster until its too late. Monsters come in all shapes and sizes and they often look just like anyone else would. It’s hard to tell a monster until they reveal their fangs. It is often too late to change course when someone else is driving. Some times the monster we encounter has been with us since the start. Monsters tend to set the pace. Once they bite us, we forever remain weary and we can never trust them again. It is our intention to never make the same mistake again. We may even turn into the very beast we were trying to avoid. It can be a challenge to experience a negative person and not come face to face with your own demons. Sometimes they go, sometimes you have to learn to live with it. We attempt to put all our fears right out of our minds but you never forget. Still, we have a responsibility to treat the people who come into our lives with civility and respect, not to use them without any consideration whatsoever. Just because someone is a stranger, or oblivious to your ways, does not automatically make it okay for you to devour them. Sometimes, it is those little monsters that will leave you no choice. It makes me wonder if you can ever really trust anyone. Beware, they will come for you. They are everywhere, in every person, in every situation. When I look, all I see are monsters.

Once Upon a Time

 posted August 24, 2010

Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Cuzzo, a maiden girl was born to an evil Witch and an Ogre named Zeem. The witch and the ogre had made a pact that the child they would conceive together would one day rule their Kingdom, maintaining the magic which kept them alive. They placed a curse upon their daughter that any hatred or anger or fear she knew would fuel the darkness of the land and empower the evil that dwelled within. Cuzzo was a barren land without beauty or sunshine. The horrid nature of the land fed the witch’s magic and endowed Zeem with wondrous strength and power no man could withstand. Without the gloom and bitterness of Cuzzo neither of the unscrupulous pair would retain their abilities. The magic they possessed kept them young and capable, and both would fade into nothing should the desolation and emptiness of the land transform in any way. The maiden girl was born on a full blood moon in the month of Second Last and named Scorpia, for the sign under which she came into the world. In order to ensure the misery of their child and the wickedness of their country, they locked Scorpia in a tower and refused to let her out. She could not play with other children and she could not roam freely throughout her homeland. For years, they tortured and abused her, hoping that her anger and hatred would grow and transform her into a Demon Queen. Scorpia was a lovely young princess, not rigid and warped like the creatures which she had the unfortunate fate of calling parents. No matter what happened to her, she always picked herself up with dignity and carried on. She knew if she gave in to the darkness and evil of the land, she would never be freed from her captors and would be locked away in the tower forever. On the night of her 16th birthday she lowered herself from the tower above on the strings of 1000 spider webs, which she spun together with beams of hope and joy. As she fled into the Forest of New Beginnings, a prince, who had been watching the tower for days, rode up on his steed and rescued the damsel from the clutches of that wicked witch and her ogre named Zeem. Although she did not need his help to escape, the princess was captured by the truest of all magic, Love. Believing she was free from the agony she had known all her life, Scorpia and Prince Edmund married and began a family. The gods had smiled on them for they bore 12 children. Because of that which each one had shone into her life, she named them for the blessing each had brought to her. First came Love, then Chivalry. Radiance followed Justice while the twins Hope and Mercy arrived before Peace. Joy was an obvious choice but Patience made sense of the unsurprising decision. Finally, Scorpia had the only child which for a name she could not muster. It took quite a long spell for her to figure on the name of this wonderful gift, so she called her Time, not knowing she did not have much left herself. The last two children, again twins, they named Hello and Goodbye. As the clock turned and they knew, without magic, the distance from then to now was but a moment and all would soon come to an end. Without Scorpia, the land of Cuzzo was almost certainly doomed. In haste, the witch and the ogre bore two sons, Envy and Greed, both demons from the fiercest reaches of the Desert of Berjo. Their corrupted nature and thirst for power fed the Kingdom of Cuzzo for many, many years. No one even noticed that Scorpia had not returned and she was forgotten to lore and memory. Like all devils, the two caused rebellion and left the Kingdom, which then faded away into dust. They only returned to steal the crowns of that most wicked of witches and her ogre named Zeem, both now mere words on the pages of a story. 

Sheʾōl

            

            I couldn't take it anymore. The screaming, the fighting, it was more than I could handle. I left the same way that I always fought back. I was loud, I was furious and so was the message that I did not fail to convey. I was so angry I wanted to hit someone, to hurt someone, it wouldn't matter who it was and whether they deserved it or not. I brutally slammed the front door shut behind me, ran down the front steps and I didn't even turn around, not once. I considered not going, but the rage within me had to be withdrawn. I needed to be withdrawn. The only way to effectively do so was to remove myself from the situation and flee the scene. I left our row house in the dust and sprinted towards the subway station on the next corner. I could ride it all day if need be. I could have space and time alone. Hate seethed within me as I quickened my pace towards freedom. Instant gratification would not be quick enough. I cursed under my breath. I knew it was time that I went for a ride as far away as I could possibly get. I knew there was no other way to escape what I was feeling.

            One city block stood in the way of my emancipation. I covered the distance in leaps and bounds. I thundered down the entrance way, through the turnstile and onto the platform meant for waiting. I remained agitated, panicky and quite bemused. This was not the first time we had come to blows. This was not the first time I walked out, ran out any exit seeking relief. I swore I would not return. This was not the first time I had made myself such a promise. This was not the only time I said it was so. I lingered, pacing, praying that the train would soon arrive. As I pondered my fate, as I recognized my disposition, I even considered tossing myself on the tracks below. I questioned if the silence would ever be worth the cost. Would the gain be worth the loss? I was breathless and a moment seemed to take forever. I leaned over the track course and peered down the tunnel, spying for a single bright light that would carry me away from it all. I tried as I may to hold to some hope in my departure but it was impossible for me to find peace when my mind was at war. I couldn't think straight, I could barely form a rational thought. I heard it coming from around the bend.

            The platform was almost empty when I arrived. Only a handful of people came forward at the sound of the beast. I looked down, glaring at the subway tracks. I meant to jump. Suddenly, like a red and steel rocket, the train pulled into the station, came to its stop and rested. I had chickened out once again. The doors opened with their normal noise but with little commotion. This time was apparently the best time to take a ride alone. A few rushed commuters came and went, a few remained seated, and I shuffled aboard. The door call sounded, the doors shut and I grabbed a support rail as the metal mole moved deep into the next tunnel. The car was almost empty. Two Asian girls sat up near the door to the next cab, both were lost to their smartphones, oblivious to the world around them. An elderly African American gentleman sat almost dead middle. He glanced at me when I started to move to the back of the car. I took my place in private, huddled against a window in the very last seat to be found. I would have crawled under it if not for the space and the fear of being tossed off the metro. The next stop bid farewell to the old man, and two stops more rid me of those silly girls. I found myself alone, staring at the walls of the tunnel system as they passed at twenty miles per hour. One stop after another and the space remained vacuous. Even my rage dissolved and found its way off of the craft. My pulse stopped racing and my breathing improved. The throbbing headache I had carried ceased existence and I found myself comfortable. This process  had always worked in the past. I looked out into the darkness and then closed my eyes to rest. I didn't need to dream.

            I woke up choking. My face, my eyelids, my mouth were covered in some dry form of silt. I leaned forward and shook my head like a dog would after a bath. I opened my eyes slowly, in case something dared to remain in its place. The world had become dust, dust and grey and frozen. I was sitting on the same train, in the same spot, but the entire subway car was covered in filth. I could not believe my stinging eyes. From front to back, from side to side, the cab was captured by inches of  detritus, layer upon layer of soot. It appeared to be very fine ash. The car was not moving. Apart from the obvious, something was definitely wrong with the scene. The doors near the head of the train sat wide open but those quite near to me had been closed up tight. When I stood, it felt like rain was falling from my fingertips. A cloud of the same rubble floated off my body. I wagged the dog one more time. I shook in tremors, from head to toe and then back again. The debris left me and lingered like a fog of something foreign, a haze I could not identify. A mist had fallen and rested all over the world.

            I tried to wipe it all off as best as I could. I used the tails of my shirt to clean off my features and clear off my skin. Any remnants would have to do. It looked like I had been tumbled in a vacuum cleaner. I walked slowly past each seat and headed towards the open doors. Everything was covered in a fine but dense layer of sandy gloom. The floor was buried, the walls had been painted with touches of chalk. Each vacant seat was a testament, each stratum of the strange deposit a message that something had happened to life as I slept. At first, the windows seemed smoky. A quick investigation revealed they were also bathed in this residue. For a moment, I thought I was in a science fiction movie and, like Charlton Heston, had discovered New York City somewhere Beneath the Planet of the Apes. I moved with caution towards the exit. I peered outside, hoping someone would greet me and explain the reason for all this mess. I heard no one. I saw no one. I was clearly alone with no idea what had happened. As I stepped out onto the platform, the glassy lint below forced me down rather quickly. I landed hard on a bed of concrete and dust. I just sat there, trying to fan away particles of something intent on invading my orifices. I covered my nose and mouth and rose to the occasion. I was stunned. It was like existence had ended in a cloud of smoke and ash. 

            The subway station was dark and empty but for the distant glow of nearby entrances and exits. Everything appeared to be covered in the very same icing of doom. I was more than a little frightened. I was also very hesitant to leave the artificial safety of rapid transit. I was almost crippled by the fear. I was careful not to take a deep breath,, pulled my shirt over my face and I walked out into the shadows. One foot in front of the other led me into the unknown.  I had no idea who or what was out in the muck but I was drawn to the light as it crawled inside from a better place. This world was silent. There were no sounds from travelling trains, no shuffle or bustle of people coming to and fro. The air was still and very stale. Breathing seemed more like drinking soup, a quagmire made up from one billion tiny pieces of somber. I edged forward, scanning from side to side. I reached the outer wall and began to skulk along it, as quiet as a mouse. When I reached the vestibule on the platform, I literally slid over the turnstile and lowered each leg down to the ground. I played dead but just for a moment. There was nothing to startle me or cause me to react. There was nothing at all. There was nothing about. There was only more desert, more dirt and more confusion on my part. I kept to the wall and rounded the way to the light. The tunnel was clear of man or beast, or so it seemed to be. Only dust led the way, dust that had clearly not been disturbed for some time. It was a glaze, unbroken by footprints or tracks of any kind. I ran up the steep and jumped into the bright.

            I must be dreaming. This could not be real. From the tallest tower to the lowest street grate, everything had been covered in a blanket of grey snow. Every car had been embraced. Every tree had been smothered. There was no sight and no scene that had not met this dingy fate. The silence was mortifying. This must be the End. I scanned the sea of dull for any hue or color, any sign of man. It was the strangest thing that I noticed. Each building was intact. Each relic undisturbed. The world outside was frozen in the spot that I had left it, but it was put to sleep, put to bed with some form of fallout. I called out for any survivor. The landscape of dust was so dense that it failed to even echo a return. The sky was dark. I could not find the sun. A cloud of nuclear winter filled the air but from the condition of the things on earth, I knew no bomb had met my city, no war had found this land. It was just covered, an endless wasteland shrouded as if by sprinkles of almost night. I was paralyzed by this new reality. I could not believe my eyes. I stood there, whimpering, staring at the ground, then the street and then the sky. Everything was exactly the same but it had been painted over with great stokes of hopelessness. It was then that I recognized a street sign, then another, each was dusted, painted over with the same rain of junk. I ran over to each and shoveled away the dirt with a hand. I spun in panic, rushing over to the subway stop indicator. I closed my eyes and cleared the remnants of whatever storm had come this way. I peeked through my lids, both wanting but not wanting to know. I had to look for some answers. There it was. It was my stop, the place I had come from. This was my home, my neighbourhood, my world.

            I flashed down the block and up the soot-layered stairs of my once beautiful home. Somehow, I just knew that the door would not be locked. I checked it regardless, hoping someone had sealed themselves inside. The foyer was as empty as the street. The same dust storm had entered here too, coating my life inside with the same damn rubble that had met me outside. Nothing had gone untouched by the swarm. I ran out back calling hello. I ran upstairs begging if anyone was there. There was more silence and stirred dust settling and an eerie hollowness from all things lost to me. In the main hallway, I stopped to clean off a picture. It made me smile a little, in spite of myself. I was so broken, so defeated. I didn't know how to feel or what to think. I just stood there in my dirty clothes, in my dirty house, in my dirty life. What had happened to the world? Why was I the only one left to deal with all the caked-on mud that had swallowed my existence? How did this happen? Was this really the End?

            I took that sweet picture frame with me as I walked out the front door and back into the murky light. The sky kept churning above me and the dust kept stirring as I walked along the street. I started to feel quite cheated by it all. I didn't understand why I had been left as a witness to this calamity. It did not seem fair that I should be the only one. I wondered if I was being punished or if I had been spared. Regardless, I screamed out for someone to hear me. Over and over I called for release. It was the weight of my tears that buckled me onto myself. My legs let go and I fell to my knees in the soot. In the center of the road I gave in. In that moment, in that heartbeat, I think I started to pray. I wasn't sure what I was praying to. I barely understood what I was praying for.  I kicked my feet from under me and flopped down on my butt. I started rocking. I started weeping. My tears mixed with my dusty face and tiny puddles of goo melted onto each cheek. I collapsed onto the pavement and laid there waiting to die.

            I have no idea how much time passed before I finally got up and collected myself. One would imagine that for all the times I had considered tossing myself, it would be easy to abandon it all. The truth is, I could not. I could not give in to the desolation around me. I could not just finish myself in despair. I rose as I found the strength in me. I dusted myself off, looked all around and I started walking. Surely someone else had been left behind. Out in the world there could be many searching, just the same. The further I traveled, the more confident I became. If I kept going, I would discover hope somewhere along the way. I wandered through neighbourhoods, past landmarks and over bridges great and small. All I knew to do was just keep walking. I had to just keep going. There would be no other choice. All my notions got left in a cloud of dust.       

            "Do you really think he did it?" she whispered to her friend.

            "They say he fell," the friend replied.

            "I can't believe she cremated him,"  the first woman added.

            "Where is she going to have him buried?" the second woman questioned.

            "Not in the Jewish cemetery, that's for sure," she concluded.

            The room quieted as the Rabbi took his place at the podium. The quaint space was filled with weeping ladies and scornful men. As the teacher spoke about the randomness of life, the mourners tossed and turned in their places. All the while, he sat hidden in an urn of bronze, placed for all to see with prominence. It was a tribute to the life he had once lived. It was beautiful in a simple way. Any prohibitions found in the Halachah were irrelevant anyway. There wasn't much left of him to bury. When all the words had been said, when all the goodbyes were done, the Rabbi handed her the container and  hugged her softly. She found her way home like most grievers do. She took off her shoes, laid her purse on the chair and she walked softly into the main hallway. Next to a picture of the two of them together, she placed what once was next to what used to be and she started to cry again. She tried to imagine him with her. She wanted to see his face, to feel his touch one more time. All she could think of were the words she left behind her, of "Ashes to ashes and dust to dust."

Photo

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