I wrote this experimental piece just before taking a journey that was important to me to take. As I was arriving at my destination, a large rainbow appeared . . . (Incidentally on my way to see the first show that inspired the story “Big Beat.”)
The Road Once Taken
He looked behind him once at the lifetime he is. He saw a box he calls “house,” and perhaps more often “home.” Some dirt in front of the box where grass pokes through here and there; two strips of concrete and a place his car often rests. Steps to a door in the box. He turned back toward his future, what he is that he does not yet know that he is. A long strip of asphalt he would call to anyone else “road,” and the unseen that to follow it is to discover. Not just follow it, travel upon it. Things it leads to, things that surround it. Places he may arrive at that will make him forget for the rest of the time his body breathes that there was ever a road that brought him there.
Key in hand he turns the cylinder to begin the box that moves him where he wishes to direct it; he presses the energy source to move. He does not look back.
As he watches the sunset upon the ocean, all he can think of is how much it looks like a rose floating in the sky, lighting the directions to where the impulses within him he cannot quite fully understand might move him.
I was hoping to post one I wrote earlier, but, while I’m still working out the kinks of the new machine, this one’ll have to do for now. I find my writing lately to be rather personal, but I think it’s all coming out rather entertaining nonetheless. May you enjoy!
Pile of Bills
The stack of bills had cornered me in the alleyway as it slowly closed in. The massive pile was no less than ten feet high, six feet across, and aside from the numbers of amounts due, and names of debt collectors, the one discernible feature of this gigantic creature was its huge, gaping mouth taking up almost the entire length of it body. I crouched down against the brick wall at the end of the alleyway, filled with terror, as the creature made up of the piles of my bills slowly made its way forward to devour me. It’s shadow engulfed me as its body loomed overhead, the thing no more than four feet away. Then, at the very top of this stack of debt, two piles rose above its mouth on either side, as though forming something like eyes. It stopped its forward movement, “looked” down at me, and spoke, “Really?”
I awoke in a cold sweat. It was six-o-clock in the morning, and I didn’t have to be awake for work for another hour. I thought about my desk where my bills lay in wait for me in the next room, and, begrudgingly, tried to force myself back to sleep. I tossed and turned, and maybe was able to get another 20 minutes when, groggy, I awoke to the piercing shriek of my alarm clock.
I hurried passed the room containing my desk as I got myself ready for work. Shower, shave, quick breakfast, and to my car for a full day of drudgery that I could be grateful for; something to keep the real stack of bills at bay. And, today was payday. It was some peace of mind while in transit to remember that even as I was driving, something was being added to my account with which I could beat off the stack of bills, at least temporarily . . .
When I got home that night I went to my office space so that I could see the effect my last week of efforts had made on my account, and see what I could offer my ever-hungry pile of bills.
I logged onto my computer and went to my bank’s website. As I was looking at what I had in my checking account, and contemplated who I could afford to pay something to this week, I heard a voice come from the side of my desk, “Seriously?”
A chill went through me as I froze. Ever-so-slowly I looked to where the sound had seemed to come, there at the left-most part of my desk where my stack of bills lay.
“Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you!” It spoke, I saw it! Two “Cs” for eyes with slashes over them for eyebrows. Zeros made up its mouth as it seemed to seperate itself from the piece of paper under it as it spoke. “Look pal, I’m all of three different pieces of paper. Stop lookin’ at me as though I’m about to chew off your flesh and spit out your bones! I don’t even have teeth for cryin’ out loud!”
What could I say? On the one hand it had a point. On the other hand, it was speaking to me!
“Look, I could understand you cowering if I was ten-feet tall and nothing but a mouth, but come on! And speaking of ten feet with a mouth, I’m all of three loans! I know, I know, student loan, car loan, and waaaaay too much on your credit card, so you’ll be paying me off for a while, but I’m barely three pieces of paper! How the heck can even your subconscious make me out to be ten-feet high? I mean, really?”
“Okay, so maybe you’re not that scarey, but you’re inanimate. It’s still pretty creepy that you’re talking to me . . .”
“Yeah, well, let’s make it a one-time thing, eh? Look, you’re young, your credits good, your job let’s you pay off at least the minimums, and eat, and have a roof. What are you worried about? By the time you’re done payin’ me off you’ll be able to buy a house your credit will be so good! You don’t need to sell your leg so you can buy somethin’ to eat tomorrow. Relax, would’cha? “
Despite the weight I felt on my shoulders, the years worth of work those three little slips of paper represented, it was right; I certainly wasn’t about to go hungry. Nor was I going to have to give up the new CD I wanted to buy, or the concert tickets. I shrugged, looked at the creepy mini-stack and said sincerely, “Thank you for putting yourself in perspective. I guess you’re really helping me grow in every way possible even if I do think you’re a little loomy . . . and creepy when you start talking to me when I was pretty sure you weren’t capable of doing that. And by the way, please tell me you’re the only inanimate object capable of speech . . .”
“Like I said a one-time thing, don’t mention it. As far as anything else ‘inanimate’ speaking to you goes, let’s just say it’d be a good idea to clean out your fridge, or else something legitimately taller than you, talking to you, might give you a heart-attack . . .”
And I did clean my refrigerator out that night . . . thoroughly. And I’ve kept it clean ever since. Quite frankly, I never have been able to look at an inanimate object the same way, but thankfully, neither have I ever been quite so anxious for the bills to stop coming.
As I finished writing this story, this was the song playing in my head.
I was walking past a laundromat in San Francisco tonight and, glancing through its window, I noticed the paintings on the upper parts of its wall. Different cities were depicted there, as well as certain religious icons like the Buddha. And the pictures, in this laundromat, were vivid, bright, and colorful. And it seemed somehow that there was a blog posting to be derived from that colorosity in an otherwise drab, typical laundromat.
As I was thinking about the entire world, sort of, pictured on the walls in this city laundromat, I thought about the city itself. I considered that something from all over the world, culturally speaking, was assimilated into the city in one form or another. It seemed to me as though the city itself was a city because it strove to adapt itself as a microcosm of the entirety of the world in which is resided. And then I wondered whether the same might be thought of other cities in the world.
Each city has a uniqueness of it’s own due not only to the over-all culture creating it, but the individual circumstances of its creation. While you can find “head shops” in just about any city, at least in the U.S., there’s something a little more rooted in the experience of walking down Haight Street. And other cities have similar peculiarities unique to them. You can find Jazz music in any city more or less, but, you walk through the French Quarter of New Orleans, and you can feel a spirit of Jazz in the streets in a way you simply can’t in any other city on the planet. Each city has it’s own identity, but, each city also stretches beyond its own identity.
Since the monetary prosperity of a city usually revolves heavily on people coming for a short time, leaving their money with the city, and then leaving, it becomes beneficial simply from a maintenance standpoint for a city to be inviting to those from different cultural backgrounds if it is to thrive. That, and, people from different cultural backgrounds, no matter what their background, gravitate to where opportunity is. And thus, the more cultural options are available in any given city, the easier it is to facilitate visitors to the uniqueness of the city. Likewise, if there is a cultural center of being for those not used to a city’s native culture, it is easier to reside in the place of one’s work, which in turn makes it easier to visit for those of that particular culture. The more available a city is made to those of different backgrounds, the easier it is to facilitate workers, the easier it is to increase revenue from travelers.
And so I see a city as centered in its own uniqueness due to the causes of its creation, which, to thrive, naturally incorporates elements of the uniqueness of other such cities. To thrive it naturally incorporates elements from elsewhere in the world, just as to thrive it contributes the good derived from its own uniqueness. Cities thus are naturally reciprocal centers of transmission of thought if they are to flourish.
And as a successful city naturally makes of itself a unique microcosm of the world, so too is it micro-cosmic of some of the more macrocosm aspects of the divine. Which is to say, as above, so below.
The interaction between cities as a representation of the interaction between celestial bodies. The interaction between cities as representative of the interactions within the city. The interaction between cities as representative of the interactions within a person; as representative as the interactions between a person and its environment; as representative as the interactions between the celestial bodies; as representative of the body of the divine. Hence “As above so below” and thus we are created “In the image of the Divine.”
Hi! I'm Tygarjas Twyrls Bigstyck. Currently the home of the long work in-progress "The Chronicles of the Angels of Eden." Prior to this, I wrote about a conception of divinity that might be helpful for those willing to think outside of organized religion, and subsequently a place for me to flex my creative muscles as I devoted a year of blogging to short fiction. Enjoy!
Tygarjas Twyrls Blog 