Nothing of Regret (My Name is Ray Mond)

I had just finished eating a coffee cup full of this honey graham cracker cereal. I eat it out of a coffee cup because it keeps the portions down. Gotta watch my frame. My life is REAL SHIT, MOTHERFUCKER! Whatever.

I put the coffee cup with a little puddle of milk still left at the bottom in the sink. Rinse into the cup about three-quarters of the way up and ease up to about a centimeter from overflow. Stop. So the milk that was left in the bottom of the cup floats up to the surface. I'm thinking that the bright white milk settled across the top of the water in a completely unique pattern looks kind of what I imagine the Arctic Ocean is looking like right now...

...and simultaneously reaching for the faucet handle to rain Armageddon on this pristine field of marine ice.

D
A
M
M
I
T
!

!!!!

I pull back off the faucet handle immediately. Torrent stops. Some milky white ice remains!

So then I start to kind of feel sad because the post-apocalypse Arctic-Ocean-in-a-cup just isn't nearly as beautiful as the original, pristine wonder I was allowed but a fleeting glance of...

And then I'm in the garage. Smoking. Again.
There's a ray of light beaming through the garage window. It's chilly in the garage in March, but I'm still shirtless and in my underwear.

I start noticing how the smoke seems to float in the beam of sunlight, wavering back and forth like some sort of intergalactic ocean of gas suspended light years away from the Arctic-Ocean-in-a-Cup and the fact that I am part of several worlds at once makes me happy. So then my dumb ass decides I need to try to capture this moment forever in digital photograph form. I run and get the camera. I'm trying to get the right angle...I take a shot of the beam of light with the smoke floating in it...just doesn't quite capture how my eyes are really seeing it. I try again. Better, but still not quite the same as the real experience. ONE. MORE. TRY....

...MY CAMERA DIES.

Just my luck.

I press on.

Bounce

They let me go in the stratosphere.

All the bastards gave me was a pair of goggles to keep debris out of my eyes as I plummeted to my death. How thoughtful.

They call it "bouncing" in skydiver lingo when a parachute deployment fails, rendering the diver a guaranteed asteroid on a direct course with the cruel earth.

The debris did sting so I closed my eyes for a moment and enjoyed the ride. Then I remembered the goggles. I pulled them over my face to shield my overstimulated eyes. Now I could really enjoy my final ride. God was it fun. I started feeling like it wasn't such a bad way to go after all.

Like every animal though, the "gravity" of the situation began to stir my survival instinct. I desperately struggled to develop a solution to my predicament. As the ground neared I realized I was splatter.

With one last hope I directed all my energy upward and, with only a football field or so between myself and demise, I wrenched my frame and began to soar upward. I think it might be too obvious to relate that this last-second evolution was very welcome.

Fondue Party

Blister winter.

Blustery hell.

Feel like you have talents

that never seem to sell.

Recession-minded responsibility.

Inflation nation,

Melting Pot of cheese.

Fondue, if you will,

dip your meat inside.

The commonality of dining together,

of burning alive.

FUCK SLEEP

SLEEP IS CHEAP,

CHEAPER THAN BEIN' AWAKE.

SLEEP, WHEN DEEP,

BENEFITS MY BRAIN.

SO WHY DO I HATE A CASH-SAVING

REPLENISHING THING?

I GUESS I NEED A SCAPEGOAT TOO.

BETTER SLEEP THAN YOU.

Sweets

Sweets

He arrived on time to work for the first time in over a month. Their leniency made him chuckle, although he often wished they’d lay him off so he could get away from there and collect unemployment for a while. Placing his lunch in the office refrigerator, he noticed an aluminum container on the counter. He lifted the lid out of curiosity and found an array of baked pastries. Being as he had decided to swear off of sweets, he closed the lid and walked out of the office toward his shop to do a day’s worth of nothing.

Around 11 a.m. he decided to head back over to the office to grab a snack to keep him until lunchtime. Glancing at the bakery tray on the counter, he noticed that all but three cookies had been devoured. “The people here are SUCH gluttons!” he thought judgmentally. After he quickly imbibed his snack in the break room, he realized it was about time to “hit the train station” because “the train was coming through”. He and his buddy used these phrases to describe going into the bathroom and everything that generally happened while in there.

Walking down the hall, the office seemed awfully quiet. He went into the bathroom, did his business, and decided to swing over to his buddy’s cubicle for a quick chat. On the way, he noticed that the I.T. lady was not at her desk. “How typical”, he mused scornfully. “She’s never actually doing anything.” He turned the corner to the right and then again at the end of the faux-walls that imprisoned every wage slave in the place. He walked into Jim’s cube.

It took him a second to process the fact that Jim was slumped over in his chair. “Wake up, asshole!” he said in a soft voice so as not to alert everyone in the surrounding cubes to his presence. Jim did not respond. He leaned over the desk and gently slapped Jim’s buzz-cut head. No response. “Jim? Jim? Oh shit! Jim!” he spouted frantically.

He sprinted out of the cubicle to find help. Mike did not appear to be in his office on the left, but Dana, in the office next to him, was slumped over her desk. He wondered aloud, “what the fuck is happening!?” Two of the customer service ladies were lying on the floor next to their chairs. There was no blood.

In the next five offices in a row he saw John motionless in his chair, two vacancies, the president half hanging out of his, and the clownish head-of-sales with his forehead down on the particle board. The secretary had fallen out of her chair, which was neatly positioned on top of her. As seconds passed, his panic began to increase. He pushed the button for the elevator, but when it opened he was greeted by Lindsay the marketing woman’s lifeless body on the floor.

Having no idea what to do, he ran outside, jumped in his truck and left the premises until the end of his shift. Returning at 5, he jumped in his car and sped home. He thought himself an obvious suspect in the apparent murders of his co-workers, even though he had not the slightest idea what had just happened that day. Walking through the door of his home, he took his shoes and pants off and lay down upon the couch with the t.v. remote. The media had already gotten wind of what had happened and the story was all over the television. He assumed he would not be expected to report to work tomorrow, the thought of which made him smile ever-so-slightly.

I See Anarchy

Drawing parallels between intangible tangerines,

stick walking, walking stick, pass me some water please.

Quick, quick, quick 'cuz I'm on fire and I'm not sure why.

And I look at the sky and wish I could fly,

defy,

deny

gravity...

...the ultimate oppressor that holds

these buildings, buses, streets,

and stupid people in place,

anchoring them soundly.

YOUR SHACKLE'S A WAGE.

So I spend lots of time these daze getting high as could be,

tramping up flights of steps just to see what you'll see

at the tops of these buildings and mountains and trees;

and reflected at distance away from the city,

it's me that I see,

and I'm clutching a dream.

The Blocks Ahead

So here we go. It's hard not to take the "if-you're-not-for-us-then-you're-against-us" attitude these daze. However, I'm trying not to. For the folks who are ignorant though they know better, from me they receive the root of the adjective by which I've described them.

I'm a night person who has trouble finding others like me. I'm a watchman. I stay up late hoping I'll be given the opportunity to help the world. Most times I simply reflect upon the pursuit of peace. It's a lonely job, but I'm an unyielding optimist about it. I realize even when I complain that things could be worse.

I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, I really am courageous. As so many people are lost to the day from the night, as so many people see the light and take it as an indicator that truth has fled the darkness, I insist on being awake when no one else is. Because the truth is these daze, that truth is hidden in darkness. Maybe that's the signal people need to embrace the night.

There is an entire continent's worth of love inside me that I'm just waiting to pass on to anyone with a minute to spare. Maybe I've looked at you in the past from the perspective of stranger to stranger and thought you looked like the perfect recipient of what I've got to give. Chances are though, we never wound up interacting and I wound up feeling like it was a shame we didn't. Even if it isn't with each other, do you think we could make a deal right here to reach out to someone sometime somewhere?

Ben and I rode trains together and spoke of isolation and wishing we could pack each other in suitcases to be taken home and enjoyed. We are physical miles apart, but aware that this is not strong enough to stifle our shared goals. Riding on trains and wishing for courage to reach out, or that someone would teach us courage by example, we met Nancy.

She taught us at least some of the courage we sought to learn. Mere seconds after our lonely bitching was interrupted by the train's halt at our destination, she approached us and asked if her eyes looked messed up. She was young, and shared so quickly a snapshot of her life and dreams. Nancy worried about her strict Mexican mother discovering that she had been drinking and told us she thought her chauvinistic co-workers had drugged one of her drinks.

Then, she told Ben that his eyes were pretty, that she worked at a Mexican restaurant, and that she planned on going to college. She repeated the question of whether her eyes looked messed up and we told her again that only the one did. We learned that she loved her culture and wants to one day marry a "hot Latino boy". As she said this, she was simultaneously worrying what her repressive mother would think of her messed up eyes, and we suggested she feign sickness and head straight to her room.

She thanked us and told us how cool and nice we were and we said the same about her. We talked with her for only a short while and in that time she embodied and displayed what we were both searching for. She was courage and strength. She was a walking dream and a waiting slice of compassion. She was honorable as she struggled to remain awake, actively combatting some substance that she may or may not have desired to imbibe.

This young woman was an answer to our secular prayer and we knew it at once. After we exchanged a friendly farewell, as she walked slowly away from us, it was difficult to determine whether she was real or a necessary illusion like some kind of wraith or mirage, a subtle trick of our minds that, rather than frustrating us, gave us power to press onward. Yes, I wanted to be the way Nancy invited us to perceive her: possibly a bit lost, but open-eyed and ready, primed for new experiences and undaunted by the city blocks that lay ahead.

*Note: This was written in greater Detroit and based on an experience that a friend and I had with a woman on an El train in Chicago.