caveat emptor

The Road

There's a road at the edge of town that only a few of us know and if you take it your sorrows and your fears and all your weary years cannot come with you. At the end of the road is a swimming hole, clear and deeper than anyone knows. By the time you get there you're a kid again, bewildered and excited in your swimming suit. It's always a hot summer day. The water is always cool but not cold. When you jump in you don't have to hold your breath or close your eyes. You can laugh under the water. You don't have to come up until you want to, maybe to lie on your towel on the bank in the sun and dry off. Every touch and every look is innocent there. You might lie beside a girl or a boy. If you kiss or hold hands, it's only sweet and simple and fleeting. You might just talk or stare up at the clouds. You might, once you're dry, look for fossils or shells or dive back in the bottomless pool. It's light all the way down, and full of wonders. However long you stay, you're never late getting back. I know where this road is. What do you say?

Hello, friends. I wish so badly that this were true. I really, really do. Sorry.

Later. Love.

Geekonomics

All the faerie folk have gotten office jobs. You have to in this economy. There’s no money in frolicking these days. There’s the nest egg to think about. And sure, most faeries don’t grow old, but you can never be too careful. Right? Is that right? People say, “You can never be too careful,” but I’m starting to wonder. Faeries weren’t meant to wear business casual, to have phone skills, to talk about network television sitcoms around the water cooler. Faeries should be enchanting and seducing weary travelers, fools who stumble unaware into the mushroom ring. Faeries should not have financial advisors or retirement accounts. You cannot pay the teind with stock options. Could it be that they’re being too careful? Shouldn’t faeries be carefree? And then there is you and there is me. Should we run away from all of this? How long has it been since we danced naked in the forest, sipped nectar wine in the Hall of the Autumn King under Ben Sheann? Where is the whimsy in our arcane life? Take my hand and we’ll wander away. You can be too careful, you know. I’ve decided that you can.

I noticed, just the other day, that all my shoes are very sensible. I have, as far as I can tell, no whimsical shoes. How can I hope to walk fantastical paths of wonder in such serious shoes? And so, I’ve got in mind to buy myself some playful shoes. I’m not at all sure where one acquires such things. Will they be slippers, sneakers, boots? Sandals? Flip flops? Cross trainers? These all sound so mundane, so very practical. Maybe I should just walk barefoot into whimsy. I wonder if it’s warm? I’d hate to catch a cold. Maybe I could wear socks. Wacky socks. Now I’m getting a little nervous about the whole thing. Perhaps I’m just not cut out for such silliness. Could be that I’m just a simple shoe guy.

Dragon I know got a job in a pizza oven on 4th Street. They make a good pie. Perfect crust. People ask, “What’s the secret?” “It’s in the oven,” says Tony. (He’s talking about the dragon.)

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

Daydreams Befitting an Animal

Somewhere on the road in my dreams, the road I would love to travel with you on some imaginary perfect afternoon, there is a rope bridge over a river ravine just deep enough to make crossing any other way impractical. The road – a dirt road that, somehow, raises no dust and is curbed on both sides by lush grass as far as the eye can see in the hilly terrain – ends at the ravine and continues on the far side with the rope bridge connecting the two. The bridge is sturdy as imaginary firmament, but it sways just enough to feel a little dangerous. The bridge will hold, however, for as many times as we want to cross it forever and ever. And cross it we will, on the way to some casual nowhere and on the way back as well. We will love that bridge. We will sit and let our feet hang over the edge and listen to the wind in the ravine and the water whispering over the rocks below. Blue warm days and grey cool days and soft rain days and torrential storms will pass over us on that road, that bridge, that dream that I dream for us.

I’m trying to be a man of simple imaginations, of daydreams befitting an animal. I’m trying to weed out my vocabulary of words that have nothing whatsoever to do with this life we have to live in the dirt, foraging for food, sipping water from clean pools, finding shelter under the fearsome dark of the stars. Who needs words like “constabulary” and “hermeneutics” and “somnambulism” out here in this primal coffee shop, monkey people dancing mating rituals all around me? Dude in the overalls and the shades wants his sausage sandwich. What sort of talking is this? I’m trying to forget unimportant things and teach myself again. “Water,” she says as the cool liquid runs over my hand. Suddenly a light comes on in my darkness. This word. This cool something wet on my arm, trickling down my wrist to my elbow. Water. Water.

The soul will live on forever, even after the world is gone. The universe will slowly cool and wink out, collapsing back in on itself. And we’ll be there, all of us, wondering what to do here in the nothing, longing for bodies and corporeal needs and cool, blue autumn days. And this desire, this lust for something, anything, will grow and build and strain against the edges of singularity and spark the next Big Bang, just like it did last time. Think about it. You remember. You were there, hurtling with the rest of us through the exhilarating heat of expanding everything. Maybe we’ll meet again, you and I, when things cool down and come together and life evolves again. Bring your new body to the road. Find the bridge. My body will be there, waiting for you.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

Magician’s Apprentice

The magician sat smoking a cigarette outside the cafe, back to the wall, staring tiredly out into the nothing just above the parking lot across the street. I slid my coffee cup onto the table and sat down, facing the same way, staring across the sidewalk, over the curb, across the street, above the parking lot. He lifted his cup, but it was empty, so he set it back down. He was scraggily ragged, several days growth on his cheeks, chin and neck, hair with that tousled, dry road dirty that smokers got if they practiced the right sort of magic. Thinning curly blond hair turned mostly grey was long enough to let you know that he didn’t give a damn what you thought about it. Dusty light tan rawhide jacket over a stained white T-shirt and dirty jeans with a frayed hem. Scuffed work boots. Calloused hands with thick fingers and grit under the nails. Dark, leather skin with deep wrinkles tracing out from the corners of eyes and furrows in brow told of too much time squinting in the working sun. I wanted him to demonstrate that he liked me, to agree to teach me the magic. He did neither.

“Beautiful evening,” I suggested, staring still straight ahead.

“Mmm,” he barely grunted, signifying something less than agreement, a merciful if tentative acknowledgment of my personhood.

The downtown evening was darkling and moths and gnats were beginning to congregate worshipfully around the awakening buzz of the tall lamps that lit the parking lot. A yellow food wrapper shot up suddenly at the whim of some random gust and then wafted drunkenly down again, forgotten by the wind that promised briefly to get her out of this parking lot hell. Here and there nearby, within a few blocks of this quiet gathering, pulses were rising slowly and lustily across booths and small cocktail tables, driven by new shallow infatuations or even the occasional true love. The evening was uncannily typical, more so than ever before, and I was trying not to cry like a fool at the beauty of it all. Not in front of the magician.

“Winter soon,” he said a couple of hours later, and I knew it was true as soon as he said it.

“Good,” I answered, trying to match his nonchalance.

“Mmm.”

I wonder if I am learning the magic. Maybe this is how it works.

Hello, friends. I trust you’re well.

Later. Love.

The Dance. The Wolf of the World. The Seamstress of Dreams.

If you find yourself mysteriously, unclear how you came to be there, in the middle of a grand ballroom, dressed in fine and lovely clothes, surrounded by happy dancers, with a beautiful person in your arms, then dance. Don’t ask questions, just pull the person close and dance until the music stops. Don’t make any sudden moves that might break the spell. Join the current and flow of the other dancers around you. Don’t speak and draw attention to yourself. Don’t close your eyes or you may open them in a different place, a place less lovely, with no beautiful person within arm’s reach, an office cubicle or a cheap hotel room or a Laundromat, some sort of prison cell or dungeon. Don’t worry about any of this while the music is playing. Just dance, friend. This doesn’t happen every day.

In the very last instant of your life, just before you die, the wolf of the world comes to you. He considers you, unblinking, from a few feet away. Then he comes over and lies down beside you as you fall asleep. The last thing you realize is that no one is going to grade you or judge you on your life. You were alive, like everyone else, and the universe accepts your contribution without condemnation. You played your part. The wolf of the world comes to you so you can know this, in the end, and face oblivion without regret.

No one remembers her name nor her face, but she is there with all of us every day. She is the seamstress of dreams. She makes the dresses and uniforms and rags we all wear in our dreams. As we drift away to sleep, she reads the script of our dreams, measures us, and creates the clothing of our nightmares and visions. Then she gently removes whatever we fell asleep in and dresses us for our dreams. “Do you remember what you were wearing?” the girl at the coffee shop asks you. You were telling her about your dream, this total stranger, because she brought up the subject. “Not really,” you say, furrowing your brow and trying to remember. She sighs and looks a little disappointed, and you wonder again if you’ve seen her somewhere before. Did you dance with her once?

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

Who Is/Isn't Picasso. What Is/Isn't Magic.

This morning I saw the little bald man who looks like Picasso. Cat Stevens was singing in the background, a recording I assume. The man is not Picasso, of course. No one is Picasso these days. He looks like Picasso. I told him that once and he wrinkled his forehead as though I had insulted him. Perhaps he thought I said "a Picasso", which would be a very different thing, it's true. He hasn't spoken with me since then. He avoids eye contact. This only makes him look more like Picasso to me, since Picasso never looked me in the eye.

It's a world of mundane magic, my boy, and you have to invent your own wonder. The truth is all around us, not hidden at all, but we completely fail to see it. We hardly understand anything very well. We have bad magic, poor medicine, an unimpressive tome of faulty secrets. But we can make fire and we can make water. We can fly big metal birds. We can rumble across the planet in massive herds of strange metal buffalos. There is no magic, no real magic, in all of our fire and smoke, in all this noise and destruction. Our only real power is the spark of skin touching skin, words whispered in the ear to make the soul burn. Magic is something you do, not something you know. Make as much magic as you can, my boy. Everything else is just technology becoming obsolete before your eyes, bad theories replacing worse theories.

I have to ask myself if Picasso exists. There is evidence here and there that can only be explained by Picasso's existence. But where is Picasso? Does Picasso exist today? This fellow at the coffee shop is not him. He's a knockoff, a fake. Is it sad if there is no Picasso in the world? "Death makes angels of us all, and gives us wings where we had shoulders smooth as raven's claws." A dead guy said that. He was alive at the time.

Hello, friends. I trust you're getting by, making magic when you can.

Later. Love.

That Great, Good Someday

In that Great, Good Someday there will be no more pain. In that day we will gladly offer our everything to one another in exchange for anything or for nothing at all. There will be neither lack nor excess, only a boundless sufficiency, an abundance of just enough. You will kiss my lips and I will thank you. I will take your hand and you will smile. Men will grasp enemies in their embrace and release them as trusted friends. All the armies will surrender to each other, shake hands and then turn and carry the spoils of peace home to their mothers, fathers, children and lovers. In that Great, Good Someday brows etched with confusion and consternation will smooth and then crease anew with laughter. The lion will offer himself as food for the lamb. The four winds will stir and blow all heaviness away from everywhere, toward nowhere, a gale blowing only out and gone. The grass on this side will green and grow, soft and lush, and we will lay down together and sleep, the first night of forever. Dance, children, dance, and sing with me the songs of that Great, Good Someday.

Have you ever noticed all the beauty you've never seen? Look today into all the places you cannot see and your eyes will kiss your soul.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well. I'm just a sucker like that.

Later. Love.

Fate, Reggae and Whimsy

I am playing Scrabble with Fate. She is beating me badly, like she always does. She sits quietly with that troubling, knowing look. I haven't the  letters to form the words of my frustration so, seeing no better option, I pluck an "H" from my rack and turn "OURS" to "HOURS". Then she turns "MY" to "COLOSTOMY" with a triple word score for the "C", which also makes "CRAW" of "RAW" in the other direction. Then I "CRAWL" and she "XYLOPHONE"s. It continues like this until she has the last word and I perform the aftermath. "I am second," I tell her, "and you are next to last." Fate smiles.

Today reggae is playing from somewhere, and this feels right. Slow and rhythmic, simple syncopations on the downbeat, it takes no genius to feel reggae, to understand what is happening. Reggae tells you that good things are good and that bad things are bad. Reggae decries suffering and glorifies pleasure. It cries with you and dances with you. When you're paralyzed by the complex interweaving of the nuances of reality, listen to reggae. Don't think about it too much or you'll overrun it and leave it behind, you'll be bewildered and confused. Just close your eyes and count out the simple beat with the slightest nodding of your noodle. Everything is gonna be alright. Everything is gonna be alright.

Tomorrow I'm having footraces with Whimsy. I'm not optimistic about my chances for winning, but I hope at least to make Whimsy laugh.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Are you?

Later. Love.

The Middle is Near

Most of the paths to enlightenment are too heavy for me. Everyone chooses their own path. He's into Mahayana. She's doing the Weight Watchers. Some of the brightest people I know have stopped striving for enlightenment. "This is all there is," they say. I wonder how they got so smart? I wonder how I could get that smart? Maybe I should stand on my tiptoes and hold my breath. Maybe I should put my knees behind each other. Maybe I should shave my head and follow the remains of the Grateful Dead around. "It's not the answer, it's the question, man," says the barefoot dude in the robe with the dreadlocks and the shades. Things always sound stupid when you add "man" to the end.

Then the prophet says:

In those days the clouds will wage war on the seas. Fools will trade apples for oranges. In those days seams will ride up in your hinder and you'll find no peace in repose. The buffalo will play checkers with the postmen. The rocks will melt and dirt will freeze and the heavens will default on their loans. Wise women will cry in the street, bemoaning consumer confidence and acid reflux. A child will say to his neighbor, "What has become of my innocence?" In those days hamburgers will be served without tomato. Porch lights will burn through the night. Van tires will all go flat. In those days the echoes of distant laughter will keep you awake all night. Then you will know the middle is near.

Thus spake the prophet.

Sometimes the alarm clock surprises me and I begin the day with a start. Seems like a reasonable way to begin something. Man.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well. Everything's cool.

Later. Love.

Talking the Wrong Talk When No Talk is Right

The world has been overtaken by undertakers. They did it for the word play, I bet.

That's not what I came here to talk to you about, but I thought you should know, nonetheless. And now, the wrong talk.

I came to talk about the sometimes, squish bones sigh into the chair, laughing or crying too softly to be for sure. Never to be for sure for sure. Do you ever think the think you cannot say, wrapped up in picture feeling, ideas no word can word? No right word can talk it? Looking up into the sky this way I am there, the world far below, waxy wings drooping and dropping to the welcoming ground arms, laughing all the way down because you'll catch me, soft and strong and splash below the surface you'll catch me wet and smile, like your eyes can only smile, no other eyes, you smile. This is why we fall, to be caught. Falling together I'll catch you and you'll catch me. It works that way. Oh yes, today it works that way here with us. Because I know joy will last as long as needs, until the last time, the final work no more. When I imagine the smoky day far away, the end of everything, I always imagine lips in a smile, a knowing wink. Then the end, just the way we thought. Then falling into the next. Catch me.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Are you?

Later. Love.

On Having Recently Seen Frankenstein's Monster

Not long ago I saw Frankenstein's monster hitchhiking along Interstate 35. He looked like he was heading north, maybe looking for work, maybe just trying to get away. There's big empty country up north on I-35, plenty of space for a monster to get lost, to avoid the cudgels and torches of angry villagers. There are wide, flat plains for miles and miles, little towns where nobody ever goes, barn lofts to hide in and tall grass where you can lie and rest your tired boots.

He looked a little worse for the wear, haggard and ragged from too many miles, too few friendly conversations, dogged and anxious but with that same stiff forehead, resolute in giving no foothold to the sinking, final despair that brings travelers down, lays them in the ditch, feeds them to the buzzards. One wonders how he can hold on, wonders at his crazy resolve. Were I in his place, a victim of the madness of manmade reincarnation, an alien to the circle of birth and death and lineage we all share, I don't know that I'd want to keep stalking the shoulder of the highway, putting one boot clumsily in front of the other day after night after day.

But there he was, nature's special child, heading north on I-35. No one stopped to pick him up, of course. No one liked the look of him. No one ever had. But nature loves him, perversely fascinated by this new thing under the sun, this unnatural selection in an otherwise featureless sea of survival of the fittest. Rain and wind caress his stitched, scarred skin as he sleeps each night, more alone than you can imagine, the loneliest sleep of all time.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Are you?

Later. Love.

A Proposal for Controlling the Gnat Population

The mad scientist wanted to isolate nature and nurture as variables, so he isolated the child away from all nurture and care from a very early age. The result, ultimately, was most unnatural. Where humans are concerned, nurture is nature.

There are many secrets to raising children successfully. I have discovered and/or imagined many of these over the years and I've written them down on various scraps of paper all of which I subsequently lost. Some of these secrets stay with you, in your memory, forever. Here are a few of them:

• Keep the child's head above water or the child will drown.

• Smile at them when you catch their eye.

• Only paint children with nontoxic, washable paints of bright and vibrant colors.

• If you throw a child into the air, wait to see if they come back down. If they do, catch them.

• Only sacrifice worthy children to the volcano.

• If they make you cry, try not to let them know. They don't need that kind of guilt. Also, quit being such a puss.

• When their unique individuality strays from interesting into disturbing, get them out into the real world to remind them how humans generally behave. It's easy to forget when you're isolated.

• Some people are your children and some people are the creeps and jerks with whom you drink and act a fool. Remember the difference and behave accordingly. Try to keep the groups separated.

• Everyone is a murderer or worse. If a stranger approaches your child, set them on fire (the stranger, not your child).

• Your child will stare at the sun. This is because it looks really familiar. This is because the souls of children come from the sun, where the absorb all the energy they're going to expend in their childhood before cooling into adulthood and collapsing into old age. Buy shades for them.

• If you do not hug and/or kiss your child in the morning, they will forget who they are and forget where they live and wander away and shrink and turn into gnats. That's where gnats come from. It's sad how many gnats there are in the world.

I have no idea how many of these are true. Better follow all of them just in case.

Hello, friends. How are you?

Later. Love.

The Simplest Explanation is Always the Most Plausible

I read a biography of Mark Twain once. "Why should I care about that?" you might be asking yourself. Well, it leads to a point I'm going to make below. Just keep reading. (Asshole.)

Mark Twain, it seems, was born during an appearance of Halley's Comet. The author made much of this because, as it turns out, Halley's Comet was also visiting when Mark Twain died. The author seemed to imply that some part of Mark Twain's soul, something inherent to Mark Twain, was brought to Earth by Halley's Comet and then taken back again when it returned. It's a neat, silly idea. Mark Twain, the comet man. I don't know.

The reason I mention this is because I want to draw a parallel. I have a similar relationship with storms. I feel more alive when storms are raging. I feel as though some portion of my soul lives in storms, howling all over the earth. It comes home to me and completes me while the storm is here, but it leaves with the storm and I am diminished once again, standing sheepishly in the mud, wet and insignificant as thunder rumbles faintly in the distance and then is gone.

The most obvious explanation for this is that I am Thor, the God of Thunder. I must have been banished here by Odin, my father, for some offense, my memory erased. One day, perhaps when this mortal body dies, my banishment will be over and I will find Mjöllnir, my hammer, and return to Bilskirnir, my home. There will be great rejoicing in Þrúðheimr and all of Asgard.

Feel free to come see me there. I won't forget you. I'll also visit you from time to time. Mostly in the Spring. You might want to keep an umbrella handy.

Hello, friends. How are you?

Later. Love.

When the Boatman Comes

Somewhere out there in the future there is a calm, endless sea. It goes all the way down, never hitting bottom. It stretches forever in every direction and never doubles back. It is flat and clean and cool and empty, except for you. You do not spend eternity there, floating alone in your own endless sea, staring up into the quiet, blue sky, but you float there for a long time. You float there until you have finished all the thoughts you had before. You float there until you have settled yourself on all the answers to all your questions, or accepted the lack thereof. You float there until everything that came before makes sense to you, until you remember all the important things and forget all the rest. When you reach that moment you will know. Some people laugh. Some people cry. Some people just smile. Some sigh.

Then the boatman comes. There's going to be a party, and you're invited.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Reflections on Water

I love the way the rain turns the parking lots and sidewalks and roads into poor mirrors, especially when it's still darkling outside in early morning because of the switch to Nightdark Saving Time. All the lights are reflected badly, ghost lights underground. They follow us around in the underworld, mocking our fuss of activity, our busy living. It's only an illusion, of course, a distraction for the mind desperate to think something, anything. The rain collects in all the lowest places, running always down and down and down, manifesting the underworld for all to see. Water is the window to the ghost world below. This is why we cry for the dead.

The weather factors heavily in my writing at times. It's one of my most reliable muses. The weather, after all, is always there. By the time a man is old, the weather is his best friend. An old man can sit for hours and commune with the weather, talk about the weather with other old men. It's one of the few things they have in common. "I remember the snow of '83." I remember it too. I loved that snow. I wonder where it is today?

Meanwhile the snow of '83 is crawling down the pavement outside, looking for the lowest spot, having found its way back to earth once again in the endless cycle of water. It's right outside the door, wondering what ever happened to you.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

The Party

We were fancy that day, all dressed up for a posh party. She wore her flowing dress of uncontainable happiness and I was in my heaven suit with the shiny shoes, dressed to the nines as people rarely say these days. Outside the afternoon in the city gardens was warm and moist, with thunderheads roiling themselves into a frenzy overhead. It looked like there might be a wedding brewing in the east plaza. There was rumbling and electricity and the threat of roses in the sultry air. "I wonder if they do," she pondered aloud. "They said they did," I replied, remembering vows I'd heard. It was May or September and birds waited nervously for what came next, crouched like tigers on trees and trellises and gazebos. Somewhere not far away a photographer was surely loading or unloading equipment into or from a minivan or hatchback car, uncomfortable from being dressed inappropriately for hauling lights and tripods and camera bags, dressed instead for a party to which he or she wasn't really invited, not like a normal person might be invited. We were dressed fancy too, having left the house that morning to go to a party. She couldn't remember where the party might be and I couldn't recall the occasion. We sat on the park bench and enjoyed our detachment from the wedding of strangers. We didn't even rise to seek shelter when the rain finally started. I took off the shiny shoes and squished my toes in the new mud. Her dress hugged her wetly and wonderfully as we talked and laughed. Somewhere people may have been wondering where we were, but surely we weren't the guests of honor. Surely the party would go on without us. The party always goes on, after all.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

The Trees of Blackbird Earth

There was a time when I suspected that the universe was really just a Beatles song. I have since learned the truth. [Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.] I have since learned the truth.

The silhouettes of blackbirds gather in the sticky leaflessness of the sapling outside in front of the windy horizon sky. They puff up in the cold and hunker in the way that birds hunker in the buffeting winds. Were I a blackbird perched in a windy wintry tree, I'd sing the long ancient birdsong of spring, just to remind myself. Real blackbirds rarely sing songs, however. They only complain loudly, offended by the affront of a world run by lesser animals. The clouds move by behind them impossibly slow in the frantic wind, massive barges carrying rain somewhere else, far away. Blackbirds do not flit, they lumber from tree to tree, always looking for that perfect perch from which to scream their disdain at the world. You would never consider kissing a blackbird full on the beak. They have no truck with us, and they do not like us in that way. Much though I feel for their plight, out there in the blustery wind, I refuse the demands of the blackbirds. I will not surrender to their mastery, giving them the world we won with the might of our opposable thumb. Let them oppose our thumbs if they wish, we'll win in the end. We'll not sit, complaining, in the trees of Blackbird Earth.

The trees of Blackbird Earth. [Yeah, baby.] The trees of Blackbird Earth.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Laudable, Reachable, Laughable or Remarkable

I like to keep my hands empty so I can clap or grasp, in case something is laudable or reachable. I like to keep my mouth empty so I can laugh or remark, in case something is laughable or remarkable. "Emptiness," I often explain to my disciples, "is potential. There is no potential in satiation." "But surely," some disciple might ask, "a satiation of one kind prepares us for potential of another kind?" I always send my disciples away eventually. Follow me or don't follow me, but don't question the things I say. I'm just making this stuff up. I refuse to defend myself.

I always keep money and keys in my front, right pocket. I keep my wallet in my back right. My office key card and cell phone are in my left front pocket. My back, left pocket, however, is always empty. Everything I've ever placed in there has been lost, abandoned or forgotten. That's why I call that pocket my "Left Behind."

It's a bright and sunny day, dear friends, but don't be fooled. Here in my city it's cold enough to paralyze you, shocked and frozen in the biting wind. You will roll up into a ball like an armadillo and scream silently until Hill Giants come to pluck you up, carry you to their caves, sit you by the fire, warm you with the theurgy of some arcane draught, and tell you stories of times long past. Their laugh, that of the Hill Giants, is like healing to the human soul. Always thank them for their kindness. Always call them friend. Always look them in the eye. They will save us all from this fell winter. Then they'll carry us back to our cars so we can do our various errands.

I always leave the last paragraph empty so it can say whatever you need it to say to you, in case one of you is laudable or reachable or laughable or remarkable.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Hobglobins. And meta-blogging. And also hobgoblins. And Susan and me in the post scriptum.

If you're going to hunt for hobgoblins hiding in your house - and you know you will eventually - make sure you wear a felt, three-pointed hat with a feather in the back. These are not at all easy to find in stores, but you really need one. Trust me. You can always make your own. Here's how: Get felt and other hat ingredients. Form them into a three-pointed hat, fastening everything together with something. Stick a feather in the back. Also it's important to know this: There is nothing a hobgoblin fears more than loneliness. Sad, isn't it? There's really no way to use this against them unless you are a monster. Here's another important point: Don't be a monster.

Lately I've been posting a lot about time and the end of the world. Also there have been great sweeping themes of personal loss and sadness. Why? I don't know. These are just the things on my mind. I wrote once about the danger of treating sadness as an object, something to be examined in the abstract, to be dabbled with as though it were not highly contagious. Why do I bring that up? I don't know. Why not? It's my blog. I can bring up whatever I want.

Today I'm talking directly to you, the reader. I'm not hiding behind a story or some dumb joke. It's just you and me. Here we are, in the third paragraph of the post together. Are you enjoying it? Would you rather I just told you a story? Is this what they call meta-blogging? Who are they, anyway?

I abandoned that paragraph. This paragraph serves as an awkwardly self-aware segue into the next one, in which I hope to bring the post to a close, tying it all together. Here goes.

There are no hobgoblins in your house. There are no hobgoblins at all. There is only the fear of being alone in the world, the fear that this is all there is. Really, though, this is quite a lot. If there were more to life then life would burst at the seams. Hobgoblins would pour out and infest our houses. No one wants that, do they? Not with the dearth of three-pointed hat retailers.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

P. S. - Here's a picture of my wife, Susan. She's more beautiful than I deserve, way out of my league. Seriously, look at me. (I'm the one on the right.) Thanks for stopping by.

End of the Line

The trees, they say, must see the forest for themselves. This is difficult, because they have no eyes. And you cannot describe the forest to them, because they have no ears. And so, though you would volunteer your services to them in your empathy, it is to no avail. The trees must see the forest for themselves. I would expect this to be plain to you at this point, but you are too distracted by cares and concerns to perceive the simple truth: You cannot see the forest for the trees.

When the end of the world came all the souls from the beginning of time had to stand in a long line, waiting to discover their personal doom. Somewhere, far up at the head of the line, some system or another was rewarding or punishing souls according to their merits or some such. It wasn't at all clear from the back of the line what was happening. We all just knew, somehow, that we had to wait in line for fate.

It took a long time. It took a really, really, long time. The line stretched off for miles over roads, across fields, over mountains, across bridges, along rivers, down into valleys and back up and out again, as far as the eye could see and farther still. We waited in that line for years. We didn't eat. Sometimes we talked to the people in the line ahead of us or behind us. We didn't drink. Sometimes we sat down in place, scooting along whenever the line moved. We didn't sleep. We were not hungry or cold or afraid or even bored. We just moved slowly along in line toward the end of the world and whatever came after. We were souls, all together in this line, at the end of the world.

Now it's been almost three hundred and fifty years, and we're still in this line. Are we getting near the front? I have no idea. Neither does the girl in front of me. Nor the man behind. It's a lovely day. We're atop a mountain now, looking down to where the line passes into the shadows of the valley below. None of us question, though you might think we should, whether perhaps the line never ends. It ends. And then destiny.

Is this what I expected? Yes. Yes, I suppose it is.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.