subtle augur

I write a lot about fire.  It's a recurring theme in my poetry, plays, and stories.  When I ask myself why, unbidden, the answer floats up from my subconscious.  Maybe I'm in hell.

But probably not.  That would be a very easy answer, so I reject it.

Fire is potent, but carries a tenderness.  It can be as quiet or as loud as you need it to be.  Fire is, above all, useful.  Hell should never be so warm, I think.

It's terrifying, yes.  But all pain is terrifying.  Fire is not special for this.

***

I want to fly.  I've always wanted to, and I've sought to sate that desire with various games throughout my life.  As a very young child, my dream was to grow up to be a pilot, though it grew to seem a less appealing career choice every year.  But still, to look up at a plane is a very special thing for me.

***

At times, the mind clears, and all is lucid.  A humility overtakes you, and you recognize your limitations, and forgive yourself.

***

I live a life of high adventure, and emotional exorbitance, and I confess I have no choice.

***

Yesterday I described myself as strong, and I am.
But there are certain problems that no kind of strength can solve.
They will tell you that others cannot make you feel a certain way,
But it's a question of how you define yourself in relation.
Without that change in definition, without a breach of empathy,
You can never hope to reclaim that agency they promised.
And if you are unwilling or unable to change it,
If you are overly habituated, or too afraid, or simply very much in love,
Then they will one day speak of you as possessing a sort of lonesome virtue,
(As long as you are not dead)
And still, and stubborn, not to perceive, nor to cause anything in them,
You will languish in the feelings that are given you.
You are a slave, you are not yourself.
You are they and theirs, and a rainbow of hot sorrows rises, steam from a grate,
The skin burns, but you do not pull away,
And there is no benefit.

Yesterday I described myself as brave, and I was.

light in dark corners

The month is almost done.

It was a great September.  A span of days that really ran the gamut of the emotional experience for me.  My daughter learned to crawl, and my spirit did, too.

I experienced great triumphs, and hardly any failures.  I worked hard, stretched myself, and became a buoy for the world.  I want to be more than that, but it's a start.

I am dependable, healthy, intelligent, friendly, funny, thoughtful, brave, and energetic.  I have my flaws, but I try not to let them get in the way of making other people happy.  I think I'm pretty successful in that.

I have many, many wonderful friends, and the number grows by the week.  I've reforged bonds and rediscovered beauties long forgotten, and discovered some brand new ones as well.  I've taken chances, and profited from it.  I have tried, always, to be kinder.

I've also suffered.  Quietly, in dark corners, where I don't need to risk concerning anyone.  I have always been one to suffer alone.  But there is less reason to suffer every day.

Three and a half years ago, when I started this blog armed with nothing but a dream, I could not foresee this future.  Since that time, the future has become like an open book, and things have gone according to plan.  Understanding has given way to compassion.  Careful study has been replaced with abundant love.  Now I cross my legs and meditate easily, and the answers wait for me.

A human being is a small room within a large one.

It's late.  Let's put it to bed.  The world is quiet, soaked in rain, and looking in at my warm room, where my wife has pulled a blanket over her lap, and ages gracefully.

There is a difference between remembering that you felt something, and remembering how you felt it.  I am cursed forever with the latter, and all the pain and joy that go along.

I must remember to stand tall.

The month goes its way, a new one rolls in.  An arbitrary distinction, and a critically important one, like a border, like a shadow, like a name.  They change sometimes without us even realizing it, but suddenly we find a new place, a new time, a new person.

Write down what you want to achieve, then do it.  That's been my secret, all this time.  And on the way, remember to be kind.

polar silence

On the 3rd of the Month of Mars (now Foon-Devvit):

Mayday and godspeed you to our site.  We arrived and set up camp on 9 November in all good health, not considering the six of us who threw themselves into the icy ocean rather than disembark the ship.  The remaining four and I watched the flat-mouthed sailors stare while the ship took them home.  They are godly men, sailors, and did not like the looks of we who had so turned away from Him.

The instruments are all in perfect working order.  There remains ample fuel for the heaters.  Our food store still overflows with rations, barely touched in the presence of unlimited, delectable penguin meat.  But we are running low on truth.

Dr. Arkani was the first to go through her supply, frivolously sharing tales of her childhood adventures in the Taurus mountains.  Her cheerful relation of the events of her past easily segued into meatier discussions of adolescence and early adulthood, which we devoured greedily.  Over the first few days of the expedition, she grew paler and more withdrawn as she started to realize she was running out of facts to be honest about.  And we, beady-eyed vultures that we are, drew them from her ever more strongly.

Within two weeks she was a husk.  Her hollow eyes failed to track our movements about the camp, and her strawberry hair grayed and frizzed in the terrible, empty cold.  It got to the point that she would open her mouth, and we would instinctively turn away.  Nothing good could come out of it.

We buried her a few days later, though it took Medjeye hours to find a spot that was permafrost and not just another ice sheet.  The backhoe put her under, and we pulled our greatcoats tighter, and we wondered how long we could sustain ourselves with the little morsels she'd shared at the end.  She had owned a dachshund once, and carried it when it fell ill.

It was Bresley who uncovered the green stone a few days later, when he went to check the gas in the backhoe.  There, in the middle of our camp, a stone had been placed.  He carried it to my desk, and we gathered around to examine it.  We found we could all read our own names in it, but no one else's.  It is still in my cabin.  I leave it to you.

The next month was a blur of sullen, scientific endeavour.  The war had produced so many new ways to sense things, and we actively engaged them all in seeking to understand the ice.  The cook, Ms. Maxwell, swore up and down that something was out there, watching us from the glacial floes.  She even came to believe it was waiting for us.  She was a madwoman, and I never saw anything.

Bresley was the next to crack.  Over breakfast one morning, he began to babble, and soon become like a spigot with the top knocked off.  Endless streams of memory flowed out of him, logorrhea in full swing.  I held him down, and Medjeye attempted to choke some sense into him, but Bresley continued to tell us about his Christmas memories even as he collapsed into unconsciousness.

I have never seen a partially asphyxiated man attempt to talk in his sleep.  Yet talk he did, and before long, we could not help but listen.  The day's work was forgotten as we sat a silent vigil in the mess tent, taking in his every word.  We grew warm, and removed our coats, as he grew colder.

He expired around dinner time, having spoken, in Medjeye's estimate, some two-hundred-thousand words about his life.  Not a single one of us was hungry, and we retired to our cabins with fond thoughts of wintry adventures in Dorset.

We buried him alongside Dr. Arkani.  We were sad to lose him, but we stood in the December sun and felt like we had come back to life.

The three of us discussed our plan.  It would not make sense to keep things bottled in.  One would break, as Bresley had done, and die.  Instead, on Ms. Maxwell's suggestion, we agreed to take turns sharing ourselves, one at a time, so all might be sustained.

It started out well.  I explained all about the years I spent working a trader between New Zealand and French Indochina.  Medjeye spoke, with a detached fury, of a wife he'd tried to forget, of the prison camps where he'd learned to make crepes.  Ms. Maxwell detailed her relationship with her high school history teacher, and how it had all gone wrong from there.

We were mistaken.  The strength and heat we'd felt as Bresley spilled his guts was nowhere to be found.  Instead, a sharp pain traced its way across each of our midsections whenever it was our turn to speak.  You give more of yourself than you receive, you know.  Remember that, for our sakes.

My eyes met Medjeye's, and we shook our heads, and shut our mouths.  But Ms. Maxwell could not stop talking.  We tried to shout her down, but she became hysterical, demanding that we allow her to go home.  She finally shut herself in her cabin, and we listened by the door until we were satisfied that she was quiet, but breathing.

The next morning was one of fierce hunger.  The mess stood empty, and I opened Ms. Maxwell's tent with some fear.  It was justified.  She had traced on the walls, in her own blood, a story about her history teacher, and the baby they might have had together.  She had told a story, but it was a supposition, and never true.  She sat at the foot of her bed, hugging her knees, sobbing to herself.

I bashed her skull open with a lantern, bashed until her damnable head full of lies was scattered all over the floor.  Medjeye came charging in, pistol in hand, but made no move to stop me when he saw what she had done.  Instead, he pocketed the gun and set to scrubbing the bloody deceptions from the wall.

She should have known better.  There was no room for stories here.

Our steady defense of the truth strengthened us, and Medjeye and I worked on in silence for the next several months, taking our careful measurements and staying out of each others' way.  Without Ms. Maxwell to do the cooking, we ate mostly raw penguin meat.  It smells awful, but tastes like savory, buttered steak.  Our teeth were stained red from the diet, and we stank of bird shit, but we have been satisfied.

This arrangement is over.  Last night, as I was reading my name in the green stone, Medjeye came upon me, a fiendish glint in his eye.  I stood, and made to give him my hand, but he spoke to me.  He spoke in his native tongue, and I am not a superstitious man, but his words frightened me.  There was truth in them, even if I couldn't understand, and the green stone gleamed.

His words were as angry as they were true, and when he was done with his tirade, white eyes and red teeth shining, I ran for it.  He grasped at me as I dashed past him, his clawlike grip tearing away my greatcoat, and I emerged into the frozen night with an awful gasp.  My lungs almost refused to function against the oppressive weight of that terrible cold.

I looked for some means of salvation, but there was none.  He always kept the only gun on his person.  There was no vehicle that could carry me safely among the floes, and without my coat, I would freeze within the hour.

I sprinted into the darkened mess tent, hid behind a heater, and waited for him to find me.

He never came.  The next morning, after a night spent uncomfortably wedged between cooking apparatus, I crept back to my cabin.  He stood there, frozen in place, in the pose he had adopted as he turned to snatch me.  His tongue was extended halfway out his mouth, and as I watched, it cracked and fell to the ground, shattering.

I knew, then.  It was not his words that had done him in.  He blamed me for our situation, and who could say he was wrong?  But his actions carried more truth than words ever could.  The green stone shone brightly in my quiet little cabin.  Perhaps it still does.

I have built a raft from tables and bags of flour.  I will take with me the little radio, the pistol, some rope, and enough food and water to last a few weeks.  I do not expect any to hear me, as we are far from the world.

I have dropped four such messages in bottles, in the hopes that one may be found, and someone may be warned off, before our site is rediscovered.  Beware the green stone.  Destroy it without speaking, before you read your name in it, before you learn the new ones, or the old.

Sincerely,
R. P. Mogger, Commander, Operation Tabarin
Captain, British Antarctic Survey
1944

sad food

A friend at work told me that she's made a few changes to her diet recently, and is finding herself filled with a great deal more energy in the evenings than she used to have.  Those changes are only really in her lunch habits, which she changed to include a fair few more complex carbohydrates (three-bean chili was today's dish, for instance).  Suddenly, she finds herself much more awake into the evening, much more energetic and engaged, she reports.  It's like she's a different person from this tiny change alone.

This is alarming to consider.  It makes me wonder how much of our feelings are us, and how much are simply the chemical reactions occurring in our bloodstreams.  If you can be changed so fundamentally by making a different choice for lunch, what are you?  Are you just what you eat?

It seems it must simply be a thin fabric of personality and feeling, easily broken and easily replaced, over a chunk of memory and habit.  But memory, too, is inconstant, and sometimes seems rather randomly accessible.  At least habit is solid.  Habit is concrete.  Habit, on the margins, is people.

I generally eat a similar diet every day, and the only thing that really alters my mood therefore is how much water I remember to drink.  Enough, and I'm my usually ecstatic, bubbly self.  An insufficient amount, and my mood can become very dour indeed.

Do you think about the effects of the food you eat on your psyche?  Do you wonder at your true nature as you snack on a bagel?  Do the competing demands of your mind and body work together to serve you, or are you their servant?

There is no escape from it.  We are bound to the realities of chemistry.  Our choices can only ever be incremental, and must first seek approval from those chemical bonds.  But there is a way out, with discipline, and common sense, and mutual support.  If that's what you are.

ages

Some men retreat at the coming of age;

Some embrace the part, for all the world’s a stage.

Younger men quail at the thought of surrender,

Fixed on a dream and the words, “now or never.”

But we happy few know the middle way’s best,

To thine own self be true, then give it a rest;

Hang up the costumes, search for a job,

Bid farewell to adventure, and swallow a sob.

Look to the west, and feel your heart harden,

Then tighten your belt and tend to your garden.

Great expectations are fine in the youth,

But bleak are the houses of Beauty and Truth.

So set aside sunshine and sweet puppy love,

Take wing as a raven instead of a dove.

And take heart in the fact that still, not all is lost.

For always some good thing comes along with a cost.

The days may grow cold, the nights may grow darker,

But at least you’re in love with Dorothy Parker.

amends

Tonight, my blog post is interactive.

I made Amends.

the honest price

Once a week, I get together with some friends and play a stirring round of Dungeons & Dragons.  Let me relate to you the latest tale.

It was a bright spring morning outside Rabanastre, the capital of the Kingdom of Dalmasca.  My character, L'ppy the Bard, a rabbit girl who could play a mean ukulele, had just embarked on the grandest adventure of her short leporid life.

L'ppy

L'ppy was a cheerful, boisterous girl, fond of a good insult no matter who was the target.  She prized honesty above all else, though she always had a weakness for handsome men.  She was on a personal quest to recover her family's prized ocarina, which had been stolen by some nefarious rascal.  In the meantime, she had made a few friends, and together they agreed to adventure together, earning gold, gaining strength, and coming to understand the meaning of teamwork.

As they set off into the wilderness in search of a killer tomato, something terrible happened.

Tomato

In the distance, L'ppy and her friends spotted a saurian, a great dinosaur of the plains.  Her Seeq companion, Vin the Virtuous, recognized a potential threat to his status as the most frightening, overmuscled powerhouse in the land, and attacked.

Vin

L'ppy and her friends watched in horror as the saurian ripped into Vin, but the proud Seeq refused to back down.  He fought back valiantly, but L'ppy could see that he stood little chance on his own.  She didn't feel like she could do much to help against a 20-foot-tall lizard with teeth as long as her arm, but she couldn't leave her friend to die.  At the very least, she might be able to pull him away with all the speed her long legs could muster.

She approached the terrible lizard, and arrived just in time to see Vin ripped in two by its awful mandibles.  She tried to retreat, but realized her mistake too late, as its powerful tail swept her feet out from under her.  Before she could rise, the beast was upon her, tearing her body apart in one fell bite.  Her friends watched from a safe distance, dismayed but not surprised.  They had warned her against trying to help, and they were right, but it was too late for L'ppy.

My next character was Felbroz the Barbarian, a Moogle from the good country.

Felbroz (Kupo!)

Felbroz was a furious fellow, often given to collapsing into apoplectic rages the moment it seemed things might not go his way.  He was famed among the country people for having stood up to a brutal local lord in defense of his people, but he had a tendency to act without thinking, and it got him into trouble more often than not.  In spite of his pretensions to justice, deep down he believed that the only real measure of someone's character was his strength.  He dreamed of protecting his homeland, but constantly felt the call of destiny pulling him away, as though he were meant for greater things.  Because of this, he had trouble staying in one place for very long, and his migratory lifestyle prevented him from forming many meaningful social bonds or connections.  His own people came to view him as a stranger.

He arrived in Rabanastre filled with determination to find his own way, and soon fell in with L'ppy's earnest companions, now looking for a new friend to journey with them.  Although they found Felbroz's gruff demeanor off-putting, he soon became a treasured member of the team, and they went on several successful quests together.  Felbroz never lost sight of his goal, though, and reached out to more and more Moogles on the way, hoping to finally understand where he'd come from.

On the way back from a dangerous quest, however, the party once again came face to face with a saurian.  Felbroz, who'd heard the tale of Vin and L'ppy, knew better than to attack.  However, coming from a background where communing with nature was considered one of the highest virtues, he believed he might have the gumption to soothe the savage beast.

Felbroz approached the dinosaur calmly, with some trepidation, but a lot of belief in himself.  He had been trained from an early age to calm animals, and the size shouldn't matter to someone of his great personal charm.  When the creature noticed him, it paused, and he began to do an adorable little dance with the intent of befriending it.

The saurian watched quizzically for a few moments.  When the dance finished, it tilted its head, clearly confused.  Felbroz drew himself up to his full height (3 feet, 2 inches), took a deep breath, and started dancing again, with all his heart this time.

The saurian roared, and charged him.  It was over in seconds.  The companions, watching once more, sighed and shook their heads.  It needn't have ended that way.  It's not smart to mess with saurians, no matter your intentions.  Wild animals are unpredictable.

And that's how I lost two characters in very short order.  I regret nothing.  I played truly to myself, and to them.