No Ordinary Moment and Lost Sessions

We made our way
On one night
Past the first day,

At the sun’s last light.
We met a gathering crowd
huddled beneath a gathering cloud
The event had all the seeming
Of being dead or surely, dreaming:

There were stars
In the grip of children’s arms.

And fire fell from the sky -
Embers were laid to rest,
But did not die.

Our armies did what they could,
With lasers, against it they stood.

There was a crash,
And a creature emerged.
Inside a bubble
It hid - submerged.

Smoke and mirrors is what it used.
And when the shots shot back,
They pointed back at you!

One, two, three, four!
Another crash,
Much louder than before.

I saw what my eyes could take.
Then I shut them
For my heart’s own sake.

The wind blew,
And the rain felt cold.
My flashlight went dim
The batteries were old.

Guided by wits and guile
I treaded down a moonlit mile
Toward my chamber palace
Where I could lay my thoughts to sleep
And pray the Lord, my soul to keep.

-I awoke and a terrible machine was circling around us. It’s engine growled in constant rythm. Dorothy was next to me, Cesar next to her, all of us wrapped in an old blanket. The man conducting the machine, wearing a trucker hat and sunglasses made his pass all around us. His machine scraped at the sand, evening it in a pattern of nonsensical swirls. The sun began to stretched its heavy arms over the sea and touched all the world around us.

I sat up with an exhausted sigh, tossing the blanket that had covered me aside. I sat with my knees against my chest and remembered the night before.

Cesar called me in the afternoon.

“We still going to the keys?”

“I hear it’s going to rain. I still have no wipers.”

“So what? Let’s go.”

“I don’t know man.” I was silent for a moment.

“All right.” He hung up.

A minute later the phone rang and I answered.

“We’re still going to the keys, right?”, it was a girls voice, soft and sweet.

I sighed. “No wipers. I hear its going to rain.” I tried to explain.

“Oh, come on!” Her voice was fiery now. I loved it, I could not refuse.

I sighed again. “Let’s go.”

I stopped at a gas station and stole a squeege, then rounded them up. We rode south and did not see a drop of rain.

It became a night of heavy drinking. A series of bars signs that blurred more and more with each miscalculated stumble.

“Gad damn cobblestones.” I slurred when I spoke and smiled stupidly when I finished.

Dory stopped us. We stood at the mouth of an alley and she sang for us a song her mother had sung to her and she now sang for us.

When she finished all I could do is smile my dumb drunken smile. It was elegant, imposing, magnificent and everything in between. Angels had the likeness of insects when she sang and her large green eyes shined all the while she did.

“Fuck, that was beautiful.” I told them in all sincerity, and in truth, I could not possibly express what I felt for her at that moment.

We entered one bar and sat near the dance floor. We watched and laughed as people danced clumsily near each other, holding red party cups, sloshing their drinks onto themselves and the floor. We departed happily and I began to wonder where we would sleep.

Dory asked that we go to my car. On the way there we passed Sloppy Joe’s, a dive on the far end of Duval Street. As we passed an elderly man with a blue overcoat exited the place. His beard was thick, silvery. His hair kept beneath a captain’s hat. He took no note of us and walked in the other direction.

My ragged car, the Mighty Wind, had been broken into some months ealier. The smaller window in back had only a piece of cardboard to cover it. Dorothy pulled out a blanket and we headed for a narrow strip of beach.

We laid out there on the sand and soon enough we all found sleep.

In my dreams, the man from the bar came to me while we slept. In the distance behind him, a storm had swelled and bolts of lightning lit the sky in hot flashes. He paddled over, rowing slowly toward land. The waves crashed softly at his feet once he was ashore. He walked up to me and I stood. He held in his hand a cat with a fifth apendage on each paw serving as a thumb.

He knew well of my troubles and my disquietude. He was, after all, only in my imagination. He told me that a man could be destroyed but not defeated. He ran his fingers through his cats fur that only looked at me and growled, softly at first then louder and louder until I could hear it all around me-

It’s Valentine’s Day and I’m alone. Again. I got off work and head to a high-rise looking over Brickell Bay. I’m tired and bitter, slouching on the walls of the elevator as it ascended to the 20th floor.

I knocked on the door marked 20G. A thin girl, with a pretty smile, let me in. I walked into a room and found a familiar faces looking up at me as I entered. He sat, cross-legged on the wooden floor. He looked up at me, his pupils large and dilated, and produced from his pocket a piece of foil. Inside, was a piece of paper, no larger than a crumb.

We sat around, talking idly for some time and sat through a series of short films, then it began to creep on me. I felt anxious.

“I need a cigarette.”

I walked out to the balcony accompanied by a cigarette, cradling it between my fingers. It calmed me, kept me cool.

Stepping up to the edge I began to think. I took a puff. That an end to it all suddenly became a very attractive idea. Not an end to my life, but an end to the way I was living it. The months of monotony, the loneliness, the routine, I had grown so comfortable with now left an terrible taste in my mouth. I leaned over the rail and a stray gust left a chill on my face.

An end to it all, an end to it all. What the fuck was I talking about?

My mind raced, thoughts, words and images all strung together at the forefront of my mind. It was a hideous train wreck, bones broke, metal twisted, it was all indistiguishable from one another.

The cigarette came to my lips again. I pulled and the hot mess settled.

A hundred songs played out in my thoughts and I understood each one. I could taste them and call them by their rightful names.

Thank you, cigarette. Thank you 27’s.

Another wisp of smoke. Thank you for lending me coherence. Introspection became my game and so, I sat and thought of all things and also, of nothing at all.

What’s it going to be? the gunslinger asked. He rolled up his own cigarette.

“I’m not satisfied with my life. I refuse to be complacent anymore.”

He remained silent and did not look at me.

“I hate this city. It’s eating at me. I want a change. I want to help people, somehow. I want some meaning in my life.” We both looked out over the distant city lights before I spoke again.

“Fuck mediocrity.”

He snickered. Big words there, cowboy. Then, I don’t think you have it in you.

The glass door slid open and he was gone.

“We’re gonna watch All Dogs Go to Heaven.”

“I’ll be right in.”

The door slid closed.

I looked over to where he gunslinger had been sitting. “We’ll see.” I shoved my cigarette into the ashtray.

Only one song came to mind now, one from the movie. I sang it to myself on the way in, “…What keeps my heart humming… is guessing what’s coming… Let me be surprised.”

The movie played, I watched half of it before turning over to fall asleep. The Sun’s crown peaked over the edge of the world, it reflected off the water and fell into my fading sight.

It’s a new day. It’s all yours.

One year prior to the beginning: It may have been a vague sense of disappointment and abandonment that brought me to the spa, maybe it was something else. I was compelled, none the less, by something I’d yet to fully
understand. Placed at the sill of the window was a sign with with a man elegantly tossing another.

The smell of the place was inviting and unmistakeable. It was the scent of expensive wood flooring and a passion fruit candle that was kept next to the desk. I told the attractive blonde woman behind the counter I just wanted to watch. I requested the same of the instructor, a tall white man with a silvery moustache and clear eyes that hid a versed kind of intensity.

I watched intently, not understanding very much of what I saw. At the end of class, the sensei welcomed me back and so I returned.

They moved in a way that made little sense to me, still I remained silent and decided I would understand in time. Slowly. Very slowly, I began to understand the intricacies of the art. It became a fascinated obsession, I considered its subtlties all day, working things out in my mind and diligently practicing when no one watched.

During this time I began attending school again. By far my most interesting class was Astronomy, though it was not as I had expected it to be. We studied rudimentary Physics and instantly I made a connection with my martial undertaking. The efficiency of circles and spirals became more apparent to me. I associated the laws of the measurable universe with simple bodily movements. Eventually, I came to realize that everything around me was based on the interaction of energies. In my mind, Aikido became an art beyond any other if only for its intellient design.

“No one can take better care of you than yourself.” The senior student told me before class once. It is a simple thought and moreover an obvious one, but it struck me in a certain way that would not let me forget.

They began reaffirming philosophies and concepts I’d always kept close to heart. “Aikido, roughly translated,” I was told, “Is the way of harmonizing with energy.”

It seemed mystical to me, beyond basic human understanding and yet it was laid out in a handful of simple movements and ideas. Aikido is paradoxical in this way. It is infinitely vast and infinitely small at the same time.

First things first. I learned harmony with the ground, practicing rolls several times before class and at every drunken whim. I still feared the ground, but only in a vague way. I learned misdirection, redirection, it was all a manifestation of harmony. Often, I would smile to myself when confronted with someone larger than myself, thinking, “Give me a lever and I will move a mountain.”

Sensei moved like a ghost. “Do not try to be invulnerable, even the heaviest of armor has vulnerabilities, be invincible - like smoke. Don’t be there when they reach for you.” He would aptly demonstrate. When they reached he was never there, when they punched he was not to be found.

When we would pay respects to the old man, Morihei Ueshiba, a name that when translated was along the lines of abundant peace, we would form a triangle with our thumbs and pointer fingers. “The triangle represents bamboo, and pine, and the plum blossom.” I was told. “The pine because it is strong, bamboo because it is flexible, and the plum blossom because it is tenacious. The plum blossom blooms in the midst of even the harshest winter, it never says die, it just does what it’s insight commands.” I understood and nodded.

I carried these insights with me always. They had unknowingly instilled a warrior’s spirit in me. I had fear of many things still, but I then became a master of these fears. I used it as a driving force, like an engine instead of a brake, in all my endeavors.

The time came when I decided it was time for for a change in the way I would spend my time. I left my house of study and the family I had acquired there, to pursue a dream though the odds were stacked against me in a formidable fashion. I had no more concern for the odds, by now I considered myself a warrior. Failure had lost its grip on me. I thought to myself that the only way I could fail was if I did nothing at all.

They drove away as the sun was making its final stretch across the sky. They called out ‘the best of luck to you’ and worried bidding of adieu. I was encumbered with two bags, dragging down about a third of my own weight. A rush of anxiety came over me as I came to the realization I had nowhere to go, no shelter to hide beneath, and several hours before I could move. Anxiety was replaced with fear and in time it became overwhelming. It put me on my ass. I sat beside my packs and spoke to myself.

This is what I wanted. Fear, adventure, not knowing what the next minute would bring. I was without control and had only myself to rely on. I began to breathe in rythmic beats and tried to think with some coherence. I will not fear. Fear is the mindkiller. Fear is the little death that brings total oblivion. My heart slowed down and my thoughts with it.

“All right, what now pilgrim?”

An old friend spoke to me.

I responded without a thought. “Now, I’ll take it one moment at a time. I’ll cross whatever bridge, whenever I have to - when I get to it.”

“Sounds like you have it all figured out.”

“Hardly.”

The sun was gone when I came to. I spread my things beneath my feet and hunkered down for the night. A cloud hung over our heads most of the day and the grass was wet with it’s precipitation. It didn’t matter. I hunkered down and paid no thought to it. I slept lightly. People passed, most did not take notice of me. I clutched at a pocket knife and slept in lapses.

A dense fog veiled the rising sun. It was eerie and in a strange way, it was proper. I began walking, reckoning that the time for thinking had long since passed. A sign pointed me toward I-24 and I followed it, heading east. I passed several cars and peddlers, pushing shirts and and two aging hippies. I walked for fifteen minutes and soon came upon a man with a sheriff’s moustache and matching badge.

“Is this the way to McMinnville?”, I inquired.

He pointed in the direction I had come from. “It’s that way.”

I thanked him and went right back the way I came. The hippies called me over as I passed, asking for a cigarette, the great ice breaker. I let the packs slide from my shoulders, letting them fall heavily to the ground. I gave them each one and lit one up for my own. One of the men told me his travels to Seattle using packs much like mine.

“I have to get going.”

I shouldered my packs and continued to walk. They seemed to get heavier every time I would put them on me. It crossed my thoughts then, that maybe I couldn’t make it, that maybe, this time, I had bitten off more than I could chew. I’d be stuck deep in the south a thousand miles from home and anyone I knew. I stuck out my thumb as I had seen in movies, hoping someone would pick me up.

One man, exiting a parking lot waved to me. I trotted over and got in his car. He had short blonde hair and an honest look to him. In the backseat was his dog, an old mutt of golden brown color. Still, I would beware of this man, holding my knife in hand, away from his sight. Already, I was plotting an escape if things got hairy.

We talked idly of our lives and the past few days and I thanked him for picking me up. I offered what little money I had but he would not accept it. We came up to a gas station with a greyhound sign perched high up on a post.

“Thanks again.” I told him as I withdrew from his car. “See you around.”

A crowd of people where gathered around the station where gas pumps had once been placed. Replaced now, only with rusting pipes that jutted out from the concrete.

I spoke with the man inside and arranged my trip up north. I walked out again, placing my tickets and such where I would not lose them and sat amongst the crowd. The buses arrived shortly thereafter.

The drivers told me none of them went to Knoxville, the first destination on my itinerary. One other was headed there too. We were told we would have to wait another hour or so. I looked up at the sun that was now looming brightly over head. We glanced at each other.

“Now what?” he asked.

“Now we wait in the shade.”

We were headed the same way and decided we should stick together and so when a man came over and explained we could catch one of the buses and still remain on schedule we jumped at the chance. That was it, we were in it together. Now, at least, we had each other to rely on.

On the bus I asked what he was reading.

“Wolves of the Calla.”

That familiar voice, the one that spoke to me when I needed guidance.

“The Gunslinger.” I said to myself.

He was at the best part, the showdown between the Wolves and the people of the Calla and the Gunslingers.

He asked if it was a quick fight. I told him it was an efficient one, as was the way of the gunslingers. No bullshit, just smooth, skilled death-dealing.

We talked between ourselves most of the trip, smoking up half a pack of cigarettes each. At one station I noticed a girl with pretty brown eyes had been with us through two of our stops. She caught me looking at her and looked away herself. I saw her at the next station and stole a glance yet again only this time, when she caught me this time her gaze met mine.

We sat near her and I tried to talk to her. She either did not hear me or did not wish to speak to me.

The call for our bus came and we boarded. She sat behind us. I came to terms with being shot down. I turned in my seat and asked where she was headed.

“New York.” she informed me.

We talked for a bit and I told her I would be going soon. Eventually I asked if she would show me around. She agreed and surrendered her phone number. Victory was mine, if only a very small victory.

We parted ways with her in DC and I parted ways with my travelling companion in Baltimore without a proper farewell.

At the station in Baltimore I met another girl. With vagabond jeans and fancy shoes. She told me she played harmonica for a month to get those shoes.

“And look.” She stood on her tip-toes to show me that the soles of her shoes formed two halves of a pie. She finished her cigarette and went back inside the station, shooting me a smile as she went.

We all stood on the edge looking over the rail.

I spoke up, “this is a bad idea, probably.” Before I could finish the first of us leapt to whatever fate lay below us. Two splashes echoed out among the pillars. Moments later they surfaced and yelled for us to jump in.

Myself and another, still atop the bridge exchanged glances. I nodded for him to go first.

“Hell no.” He shook his head.

I looked over the rail again and when he did the same I helped him over the edge with a push. A louder, sloppier splash rang out and bounced back off the pillars. This was the moment of truth. Now or never. I held my breath and jumped. My fall seemed to have no end in my thoughts, though it had lasted no more than a heartbeat. I heard a curse spit at me just before being immeresed in sulking green water.

Immediately, I felt the current dragging me into the bay. I struggled against it, finding refuge among the jagged pillars that held the bridge I jumped from. The three others, the lot of us friends from the neighborhood, already clenched for the pillars so as not to be dragged away themselves.The structure was covered with barnacled teeth that bit into our elbows and pruned fingers.

We were dead center on a long abandoned bridge that split down the middle, allowing for larger sea-faring vessels to pass. There was at least fifteen pillars to travel in either direction and still, the current worked against us, tugging on our bodies, making our venture all the more complicated.

It was decided we would go to the deeper end on the bridge, there would be a ladder there. We had to move, the sun was setting and the darkness was beginning to make me anxious.

We would swim and we would tire, stopping every three pillars to compose ourselves. On our third stop as I placed a hand on the the pillar a crab scurried away from my grasp.

“Christ.” I muttered inwardly.

Six pillars left and we began swimming on our backs in the darkening water. We did so to use a different set of muscles. It worked well, but the darkness was ever-creeping on us. On the fourth pass I felt something scrape against my leg. I panicked and darted toward the nearest structure. Looking down at my hands thats now stung from open cuts and salt water, I imagined all manner of creature swimming around me, tasting my blood and wanting more of it.

My fear subsided and we made our final pass. There was a narrow pier and a caged ladder that would carry us to safety. It so went that the ladder was closed, a piece of sheetmetal would not allow our passage. We would have to climb the cage that surrounded it.

We made it up, leaving streaks of blood on the cage as we went. As we felt the comfort of solid, concrete ground small pools of blood and saltwater began to form at our feet. We all exchanged glances and in our heart of hearts we believed we had dodged the grave and now, with the safety of the ground beneath us, we cold-heartedly laughed at death.

First, there was was the world and everything belonging to it. In a hail of water and fire everything was washed away. Buildings crumbled to dust, cars decayed to heaps of brittle rust, streets fell into each other and man was gone. Animals inhabited our homes and soon, they vanished too. Trees went thereafter, the mountains stumbled on their own enormity and fell silently into the sea. The world we had come to known was gone - and then, even that. Our living star collapsed and the Earth was sent adrift into the nothingness of space where no light would touch it again. It was over. And what of my worries and triumphs? My blunders and accomplishments? What weight did they have on me now?

Went to the Midnight show on thursday. Some gentlemen dressed up for the ocassion and put on a show.

She stood motionless for a moment, in front of a fish tank larger than herself. the fluoresent lights and sea water gave it a faint green glow.There were lobsters inside - their claws bound tightly to each other. They might as well have been handcuffs she thought, the tank, a watery grave.

A small hand crept up to touch the glass and the creatures scurried away from it. She felt hopeless, for them, moreover for her own inability to do anything for them. She began then to cry. She could no more control her tears than she could her mother’s hand. It reached for hers and gently pulled her away from the dimly lit tank.

Upon a porch, several years later, she sat smoking a cigarette. Rocking to and fro she contemplated things, thinking of nothing and everything all at once. By now, she lived with a broken heart and constantly she thought of the way things were.

Nearby a sightly tiny bird took great interest in this strange creature. It wanted to converse with this awkward thing and so it did.

It flew non-chalantly at her and hovered in front of her eyes.

It is beautiful, this creature, the bird reflected.

“Hey we’re alive,” the bird spoke, “Thats good enough for me.”

It darted around her. “The universe is here and you are a part of it even in death.”

Before it parted it then said “Whether you realize it or not, you and I are one and the same.” and it was gone.

She had not seen or heard the bird speak, still a feeling that everything was as it should be drowned over her, manifested in a cold chill that began at her neck and swept down to her feet.

I was thinking of this at work. It’s from the Hobbit (JRR Tolkien).

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.

The Dwarves of Yore made mighty spells
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep
In hollow halls beneath the fells
For ancient king and Elvish Lord
There many a gleaming golden hoard
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught
To hide in gems on hilt of sword
On silver necklaces they strung
The flowering stars on crowns they hung
The dragon fire, entwisted wire
They meshed the light of moon and sun
Goblets they carved there for themselves
And harps of gold where no man delves
There they long, and many a song
Was sung unheard by man or elves
The pines were roaring on the height
The winds were moaning in the night
The fire was red, the flames they spread
The trees like torches blazed with light
The bells were ringing in the dale
And men looked up with faces pale;
Then dragon’s ire more fierce than fire
Laid low their towers and houses frail.
The mountain smoked beneath the moon;
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled their hall to dying fall
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.

Far over the misty mountains grim
To dungeons deep and caverns dim
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold from him!

As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and a jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves. Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.

A boat caught fire on South River Drive. Just had to follow the smoke to find it.

A game of Billiards. One shot taken after every shot. Cameraman: Wobbly.