Acting Cruelly

"When you've never done a thing before, and that thing is not simply and clearly right or wrong, you frequently do not know if it is a cruel thing. You just go ahead and do it. Maybe later you'll be able to determine whether you've acted cruelly...too late of course, but at least you'll know."
--Russel Banks

Gray

The Autumn rains are beginning to set in. A thick solemn gray permeates the sky, the air, and the deepest thoughts and feelings of the local inhabitants. Winter will be upon us soon, along with its cold, silent stillness--so reminiscent of death. It's the weather of the recluse; grave and life-wary as the hermit's soul.

Stir Crazy

I've been a virtual shut-in for the last two and a half weeks--only getting out when somebody with a car and a few free hours to kill happens to drop by. For a man with few friends (and making less everyday), this doesn't occur very often. I think my walls may actually be growing smaller...next time I go out I should get a tape-measure, then I can be sure. The air in my apartment is quickly growing stale and inhospitable to the fragile requirements of human lungs. And then to top everything off, I think someone keeps coming in at night while I'm sleeping, and moving everything into hard to reach locations so they can sit around laughing at me...they must have installed a camera while I was under the influence of their damnable anesthetic. Well, I'll show them. Tonight I'm going to stay up all night, sitting, waiting for them in the dark. Just me, my bottle of scotch, and Mr. 357...then we'll see who's laughing.

From the Land of Cannibals

"In solitude the solitary man consumes himself, in the crowd the crowd consumes him. Now choose." --Friedrich Nietzsche

Quick Update

For anyone who cares, concerning my last post, I will be going in for surgery on my ankle on Wednesday to get two screws put in. Also, walking on crutches wouldn't be nearly so bad if it weren't for the fact that the foot I'm putting all my weight on is also broken. Oh well, God may have won this battle, but the war is far from over.

Beware of God

In a recent post I told a short story which ended with me hitting God in the face with a stick. It seems God did not find the story nearly as funny as I did, and so on Sunday morning (appropriately enough), he took his revenge. Instead of simply hitting me back in the face with a stick, however, he decided to one-up me by running over both of my legs with a Dodge Ram while I slept--breaking my right ankle and my left foot at the same time. I'll be going in for surgery on the ankle sometime early next week. Moral of the story: always remember to let sleeping Gods lie.

Insomnia

Insomnia is proof that God does exist, and that he despises you with a passion only known to fresh lovers, and the kind of psychopath who would torture a man to find out whether or not he actually believes in you (see Job; chapters 1 through 42). There's absolutely nothing worse than laying awake all night, knowing that you have to wake up before the sun does, but no matter how hard you try, you can't force yourself to sleep. Every nerve is on fire, and your thoughts linger among fields of self- doubt, self-hatred, and deep-seated childhood fears that never quite leave you alone. You lay down in your bed, close your eyes, and prepare for that momentary oblivion that you look forward to all day long when, to your utter dismay, you find that your mind is suddenly full of all the thoughts and memories that you would rather just let die.

So you turn on the t.v., pour yourself a drink, and prepare yourself for another long, lonely night of hell's most perfect torture. After all, who needs eternal damnation, when you've got insomnia?

Is God Really Dead?

It had been another excruciatingly long and boring holiday--I spent the whole day either watching t.v. or surfing the net. So around eight o clock I decided to go ahead and take a nice evening ambulation to the park. The weather was exquisite, and there was a fine sunset to accompany my rambling thoughts. I was strolling down the path as it meandered in and out of the coves of trees that spotted the park, when I came across what looked like some sleeping transient. By this time the light was beginning to fade out, and so I leaned in to get a better look. That's when I noticed something strange about this drunken rabble. To begin with, he had a long white beard reaching down to the middle of his chest (note--this in itself is not that exceptionally odd, as many of our city's homeless have this distinction, as well as the distinction of being passed out drunk in the park), but what made this fellow truly remarkable was the flowing white robes that seemed to illuminate the space around him, along with the exceptionally wrathful look of his furrowed brow. By God! It was God!

I stood utterly still for several seconds, holding my breath, and just listening. I couldn't tell whether or not he was breathing, or what exactly not breathing would imply. Does God breathe? There was an empty bottle still occupying his half-clutched fist. Was he just sleeping one off? Or could it be...is it possible...was God actually dead? I searched the ground all around me, and found an appropriately sized stick. "Only one way to find out," I thought. Backing away to what seemed a safe distance, I pointed the stick at his ribs and gave a slight poke. Nothing. I steadied myself and again gave a jab, this time a little harder than the first. Still nothing. "Alright," I thought. "If this doesn't work then I'll know for certain he's dead." With that thought running through my head, I raised the stick high above my head, and then with all the force and precision of an executioner, I brought the stick down right across the bridge of his nose.

God shot straight up, and let fly a string of obscenities that hardly seemed appropriate coming from the mouth of the creator of the universe. As his mighty wrath came showering down upon me, I comforted myself with the knowledge that Nietzsche was wrong: God wasn't dead, he was just piss drunk.