Pieces of Things

“He said to me that age is the gift by which we know that we are alive. Without it, there would be know way of knowing. Alive, dead, repeating. These things would be completely indefinable were it not for the simple act of aging. Of feeling older, of things looking older, scars, wrinkles, things of this nature. And he told me this with much faith, as if it were his faith, as if it should be obvious. For that reason alone, I’m not even sure why he bothered to tell it to me. I should have known anyway.”

Henry leaned back and sipped his cooling tea regally, surveying the large stately backyard and never making eye-contact as he spoke. Mostly expressionless, perhaps a slight smirk, it was difficult to tell for sure. The mid-morning sun seemed to sting his skin without pity, showing its own ability to age, the original time.

“And what did you say to him?” Dahl said.

“What else is there to say?”

Some leaves fell from a tree changing its season too early. Caught up in the large pathways of that backyard, of a large house, large and empty, large just to be so, the maroon leaves mingled and flew mindlessly. Finding the ground at times, but remaining there for only a short period, a brief interval with an unscheduled destination, and overhead planes flew high, quite certain of their landing point. Or so it was to be thought. And everything was very bright on the veranda, somehow, pixels of color finding every corner, making an example of each. The two men sat on raw iron chairs with thin mud colored cushions, unaware of the worms that tangled and fought and fucked in the damp darkness far below them, in some other neck of the woods. As they say.

“Do you think it’s true?”

“What, Dahl?”

“Do you think what the old man said is true? About aging, about its necessity?”

He took in a gigantic gulp of tea. Too cool now.

“I don’t think he meant to say it was necessary.”

“As in?”

“As in, perhaps there could be other ways of knowing that you’re alive. But for us, humans, at this time, all we have is the showmanship of age. It’s only our necessity.”

Dahl stuck his hands deeper in his jean pockets, he’d been looking at Henry deeply, but he wasn’t sure if he necessarily liked this line of conversation. He wasn’t even certain he was following Henry’s line of thought. Actually, he didn’t even know who the hell his friend was talking about. What old man?

“What old man, Henry?”

He put his tea down now with a soft ding, rubbing his hands together for some reason other then warmth, and he had been maintaining a consistently distant look. Then he looked at Dahl, suddenly, with some strange venom, unexpectedly juxtaposing a calm Saturday morning with a bright volt of painful energy.

“I think it was just in a dream I had Dahl,” Henry said, and then he stood up quickly, bumping the table slightly, but with just enough force to make it something of note, and he hustled quickly inside.



***********************

So I made it back from my trip, somehow, stumbling back down south like some inverse but infinitely dumber penguin. All things considered it a large breath of air for me, and something that I’ll have to repeat in a variety of settings in the months and years to come. The road was gracious, and forgiving, as were the people and the places.

And on the road I had plenty to write about; plenty of things to see and absorb. Constant material really. I really love roaming around seeing weird things and trying to one up them with weirder comments.

But now back in the beachside cocoon I’ve lived in my entire life, I see less new, which, of course, leads to less new writing. Except for the MoonBow I saw tonight across the eastern sky at about 5:30 AM. Literally: a Moonbow (and I looked it up online, it’s a rare but real phenomenon). Basically, a huge full moon has to be setting below 42 degrees in the western sky, facing an eastern front of light precipitation. The effect is a bright white streak in the dark night sky in the shape of, well, a rainbow. Lasted about five minutes over the Atlantic Ocean just before the sun rose, and was, without any doubt, one of the most jaw-dropping natural things I’ve ever seen. And I doubt I’ll ever see it again. Such a rare combination of things has to come together for it to happen (on a weird side note, the first thing you think when you see a MoonBow isn’t “what the fuck is that?”, it’s actually, for some reason, “oh look, a MoonBow”, even though it’s something you’ve never seen before in you’re life and may never again. It makes no sense and perfect sense).

So…I guess new things can surprise me at even the most benign of times. But either way, on the road, on porches, in mountains, writing as frost cracked and formed, writing drunk, drunkenly writing; I’ve been piecing together a novel. Which is still very much a work in progress. Above is a small excerpt from what I’ve been writing. Some of it is honestly very dark and rough, a lot of philosophical bullshit, but a surprising amount of it (I think) is weirdly funny. Couldn’t tell you why. Try as I might, I think I generally just end up making jokes in most things I do.

But anyway, I have about 20,000 words at this point, and am targeting around 140K (ish). Depending, of course, on how it flows. Can’t say if it’ll ever be something that anyone dares print, or if it will even be worth reading (or readable for that matter), but it will be something. Who knows how long it'll take to write. And as I hack at this project, I can’t help but post a little less on The Long Sunset. But I’ll be around, I promise, not quite as rare as a Moonbow, but certainly much less brilliant.