Backwards to the Age of Dinosaurs!

The tribe of primitive homo-erectus awoke to a chilly day.  What was the temperature?  These men, women, and children did not know, because temperature was beyond their primitive comprehension.  They had a language of sorts, a combination of primitive words and gestures that only made sense to that particular tribe.  The women huddled with the children in a cave, next to the warmth of the fire, and the men went off to hunt.  Their target was a long extinct grazer with horns and hooves.  Kao, the elder of the tribe, at age 31, led the hunt.  The men followed the trail, smelled the dung, and quietly came across a herd.  

Lomma, the mother of the tribe, left the cave to look for berries.  After a long search, she could not find any.  Her empty skull bucket being a testament to that fact.  She was worried about the beating she would receive if the meat from the days hunt was not garnished with a plant of sorts.  The tribe have come to believe fiercely that animals were to be eaten with a plant.  If not, terrible things might happen to them.  In fact they might not eat that night, if the hunt was successful or not.  She decided to search a little farther than what she was comfortable.  When she was just about to give up, she found mushrooms at the base of a tree.  They were tantalizing, although they were not the familiar to her.

Kao and the men approached the cave.  With them they carried the fresh kill, it will last them a week.  It came at a price though, they had lost TooToo.  As the biggest hunter, TooToo was always a little brash during the hunt.  When the animal was cornered, TooToo surged ahead of Kao to deliver the killing blow but was met with a thorough gorging from the animals horns.  They cut off TooToo's head to bring back to his family.  Kao was wondering if the tribe would ever survive once he was gone.  The young were big but not bright.  TooToo's mother wasn't too bright herself, he was wondering if there was a connection.  

Lomma had the mushrooms in her skull bucket when the men arrived.  She saw that they had her son's head with them.  She was not saddened for she had not evolved that emotion yet.  But she did know it was just a matter of time before TooToo got his.  He, like her other children, was gunning for top hunter.  But for some reason they kept getting killed.  When they gave his head to her, she noted how big it was.  It would make a good skull bucket.

The feast that night was comforting.  The tribe was half starving before the hunt, but now, all appetites were satiated.  Now came time for her mushrooms.  She passed the skull bucket around.  Kao gave Lomma a look of suspicion when he saw the mushrooms.  She urged him to eat.  He grabbed one as did all the tribes people.  It was tasty.  A while later, everybody was in good spirits.  Something magical was happening.  What it was they interpreted as normal, what the great elk lord was giving them,  as lights and patterns bounced all around them.  No one thought about the mushrooms, or their effects, their brains were to primitive to make the connection.  

Somehow, the cave got warm.  Even away from the fire.  Kao, thought he should fuck Lomma, to give her another child.  As the elder, he felt responsible for her loss.  Little did he know that he was one of the few who felt guilt amongst the tribe.  Maybe tomorrow, he thought in his own simple terms.  He looked over at her slightly sagging breasts and thighs.  Maybe tomorrow.  Kao fell asleep.

"Kao!"

Lomma was shouting.  Pogo, the brains of the tribe, shook Kao awake.  Kao looked at Pogo who pushed him towards Lomma.  

"What?", he shouted.

Lomma points to TooToo's head.  Kao inspects.  No, he could not believe his eyes.  TooToo's head was looking around and fully alert.  Lomma screamed.  Kao, although ready to flee, was trying to think what to make of it.  He pushed Lomma aside and waved his hand infront of TooToo's head.  TooToo's eyes followed his gesture.  Kao was puzzled.  

"TooToo?"

TooToo made eye contact.  That made Kao flinch.  He threw a fur blanket over his head and looked around.  Everybody was looking at him.  Waiting on what he did.  He looked back and shrugged his shoulders.  The shrugged shoulders being the most ancient prehistoric gesture to symbolize befuddlement.  He sat as if the weight of the world was too much for his elderly shoulders.  

He reached under the fur blanket and grabbed TooToo's head.  Everyone gasped.  He held it forth.  TooToo's eyes were full of fear.  Fear unlike any they had seen before.  Kao turned the head and faced it.  Eyes connected, then he turned it towards the fire and then back.  TooToo looked unsure at first but then agreeable.  Kao tossed TooToo's head into the fire.  Lomma screamed and reached to grab it.  Kao held her back.  They watched in silence as TooToo's head burned.  

Then a burst of light appeared and there was another cave exit.  But there was warmth on the other side.  The tribe entered, and found themselves in a tropical paradise.  But something was wrong.  The insects were much larger.  And they saw some strange animals run by.  TooToo came out from behind some bushes.  He jumped up and down, looking at his new body and smiling.  The elk spirit had really come through this time, Kao thought with astonishment.  Lomma started to run to her fifth child.  But she stopped in her tracks.  TooToo followed her eyes up to a gigantic beast next to him.  The last thing he saw.  The beast, the largest any of the tribesmen had ever seen by far, swiftly bit TooToo's head off of his new body.  

And thus, the cavemen found themselves trapped in the age of dinosaurs.

Millions of years later.  Sarah Pool, the foremost creationist scientist of the 21st century, makes a startling discovery.  Dinosaur bones with the bones of homo-erectus inside their bellies.  The world would never be the same.  Or more the same than ever.  One way or the other.  

the vast cold lonely end

I don't see

our universe.

matter here and there.

extraordinary things.

just another star

our sun.

What are the odds of

self replicating?

becoming aware 

of the finite and the infinite?

and feeling small

better that than nothing.

if there is a nothing,

it is surely at the end.

but particles and energy

being

here 

and somewhere else

magic or science?

absurd

absolutely

but isn't that nature?

The loop.

I wake up.

There is a bomb in my house.

It is being planted by

a familiar shadow of a human.

It had chased me in my dreams.

And I had chased it for a long time.

I thought I had killed him.

He had the ability to read minds.

I guess that is easy for him.

He dwells in my head.

"Wake up, Robert.", I tell my brother.

"Leave me alone."

"There is a bomb in the house."

"Leave me be.  I am tired."

He does not believe me.

A thousand times I've been a liar in this charade.

I am not sure if I believe myself.

Maybe I've just gone crazy.

But would a crazy person know

when they have gone crazy?

Because it is my brother,

I try.  Its a timeless ritual.

"Get the fuck out"

"No, you get the fuck out."

I go to deactivate the bomb.

How?  No clue.  

It is in the attic.

How do I know?

I've seen the shadow man,

turn 2 dimensional,

and slip through the ceiling cracks.

In my dream.  Which was within this dream.

Which is inside another dream.

I stand on stacked chairs and push

against the attic door.  It won't budge.

There is something blocking it.

I wake up.

My brother is asleep in his room.

"Wake up!"

"No, you wake up!"

I scramble to disarm the bomb, 

but its different this time.  

Why the same a thousand times,

but different this time?

I am out of my routine.

My brother looks to see what I am doing.

I stack chairs,

something is blocking the attic door.

I hear footsteps up there.

I push with all of my might.

It moves a enough 

so I could insert my fingers.

The chairs fall from beneath me.

As I hang, the shadowy man

stomps on my fingers.

I awake.

My brother is asleep in his room.

I tell him there is a bomb 

in the house.

He looks at me. With no response.

I tell him to leave.

He asks me where I am going?

"To deactivate the bomb."

"What bomb?"

"An intruder is in the attic with a bomb?"

We stack chairs.

I tell him the attic is blocked.

"How do you know?"

"I've done this before."

We hear footsteps above us.

I hurry the pace.

My brother doesn't move.

I shake him. I ask.

"Are you okay?"

"What is going on here?"

I awake.

My brother is awake next door.

"What is going on?"

"I don't know.  Robert?"

"What."

"I'm not sure if you are you."

"What do you mean?"

"This is my dream."

"Is it?"

"Yeah."

I didn't care about what was real.

I was glad he was there with me.

I was alone for a long time.

Why would I want him 

to circle in this endless loop.

To understand my plight.

Footsteps thudded across the attic.

My brother looked at the ceiling and looked

at me.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

I awake.

My brother meets me in the hall.

I say, "we got to stop the bomb!"

"The what?"

"Listen, he has a bomb! And you heard

him walking up there.  We got to stop him!"

"Why?"

"I don't know. We can't waste time!"

I really did not know.  I did not know

why my brother asked me these questions.

Why don't we just leave?

Why was my brother, who my mind created,

questioning my actions?

Maybe because I've stopped questioning my actions.

I was on auto-pilot.  

And hatred. 

That shadow man stole my mind.

And that is too much power over me.

To know my thoughts.

My brother spoke.

"I don't know why, but you are right."

"Right about what?"

"That we must destroy that..."

He points towards the ceiling.

"...thing."

Hush hush

don't tell him

that we are falling for the trap.

I stack boxes  of nachos

high towards the ceiling.

"Grab the chairs, it would be quicker."

"No, they are too rickety."

"Nachos."

My brother climbs before me.

"We need a crowbar."

He pounds the the attic door 

using his shoulders

in a massive squatting motion.

The door budges slightly.

A small crack appears

where the darkness inside attic

stared at us.

I climbed to where he was.

We both hit the door.

With our combined power,

shattering the wood panel.

The growling reverberates our hearts.

I awake.

My brother meets me in the hall.

"We need to approach from another angle."

My brother has great ideas!

"Lets go outside and get the ladder."

"We will take a sledge hammer to the roof."

It is cloudy, a storm is brewing.

I pound the roof with the sledgehammer.

Shingles fly.  I keep hitting.

A hole breaks.  My brother jumps in.

I hear him scream.  

I jump in.

I awake.

My brother meets me in the hall.

I say we must stop the bomb.

"Why don't we just leave?" says my brother.

"I thought you were with me?"

"I am."

I understand.  We are stuck in a loop.

We exit our house.

The house no longer had a right angle

or an up and down.

We ran down to the corner before

looking back at the house.

Lightning flashed in the distance.

Standing on the roof is the shadow man.

He is not human.

He looks at me and smiles.

He enjoys my fear.

Asshole knows my mind.

How I think.

The bomb explodes.

Blue fire exploded towards 

the stormy sky.

All the neighbors came out and 

watched our house burn.

Curiosity?

The distant lightning

descended upon us.

We continued to watch

our shelter, fall apart.

A lightning bolt zapped a neighbor.

The boom shook my heart

and sent the neighbors running.

I took shelter under a covered porch.

Where was my brother?

I saw him in the street

where I left him.

I call out.

But he couldn't hear me.

Lightning is striking all around.

I covered my ears and turned away.

What is going on?

Its seems as if the universe

had been cracked open.

I am looking at my house.

My brother is next to me.

As we watch the shadow man

destroy our house.

Blue fire shot into the stormy sky.

The neighbors come out to have a look.

I tell my brother,

"When the lightning comes, we are running."

He looks at me and nods.

Then the lightning came.

We run.

He asks,

"What is the point? When we are 

only going to end up,

where we started."

"What is the point?", I agree.

"Why bother.  There is no one 

here worth saving." he says.

"I'm not saving the neighbors."

"I'm not talking about them.

I am talking about us."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Its like a game."

He looked at me.  He could not hear.

"What?"

"Its like a game!"

Type I type with nothing to say with nothing to say

Lasers aimed at planet 20469, which is determined to harbor no life.  Its precious metals would be picked up from the debris.  We will melt it and make more spaceships with lasers.  The fuel comes from our antimatter harvester, the AM6 made by Intergalactic Engine Corporation.  The one and only corporation left after the great singularity.  We, the last remainders of the human/robotic race, all work for them.  They pay nothing, but the constant threat of instant incineration, keeps the people in working.  I saw my youth handler get vaporized yesterday.  I was sad, but thats what happens when one reaches the age of 31.  The normal people that is.  The real smart ones  get their brains downloaded into the central core.  Some say in the central core one can live forever.  My youth handler told me that we normal people have a place where we live forever too.  She told me the day before she got what she got.  I miss her already, I should take a sedative from the drug replicator.  She raised me for 5 years after I was first hatched from the Metaluterus.  They ween one off from the youth handler at age five, to avoid attachments.  At age six one is outfitted with metal eyes, I remember when I had mine installed.  Once they were turned on, the visual world became a million times crisper, because of the million time increase in photo receptors.  All wavelengths of light were visible, and the quantum hard drive inside recorded every moment into its quantum flux.  Which basically allowed me to play back whatever I had ever seen.  Although the eyes were technically better than the old ones, I had a sense of something missing.  It was if I was no longer me.  The recorded moments always showed what happened.  The truth.  The brain, however powerful it is, only records the moments as processed through the ego filter.  Many years after the eye installment, I concluded my brain to be a liar, and no longer to be trusted.

the Aftermath of the Confusion

Where are my shoes,
glasses, and keys?
Who is that in the mirror?
Who rudely stares,

and examines with a critical eye?

I can't breathe.
I gotta lie down.
Can't lie down
gotta get up.

The clock is ticking.

What is the problem.
Can't solve the problem,

if I don't know what it is.

I am too old.
Stop staring at me.

I can't imagine the future.

Good? Bad?  Nothing.
How can I hope?
If I can't imagine?

My brain is partially broken.

If it is damaged this much,

why not go all the way?
Am I just a brain?

Is there an afterlife?
Is there something else
more than this?

The Confusion

Life flew by and accelerated.

Imagined future-selves stayed

in the lead, forever turning left.

"If only I could get my shit together.",

was the thought that looped.

if only i...

pull myself together

not too late.

Eventually the thought froze.

All notions within coalescing 

into one inanimate mass.

At the speed of light, 

the finish line mercifully approached.

 

He was not aware of crossing it when he crossed.

I've reaped shit!

You reap what you sow. A popular idiom. What have I planted and what will I reap? I thought about it. It can't be nothing. It has to be something. Will I not know what I have planted until it sprouts? What if it never sprouts? What if I planted pennies hoping they would grow into dollars? Who is the idiot that plants pennies? what if that idiot was five. I was pretty stupid when I was five. Conventional wisdom would tell that idiot, put the pennies in a piggy bank or savings account, or 401k plan or some other stupid form of saving. However, if I had a chance to talk to my five year old self, I would tell him to go ahead and plant 'em. Because pennies are worthless. When I find one in my pocket, I immediately fling it at the nearest person and say, "happy birthday!"

Holy shit did I get off topic! All I have to say is, whatever it is I have planted (why would I not know is odd maybe it is one of those metaphors like a when a kung fu master tells you to snatch a pebble from his hand. or maybe not.) whatever it is, it better be good. Because I've been waiting a long time. Or maybe, could it be that I am one of those people where that saying, was supposed to hurt me (like my feelings). Or? Could it be that I am one of those people exempt, like a child that inherits a gazillion euros. not dollars, dollars are worthless.

Suicidal squirrels give clues to fate of baby pigeons.

*Warning, graphic image of dead squirrel.*


If you just read that warning it is probably too late. Sorry. Blame my friend Adam for taking the photo. Sick.

This squirrel was found dead outside my apartment, directly below my balcony. I suspect it was the one that made its way into the hole in my roof, thus my attic, during the winter (sucker I had no heat.) All winter I heard it tip-tapping back and forth along my ceiling with its tiny squirrel legs. One day, after rudely being awoken by it, I hit the ceiling with a broomstick. The act sent the squirrel sprinting towards the hole. I followed the sound to the balcony, where the squirrel lept, like 10 feet to the nearest tree. There it paused and looked at me with an expression that said "What the fuck?"
When the warmer months came, I wondered what had happened to the little fucker. And looking upon the rain-soaked corpse on the concrete sidewalk, I thought maybe, this was the squirrel. Maybe it got washed out of the tree with the rain or..... (more likely) maybe there is an aura of suicidal tendencies hovering around my balcony. All living beings within it become disoriented with intense sadness. Subtle at first, so small to notice, but the longer the exposure to the aura, the effects build exponentially until, its subjects are in a pit where the walls are so steep. And no matter how intense the climbing, the rain pushes them back down...I am rambling. This aura, perhaps that is what happened to those baby pigeons I mentioned in my previous post. Maybe they had enough of life and decided to end it. One first, then the other. The other( a little unwilling) but honoring the pact he made with the sibling. A suicide pact.

I have one question to answer right now. Who's next? AND, when will this stop?

The Tale of Two Dead Baby Pigeons, or Doves.

From Wikipedia:

The Rock Pigeon breeds at any time of the year, but peak times are spring and summer.

Nesting sites are situated along coastal cliff faces, as well as the artificial cliff faces created by apartment buildings with accessible ledges or roof spaces.

The type of nest constructed is a flimsy platform of straw and sticks, put on ledge, under cover. Often window ledges of buildings.

Two white eggs are laid with incubation that is shared by both parents lasting from seventeen to nineteen days. The nestling has pale yellow down and a flesh-coloured bill with a dark band. It is tended and fed on "crop milk".
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My third floor balcony held host to one of nature's miracles this spring. Little did I know what lay just beneath my cigarette butts.

One day while looking over the edge at a not-unattractive lady pushing her kid on a stroller, I spied an eye looking up at me from the rain gutter just within my line of sight. It was a very nervous pigeon sitting in a nest. It dawned on me that without me knowing, my cigarette breaks were giving this pigeon a mini heart attack once every two hours, 10 times a day (I smoke a lot). And for a second I felt bad.

In due time, I learned that pigeons make great mothers for it seemed as if she was not going to ever leave her eggs, even if it meant her life. And believe me, on many occasions I tried to take it. After one particular failed attempt which involved a firecracker tucked inside a piece of bread, I called it quits. I wasn't to bother her (too much) anymore, and I was to smoke inside, where such actions were meant to take place.

Over the next few weeks, the pigeon and her brood to be became a very boring conversation piece with my infrequent apartment guests.

Typically the guests would venture out onto the balcony to get away from me, and I would say,
"Hey, there is a nest there." and they would reply, "I see that."
Then I would the say, "its a pigeon." and they would reply, "no, I think its a dove."
And I would say, "dove, pigeon, does it make a difference?"
End of conversation.

Turns out that doves and pigeons are one and the same according to the internets. And they are monogamous in their relationships. Both mother and father incubate the eggs. But for simplicity's sake I would refer to the parents as the single mother. Besides its hard for the untrained eye to tell the difference between a male and female.

On the topic of the internet, I read somewhere that birds seek food with their right eye and look for predators with their left. I am not sure where I had read this or if it has any scientific merit. But it was really thought provoking when I read it.

So back on track, over the course of a week, before my very eyes, occurred the miracle of life. All of a sudden, like some freak of nature or something, what once was mere eggs, sprouted into two baby pigeons that looked nothing like their absentee father. I joke. But they were really ugly. Their single mother apparently left them alone as she gathered food. They looked fragile shivering in the blue morning light. The mother came as that queer thought came into being.

A stare-off commenced. My two eyes to her single eye, on that tiny cocked oval head of hers. Her confrontational stance was like a momma bear protecting her cubs. Ferocious that pigeon was. But foolishly she was using the right eye. I knew she couldn't win with the pussy food-seeking eye. A lesser man would have looked the other way, but I was not lesser.

To my misjudgment, after an hour, I could look no longer. An hour is a lot of time for a superior intellect to think. That intellect said I was the fool because it was the other way around. She would have lost if it was her predator eye not her food eye. If it was her predator eye she would have cried like a baby because it would have told her to run. But instead, the food eye showed her what she wanted, and at that moment she wanted my blood. I learned my lesson fool me once.

As another week passed, the two baby pigeons got big fast. Their adult feathers were emerging and their baby feathers were shedding. I was impressed. I thought about how lucky they were to be born in this rain gutter in the city. Although they were in plain sight there were no obvious predators that could snatch them from where they slept. I was sure. That night was when the hooing began.

I thought nothing of the hooing. For all I knew it could have been a 'cooing'. Pigeons coo. I definitely did not think owl, the thought didn't even cross my mind. Were there even any indigenous owls in Virginia? I didn't think so. I thought it was just some dumb species of bird that I knew nothing about, like the pigeons.

The next day I noticed that instead of two baby pigeons, there was only one. Was it connected to the hoos heard the other night? Once again, the thought didn't even cross my mind, for all I knew the remaining baby pigeon ate the other, in a strategic move which proved Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest, or something like that. I shook my head. What a shame I thought. I looked over towards the sidewalk three floors down just in case it had fallen. Nothing.

The following night the hoos continued and were more prevalent. In the morning all that was left was an empty nest.

In retrospect, I think maybe it could have been an owl. Owls do 'hoo' and they are night time predators that eat small animals. But to that I'll never be one hundred percent sure. So whatever happened to those baby pigeons, doves, or whatever they were called, still remains a mystery.

However, I do know to a certainty that their mommy did not give them a piggy-back ride to another pigeon friendly place like New York (by the way pigeons, you are considered pests there). The babies were most likely dead. Nature is a cruel mistress, she creates life and then forever has them looking over their shoulder with their right eye, when they should have been looking with their left.

So long Television news.

You stole my youth, swindler. But now, I leave to reclaim my humanity. Admit it, your business is inhumane. It was a good roller coaster ride, fun for a while, until I puked into my mouth. Remember this European phrase, 'i work to live'... that shall be my mantra from here on out. The other way is unrealistic.

comedy, tragedy, or tragedy?

I apologize for my behavior the other night. It was inappropriate of me to punch your
boyfriend, kick your dog, and pull down your pants. How was I supposed to know you
weren’t wearing panties? My fault. I was drunk. But after all, it was a party, and where
there is a party there is booze and where there is booze there is me. I would understand
if I was never invited to one of your parties again. But let us still be friends. Tom
your boyfriend too.
I am truly and completely remorseful. But lets be fair. How was I supposed to know
that it was not a “lets get wasted” party? Come on, you have to admit that some was on
me but a lot was on you too. Why have the rows upon rows of vintage wine in your cellar
if it wasn’t for consumption? And shall I remind you it wasn’t me that ran out of toilet
paper. Did you know that paper towels did not flush? If you did, you should have told
me. My bad for the mess. Or was it?
I am rambling. Its not your fault I acted the drunken fool. Nor am I attempting to imply
it was your fault. That fire was totally my fault. You told me not to ignite those fireworks,
the ones I proudly paraded around to your friends. I was proud. They were hard to get.
But you are right, I should have listened to you wise sage. But it was just a small fire. I
will pay for the damages to your “antique” sofa. And I am sorry that I argued against
paying at first, but now I am a little more sober and see my error. You know how they
say that alcohol reveals ones true character? That is not me. That was not me.
Was it totally necessary to call the police on me? It was a party and I was having fun.
True I was masturbating in your bedroom, but calling the cops was totally not necessary.
You could have just told me to leave. That was inappropriate. I was wrong too. Can
you blame a guy for still being attracted to your sexiness. I know you say that we were
never together, but weren’t we not? I know you are going to say that doesn’t make
sense, but neither did our relationship.
Anyways, I am truly sorry, please accept my apologies, don’t blame me, blame the
booze, etceteras etceteras. My bad. Lets still be friends. Feel free to call me. If not I
might call you sometime.