"The First Rule of the Tinglev is that you DON'T talk about the Tinglev."
My Greys were unconscious, in lithe clumps on the deck, decked out in their Order Blue tunics and some light armor, sparse weaponry. Flat out.
The lobster-thing burbled again, gasps of phlegmy, annoying sounds. Raspiness and spit were not language, I thought.
"Schpikel bla'a'n plish, spilch'pik spah." ("What the FUCK was he saying, or spitting?" I thought.)
His eyes were pitch black with a bright white, lifeless point-spot, at the end of tiny stalks, and betrayed no emotion, no presence. (Their Grey officers began translating for me.) The three 'liney-guys' kept up their staccato dance, as if they just couldn't keep still. So distracting, like upright-bass strings in a busy symphony, one I couldn't hear.
"...For a minute,
I lost myself.
I lost my self."
Radiohead, and they kick ass during "Karma Police."
"There will be no need for repercussions," the Greys pressed lightly, "but we will require some explanation."
"Because," I had to put this diplomatically, so, a low press, "...I'm human?"
"Splact." (That's what I heard.)
"Precisely." A tight, twin translating echo in my cranium... and the lobster-thing brought both 'claws' together and bowed. Seriously bowed. (I know a bow when I see it...)
"That's a long story," I began, in precise grammar, pressing just a little, nonchalantly returning the bow, "We aren't planning on being here that long."
"Pinsit blamp sprinx."
("XO, help me out here," I privated, "Who or what are the 'liney-guys?' Do you see them on Main?"
Their movements made me exceedingly nervous, alert, on my toes...
"Aye, Klargen, they are 2-dimensional beings. Think of thoughtful Fourier transforms. Consciousness doesn't require 3-D or 4-D Cartesian phase-space - that's a human construct - and they, known as "Wibros" to us, exist only as points, lines, curves, but with definite consciousness, serious intent. They keep moving only to allow you to see them there - it takes a bit of energy, we suspect. No one really knows where they get that energy."
"Thanks, XO," I sniffed, realizing this didn't tell me the one answer I needed. Or wanted.
"Are they dangerous?"
"Disturbed, they can be lethal, Klargen." He pressed a hard intent to be wary. "They can drop to a point and extend."
"So they're a security force, then? Is the lobster in charge?"
"It appears so, I cannot translate that language. He was not here at AMHRF before. They refer to him as 'Durd'n.'"
"Very well, XO."
Well, this could go anywhere, I thought.
"I was abducted, and it escalated from there. Perhaps the Durd'n understands?"
Lobster-guy hissed and spurtled for a second... His shell went from a distinct maroon to an earthen greenish-brown, so quickly it distracted my cones/rods from the Wibros.
"So," I started...
"Sew buttons on socks." Someone pressed at me, I couldn't tell who. Very confusing. Almost felt like her.
"I trust and support my crew. We have been gathering information in standard modes. We are un-aligned. Do as you will."
"Splurt-sis'kap sch'pottal spo'olt gah," the lobster guy burbled, settling into a lime-rind green color for a moment.
He moved towards me, unthreateningly. Darn near in a friendly manner, I mused to myself.
Their Greys did a partial translation, "Perhaps we will have new allies."
My Greys began stirring on the deck, coming back. I felt them awaken. I realized, just then, that all our bodies were now back on a planet proper, one with significant gravity, and I felt the pull, the heaviness. They felt the same, real pull, waking up, wiped.
(They had no memory of anything since they'd exited the Tinglev, they pressed, and an inherent apology...)
"Pren-po! Ninx pat pra 'owt t'sil baht!" I ordered.
(I pressed to them to not handle their weapons.)
"Blinx, Klargen," they privated, "Passive display only."
"Klargen, passive sensors indicate unseen mechanical movements, possible preparations for our repairs," the XO privated, "Counsel caution."
"Aye, XO."
Durd'n kept moving, nearly scraping the immaculate deck with 6-8 crusty, pointed legs, he looked like a squad of green-coated toy soldiers under a tank. (I was laughingly aware that he didn't smell like seafood.) He was 4' tall, roughly. He looked heavy, well-armored, and as his claws dropped to his sides, we all realized he was no threat. I knew he was inordinately wise.
The Wibros dropped to single lines, vibrating slowly, barely there above the deck, wobbling slowly. That was a relief.
Durd'n and I touched foreheads. Human skin to green 'hard-shell.' It was the thing to do, in respect to protocol. I almost felt like hugging him, but I knew that might be too aggressive.
And then I knew, in a rush of thought.
"I'm waiting,
I don't think I can go on.
I'm dying,
My last breath has come and gone.
Pity the man,
Searching in the sky,
Waiting for a sign
From above.
And he never
Caught a glimpse
Of what he's worthy of."
-from Todd Rundgren's awesome 1983 "Drive"
(My patient and serenely methodical Beatrix, greetings/salutations! Hope your recent life has been awesome, delicious, and sweet. Don't be 'bleak.' That's no fun.)
Let's talk about things we shouldn't. (Like we never do that here, dear readers.)
We all have secrets we won't reveal, right?
But we have clues going to them. (And, from them.) And confidantes.
People can sniff those out. They'll find them. Trust me, they'll find them. Let's review the nature of the word 'tenacious,' shall we? Like a hound dog on a new bone, some of that.
Quanta get entangled, it's just the way it is. There's no meaning to it.
Let's discuss the meaning of camouflage, shall we? Hiding in plain sight isn't such a thing if your intent is benign. You can just drive by, be by, live by, or hide by. Depends on your intent.
Yes, I've been trained - or self-trained - for myriad instances of unjustifiable crap.
One Thursday night, at the Quarterback Pub and Eatery, long, long ago, like Summer 1993, I was eating a magnificent sirloin steak I'd prepared for my best customer - myself. I had paid my $2 to have that as my 'shift meal.' (I was a line cook there. The steak cost $2, just what it was, for a shift-meal.)
Next sight/thought: Two gigantic meth-or-coke-addled, unshaven plaid-wearing (non-Scottish) assholes came in, smelling of chainsaw oil and piss-poor attitude.
They sidled up to the bar where I was eating, to my left. Stinky, unenlightened fuck-wits.
I was liking my steak, it was rare as hell, black-peppery perfect. Some mashed potatoes, new beef gravy. Sauteed/deglazed veggies. What a delicious contrast of smells.
My 'red-flags' went off right away with these new patrons. (They almost ruined my meal.)
My bartender buddy looked closely at them, then refused to serve these fuck-ups, because they were clearly intoxicated already, by something. Nerping for something we didn't sell there.
His "No" was met by their overwhelming over-response - they tried to pull him over the bar by his shirt collar - 500+lbs of logger-twits versus 'My Trusted Co-worker' - and I wasn't going to allow that. He'd locked his toes under the cabinet, but they were BIG assholes, (did I mention that?)
So the solution wasn't hard to figure out. Took about 1/2 a second. I reached over, broke their wuss grips, and put them each in a crisp inikio, and dragged both of them to the floor, then I put a bony knee into each of their sacral ganglia, right where it really pissed them off, it ended up. They knew I would break their lower right arms and/or wrists, because I told them that with specific pressure. They started screaming bloody murder because I had some serious 'pain-compliance' going on. They asked for it, right? They drew "First Blood," right?
They really had no idea what would've happened if they escalated it, or - had they tried - what damage would have descended upon them. I, however, knew exactly how far it could go. They wouldn't have liked it, and perhaps thought about how pain medication gets expensive for permanent, chronic damage. I would have it made it difficult for them to ever grasp car keys again, let alone a philosophy-major bartender. If I kept twisting, they couldn't ever even feel their dicks again, at least with their right hands.
That loss of control, and the ensuing frustration, made them madder.
Aikido is nothing compared to kung-fu. Aikido has no 'finish moves.' It is truly defensive, like The Force. It has its worth, but it IS limited.
But, I had three times my weight, two souls, pinned to the stinky bar floor. I hadn't learned how to 'take them out.' There's nothing in aikido for that eventual scenario. They were both, practically, incapacitated. One can't do anything in that pain-compliance mentality, maybe blindly follow orders, nothing more. Pain focuses one's thoughts.
"Call the cops."
They hated that. I told them to 'shut up' and let them know they had to shut up.
So soon they were screaming that they were gonna 'fuck me up and kill me,' and I let them know that THIS new, extra-fun, torsional sheer pain was the answer to their direct threat. I actually enjoyed their helplessness, because they were coke-addled pricks who threatened ALL of us in the bar. I twisted their arms like they were dolls.
Had they kept it up, I would've grabbed and pinned their ankles and messed with their walking skills. I'm not a sadist, but these guys asked for it. "Don't grab my friend/co-worker" is a rule I go with.
Then, after what seemed liked an eternity (30 seconds) of 'my steak getting cold,' our Bar Manager, Dennis, came out from the back room - and slammed a hickory-stick pool cue on the bar - viciously - and they realized they'd lost the whole game. I gave them a little, twisty Parthian shot and let them know I was nothing but pain to them. I was very focused, but ultimately wanted my sirloin.
As they stood up, they swore they'd kill us (employees.) They looked me in the eye, and threatened me directly to my face, so I moved in again, dropped low, now with 'back-up,' and they knew I was gonna REALLY make them feel pain, and they backed off. If they had so much have raised an arm, they would've lost most use of that errant arm. Spirals want to cave in on themselves. I could see breaking their lower arms as easily as I could see cutting my steak. And I wanted my steak warm. It was getting cold.
They cursed all the way out, threatening to come back with firearms.
Dennis said "Go ahead," and eyed them like a crazy bastard. It worked.
Why am I writing this here?
So kung-fu was/is the 'next level.' Starting with wing-chun, specifically. Kung-fu doesn't fuck around. You end fights. You end 'beefs.' You end 'wishes.' You end almost anything, and they don't even want to seek revenge if you fuck them up badly enough... it's just kind of 'in' the ethos of kung-fu.
Those guys are lucky I wasn't THERE yet. They can still have "right-hand girlfriends." Two years later, they'd've been "strangerin'" those pathetically small penises. (And drinking through straws, trying to turn the TV channel in a hospital room, recalling that moment of supreme stupidity. They made the best call, and left, and didn't return. I was on edge for days.)
Heading into New York City in late September, 2001, I remembered my wing-chun. I remembered everything - knife-disarms, pistol-disarms, limb destruction, pain-compliance, 4-part sambrata with sticks, everything.
It was martial law south of Houston Street.
No problem. Only mono-fibrous asbestos and provable conspiracy there.
What the fuck am I typing?
No one knows. Least of all, me. Or, you.
"You do." (A 3 year-old's blatant logic is a subtle killer of lingering doubts.)
"...I know, I know for sure,
Ding dang dong dong ding dang dong ding dang.
(Well) I know, I know it's you,
Ding dang dong dong ding dang dong ding dang."
Red Hot Chili Peppers, kicking ass yet again with "Around the World."
There's some reason his name is "Durd'n." I'll let you know when I figure that out.
I'll figure it all out, eventually.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Is This Untitled?
What time is it?
It's night-time.
The air is clear, stillish, and cold as hell-fire. The stars are crisp, colored by their ages, and Jupiter is smiling just off the outstretched arrow arc of Orion, as they rise. Polaris sits and spins, truly blue-balled at celestial North.
We all know the stars and sky are on caffeine. No other explanation.
On a wild hair, I - just now (one minute ago, anyways) - picked up a thumb-sized old river rock from one of the flower beds outside the back door, and (somewhat maliciously) wondered if I could hit something with it. (Quick orientation for newbs. The largish backyard is north/south, raised beds at the north end, back door at the south, shed/gate, fence, grapes, fence, maple, diadora cedar along the western frontier. (I decided on one of those silly 'solar-light' spikes that everyone buys at Wal-Mart [for white-elephant gifts at Xmas.] Target was the size of a balled up fist, 12-14 square inches, and about a foot less in elevation - slightly uphill with the grade. )
We cleared out the strawberries after 4 years, and I stuck one of those light spikes in there for shits-n-giggles, a few months back. In the winter sun, it barely charges, and puts off a faint, orangey light for just a few hours, depending on its orientation.
I've been obsessed with trajectories for decades - rocks, arrows, rifle rounds, 105-120mm tank rounds - so this one was no different.
Just more primitive. A tannish, speckled-with-many-hues prize of the glaciers. My weapon. So simple. (Spoiler: I knew I was gonna hit it WAYYYY before I threw it.)
TL:DR - We ALL know I hit it, dead-on, just a few minutes ago. Plunk FTW!
So what am I getting at here?
Fuck, I have no idea. Just happy that my hand-eye coordination hasn't faded. Hell, it's improved as I've gotten older. I do think about gravity, crosswind, spin-drift, Coriolis effects north/south, relative cant - weird shit like that. Old training.
Move on, nothing to see here.
Here's a song for symbolic reinforcement of my personal, empire-based ideals... as a benevolent dictator.
(Mango! Shhhhhh*^#@%^^, edit this out, later - before you hit 'Publish.' Otherwise, people may assume you're in your head too much.
Am I? Are we?
Maybe. Sh'nt give it all up.
When we unveil the Uniform Mystical Anomaly Detangler, they'll all know, so as long as we don't reveal that, we're golden. (Sinister laugh.)
So we'll delete this later in the column?
Yes, almost certainly. Can't give up the UMAD yet, right? Think about the long-term, man.
We try not to miss temporal details, don't we? Still OCD as hell.
You are.
We are.)
"Like a steely blade in a silken sheath
We don't see what they're made of.
They shout about love, but when push comes to shove,
They live for things they're afraid of."
Rush "The Weapon" from 1982's 'Signals'
The security detachment was deployed, their toroid weapons had intersected coverage, they betrayed no breach, there were no alarums, so I exited the Tinglev.
Nothing at my first step. So quiet. The floor was shiny, a bit slippery - almost wet - so damn clean. A CSI team couldn't find an errant skin-tag there. No semen. No hair. Scoured.
"Pun lip smet pap a-ri'in."
"Blinx, Klargen." They spread out further, and the drop hatch slid - muted - back into place.
"XO, hold tight," I privated, "Be ready to get outta here, and glurg spin'to if you have to."
"Aye, Klargen." He shot back, fearlessly.
He wouldn't go anywhere without me, and I knew it. Plus, he knew I knew it.
Surveying the bottom of AMHRF, I was aware of the claustrophobic effect of rising walls that slope inward towards you, from my pseudo-climbing days. Here, it was in all cardinal directions. Everything above us closed to a small point, relatively, and very little ambient light reached that orifice. It was a pucker of absolute dark above us. The empty smoothness of the deck was as disconcerting, because this place used to be the shit, as far as I'd heard. Unsettlingly boring.
I decided to use my real voice.
"Thank you for receiving us. May we obtain repairs?"
My Greys kept a 360 perimeter, and feathered to outside the Tinglev's umbra, so that my engineer guys were perhaps 40 meters back, past the warp-bubble nacelles and then some - just inside the range of the only light sources - our landing markers.
Multiple echoes of my voice for a millisecond, soon deflected away, sadly muted.
A low-frequency rumble and several metallic 'clunks' belied a nauseous physical jolt, and the platform - the entire deck - began to descend, with all of us on it. We could feel, and see, the relative motion downwards, hose lines snaking along the walls, soon merging into pumps, or obvious valves, or precise interior stairways cut into the rock, or fuel fixtures and provisioning cranes tucked in, tight against the walls.
Still no life-forms. I could smell sweaty animals, or anxiety - adrenaline! (Probably just me. My Greys don't actually perspire.)
Level 5 was safe, as far as we knew. But we weren't staying there, according to Them.
Fucking nerve-wracking few seconds. I had to do something other than stand there, looking not-Klargen at all.
"2 X 2 cover, echelon right," I ordered privately, and we all jogged in a sweep toward the right, relative to the Tinglev. (Order Blue suits shimmer a bit when you're running, reflecting ambient colors, which is great camouflage.) I felt the XO ordering WEPS to cover us with ship's weapons, as well.
"XO, anything on passive sensors?" I privated, puffing in the cool air as we reached the perimeter, halting, the wall just a few meters beyond.
Cool rock face, punctuated with curious infrastructure. Nothing to betray what history had unfolded.
We seemed to be moving at office elevator slow-speed. Kinda cool for a platform so large.
"Nil-paht, Klargen."
"Understood." (I could see him - mentally - on the edge of the Rotatey-Chair, straining for information on Visual Mode.)
In the immediate months after the kerfuffle of 'Beatrix and Her Minions of Misanthropy,' I was a bit self-destructive. Not directly, but... took lots of risks, because I didn't exactly want to live with the foul offal of that situation. (I had some fun friends. We had some great times.)
I parked my car for nearly 9 months and rollerbladed just about everywhere - work, school, the supermarket, friend's houses. (That lasted until I had E. coli, and my thigh muscles shrank considerably from 8 days of unconsciousness and relative exsanguination. It really should've killed me, in retrospect. I couldn't walk for a week after, and gaining the weight back took over a year. Here's the Short Story of that night. Before Near Death: Part One.)
That last rollerblade adventure in Bellingham was a doozy. I closed the cooling kitchen, now whisper-clean, and dropped a tab of good acid as I laced up my blades. Had my 'shift-drink,' or two, and set out to the south, down 32nd St and then, Old Fairhaven Parkway. (I wanted a good mile or two rolling by before it kicked in. I purposely picked 'the long way' to get a good workout and to 'see' the night at a good clip. I headed south to get northwest, eventually.) The night was cold and clear, relatively quiet on a 'school night.' Very little traffic. I was moving very quickly on 8 axles.
Somewhere, in the last blocks before Fairhaven proper, my world expanded and I willingly joined it, as an extension of the planet itself, alive and conscious and serene.
Smell and taste and vision and memory converged into a loving warmth. Fully aware, to the point of hyper-awareness. Tiny buds on the trees seemed so bursting with future life, cats in windows watched intently as I rolled by, and a raccoon family hustled across the Parkway in the wee hours past midnight. They knew I was no threat. My balance and relative road-grip were delicious, and I strode out, cutting swaths of pavement with every stretch. Reminded me of speed skating.
I had learned to spot bad asphalt and loose gravel from way off by then, so there were no surprises for me, even on a 'new' road.
Actually, I had learned this perceptive skill from Beatrix - in early April of 1991, when we were driving east on I-84 near Bridal Veil, Oregon - on our way to Carson Hot Springs. The Columbia Gorge, in its vast grandness, lay ahead of us - a mighty, silvery river callous with wind-swept waves, dense mixed forests in clear taffetas of relief, chunky shadowed-brown cliffs leading to soaring mountains, and the road itself, full of movement, humanity, and color... a rich scene. I'd bet a few bucks that Peter Gabriel's "Big Time" was playing on the cassette player. That album filled my days back then.
She noticed something ahead and spoke aloud, "There's a shoe hanging in that tree." She pointed it out, a quarter mile away, at least - a white hi-top tennis shoe, hanging in the top of a tall fir a few hundred feet off the interstate. It appeared to be laced to something, or maybe it'd fallen from an airplane and got stuck very high in that tree.
"What the fuck," I thought. "All this and she sees 'that.'"
It was, indeed, a shoe in a tree. Infinite details in our windshield, and THAT one is what she locked onto, and mentioned. In a natural wonder-scape, she found the synthetic.
Wow, I thought.
Took me a while to figure out how she did it, and it came down to this: Some things break the natural pattern. Some things don't belong where they are. Some things are inherently obvious if you haven't learned to 'tune them out.' Some things are obvious when you're tuned in.
This way of seeing was to become a mantra of mine for a long time. I consciously tried to perfect that skill, to the point at which I could see a ball bearing in the middle of Samish Drive as I motored by at 35 mph. (Yes, it was there, we stopped, I backtracked, and checked it out.) Uncanny. A fucking ball-bearing.
As I rolled up into Fairhaven from the south that long lost night ago, I was in this focused, heightened mode. I noticed everything, patterned or not, because I had a become a cognizant part of it. I was alive. The mist seemed to be a friendly blanket, rolling off the bay just beyond the curl of the hill northwest. A newer sidewalk provided a grid of rhythmic noise that allowed me to determine my relative speed, providing echoes that painted the road ahead and aside in auditory 3-D radar. The arcs and planes of houses, the dampening of sounds by shrubbery and trees, the cave of space above, they all allowed me to see much more than my eyes alone could process. Delicious. I was truly Here/There.
Rounding the dog-leg bend near the street access to Boulevard Park, I noticed red and blue flashes reflecting off the trunks of trees and the telephone and power-wires ahead of me on Marine View Drive, and instead of heading up State Street, I decided to investigate. Looked like fun.
Whee!
There were at least 6-7 BPD cars, and at least as many uniformed policemen fanned across the road, obviously intent on finding something. I slowed down and approached the roadblock, tripping hard by now. The intense beams of their flashlights were combing through the shrubbery and blackberries on either side of the road, like radioactive swords of lemony light. They were searching for something lost, that much was obvious. They had intent. And I felt truly separate from it.
Skidding to a crisp stop at the first man-in-blue, I shielded my eyes from his Mag-lite.
"Evening Officer, what's up?" I asked, panting just a bit, then stretching my legs to eke the calcium through... I had a Strawberry-Kiwi Snapple in my bag and fetched it for a quick drink.
"We've got an escaped suspect spotted down here. Did you see anyone south of here, along the road?"
"Not at all, Officer. Not a soul. I would've seen any movement, seriously." (And I meant any movement, consciousness, or energy that didn't fit the pattern I was now intimate with.) I'm sure I looked rather odd - a boomerang strapped to my hip, camouflage gym bag over both my shoulders, black beret, black rollerblades, tiny pupils. I'm fairly sure he knew I was on something, but it wasn't his - or anyone else's - problem. No harm, no foul.
"Where're you headed?" he inquired, obviously bored.
"My girlfriend's condo up on State," I said, gesturing up and right, "This way looked more interesting."
"If you see anyone, call 911."
"I will," I said, and skated though the discotheque gauntlet. Said perp was gone - a ghost to the night.
"These aren't the droids you're looking for. Move along." Obi-Wan Kenobi.
The remainder of the night was filled with dreamy star-gazing - waiting for an auroral outburst that didn't come - feeling the crawling mist, the acrid aroma of saltwater, the gaze of conifers, occasional car exhaust. And reliving troublesome memories. One thing I was always sure of, on acid, was that 'consciousnesses are always connected.' I knew when cats looked at me, and I knew when I'd been recognized by them. (Some of my routines were interlaced, even though I changed my routes regularly.) I knew when old consciousnesses could see me, or feel me.
What time is it?
It's about time.
I rolled the I Ching, regarding my seemingly obsessive relationship with Beatrix, in early 1993. My question was "Why do I still think about her, what is the meaning?"
I got Hexagram 43, Kuai - 'The Breakthrough.' There are many different interpretations of the hexagrams, but this one made sense.
Nonetheless, I didn't like it. We rolled it up, yet again. Got the same thing. "Inconceivable."
Man, Oh man, that's some crazy odds. Cray-2-the-Zed. What is 64 X 64 - 1? Am I doing this right?
So I rolled it again, same question. "Why Beatrix, what is it?"
Kuai. The Breakthrough.
Those odds get unreasonable at 'three-in-a-row.' With 64 possible combinations each time, do we even want to 'go there?'
Rolling that I Ching,
The Lake Over Heaven falls,
Three times in a row.
from - Mango Dobbins' "A Haiku or Two."
The platform began to accelerate downwards, and we looked back and forth to acknowledge it. We dropped and braced ourselves for a sudden stop. We were way 'south' of level 6 at this point, moving like a freight elevator now; a confident, controlled dip. I could hear the leather of my boots squeaking as my weight decreased, relative to the drop-rate. The walls were vertical, and passed by in a smooth carpet of random earth-tones, or machinery parts, or a blend. A faint lime-ish light came up from the rim, and I turned to my Security Team, and...
We dropped. Faster. My stomach began churning. This didn't look good for us.
Watching the walls go by, in my periphery, I noticed my Greys fainting onto the slick silvery-grey surface. Not in a violent way, more of a graduated loss of control. Panic! What the Xerox copier is going on? Lemony flashes of partially-lit platforms, built-in to the walls went by, easily large enough to rest the Tinglev, do repairs.
"XO, spranx!" ("Talk to me!")
"Klargen, herp speen toh-na spilt glurgen derp pah-neen, pamp do' rits..."
"Understood. Very well."
So they were all unconscious, except the XO. Maybe his mem-trans with me had something to do with that, I thought. I'm so narcissiticalist! (It means I'm lithely muscular and pathetically vain and aware of both those issues. Gorgeous.)
The floor continued to fall. It was getting almost unbearably fast. The light became much brighter as we fell. I could hear the awkward hum-drops of the air as it broke onto older, deadened cavities in the wall. Some seemed to have weapons emplacements, I couldn't be sure - they really did go by quickly. I laid down to protect my organs. It took an effort. The light-
"XO, set passive recording, full spectrum. Filter limelight." It was a tenuous push.
"Bonx, Klargen." (I could hear the Rotatey Chair attempt to accommodate his skinny ass in near free-fall as he attempted SCIENCE controls from the interface on the armrest.)
And then we stopped, the Tinglev was behind us, about 60 feet to the bow, what a beautiful ship, and the creaks of hidden hydraulic systems betrayed themselves. Rapid-ionic jets had fired to stabilize the Tinglev's relative fall, automatically. Numerous seismic-level cogs in the vast platform did their thing, and we could feel it. A very controlled stop. Glassy, slimy grey walls. And nothing else, except a doorway rimmed in intense light-green light. About the size of a garage door. For a big car.
"Klargen?"
"XO, what've you got? Ni'l smeer pap' oh yetzt." ("Don't sugar coat it.")
"Level 8, Klargen. We're at Level 8." The air was so thin I struggled to keep up with it. Air pressure was dropping precariously. The veins on my neck stood out, I could feel them.
"What time is it, XO?" I growled, for no reason whatsoever. What the hell did that mean, Level 8?
"It's the time, Klargen. Nothing is known from here on. No humans allowed below Level 5," he reminded me. He need'n't push it, but he did.
"Understood. Very well." Sphincters were puckering between the two of us.
And then the light dimmed, and the door smipped open, very mechanically, sucking what little air was left for a niptuk. My eyes took a second to adjust... blurry.
It was like a symphony. Light being sounds, colors rendering shapes, new wondrous beings with old, familiar greetings, all erupted as they filed out. (I can hardly describe it.) Two distinguished Greys, a 4-foot lobster-looking thing - with a serious bearing - and three slinky shapes, moving like they were disguised by the rock, mere lines against the continuity of the walls. They never stood still, and they seemed hepped up, on something, elsewhere. Barely in the present.
I knew it all. Seen it before, somehow.
"Call me Klargen," I chuckled, at first. "Do not harm my crew. There would be... repercussions."
They - probably the older Greys - punished me for that, and pushed back, hard "There are no Klargens here."
My temples ached with that one. The three line-beings kept up their intricate dances.
"But we will do your repairs. Your crew is safe."
What? Why? Who are you?
And they didn't offer shit. Lobster-guy sputtered a bubble, nothing I could understand.
Nothing, then?
"It's all fine. Repairs will be underway." The XO and I both heard, sub-audible.
I couldn't tell who sent me that message. It sounded like an authority, and I was in their space, so to say.
"Though his mind is not for rent,
Don't put him down as arrogant.
His reserve - a quiet defense,
Riding out the day's events -
The river."
"Tom Sawyer," Rush at their best, 1981.
What time is it?
It's the time. No time like the present. Time waits for no one. Time does its job. Time is money.
It's night-time. Sweet dreams, comrades.
It's night-time.
The air is clear, stillish, and cold as hell-fire. The stars are crisp, colored by their ages, and Jupiter is smiling just off the outstretched arrow arc of Orion, as they rise. Polaris sits and spins, truly blue-balled at celestial North.
We all know the stars and sky are on caffeine. No other explanation.
On a wild hair, I - just now (one minute ago, anyways) - picked up a thumb-sized old river rock from one of the flower beds outside the back door, and (somewhat maliciously) wondered if I could hit something with it. (Quick orientation for newbs. The largish backyard is north/south, raised beds at the north end, back door at the south, shed/gate, fence, grapes, fence, maple, diadora cedar along the western frontier. (I decided on one of those silly 'solar-light' spikes that everyone buys at Wal-Mart [for white-elephant gifts at Xmas.] Target was the size of a balled up fist, 12-14 square inches, and about a foot less in elevation - slightly uphill with the grade. )
We cleared out the strawberries after 4 years, and I stuck one of those light spikes in there for shits-n-giggles, a few months back. In the winter sun, it barely charges, and puts off a faint, orangey light for just a few hours, depending on its orientation.
I've been obsessed with trajectories for decades - rocks, arrows, rifle rounds, 105-120mm tank rounds - so this one was no different.
Just more primitive. A tannish, speckled-with-many-hues prize of the glaciers. My weapon. So simple. (Spoiler: I knew I was gonna hit it WAYYYY before I threw it.)
TL:DR - We ALL know I hit it, dead-on, just a few minutes ago. Plunk FTW!
So what am I getting at here?
Fuck, I have no idea. Just happy that my hand-eye coordination hasn't faded. Hell, it's improved as I've gotten older. I do think about gravity, crosswind, spin-drift, Coriolis effects north/south, relative cant - weird shit like that. Old training.
Move on, nothing to see here.
Here's a song for symbolic reinforcement of my personal, empire-based ideals... as a benevolent dictator.
(Mango! Shhhhhh*^#@%^^, edit this out, later - before you hit 'Publish.' Otherwise, people may assume you're in your head too much.
Am I? Are we?
Maybe. Sh'nt give it all up.
When we unveil the Uniform Mystical Anomaly Detangler, they'll all know, so as long as we don't reveal that, we're golden. (Sinister laugh.)
So we'll delete this later in the column?
Yes, almost certainly. Can't give up the UMAD yet, right? Think about the long-term, man.
We try not to miss temporal details, don't we? Still OCD as hell.
You are.
We are.)
"Like a steely blade in a silken sheath
We don't see what they're made of.
They shout about love, but when push comes to shove,
They live for things they're afraid of."
Rush "The Weapon" from 1982's 'Signals'
The security detachment was deployed, their toroid weapons had intersected coverage, they betrayed no breach, there were no alarums, so I exited the Tinglev.
Nothing at my first step. So quiet. The floor was shiny, a bit slippery - almost wet - so damn clean. A CSI team couldn't find an errant skin-tag there. No semen. No hair. Scoured.
"Pun lip smet pap a-ri'in."
"Blinx, Klargen." They spread out further, and the drop hatch slid - muted - back into place.
"XO, hold tight," I privated, "Be ready to get outta here, and glurg spin'to if you have to."
"Aye, Klargen." He shot back, fearlessly.
He wouldn't go anywhere without me, and I knew it. Plus, he knew I knew it.
Surveying the bottom of AMHRF, I was aware of the claustrophobic effect of rising walls that slope inward towards you, from my pseudo-climbing days. Here, it was in all cardinal directions. Everything above us closed to a small point, relatively, and very little ambient light reached that orifice. It was a pucker of absolute dark above us. The empty smoothness of the deck was as disconcerting, because this place used to be the shit, as far as I'd heard. Unsettlingly boring.
I decided to use my real voice.
"Thank you for receiving us. May we obtain repairs?"
My Greys kept a 360 perimeter, and feathered to outside the Tinglev's umbra, so that my engineer guys were perhaps 40 meters back, past the warp-bubble nacelles and then some - just inside the range of the only light sources - our landing markers.
Multiple echoes of my voice for a millisecond, soon deflected away, sadly muted.
A low-frequency rumble and several metallic 'clunks' belied a nauseous physical jolt, and the platform - the entire deck - began to descend, with all of us on it. We could feel, and see, the relative motion downwards, hose lines snaking along the walls, soon merging into pumps, or obvious valves, or precise interior stairways cut into the rock, or fuel fixtures and provisioning cranes tucked in, tight against the walls.
Still no life-forms. I could smell sweaty animals, or anxiety - adrenaline! (Probably just me. My Greys don't actually perspire.)
Level 5 was safe, as far as we knew. But we weren't staying there, according to Them.
Fucking nerve-wracking few seconds. I had to do something other than stand there, looking not-Klargen at all.
"2 X 2 cover, echelon right," I ordered privately, and we all jogged in a sweep toward the right, relative to the Tinglev. (Order Blue suits shimmer a bit when you're running, reflecting ambient colors, which is great camouflage.) I felt the XO ordering WEPS to cover us with ship's weapons, as well.
"XO, anything on passive sensors?" I privated, puffing in the cool air as we reached the perimeter, halting, the wall just a few meters beyond.
Cool rock face, punctuated with curious infrastructure. Nothing to betray what history had unfolded.
We seemed to be moving at office elevator slow-speed. Kinda cool for a platform so large.
"Nil-paht, Klargen."
"Understood." (I could see him - mentally - on the edge of the Rotatey-Chair, straining for information on Visual Mode.)
In the immediate months after the kerfuffle of 'Beatrix and Her Minions of Misanthropy,' I was a bit self-destructive. Not directly, but... took lots of risks, because I didn't exactly want to live with the foul offal of that situation. (I had some fun friends. We had some great times.)
I parked my car for nearly 9 months and rollerbladed just about everywhere - work, school, the supermarket, friend's houses. (That lasted until I had E. coli, and my thigh muscles shrank considerably from 8 days of unconsciousness and relative exsanguination. It really should've killed me, in retrospect. I couldn't walk for a week after, and gaining the weight back took over a year. Here's the Short Story of that night. Before Near Death: Part One.)
That last rollerblade adventure in Bellingham was a doozy. I closed the cooling kitchen, now whisper-clean, and dropped a tab of good acid as I laced up my blades. Had my 'shift-drink,' or two, and set out to the south, down 32nd St and then, Old Fairhaven Parkway. (I wanted a good mile or two rolling by before it kicked in. I purposely picked 'the long way' to get a good workout and to 'see' the night at a good clip. I headed south to get northwest, eventually.) The night was cold and clear, relatively quiet on a 'school night.' Very little traffic. I was moving very quickly on 8 axles.
Somewhere, in the last blocks before Fairhaven proper, my world expanded and I willingly joined it, as an extension of the planet itself, alive and conscious and serene.
Smell and taste and vision and memory converged into a loving warmth. Fully aware, to the point of hyper-awareness. Tiny buds on the trees seemed so bursting with future life, cats in windows watched intently as I rolled by, and a raccoon family hustled across the Parkway in the wee hours past midnight. They knew I was no threat. My balance and relative road-grip were delicious, and I strode out, cutting swaths of pavement with every stretch. Reminded me of speed skating.
I had learned to spot bad asphalt and loose gravel from way off by then, so there were no surprises for me, even on a 'new' road.
Actually, I had learned this perceptive skill from Beatrix - in early April of 1991, when we were driving east on I-84 near Bridal Veil, Oregon - on our way to Carson Hot Springs. The Columbia Gorge, in its vast grandness, lay ahead of us - a mighty, silvery river callous with wind-swept waves, dense mixed forests in clear taffetas of relief, chunky shadowed-brown cliffs leading to soaring mountains, and the road itself, full of movement, humanity, and color... a rich scene. I'd bet a few bucks that Peter Gabriel's "Big Time" was playing on the cassette player. That album filled my days back then.
She noticed something ahead and spoke aloud, "There's a shoe hanging in that tree." She pointed it out, a quarter mile away, at least - a white hi-top tennis shoe, hanging in the top of a tall fir a few hundred feet off the interstate. It appeared to be laced to something, or maybe it'd fallen from an airplane and got stuck very high in that tree.
"What the fuck," I thought. "All this and she sees 'that.'"
It was, indeed, a shoe in a tree. Infinite details in our windshield, and THAT one is what she locked onto, and mentioned. In a natural wonder-scape, she found the synthetic.
Wow, I thought.
Took me a while to figure out how she did it, and it came down to this: Some things break the natural pattern. Some things don't belong where they are. Some things are inherently obvious if you haven't learned to 'tune them out.' Some things are obvious when you're tuned in.
This way of seeing was to become a mantra of mine for a long time. I consciously tried to perfect that skill, to the point at which I could see a ball bearing in the middle of Samish Drive as I motored by at 35 mph. (Yes, it was there, we stopped, I backtracked, and checked it out.) Uncanny. A fucking ball-bearing.
As I rolled up into Fairhaven from the south that long lost night ago, I was in this focused, heightened mode. I noticed everything, patterned or not, because I had a become a cognizant part of it. I was alive. The mist seemed to be a friendly blanket, rolling off the bay just beyond the curl of the hill northwest. A newer sidewalk provided a grid of rhythmic noise that allowed me to determine my relative speed, providing echoes that painted the road ahead and aside in auditory 3-D radar. The arcs and planes of houses, the dampening of sounds by shrubbery and trees, the cave of space above, they all allowed me to see much more than my eyes alone could process. Delicious. I was truly Here/There.
Rounding the dog-leg bend near the street access to Boulevard Park, I noticed red and blue flashes reflecting off the trunks of trees and the telephone and power-wires ahead of me on Marine View Drive, and instead of heading up State Street, I decided to investigate. Looked like fun.
Whee!
There were at least 6-7 BPD cars, and at least as many uniformed policemen fanned across the road, obviously intent on finding something. I slowed down and approached the roadblock, tripping hard by now. The intense beams of their flashlights were combing through the shrubbery and blackberries on either side of the road, like radioactive swords of lemony light. They were searching for something lost, that much was obvious. They had intent. And I felt truly separate from it.
Skidding to a crisp stop at the first man-in-blue, I shielded my eyes from his Mag-lite.
"Evening Officer, what's up?" I asked, panting just a bit, then stretching my legs to eke the calcium through... I had a Strawberry-Kiwi Snapple in my bag and fetched it for a quick drink.
"We've got an escaped suspect spotted down here. Did you see anyone south of here, along the road?"
"Not at all, Officer. Not a soul. I would've seen any movement, seriously." (And I meant any movement, consciousness, or energy that didn't fit the pattern I was now intimate with.) I'm sure I looked rather odd - a boomerang strapped to my hip, camouflage gym bag over both my shoulders, black beret, black rollerblades, tiny pupils. I'm fairly sure he knew I was on something, but it wasn't his - or anyone else's - problem. No harm, no foul.
"Where're you headed?" he inquired, obviously bored.
"My girlfriend's condo up on State," I said, gesturing up and right, "This way looked more interesting."
"If you see anyone, call 911."
"I will," I said, and skated though the discotheque gauntlet. Said perp was gone - a ghost to the night.
"These aren't the droids you're looking for. Move along." Obi-Wan Kenobi.
The remainder of the night was filled with dreamy star-gazing - waiting for an auroral outburst that didn't come - feeling the crawling mist, the acrid aroma of saltwater, the gaze of conifers, occasional car exhaust. And reliving troublesome memories. One thing I was always sure of, on acid, was that 'consciousnesses are always connected.' I knew when cats looked at me, and I knew when I'd been recognized by them. (Some of my routines were interlaced, even though I changed my routes regularly.) I knew when old consciousnesses could see me, or feel me.
What time is it?
It's about time.
I rolled the I Ching, regarding my seemingly obsessive relationship with Beatrix, in early 1993. My question was "Why do I still think about her, what is the meaning?"
I got Hexagram 43, Kuai - 'The Breakthrough.' There are many different interpretations of the hexagrams, but this one made sense.
Nonetheless, I didn't like it. We rolled it up, yet again. Got the same thing. "Inconceivable."
Man, Oh man, that's some crazy odds. Cray-2-the-Zed. What is 64 X 64 - 1? Am I doing this right?
So I rolled it again, same question. "Why Beatrix, what is it?"
Kuai. The Breakthrough.
Those odds get unreasonable at 'three-in-a-row.' With 64 possible combinations each time, do we even want to 'go there?'
Rolling that I Ching,
The Lake Over Heaven falls,
Three times in a row.
from - Mango Dobbins' "A Haiku or Two."
The platform began to accelerate downwards, and we looked back and forth to acknowledge it. We dropped and braced ourselves for a sudden stop. We were way 'south' of level 6 at this point, moving like a freight elevator now; a confident, controlled dip. I could hear the leather of my boots squeaking as my weight decreased, relative to the drop-rate. The walls were vertical, and passed by in a smooth carpet of random earth-tones, or machinery parts, or a blend. A faint lime-ish light came up from the rim, and I turned to my Security Team, and...
We dropped. Faster. My stomach began churning. This didn't look good for us.
Watching the walls go by, in my periphery, I noticed my Greys fainting onto the slick silvery-grey surface. Not in a violent way, more of a graduated loss of control. Panic! What the Xerox copier is going on? Lemony flashes of partially-lit platforms, built-in to the walls went by, easily large enough to rest the Tinglev, do repairs.
"XO, spranx!" ("Talk to me!")
"Klargen, herp speen toh-na spilt glurgen derp pah-neen, pamp do' rits..."
"Understood. Very well."
So they were all unconscious, except the XO. Maybe his mem-trans with me had something to do with that, I thought. I'm so narcissiticalist! (It means I'm lithely muscular and pathetically vain and aware of both those issues. Gorgeous.)
The floor continued to fall. It was getting almost unbearably fast. The light became much brighter as we fell. I could hear the awkward hum-drops of the air as it broke onto older, deadened cavities in the wall. Some seemed to have weapons emplacements, I couldn't be sure - they really did go by quickly. I laid down to protect my organs. It took an effort. The light-
"XO, set passive recording, full spectrum. Filter limelight." It was a tenuous push.
"Bonx, Klargen." (I could hear the Rotatey Chair attempt to accommodate his skinny ass in near free-fall as he attempted SCIENCE controls from the interface on the armrest.)
And then we stopped, the Tinglev was behind us, about 60 feet to the bow, what a beautiful ship, and the creaks of hidden hydraulic systems betrayed themselves. Rapid-ionic jets had fired to stabilize the Tinglev's relative fall, automatically. Numerous seismic-level cogs in the vast platform did their thing, and we could feel it. A very controlled stop. Glassy, slimy grey walls. And nothing else, except a doorway rimmed in intense light-green light. About the size of a garage door. For a big car.
"Klargen?"
"XO, what've you got? Ni'l smeer pap' oh yetzt." ("Don't sugar coat it.")
"Level 8, Klargen. We're at Level 8." The air was so thin I struggled to keep up with it. Air pressure was dropping precariously. The veins on my neck stood out, I could feel them.
"What time is it, XO?" I growled, for no reason whatsoever. What the hell did that mean, Level 8?
"It's the time, Klargen. Nothing is known from here on. No humans allowed below Level 5," he reminded me. He need'n't push it, but he did.
"Understood. Very well." Sphincters were puckering between the two of us.
And then the light dimmed, and the door smipped open, very mechanically, sucking what little air was left for a niptuk. My eyes took a second to adjust... blurry.
It was like a symphony. Light being sounds, colors rendering shapes, new wondrous beings with old, familiar greetings, all erupted as they filed out. (I can hardly describe it.) Two distinguished Greys, a 4-foot lobster-looking thing - with a serious bearing - and three slinky shapes, moving like they were disguised by the rock, mere lines against the continuity of the walls. They never stood still, and they seemed hepped up, on something, elsewhere. Barely in the present.
I knew it all. Seen it before, somehow.
"Call me Klargen," I chuckled, at first. "Do not harm my crew. There would be... repercussions."
They - probably the older Greys - punished me for that, and pushed back, hard "There are no Klargens here."
My temples ached with that one. The three line-beings kept up their intricate dances.
"But we will do your repairs. Your crew is safe."
What? Why? Who are you?
And they didn't offer shit. Lobster-guy sputtered a bubble, nothing I could understand.
Nothing, then?
"It's all fine. Repairs will be underway." The XO and I both heard, sub-audible.
I couldn't tell who sent me that message. It sounded like an authority, and I was in their space, so to say.
"Though his mind is not for rent,
Don't put him down as arrogant.
His reserve - a quiet defense,
Riding out the day's events -
The river."
"Tom Sawyer," Rush at their best, 1981.
What time is it?
It's the time. No time like the present. Time waits for no one. Time does its job. Time is money.
It's night-time. Sweet dreams, comrades.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Bravery Versus Courage Versus Dodged Bullets
Happy New Year.
Oomp to the skippitty-bob, Popcorn with parmesan!
I'm gonna type just about anything that pings into my noggin' and that's the way it's a'gonna be. It's the end/beginning of the year, and it's been a weird one. Like, existential, dudes.
Here's the immediate deal, hipsters and flipsters - there are real bullets and there are metaphorical bullets. If you're lucky, pay attention to details, and stay focused, you learn how to dodge BOTH. Neither the actuals nor the figuratives will hit you. Crazy, I know. (sighs)
They're just words on a virtual page, right? They don't mean bupkis, right? So provocative, isn't it all? All of it? Right? I can ask questions ad infinitum, and no one cares, right? What am I, Hawaiian? I'm craving SPAM, or am I? Mahalo, peaceniks.
"You and I go hard at each other
Like we're goin' to war.
You and I go rough,
We keep throwin' things
And slammin' the doors.
You and I get so damn dysfunctional
we start keepin' score.
You and I get sick,
Aay, I know that we can't do this no more..."
Maroon 5, "One More Night" (That song fucking rocks. Seriously.)
The UV/IR/Visual lights of the Tinglev were reflected off the polished surface of the walls of the berth at AMHRF. It looked like an empty dance floor on MAIN. Clean, polished, unused. Sensors were powered down - we didn't want to provoke or even act defensive.
"XO, is the security detachment ready?" I pushed, privately.
"Blinx, Klargen."
"Let's take a look."
"Aye. Herp-derp rad-shur pip da'lem."
The filed onto the bridge. They were in Order Blue tunics, albeit riddled with unnatural bulges. I had ordered only subdue weapons and minimal armor.
Two of the Greys on the away-team I recognized and knew from the equivalent of the 'mess hall,' and two were from the 'bowels of the ship.' (I knew their pictos - and names - from the crew roster, but here they were.) They looked nonchalant for a security detail, and that was exactly what we wanted to project. I led them down toward the forward drop hatch and messaged to them to 'chill' as much as possible.
"Porten lip smep dern nip nell, gip baht smer-neen E-o." (Keep your thoughts clear, they'll be scanning.) We lined up at the drop-hatch. Not like Fuji, I thought.
"Blinx, Klargen."
The door depressurized and dropped neatly to the deck with a hiss and a muted 'clunk.' It sounded hollow echoing off the walls. I could see scanning-layer light illuminating us as the hatch clanked down. We're completely vulnerable down here, I reminded myself.
And that was that. They knew.
And we knew they knew. Heartbeats were audible inside alien chests.
"Team, secure a perimeter."
"Blinx, Klargen," they messaged as they rushed out of the drop-hatch, unafraid. I couldn't have found or cultivated a better crew, I thought. The slow, dreary light of the bottom of the fold began to become my normal light. My Security Team could see all of it.
I tightened my weapons belt and stepped out.
"My love is at leave with the freeway,
Its passion will ride as the cities fly by.
And the tail-lights's on in the coming of night.
And the questions in thousands, take flight."
Robert Plant, "Big Log"
I'm so loathe to even type her pseudo-name again. (However, I might, if I feel squirrelly.) I'm fairly sure that - in the ongoing 'Airing of My Grievances' these last 7 months - she has determined that I may have some residual anger and related issues about her.
Of course I do. (I have a vast, easily replay-able memory.)
It's hard to shake 21 years of silence/indifference and the pointed psychological terrorism she mastered - and used - after we split. Dead dragonflies, attempted reverse-stalking(?), and personalized, symbolic graffiti were piss-poor substitutes for actual communication. In the early 90's, the "Power of No" was much larger in her than the "Power of Yes." Let's hope she's changed.
Apparently, she felt a 'shift' on the Mayan solstice. She's going to believe in this 'shift' without any apparent evidence, without knowledgeable argument, and without reconciliation, it would seem. ("Poof," and I disappear, yet again. Like she made me do before, under judicial force. Fuck that. I'm done with 'disappearing.' As an actual creature, it's an exceedingly hard thing to do. Try to take a class in that discipline, no one offers it. I could be 40 feet from you, and you wouldn't know. Hmmmmm - I've been 40 feet from you in the last three years, did you know that? In a new, red Camaro.)
A shift HAS occurred, but I don't think she's in on the 'whole thing.' Not Even A Bit.
We'll see about that assumption... she may proclaim all this New Age holisticity, co-existence in peace with all peoples, and 'intentional' recognition of the humanity in all of us, but I'm left out of her equation, completely.
Me=<0.
If she's ever thought of me, since, she hasn't mentioned it. Not even once, even obliquely. I'm still a black hole in her life history from which nothing ever exits. This is a woman I made love with like my life depended on it. I felt like our coupling was ordained by the stars. The intense gravity of her negativity is greater than anything else I've experienced ever, since. There's very little chance that 'what she says' on MYBOOKFACE will reflect itself in 'how she acts' regarding me. ("Boogeymen SHOULD hide." That's what I still get from her. In the absence of anything - anything- else.)
Talking the talk without walking the walk? (Sometimes I can't help but notice that you're 'full of shit' about this whole peace-love-togetherness/co-existence thing. It's all on your terms, so the irony gets really, really thick. You've created a 'World of Peace' mentality and left some people out of it. "Oh, never mind them," you seem to project, "Because THEY/them/That One Guy doesn't exist. Anymore. At all.")
Hypocrite. You don't walk your talk. (I'll know when you do.) You want peace and love and won't go through the actual steps of getting there.
Maybe bravery is in order.
I'm not a demon, you know. (?)
If this point in history is to be the end of individualism and selfishness, how will that reconcile itself with your continued/continuous/continual denial about our time together? You haven't once considered my soul, my feelings and memories, and done a single damn thing about it in thousands and thousands of days. (I don't even want to look that up, at this point. WAIT!!! Fuck it - it's been 7,732 days since you've spoken to me like a fellow human, with kindness, apathy, friendship. That is a big number.)
And we all know it is because of the residue of fear. A fear you can't beat just yet, and may never. We all know that 'coaching' doesn't involve the past, or seek any solutions to past issues, it's just an arrow forward, blind to the source, the context, the meaning. (And I had thought you were an acolyte of my world, a fellow shadow-warrior. Someone pulling discreet knobs in society, a lube on the gears, rather than being a monkey-wrench that never gets 'used' properly, or efficiently. You ended up being what you told me you were 'tired of being' - a "helper.")
I'm reminded of a lovely discussion I had years ago with a good pal I call 'Wheels." He's a neighbor, a friend, and a confidante. Incredible mind. We always find interesting topics to debate (even though we're usually on the same side) and this particular day found us asking...
"What is the difference between bravery and courage?"
Yes, it goes without saying that these kinds of answers can be found very quickly with our modern 'technomological' conveniences. I could just google it, right? But that's no fun for the sake of the discussion. So we consulted my trusty 1986 Merriam's/Websters' Dictionary, a voluminous red-fake-leather God of Information, a trusty ally of mine for decades now.
Wheels and I quickly dove into the roots of these words. Knowing a bit of French, 'coeur' came to mind - heart. After a bit of discussion, we came to the same conclusion that scholars had deciphered - bravery is an ongoing mental thing, an ethos, and courage is a momentary thing that springs from bravery meeting chaos, or perhaps it doesn't. Courage can come from nowhere, but bravery is cultivated. It's a mindset. Bravado has a place, and it isn't the end-run of cowardice.
If you live being as brave as you can, courage is a a side-effect. Unaffected, by a lack of bravery, courage blooms so slowly it never appears except in the midst of chaos, as a bystander. The heart takes over.
If I participate in this new 'belief system' (the one that accompanies HER new sense of a 'shift,' then I'll do ALL I can do to shed this anger, consciously. Been trying to do that for months and months, jogging with my dogs, as it were. Just writing about it has made things better in my mind. As far as I'm concerned, I had to reach across a great, invisible gulf to ask for her permission to 'quit hating her.' It wasn't about bravery, it was about honor, and courage.
"I don't love you,
And I always will..."
The Civil Wars, kicking duet butt in "Poison and Wine"
Late May, 1998. My lady and I were getting ready for a day-hike in the southern reaches of Grand Teton National Park. (Taggart Lake) We had been to Glacier NP, and Yellowstone NP, and seen bears. Lots of bears, both black and grizzly. On this day, after so many run-ins, we decided to be brave and not carry any bear-spray. The bears just hadn't been an issue, despite their proximity.
The trail led to the northwest, to a ridge between Bradley Lake and Taggart Lake, and then switch-backed to the south. At the top of the ridge, we met a couple who were busy looking downhill, at something we hadn't noticed. A bear, big guy at that. We mentioned that our best defense was to let that animal know we were there, and I suggested we sing or chant something. This couple, from upstate NY, didn't know any Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, or Beatles, any anything, so we started singing "My Darling Clementine" as we descended the switchbacks. A baby rattlesnake - just a toddler-snake, really - made them jump and over-react, and I realized they were profoundly afraid. Nature was a scary thing to them, in the raw.
The bear ambled towards the east side of Taggart Lake, basically along the direction of the trail, and my lady and I knew we had to keep noisy to drive it away from us. As the trail flattened, near the NE reach of the lake, we were bounded by an old fire/burn debris pile to the east, and the lake to the west. I picked up a suitable walking stick, maybe 5 feet long, a sapped-out, denuded pine branch. Don't know why, just did it.
Funneled into the trail, nowhere to go, our new mammal friend was waiting for us.
Twenty-odd feet away, he stood up on his hind legs, and began walking toward us.
And the other guy bolted. Ran for his life, back the way we'd come... the absolute last thing you should do. His wife was now hugging my shoulder, and my lady hugged the other. Without so much as a momentary thought, I knew we were in the 'shit' and I pulled out the only thing I had to fend off the bear - a mylar survival blanket. I tied it to the end of the stick in less than three seconds, and made an impromptu shiny-wall between the bear and the three of us. I began shaking it and moving TOWARDS the bear, expecting a flash of claws and whatever fate occurred after that.
That was that. It scared the bear away because I'm typing this now. My primary concern was for the women, and there was no conscious decision - it was an imperative. A lack of choice is a great focusing agent.
Maybe, that moment was the most courageous I've ever been. (Would've loved to be a 'fly on the wall' in the other couple's hotel room that night. You can't 'take back' cowardice regarding loved ones.)
Be brave. It's not a bad way to live. There is integrity in it.
Hope for courage, because you may need it at the times you least expect.
I dodged a (metaphorical) bullet once, and that bullet was you, Beatrix. I'm still alive.
Yes, that's a harsh assessment, but in hindsight, I knew things had that garish future to them. Reed College and the Renn Fair in May, 1991 come to mind. At that point, I just wanted to spend every conceivable moment of my life with you. I was under your particular spell. It worked. I was completely, utterly drawn in. And I believed what I said on that Port Townsend beach on May 30th...
(Here comes the inevitable 'however.')
Being cast out, persona-non-grata'ed, Clan Of The Cave Bear'ed - didn't sit well with what I'd already experienced and known. I'm far too grounded in paisleys of memory and training and schooling to 'pretend' like you wanted me to. You wanted a new reality and a new name. There was one iteration of your name - that I only used once and got 'fire eyes' from you - and it is your 4-letter 'friendly island name.' (My acceptable names were either 2 or 7 letters.)
But I get it now. For some reason, friendship with me was impossible in those days.
Friendship still exists, but you don't see it. Wake up! Leap the Elk has cultivated patience for a long, long, long time.
"I know you think that
I shouldn't still love you,
Or tell you that.
But if I didn't say it, I'd still have felt it,
Where's the sense in that?"
Dido, "White Flag" and it is applicable here.
I'm living in the real world, Beatrix-ter. When are you going to get here?
So tedious, this wait...
I didn't want to dodge that bullet, and I didn't know that 'you' were a bullet.
A real bullet may have done less long-term damage, isn't that a bitch?
Peace out, Fair Readers.
Oomp to the skippitty-bob, Popcorn with parmesan!
I'm gonna type just about anything that pings into my noggin' and that's the way it's a'gonna be. It's the end/beginning of the year, and it's been a weird one. Like, existential, dudes.
Here's the immediate deal, hipsters and flipsters - there are real bullets and there are metaphorical bullets. If you're lucky, pay attention to details, and stay focused, you learn how to dodge BOTH. Neither the actuals nor the figuratives will hit you. Crazy, I know. (sighs)
They're just words on a virtual page, right? They don't mean bupkis, right? So provocative, isn't it all? All of it? Right? I can ask questions ad infinitum, and no one cares, right? What am I, Hawaiian? I'm craving SPAM, or am I? Mahalo, peaceniks.
"You and I go hard at each other
Like we're goin' to war.
You and I go rough,
We keep throwin' things
And slammin' the doors.
You and I get so damn dysfunctional
we start keepin' score.
You and I get sick,
Aay, I know that we can't do this no more..."
Maroon 5, "One More Night" (That song fucking rocks. Seriously.)
The UV/IR/Visual lights of the Tinglev were reflected off the polished surface of the walls of the berth at AMHRF. It looked like an empty dance floor on MAIN. Clean, polished, unused. Sensors were powered down - we didn't want to provoke or even act defensive.
"XO, is the security detachment ready?" I pushed, privately.
"Blinx, Klargen."
"Let's take a look."
"Aye. Herp-derp rad-shur pip da'lem."
The filed onto the bridge. They were in Order Blue tunics, albeit riddled with unnatural bulges. I had ordered only subdue weapons and minimal armor.
Two of the Greys on the away-team I recognized and knew from the equivalent of the 'mess hall,' and two were from the 'bowels of the ship.' (I knew their pictos - and names - from the crew roster, but here they were.) They looked nonchalant for a security detail, and that was exactly what we wanted to project. I led them down toward the forward drop hatch and messaged to them to 'chill' as much as possible.
"Porten lip smep dern nip nell, gip baht smer-neen E-o." (Keep your thoughts clear, they'll be scanning.) We lined up at the drop-hatch. Not like Fuji, I thought.
"Blinx, Klargen."
The door depressurized and dropped neatly to the deck with a hiss and a muted 'clunk.' It sounded hollow echoing off the walls. I could see scanning-layer light illuminating us as the hatch clanked down. We're completely vulnerable down here, I reminded myself.
And that was that. They knew.
And we knew they knew. Heartbeats were audible inside alien chests.
"Team, secure a perimeter."
"Blinx, Klargen," they messaged as they rushed out of the drop-hatch, unafraid. I couldn't have found or cultivated a better crew, I thought. The slow, dreary light of the bottom of the fold began to become my normal light. My Security Team could see all of it.
I tightened my weapons belt and stepped out.
"My love is at leave with the freeway,
Its passion will ride as the cities fly by.
And the tail-lights's on in the coming of night.
And the questions in thousands, take flight."
Robert Plant, "Big Log"
I'm so loathe to even type her pseudo-name again. (However, I might, if I feel squirrelly.) I'm fairly sure that - in the ongoing 'Airing of My Grievances' these last 7 months - she has determined that I may have some residual anger and related issues about her.
Of course I do. (I have a vast, easily replay-able memory.)
It's hard to shake 21 years of silence/indifference and the pointed psychological terrorism she mastered - and used - after we split. Dead dragonflies, attempted reverse-stalking(?), and personalized, symbolic graffiti were piss-poor substitutes for actual communication. In the early 90's, the "Power of No" was much larger in her than the "Power of Yes." Let's hope she's changed.
Apparently, she felt a 'shift' on the Mayan solstice. She's going to believe in this 'shift' without any apparent evidence, without knowledgeable argument, and without reconciliation, it would seem. ("Poof," and I disappear, yet again. Like she made me do before, under judicial force. Fuck that. I'm done with 'disappearing.' As an actual creature, it's an exceedingly hard thing to do. Try to take a class in that discipline, no one offers it. I could be 40 feet from you, and you wouldn't know. Hmmmmm - I've been 40 feet from you in the last three years, did you know that? In a new, red Camaro.)
A shift HAS occurred, but I don't think she's in on the 'whole thing.' Not Even A Bit.
We'll see about that assumption... she may proclaim all this New Age holisticity, co-existence in peace with all peoples, and 'intentional' recognition of the humanity in all of us, but I'm left out of her equation, completely.
Me=<0.
If she's ever thought of me, since, she hasn't mentioned it. Not even once, even obliquely. I'm still a black hole in her life history from which nothing ever exits. This is a woman I made love with like my life depended on it. I felt like our coupling was ordained by the stars. The intense gravity of her negativity is greater than anything else I've experienced ever, since. There's very little chance that 'what she says' on MYBOOKFACE will reflect itself in 'how she acts' regarding me. ("Boogeymen SHOULD hide." That's what I still get from her. In the absence of anything - anything- else.)
Talking the talk without walking the walk? (Sometimes I can't help but notice that you're 'full of shit' about this whole peace-love-togetherness/co-existence thing. It's all on your terms, so the irony gets really, really thick. You've created a 'World of Peace' mentality and left some people out of it. "Oh, never mind them," you seem to project, "Because THEY/them/That One Guy doesn't exist. Anymore. At all.")
Hypocrite. You don't walk your talk. (I'll know when you do.) You want peace and love and won't go through the actual steps of getting there.
Maybe bravery is in order.
I'm not a demon, you know. (?)
If this point in history is to be the end of individualism and selfishness, how will that reconcile itself with your continued/continuous/continual denial about our time together? You haven't once considered my soul, my feelings and memories, and done a single damn thing about it in thousands and thousands of days. (I don't even want to look that up, at this point. WAIT!!! Fuck it - it's been 7,732 days since you've spoken to me like a fellow human, with kindness, apathy, friendship. That is a big number.)
And we all know it is because of the residue of fear. A fear you can't beat just yet, and may never. We all know that 'coaching' doesn't involve the past, or seek any solutions to past issues, it's just an arrow forward, blind to the source, the context, the meaning. (And I had thought you were an acolyte of my world, a fellow shadow-warrior. Someone pulling discreet knobs in society, a lube on the gears, rather than being a monkey-wrench that never gets 'used' properly, or efficiently. You ended up being what you told me you were 'tired of being' - a "helper.")
I'm reminded of a lovely discussion I had years ago with a good pal I call 'Wheels." He's a neighbor, a friend, and a confidante. Incredible mind. We always find interesting topics to debate (even though we're usually on the same side) and this particular day found us asking...
"What is the difference between bravery and courage?"
Yes, it goes without saying that these kinds of answers can be found very quickly with our modern 'technomological' conveniences. I could just google it, right? But that's no fun for the sake of the discussion. So we consulted my trusty 1986 Merriam's/Websters' Dictionary, a voluminous red-fake-leather God of Information, a trusty ally of mine for decades now.
Wheels and I quickly dove into the roots of these words. Knowing a bit of French, 'coeur' came to mind - heart. After a bit of discussion, we came to the same conclusion that scholars had deciphered - bravery is an ongoing mental thing, an ethos, and courage is a momentary thing that springs from bravery meeting chaos, or perhaps it doesn't. Courage can come from nowhere, but bravery is cultivated. It's a mindset. Bravado has a place, and it isn't the end-run of cowardice.
If you live being as brave as you can, courage is a a side-effect. Unaffected, by a lack of bravery, courage blooms so slowly it never appears except in the midst of chaos, as a bystander. The heart takes over.
If I participate in this new 'belief system' (the one that accompanies HER new sense of a 'shift,' then I'll do ALL I can do to shed this anger, consciously. Been trying to do that for months and months, jogging with my dogs, as it were. Just writing about it has made things better in my mind. As far as I'm concerned, I had to reach across a great, invisible gulf to ask for her permission to 'quit hating her.' It wasn't about bravery, it was about honor, and courage.
"I don't love you,
And I always will..."
The Civil Wars, kicking duet butt in "Poison and Wine"
Late May, 1998. My lady and I were getting ready for a day-hike in the southern reaches of Grand Teton National Park. (Taggart Lake) We had been to Glacier NP, and Yellowstone NP, and seen bears. Lots of bears, both black and grizzly. On this day, after so many run-ins, we decided to be brave and not carry any bear-spray. The bears just hadn't been an issue, despite their proximity.
The trail led to the northwest, to a ridge between Bradley Lake and Taggart Lake, and then switch-backed to the south. At the top of the ridge, we met a couple who were busy looking downhill, at something we hadn't noticed. A bear, big guy at that. We mentioned that our best defense was to let that animal know we were there, and I suggested we sing or chant something. This couple, from upstate NY, didn't know any Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, or Beatles, any anything, so we started singing "My Darling Clementine" as we descended the switchbacks. A baby rattlesnake - just a toddler-snake, really - made them jump and over-react, and I realized they were profoundly afraid. Nature was a scary thing to them, in the raw.
The bear ambled towards the east side of Taggart Lake, basically along the direction of the trail, and my lady and I knew we had to keep noisy to drive it away from us. As the trail flattened, near the NE reach of the lake, we were bounded by an old fire/burn debris pile to the east, and the lake to the west. I picked up a suitable walking stick, maybe 5 feet long, a sapped-out, denuded pine branch. Don't know why, just did it.
Funneled into the trail, nowhere to go, our new mammal friend was waiting for us.
Twenty-odd feet away, he stood up on his hind legs, and began walking toward us.
And the other guy bolted. Ran for his life, back the way we'd come... the absolute last thing you should do. His wife was now hugging my shoulder, and my lady hugged the other. Without so much as a momentary thought, I knew we were in the 'shit' and I pulled out the only thing I had to fend off the bear - a mylar survival blanket. I tied it to the end of the stick in less than three seconds, and made an impromptu shiny-wall between the bear and the three of us. I began shaking it and moving TOWARDS the bear, expecting a flash of claws and whatever fate occurred after that.
That was that. It scared the bear away because I'm typing this now. My primary concern was for the women, and there was no conscious decision - it was an imperative. A lack of choice is a great focusing agent.
Maybe, that moment was the most courageous I've ever been. (Would've loved to be a 'fly on the wall' in the other couple's hotel room that night. You can't 'take back' cowardice regarding loved ones.)
Be brave. It's not a bad way to live. There is integrity in it.
Hope for courage, because you may need it at the times you least expect.
I dodged a (metaphorical) bullet once, and that bullet was you, Beatrix. I'm still alive.
Yes, that's a harsh assessment, but in hindsight, I knew things had that garish future to them. Reed College and the Renn Fair in May, 1991 come to mind. At that point, I just wanted to spend every conceivable moment of my life with you. I was under your particular spell. It worked. I was completely, utterly drawn in. And I believed what I said on that Port Townsend beach on May 30th...
(Here comes the inevitable 'however.')
Being cast out, persona-non-grata'ed, Clan Of The Cave Bear'ed - didn't sit well with what I'd already experienced and known. I'm far too grounded in paisleys of memory and training and schooling to 'pretend' like you wanted me to. You wanted a new reality and a new name. There was one iteration of your name - that I only used once and got 'fire eyes' from you - and it is your 4-letter 'friendly island name.' (My acceptable names were either 2 or 7 letters.)
But I get it now. For some reason, friendship with me was impossible in those days.
Friendship still exists, but you don't see it. Wake up! Leap the Elk has cultivated patience for a long, long, long time.
"I know you think that
I shouldn't still love you,
Or tell you that.
But if I didn't say it, I'd still have felt it,
Where's the sense in that?"
Dido, "White Flag" and it is applicable here.
I'm living in the real world, Beatrix-ter. When are you going to get here?
So tedious, this wait...
I didn't want to dodge that bullet, and I didn't know that 'you' were a bullet.
A real bullet may have done less long-term damage, isn't that a bitch?
Peace out, Fair Readers.
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