Flying (A poem)

Am I alone when I dream to fly?
Do ants go to sleep to be fireflies?
Do elephants imagine feathered wings?
Do penguins long to ride on the wind?
When I close my eyes and float on the air
Am I the lonely one up there
Or do the many-legged bugs
All feel the same, and envy doves?
Am I alone when I dream to fly
Or do we all wish to ride the skies
To cast away our earthly binds
And sail, and soar, and dip, and glide?

The Saw

The house is silent. It is almost nine o'clock and already shadows gather to make their nightly rounds. One room escapes their tide, kept at bay by the glow from a small crackling fire. Here in the den a grandfather clock counts away the seconds, its wise oak countenance always wary of time's fickle passing. The room smells of age, reeks of it in fact. Volumes of tattered yellowing books line the shelves, gathering dust and age. A sense of loneliness pervades, the oppressive feeling that belongs to all neglected objects. It has been a long time, too long, since any of these volumes were opened. Here was a room that was once filled with dreams, that was once vital and alive. Those dreams are gone and what was once vital now lies comatose, just like the old man who sits across from the fire. His eyes stare in to the embers, but he is not looking. His vision is fine, yet still it has been some time since he has really seen anything. The fire longs for a new log, even just a poke or a prod. In his faded green leather chair, the old man fails to care. Like the neglected books, like the encroaching shadows, like the watchful grandfather clock and the slowly dying fire, the old man waits.

His hair is a disheveled mess of white and gray strands, wild like an aged Medusa. Skin dry as leather hide, he was once a strapping young man and worked a hard life. Those years of toil have left their mark in the sallow complexion which stares back at him on the rare occasions he glimpses himself in a mirror. Where sharp eyes used to take in the world, listlessness now resides. There are many who have commented that he looks dead already. He used to maintain a goatee, sometimes a beard. The wiry nubs of hair that grow on his chin could hardly be called either. He appears a homeless man, and isn't that how he feels? Isn't that why he sits alone, bitter from memories he has long since locked away? His eyes tell his tale. One look and the whole story is revealed. He has the look of Lear, and has fallen just the same.

The old man's name is Fredrick Mourn. This house is his life. He has been alive for seventy-four years. He has been dead for far too long. In five years he has not made a single attempt to leave his house. The drapes are closed tight. The outside world is a virus, his home the quarantine. Neighbors have pondered over his mysteries. Some even tried to be helpful. He stopped acknowledging their attempts at consolation long ago, and they stopped caring. The young children have decided he is a warlock, or a vampire. If life were that magical, he would not have had to lock himself away. He talks to his lawyer three or four times a year over the phone. He hangs up on his children on the rare occasions they try calling again. There are hours between when he wakes up and when he sleeps. They have long since become a blur. Just at night, when he takes a seat in his old leather chair and stares at the fire, does he really pay attention. He sometimes thinks. More often than not, he doesn't. His heart still beats. At times he is angry for that. He comes to the den for comfort. He is not completely alone, not here. A strange companion found him five years ago, right at the time he sealed his tomb. It lives in the far corner of the basement, covered in spider webs, dust and shadows. Nothing spectacular, except for once every night, without fail. A reminder perhaps that not everything has abandoned him.

The table saw is broken. It was broken nearly ten years ago, perhaps more, and it is still broken. Its cord hangs dispiritedly on the floor. Even if it was plugged in, Fredrick is reasonably sure the nearest plug was one of the ones damaged in the flood of '83. It is unlikely the machine would get much of a jolt. The circular blade was damaged on the last job the little rust bucket was employed for, and now sits at an odd angle within the device, rusted to the point that Fredrick would not be surprised if it simply would not budge even if the saw had power. The tool should have been taken to the dump long ago, and yet, just like himself, it remains in the house, stubborn and refusing to pass on.

At nine o'clock on the dot every night for five years the table saw has turned on. The blade has started spinning, the motor buzzing. In a house of silence it is the closest sound to joy that Fredrick has known. For sixty minutes the saw sings, uninterrupted and without fail. At ten o'clock, as mysteriously as how it turned on in the first place, the saw shuts off. In the early days, Fredrick used to busy himself trying to understand the phenomena. He would travel down the rickety old stairs to the basement risking death if he fell. He would surely crack a hip and there would be no one coming to check on him. He would get to the bottom of the stairs and look dumbfounded as the saw roared as if new. He checked the limp cord and noted that it was not plugged in. He sliced a few pieces of wood a time or two. The cuts were straight. That blade should not have even spun and yet the pieces were flawless. Of course he wondered whether he imagined the whole thing. He lived by himself. It was conceivable he had gone mad. After a while he realized he didn't care. It was just himself and the table saw now, alone in the house and sealed from the world. He cared little for that world, the one that would insist that the table saw could not turn on once a night at nine o'clock. So he started coming to the den. He would sit in his chair and stare at the fire and listen to the saw until it stopped.

The grandfather clock began to chime, its resonant voice announcing what Fredrick already knew. The table saw had started to spin. It was nine o'clock. He pressed his lips and cast a wary glance around the room. Everything looked the same. Everything was the same. The books, the fire, the clock. Was it the fire that was different? Perhaps it did not burn as bright as it normally did. He listened to the sound of the table saw. Was it the same sound it always made? He couldn't be sure. He thought that it was. Castrating himself mentally for his sudden anxiousness he tried to settle in his chair. Something was different. He could not put his finger on it but he knew for certain that he was right. Being the sole resident, the self imprisoned recluse in this house for five years, you had come to know its feel. The taste of the rooms, the feel of the spaces, expansive or cramped, the give of the floorboards. It was not a lot different than a spouse, not to Fredrick. This house had been his mistress. He knew her every secret.

The thought brought with it a tide of memory, the kind he had locked away long ago. Painful. Accusing. These were the reasons that Fredrick was hiding, but it was no use. A switch had been flipped. The flood came and his eyes widened.

The car.

Janice.

The black Cavalier lurched around the corner like a locomotive. Eddy Pierce was at the wheel, drunk. Sober Eddy would have had time to stop the car or swerve out of the way. Probably. Fredrick could almost see the Cavalier's evil intentions, always remember the way that haunting vehicle had laughed at him. That didn't happen though, did it? Janice had already stepped out on the road. She didn't see the black Cavalier coming. It had happened so fast, but there had been time. Time enough to save her, to shout at her, to leap out and push her out of the way. Why hadn't he saved her? He just stood on the sidewalk, frozen, and watched for Christ's sake!

It started at the wake. People whispering. People always whisper at a wake, but Fredrick knew better. They were talking about him. They had probably read the paper. That article about the accident might has well have spelled it out in black and white. It was right there between the lines. They all thought it was his fault. Fredrick Mourn could have saved his wife and he didn't. Now they whispered. The kids too. Stacy the worst. Tears barely covered the malice you could see in those eyes. She knew her father was guilty.

“It should not have been her.”

Who said that? Was it Stacy? Adam? Someone said it. He knew what they meant, whoever said it. No, it should not have been her. Not Janice. It should have been him. They knew, and he knew. All those eyes, weeping and accusatory.

The whispering did not stop with the wake. Every time he went out he could hear it. In every consoling look he could see it. They wanted Janice to be walking out of that house. That was what their looks said. They loved Janice. The world would be better if she were alive and he was dead. Stacy would phone. Adam less so. Adam had always been that way, never had a great relationship with his old man, but Fredrick knew the real reason. They were ashamed of him, probably couldn't even wait for the inheritance now that mom was gone. Greedy bastards. So he drew the lines while drawing the drapes, mounted his defenses inside his castle, and waited.

He had not thought about Janice in five years. He could feel the tears mounting in his eyes like water behind a cracking dam. He felt wretched. For five years he had forced himself not to think of his wife, the woman he had loved for forty-two years. He had never grieved her loss, never accepted that she was gone at all. Stacy and Adam tried to get through but his shield was too strong.

He wept, each tear carrying another regret to pool upon the floor. There was something different tonight. He thought that perhaps it had been different for some time now, that he had just been ignoring it. He tried to stop time five years ago. How foolish. How childish it now seemed. The black Cavalier killed two people that day, they just hadn't buried the second in the ground yet.

He thought he understood the permeating differentness in the house. Death. That old trickster would not be fooled by a few pulled drapes. He almost smiles, except it is not funny. So many forms the reaper could take, it chose this one. He supposes he is not afraid. He thought that he would not care, but he does. If he could do things differently, but no, no one gets a chance to do things differently. Just Jimmy Stewart.

I'm sorry Janice. Stacy. Adam.

I'm sorry Fredrick.

The house is quiet. It takes a moment for the realization to dawn. The table saw has shut off. It can't be ten o'clock yet. He glances warily at the grandfather clock. He feels suddenly very alone. He can hear the quietness of the house. It is almost maddening. The crackling of the fire, the ticking of the clock, the clanks and clunks of the ducts. It is only 9:32. In five years the saw has been consistent. Why has the table saw turned off early? He feels faint. A shortness of breath attacks him and for a moment he thinks that it may be a panic attack. An image of a scythe etches his thoughts, not a scythe this time but a circular blade. A rusty, bent, circular blade. He knows why the table saw has quit before its time. As the last breath escapes his lips, the fire dies out as well.

The End

We'd Like to 'ear Another Story

He stared at the keyboard, fingers trembling. They would come again tonight, they always came. He could run, they would follow. He could hide, they would find him. No door could stop them, no wall could keep them out. Tiny eyes, glowing red, would watch him. Then grimacing mouths, full of razor teeth, would open, and they would speak.

"We'd like to 'ear another story," they'd say in their hackneyed English accents. Their tiny heads, beneath their little bowler hats, would nod as one. They were naked except for those bowler hats.  They would repeat their request and look to each other expectantly.

"We'd like to 'ear another story."

He loathes to remember the night he did not have a story ready. He can still feel those talon-like nails tearing at his skin. They had screamed in his ears, ripped at his clothes, scratched at his eyes. They were like children, demon children. One day, their tantrums would kill him.

How much more could he take? There were no more stories to tell. They demanded entertainment and he had nothing to give them. He panicked, stood from his chair, paced the room. He felt the coiling snake of despair in his stomach. He wondered what would one day be chiseled in to his tombstone.

Died by Writer's Block.

He dreamed of escape, even if that escape meant death. He had tried before. Oh, how he'd tried.

“No, no, no,” they would say as they patched him up. “Not tonight, no, not tonight.”

Would he ever be free of this torment?

“You are wasting time,” he cursed himself. His future hardly mattered, it was the present that concerned him, and they would be here soon. He could not take another night of torture. His fingers began to type.  With sudden vigour and purpose, he typed. His tired eyes widened. It was a good story, perhaps one of his best. He did not look up at the clock until he was finished.  It was almost midnight. He was elated, at least for the moment. He cast a final look at the tale and sighed relief. He had done it.

They came as they always came, sitting down and waiting patiently for him to begin. They loved him, he knew, but it was a very conditional love. While his words continued to fill some void in their demonic little lives, they would continue to come, night after night. If his stories stopped, or failed to be interesting, that love would turn to hatred. The tiny demons would cast him aside, rip him asunder, discard him to the shadows and loneliness and death that awaited him; then they would move on, restless to fill the insatiable void once more.

“We'd like to 'ear another story,” they said, their eyes aglow with that red excitement. 

He spun his tale. They listened. He had survived one more night.

Search Engine Syndrome

I am not sure that getting published, or just plain getting noticed, was any easier in the pre-digital era. Surely the number of books available at book stores and libraries has always been significantly less than the number of books written in hopes of publication. Nowadays, however, it is almost sickening trying to wade through the heaps of useless information to try to get a nugget of truth on exactly what an author should be doing nowadays to get published.

I think my problem is that I love fiction. If I were to produce an ebook full of useless rhetoric and out of date information, and call it something like "10 Explosive Ways to Impress an Editor" I would probably receive much more instant recognition.

One day you read that agents are interested in book proposals; the next you go online to find a plethora of dung heap token "advice", likely written by people who have never been successfully published in the first place. The day after I get published, the last thing I am going to have time to do is write a how to guide for other people. I'll be busy at book signings, or figuring out inventive ways to spend the truckloads of cash pouring in.

I have read websites that essentially say this same thing. Don't publish anything of value. Simply find a topic that people are interested in, and then do some half-brained research and throw a few facts together.

The moral of this story is, people who are successful generally figured out how to do it themselves. The likelihood that you will find any relevant or useful information on the internet by typing, "How to become an overnight youtube sensation" is pathetically low. People who become overnight youtube sensations did not waste their time on search engines. They were busy making videos of old ladies letting one rip during confession, or horses getting hit in the face with cream pies.

There should be wayyyyyy more videos of horses getting hit in the head with cream pies.

Owning the World One Fast Lane Ticket at a Time

I remember when I was younger and the world was a magical place, full of dreams and possibilities and ideas like freedom. I remember when young girls knew what clothes were, and understood that they were supposed to wear them. I remember standing in line for a ride and being part of a group, a small society of fellow people who all shared this wonderful line waiting social custom.

I heard one time that "All good things must come to an end" or something along those lines. I did not know that quote applied to the world as a whole. Freedom seems to have gone out the window, nine year old girls might as well be walking around naked, and now for an additional fee, if you're willing to pay, you can be an A-Class member at your local theme park and not bother with the tradition of line ups at all. For only $30 to $45 at Canada's Wonderland, on top of the regular cost of admission, you can buy yourself a smug expression, a callous air, and walk about the park waving non-chalantly to your fellow comman man as you butt in line. Just a small additional fee, and you can snub your nose at fairness while giving a grand Nazi salute to Capitalism.

I think it is a marvelous idea that deserves to escape the cold metal gates of Canada's Wonderland. Driver's Licenses should definitely start offering premium options. Why should I have to follow the regular speed limit like my fellow pitiful human beings, when for a monthly membership fee I can gain a Fast Lane License that comes with its own increased speeding limits?

Why should I have to prove myself like my fellow students in a math test, when I should be able to just buy a Premium Scholarship Package at my local school, which comes with a gym bag sized nerd who will take those math tests for me?

Why should it be first come first serve at a movie theatre? I want to just pay twice as much for my tickets, arrive as the curtains raise, and kick that family of five out of their front row seats so I can watch the second instalment of Despicable Me.

Way to go Canada's Wonderland. $15 to park your car, but for an extra $5 you can have access to one of the reserved parking spaces closer to the park. $50 for a day pass, but for $90 we'll push little old ladies and small children out of your way so you can go on more rides. Why not implement a premium beverage package? For an additional $25 a day, ride operators will steal water from your fellow peasants and give it to you if you're thirsty.

I wish I could go back to the world of my youth. As is, modern society is like having a 300 pound naked, hairy man walk in to the room while you are covering your eyes during a round of hide and seek. You thought you were just playing a fun game, but then you start to open your eyes, and the more you open your eyes, the more unsightliness and horror you see.

Hibbert Gore

I was inspired to write a story about a sad, lonely man, after reading a twitter feed http://t.co/YYa27COE about two cities in the US that are only listed as having populations of one. Hibbert Gore, Maine, then became the protagonist of this short poem, which I could not get to sleep before finishing.

Hibbert Gore

Hibbert Gore lived on the first floor of a cottage built alongside the shore
He jogged, each morn, one mile to four, then circled around, right back to his door
In the afternoon, with just one oar, he'd paddle his boat 'til his arm was sore
Then fish for tuna, or albacore, and return back home to cook his score
His life was not easy--most times was a bore--and he'd awaken each day, alone on that shore
Alone in that cottage, he would die on that floor; just the waves, and the air, and poor Hibbert Gore.

A Day in the Life of an Aspiring

Being an Aspiring is not easy. Right now I am an aspiring author. I might even be an aspiring musician. I have an idea to create a youtube video, a concept song (at least one) that will go along with Hexington. I have some old material that I was working on as a concept album to a novel I will probably never release, and it might work.

An Aspirings life can be daunting. I wonder whether my time might be better spent doing something else. The world outside my head isn't as forgiving, and the bills keep piling up. Aspirings do not make much money. We are an investment for the people around us with not much hope of a healthy return. What a whopping return it would be though--you know, if it paid off! That is why we become Aspirings in the first place.

I am still young, though hardly as young as I used to be. I imagine that, just like gold miners, there have been a frightening number of Aspirings that wasted their lives away and never struck paydirt. The trick, I think, is to be an Aspiring for the right reasons. Of course, for many of us, the overriding reason is that we have no choice. Hopefully someone takes notice: someone with an important signature that looks good on cheques. Hopefully we gather at least a small cult following of fellow human beings who enjoy our work. At the end of the day, I am an Aspiring because I love wasting my hours away writing music and stories, drawing pictures, or just plain being an immature goofball.

If you are a fellow Aspiring, have faith. Everyone should be good at something, even if that something is simply having big dreams!