8 May 2009: Hobby Counting for Meditative Gain

In the time that the green Heineken bottle took to return to it’s natural sandy state, the grasses grew un-mowed and watered by only the sky.  In Diderot’s state of absent mindedness his watch had stopped ticking and he had to start counting again from the beginning.

25 April 2009: Deep Space Routine

Sonny’s routine was oppressively set.  He awoke a couple hours before any of the other bunk-bedded crew members.  He made his way to the cockpit and relieved Wakefield of his overnight flight duties.  This was how it worked.  Everyday.  He preferred the certainty of this routine.  He sat down at the controls and surveyed the dashboard.  All of these plastic buttons, knobs, joysticks, displays;  Sonny Campos had been observing their subtle decay and degradation over the past months.  If any of the other crew members had observed this decomposition, they said nothing to him.  Campos was aware that wherever it was in Space that they found themselves, there was no way of knowing how their ship made of Earth materials was to react to this unknown foreign atmosphere.  He decided to keep this observation to himself.  The rest of the crew would notice soon enough.  Then there would be unrelenting panic.  There was something golden about these final few days of calm;  of routine.

7 April 2009: Oh! Come Ye on a Sleeping Safari.

When the bag of marbles stormed out of their velvet sack to roll across the wooden floor-boards, they may have just as well been a herd of rhinoceri.  Rhinoceri? giggled Mr. Wolf to himself as he sat up in bed with a jolt.  I don’t think I ever want to dream that I’m in the path of a rhinoceros herd again! He laughed to himself about the dream; about the word “rhinoceri.”  He was relieved that it all was a dream.  He went back to sleep, telling himself that he would worry about the bag of marbles in the morning.

10 March 2009: The End to Our Tale Starts the Hardest Revenge

Mr. Wolf’s dissolution came as no surprise.  He had been through all of this many times before.  The surprise came when his temporal self reformed somewhere, somewhen he could never have imagined.  It was not possible to put any one single aspect of this current reality into context.  There was no ground – no earth – yet he felt somehow grounded.  There was no sky.  There was no grass.  There were no mountains, cars, goats, trees, envelopes, hamburgers.  There was no-one, no-thing, no-where at all, really.

Yet Mr. Wolf felt no real confusion or displacement.  He remembered back to the moment he touched the coin and everything became clear.  He knew then that Diderot was the one responsible for this.  He will pay for this, thought Mr. Wolf to himself, I’ll get my revenge.

Diderot finished typing and thought to himself, I’d like to see you try Mr. Wolf.  Good luck to you with that.

7 March 2009: The (Possible) Follis of Theophilus of the Nine Obscured Coins [& Its Associated Gate-Way]

With a handful of coins, Mr. Wolf walked away from the table.  He walked to the very rear of the gravel parking lot and sat down.  He placed the coins into a grid pattern – one, two, three – one, two, three – then one, two, three.  Nine coins in three rows.  He looked at the middle coin (so obscured but possibly a follis of Theophilus) and reached his finger out towards it.  He touched the coin and disappeared, dissolved.

18 February 2009: Budget Numismatics on a Fine Summer’s Morn

Mr. Wolf spent his mid-morning at the swap meet.  Nothing really caught his eye; he took to watching people instead.  He watched one old man hobble slowly forward on his cane.  He followed him to a coin dealer.

The dealer sold the sort of low-end ancient coins that lacked definition and required a great deal of cleaning  to decipher any detail whatsoever.  Mr. Wolf reached into his pocket and pulled out a large  handful of coins which he traded the merchant for a smaller handful of the ancient curiosities.

7:54 PM Fargo, ND

16 February 2009: Ellipses (Safety Feeling)

… was left to his own devices.  He wasn’t all that bothered.  He knew he could handle the production at the theatre alone.  He flipped on the spotlight, pulled back the curtain, gave the ’start’ cue to the band in the pit…  became but another spectator.  He knew his job so well that a well-worn safety feeling washed warmly through his veins.

Leania danced alone on the stage during this portion of the production.  She did a spin or two and slowly rose to one toe; arms outstretched.  Her grace never ceased to astonish him… Time momentarily stopped.

The false clock in his chest told him it was time to pull back the curtain once again… that the musicians needed another cue.  Nerves and doubt crept back in and pushed away that safety feeling… brutes, all.

9:10 PM Fargo, ND

22 January 2009: On Sights Wondrous and Horrific

Throughout his many travels, Ahmad Bin Majid saw a great variety of wondrous and horrific sights.  He reflected on these sights often in his later years.  He found it so strange that -often- the most wondrous and horrific sights were treated as banalities by the local populace.  And even worse, they were readily accepted by all and rarely challenged.  Had they grown immune to these things over the years?  Were they blind? Or were my senses deceiving me?

When in the village of Dakoro he wished to travel to the neighboring village of Doovai, he was warned off of it repeatedly.  The Dakorians exclaimed, You can not travel to Doovai! The Troll will not allow it!  He will not allow you to pass! Now: although Ahmad had seen many great sights, he simply could not believe that such a horror as this troll existed -or- if it did, he needed to see it (and understand it) at once.

Despite the warnings of the Dakorians, Ahmad set out at once for Doovai.  It was not a long trip.  The two villages were geographically very close together (although no one from either village had seen their respective neighboring village.)  Soon, Ahmad reached the bridge that spanned the river between the two villages.  He heard a bellowing voice declare, “Halt! Taking another step closer will result in your immediate death!  Halt!”

Ahmad could not see the source of this threat and replied in turn, “Who are you to prohibit my passing into Doovai? Show yourself!”

The bellowing voice retorted, “I am the great Troll JuJuar! I will allow neither man nor beast to pass! Turn back now and live!”

Ahmad was many things, but cowardly was not one of them.  He resumed walking towards the bridge.  The great Troll continued to bellow his threats.  They had no effect on Ahmad.  He crouched low and peered under the bridge.  And what did he see but a shivering dog!  “Are you the great Troll? A little huddled puppy is the great Troll prohibiting travel between Dakoro and Doovai all these years! Ha! I will tell the villagers of this truth at once!”

Ahmad sprinted off to Doovai.  Although the villagers did not believe his story, a few young men went off to the bridge with Ahmad in order to see for themselves.  When they arrived all was silent.  It was quiet and still at the bridge for the first time in their lives. They peered under the bridge and saw nothing.  The great “Troll” JuJuar was gone.

In later years, as many a young maiden from Doovai  married many a young man from Dakoro, the story of the “Great Troll” was told at each wedding ceremony.  Without the courage of Ahmad Bin Majid, they would never have found one another.  They vowed to never accept the Wondrous or Horrific as constants.  They vowed to never allow the Wondrous or Horrific to become banal.

I hope they have kept their vows.

—Denis Diderot, January 22nd, 2209.  3:06 PM.

18 January 2009: The Interruption of the In-Flight Arc

Mr. Wolf found a red croquet ball on the walking path.  He instinctively picked it up and immediately felt the urge to over-hand toss it into the lake.  He restrained this urge and instead studied the object.   It was perfect in so many ways: its redness was so correct, its size seemed custom tailored for his hand, its weight was substantial enough to maximize flight, its symbolic nature was both complex beyond words and utterly comprehensible in its simplicity.  He rolled the red orb around in his palm until the urge became too great to ignore.  He reared back his arm and launched the ball into a great arc.  He grinned as the ball’s flight was interrupted by the surface of the water.  The subsequent splash that followed was so completely satisfying to Mr. Wolf.

Mr. Wolf was so satisfied by all of this.

1:38 PM Fargo, ND

13 January 2009: Larry Lumiere Still Hasn’t Realized That He Forgot to Pack a Clean Pair of Socks

Larry Lumiere slid his suitcase out from under the bed and crammed in another sweatshirt.  You never know when you’ll need an extra layer. He was already running late for his meeting.  Everything I need is in this suitcase… Nothing I need is in this suitcase… Larry had no time for coffee or toast.  He popped out the front door and tossed the suitcase in the backseat of his Cavalier.  What a morning! Could it get any worse?

Diderot stopped typing.  He couldn’t take any more of this Larry Lumiere business.  He had enough information on him already and wouldn’t feel guilty for cutting Larry’s record a bit short.  Denis filed the page away and got on with life.

10:28 PM Fargo, ND