Forgotten Guest: A completely unintelligable recollection of spirits

Gregory lay on the modular sofa, in the partial light that the too-small bathroom door afforded him around its edges. Bathed in an all but obscured ambient reflection of the white tile and porcelain so faint he could barely see at all. In the efficiency's kitchen-living space, drunk on reefer and gin tonics, letting the majestic emptiness of a black curtain that stood between his eyes and ceiling open itself up to his minds light where were crafted dreamlike imaginings, the solitary piano and strong vocal of his headphones ran about between his ears, changing them with musical hands like a benevolent guiding force bent on creation. Like some god made of sound.

It shaped in the all-but-black a boulevard, laden with bulbed signs which he couldn't make out. From the street it crafted a solitary vaudevillian, sad and contemplative, clad in a straw hat and cane, fiercely staring at his own hands, looking to and fro down the street and raising his voice to the glowing night heavens personally. He cried imaginary tears. The vaudevillian knew himself to be an angel. He sang of flight and was lifted spinning upwards to alight on rooftops and sing city lullabies like some hoofing sandman of a show-a-night age.

Gregory was alone on the sofa, reeling from the intoxicants, spinning at comfortable speed in his head, somewhere between merry-go-round and Ring-Around-the-Rosie. Outside was a damp city, smelling of spent firecrackers and roasted peanuts, where moments before he had watched fire works explode in unison on two opposite sides, from a private rooftop. He had an overwhelming sense of place and of presence, this was his perfect execution, a prize of contentment, this panorama of the nights exploits, the physical trace of earlier imbibements still clutching him, whispering what events they each marked into him.

The first tonic an estranged revelry at club where he had never before been. The second, a conversation he had forced from his mouth awkwardly under blasting music. The third a pre-exit farewell to the music and crowded bodies of the night, the smoky piny taste born on each exhalation a last minute choice before bed in the small apartment, the taste of yeast and flour a ghost of a scrappy meal devoured in haste and desperation.

The vaudevillian never spoke of the night, but surely he felt it, he exuded in his song and choreography it's triumph, it's excess, but overall the vaudevillian winked to Gregory in acknowledgment of the shared experience of dream and dreamer. The sandman recognized that Gregory had recorded it and that they were reviewing it together in this musical way.
A door away were the lovers, who had imbibed with Gregory. Matched him more than drink to drink, whom had danced with him, and shared a cab back. Gregory knew he was peripheral, that the focus of each lovers attention on this night was surely the other, and he a third and unecessary party to it. He knew this without feeling troubled. His imaginings drew them curled together beneath the pale vale of white sheets, sleeping contentedly, the image betraying their puzzle-like correspondence, the unspoken that belied the wanton revelry of the night. That something fragile and shared and fulfilling at all was hidden beneath (or at least the idea of it) the visible layers of the evening was a comfort and Gregory's borrowed quarters seemed all the warmer for it.

There were two sets of correspondents in the tiny efficiency apartment in the city in Gregory's night. And though one was dreamed, each mirrored the other in some way, the unspoken congruity, the recollection of the events of the evening, and the completeness of the experience all made a comfort which seemed an undercurrent to their very existence at that moment. Gregory was aware of this. A side effect of the tonics, and of the smoke, a near lucid view of the minutiae of his euphoria.

And morning, he hoped would bring this same sense of contentment, he thought, as the headphones hummed to each other along his ear canal, and he dreamed of his friends a wall away, and in imaginary streets. They all sang to each other. Even beyond this chemical city, in it's antithesis, the waking banal, he hoped the endurance of this perfect dream.

The Woman

"Maybe I'll dream of a girl" the boy thought, settling into sleep."One that looks of caring, and of warmth and intelligence, and of generosity , and feels of all of those. Who holds me and smiles." But the boy, closing his eyes, could only think of one girl, or rather he made himself to think of only one , or rather again, he felt there was only one, and she so far from holding him and smiling. Nevertheless, his thoughts were warmed, and from there, was his body, and he drifted, enraptured, off to sleep. And his dreams were secreted away to him, as all dreams are, but let us hope that they were of he and her, this warm girl, and of love shared, and of fulfillment. As we drift off to soft fantasies secreted away to ourselves. And when we wake then, let us also draw ourselves up in reception to the possibilities of realization, rub the sleep thick from our eyes, and submit without loss of illusion , to routines. And so, when the boy woke , this is what he did.

He scratched his chest three times on his way to the shared bathroom, took two gulps of faucet water from cupped hands, spat the third back down the drain and splashed the fourth into his tired eyes, rubbing. Looked up into the mirror, met the reflection's gaze, felt vain for looking at all, dried his face in a towel and, tossing it haphazardly aside, shuffled down the dim main stairway and out the front door. Here, he lit three cigarettes in succession and dragged them to their butts. Midway through his first, he opened his mouth and said something. "The morning feels the same." He thought , aloud. He had no reason at all to think it would change so suddenly in a day, to something somehow different than morning. Nor had he wished it to change, nor had he believed it ever would. The thought had just been there. Speech had plucked it and expelled it on clouds of smoke from between his lips, into the pale morning. Here, it fell as a whisper on his own ears and was lost among trees and grass and street and sky, finding no other ears to run about in. The Boy was thankful. He could stand all but the sounds of his own malaise echoing in the ears of present or passerby. The other two (and a half) cigarettes he exhaled in a half-forced silence. Somewhere near the filtered end of his third cigarette he dragged hard, and hearing the crackle of burning paper, flicked it spinning into the wood, turned on a heel, opened the door with a fleeting thought that this might somehow start a fire, and stepped in, not caring if it did.

November had wrought its chill on everything the boy could see out of his second floor window. Trees that shined in summer, full of leaves and of soft sounds and majestic movements, seemed now as ghosts of themselves, which shook in the cold breezes of morning, shivering and clattering dead branches together. Without glancing down, he turned the hot plate to "full heat" and set a small sauce pan of water upon it. From his closet, beneath the draped shirt, he produced the small metal box, and from it, removed two of the three eggs. These he dropped gently into the water and watched collect tiny bubbles, which rose from the bottom and clung to their brown shells. He turned, satisfied, and from the armchair retrieved his coveralls, laying them gently on the bed. Next to these he sat as he slid on work pants, thermal shirt, mended suspenders that didn't look as if they could hold up anything at all, and grey and black argyle socks. He paused for several moments in almost perfect silence, for now the pot was frothing audibly, shook him self back to reality, and carefully, so that his pant legs and shirt sleeves would not bunch, put on his coveralls. Half-silence now, again. His arms clenching his front, he slowly zipped his zipper as if hypnotized by the sound. He finished, and staring off into space solemnly sank his arms to his sides, placing palms flat against the bed. Then, he rose.

"Mustn't let the pot boil over."

He returned to the sill and found the eggs boiled. Removed them from the water with a coat hanger, which served only this purpose, and placed them in a waiting cloth, where they sat, cooling. Now he remembered something, as he turned about to view the emptiness of his room, and it pained him silently. He gathered the eggs, placing them in a paper napkin he'd taken from a delicatessen some weeks earlier, slid them into his tin lunch box and clasped the catches closed. Then he made his bed. Sliding into his boots, he tied them in double-knots, stood, opened the door, and before pulling it closed, glanced behind him at the clean straight lines of the large bed, the undisturbed pillows, and then around the room, into the half empty closet. The light on, he could see wire hangers perched in a neat row on the rod, quite still. He crossed the room and reaching in, pulled the string which dangled, then shut the door on the darkened cavity. Crossing the room again, he softly whispered to himself. "Goodbye."And then again, audibly, echoing in the room."Goodbye."He shut the door behind him. Stepped down the dim main stair, and flung himself out the front door. Outside, a howling whistle sounded in the distance.

On the way to work, he stopped at the grocery next to the bus stop. He bought a hard roll, a glass bottle of lemonade which the label had called "Fresh-Squeezed," and three stalks of celery. These he packed into his tin lunch box, and found that the glass bottle would not fit.

The bus rattled along the dirt road, and the boy slid uncomfortably about on the leather seat, trying hard to steady himself by clenching the seat back in front of him. He bumped and slid and jumped the whole way up the long dirt road , and struggled harder still to stay in the seat as the bus came to an abrupt stop at the turnout. Here the boy stood and exited, as the whistle sounded a second time. He took his place in line and never looked up.

At the supply locker he took a crowbar, pick, and helmet a size too large, checked its lamp on the palm of his hand, and satisfied all was in working order, signed each out on the equipment roster. Then he took a card from the slot which bore his name, stamped it in the time clock, replaced it, placed his lunch box in a cubby below, and walked across the yard, into the shaft elevator.

As the elevator bore him down into darkness, "Like closing my eyes," he often thought, he remembered something someone had told him, sometime. He had told the man that he had got a job, and the man had asked him where he had, and he had told the man where, and the man had chuckled. In warning the boy, the man said

"It's nothing but dead ends down there." The boy had listened, but ignored, because he had thought then, and many times since, that it was something else for him entirely. Not at all "Dead ends." In fact, he regarded it "No ends at all," and "Rather like making my own way."

A third of the way down the shaft, the pale daylight had all but pinched out entirely. And here, the boy clicked on his helmet lamp. Small chips of stone and blackness danced about the toes of his boots, and he could feel the rattle of the elevator in his back and knees. More and more darkness passed outside of the light of his lamp. And he rode the elevator further and further downward. It hummed and rattled and shook, and he rode it downward, and it shook, and finally, it stopped.The boy gathered his pick and crowbar and shuffled out of the elevator, into the tunnel. With quickening steps he passed the hoses which squirted water from pinhole leaks, trying in vain to dodge what streams of flying water he could, and was wet anyway. He moved on with the marching silhouettes, passed the turning drill, lept over the cart path swiftly between cars, and paused, squinting through clouds of billowing dust, remembering he had forgotten his safety goggles. These he retrieved an extra pair of from the emergency box, and then, with unobstructed vision, found his dig.

Here he slung for three and a third hours, over and again with his pick . Then wiped his neck with his sleeve, shoveled what bits of brittle black he could into the waiting cart, and took again to picking. At three and a half hours, he lifted his pick with both arms, pausing at the apex of his swing, and brought it down with an unusual force. The pick fell awkwardly here, and with a cracking noise clattered off the wall , twisting the boy's wrists in trying to keep it straight, forcing difficult maneuvers to keep the pick from escaping his grasp entirely. He gathered himself, regrouped, straighted his grip, and repeated the gesture. Now, he was met by a clear ringing and reverberation, like a tiny bell sounding in the vast clamor of the shaft. The boy felt the echoes in the joints of his arms, and stopping , he stared at the wall in silence. Around him picks fell and drills turned, and all about was noise. He stood and wiped his brow, breathing heavily. Then he placed the pick on its side and kneeled before the wall. His helmet lamp burned a yellow circle of light, and clearing away what dust and debris he could, he saw in harsh relief the obstacle, which shone out a clear white in the black wall. It was matte, not at all shiny, perfectly smooth, and for what limited examination a few moments pause could give him, flawless in complexion. As he kneeled marveling, A whistle sighed.

The boy ate the two eggs and three celery stalks in silence, washed the hard roll down with lemonade from the glass bottle, which did not taste "Fresh-Squeezed," and lit a cigarette which he dragged on while eyeing two others in the paper pack. A grey sky had gathered in afternoon and the biting cold whistled past on the swift wind, stinging the boys face. He squinted, sucked at the cigarette from between numbing fingers sullied with dirt, took another gulp of lemonade from the bottle, and corking it, placed it back into the cubby, alongside his tin lunchbox. Then he stood, stomped out the cigarette and walked to the bathhouse. The tiled bathroom was bitterly cold even without wind, and the boy ran hot water to warm his hands. He soaped them from the greying bar on sink, and as he plunged them back under the scalding water, glanced upward to the mirror.

Black dust encrusted his upper lip in two stripes, each below a nostril. His mouth was encircled with it, and it gathered thickly about his eyes, blackening his eyebrows to smudges, highlighting every wrinkle and crevice. As he scrubbed his face vigorously, he thought of the perfect white stone, unblemished. Untouched by the black.

"Beautiful."

The thought escaped his lips. He scrubbed harder, and when he had scrubbed his face raw, looked again, wildly into the mirror. His reflection stared back an irritated red, wet and glistening. He turned from the mirror and took a paper towel. Drying his face thoroughly he pitched the used towel into the wastebin and without a glance backward, pushed through the door. The wind met him on the outside of the bathhouse , and cut around him. He took several paces out into the yard and stared at the dead grass that paled under his feet. After a time, the whistle screamed behind him.

In the elevator with his helmet on, he smiled as he heard the sliding door lock. The boy jumped as the elevator shook loose lowering itself down the shaft. He delighted in the gathering darkness. The bits of rock and black danced around his boots with excitement. The elevator shook at every foot closer to bottom. He closed his eyes.

At bottom he stepped out and fastened his helmet tightly about his chin. Slipping the safety goggles about his eyes, he moved to his dig. As he arrived, he saw the white stone peering from the black wall. With great care he began to chisel bits of rock from about it's sides with his crowbar, and chiseled, and again. And with each bit the stone grew and it's white expanse emerged from the black. Pausing, the boy looked at the shape. It was ovoid, and familiar, in the light of his helmet lamp. It was a face, but not any face, a woman's, and at that, the most beautiful carving he had ever seen. Smooth with soft lines, a woman's face with closed eyes. And every inch a perfect smooth surface. He could not find a single blemish. In the lamplight, he wiped his hands on his chest, and with shaking fingers, brushed it clear, admiring it's beauty. And then with vigor, he took up his crowbar again, and in great strokes he began to take large chunks from about the face. The pieces fell with clattering noises in a pile of gathering size at his feet. Soon a hand, with slender fingers. More stones. A neck that met the shoulders with strength and soft grace. Her open arms. The stones reached his knees now. Her subtle smile. A reassuring concern. And when the cart came for stone he piled them in. But never did his focus waiver from revealing the figure. He worked with enormous intensity, and sweat dripped from his forehead and soaked the coveralls down his chest, and he did not notice the whistle howl, or the sounds of picks stop, or the drills stop turning. He only saw his lamplight and the white stone face of the woman. What passed by him outside the light of his helmet lamp, was separated by clouds of obscuring dust, and also by his focus. It did not exist.

When he had finished a woman stood, revealed, he turned to ask for help in removing her from the wall and found he was alone, in darkness. His lamplight flickered. He sat. exhaustion over came him. Slumped in the dim light of his helmet lamp, the boy looked at the face of his alabaster woman. It was cold in the tunnel, and quiet. He folded his arms and stared intently on her. Her eyes were closed and try as he might, he could not help but think of how cold it was in the damp dark. She listened. Looking about quickly, he pulled the cigarettes from his breast pocket. The woman held out her arms. As he went to light one, he realized his surroundings. He put the lighter back into his pocket. The helmet lamp flickered. The alabaster woman seemed to blink in the dark. He sat holding himself for warmth. The helmet lamp flickered again. The was silent. Four hours. He could not bear to abandon his stone beauty. Four more hours He stood, shook himself, and danced for warmth, staring at her calm face. Eyes closed, arms outstretched, robes hung from her arms in draped lines, fragile wrists shown through bits of garment. Her smile. He exhaled, shivering.

"Waiting in silence."

He mumbled through trembling lips. He bent over and picked up his helmet, placed it atop his head and fastened the chin strap. The light grew dimmer still. He felt for his cigarettes. He stood shaking, staring. His lungs hurt, the cold air and the damp and the dust and smoke hurt them. He danced again. And again. The pain grew to an ache. He clutched his chest and tried to massage the ache away. The woman did not look. The ache stayed. He danced again and panted heavily. The helmet lamp flickered. He wanted a cigarette. The cold air burned his nostrils and his eyes teared. He sat again, and rubbed his arms. The woman listened. He bent and picked up his pick and crowbar, and turned. He began to find his way back to the elevator. Something pained him silently. He walked several paces, turned back and saw the pale shape of the woman with welcoming arms in the dark, and then kept going.

In the cold morning the elevator rattled metallically down the shaft, echoing, and when it reached bottom, the boy walked through the parted crowd of passengers that stood staring, and rode it back to the surface. As the light grew, the elevator shook and rattled and the bits of rock and black danced about the boy's shoes. He looked up, and the shaft opened up to morning sky. At the top, he slid the metal door open, and walked against the gathering crowd. He returned his helmet, pick and crowbar to the equipment locker and signed them in, reinserted his card in the time clock and returned it to the slot, stooped to retrieve his lunch box and lemonade, found the lemonade frozen, and threw it away.

He stood at the turnout, waited for an arriving bus to unload, then boarded and took a seat in the back and stared out the window. The bus jumped and bumped down the dirt road in the early morning sunlight. The bus was warm, and the boy felt his heat returning. At the grocery store he stepped out, bought a loaf of bread, a hunk of cheese, and a bag of oranges. At the checkout he smiled at a clerk who didn't look up. He carried the groceries down the street in paper sacks, and when he reached the boarding house he placed them down on a bench in the front yard near the road. He felt about in his pockets for the pack of cigarettes and on finding it, he paused, thinking, then placed the empty pack gingerly back into his breast-pocket and picking up his groceries entered the house.

He stripped his cold dirty clothes and shoes, folded them neatly and placed them in a stack by the door, retrieved a towel from the closet, and went to the shared bathroom. Here, he turned the shower on at full velocity and heat. The steam drew growing fog across the window and mirror, and soon the room was bathed in an ambient glow. The boy stepped a numbed foot into the iron tub, immersing it in the cascade of burning water, winced as it came back into feeling, inhaled sharply and plunged the rest of his body in. He sat on the floor of the tub for what seemed to him many minutes, watching the scoured dirt come of his body in snaking trails which eventually wound their way swirling into the drain, until at last no more could be washed from him. Then he stood, turned off the pelting water, and began to towel himself dry. He wiped the fog from the mirror and looked. The reflection was clean. He wet his toothbrush and brushed violently, rinsed, brushed again, rinsed, and then spat. He left the door to the shared bathroom and ajar.

Returning to his room, he found it warm and bright. He walked to the window, gently let the curtains down, and watched the room grow dark. He turned, removed the metal box, opened it, placed the hunk of cheese inside, and replaced it. The bread and oranges he left in folded paper bags on the table beneath the window. Then, he crawled into his bed and pulled the thick blankets in about him. His face wreathed in the bedding, he stared across the open expanse of the bed next to him and as he slid his arm outward across it, beneath the blanket he smiled a slight smile, closing his eyes. And he slowly drifted off to dreaming.

Lonesome Harold

Harold opened the long slim drawer on the front of his walnut paneled credenza in the foyer of his empty house. The opening echoed about and surely touched every soft seat and surface it could find or that could be found because there were no other ears but Harold's to apprehend it. Harold opened the drawer and closed it.

Before Harold closed the walnut paneled drawer of his credenza he saw and heard something rolling about in the drawer's dimmed recess. He recognized the sound amidst the echoes of the drawers opening. He knew the plastic click, and the smooth black of the cylinder. Within the confines of this black plastic canister Harold knew there was a roll of film. He knew that when and if he opened the black cylinder, he would smell the chemical tendrils which collected images. Before Harold closed the drawer he thought of place where he had once fished a roll of film out of a black canister and smelled the chemistry. In this remembered place he recalled placing it gingerly into the camera and hearing the metal backing snap shut around it, like a tin of hard candies. He remembered, before he closed the drawer, that the day on which he exposed the film smelling of chemistry with the candy-tin camera it wasn't the scenery or the inclement weather that had inspired him. He thought that in the echo of the drawer opening, he heard the rumbling of far-off thunder.

He remembered the steam of the rain on the distant asphalt gathering in low haze. And that over fragrant collaboration of dirt and water and heat that accompanied it. He remembered the smell of wet summer. Before he closed the drawer he remembered the gentle sagging support of the deck planks beneath his feet, the sandy scrape of his shoes on the decking, and the popping and smacking of drizzling gutters filling above him. On the day of the film and the candy-tin camera and the road of steamy-smelling wet summer and the dry deck sheltered from the popping, smacking rain he had recorded the image.

Before he closed the drawer, He heard amongst the echoing the plastic click, and the rolling sound combined. He heard the click and thought of the sound that lips make when they part for a smile, and of the shutter exposing the film, and of the tisk-tisk of jovial ribbing between friends on steaming road wet smelling summer days, he thought of the clicks of forks and knives that fall on food and plates in the silence that courts a well cooked meal, and hungry mouths. He heard the click of those plates clean and dried in the rack. He heard the click of his key in the door of the now empty house with the sandy rap-around porch on the rain drenched day of cameras and film, and the steaming road, and the last meal.

He heard the rolling sound and thought of the anticipation of a picture well exposed and naturalistic, the revealing of the well cooked dinner, the sound of approaching tires on a steaming asphalt road, the wheels of suitcases on a sand porch, the inviting empty sound of a door being opened on a timeshare. The rolling far off thunder. The sound of many chairs settling about a large table.

Before he closed the drawer he saw the day assembled in his mind. Exposed and burned in image by the force of a sound. The sound of a roll of film in the empty dimness of the long and slender front drawer of his walnut paneled credenza. In the span of half a second he had opened and closed it to find a slip of paper for this or that, but the echoing sound which raced about the interior spaces, the mournful elongation of the drawer's hollow wooden scraping betrayed the actual speed of process, the entanglements, missteps, and obstacles, the exponential result of recollection to which stimuli are the catalyst. The courtship of stored experiences and sensory intake.

Though he so briefly opened and shut the drawer, and as briefly forgot the action and reprecussive inner sequence of images and smells and sounds and feelings, Harold knew his senses to be the candy-tin camera, his recollection the roll of film. It was bane and boon to him as the echoes of his movements in the empty house, shadow sounds of the crowds once present.

Fairy Tale Thursday

"The point." Part 1

Some time, in eternity, some guys show up, and one of them in particular is special. He wears sneakers and a t-shirt with a heart on it. Beneath the white heart on the red t-shirt, deep inside himself is the point within his real heart. And this is the story of that point.
The point had wondered for a long time whether it was the soul of man. It had, after all felt the pain of loss, the grief of suffering, and the ache of longing. It had wished for a thousand things to better itself, promoted a generosity, and analyzed it's greed. It had felt many things and said fewer than it would care to admit. Though it certainly felt that it's position within the context of the body was central, it began to wonder about what change could come from relocation. It eyed the familiar walls of the left ventricle, which dance with thumping rhythm.
"Heart, why here, what can I do here?" it asked unexpectedly. The heart palpated, astonished. It had never heard the point's voice before, and indeed was even astonished to find that it could understand the words.
"Why, whatever do you mean?" The left ventricle asked, nervously. The point had thrown off it's rhythm and it immediately began to search for the proper pace.
"Why am I here, Heart?" The point repeated. "What is it about this place that makes my presence here important?"
"Because," said the heart nonchalantly. It had rhythm to keep. "Here is where it all passes by. every bit of energy that continues us onward comes through here. In the blood."
"What is the blood?" The point asked quietly, looking about.
"All of what is between you and my walls, which is surrounding you and passing onward out my valves is the blood. Don't you know this place? What did you think it was?" The Left ventricle murmured absently.
"I suppose I thought it was air. I don't know if I saw anything at all before. But know I notice it all swirling about. Amazing." The point could see it all now, with effort, cells and platelets, white and red, all speeding past at a pace so quick that it the point had to strain to catch anything at all.
"It is air, and food. Everything that fuels the body." Chanted the Left ventricle.
"Well then, bless it. And I hope it carries on, but still, miraculous and complex as it is, I see your part but do not see my own. What is my part, Heart?"
"I do not know, except to say that your part is very important, point. I'm sure of that." Then the Left ventricle resumed it's pumping and forgot thoughts, and that it could talk or listen at all.
The pounding walls thumped, and red air swirled about and the point thought to itself in familiar noise.
"If I cannot figure a reason why I am here, then it surely stands to reason that that reason is not substantial, and therefore offers no boundaries or revelations at all. Perhaps by leaving the heart I can find out why it is important." The theory seemed sound. The point had made itself set upon it.
"Where shall I go to then?" The point thought. It had never know any other place than the left ventricle, ans wondered if there were any other places at all to go.
"At any rate, movement is the proper course to take, I should think." thought the point. And so with no small amount of trepidation. It began to wander.
First, it exited the heart and turned about. a great many tunnels stretched out before it, with blood swirling this way and that, down every available exit. The point fell the pull of the current, and something from beneath beckoned him downward.
"I shall go this way, then, because something is calling to me." And downward it went.
It passed muscles which strained together and were in such deep concentration that they could not be roused to conversation at all, and it passed the bones which were quite inert, stoically, they stared back at the point, and could offer no advice at all. At long length, the point found a large fellow who seemed positively bloated, and asked his name.
"Excuse me," the point called out.
"Not now, point. I am eating." The fellow answered.
"I'm terrible sorry to interrupt your meal, but I was wondering,"
" I am terribly busy, point, there is much to dissect." The fellow grumbled.
"Again, I am very sorry but what are you called?" The point forced out.
" I am the stomach. And I am eating now."
" I'll come back later then."
" A shame, I would've liked to make some friends on my trip, but it seems that everyone has such a lot to do. Perhaps I should do my best not to bother anyone at all." And for a long while the point travelled downward towards the pulling feeling in complete silence. All about him there seemed a teeming life, a chorus of harmonizing work, which he found to be ever expanding in complexity.
"How perfectly shaped, everything I've seen, fitting seamlessly into everything else." the point wondered." The pulling tugged at the point, and further along it went, until at long last it found the deadest of all ends. After much thinking, it sat down on a piece of bone and became quite blank. It was then that his first friend since the heart spoke.
"A traveller?" It asked suddenly, startling the point half to death.
"Why, I don't know." the point answered.
"Oh we love travelers. That is what we are." The voice said bubbling over with excitement.
"I hope that you don't mind me sitting here, then. That is to say, I hope that I am not interrupting. I am on my way to somewhere."
"Not at all, That is what we do. We carry everything on it's way to somewhere else. We are the feet."
"I am very pleased to meet you, The Feet, I am point." The point gushed happily. This was only his second introduction.
"Where do you wish to go?" The Feet asked.
"I'm not sure at all, The Feet, this is the only time I have ever gone travelling."
"We are always travelling. Unless we are resting, point."
"Well, then where is it that you want to go, I shall go with you."
"We don't know what you mean by want, point. What does it mean to want?"
"Well, I'm not at all sure, I suppose." The point said embarrassedly. " I should think it has something to do with curiosity, and with need."
"What do those things mean?"The feet asked.
the point was only just himself discovering what those things meant. "Perhaps I shall stay here and learn by travelling what it means to want, and to be curious, and to need. And teach The Feet when I learn. Certainly there can be no better task than the one that involves teaching and learning. Maybe The feet will become better traveller's from learning by travelling too." And the point said "I shall stay with you, the Feet, and we can learn about all of these things together."
"Learn about what things" The feet asked.
"About wanting, and curiosity, and need." The point replied with confusion.
"We do not wish to understand such things, point." said the Feet.
"But perhaps It will make you better travelers," the point said, "And help you to connect with the places that you are going. "
"We do not wish to understand such things." the feet replied. "we only wish to travel, and to carry."
"And I was beginning to think that this was my true place." The point thought aloud. "I can see now that I was mistaken."
"Perhaps your place is with our brothers, the hands." The feet interjected.
"The hands?"
" Yes, travel upward towards the arms, and when you have reached the end of the arms, you shall meet the hands."
"What are the hands like?" The point asked.
"We do not know of such things," said the Feet. "We only know that the journey isn't far."
"Thank you, Feet, for carrying me this short while, perhaps I can repay you if we meet again." the point said with genuinely.
"That is unnecessary, point."
" I'm off to see the hands . Thank you, again feet, I have learned quite allot."
" Farewell, and good journey, point."
And the point set off upward, towards the arms.

Snowball

I hereby resolve by the impetus of antiquity to record a discharge of my brain in the proper receptacle. I also hereby pledge to overcome pretentiousness by means of a complete disregard of my own thought. I hereby recognize that that recognizing means thinking. I hereby disavow all knowledge that my keyboard has a button marked "delete" and a button marked "backspace." I hereby pledge to stop typing the word "hereby" and the word "I."

A story a day, as different as possible.

A road flare was burning on a copper wire stand in the shoulder of the bridge, between the concrete sidewalk and the white lane that bordered the road. It made a whooshing sound and a buzzing sound, like the fireworks that spit green torches of flame and spin furiously until they stop and sit errant, smoldering cigars in driveway ashtrays. An officer had pulled the plastic cap and struck it alight and placed it there, and plumes of sulfur wafted into open car windows. It made cigarettes taste of cavernous breaches in Terra, where solids turned to liquids and poured through veins. Lungs couldn't taste it. Lungs tried to breathe it. Tongue and lips let it pass at the behest of brain. Cough. Or don't.

Guessing that traffic lights near the fairgrounds mean little when the carnival is on. Beep. Left or right or straight. Move, please. Belly full of fried dough and powdered sugar. Pocket full of empty space where bingo money was. Back seat full of nothing. Front seats full of music. Seat belt full of me. Beep.

Me at twelve. A standardized test, and a mower outside the window. A fresh cut school rightaway with zero days on the schedule, and a growing list of bruises and grass stains to accumulate. A dark room at night with a firework storm in the sky, a dinner party on the back porch. Murmured talk. Boom-crack-boom. Dave Brubeck. Boom-crack-pop. A remote carnival outside, inside mind. Anonymous age twelve, classmate, top car, Ferris wheel, organ piping, bell ringing and silence at the first spark of powder. Smell of food, grass, sound of river air, and people. Tried to pick a stuffed animal up from the curb out a moving Car with open door, no seat belt.

Overwhelmed, drowning in recollection, across worn synapse jumps to tastes and ambiance so clear like a bell ringing between ears of a note that is named. Beep. Front seat warm with fresh breeze and sulfur. Sky like inky water with firework trails, dissipating. Cars full of people. belly full of fried dough, pockets full of empty space where once was bingo money, back seat full of nothing, front seat full of music, seat belt full of me.

Wonder if communicating a smell or a thought or an experience is like lighting a firework, pluming the smoke about and wafting into people's lungs. All present breathing tasting, recording. Wonder if communicating a smell or a thought or an experience is like letting it spit colored sparks, reflecting in their eyes, tickling nerves, mapping, recording. Wonder if communicating a thought or smell or experience is like letting it buzz and hiss, ringing it's howl like a bell between present ears, echoing, waving, recording, resonating. Wonder if a shared thought or smell or experience is clearer. Wonder if gathered separate synapses sing together from their solitary skulls like a chorus of the bells, if they build like fireworks displays upon each other. Wonder where the powerful thought is, how it acts.

Beep. A turn at the line of the intersection. A burning flare. An officer who put it by the side of the road. A finished carnival. A line of cars full of people. A belly full of fried dough. Pockets full of nothing. A backseat full of emptiness. A front seat full of music. A seat belt full of me. A sky full of smoke. A red light.

Wonder how many enumerations while waiting for lights to change.