Ants In My Pants (A respost in memory of Renee Khan)

1.

Outside my home, life is passing by. There are students on bikes with heavy backpacks filled with books. There are buses filled with pedestrians and cars filed with five-day-work-week commuters. Trucks, vans, government vehicles are all making their way through the intersection of life, that sits just outside my door. Inside my home, there are ants. Billions of ants that cannot be defeated no matter how hard I try. There are ants in the cupboard board, ants in the stove, ants in the bathtub, ants in the couch, ants in the bed and ants in my pants.

I have always been adamantly averse to killing any living thing. I preached to others the virtues of sparing a life- even if it was only a moth, mosquito, fly or spider. I have often heard myself compared to the Jains, who are members of an ancient Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence for all forms of living beings in this world. Whether you want to call it your karma or your luck I believed that if you took another living creatures life it would eventually reflect back upon your life in a negative way. Besides, I felt better when I let a fly, spider, mosquito or moth go free. I had the power to take its life but instead I made a more noble choice to let it be. Somehow this made me feel like I would be rewarded by the Gods who would appreciate me for all the lives that I had saved. Instead, what I have received for my virtuous acts is a home infested with little black ants.

I have been killing ants with the fervor of a Nazi. I have become convinced that all ants must die because they are polluting the sanctity of my home.  Not only is it unhygienic to live in a home with billions of black ants but it is also one of the most frustrating annoyances to constantly find then running across your arms and legs, through your hair and sometimes into your eyes and mouth. I find ants in my food and between my toes. They have made their way into my books, into my pillows and onto my toothbrushes- they are polluting my entire life, so I had no choice but to induce a full-blown fight.

I spend hours a day waging war against these annoying creatures. The ones that I can see with my naked eye are only a half of the entire gang that is infesting my home. They lodge in the ceiling and underneath the house- but it is my hope that by killing all the ants that I can see I will send a loud message to the other ants that are below ground and in the roof of my house that I am not fucking around.  I have spent over a hundred dollars on non-toxic ant spray, which I use excessively. I spray it like a hose, all through out the day, wherever I see ants congregating together. I whack them with brooms, flood them out with water, wipe them up with wet rags and have even thrown burning paper on a few. I like to watch them suffer, and when I am done with what can only be compared to waging genocide- I like to walk around and look at the piles and piles of dead ants. I know that this is a war that cannot be won- but at least I can do my part to get some sweet revenge.

2.

This morning I had a job interview. I put on one of my favorite suits and made sure that I looked just right. I shaved, put gel in my hair (something I never do) and I must say that when I looked in the mirror I did not look like a man that was living with billions of ants. I looked affluent, in an educated kind of way. I looked like I had a bank account filled with money and expensive food in my tummy. Instead I was going to a low level interview as a copy editor for a company that I had never heard of. I probably did not need to get as dressed up as I was, but since my bank account is empty- I was desperate to make a good impression. I met with a group of corporate looking people who call themselves “the board.” They put me in a single chair in front of their elongated table, behind which they all sat staring at me. They asked me a series of ridiculous questions like “why do I feel like I am the best candidate for the job?” and “what about my editing abilities makes me an effective copy editor?” I certainly did not reveal to them that I am dyslexic and have a terrible time spelling correctly but I did talk at length about my love for reading and my years of experience working as a writer and a high school English teacher.

Everything was going well until what felt like small, brief pinching sensations in my crouch began making me feel very uncomfortable. I had been noticing all morning that I was itching myself more than normal but I just assumed that was because of the starched suit I was wearing. I crossed and uncrossed my legs trying to nullify the slight pain that was starting to make its way down my legs. While I tried to maintain my composure and talk about why I thought I was the best candidate for the job- the pinching sensation intensified. It felt like I was being bitten in the strangest way. The sensation proceeded to very slowly move all the way down to the bottom of my legs and when I looked down at my shoes I could not believe what I saw, ants! My heart raced, I twitched, scratched and began to sweat. I cannot imagine what “the board” must of thought of me- but I tried to appear as confident as I could. I am hoping that they assumed that it was nervousness that caused me to twist and turn in such strange ways.

When the interview had ended, I shook all their hands and walked as quickly as I could to the bathroom, where I proceeded to take off my pants, shirt, socks, tie and shoes. I stripped down into my underwear in a bathroom stall and with tissues I wiped off the dozens of ants that were on my pants, legs, and socks and inside my shoes. I cursed the little creatures to hell before I squashed them and I even shed a few tears out of frustration rather than sorrow. “Why me?” I muttered to myself, but abstained from saying it out loud. When the bathroom was vacant I went out to use the sink and ran soapy water all over my legs, feet and chest. After what felt like hours of sanitation– I got dressed and returned home. In my car I still felt itchy all over my legs, which I prayed not to be more ants. I looked down on the floor of my car and found dozens of ants there to.

It was at this point that I decided I had lost. I threw my hands up in the air and declared “surrender” out loud. The war could not be won. The more ants that I killed the more that they multiplied. Karma had fucked me and there was nothing that could be done. I had to drive home resigned to the fact that there were ants crawling all over my legs and there was nothing I could do about it. The sensation drove me mad but all I could do was drive and breathe. For months I have been trying to avoid calling an extermination company into my home but I have decided that it is the only thing that can be done to bring my wife and I some relief. When I arrived home I took off my suit and stripped down into the nude. I noticed dozens of ants crawling around on my legs and between my toes, on the bedroom floor and when I got into the shower there were more. Under the hot water I washed away whatever sins and ants were left upon my burning body. I rinsed myself down with patchouli soap and watched the ants helplessly get funneled down the drain. The phone rang and I did not care. I heard the message on my answering machine, which was turned up much to loud. “Hello, this is Wendy from the board whom you just interviewed with. Someone found socks and a tie in our bathroom and I am almost certain that they belong to you. If these are indeed yours could you please contact me as soon as possible, I will hold them for you just in case. Thank you.”

 

My Brief Love Affair with a Pool Sweep

I am currently going through a separation from my wife. I moved out from our small home in the country and have moved back into my parent’s large home in the suburbs. I am almost forty years old, living again in the room where I experienced my first erection, my first kiss and my first alcoholic beverage. There is even the first pornography magazine from the eighties that I diligently used as a teenager, still stuck in between the mattress and the box spring. My parent’s home sits on top of a solitary hill and is surrounded by century old oak trees, rolling hills, birds and skittish deer. In the backyard there are palm trees (air lifted from Hawaii), a plethora of native flowers and plants, a lot of stones and a large white-bottomed pool.

For six months out of the year my parent’s home is a ghost house. No one lives here. They pack up and go to live in their second home that is situated somewhere in the Idaho mountains. Other than a caretaker who shows up a few times a week to check on things, no one steps into this house. When I moved back in a little over a month and a half ago, I felt like I was moving into a space devoid of life. The furniture was covered in white sheets. The house creaked constantly. I cleaned up cobwebs, killed numerous mosquitoes and turned on the refrigerator and the freezer, both of which had nothing in them. I felt like a middle aged prodigal son coming home to the cruel tricks that time often seems to play on me. What was once my childhood home, filled with life and fervor had become nothing but a four walled remnant of what once used to be. I also could not help but feel like Thoreau returning to his solitary sixty-two acre pond. Except my pond was not a large pond in Concord, Massachusetts- my pond was the pool in my parent’s backyard.

Every morning I would wake up at eleven and rain or shine, the first thing that I would do is go out into the backyard. When I began this minor ritual a little over a month and a half ago I was an emotional mess. I would pull a chair up besides the pool and in the clothes that I had fallen asleep in I would cry. I would cry and cry and feel gut churning sadness for losing the life that I had with a woman whom I deeply loved. I cried for all the grief and suffering that I had caused her. I cried for days on end and after three or four days of continual grief, my grief began to ebb and flow in unpredictable tides. I would be fine one moment and then a thought or something that I noticed reminded me of my wife and I would fall into grief again. I felt like (and still do to a lesser extent) my heart strings were being played by a careless, manic musician.

In my parents backyard the silence is so palpable that I often could not help but to talk to myself. I would console myself out loud, talk to my disappearing wife and push slightly beyond the borders of sanity. Then one afternoon while I was lamenting my fate, a stream of cold chlorinated water sprayed directly into my face. Up until that point I had not noticed the small, amphibious pool sweep that spent its days rummaging around in the pool. With its four wheels, and two long hoses that danced around the pool floor, the pool sweep selflessly had been keeping my parents pool clean for years and I had barley noticed it. With chlorinated pool water stinging my eyes I watched the pool sweep makes its way around the pool, joyfully diving and surfacing, as if my grief meant nothing at all to it. By the end of the day I had forgotten all about the solitary pool sweep and once again was lost in my grief. The following morning while I was sitting besides the pool in what must of looked like a near catatonic state, the pool sweep again sprayed me directly in the face, mixing my tears with chlorine.

I’m not proud of what happened next, but please understand that I was not in my right mind. It is strange how quickly grief can turn into rage and turn a man from sweet to sour. At that moment a rage came over me so strong that I lost all logical reasoning. I was convinced that the pool sweep was mocking me, disrespecting my grief and making a target out of me for its own fun. My rage took over control of my body and caused me to jump head first into the pool, where I proceeded to swim after the pool sweep. But the weeks of grief had weakened and atrophied my muscles and the pool sweep out swam me into the deep end where I was unable to reach. I cursed the pool sweep and told it to stop fucking with me or else I would break its hoses and wheels. I then waded my way out of the water, short of breath and cold. I dried off in the sun- a man defeated by love and the world. A middle-aged man who could not even catch a pool sweep.

I sat there for a while on one of the pool chairs with my wet clothes sticking to my body and watched the pool sweep dance around the bottom of the pool floor. It looked so happy and carefree. It reminded me of distant times where I had felt a similar way. I thought about some of the more meaningful times that my wife and I had shared. The time that we bought our first dog together, the day I proposed to her by a pond in the graveyard, the time we went to an old bathhouse in Spain, the walk on the beach in Australia that was shortened by my fear of the wild dingoes and all the pleasurable times we spent sun bathing in my parents backyard and swimming in the pool. I remembered our days gardening and drinking coconut water in our backyard, the time that I taught her how to ride a bike and the five-course meal that she made for me on New Years Eve. I cried as these memories filled my mind but as I watched the pool sweep make its way around the pool, I felt the thorny edges of a smile crack the rusted sides of my lips. My tears gradually dried and dissipated and I spent the rest of that afternoon falling in love with a pool sweep.

Something about watching the pool sweep made me suddenly feel less alone. I gave it a name as all people do to things that make them feel less alone. I decided to call the pool sweep R2D2 and I even began to anthropomorphize it by asking the R2D2 questions. I told myself that when R2D2 sprayed one time that meant yes, when it sprayed two times that meant no and any more than two sprays meant stupid question. I would ask simple questions, being sensitive to the fact that R2D2 had not had the same opportunities as I for a good education. I would ask questions such as: “would I ever be free of this tormenting grief?” “In the long run are my wife and I doing the right thing by getting a divorce?” and “will we be better off in the future because of all of this?” I specifically asked questions that required more of a heart than a head but I never received much of a reply. Then one morning a few days later while I was sitting by the pool feeling the heat of the early afternoon sun dry my tear agitated eyes, this realization came into my head: Emotion is an energy. It is right to feel pain. Embrace it. Learn. Life is but a blip and time shows the way. I did not need to think about this very much because it immediately made perfect sense to me. Immediately grief seemed to be blocked from colonizing my soul. I felt a sense of unfamiliar calm come over me and when I looked at R2D2 it was resting in the center of the pool staring straight at me. It was then that I realized that my sudden realization had come directly from a pool sweep.

For the first time in months I was overcome with joy. R2D2 communicated to me a wisdom that seemed to patch the holes that were causing love to leak out from my heart. I stood up, walked to the side of the pool and dove head first into the unheated, over chlorinated water. With a smile on my aging face I swam over to R2D2. I lifted R2D2 and held it in my arms. I thanked it profusely for the insight that it had given to me while kissing it from head to hose. Never underestimate the power of a much-needed insight to unite man and machine. Together we swam around the pool until I was not strong enough to swim any more. For the first time in weeks I felt a sense of relief, I felt the possibilities of a new life and the reassurance that my broken heart was not going to kill me. The idea that I could have a new life, the potential to feel good again imbued my body with a detoxifying energy that was slowly bringing me back from the dead. Now looking back on this paradigm-shifting afternoon, I cannot help but attribute it all to my beloved R2D2.

The following day I felt the motivation to begin re-building my life. For the first time since I had moved back into my parents home I did not get out of bed at eleven and go sit out besides the pool for the rest of the afternoon. Instead I would get out of bed at around eight in the morning, do a thirty-minute meditation and then take a long walk. I would go out and get something to eat and then come home and begin looking for a job. I started listening to music again and took daily showers and shaved for the first time in months. Sadness would still come up in me at unpredictable moments but rather than allowing myself to fall into a near catatonic state I simply followed and embraced the energy that was moving through me. Days went by in this semi productive state. I went on a few job interviews, took some yoga classes and went into San Francisco where I began visiting a few friends. I was slowly getting back into a less grief filled life. I was embracing my heartache and learning from it- but while doing all of this I forgot about R2D2.

A few weeks passed by and the bouts of grief were getting less and less. I was smiling more and crying less. I had found a job working as an after school tutor for inner city junior high students and the solitude of my parents home was no longer as frightening as it once was. One morning I awoke early and after my meditation I decided to go sit out by the pool and check on R2D2. I looked forward to visiting with R2D2 and thanking it for healing wisdom it had imparted to me. When I walked out into the backyard the first thing that I noticed was that R2D2 was not moving. I walked over to the side of the pool where ten feet underneath R2D2 sat lifeless. I got down onto my stomach and looked deeply into the water where I noticed that one of R2D2’s hoses was wrapped around its wheels and net. I did not notice any of the usual bubbles that spewed forth from R2D2’s happy head. Immediately I stood up and dove head first into the pool. I do not know if it was the absence of chronic grief in my life and the healing that was resulting or the adrenaline that is released from a person in crisis situations- but I was suddenly strong enough to swim down ten feet to the bottom of the pool, undue the hose from R2D2’s lifeless body and swim back up to the surface with the R2D2 in my arms. I was not hyperventilating or gasping for air but instead I was begging R2D2 not to die, to hold on and to breathe. I swam over into the shallow end where I placed R2D2 on the side of the pool and cleaned out all the leaves that had collected in its net, blocking its air passages. I used both my hands to move its wheels hoping that I could somehow re-simulate life into R2D2. Minutes passed and I felt a few tears begin to fall down the side of my face. I still remember the rhetorical question that ran through my head at that moment: how could God be so unfair as to so cruelly take the life of the one thing that gave me life? I blamed my grief and guilt on a God that not even I believed in. I tried to do everything I could to bring R2D2 back, I even asked this illusive God for help. But the more time that passed the more I realized that R2D2 was never going to swim again.

For those of you who have never fallen in love with a pool sweep before, the ending of my story may sound a bit ridiculous to you. But how can I expect those of you to understand something that you have never experienced before? I understand that I run the risk here of being perceived and judged as a man who has become mentally ill as a result of the grief caused by getting a divorce. I expect some of you to conclude that I am not fit to be functional member of society. But I have always spoken honestly in my writings and I do not want my fear of how you may think of me to get in the way of being brutally honest here at the end of my story. So despite my concerns, I will proceed. After I realized that R2D2 had passed I sat in one of the pool chairs and held R2D2 in my arms. I cried like a child who has just been abandoned by the only two people he knows in the world. I cried out all the grief that could ever exist in the world. I cried so loud that I scared all the birds out of the trees and all the deer out of the surrounding hills. In losing R2D2 I now realize that I was also deeply mourning the loss of my wife. When my wailing seemed to subside, I put R2D2 down on the pool chair and went inside the house and changed out from my wet clothes. I put on black jeans, a black t-shirt and did not have the energy to put on any shoes or socks. I then grabbed a towel from the closet, a shovel from the garage and went back into the backyard. I covered R2D2 in the towel and then I walked into the hills where I began to dig a deep hole underneath an old oak tree. While I was digging my tears fell onto the ground and seemed to moisten the earth, making it less difficult to dig into.

Once I finished digging a hole that would be large enough for me to place R2D2 into I walked back down to where R2D2 lay covered in a towel. I picked R2D2 up into my arms and walked back up into the hills. I placed R2D2 into the dark hole and then stood there for a moment staring at R2D2. My tears momentarily ceased as I thanked R2D2 for its wisdom and friendship. It has never been easy for me to let go of things and people in my life and burying R2D2 felt to me like I was also burying a very important part of my past. I took a few deep breaths and remembered the times that I would watch R2D2 happily and carelessly swim around in the pool. I remembered the time that I tried to chase R2D2 down but it successfully out swam me. I remembered the time that R2D2 gave me a sudden realization and freed me from the shackles of chronic and crippling grief. I felt very grateful for R2D2’s existence in my life and as I took the shovel in my hand and began to bury the R2D2 into the earth I felt at peace with the truth that nothing lasts forever. Once I had completely covered up the whole, I smoothed out the dirt with the shovel and then stuck a large boulder onto of the spot where R2D2 was buried so that I could return to this spot whenever I needed. A few tears leaked out from my eyes as I looked down at my bare feet and toe nails that were covered in dirt. I then looked up through the branches of the old oak tree and stared into the sun that hung in the sky. I closed my eyes for a minute or two and felt the suns warm breath heat up the skin on my face. I could hear the sounds of wind chimes and dried leaves rustling in the light breeze. It was at that moment that I knew that everything would eventually be okay. My wife and myself, eventually time would show us the way. With the shovel in my hand, I avoided looking at the pool and walked back down the hill towards my house. I imagined that it was mid-afternoon and I needed to get dressed for work.

The Storyteller

The difficult thing about being a Storyteller is finding the time to write. In our post industrial technocratic society man, woman and child are subjected to a fate similar to the wrath of God against Adam and Eve. We must work by the sweat of our brow, labor away all of our vital energy so that we can afford to maintain a semblance of dignity and pride. It is an unusual condition to be wedged between because most have become so habituated to this way of being (working) that they see no alternative. They have learned to love the hand that enslaves them and decry a life without hard work ( a classic case of conditioning). After all we know that the majority of hard workers are working hard only so that they do not have to be left with the time to take a deep look into themselves. They find their identity within their work because what is deep within them is devoid of substance. This is a catch 22 situation. You work hard and you loose your self but without hard work you loose your house. This is the great modern modern dilema- how to find the time to live your life.

Since, I have been working full time as a Teacher I have found little time to write. I long for the days when I posted upon my blog every day and read with great anticipation the comments that followed in return. I was telling my stories and people around the world were responding to what was told. As a Storyteller who has been burdened with the naging desire to write, tell stories and be heard (psychologists tell me this is because my parents did not listen or pay attention to me)- the outlet of a blog has been heaven sent. But now because of the curse of “working by the sweat of our brow”, I have had to labor away all of the hours of my day and night educating young minds about how to avoid getting stuck in this consuming rat race. We talk about ways to make a fortune before the age of twenty so that they can buy an island and live far away from this synthetic life-denying culture that us humanoids have created. We find critical solutions for problems of “work-addiction” and plan strategies for ways that I can escape from this society and join a race of people who live more in harmony with life rather than the preoccupation of working.

You may wonder how this has anything to do with being a Storyteller, and I would respond that it has everything to do with being a Storyteller. In societies that are consumed with progress and work the first species to become exiled our expendable are the Storytellers. The workers or citizens of these corporate republics do not want to be reminded of their servitude, their complete dependency upon forces outside of themselves. This is why Plato exiled poets from his Republic. “The poets will allow the people to see the many ways that the established government must manipulate the citizens into the cave and away from the light of humanity,” he said. This is what the Storyteller does- he/she makes people more human.

But I no longer have the time to write or spin stories in my head. I have been drinking more and sleeping less. All of my usual creative outlets have been plugged up by work. Time seems to have shortened. By the time I am ready to read and write my eyes refuse to remain open and willing to follow the words which exhaustion has caused me to read and write backwards. This is the world that I have found myself within, and yes it is the very dynamic that seeks to exile the Storyteller from the very body it resides within. Sometimes late at night when I am lying in bed, I can feel my body shaking and becoming tense. I grow restless and have difficulty staying still. It takes me hours to fall asleep and I know that these systemic sensations are the result of my inner Storyteller trying to escape from my body so that it can go some place else where it will have the peace, light and time to tell its many tales.

The End.

The Prophet

I have been down so long that it looks like up for me. In fact, I have decided only to look up from here on out. I am in no way deciding to become an optimist but I am making the choice to focus upon the salmon rather than the bones. After all- looking down only cultivates a feeling of impending doom that will nag at your bones until they are broken.

The myth about looking up is that all things become filled with sun and shine. This is untrue. The sun and shine are there but so is the universe and the darkness beyond. You see, this is the job of the prophet- to see beyond the sun and sky and into the depths of eternity. This is not an easy undertaking for a man such as myself who is easily blinded by the sun and preoccupied with a fear of the dark. But it is within this darkness, which sits just beyond the sun, that I look into every day with a full commitment towards revealing a truth that most ordinary mortals are to blind to see.

You may not need a prophet to inform you that these are troubling times in which we now exist. So troubling in fact that Therapists and Psychiatrists are being trained on how to deal with a very new form of anxiety called “eco-anxiety.” This is a form of anxiety that has become more chronic in the past few years with the rising information about global warming, toxins in food, toxins in the home and toxins in the air. I admit that I to may be suffering from this avant-garde form of anxiety. My life has been made more nervous by all the daily decisions that I have had to make in order to remain healthy. Even though I am a prophet I still have to be careful that my meat does not contain antibiotics and hormones, that the water I drink has been filtered, that I eat only organic food so as to reduce my exposure to pesticides and that the environment in which I live does not contain toxic materials. Granted, I am rarely able to do these things consistently so I end up with chronic anxiety because I know that the world in which I am living is making myself and everyone else sick.

Maybe this is the most difficult aspect of being a prophet- “the knowing.” Knowing so much that you always have to be on-guard about what you eat, drink, wear and breathe. In prophet circles this is referred to the as the curse of “knowing too much.” Many wonderfully gifted prophets that I have associated with have lost their mystical/metaphysical talents because they have “known to much” and as a result developed panic attacks. In order to cope with the oppressive burden of panic disorder they have elected to go onto medication and I believe it is common knowledge that all modern day psycho pharmaceutical drugs destroy the prophet’s ability to prophesize. The prophecy is enough to burden any ordinary prophet and the immense amount of personal spiritual work that I have to do in order to bare the weight of prophecy swallows up most of my time.

There was a time when I was a social creature. I spent a lot of time hanging out in bars and spending my entire days sitting in cafes. I had several girlfriends at a time and I enjoyed several sexual rendezvous a day. Now that I am older and a little less confused I rarely leave the house during the evening and during the day I am preoccupied with the work of prophecy. I have very few friends, because when I get around them I only feel aggravated by their inability to “see past the sun.” Or maybe it would be more correct to say that I am jealous of them, envious because they have no idea what is going on. They just don’t know.

I, on the other hand, know all to well. I connect the dots between earthquakes in China, floods in Burma, tsunamis in Indonesia, floods in New Orleans, rising food, living and gas prices, widening gaps between rich and poor, toxic air and food, wars, genocides and chronic battles for domination and power all happening in different parts of the world at the same time. This knowledge makes me wonder if I may not be a prime candidate to be diagnosed as suffering from “eco-anxiety.” After all I do wear a respirator when I ride my bike (to protect against gas fumes), I take two-dozen supplements a day and drink green algae drinks all through out the afternoon so as to stimulate detoxification of my vessel (body). Some think that I am over reacting and some call me paranoid- but because I am a prophet I know that they think this because “they just don’t know.” Some day soon I think I will let the whole world know what I see when I look up. Then we will all be able to be anxious together and I wont have to feel so alone.

A Lost Angel

( I am drunk) Do you know what it is like to be riddle with anxiety- stuck in a darkened room? You can see outwards but within it is blurry and riddled with fear. Smoke lingers between the palpitating curtains and there are sounds of restricted breathing and muted yells. Flowers glow in the corners; windowns are covered with exhaust and I am neither here nor there wondering how and when I am going to get out. On the outside I look calm and ready to suggest a walk or a drink, but on the inside I am clamoring, stricken with a constricted terror. The reality of the situation is as difficult to perceive as truth or energy- but it is as tactile as salt and water. I fall away into a blue state where the room becomes dull- unequal to any other experience. What do things like reputation and money matter when you are upon the edge of panic? Superficiality is stripped away like rust when confronted with your mortality. I smoke a cigarette and contemplate driving down the freeway or stopping off in a lonely topless bar. Until then, I am stuck here and trying to figure out what to do with all this madness.

The Doorman

I am obsessed with doors. I have walked for miles upon many miles and spent years upon years- staring at nothing but doors. The way doors are crafted and the permission that they grant the viewer to imagine what may lay behind, give me an animated sense of being alive. I love the way doors swing and hang. When I am watching a door swing or sway upon its hinges it is as if I am watching a beautiful women seductively pull back articles of clothing that slightly reveal glimpses of forbidden flesh. A potential is revealed and then hidden.

I am a man who is drawn to doors like sailors can be drawn to sea. I am in love with the concept of a door. The way doors separate realities and tempt the mind into a certain curiosity. Doors alter moods, depending upon whether they are opened or closed. They hold the key to the riddle of the universe- all we have to do to is walk on through to the other side.

My obsession with doors grew out of a brief relationship with a woman whose father was a door maker. He specialized in making doors from Southern Spain. The doors had a Moorish quality to them and were always carved with seven sided stars and Arabic writings. The doors were large enough to allow elephants to walk into or out of a room. Aliza’s father was also a man obsessed with doors and after he was long asleep (his wife and he slept on a mattress which was set upon two 18th century doors that he brought back from Barcelona) we would sneak into his door studio and make love on the various kinds of metal door carving equipment. I remember the cold of the equipment against my bare butt as I lifted her upon my legs and made love to her in the dark. Aliza taught me all that she new about doors. We would spend days doing nothing but walking around the tree lined neighborhood in which she lived examining the various kinds of doors that separated families, friends and strangers from “experiences, perceptions and realities.” When Aliza left me for another woman the last words she said to me upon slamming a door in my face was “my doors are shut.”

I managed to steal an antiquated book about doors from Aliza’s father before leaving the door studio for the final time. My heart was in pieces and I had tears in my eyes as I ran off with the book under my jacket. I read the book at least a dozen times and got over my broken heart by traveling around America on a bike and examining, studying and documenting various forms of doors. I took photographs and documented over 10,000 doors in sixteen journals that I tugged around with me in a heavy suitcase. I stayed in Philadelphia for months amazed by the various kinds of colonial doors that seemed to exist in excess. I worked in a strip club during the evenings and documented doors during the day. In one form or another I have been doing this same thing for the past fifteen years. I have over two hundred door documentation journals. I hope that one day not to soon my obituary mentions that I am one of the most important Doormen of my generation.

A Doorman is not the standard and accepted definition of a man who opens doors for you. Rather the term Doorman goes back at least 2100 years to antiquity where a minor Greek Historian by the name of Herodumus wrote the first collection of writings on the theme of doors. He defined a Doorman as the connoisseur of the study of doors whose fascination with the transcendental architecture of doors burn like a fever in his soul. He spoke of the Doorman as one who searches with unrelenting fervor to find the secret or “alternate reality” that can only be revealed by passing through a door. This is the alternate reality that Aldous Huxley wrote about in The Doors Of Perception– another book that has deeply inspired my search. Huxley spoke of doors as a living form of matter that have the absolute power of separating and joining one reality to another. It was Jim Morrison who was the twentieth century’s greatest devotees of Herodumus’s manifesto of the Doorman. He took Huxley’s challenge to break on through and started a band that was dedicated to investigating the mystical apparatus that we refer to as a door. Morrison made doors spiritual and sexual. The textures and structure of doors became more detailed in American society (1969) after The Doors became on of Americas greatest rock bands. It is to Jim Morrison that I will dedicate the great twenty first century book that I plan to write about doors. It will be called The Doors.

For now I am swamped with perpetual thoughts of doors. I see them when I sleep and I am always trying to find ways that I can sneak behind them. No matter if it is a Cabbala door, a Mulligan door, a Moorish door, a Rotunda door, a Franklin Colonial door or a simple 4 by 4 American Suburban door- I am always wanting to break on through to the other side. I am like a Scientist who wants to prove the existence of God by finding the one door that reveals all of his/her or its equations. Like the Door maker whose daughter I long ago copulated with- I am convinced that all the riddles that confuse and confound the human species can be immediately unlocked by the transcendental power of a door.

Stuck In High School!

After 37 years, I am still in high school. It is a mystery to me how this has become my life. After all I do not know if being stuck in high school is the epitome of the American dream or a nightmare. Maybe I am repaying a karmic debt from a past life or maybe I am paying penance for the things I have done in this life- what ever the case may be, I am still stuck in high school.

I am currently sitting in a history class while students are taking a written examination that I designed with the intention of making test taking entertaining. Occasionally I hear small explosions of laughter as students read some of the more comical questions that I have inserted in between the more serious ones- “how many times a day did Abe Lincoln masturbate?” For the most part the room is so silent that I can hear the hum of the freeway which sits just behind the school. I am the Teacher of these students but at the moment I feel like them- stuck in a place that I do not belong. I am always perplexed by the similarities that I find between myself and my 15 and 16 year old students. It is true- I am twenty years older than most of my students but like them I am still pre-occupied with sex and what I am going to do with my life. It is as if a large part of me is yet to grow into this thing I often hear referred to as maturity. I feel as if I have never left high school, my body has aged but my spirit or soul is still stuck at 16. It is a difficult phenomena to explain- but as I sit here writing in my notebook and my students are taking their examination- I feel strangly equal to them. It is as if we should all just be friends and ditch school.

When I was in high school, the first time, I was an apparition. You could see my physical body but my soul was some place else. I was stoned most of the time and Teachers only knew my name because I was the tall lanky guy in the back who never spoke and was seen by all as being weird. At school dances I would get drunk on liquor that I stole from my fathers bar and stand in a corner trying to spy on couples who were making out. Sometimes I could be found lying in the school hallways, broken down into an agitated state of tears crying out “get me out of here!” I did not read a single book nor did I do more than was asked of me. I was preoccupied with blow jobs and death and not once did I get a grade that was higher than a C. My father had to pay off the principle to let me graduate after 6 years of high school.

Now some 20 years later I am still stuck in high school. Somehow the fury of the fates or divine consciousness has managed to transform me into a Teacher. It is like a great magic trick that has been performed in front of my eyes. The trick is on me and I stand there trying to figure out how the magician has created the desired effect. I am perplexed and can not seem to come up with an answer. I am in a state  of absolute dis-belief. How did they do it? It just makes no sense.

Squeezed.

I am a man who is being squeezed from the inside out or maybe the outside in. I do not know which comes first- the outside pressure or the inside pressure, but if Karl Marx was right when he said that society determines the behavior and health of man/woman kind- then it is the the world that is squeezing me. Between the pressure that the earth is placing upon human beings to change or be eliminated and the pressure that government is placing up the individual to pay up or go broke- the outside is squeezing me like a balloon which might just burst. Between rising gas prices, food shortages, recessions, depressions, wars, deficits, unequal distribution of wealth, rising costs and poor environmental conditions, my chest feels as if there is a large leather belt buckled tight around it. My fingers and and toes pulsate and I have noticed that my face has grown pale. My vision is clouded and I can constantly feel my heart beating. The stress of the world seems to have nested upon my skinny left shoulder.

I have noticed that I am not alone. I have noticed many suffering from similar ailments and running around desperately searching for relief (yoga, meditation, eating, drinking, consuming). People do not seem to be getting along, wherever I look another relationship has ended, another person is struggling to survive and another person is experiencing some kind of transformational event that is threatening the sanity they seem to be slowly loosing. All around me people seem squeezed. I can see it in their eyes. I can hear it in their voices and I can certainly feel it in my gut. Human beings are fighting for their lives.

I have heard it said that 2012 marks a monumental time in the history of our planet. Thousands of years ago Mayans have predicted that this will be a time of great transformation that will result in change that our human minds can not currently fathom. Physics believes that the closer time gets to an end the faster it gets- time speeds up. Along with the sppeed up of time comes a kind of constriction and anxiety within all those who are subject to this elevated blood pressure of time. Animals (humans) become more frantic and stressed, things start to break down and people feel squeezed. Like there is not enough minutes in the day. Chaos can ensue.

It is my belief that the earth is experiencing symptoms of this larger breakdown. The sky is literaly falling and some see it and others have managed to distract themselves enough so as not to have to deal with it (but they still feel it). Others feel the squeeze. There is a pressure upon us that seems to be forcing us into submission, to the transformation that needs to occur within ourselves and upon this planet. Maybe being squeezed is not so bad. Maybe I can look upon my pulsating toes and finger tips as a gift from the universe in which I have accidentally found myself living. Maybe I am being forced to awaken to what is going on around me, outside of me- and change what is taking place within me. After all, physics tells me that I am just a microcosmic reflection of a larger macrocosm…if I can un-squeeze myself- than maybe I can un-squeeze the world.

The Man With A Moving Nipple

I know this may seem strange but I am suffering from a moving nipple. It is my left nipple and it gesticulates and twitches like a firecracker. At the moment, the uncomfortable movements of my nipple have become chronic with little intermission in-between. This discomfort has become a part of my life, another bewildering ailment that I must learn to live with.

My nipple began to move after I was in a very upsetting argument with my father. He was in a hospital bed recovering from a surgery and we managed to fight with one another about what, I cannot remember. Consumed with guilt for upsetting my father during his darkest of hours- I left the hospital in a terrible state of mind. The stress was causing my chest to constrict and I remember having difficulty breathing. It was when I turned on my car engine that I noticed my left nipple beginning to twitch. I placed my right palm upon it, as if I was trying to comfort my broken heart. I drove off into the night trying not to think about my moving nipple. Little did I know then that this was the beginning of what would become a full-blown dis- ease.

As the days passed my nipple picked up speed. The twitches would come in unpredictable spurts and I was often forced to have to sit down and try and relax when the episodes would begin. The twitches turned into strange gesticulations that would wake me up at night and force me to place an ice pack on my chest. The moments that my nipple would not be moving became like tropical vacations for my weary mind, which was being over worked by the torment of my moving nipple. The sensations were like aggravating tickles combined with what felt like pinpricks that seemed to leave me feeling like I was a man being slowly crucified from the inside out.

As the weeks passed my moving nipple became more chronic. It rested little and began to control my every waking hour. I had read some where in Greek mythology of a character that had suffered from a very similar ailment as I was. His moving nipple became so violent that it slowly began to make its way onto his forehead and announce all of his private thoughts to whomever was around. Not only did this character suffer the humiliation of having a talking nipple on the center of his forehead but also he was unable to think without the nipple revealing his every thought! Of course it is not difficult to understand why this character took his life by forcing his lover to cut off his head. Once he was decapitated the nipple did not stop talking for over an hour- it told his lover of all his previous affairs!! Ever since I have read this tale I have been terribly worried that my chronic gesticulating nipple is going to break free from its root and make its way onto my forehead!! If the world were able to hear my every thought I would certainly loose everything that I love!!!

Last week I visited a Doctor who knew not what to make of my condition. He told me that he had never seen anything like this before. He recalled reading in a medical journal many month back about someone who had suffered from a similar ailment for most of his life- but he could not remember which medical journal it was in. The Doctor wanted to put me on some medication to see if he could relax the tissue but the side effects for the medication seemed to great to take the risk. My Doctors conclusion was that I was suffering from a stress-induced ailment that was causing calcium build up around the nerves of my nipple tissue-, which is putting pressure upon my nipple. The ensuing twitching and gesticulation is the result of this pressure. If it did not go away in a month he recommends surgery.

In the mean time I still have to live in this world. I have to make a living so that I can continue to have a roof over my head. As much as I want to hide away in my closet and write poetic lamentations all day- I cannot. I have a mouth to feed.

It is not difficult for you to see my ailment, or what I have come to call my crucifixion. There is what appears to be a constant vibration and rotation under my left shirt pocket. When people notice this they immediately ask me if I am okay. I tell them that I am fine, that what they are witnessing is an annoying muscle spasm. My high school students make fun of me and refer to me as a freak. They all want to touch my nipple and when I let them there are loud uproars of “EEEEEEWWWW,” or “That’s so disgusting!!!!” Whenever I go out into public people stare at my nipple as if they had never seen anything like this before. I feel like an aberration, like all eyes are condemning me to constant judgment. Now I know what it must feel like to be a big-breasted woman.

The only thing that I can do is learn to live with my ailment. Every night before bed I put a chamomile cream upon my nipple, which seems to relax it a bit. I also wrap my chest in a towel before bed, which seems to reduce the annoying vibrations of my moving nipple, allowing me to get some sleep. There is nothing that I can really do (besides having my nipple surgically removed) other than accept my current situation. I see this condition as an opportunity for me to deal with the various causes in my life rather than the effects. If I can learn to change the stressors that have caused my moving nipple than maybe over time my nipple will stop moving. I believe it was Pascal, Socrates or Emerson or maybe Nietzsche- who said that an unexamined life is a life not worth living, so I am examining my self- trying to understand the various ways that I have caused my own dis-ease. Maybe, through this process of self-examination, I will eventually become the only man who can set myself free.

The Trappings Of My Mind

My mind has been doing things without my permission for the past few years. It began with very subtle thoughts such as “you should steal this,” “you are a failure, “you can’t breath,” or “you might have this disease.” I tried not to pay much attention to the workings of my own mind by smoking weed and drinking two bottles of red wine every day. Whatever it took to put these mischievous thoughts out of my mind- I did with a passion. But life went along as it normally tends to do and everything changed including the thoughts in my mind.

Now I realize that all human beings suffer from the condition of negative thinking but I believe there are variations of effect. Some people are able to immediately transform their negative thoughts into positive ones and others are able to ignore the thoughts that enter the confines of their own mind. Others, who are not so fortunate- may be dominated, overcome by the negative thoughts that their minds generate. They look towards food, drink, chemical substances, television, film or novels to distract themselves from the negative thoughts that have a tendency to colonize their minds. These distractions work for an allotted period of time but the negative thoughts seem to return with a fervor and force that no amount of inoculation can put down.

This is where I have found myself these days. I have met with nueroscientists, psychiatrists, chiropractors, and healers all to try and garner some support around gaining some control of my own mind. I have done daily exercises to turn down the left side of my brain and turn up the right side. I stand on my head every day for twenty minutes and I eat alot of fish which has been said to balance out the right and left hemispheres of the brain. But still at different times of the day the negative thoughts come at me like a wave which is determined to drag me under. What is a man to do when his own mind is working against him?

The past two years I have made many changes in my lifestyle. I no longer steal, cheat , lie or act without a motivation to be loving (most of the time). I exercise every day and I make every attempt that I can to sing or hum when I walk and to meditate when I sit. My hope has been that by using my mind in positive ways the negative thoughts would start to fade away like fog around noon time. Instead, the better and more hole I become- the more intense is the volume of my negative thoughts. It is like there is a devil in between my brain cells.

Nowadays, my negative thoughts seem to have been mainly centered around death. Every time I get comfortable or relaxed there appears in my mind an agitating thought about my own death. I see myself dying in various fashions and the thoughts are so vivid that the ensuing apprehension and fright stimulates my heart to beat rapidly. My body constricts and I have to fight against the impulse towards flight. The negative thoughts have become so frequent and strong that I have almost rendered myself powerless in controlling them. When a negative thought comes in which I see myself having a heart attack or being hit by a car, all I can do is take deep breaths and tell myself to relax. What is a man to do when the most dangerous place on earth is within his own mind?

When I sit in meditation, drive my car, go for walks or do just about anything- I am filled up with these intrusive negative thoughts. They scare me out of being ambitious in my life and instead I feel pity for the man I have become. I have grown depressed and conquered by these thoughts which have invoked a silent fear which resides just beneath my chest. There is really no place that is safe for me so I have taken up prayer (I am still trying to figure out to whom I am speaking). I eat less and take foot baths before I go to bed in the hopes that this mini baptism will perform the miracle of eliminating these negative thoughts. But instead my mind is a living entity that has its own set of rules which I am to weak to defend against. It is like the nueroscientist told me “as a result of many years of suffering from anxiety, worry and hypochondria-sis your left brain is at war with your right brain.” “What can I do about this?” I asked him. “The only thing that I know of is prayer,” he sternly replied.

So I pray, I sing, I stand on my head and I try to act with an intention towards love rather than hate (most of the time). I am doing all that I can to gain control of the workings of my own mind without giving myself over to medication, surgery or a Buddhist monastery. I work hard not to manifest the fears that I carry around inside my head and I have even started volunteering some of my time (to keep my mind off my thoughts) to help suicidal illiterate soldiers who have lost limbs in the war learn how to normally function in society. Sometimes when I talk to these veterans about the war which is raging in my own terrified mind they seem to be the only people who understand what is going on. “Ya, it is like a kind of post traumatic stress disorder that you are suffering from,” one soldier told me who had lost both legs in Iraq. ” “Rather than fighting in an actual war you are suffering from the terror that your own mind is generating…you are in a perpetual trap,” the soldier said. I could not have agreed more with his comment and to this day all I think about is how I can survive the trappings of my own mind. “What can I do?” I always ask but no one seems to know. “If only there were more answers, I would not be in the situation I am,” one suicidal soldier replied.

The Cricket Who Talks To God

What is it that I can do that can help raise the consciousness of humanity? How can I- an underpaid high school teacher who suffers from anxiety and various health ailments participate in the evolution of human kind on earth? I realize that these may be big questions but I also realize that they need to be asked, now. I have often heard it said that humanity is at a vital turning point in our history upon this earth. Many of my high school students justify not coming to class or doing their homework by saying that the world is going to end soon anyways, so why worry about school? Sometimes I find it difficult to argue with a perspective that I find may be true- but I try to keep my mind upon transformation rather than liquidation. If I only had some version of an answer then I could cleanse and heal my mind by writing a book and traveling around the world doing consciousness workshops- but I am afraid that there maybe no answers, only cricket’s who talk to God.

There is a cricket that sits upon my deck day upon day as if it is in a deep state of blissful meditation. I am convinced that this cricket is praying to God. It seems to be that the cricket is channeling some kind of divine energy for the sake of all life uponn earth. I have tried to communicate with this cricket in various ways, but each time I get close to connecting I am met by a strange energy which feels like an electric shock. So I keep my distance and pray along with this cricket at certain times during the day.

The cricket seems to be staring at the sun with its eyes wide open. Be it that I can not stare at the sun I keep my eyes shut and do what certain Harri Krishna’s refer to as sun divining (it is when you stare at the sun with your eyes close and feel the heat against your closed eye lids). I ask the cricket if he/she/it can take a moment and listen to my prayers and then relay them to God. There never seems to be any form of communication that suggests the cricket is unwilling to do so, rather I feel like he/she/it is saying “okay go ahead, lets hear it:”

I feel so blessed to be alive, to be breathing and free from a hospital bed or jail cell. I feel so blessed to have all of my family alive and well at the moment because I know that at any moment this will change. We never know which time the phone will ring and bring news that will forever alter our lives. We never know when our own lives will be altered in the blink of an eye. Everything is always changing and it is this movement that keeps human beings terrified- living in constant fear. How is it that we can be free from this fear, let go of our constriction and tension so that we can live with and in the chaos without terror…with peace and health and wealth? How can I participate in giving something to humanity that will help us evolve out from our fear and into a state of connection to gratitude and love? How can this be done? Fear is destroying us and the natural world- quicker than I could ever imagine….what is the answer. I am asking for an answer that is greater than just recycling, going to protest marches and workshops on weekends and doing Yoga. If you tell me I promise to give free lectures around the world. I will spread this answer like a wild fire. There is no greed here, just my will to save myself, the earth and all those who live upon it. Thank you for listening and considering my prayer, peace…Amen…well maybe there is a little greed.

When I am finished with my long winded prayer the cricket is in the very same position that he was prior to my prayer. I do not know if he received and relayed it to the appropriate authority, but I suppose this is where the power of faith comes in. I offer the cricket some water or wine and when I get no reply I leave it alone in what looks like a state of divine rapture. This is a cricket without fear…and I want some of what he’s got.

This evening I went outside to see if the cricket who talks to God would not be interested in relaying another prayer for me. I opened my front door and noticed the cricket was not in his same spot. I felt a sadness come over me that I had not felt in some time but then I remembered that nothing lasts forever. I looked up at the moon and took a deep breath and then went back inside. I decided that I would make a nice dinner for my wife and I- and as I took out the fish from the refrigerator the phone rang. It was a trauma nurse in Los Angeles telling me that my mother in law is in the intensive care unit and in critical condition. The doctors were awaiting the results of a Ct Scan that would show if there was internal bleeding, hemorrhaging and a broken or fractured spinal column. A speeding car cut her off while driving on the freeway and she lost control of her automobile and ran into a tree. When I got off the phone I put the fish back into the refrigerator and went outside to search for the cricket before giving my wife the news.

I Swallowed My Wedding Ring, Part 2.

I returned home from the hospital a few hours ago. It was a minor procedure. Since my own digestive system was incapable of removing my wedding ring I had to rely on modern medical techniques to do so. I was subjected to a metallic probe (with a camera) that was inserted in my anus and then loitered around my intestines until the wedding ring was found stuck in a pocket of my colon. The probe delicately latched on to the ring, dragging it out from my system in the same manner that a baby would be removed from the womb. The pain was slight since I was heavily sedated (and still am) and I was kept in the hospital for a night following the procedure to make sure my colon did not go into frenetic spasms.

My Doctor has asked me to spend the next few days in bed. He wants me to drink plenty of fluids and remain lying on my back for at least twenty hours a day. His concern is that since my wedding ring was stuck in a very narrow pocket of my colon there was some bruising done. The colon is a very sensitive organ and his fear is that it may become swollen as a result of the trauma. This is why I am only allowed to eat fruit and drink water for the next week. When I was leaving the hospital my Doctor asked me if I had learned anything from this experience. “I have learned to keep my wedding ring out of my mouth,” I said. He looked at me as if he was waiting for a more insightful reply. Did you learn anything else?” he patiently asked. I thought for a moment and replied- “to love and care for my wife for the rest of my life.” This answer came from some place deep in my gut, rather than from my mind. It was as if the Doctor had implanted in me the knowledge that I had been given a second chance to make my marriage work. “Swallowing your wedding ring may have been a blessing for your marriage,” the Doctor said with a smile and then disappeared from my room. As my wife pushed me in my wheelchair out from the hospital I could not stop telling her how much I loved her.

I am still very tired and must return back to bed. I have only gotten up to write this brief entry. I wanted to let you know that this terrible story has had a happy ending. Even though I am still high on various pain medications, my wedding ring is back upon the safe confines of finger. My wife has been caring for me and despite my weak condition- we have made love twice. I have pledged my renewed love to her over and over and thanked the heavens above that this chapter in my life has had a good ending. While lying in bed I have often thought about what would of happened had I never swallowed my wedding ring? I may have not just lost my wife, but also this love which now floods my heart- in holly matrimony ofcourse.

The Fly.

I am trapped in this body that seems to be changing or aging at a rate that I can not control. With a life span of three to five days- there is so much to be done. Since my birth I have been happily confined to this labyrinthine Victorian home that has harbored generations of my family. We spend our days buzzing through ancient hallways made out of pine wood and we tan ourselves up against thin glass windows filled with sunlight and heat. The windows reflect our infernal images back upon our dilated eyes revealing an ugliness that I am just starting to come to terms with- and I am already three days old. My mother always told me that if I did not come to terms with my image in the window by the time I was three days old- I would never find peace.

With two days left to live there is so much to accomplish (I am confident that I will live to the ripe old age of five days…maybe even six). So many rooms to fly around in, so many walls to investigate. The home in which I was raised is filled with various plants and antiquated furniture so enjoyable to fly upon that I gladly forget that more than half of my life has been lived. All of the pressures involved in being a fly (the pressure to reproduce before my old age sets in and the pressure of flying enough in my life so that I can die with a felling of fulfillment) seems to become mitigated by the pleasure of resting upon a silk arm chair or an aloe plant and reciting the verse of Emily Dickinson. If you had told me that being a fly would involve such a great desire to do and see things I would have thought you were nuts. When I was young I had always thought that flies were anxious little creatures with a spasmodic will and a pestersome bzzzzz. Never could I have imaged the wonder filled world of the fly I have found out about in my later years. The beauty of flying naked and weightless through long hallways and landing upon warm afternoon windows. The beauty of crawling along ceilings and landing on the heads of humans. Tears come to my eyes when I think about how much there is to live for.

I keep to myself most of the day perpetuating no rumors about fellow flies. I spend a lot of time sunbathing upon the guest bedroom window. There I can be left alone, freed from the frenetic activity of fellow flies. I can clean my nimble legs and antenna and design ways in which I will fly to the moon on my last day of life. I am able to dream of other worlds where spirit flies still live and roam freely through hallways and furnished homes. I imagine my ancestors watching over me as I make my way through out the various rooms. Being a fly requires a strong constitution- when you are allotted only five days to live, the fear of death can be crippling, but even more so the awe of life can become overwhelming.

I make my way alone most of the time. It is true that my only purpose for living is not simply to spend my days in such a perplexed state of awe. I have my biological obligations to fulfill. The need to perpetuate my species weighs upon my soul to such a degree that I am not able to spend the days in mindless contemplation like I once did when I was young. I feel as if there is something more important that I need to be tending to. Before I come upon my final day- it is pertinent that I find a way to bring forth another me, a next of kin. Through this process of reproduction, us flies find immortality. This is how we make sense of our three to five days of life. We reproduce, and through our children become immortal. Like my father always told me, “A hen is only an egg’s way of making another egg.”

Even though I have been hard at work searching for a female fly to mate with- I have come up empty today. Night is almost upon us and after dark I have a tendency to stay put for the rest of the evening. I find particles of food (usually cat feces which I love) in various places and then rest in a safe spot until the heat of the sun returns to the windows. Tomorrow will be the fourth day of my life- what most flies refer to as the early evening of a flies life. I will spend the day searching for a mate- and into the evening if I must. If the midnight hour falls and I am yet to find the one who will give my child a chance to be born, I am willing to resign myself to a life spent alone, in awe- upon a window. Others may think that I have failed in my purpose (or utility) but I am willing to accept the responsibility of not living up to others expectations. It is a small price to pay for the hours of wonder and solitary pleasure I have experienced being a fly.

Sex Life Of A Man Without One #16 (Dark Night of The Soul)

      Last night I found my self alone on a dark city street. The rain was pouring down in bucket loads and the cold ravaged my bones. I walked through the Tenderloin like a man victimized by a heavy guilt with both hands tucked deeps inside my jacket pockets. What brought me out upon these dark city streets was a longing for relief, a momentary sensation of pleasure. My life has been pressured by all the many ways a man can fail. Without a job and the motivation to find one, a man is left for dead in this wild wild west. So I came out of my home past the hour of midnight and searched for a way out from the dark thoughts that projected my bleak future upon the lense of my mind. I would just walk, I told myself. Despite the demons and goblins dressed in black, searching for blood- I would walk like a man who appears to be free from the ravages of fear. I would stand tall and make my way through the desolate city streets.

I walked up and down rain covered streets. I followed my feet over cracks and used condoms. Between the sounds of alarms and sirens was a space filled with screams and shouts that emanated from deep within the cities belly. I heard the wind wrap it self around brick buildings and run head on into various street signs. The rapid pulsations in my chest spoke of a deep suffering and my feet walked at a fast pace with hope of leaving some of my suffering far behind. Mucos fell from my enlarged nose that felt infected by the damp wind. Rain fell upon my long body and heavy mind like a Baptism from the dark sky above. How had I come so far into my isolation? How had I ended up here?

After miles and miles of endless walking my legs grew weak. I stopped in at one of the only bars that I could find which was still decorated with a neon open sign. Inside sat desolate souls seeking shelter from the cold rain through the medicinal promises of booze. I sat next to a lonely soul who smelled like sadness and worried away his thoughts into a cup filled with brown wine. An older Asian lady who spoke little English served me a warm whiskey and I listened to the sounds of suffering souls like a wayward cultural anthropologist. Everything that was spoken in this bar made little sense to me. The language was incoherent and somehow seemed to be eluding to ruined dreams and better days. All the voices were raspy and filled with a guilt that was disguised by laughter so contrived that not even I was fooled. The man next to me asked me a question that I could not hear and I just sat back in my chair and looked up at God.

Had I become so helpless that my search for pleasure has lead me to this forsaken bar? Had I lost my own sense of virtue and integrity because of an irrational need to feel relief through various forms of sexual debauchery? Was the suffering that I was feeling worth the moments of pleasure that I so secretly searched for? The answer was obvious to me as I thought about my sweet wife who was sound asleep in our warm bed at home. The rose bush that grew outside our bedroom window came into my mind and all I could think was why was this not enough? What was it that my soul seemed to be so restless for? So restless that it was willing to sacrifice the only things that mattered to me my rose bush and wife)? So this is where addiction ends up. In an incoherent bar with lonely souls who are trying to laugh away their forsaken dreams. I finished my whiskey and walked back out into the cold.

As I walked through the wind and the rain I remembered something that William Shakespeare had once said. “Strong reasons make strong actions.” As I looked into the eyes of beggars who asked me for change I wondered about my own reasoning process. Did I have one, or was I merely lead by the animal instincts of my cock. Was I set on fire by an idea without any reasoning agency that could come in between the idea and the following action? This seemed to be the case. I am a man out of control and this may be the cause of every pang and curdle of anxiety and feeling of impending doom that I carry around with me through out the day. A man who lives without a feeling of control is a man who lives in fear.

I found may way back to my one legged and age-ing car which was hesitant about starting up. It was as if it was saying to me for the last time, “are you sure you want to leave behind this nightmare?” I was only to certain of the degree to which I wanted to solve my affliction and return home to the rosey comforts of domesticity. As I struggled to get my car to start I heard the cold angry rain pounding down upon my windshield as if it was trying to wash away all my sins. The rain offered itself to me at that moment, and just as I considered getting out of my car and surrendering, the car started- allowing me away away out from this dark night of my soul.