VOLUME 2 THE BEAST STARES BACK It is creeping up and must be faced, learn something about the nature of the beast. You may indeed escape without a mauling.
ALEX CHERRY, ALIE LAVOIE, ANDREW SPIESS, ASHLEY HAMMELL, DEFTY K MENGLESIS, JAKOH, JAKUB KUJAWA, JAMES RENDE, JON ZOIPLU, KEN GOSSETTE, KIDWOOFWOOF, LYNDSAY HARPER, MASON BALISTRERI, MATTHEW CORREIA, NAOMI BUTTERFIELD, SARAH HOYT, ZACK FLETCHER
Precision of Agenda Lemon scented fumes Make the skeptics believe in lemons. Spray more of it, Manipulate the air. The screen and I share a stark adamant gaze Eyes of salt water Eyes made of white grain Sharp grinding red lines Pulsing around cavernous pupils: staring Into sharp cerulean high pitch Switch to color blocks Or the chieftain’s serious profile mugshot: It’s not funny. Chief displays the hunger of someone And I am weeping as I should be. I need to blink now According to schedule
ANDREW SPIESS PRECISION OF AGENDA
JAKUB KUJAWA SELF PORTRAIT W/TOOTH ACHE
LYNDSAY HARPER SUBCONCIOUS THOUGHTS OF
THE BEAST
LYNDSAY HARPER REVELATION
OF SOUND A ALEX CHERR So how long have you been making art?
Because I was still using MS paint.
About as long as I can remember. I’ve been working on the computer since I was around 8, drawing since I was about 4 or so.
I did some really pathetic work with MS Paint, for a little bit. Then my friend at school gave me a copy of Photoshop 5 and I quickly dumped Paint. The work was still pretty pathetic, though.
Eventually, I started doing everything on the computer when I was about 16 Age 8? What programs were you using? -
I also used Kid Pix when I was 5. Which was great.
AND VISION RY INTERVIEW What is it about the digital medium that you find so attractive? Well, analog work in any medium always starts on top. Digital comes in, does half as good of a job, then eventually takes over. This happened with music more recently and it’s still sort of in progress on the visual side of things. For example, digital cameras are getting better, and even when
they didn’t look as good it was still easier to develop. With Photoshop and a few other image programs you can do things that are not exactly impossible with a brush, but much simpler. It’s cleaner and faster. I think it lacks the dimension paper and ink/ paint have, but if you combine the digital with the analog - in the current state of things - you will get superior results than if you had just used one or the other.
Your work is nearly all digital but it still has a very painterly quality. How are you able to do this? Or is it natural? As I was saying, digital work is much cleaner and easier to do. The price, at least right now, is no organic texture. That’s a little ironic because my absolute favorite thing in any piece of art is usually texture. I get the look I have in my work by scanning real paint strokes that are generally arbitrary and abstract. This approach has gained a lot of popularity recently. I also like to mix in photographs of clouds and space that I get from stock websites and things like that. Essentially, it all boils down to photo manipulation with a tiny bit of illustration. I noticed that much of your work is based on songs, is that where you draw inspiration? Most of the time, yes. Music is 90% of my inspiration. The other 10% is everything else I experience. Well, I have to ask then, what are some bands currently in your playlist? Recently I’ve been listening to Gojira, Doomriders, John Frusciante, Patrick Wolf (who I just recently found out about) Joy Division and Baby Huey. The last two I started listening to after I saw movies that involved them. I know I’m a bit late with Joy Division. So I know some of your work has been met with much acclaim on art communities like DeviantArt - but what is your favorite piece? I think Bjork said something about how each of her songs are like children, and some grow up and leave home and others
stay with her. I really like that analogy, and I think my favorite pictures are the ones who haven’t left home, so to speak. There isn’t one in particular that is my favorite. Right on, how about one you hate? Haha... I hate them all, on occasion. It depends on when you ask me. Right now I’m not thrilled with the TV heads; Television Rules the Nation and 21st Century Digital Boys. The concept of the TV head is so popular now and pretty unoriginal, I’m a little embarrassed to have used it more than once. They are also among my most popular images. Oh well. Yeah, I must admit, I have used the TV head thing as well. Funny that you’ve used the TV heads... it’s pretty cliché at this point. What does the future hold for you? Are you starting any new projects or working on new compositions? Trying to finish up a piece from last year, along with one from the year before that. Nothing else at the moment.
INTERVIEWBYMASONBALISTRERI SEE MOREOFALEX’SWORKATOF SOUNDANDVISION.COM
JAKOH
RAPHAﾃ記 VICENZI SLAVE NO MORE
ZACK FLETCHER ENERVATION
Enervation Space between your eyelids Lifts gently; sullen opacity Crafted in the height of solidarity Loneliness runs array And forces anger in tongues of melting wax Space between our bodies Swells with ravish volatility Cut off the skin; hair still entwined I was never yours You were never mine
MASON BALISTRERI ABSENT GAZE
DEFTY K. MENGLESIS THE RED CAPE
ALIE LAVOIE THESE WALLS ALL EYES
At some point, you’ve probably been part of a conversation where somebody said, “Oh, if these walls could talk.” The person probably said that with a crooked little smile on their face and then their eyes probably went crinkled at the corners because their cheeks were being pushed up by Happiness. This person might have even smiled their crinkly smile at the floor and then looked up with nostalgic eyes, looked up across the room to somebody who was currently or used to be their lover. They would think that nobody had noticed this, but everybody would have. Everybody would have turned their heads just a little so they could see who the wall person was looking at. And inside their mouths everybody would silently form their tongues around the word “Oh,” because they understood what had just happened. The wall person had unknowingly flashed their soul, and now everybody had a glimpse of it and they couldn’t stop thinking about it even when the wall person said something like, “But walls can’t talk. Because they’re walls. It’s just a silly figure of speech.” Everybody would laugh and nod and there might even be an offshoot conversation about other, equally silly figures of speech. But if thought bubbles appeared above everyone’s heads like they do in comic books, everyone would see that they were all thinking the same thoughts: the wall person and their current
or used-to-be lover had spent hours naked and kissing on the floor that all of these people were standing on. Because that was what the up across look was all about. Sex and love. Or just love. Or just sex. But people shouldn’t spend so much time thinking about walls; walls don’t even need to talk because eyes speak in the loudest language possible. Eyes scream and laugh and fuck and tell thousands of stories in the seconds between blinks. And even if this makes you close your eyes because you’re scared of all the things they’re saying, nothing changes. And even if this makes you go out and buy a pair of dark, tinted sunglasses because you don’t want to offer up secrets, nothing changes. Walls can’t talk. And even if they could, you wouldn’t be all that interested in what they had to say. You would get up and leave the room mid-sentence. Because you would know about all of the eyes that blink and hug and speak in the loudest language possible. Because that was what the up across look was all about.
NAOMI BUTTERFIELD CRANIAL AFFECTIONS
JAMES RENDE OF ALL THAT HAUNTS ME STILL
Sun and sand and blood. It was hot on the day it all started. It was one of the fabled arid and unforgiving West Texas days. The kind of day when the sand baked you from below and the sun cooked the air to well over a hundred degrees above. A summer day like living in a convection oven. I remember she was sixteen and scared to death. There was an ugly, gaping wound in her side where the roll cage had torn itself in half when the dune buggy rolled over. She was bleeding alarmingly out onto the sand. No babies for the little lady in her future. I remember the helicopter as its blades beat the air violently and it rose almost delicately off the ground. There was so much static my hair stood on end as the wind whipped sand violently into my skin. The helicopter looked like a huge angry insect as it hovered over the sand for a moment before dropping its nose and gliding onward and upward with increasing speed. I took another long drag from my beer and placed the empty bottle on the table between us as I thought back on that unpleasant day. “Yeah, I remember her,” I said. I looked at Tom where he sat across the table from
me. He was so solemn all the time; he rarely cracked a smile and when he did it was half-assed and really not happy. Even here in a semi-rowdy bar on Friday night he was staid. It wasn’t that wild a bar - we had chosen it for the lack of an overbearing sound system - but it was lively and warm. “Her mother came by the firehouse today,” he said. “She seemed like a kind lady. Said her name was Irma.” I looked hard at him. “Why?” I asked. People don’t come back very often. “She wanted to thank you.” Tom was carefully peeling the label off his beer bottle as the condensation loosened the glue. He would have a small stack of labels by the end of the night if he kept drinking. “I just did my job,” I said, and motioned the waitress to bring me another bottle. “You were off duty.” Tom was right and he wasn’t. No fireman, no paramedic, no one in our line of work is ever off duty. Neighbors will knock on your door at three in the morning because their kid is sick or grandpa’s having chest pain. No one does that to their accountant or their gardener. Maybe doctors get it too, I don’t know about them. “I was out screwing around in my truck. I
was off duty,” I finally said. Our waitress came by with another beer for me. Tom politely declined anything more and she was off to the next table. I remember going to that bar often because I could watch a game and be distracted from reality for a few hours without having to worry about a drunken brawl. Just like I can see the girls face as we loaded her onto that helicopter. She had been bone-white from blood loss and wide-eyed with fear.
face though. Faces were my personal burden.
Tom went on. “She wanted to thank you. She asked for your name and number, but you know I can’t give that out.” He slid one of our department cards across the table to me.
“Yeah. Tried real hard there buddy. So, tell me, is this one a nice piece of ass?”
“She asked me to have you call her. I said I would give you the number.”
Randy leered. I dialed the number. I don’t know why I made that call. I wasn’t good with the ladies, and I don’t know how to take a thank-you. I almost hung up on the first ring, but something made me hang on.
A name and number were on the back of the card. I put it in my pocket and nodded at Tom. I never intended to make that call when I picked up the card.
I wonder what a psychologist would have said had I told him that the ghosts of dead patients frequented my apartment and jabbed at my job performance. I’m pretty sure I would have gotten a ride in an ambulance with a nice canvas jacket on and spent some time in a room with very soft walls. “Fuck you, Randy,” I said. “I tried to save you.”
“Sure. Why not? Sounds good to me.”
*
A female voice answered on the third ring. I could hear a television in the background. “Hello?”
Randy was leering at me from the corner. Randy always leered; he only had half a face left, he had to leer. He was long dead and wasn’t really there except in the malfunctioning clutter in my mind.
“Uh, hi. My name’s Sam. I’m with the fire department, I’m looking for…” I was trying to read the name on the back of the card without much success, Tom’s handwriting was messy.
“What, you saved one?” he asked. “Seems I was too late for you to develop adequate medical skills, but not the ladies, huh?” I hated Randy. Behind him several others waited for a chance to harp on me. Rosa Delgado, the fat Spanish maid with advanced heart disease. Jake Soderquist, who drowned in his own bathtub while he was passed out drunk. There were dozens of them, some whose names I remember, some whose names I forget. I never forgot a
“Yeah, hi. This is Tracy. I hoped you would call.” I was nervous, that was unlike me. Blood and guts and fire and destruction were my stock in trade, but an awkward phone call made me uneasy. “I wanted to thank you,” she said. I could hear someone talking in the background, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. “It’s what I do,” I said. “You don’t owe me any thanks.”
“Why not? No one else there moved a muscle to help me. You didn’t have to help me when you weren’t on duty, and I know it. I wanted to meet you and thank you face to face. Will you meet me somewhere?” I thought for a moment and Randy made an obscene gesture in the corner. I frowned but I heard myself say, “Sure. I can do that. Say, Starbucks on First? Is that good?” “Great! I’ll meet you there at three…” I don’t know why I agreed, much less why I suggested it. I’m not shy; but everything about this wasn’t like me. * I don’t know why I felt nervous. I have an idea now, but I still don’t know . I had never had anyone tell me to my face that they were grateful or say thank-you. There were always people on the Fourth of July and Christmas who would come to the firehouse with pies and cakes, but that was always a group thing. Thanks to all the firemen, not to ‘me’. This girl Tracy wanted to thank me personally. That’s the why, but to this day I don’t know why that made me nervous. She was all of seventeen as it turned out. I was twenty-four. I hoped she didn’t want to give me a gift that required a condom. Randy was gone, replaced by Gretchen. She’d burned alive in a car two years ago and she was grunting and moaning when we got the fire put out. She had been burned over almost her entire body so badly that she didn’t have eyes left in her head. Somehow she had been alive in there. She only
lived about fifteen minutes after we got her out of the car before she drowned from her own blood filling up her lungs. Now whenever I saw her she faced me as if she could see out of those charred, empty eye sockets. Sometimes I could hear the tendons creak and crackle as she moved. Tracy walked in without a limp at all. “Hi!” She recognized me right away, I must have made an impression. She looked a lot better without sand and blood matted in her hair or skin bone-white from shock. She looked a hell of a lot better in the subdued earth tones and indirect lighting of Starbucks. She looked young and lively, and she smiled wide and bright at me. “Hello,” I said. I smiled back at her. Gretchen shook her head in an eerily disapproving gesture in the corner. Tracy was so young. She sat down next to me at the table and grabbed my hand lightly. “Thank you so much for meeting me,” she said. “You’re welcome, but it wasn’t necessary. You could have said thanks on the phone—“ “Oh, no. I felt… I had to say thank you to your face. I tried to push it out of my mind but I kept remembering you’re face and how you looked so sad and at the same time so calm. I had to thank you.” Her thanks were at once sincere, and yet childish in her bubbly enthusiasm. I felt regret that she was never going to be a mother. I felt a touch of warmth too - like I was going to cry for some reason; maybe it was her sincere gratitude. “So…” I said. The silence was awkward as Tracy smiled wide-eyed at me with my large
hand cupped in her small ones. “How bad were you hurt.” She was very pretty sitting there smiling at me with her big green eyes. She frowned at the question, and I was embarrassed for having asked. “Well, I’ll never have children. Other than that I’m fine. I’m back to my old self.” The smile returned to her face just like that. “Good, I’m glad,” I said. Gretchen leaned forward and made a gesture I didn’t quite catch from the corner. Then Tracy smiled and asked me what I wanted to drink, and I forgot about Gretchen. I tried to decline, but in the end Tracy made me share her biscotti and coffee. * I was sitting on the edge of my narrow little bed wondering how the hell I had just slept with Tracy. How, and just what the hell was I thinking? Tracy was naked in bed behind me. Seventeen, and I had just done the deed with her, sealed the deal, slid into home base for the grand slam. I didn’t know why I had slept with such a young girl. I remember loving every second of it. Right afterward I sat there staring at my plain white walls and my fire department hat hanging on the bedpost wondering what the hell I was thinking. She was glowing and I was quiet. I had just slept with someone far too young for it to be wise. It wasn’t criminal in Texas, but it could still be trouble for me. Randy was back leering at me from the corner behind the dresser. “Nice piece of ass!” I didn’t answer him with Tracy lying in bed behind me. She would have thought me
nuts if I had started talking to ghosts right after mind-blowing sex. I thought I was going nuts right then. I’d just had (mindblowing!) sex with a minor and I was listening to a corpse with half a face make commentary on her assets. Randy made two fists and pumped them in the air in an obvious obscene gesture. “Oh yeah! Sam the man rocking the cradle of love!” I almost wished Gretchen was there: for all her crispy morbid eschar, she was at least silent. Some days I wished that just once I could choke the living shit out of Randy. I looked over my shoulder at the lady – no, the child – that I had just bedded, and I despised myself. Randy was right, although he was a lot more vulgar than I would have been. She was beautiful and innocent. She had been innocent. But she was beautiful, maybe the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. Maybe it was the moment, or maybe what happened is coloring my memory, but she was sublime. “What are you thinking?” she asked. If only she knew. “I was thinking that you’re young enough that I shouldn’t have done that.” “But you did,” she said. “You were great. It’s all right Sam. It’s not like I’m going to get pregnant.” She put out her hand and laid it on my shoulder. It was very warm and very light, a feather perched on my arm. I shook my head. “No, no you’re not, are you?” She stood and led me into the little bathroom. “Come on,” she said, and hugged
me. “I’ll wash you up,” and she turned on the shower. I was ashamed of that little two room apartment right then. I was so conflicted. I wanted a mansion to give to her instead of that miniscule economy studio. I was already falling in love with her, but in the back of my mind I was no better than a child molester. I wanted to cradle her and protect her. I wanted no part in her at the same time.
out, some days we sat and watched TV, some days she would make love to me, but she was always there.
Tracy was a lot of things. She was young, she was kind, she was gentle, and she was loving. She turned out to be the woman who would drag me slowly up out of the depression I had wallowed deeper into over the four years I had been a paramedic.
I couldn’t find the business card with Tracy’s mother’s phone number on it, so I looked her up in the phone book. I didn’t get an answer, so I wound up driving to her house. I hoped her mother knew where Tracy was.
I saw less and less of Randy and Gretchen and the others as time went on, Tracy drove them out of my heart and I smiled more as she shared my days and nights with me. Nothing bad ever came of me seeing Tracy. * Six months after I met Tracy she vanished. There’s only partial truth in that statement, but we’ll get to that in a second. I came home one day and she was gone. Just like that, no note, no email, no phone call, just… gone. At first I assumed she had gone to the store or something equally innocuous. As the day wore into evening and on into night I started to think something was very, very wrong. I had gotten home at half past eight in the morning, and by eight at night I was frantic. Tracy was usually up when I got home, puttering in the kitchen or watching TV and waiting for me. She occasionally went out in the morning, but she always came home before noon. Sometimes we went
I was panicked. I called the police at four in the afternoon, but they gave me the old line about someone being gone for twenty-four hours before they could list them as missing. I just couldn’t find a trace of her anywhere.
I wish I had been wrong. I wish I hadn’t found her at all. Irma lived in a shabby little house in the county. Shabby in that it was old and well lived-in, but it was well kept. I remember there was a crucifix on the wall right under the doorbell; Irma was Roman Catholic. She answered the door wearing a gloves, sunglasses, and a big floppy gardening hat. “Can I help you?” she asked. I realized then that I had never actually met Irma. “Ma’am,” I said. “I know you haven’t met me, but I am trying to find Tracy. She’s up and vanished.” Irma scowled and looked like she was going to cry. “Tracy?” she asked. “What is this, some kind of sick joke? She died in an accident at Red Sands months ago.” I must have looked like a ghost. I found myself rewinding the past six months in my head. “No…” I heard myself say. I realized that in all our talking, all our lovemaking, all our time together, Tracy had never once
said that I had saved her. Oh, she thanked me for trying, but always for trying. Irma started yelling at me then. “Get out!” she said. “Go on! You got no right to come here looking for Tracy! Get on out of here!” She raised her arm and struck me in the face then. I felt something wet running down my face. I reached out and grabbed Irma by the neck… * Tom was sat down stiffly across from Chief Miller; both were placid. “Okay Chief,” Tom said. “I guess I need to tell you what happened since I was the officer. I really wish I could just forget about it myself.”
in. He was skittish, but when I pointed out that it had to be Sam’s truck he was with me. They were all with me.” “Not smart,” Miller said. He wasn’t being dismissive; fire fighters knew better than to go in before the cops got to a crime scene. “No, but we were worried about Sam.” Tom paused then and rubbed the bruised side of his face with a wince. “When we got to the front porch, Sam was sitting there muttering. I don’t know what he said for certain; it sounded like he was saying ‘leave me alone,’ over and over. He was covered in blood too. Turned out not to be his blood. Anyway, as soon as he saw us he was on his feet and running at us screaming.”
Miller nodded. “I know. What do you think?”
Tom paused again, then stood up. “I don’t think he was on drugs. He seemed disturbed all right, but he wasn’t like the junkies we run who are hopped up on PCP. He just seemed, I don’t know… crazy. He was screaming at us about being dead, that everyone was dead. He was still screaming when the cops sprayed him with mace. He was hoarse from screaming when they took him to Thomason.”
Tom sighed and looked out the window for a moment, then finally said; “I think he lost it. I think the stress of the job got to him and he just went right off the deep end.”
Miller nodded at Tom again. “I can’t even begin to guess what’s wrong. Do me one favor, Tom. Please clean out his locker for me. I’ll take the stuff to his family myself.”
“When we got there we weren’t going to go in, you know, neighbors reporting screaming. We were going to wait for the police, but I recognized Sam’s truck right off the bat. I knew something weird was going on, and I told Danny Garza that we were going
Tom nodded. “That’s the least I can do,” he said. Outside, the other firefighters milled about, shaken by what they had just seen.
Miller leaned forward and rubbed his eyes. “I know, I know, it’s not easy. Did you write a report?” Tom nodded. “Yeah, I did, but it’s clinical. It’s not really the whole story, you know? Not like someone who knew Sam would really understand things.”
No one saw the ghosts...
ASHLEY HAMMELL BARE, SWOLLEN shot in the pocket, it’s time for a change for a chance altercation to pull at: this gun range is burning up holes in our bare, swollen feet in the kitchen and quietly speaking that everything’s fine, everythings how it’s supposed to be. fallacy is hard to pick out from a lineup of thirtyday-rinse-repeat-mistakes when you hoist yourself tooth and nail over the finish line, blood stains and tears only tell what side of the race you’re on... and never what you’ve won. mount saint helens is in everyman. things tend to build and then all of a sudden we’re high and removed, we’re ash in the air, we’re whispering gunshot and kissing our kids (in the sense that everyone is, with each move that we make) with the bombs we never had to, never had to realise we wanted more than anything... and everyone’s got a trash compactor companion to the rule book for the things that cant quite fit through quiet, proper, engineered holes that we put in this world we stole.
JON ZOIPLU PERFECT WORLD
insomniac bird with eyes like marbles lost in a nervous clamp of feather and claw strung out on a branch a telephone wire buzzing on a dead line narcoleptic cat too tired to yawn she dreams of birds who fall in her lap
MATTHEW CORREIA THE REAL JUNGLE BOOK
Remote Control An ellipsis and I hear the clock tick like whiplash. Eyes wander towards the edges of the yellow pages, I pay attention to the ringtone of neon augmentation, concrete fingers reaching up to the wild sky growling over a dense metropolis. A heavy gauntlet cups the limitless muzzle. Stirred into the platinum mass I spend my curiosity pacing Through revolving doors made of intangible glass, scuffed boots smudging the smooth floor. People shift in endless cycles like moths beating against each other by the streetlamps, like black and gray flecks on the television.
ANDREW SPIESS REMOTE CONTROL
SARAH HOYT CURROPT
JAKUB KUJAWA FATALIST
KEN GOSSETTE A CONVERSATION WITH GOD
I lie awake in my bedroom. It is sparsely decorated. I tend to live like the Spartans of antiquity. At home, I have only what I need to survive or get through the day. There is, of course, my bed with its two black pillows, black sheets and simple blankets that really have no other purpose besides maintaining warmth at night. An old personal computer sits at my desk being used for research, homework and occasional recreation. I have the television that I shared with my brother who was my best friend in the entire world. There is also a minifridge that houses the many different caffeinated beverages that I ingest during the day in order to stay conscious and alert. The walls, ceiling and desks in my room are all a drab shade of gray. In fact the only bright color in my room is the red numbers on my alarm clock.
ing difficulty falling asleep has affected me greatly. The anemic insomniac lifestyle which I lead has left an unmistakable imprint on my attitude and the way I act. I frequently crack jokes or make obscure pop culture references that few people, if any, understand. My sense of humor, depending on how tired I am, can be either very dry or very blue. In a sense I have become akin to a class clown. However, the humorous faรงade aside, I am quite the shy intellectual always striving to break out of my self imposed shell or continue to add to my knowledge Suddenly, my surroundings shift. I am no longer in my bedroom.
The time spent reflecting quite often rears its ugly head just as I am attempting sleep. Whether it is about my surroundings or the events of the day, I tend to think a lot in the evening.
I find myself in a very dark, almost black room. There was an ethereal spotlight with no discernable source shining down on a small, square, wooden dining room table big enough for at least two and two wooden dining room chairs each at opposite corners from one another.
Sleep, for me at least, has never been all that easy to obtain. I am an anemic insomniac. This unique combination of physiological and psychological disorders means that I am often tired but can never sleep when I absolutely want to. Needless to say this combination of being exhausted but hav-
I walk towards the chair closest to me. It looks very comfortable with its plush seating and curved back. I gently sit down and relax staring at the empty chair directly across from me. The light that is beaming from overhead only illuminates the two chairs, the table and for now me as I wait
for the occupant of the other chair. I hear the echo of footsteps coming from across this dark room of the imagination. They get louder as they get closer. The person that the foot steps belong to is still quite a distance away. I sit, waiting patiently, knowing that the person walking towards me is worth the wait. I spend the time, in this otherwise featureless room thinking about my life. It has been anything but ordinary, to say the least. There have been struggles and triumphs. Happiness and sadness have come and gone while leaving their mark on my soul. Friends have been made and cast off and I am certain that I have been cast off from a number of people that have considered me a friend over the course of the last twentyfive years. Things like that happen all the time to everyone at one point or another, I suppose. The aforementioned changes are an inevitable part of life itself. One could make the argument that life itself is like a river. There is a point where the river, much like life, has its source or birth. The river winds in many different directions, meanders with little to no purpose at times, much like life does. The waters of the river can either be calm and serene or choppy and dangerous, just as life has its peaceful moments and the exciting, often dangerous, moments. A river can stretch on for many hundreds of miles or be incredibly short just as people can live for a long time or have their lives cut short tragically. Eventually, however, the river will either join with another, just as two people will join in marriage or it will continue on by itself only to join a sea or the ocean, just as life ends and we return to the earth itself. I make the comparison of life to a river for a multitude of reasons. Primarily, however, it is because of the downtime that life
presents one with. At this stage in my life I seem to be moving along without intent or purpose. I’m going through the motions, as it were. Right now, things seem to be fairly calm with little to none of the exciting choppiness that seems to spring up every now and then. It is an otherwise dreadfully boring portion of life that I seem to be currently enjoying. When the river that is life reaches its eventual calm stage the self reflection starts. It is almost maddening, the constant thinking before I obtain blissful rest. Many different thoughts run through my mind. Nothing is coherent, at least not for long anyway. It all starts to melt together kind of like when multiple rivers join together into a larger more powerful river. My super thought, as I like to call it, is the driving force behind my insomnia. It’s like hearing dozens upon dozens of voices at once. Each of them jockeying for position trying to get ahead of the other but none succeed. It’s annoying to be sure but it beats the alternative of becoming addicted to sleep medication or something much worse. I return my focus to the featureless room. The foot steps are getting louder as they get closer. Someone has apparently brought me to this odd room for a purpose. I feel as if many hours have passed by. The traveler’s foot steps cease. The unoccupied chair moves backwards slightly and the sound of someone sitting down signals the arrival of my conversational companion for the evening. It then dawns on me that only one being is capable of transporting me from my bedroom to another place. “Hello, God,” I say as he appears before me, sitting down in the chair that had previously
been unoccupied. God waves hello to my greeting. God, in this instance, is a man shaped form of light and warmth (that otherwise has no notable features). I can feel the light and warmth coming from Him. He is of average height and build. He is the representation of the entirety of humanity and the lack of humanity at the same time. We begin to exchange pleasantries; or rather I do because He does not speak at, least not with words. His body language is communicative enough. It speaks volumes and is less clumsy than verbal communication. Still, I was curious as to why God was mute. “Why don’t you speak God?” I asked with a perplexed look on my face, “Is it like in the movie Dogma where your voice would completely destroy me if I heard it?” His hand moved to where I imagine His nose would be, if He had one of course. Right on the nose, I thought. This naturally meant that I was correct in my assumption. I still couldn’t help but chuckle a little. His arms folded over His chest and He started to shake, moving up and down as if God were laughing with me. It sparked another prolonged period of laughter between the two of us. “God, I’ve got a couple of questions that maybe you can answer,” I stated plainly as I looked at His featureless visage. He nodded and placed His arms in a comfortably folded position. “First, thank you for coming to see me and furnishing the surroundings for our discussion,” I said. He tilted his head as if saying, “You’re welcome.”
“About the universe,” I started, “did you create it with a massive explosion or has it always existed?” God thought for a moment. He then proceeded to make a strange motion with His fists. He placed them together, making sure His thumbs were parallel and then He rapidly moved them in the opposite direction while opening His fists and spreading His fingers. God did this for a couple of seconds. “So, it was the Big Bang after all?” I asked. After returning His arms to the folded position they were in before His demonstration, God nodded. “So what existed before the Big Bang?” I curiously asked. God tilted his head to the left and then to the right. He stroked His chin with His right hand. He then raised His hands parallel to His shoulders. “You don’t remember?” God nodded once more. “Well it has been a couple billion years. I guess even you can forget some things.” God and I broke out into a tiny fit of laughter. I thought it was unusual that He didn’t remember what existed before the Big Bang, but I decided not to press the issue. I had, after all, more pressing issues to deal with and there were some questions that needed to be answered before others. “Do you know why I feel so alone sometimes?” I asked. God thought for a moment. He stood up and then proceeded to act like a mime trapped in a box. A box that would be a very tight fit and with very close walls. “I put up walls?” I said, “That makes sense,
I guess, but if I don’t get close with anyone then that means I won’t get hurt, right?” God shook His head. He then proceeded to move around as if he were fighting with a sword. It was a comical display and He looked like He was taking about as much damage as He was dishing out. “A double-edged sword, I see.” I stated, “I won’t get hurt but I also won’t be able to get close to anyone.” God nodded as He returned to His seat. “I guess my over thinking lead to my chronic insomnia as well?” He shook His head up and down again. “I suppose I should learn to relax now and again.” God raised His right hand and gave me a thumb’s up, apparently liking that idea. I smiled and the two of us shared another laugh. “What’s my purpose in life? Why am I here and others aren’t?” God pointed to his nose again and then pointed to mine. “I know you know, God,” I said confused, “I’m just curious.” God put His hands together. There was a small flash of light. He moved His hands and showed me what he had created. It was an analog clock of average size like the kind you would see in a classroom. Only there was one large difference. This clock had a nose set in its center.
“A nose in a clock, that’s odd? Wait a minute? Nose? Clock? No wait, its time. A nose in time? I’ll know in time! Is that it, I’ll know in time what my purpose is? I’ll know in time why I’m here and other people aren’t?” God looked as if He were laughing. The clock with the nose in its center vanished just as quickly as it was created. God then nodded, answering my question. “You really do have a strange way of telling people things, you know that?” I managed to say before laughing. The laughter was short lived, however. I took in a deep breath and returned to the task at hand. God was sitting ever patiently across from me. He was ready for the next question. “Will I see my pets in heaven?” God sat very still. He nodded and I was relieved. “Will I be able to see all of my friends and family in Heaven? Will it be true paradise?” I asked getting a little anxious. God nodded “Yes” once more. My anxiousness was building and I was feeling a little tense. I decided to press on with my questions. “How long before I get my little slice of paradise?” God tilted His head to the left. He raised His right hand, extended His index finger and shook it back and forth. He did this for a few seconds. “Let me guess, that’s for you to know and me to find out?” I sighed.
He confirmed my suspicions with a nod of His head. Every realization hit me like a speeding semi truck but it was getting late and God had other people to talk to. He backed his chair up ever so quietly and rose to his full height, which matched mine conveniently. He waved good-bye and began to turn around to leave. The anxiousness that had been building since our conversation started boiling over. There was something that I had to know! “Wait!” I blurted out. God turned around to face me once more, his head tilted to the left. He was obviously curious. I got up from my chair in a rush, accidently knocking it over and bumping my legs into the table. I rushed over to where God was standing and looked Him in the eyes or at least where they would have been. “Why did my brother have to die?” I asked quietly and full of sadness. That was a question that has haunted me every day since my brother’s life was taken in a car accident seven years ago. I just had to have an answer and quite honestly how many chances would I get to talk to God, imaginary circumstances notwithstanding. God’s head had tilted to the right and back to the left again as if He were mulling over the answer. “You had to have a reason. He was only 16,” I somberly said as tears began to well up in my eyes, “He was popular and had a definite idea of what he wanted to do with his life. So why did he have to die? Why take my best friend from me? Why take him
from the world when he had so much to give? Why God? Why?” I was starting to tremble; the years of repressed grief had begun to show. Tears began to flow as rapid as the river when it became choppy. My nose started to run and I imagine that my face was red and swollen from the sad example of a person I had transformed into. God moved in closer. He put a reassuring hand on my right, still trembling, shoulder. It was then that his warmth, his love reached me. I was still sobbing hysterically at this point, however. As if in response to all of the sadness that I was radiating, God hugged me and I was bathed in all of His warmth and kindness and the sadness began to wash away like the river making its final journey to the sea. I suddenly returned to my bedroom. My face was soaked with the sadness that I had just experienced. However, I was smiling because I had received the answer to the last question I had asked God. Before He let me go and left, I saw the image of the clock in my mind. God helped me to realize that it was just my brother’s time. His purpose was fulfilled and he was called to Heaven for eternal paradise. I was still very sad. The death of a family member is never something one can get over but I felt relieved that my brother was in paradise. My conversation with God left me exhausted. My mind was free from excess thought for the first time in ages. I needed sleep and I needed to continue my journey on the river that is life.
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