Missy Musey

Our protagonist

Willie told most everyone he lived under the bridge. He lined up for his evening meal at Siloam Mission peppered with that sting of hell fire and he munched his lunch at Winnipeg Harvest where he volunteered almost every day enraptured by that sanctity of retribution. That freed up his spending cash from CPP Disability to add to his Rent Assist to procure a modest pad in a building where the front door had a lock although he sometimes let a homeless one in to sleep in the warm hallway when it was freezing outside. An eye to the skies, he would meld into the side streets making a round about way home.

A fribbling ambiance lit Willie's numbness after his red headed wife had been vanquished to live in the fancy lodge with the beloved matrons where he entertained her every afternoon as the guy who came by bringing merriment from beyond. Although bethought they seldom spoke of their past thirty-some years together, wedded by their time on the street, given the upset it would bestir in her fragmented memory. Many days he'd bring her a lark to chuckle their world.

Y'all hearken to the fortunes of a man named Will

Poor old cadger, found his tummy hard to fill

Then one fine day he was turnin' sixty-five

And up come the postlady with somethin' make him jive

Cash that is; Canada Pension, Supplement and all

His dear wife had been panelled after he had struggled as a mollifying caregiver. Overwhelmed with heartache and a butcher knife he had attacked a tree stump, craftily hauled in in the dead of winter, unleashing an hornswoggle. It sat in the centre of his maintenance-free new pad usurping his coffee table and really set off the battered walls and door frames. The aura of it's workmanship shook the pillars of his universe till it enthralled his every waking moment.

In the evenings Willie would walk past the Golden Boy along the river to The Forks where the mighty River Red met with the lesser but equally naughty Assinibione. They had built that ziggurat here with the spire that stuck up high into the night sky. Phantasm abounded behind those long sod ramparts leading to the monstrous museum's parapet under that half hazard acre of canopy fallen from the spoils of some alien craft.

A sorceress

“Oh you contemptuous Winterpegers, behold your goddess Missy Musey! You are bad people ignoring me. Your media criers don't give a rat's behind about the magnanimity I bestowed upon you when I came to your mosquito ravaged megalopolis to install my red headed radiance in your newfangled ziggurat.

I don't trust the underpinnings of this monolith of rock and steel though. Building a monument to last for millennia on the mud of uncountable floods? You guys got lots to learn. You think that the little ditch that Duff built is going to save your fancy chancy architecture from those yearly once in a millennium floods come the great warming and all?

You build it we will come though, we immortals. I chanced to be cruising about with the emanation of Justin the Bieber listening to some girly tunes when low and behold we happened upon your ziggurat, pinnacle in the heavens. Well gracious me, a goddess cannot pass up an opportunity like this, a ziggurat in the 21^st century CE what a coy surprise, a sweet home in mosquito heaven. So I clutched my pouch and joined a group of artisans to steal in and slap the claims on your neat establishment as a goddessly eminence, to flit about in it's colossal atrium playing flicks on these super screens. And my magic lipstick wand makes a real swell remote.

Oh cultured man the celestial beings laugh at your pompousness. You have begat impishness in the hearts of us more wanton types. We do not blush from stares but our minds may give you the finger, and though our caricatures are deemed dishonourable our insides are yet beautiful. Now these humane rights you have chiselled in your noggins here: “Everyone is entitled to live once they are created and everyone is entitled to do anything they want to so long as it doesn't conflict with the above.” Ya right, bestow that on us immortals and suck it up.

People! Please! Do you not know that goddesses must be honoured, cajoled, appeased, humoured? Your culture must be enlightened. If you wish to build a ziggurat you will attract one of us and you must provide her with unwavering adoration and lewd lascivious dance or there will be trouble! Your science knows twat about the intricacies of the etherverse.

Your cleverness is only in diapers with it's quantum pairings. The souls of all things are at one with each other no matter how far apart your cognitive matter spaces them. Your brains are but quantum clouds of uncertainty housing your souls, the random firings influenced by boundless patterns that extend far beyond your spacetime. Every ethereal idea is embedded in the eternal reaches and the human soul is well aware of it. Thoughts influence every material thing as much as the goose bumps do on your gonads. And we gods are a part of your and your mother earth's complexion, we extol our discarnate selves when we are savvied in our splendour all of which you forsook when that snake led you to the tree of knowledge.

When I am imbued with the terrifying splendour of royalty, your goddess Missy Musey shining with my lunar passion, when I am allowed to perfectly wield my august divine powers, my egregious enchanting powers, when I am cloaked as with Aphrodite's smoking hot girdle in the great awesomeness of royalty, then I will come forth in my red headed radiancy beaming like the full moon soliciting on your behalf the Bart of Heaven for protection from the yearly floods and hoards of ensuing mosquitoes.

Till you honour me with your thoughts and oblations and above all the lewd dance, oh peoples of Winterpeg, be very, very afraid. Pestilence from every storm and spring flood will ravage your lives until you come crawling up the ramparts of my ziggurat prostrating yourselves before my resplendency. Have fear, have great fear.”

The art of insurgency

A time of political upheaval had prevailed in these regions of the Manitou, a period of austerity was ensuing and the Ministry of Rehabilitory Finance was enlisting the help of the legions of upwardly challenged to ease the burden placed on the wheelers and dealers of capital. Poor Willie was at his wits end, he was going to have to forfeit his Rent Assist for the sake of snowbird sun worshippers who practised the esoteric concept of the perfected man.

Standing over those legislators' Solomon's Temple, shrewdly designed to secret the source of all knowledge and colloquially known as The Leg, the Golden Boy Hermes son of Zeus, a trickster quick and cunning, moved freely between the worlds of the mortal and divine guiding our ingenuous politicians in the odds of creating gold from earth wind water and fire. Manitoba certainly had the four elements and the political parties battled relentlessly over who could make the most coin out of it all, at least that was Willie's perception. But to create gold by leaving the inner city masses dumpster diving, what was to be done?

Willie on his walk that evening came to the ziggurat and strayed onto one of it's ramparts. He felt this urge to dance. Soon his shirt was off and he was flinging it around his head in beat to the ripples on the River Red. Exhausted finally he dropped upon the unkempt sod and there in a moment of ecstasy he had a vision: a mass of straggling humanity, with canes, in wheelchairs, pushing walkers, encircling the entire Legislature going round and round, in total silence. And from a window far above a red headed woman was watching him.

It was a clear blue Saturday afternoon. Posters had been made at Harvest with donated realms of paper which had been fixed to every power pole in every back lane in the North End, the West End, and even across the Assinibione down Osborne way. It had gone kind of viral too.

Silent Protest

This Saturday at 2 p.m.

Walk around the Legislature

Bring a friend

They came. In wheelchairs, pushing walkers, with canes, arm in arm with companions, thousands. A slow thronged mass of humanity at it's finest, round and round The Leg they traipsed, in total silence. Seven times they made it around, some more, some less, and then in a fulminating frenzy of sublimation to the self-restraint they let out one scream. En masse. Ear shattering. The traffic came to a halt on Main Street. And from a belfry far above a red headed woman was watching.

Then from the east, over the Forks, over that ziggurat with the ramparts, a black cloud loomed. Slowly it drifted spewing forth volumes of hail and rain approaching The Leg. The sky was black and sinister as doomsday, wind like a hurricane, the street lights blinked on and off. There was one earth shattering thunderbolt. It was later recorded in the annals of alchemy that all that was left of the Golden Boy was a wee small puddle of pure gold dripping down on the black star of Ishtar stories below.

The masses had dispersed with the approaching storm. A few stragglers were huddled in the bus shack by the street, Willie among them. Out The Leg's massive doors people were emerging, coughing, some blackened with soot. Appearing with them was a red headed woman looking adorably lost and bewildered. Willie went over to her with his jacket, she needed a hug and some composure. Immaterialness confounded him, but she whispered softly in his ear “I love you Willie” in a voice he knew so well. Slowly comprehending he teared back “I love you too, my dearest emanation.”

The fire trucks came, and left, politicians stood around and gazed up in amazement discussing how to keep this metaphysical subversion at bay whilst hoodwinking the masses. It was agreed that keeping Police Force One in the skies 24/7 would add a spot of intimidation. Austerity continued and Willie's Rent Assist was cut off but he lucked out though, Musey would flit along beside him and between her uncanny tin cup and his CPP they they kept the hornswoggle a work in progress, dining out at any convenient soup kitchen.

And they would walk arm in arm every evening past that ziggurat, and sometimes they would dance on a rampart and she would sneak in and flit about awhile.

The Ides of March

Our Willie settled a debt the other day, it being of course the Ides of March. It was a debt incurred by the Heavens (The Heavens being everything beyond infinity) when Willie agreed to materialize as a homosapien on the little planet they called earth. He had agreed to this procreation nonsense only if he was guaranteed not to suffer.

It had been a battle, that first morning. That tiny sperm had fought long and hard after the big bang, ejected into a universe filled with newly energized companions, cooling from their explosive genesis, accelerating beyond the speed of light, into that realm made possible only by their own existence, coming from that place far beyond even infinity. The Heavens were with him though, deal signed by lawyers high and mighty and he had found a resting place, attracted by the forces of this new nature, amidst newly established laws dealing with chemical bondage who's conceptualizers as Heaven's fools took it upon themselves to create in mystery far greater than awareness could ever fathom.

The court battle which had ensued was by definition otherworldly, fought in the realm of non existence, and hinged upon the concept of suffering, which the lawyers themselves fools from beyond, had no concept. They would claim that Willie neither, could have had a concept of suffering before he materialized, thereby his court challenge should be tossed into a big black hole. These lawyers had no moral direction, their arguments based on lies and made up facts and fake news amidst much hanky panky becoming to courtesan with preoccupations of dressing properly for such occasions. The facts, in fact, had to be made up, because beyond infinity there are of course no facts, facts being only within the realm of infinity.

That egg with which this little sperm little sperm had bonded was steeped in mysteries becoming to gods and goddesses and Willie claimed a linage leading back to very ancient times when humanity became upright and conjoined with fantasies as it's greatest minds contemplated the absurd. The trick had always been to get newly conceived humans to venture forth into a world filled with this absurd task of rendering themselves sane in light of physical atrocities. The little rascals would ball their heads off till they were bushwhacked into adhering to the delightful views of their clans. The universe had of course not fully realized it's potential as a vessel for awareness and the rules where being made up on the fly. That this newfangled state could attribute it's own existence to it's own omnipotence was a becoming thought to the powers of procreation. It abdicated them from responsibilities of rationalizing big bangs among other things and would allow the universe to flourish on its own. Those lawyers had it made.

Suffering remained however, that sufferin succotash, a vegetable medley of corn and beans, sometimes also with tomato, peppers, or onion, by which humanity supplanted it's growling tummies. Humanity ventured forth in it's task of aligning adolescent deviants with the whims of it's superficiality. Potions were developed, concoctions so powerful they lifted awareness to heights beyond the constrains of reality. Concepts developed enabling humanities omnipotence to gain insight into the ways beyond infinity. Youth would venture forth, to infinity and beyond, suffering overwhelmed by ecstasy.

In light of all the above our Willie made a deal. The deal was made with the Heavens, now humanities omnipotence, and it involved the art of doublespeak, more or less. Suffering would be delegated to those poor souls who had gained no comprehension of the self made man, to those who had not the where-with-all to venture forth in the world filled with the joy of wheeling and dealing their way out of misery. The lawyers were elated.

That Willie used his well earned right to freedom of choice, that pinnacle in the art of humanities omnipotence, should not come as a surprise. Willie chose to suffer. A deal made with the Heavens, before his awareness materialized, could not contain his enthusiasm for the absurd. They put him here, screw them.

A shadow walks

On the crimson sunset horizon a shadow walks. The destination is unclear as it meanders stopping here and there, stooping to pick at some unseen curiosity in it's path. Nighttime darkens, the shadow obscures.

Remote viewers, they pervade themselves, tasked with unveiling the secrets of tomorrow. Learned to interpret their strange surroundings in a land of fantasy. They went to many times and locals, not always on our earth. Past 2024 they could not budge. At least they never told.

Pockets were left, at times in places least suspected, of life. Pockets where the winds had not descended to tint with their radioactive recklessness the juice from stems and bugs. Pockets where bacterium still lavished, the odd mole still dug to chew a root.

Blame is hard to attribute. Mother earth will bloom again, some day. Minds of creatures with brains subtle enough to undermine their own achievements, geared for tribalism which flourished for the odd millions of years. Minds of creatures who learned too much for their passions to eschew, blew themselves and mother earth to smithereens.

Years had passed, those journeys around a sun unfazed by the niceties of awareness. Maybe. Years in which the radioactivity had mellowed, skeletons of an age gone by obliterated by wind erosion, picked clean by blowing sands. Cities, those piles of rubble, hiding the skeletons, places to avoid if you where one of the few, if you where one of the few unlucky ones, hidden in one of mother earth's pockets. She kept things in her pockets.

Morning comes. The shadow walks on stooping to pick at some unseen curiosity in it's path. Does it look for pockets to eek out a sustenance, to cherish the resourcefulness of mother earth? Or does it simply meander, forlorn?

The itch

It wasn't always easy to navigate the challenges of life. All institutions had their flaws, nursing homes among them. Divine guidance was helpful. He was just itchy. Daytime wasn't bad, but night came and it started. Slowly at first, a little itch here, a pin prick there. By the time he crawled into bed and said “Night night” to his cats the itch would begin to consume him till he was a bundle of nerves, scratching here and there, waiting for the next electric prickle to strike. No use. He'd get up and make a pot of coffee.

He used Nix, thought it was scabies. The conscientious care givers at the home said no, they'd done tests, she didn't have scabies, it was psoriasis. She had a scaly white scalp and fingers thick and cracked with thick dry white skin. Red blotches on her back and legs. It had started a month before Christmas, after her room mate had scabies. They washed the clothes, washed the walls, stuck the stuffed animals in garbage bags and hid them, and gave them the treatment. It never went away. She didn't know, her dementia mind couldn't fathom it. She pulled her hair out, said it didn't itch though. She didn't know.

A few days after he used the Nix the itch was gone. He slept the sleep of abandonment, dreams of cupcakes floating over fairy landscapes, awoke refreshed the whole world to explore. Then came the time for the daily visit. His feet would not go through that door. Anxiety overtook him, the remembrance of that horrid itch filled his being numbing his mind black. He couldn't think. He sat on the bench outside.

Oh what to do? What would a sane person do? He phoned the nursing supervisor. Of course he got the answering machine. Left his message, “I got itchy, had pimple bumps, used Nix, it went away. Could my dear wife possibly have scabies? Please phone me.”

His phone rang. The nursing supervisor said no it wasn't scabies, the doctor had said so. He said maybe I should go see a dermatologist. I hummed and hawed and said my wife was not improving. He said she was refusing her medicated cream. I asked if maybe she could see a dermatologist for a different solution. Was a brilliant manoeuvre on my part, if I can so say. He said yes if I would accompany her, as she was prone to refusing these escapades into the unknown. In my glory I said “Yes, for sure” and thanked him profusely.

With this unforeseen outcome at my disposal I got up from that bench and marched happily through that door. Found her in the rec hall and gave her a big kiss. She grinned from ear to ear. I know I'll pay the price, but it isn't scabies. Maybe.

Arrested views

I've not had much to say of late, at least not out loud. My prostate keeps my vanity in check with excruciating pain six minutes out of every hour as I curse the learnèd idiot who invented brachytherapy. As a humongous captive grizzly swinging his massive head side to side in woe at his predicament, I seat on my throne swaying my noggin to and fro in anguish that this is my punishment for crimes against the arrested views of humanity, and not at all sure it will not last for all eternity. It does make one question their faith in the doctors who say in three more months all will be normal. Does it end with a whimper or a bang?

So, in my reconciliation with the powers that be I set forth my will and testament in proof that I have seen the light. Oath under torture has been viewed as constitutional by many constituencies.

1. God created the earth in six days about four thousand years ago.
2. Evolution is a myth.
3. Man was created to have dominion over all living things.
4. Global warming is a hoax.
5. Oil was placed in this earth for man to use.
6. Supply-side economics and posterity with rock bottom taxes is key to mans' success.
7. Democracy and the freedom to bear arms will speed us to the second coming.

I set forth this treatise in surety that our omnipotent and forgiving father reads Google+. Also I promise to never tune in to CBC Radio ever again. Such progressive views have obviously got me into this mess. I'll just have to get used to reading The Sun with the sunshine girl. By immersing oneself in the wisdom of the right, those cravings for the avante-garde will soon wear off.

Please wish me luck.

A tentative reality

Did we ever tell you about the imaginary us? It's much like an imaginary friend, but it's really ourselves, handling life's ins and outs with grace and composure. As we've aged we've kind of lost track of the real us, we've just let the imaginary us lead us forth subduing the human angst. Unflappable as Cortana, we navigate life as a treasure trove of endless fascination, sanguinely.

Belief is all it takes. As we navigate the realm of social opportunism when we're asked where we live we can unblinkingly say “Under the bridge.” It becomes quite fascinating that some people still live in houses and have to mow their lawns and pay for water. We can listen endlessly to their stories of irate neighbours and having to get up each morning to trudge off to work. Why anyone would live such a lugubrious life is beyond comprehension, only a demented soul could facilitate such woes of importunity.

The food in dumpsters is free, people. What are you thinking? Do the birds worry? Only idiots would want to navigate their lives through reality. Find some form of chicanery, visionary religion, fanatical politics, anything to distract you from the misery your social status brings. Trust not the real you, it's just a fabrication in your head, trying to maintain some semblance of sanity in the chaos of humanity. Any make believe vagary is better than the lies two million years of evolutionary engineering has provided us with. The universe laughs at our savvy eidolon.

We must of course proceed with life in a somewhat orthodox manner, else they'll take us away. Be friendly with the laws and let the surgeons do their cutting and sewing. Let the politicians have their fun, little do they care about the effervescence afforded under our bridge. Humour your parents, they believe they brought you into this world. Pain and pleasure are mere responses to keep us reproducing, it's that evolutionary thing. Soul is all we have and it makes no sense at all.

Did we ever tell you about the imaginary us?

Radioactive man

Our prostate it withers, we're now radioactive man

Our trip to the airport for a coffee proved provocative

Those sensors at the entrance set off quite the jam

That cop's car seat got wetter as the hours dragged on

Just can't hold it no more

Brachytherapy will cure us from this malignancy of body and mind

But these meds they distort gravity, one's wits get misconstrued

We lost our inhibitions as they poked our tender behind

We now walk with a swagger, catheter bag eased the yearning

Sleep the whole night through

The seeds got implanted, the wallet got a card

Says to please not incinerate this dear man,

The fumes may do you in, just lay him to rest

Under six feet of clay, cause he's radioactive, man

Dust to dust

We gave up our hideaway under our bridge

To endure benignancy at the local shelter c/w bugs

Our four legged Bessy is lonely as can be, what a dear cow

If only our wife missed us as much, no memory, 30 second compassion

In her swanky care home, we love her still

Six months they tell us and we'll be all cured

The seeds will give up their puissance, our prostate in ruin

So we'll live out this winter in our luxurious digs

In spring to smell flowers fresh under our bridge

Come what may

Imaginary us

Our wife has been sitting outside with her friend in the evening this summer, waiting for us to walk up the sidewalk from our bridge which we live under. Always greets us with a big smile and a hug. Said to us the other day something regarding the real Len. Apparently the real Len is from her past life, before she came to the care home. She doesn't remember much about the real Len or where they lived, but the real Len definitely did not live under a bridge with his cow, Bessy. We're just not the same Len, we persona's. That took a hit out of our impudence.

We asked her kindly if she would care to come back with us to our abode and she answered wisely with a frown “I don't want to live under a bridge.” We told her that was good because we'd never get her wheelie chair back up the river bank if we rolled her down there. She said something also about not fancying a rock for a pillow either. We gambolled that Bessy would really like her though. She gave us that big big smile.

Made us think, that evening as we avoided the evangelicals on the way back to our bridge. Every similitude in our brains is really just our whimsical take on the masses of atoms which make up ourselves and our surroundings. Real people, imaginary people, is there a difference? We all live in our own little fantasy world. If we can't handle our present quandary we just embellish it with a more virtuous take. Imaginary solutions to imaginary problems, this mollycoddly adventure.

Mollycoddly? Sweat pouring down one's face as one endures the ecstasy of some aficionado apotheosizing the leanings of an implacable societal monomania, cringing as the lashes burn one's back, scoring us for the rest of our life? So, our imagination is not all fun and games. Our imagery can feel devastating because it is. Embellishment just doesn't cut it, we take to drink, to revenge, we loose our esteem. Our imaginary self has lost it's resilience. The imagination of others has overburdened our own.

You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

We will live on in our imaginary world under our bridge, with our good cow Bessy. Our good wife will have an imaginary Len, not the same Len which reality disposed of in favour of posterity. He's not bound to the whims of palpability, makes it a more pliable world in which to experience his perdition. Who is that man walking up the sidewalk?

When we get to the pearly gates

When we get to the pearly gates we're going to ask for a refund, just to see if they have a sense of humour. We signed up for this spiritually enhancing break from fraternizing with it's oneness and all we got was drugs, sex and violence. So much for our transcendent state of mind. They'd see through it if we claimed we were a yogi immersing himself to the virtues of being the humble servant of worldliness. May as well just admit our guilt and try to win our way in with joviality. It was our calling we'll claim, our mission was to bring whoopee to the heavens.

We remember it well, the day we signed up. Picked a little pristine planet in one of the discretionary universes. It looked so charming, just into the age of self awareness. Our buds all wished us the best, said we'd return as a renewed entity. Now we have our doubts they'll ever let us back in. Wasted our days and wasted our nights, first on playing hooky and never doing homework, and then maturing into wandering the highways and the byways, always looking for the easy way. Honesty and integrity where just diversions from tomfoolery, the antics of which were lost on the befuddled minds of saints and other lesser beings.

It was quite the falling, out of the light, out of the glorious oneness with love and unity, falling, falling into the darkness of this universe, overcome with unspeakable selfishness, avaricious grasping for more, ever more. Finally ended up totally maniacal, absurdly laughing at a ludicrous mind which knew no prudence, justifying existence with the joys of absurdity. We've learned the folly of responsibility, no rational or irrational mind can truly believe any choice is within impartial achievement. It's oneness is going to have to make do with our effervescent take on it's fine creations. One wonders, will it take this lightly.

Those pearly gates get ever closer. We have aged beyond our wildest dreams. Carefree and stupendous decisions have done us well. We wonder, do we have to knock, or do they have drones who just zap us into the endless inferno if we're a threat to preponderancy. This fine life has left us with no delusions that we'll ever grasp the complexities of wisdom and sacrifice. To face this universe with anything less than shamelessly audacious humour would leave us in the throws of despair. It must be the devil we hear, taunting us... “You learned your lessons well.”

Oh give me a home

It is not every day that lightening knocks out the power. We were ready however, and in five minutes we had it accomplished. Helmet light strapped on and exacto knife in hand we wiped off the already loosened conduit cover and scraped the insulation from the now dead wires. Twisted three inches of bared #10 wire around two conductors and electrical taped them up real quick and threaded the wires through a hole methodically filed just below ground level into a trench we had at ready. Just in time as the street lights flickered back on.

Living under a bridge needs patience and a shade of ingenuity. We now have an electrical box fastened to a short pole behind the pile of rocks which we call home. No one's the wiser, except for our cow Bessy and our two cats. We can now have fresh dripped coffee and charge our phone and laptop without trucking across the avenues to the parking lot with plugs. We'll be searching the dumpsters for more modern electrical type inconveniences shortly.

We do need a good little heater for next winter. We're digging a cave, so to speak. Had to shore it up with posts and boards from an unneeded fence up the riverbank. Two sheets of plywood on the floor. Eight by eight is really cozy, we hope. Styrofoam boulder made from twenty sheets glued together and fancied up with a grey spray bomb and lots of sand and dirt covers the entrance. Planted some local shrubs beside it too, just for laughs. Bessy says she'll live outside, she's made friends with the deer in the bush downstream. The cats think it's neat, attracts a few varmints for them to toy with although they're friends with the local skunk.

      Oh, give me a home where the Buffalo roam

      Where the Deer and the Antelope play;

      Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,

      And the sky is not cloudy all day.

A vaguely religious affirmation of fortitude in the face of peril, it would seem, this life bestowed upon ourselves. The wild west still within our grasp, with some modern amenities. Canned beans are real good. So is the hydro. Just preparing for the new world order, you know, with the bankers hell bent on swindling the western world out of it's superiority complex. Got the ceiling lined with fourteen layers of tin foil under five feet of clay under the concrete span of our bridge, unlikely those infrared heat sensor drones will spot us before they drop from the sky in Armageddon. Just got to make like a fisherman with our pole when we come and go. Trying to figure out how to hide a horse, they're a bit more high strung than an old Hereford.

Making coffee in the morning, seemed to take a long time to get a cup. Plugged the radio into the outlet and it would come on for a minute and then off for a minute and then on for a minute, got us scratching our head. Went for a little stroll down Bessy's path to ponder on it and then we saw it, the lights at the intersection at the bottom of the bridge. If we hadn't hooked into the green light circuit. If we don't get another wicked lightening strike this summer we'll be saving the city a bit of power we suppose.

George's anchor

It was good, as George put it seated on his throne, that the moon rises in the east and sets in the west. In fact, he was happy to surmise, it so happens that the sun follows this pattern also. And when he was out and about, away from the lights of his town which allowed the conspirators to follow him on his nightly missions, he felt the whole cosmos wheeling around him, those stars far beyond who never lost their places year after year, on this great nightly rotation always from east to west. Once when he had climbed down a well to hide from his neighbour's dog, he had watched with wonder for hours as stars moved from east to west across the tiny opening far above, in the middle of the afternoon. Somehow this land, this earth was anchored in the sea of space and all remained constant. In a land of conspirators and prejudiced dogs, it was something to hold onto.

George's mind had an anchor too, somewhere behind his eyes. It made little matter how the conspirators tormented him or how the dogs would sneak up and bark the bee jeebies out of him, his immutable anxiety always remained rooted there, anchored in the back of his skull. Even in the times of calm when he could scorn the invasive forces with succulent tribulations from the safety of his throne, he would watch the visions circle around inside his head, always from east to west.

There had been a time long ago when as a young lad George had felt a kinship with his mates, as if they were all on the lake each sailing their little craft, watching out for one another in the stormy world of adult rationality. They would throw their anchors out together in the shelter of a little bay, away from the winds of discipline and float freely together entertaining the warming sun. But life turned from east to west also, and as the sun got higher on his days his mates had become conspirators, many had dogs, and they had turned their quest to power and prestige, their dogs remorseless in these undertakings. And so George had departed the world of commerce to establish his own private castle, nondescript as it was, with his throne facing west so he could see what lay in store. Not that it worked.

There was a time when he had wandered off and lost himself for several years, ending up with a hornswoggle carved from a stump. He had even found a mate and made an attempt at commerce, carving little hornswoggles for sale on that avenue which cut north and south, a latitude in the longitude of life. He still had his hornswoggle, seated in the midst of his castle, his cat was old and rather hairless, and his mate had abdicated her throne for some fool with a dog, a dog who had lifted his leg on his hornswoggle. He had retreated from the thrills of commerce back to vantages of misanthropy, them and their dogs.

George had thought long and hard on egalitarianism which evolution had endowed upon humans. It was doubtfully doubt which gave us the capacity to respect the views of others, a doubt in our own beliefs, so he remained a little apprehensive of the moon rising in the east and setting in the west just so he would not be too prejudiced. That way he could smile and say hello to everyone he met when he was out and about, even their dogs, though the response was seldom reciprocated. This even-handed approach to life was far from the dominant quality in most humans and their institutions he found. Dominance and conspiracy seemed to play a crucial role in humanity's day to day functioning, policing and punishment typically administered by the most dominant individuals. Somehow the humour of most situations was lost upon these stewards of the establishment and their dogs. It was good to have an anchor to hold onto, even though he must view it with a degree of incertitude.

So George continued with his life, attempting to thwart the conspirators with dispassion on his nightly missions, and took to carrying a bag of dog biscuits to tempt impartiality in their dogs. Sometimes it worked, and he could peacefully watch the cosmos circle above him, from east to west.

Song of woe

We call on the Lord Musum in our distress, and he answers us. Hail with thunder and lightening rains down upon us. Save us, Lord Musum, from lying lips and from deceitful tongues. What will he do to this throng of wayward swindlers, and what more besides to their deceitful tongues? He will punish them with a god's humour, scourges thick with allegories. Woe to me that I dwell in the land of Manitou, that I live under a bridge in Winterpeg! Too long have we lived among those who hate peace. We are for peace; but when we speak, they are for war. Save us all, Lord Musum.

This throng of courtiers, prying our good wife from the joys of obscurity, into the wars of biblical interpretations, rejoicing in the wrath of the god of gods, they have absconded with her into the depths of biblical studies in a room far removed from the comings and goings of the common sinners within her care home. Took us the better part of an hour to track her down, it did. There she sat, sandwiched into a self-righteous throng of devotees of who knows what mixture of evangelicals. We sneaked in and seated ourselves silently in the corner and chuckled in smugness when our wife gave us a big wink and nodded towards her plate of cookies and milk. She knew what she was up to after all, our concern unfounded. As the closing prayer ended with “God bless us all,” we could not help ourselves but to add quietly “And the martians too.” Our dear wife spilt her milk.

Dementia has it's perks it would seem, and humour is not lost upon it. Our Lord Musum we thank you as you seat your splendor before the screens in the magnificent halls of the Ziggurat, thwarting the wayward swindlers with your remote. Cookies and milk are no match for the fallacies of the sanctimonious, short term memory loss not withstanding. Into the halls they disseminate, the absconded, filled with cookies and milk, tummies full of love, dissertations on the good book lost in the synapses of minds with a much more direct link to mother nature and the reality of self-gratification. Our Lord Musum, they thank you with lewd song and dance as you feed them lavishly, your rapturous proselytes, may their sentience sweeten your acrimony, your scourges thick with allegories.

But woe is us, who must leave the halls of the care home, and return to our bridge by the lanes and pathways beleaguered by hoards of swindlers who without milk and cookies impose themselves on our lostness to vindicate themselves from the depths of hell with their good intentions. Guide us, our Lord Musum, with your remote, that we may return innocent of salvation to our safe haven under our bridge near to the ramparts of your Ziggurat. Save us, Lord Musum, from lying lips and from deceitful tongues. Punish them with a god's humour. We honour you unceasingly, Lord Musum, our King!

Under our bridge

Communication is this process of bettering one's otherness with one's chivalry. It would be quite useless if oneself and one's otherness both perceived everything the same. It is useful when attempting to warn the otherness of potential calamity such as “There's a wasp on your earlobe,” or attempting some humour such as “We should tighten our Canadian borders to keep those shoddy made in the USA products off our shelves.” Now it behooves us as to what exactly it is we are communicating to our dear wife who is luxuriating in a swanky care home in freedom from philosophical concerns when we tell her about our life living in the comforts found under our bridge.

Yes we live under a bridge, on the River Red, the Lord Musum presiding, with our cow named Bessy and our two cats named Moses and Blacky, the two names she remembers not remembering ours. We sit in front of our air conditioner to keep cool on the hot days, which she thinks is plain ridiculous but makes her chuckle, and our flat screen tv has no picture because the cable company won't take 'under the bridge' as a reliable address. We scrub our clothes on the rocks by the river and hang them to dry on lines tied to the pillars.

We tell her this tale because we do not wish to remind her of the comforts of Deathrock Apartments, and the shooting and gang warfare which is a nightly affair and might instill a nostalgia from her memories, this sonance being such a lulling experience much like a mile long freight train with four whistling locomotives which puts oneself to sleep at night when one lives near the tracks under the bridge. It makes us ponder though, why do we have to make up a fantasy life at all? Could we not just discuss the weather and watch the ants hard at work on the sidewalk? But no, we must live under a bridge.

It seems a product of lethargy, utter boredom at the thought of sitting there together, contemplating the great universe with twisted tangled memories, popping childhood friends into the rompings of adult misadventures. Better to make up a new life, free from reminiscence so she can tell the workers “This is my husband, he lives under a bridge.” Gets us looks of anxious unease and a helping of tuna sandwich and purple juice at snack time. Not sure if they vacuum for bugs after we leave, but the muddy footprints have all but disappeared by the next day, our wife being more keen on this than we are.

Communication would seem therefor to behold itself as something more than imparting transient information. It's the vibes that matter, so to speak, the tears and the laughter, the joy of meeting and the anguish of parting. The Lord Musum must be proud of us. In his benevolent generosity we have not had a flood this year, on the River Red, and our bridge is high and dry. We'll take it as a sign from the Ziggurat, rising from mighty ramparts on the River Red above our bridge. We will take comfort in his revelations as he lights up our flat screen tv every evening allowing us to ravish in his princely divine powers. Oh Lord Musum we await your chivalry.

Old white geezer

The Bilderberg conference is discussing our existence this week. In light of new scientific evidence that when the proverbial tree falls in the forest it does not fall at all unless someone hears it, the big bang did not occur because there was no one to hear it. The flip side to this amazing new evidence is that our minds actually create the universe we live in, a rather subjective thing it is, and our wildest fantasies about it's construct are actually the parameters of it's construct. Of course the Bilderbergers are doing their utmost to ensure the ideals of the trickle down economy will be embedded forever in our imaginary DNA till our imaginary hell freezes over.

That police force one helicopter flying over Winnipeg every night makes me cringe. The police knock at my door and give me a hard time when they're looking for someone else. Yes, I live in Winnipeg's west end. I have to beg the caretakers of our Deathrock Apartments to turn on the heat when we have a cold spell in spring or fall and I have to be very diplomatic because they can make life miserable if you give them any friction. I'm on CPP pension and by the time I pay for my wife's nursing home I don't have much choice about where to live. Walmart type places is where I shop when the dumpsters are bare even though I despise their practises. We increasingly live in a society where pressure motivated by ideology is used to force us to fall in line so the slightly advantaged can strut their stuff.

This ideology somehow sidesteps the fact that we have the resources and people power on this earth to create a sustainable infrastructure and to feed and house everyone. It's just that this thing we call money, that undefinable entity by which the market places a value on everything, gets in the way. We can no longer blame aristocracy because it's these utopian, anticommunist credos which are saving the world. Meanwhile they are desecrating our mother earth. And aristocracy now claims it's the poor victim of the market place forcing upon them all this wealth and they're doing us a good turn by keeping the pyramid rising.

Our governments are held hostage by a banking system which claims to channel currencies for the good of humanity. The rules are established for the survival of big corporations. For the whole system not to default we must have growth, and this growth means people must purchase commodities which are not essential to their survival or happiness. This growth is not sustainable when it uses up earth's resources, we cannot eat our cake and have it too. A model for sustainability will be either forced upon us, or we can opt to develop it before dire consequences force it upon us or extinguish us all.

Some call it the degrowth movement. It is questionable whether our capitalist or socialist systems or stews thereof can bring about this change. It would seem to need an almost spiritual fervour in which the corporations and other criminals would lay down their swords and police force one would not need to roam the skies. Material things would become valued things to use with humility, to share and take care of. It is our elected officials who have the most power to investigate these pursuits, and to forge different models. Not one of us seven billion has all the answers, but we can try.

Our dreams about this world can become a reality. It does take time. Not all will be convinced today, some still believe the earth is flat. Our minds actually do create the world we live in, our state of sanity. Human consciousness is a force to be reckoned with. In all it's disparity it carries us along like the the mighty galactic winds, blowing us to galaxies far beyond our present dreams. We can make our present habitat, our wee solar system, a remarkable place in the star dust of the gods.

The elevator

The biggest question we have is why. The best answer so far is because. My wife and I blame everything on the Martians when I visit her, it seems a noncontroversial way of dealing with the why's. We both know it's a flippant way of dealing with our emotions. Words won't come out to express her real feelings about most anything, and words I might use to express my feelings always end up in a quickly changed subject. So we resort to the Martians, an allegory for the unspeakable.

She rides the elevator sometimes, my wife. She sneaks on when “the workers” aren't watching. They know where she is actually, and let her have her fun till it stops on her floor and they pull her out to save her from the perdition of forever roaming the universe in a limbo. She always tells me she'll never do that again. Runs into strangers who are always asking “Who are you,” or “Where are you going” and she must always answer with a shrug “I don't know.” That elevator is the highway to everywhere though, China if you ride far enough down and heaven if you ride it up to it's heights. Those buttons inside have a secret code to all these places and only the very wise know how to push them right. She knows I know the secret code to the bridge that I live under, like a troll, jumping out and scaring people. The Martians make me do it.

That elevator is the portal of life on this nursing home floor. Everyone has come here on it, everyone will leave on it. Furniture, beds, sheets and blankets come on it. Steaming hot meals come on it, from who knows where. That elevator can be stopped on this universe by pushing the buttons. It's a gathering place for restless souls, by the doors, where they gather to push the buttons to peek in and catch fleeting glimpses of strangers and interesting miscellanea headed off to different universes. Sometimes it stops on it's own and a familiar face will emerge from the limbo to be greeted enthusiastically with warm welcomes.

It is the Martians of course who control everything. Those buttons are the armament against their trickery. Apparently Martians are too short to reach them so their omnipotent presence can be somewhat subdued by lighting up the little arrows pointing either up or down. They make a lot of noise, those Martians, when the elevators are in limbo. Clanging and singing away they labour ceaselessly bringing wondrous cargoes to worlds far removed from the reality of this universe.

So off we are today, out from under our bridge. Was a windy damp night it was. We'll push the buttons here, and when the doors open we'll step into limbo, we know the secret code to our wife's universe. On the way there we'll peek into different universes as the doors open and close. None of them knows “why” either. They all exist just “because,” peeking into the limbo as the Martians sail it by.

Foey

Once upon a time in a far far away land there was a princess named Foey. Now there exists an entire world which is the totality of untruths, to which we have access with our minds, just as a world of physical reality exists, to which we have access to with our bodies. Foey had been conceived by a mind which we may name Vater von Foey, a lonely mind admittedly, prone to bursts of euphoria as it contemplated nourishment.

There also exists an entire world of truths, to which we are denied access with our minds, just as a world of physical reality exists, to which we have access to with our bodies. We dare not venture into this world because it is reserved for the gods, a forbidden world, far removed from our human nature. It's a world in which time is an emergent phenomenon for us internal observers but absent for our external observers and which was therefore intriguing to our lonely Vater von Foey.

So it came to be one fine day that Vater von Foey gave an apple to his sweet Foey and said “Here my dear, take a bite, and may the truth be with thee.” Every culture on our earth relishes their own untruths and the culture in this far away land was no different. Foey took that bite. She became reconciled as the truths were released into physical reality. She would bare children. She would grow old. Vater von Foey cried on the floor. “What have I done, what have I done? I have doomed my dear conception to old age and bitching.”

It would be nice if we could think outside of the human condition, the untruths. Those constraints of purpose and meaning left inside the box, no need to attribute the unknown to the gods. But we are stuck with our curiosity and it drives us into depths of madness where we perceive a soul in everything. Reality prevails. It's nothing but cold stark atoms, remoulding themselves as they get sucked into the depths of nuclear furnaces, spewing out in reformed substances to cling together in a frenzy of dispassionate forces creating fodder for the black holes which gobble everything in sight. Just as coldhearted it all is as the kid on a freeform bike, wagering life and limb against the cold hard concrete, mindless revenge against the urban forces which shape his will.

Vater von Foey put himself and his dear Foey on a bus, one of those city buses which take weary workers to and from distant locals. It had been many years since he had been away from his sanctuary of aloneness and he disembarked the bus with Foey in a neighbourhood which he thought was where the nutrients of life flourished, but his memory proved him wrong and they began walking through a series of streets and alleys filled with grime and dirt from generations of industrious fabricators of every useful tool known to man. Discarded and broken remnants of these coldhearted soulless implements littered every nook and cranny piled high in intricate entanglements of rusting obscurity. Foey laughed fondly at her creator and sustainer as he frustratedly searched for some way out of his misshapen memories. Cheered by her lack of resentment they together began looking for an escape route.

They saw it together, another bus, this one used to take workers to and from the dungeons in which they laboured. The driver, a weary father, was taking a scattering of other drivers back to refuge where they could fritter away the hours till the next loads of thankless, dirty beasts would board the buses and return home to delicately stewed steaming hot meals of mush. The driver let them on with a nod and off they rode, the scenery changing from an ocean of metal clad foundries to a sea of smoke clad hovels with dirty children uprooting every possible inch where green life might flourish. The bus came to a standstill next an oily riverbank overflowing with overladen barges and puttering tugboats. Vater von Foey now knew where he was. They could follow this river.

Sucked in we are to conceitedly think our universe would betray it's virtues to mere animals, animals who pilfer the austere outer crusts of wee planets, no more noble than vile crystals ordered by the dispassionate forces. It is by luck that we have religion to give us meaning in our fleeting appearance in these miserable confines. We send our messages in bottles to oblivion. DNA sequences sent out with one in quadrillion chance of being found by other life, and if they did find our bottle in the oceans of star dust they'd disparage of decoding it, it would hasten their own demise, refuting their own gods.

We will yet find a message in a bottle. It will say “Smile, you are doomed. Give up now and please yourselves. Life is a dead end path to nowhere. Smash your heads into your concrete monuments. Be reckless as the depths that surround you. It is a freeform place we inhabit, no love lost. Live for your passions till you crash.” And so it was that Vater von Foey and his sweet Foey continued on this journey sticking as close to the riverbank as the lanes would allow. Upstream they were heading and as time wore on the land developed a hue of green, sparingly at first, and then becoming lush with leaves and grasses. They took a rest on a little oasis by the river edge, and Foey saw it. A bottle, sealed with duck tape, floating peacefully in the reeds.

Inside that bottle was a note. Luckily it was engraved on a parchment of brass because the duck tape had leaked a wee bit. “Divulge not unto others what you would not divulge unto yourself” was what it said, either an oxymoron or a good reason for suicide one might surmise. Whether Vater von Foey who saw this message as an untruth or Foey who saw this message for it's truth viewed the message similarly is unclear but they rejoiced at it's finding as most humans and their conceptions do when finding messages in bottles. They journeyed on a little more optimistically, fathoming a culture upstream with duck tape.

They came upon an orchard, an orchard of apples. Now it was Foey's turn. She picked an apple fresh and red ripe from a branch and said “Here my dear, take a bite, and may the truth be with thee.” Well Heavens to Betsy, as Vater von Foey chewed his nourishment the poles of his earth reversed. The untruth became the truth. Foey was no longer a conception, she became an inseparable part of her conceiver's being. His loneliness vanished. He had filled his pockets with red ripe apples before he realized his urge to bitch. It was too late... that message in the bottle hit him hard. He had divulged his urge unto himself and was free to bitch at anyone and anything around. Something gnawed at his thoughts as he sat with his pockets full of nourishment. He felt the spirit of sweet Foey inside him saying “You don't have to bitch.”

Vater von Foey wandered the earth for many years into a ripe old age and smiled cheerily at everyone he would meet. And he always had a red ripe apple for them, as he bid them to venture into a forbidden world, far removed from our human nature, in his bursts of euphoria which he shared with Foey.

Demented morals

Shshshsh ... listen ... is that Wagner you hear? Shucks anyhow, it's just those frigging Martians. They're playing with the elevator cables again, does sound like an acapella choir though, not? That tenor must be a real live one though, thinks he's in the shower.

They run that nursing home, those Martians. Play with people's minds they do. Got my wife stealing pastries from the nice couple across the hall. Always hungry she is, sneaks across the hall when the nice lady goes to the john and hubby's not looking. Probably better to be a thief in this day and age than in Jean Valjean's time. Hasn't got found out yet anyway, my wife, hides the proceeds in her dresser. She confides in me though and we laugh and laugh. Jean Valjean would have been proud, those poor malnourished residents. Those Martians know a thing or two about treating the elders. My wife was scared of them at first, but now she looks forward to their visits every night when the lights go dim.

We tried in vain to talk some sense into her. Said we “They spend their hard earned money on those pastries, our dear. Now they're hungry and starving, look what you've done.” She looks rather puzzled at us and knowingly asserts “He steals them from the pantry every day after lunch, that little sneak, and he eats the food off the plates of the people who sit next to him, he's not hungry.” Seems those Martians have got the whole place a thieving. We talked to the staff about the whole affair, not wanting to be the devils advocate here. An attitude out of Mark Twain seems to prevail here, those Martians were craftier than we thought. It seemed watermelon obtained by art was somewhat tastier and it saved them from distributing snacks every evening if we got the gist through their snickers. Also something about thievery keeping them out of trouble. Now that's our kind of perspective after catering to our dear's whims for the last three years.

Maturity is seeing our worlds for what they really are, quoting from the Martian Book of Knowledge as we cipher our wife's oracles. As we age, it would seem, we loosen our grip on indoctrination and subjectivity and the universe becomes this vast playground of formation and reformation. All things are possible and it becomes impossible to judge as the basis for all is infinitude. Seems Martians cater to nursing homes because that's where they find the highest levels of this maturity. Who knew?

So we're planning the great escape, our wife and us. We figure in summer when it's warm we can stash away lots and lots of food if we make a big bag to hang on the back of the wheelchair. Then we'll sneak off one evening and we can push her down the Trans Canada Highway all the way to Vancouver. We can eat blueberries that we'll pick on the way too. The Martians have told her they'd sneak her into any nursing home on the way so we could have a good sleep and stock up on pastries. It gets kind of obvious how the Martians enlighten the less mature of us, using our best intentions for our loved ones to teach us how to play gleefully in our universe free of indoctrination and subjectivity. We're starting to hear Wagner most everywhere if we sit quietly and listen. It always carries this expression of the world's essence, namely, blind, impulsive will.