The Compendium of My Space for My Sake

A sketch and a musing, a sketch is amusing, askance upon using

On reading Flaubert's 'Bouvard et Pecuchet'

Lifting his eyes from the tome, Philos squinted and in frenzied speech exclaimed: "Perspicus! We have forgotten to eat! It has been nearly three days!"
His companion rose from his creaking rockingchair; the cushion escaped between his legs falling to the ground. He bent over picking up the padding and straightening out his knees cracked. "Surely," he said, "it has not been that long. I feel as fit as a fiddle." His voice began to tapper. "Literature has sustained my nourishment."
"That may be, but you're as wan as a ghost, you have bags under your eyes, and, my word!, you're trembling so!" Philos got up from the divan to aid his dear friend. His right foot, however, was fast asleep and he crashed to the floor in a gasp. His arms flailing about upset the tray with the tin tea kettle, two china cups, an old tobacco tin containing sugar cubes and two teaspoons causing a raucous to be heard. His forehead came down directly on the coffee table, to which he responded with a distinct "Ughh." Philos lay sprawled out on the ceramic tile floor.
Perspicus looked on in dread. The shock of such rapid events caused a sort of paralysis which he shook off by tossing Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil" to the corner of the room, smashing a grecian urn like a load of bricks. Rushing to the side of Philos he found that he could not lower himself, his knees would not bend.
"Perspicus," came a whisper from the prostrate Philos. He raised his upper torso on his elbows. "Literature has proven too dangerous. We must turn our studies elsewhere." Perspicus agreed and lent his friend a hand to help up. Once again his strength failed him and he too landed on the ground strewing aside the broken pieces of china.
"My dear," said Perspicus, "I feel like a boy again, all this wrestling."
"Indeed, if only I hadn't spent all my energy on the way down! Perhaps... we should take up the fine art of cuisine. Afterall, it is the lack thereof that has caused our misfortunate situation."
"Truer words could not be spoken! Those vile books transplaced my mind to another place and I forgot that which is most important: nourishment, sustainance for the body. Yes!
"A moment later the maidservant entered. With sugar tin in hand, Perspicus said, "A sugar for my sweet?"
"Don't you know you should offer ladies first? I say, where are your manners?"
"They died along with Arthur. Forgive me dear," said Perspicus as the young lady lifted him to his feet. "That is much better. The world is once again right ways up. Would you care for a sugar cube?, it is not much, but even Atlas shrugged. Aliment is very important."
The lady offered a polite refusal and lifted Philos up on his feet.
"Merci, mademoiselle. I was beginning to think a life led horizontally could be interestingly led. Only, how would I drink without drowning; water is just as needed as food, for nourishment you know."
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The deaths of the muses

Nine pyres burned high on a riverbank, flames of impenetrable black smoke rose blending with the celestial twilight. The acrid odeur intoxicated the maenids circling the fires. With each breath a shudder of excitement swept through the bodies of the baccantes; their eyes dilated so, their irides were no longer distinguishable. Harsh voices postulated threateningly in repetitive unison: 'Your time is going to come.'
For hours the women danced and wailed, their naked drumming feet trampled the grass as their bodies covered in loose black peplos, writhed to the rhythm of their feet; arms unhindered, bare and dark, jerked about in apoplectic convulsions; diadems of ivy crowned their heads under which flowed dishevelled black tresses; a slack necklace of roses pricked blood that trickled down their belly and spine commingling with sweat.
As Dian rose to her acme above the billowing smoke, the maenids concluded the funereal ritual by picking up their staffs adorned with ivy and vine shoots intertwined, surmounted by a pinecone, which they placed in the burning embers and used their staff aflame as a torch as they headed back into the forest for the bacchanalia.

Maundering, I'm just maundering

I am to write an obituary for myself, in the first person, for my creative nonfiction class, as if I were writing it from the great beyond. So here it is. Let me know if you think I'll get a decent grade. I had to write my obituary in a certain way though because writing it posthumously doesn't gell with my ideas of death.
I regret to announce pre-posthumously the death of myself: dead the morning of the 12th of September, 2006. I will be found depending in limp form from a ceiling fan in my family room. I will be missed by most kith and some kin.
Before the birth of my nephew, I fainted at the foot of his mother's bed. I was 19 years of age and a month away from commencing my collegiate erudition at Michigan State University. I woke as if I had blinked and came to realize the meaning of death. How can one speak of death and not examine and expose his fears. As for death I do not fear it; an absolute end comforts me the way in which religion comforts others. I do not believe in souls. I fear the death of loved ones. I pitied their hope in beliefs that mostly varied from mine. And I wanted them, depended on them. I was greedy as in the social construct: cupidity, avarice, need. They are everything I based my life on, and now they have all passed away. I had few and loved them all the more for their acceptance. I fear the wherewithal of death, the pain that is produced before the final gasp, then nothing, nothing at all, nothingness. I fear the pain of cancer as they must have feared the plague not knowing where it lay. But I smoked to my lung's content and rarely wore sunscreen. My actions continuously differed from my fears, an exacting spite tendered at my own expense against a no extant 'man'.
I visit my youth during moratoriums of thought and every night in my dreams. I had problems socializing in my childhood (as in my adulthood) and so spent a majority of my summers at my grandparents' farm. I would spend hours gazing out over my personal Elysian field, a corn field that seemingly yielded infinite bounds, where the gold shined so brightly emitted in the grasp of the green husks, at the top it radiated white past the hem of the physical and upwards to the sky. I often reminisce of my golden Labrador mutt. I lavished him with attention and played with him at every chance. Once, I tossed him a tennis ball to fetch and grabbed his collar. His forelegs flew forward and his back legs pushed off. I was horizontal with the ground, watching the grass below me pass by. The time I spent so posed, like the fields, felt infinite. But my dog has since died and I have gone back to the farm each year to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas. I found the farm to be more compact, to be precise, 2.5 acres. Stretches of gloomy overgrown crops and hollowed ground by moles, once boundless, could be traipsed in a matter of steps at a maundering gait.
At the age of 25 I decided it was time for change to rule my life; my habits were the only thing preventing this. I packed up and studied abroad in France for six months. I looked for new experiences at all times, but found the same in a different language. But the culture was different, stronger and openly quarrelsome. The world slowed down and I could finally enjoy my every breath. For a time I forgot that my grandmother had died three weeks prior to my leaving for France. I took everything in as a neophyte indulges in his new religion. And I started to miss those dear to me back home. I thought about staying longer in France but made excuses of why I had to come back. So I came back, and then my grandfather died, two days after I saw him for the first time since the funeral of his wife, nine months earlier. A majority of elderly men who lose their partner die within a year of their dearly deceased.
In life I took each curve in turn, chose friends to family, reserved happiness to voyeuristic tendencies of idiosyncratic charms and regretted and loathed each decision made. There was no action that could not be critiqued, for better or for worse. To death do I part.


We're earthlings, let's blow up earth things first!

There is an unwritten law in the suburban regions of Metro-Detroit, it goes something like, the streets must be clear of all persons by 11:00 pm, indulge yourself with television until you go to bed. This is, as with all rules, made light of by the youth, which I still count myself amongst; they will not do away with me so easily. Given this unspoken creed, you are free if you so wish to wander the suburban streets without the fear of jalopies running you down and drivers cursing your existence. Even with the hype of a dream cruise down ole Woodward Ave, you are safe in the residential alcoves at night, not a block off the gallant rue. I prefer walking in the street; it is the path less trodden by feet and the asphalt is better for your back. Here the roads are numerous, like winding tributaries in a delta. On this particular night the air outside is as thick as inside. The stunted clouds are a wan mahogany, an eerie pallid brown with a hint of rouge. The street lights seem more lucid as if the trite air only catches your breath. I can see much further than most nights. What a night for an epiphany, oh, night of all nights. But it is just electric light in humid air. Sounds, too, carry as by the sea. The congruency of boisterous insects clicking and chirping all seems within reach. A light green cicada floats by, silent, and falls to the concrete with a clamour, while a black cicada has decided my shoulder makes a fine perch. They remind me of Dean Moriarty, ephemeral in life, loud, beautiful, and melancholy, lonely. Behind this haze roars engines unpleasant to the natural ear. After writing this down I wend my way across the school playground over the woodchips past the swings onto the grass by the soccer field through the fence gate and back to the street to take me back home. Good night.

The garish lizards copulate on stools!

I didn't really expound on my dilemna with bars, or the hip bars let's call 'em, eh. Dirt, grime and garish lizards fornicating on stools was and is my problem with bars, but here is the reason for the lizards part, besides Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
I was at the Rock in downtown Royal Oak, from 7-10 there are $1 beers, with 3 friends, one had just left, the other two are at the bar, on a mission to find men. First off I hardly think you're going to meet the man worth more than a night's lack of rest at a bar, and the same goes for women as well; I've been wrong before; but, I might also add that the former has already garnered evidence from previous trips. So upon the departure of one, I was left alone in the mist of swirling mayhem, or was that testosterone, either way, a suffocating scent. On the television, there were four screens I could see from the middle of the floor looking to one wall, two had pugilists pummeling the very lives out of each other, and the other a compendium of the best hits of this week in sports. The jukebox was so loud I could barely hear myself thinking, a key element in the art of the hook-up apparently, deters people from saying no I guess. Fortunately my eyes work as video surveillance, and my brain the rewind and replay, and I would not deny the accusation of being a voyeur, that is taking pleasure in viewing other's trivial pursuits of ordinary life.
At 9:30 I had ordered two beers, therefore creating a comfortable surplus to last me past the 10:00 deadline. It was now 10:15 and I was beginning what would be my last beer for the evening. The waitress comes by and asks if I need anything and I say no, and she replies What? I can't hear a thing. I yell Me neither, I'm good, thanks, and give the universal negative nod to help matters. She smiles and mosies on, she knows my routine. The noise is something like a million people simultaneously screaming phrases like aarg, grrr, yeah, nooo, weee, yelp, and to top it off Paul McCartney comes in overhead saying that in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, singing words of wisdom, let it be. Finding none, I switch off the aural sensors and focus on the visuals. The table before mine is littered with three guys and a girl. All three guys have on blue and white striped shirts with a white collar. I go to look under the table to see if they are all wearing the same pants and shoes, but a girl comes running through on my right and sits down on the girl's lap nearly knocking her friend off her chair and immediately commences a lap dance. The girl is stradling her friend, putting her ass in her face; her friend massages her breasts and plays with her turquoise mini-skirt... and this continues for a good three minutes. For such an action with such a crowd, the attention is minimal. The guys at the table are making lewd gestures, and some girls and guys next to the action are laughing and staring, the dart players, too, are gawking. I can feel lines and wrinkles in my face form from the repugnant visage I'm expressing. Should I do something, spit at them, no that's gross, though it would convey the message, no, throw a dollar, no that's a beer, and it might encourage their future path, but if I have some pennies, euhh, no, no pennies, should I say something, You're going to create a retrogression in the women's movement and you'll soon be back in the kitchen slaving over every meal, no I won't say anything, let it be. So I sit and admire the ceiling tiles and wonder why certain areas don't have any tiles that don't have a vent, and they finish to a meagre applause. The dancer looks at me, the vacant chairs around me, realizes I'm alone (swig, swallow, swig, swallow, quick man you're almost free), and comes and sits down across from me (shit!). Is she looking for a compliment on her form or something, if so friend... what is that on her lip. Do you have any cigarettes she asks me. It looks like a mole, oh how I wanted it to be a herpes vesicle. Nooo, sorry and I give her the universal negative nod. Thanks anyway. Maybe she doesn't deserve herpes, she did say thanks. She gets up and returns to her friends. I swig and swallow one last time and go to use the lavatory, where nobody wiped their hands. I did, then said goodbye to my friends and left en route chez moi.
Decide for yourself if it is worthy of garish lizards fornicating on stools.

Catharsis and affirmation

A few things to spout beforehand: guys don't wash their hands in the bathrooms at bars, it's really disgusting and I will never shake a guys a hand at a bar. Another thing about bars, whenever I look around at people there, I'm not sure if it's an ego-thing or what but, all I can see are garish lizards fornicating on stools, it's like an orgy of bacchanal proportions, minus the grapes, wine and wreaths of ivy. I think it's safe to say I'm done with the cool bars, too much dirt and grime.
This leads me to my test results I received from undergoing some serious career councelling. I'm an AIS and an INTP. AIS stands for Artistic, Investigative and Social. Which means that I prefer lying about under the parasol of les beaux-arts, having to try and work out problems/problem-solving, and working for the betterment of man. INTP is Invertive, Intuitive, Thinking and Perception. This just means that I spend entirely too much time in my head thinking, and with Perception as opposed to Judgement, I go with the flow and work my problems out as they arise to contrast scheduling everything I do. These tests, the Meyers-Briggs and Holland tests, are rather sketchy, seeing as how you fill in circles if you like something a lot, a little, don't care either way, hate, or despise its very being. So, as with oh so many things, you have to take it with a grain of salt. For instance, the occupation it said I would be greatest at is as a performance artist. I would faint if I were to stand in front of more than four people singing, speaking, or even standing still as an asian cowboy extra. Sorry Jeremy, I'll never take your true calling, but the stage, it calls to me... But there is that bit of me that wants to conquer that forsaken stage fright and sing like I did in my early years. I want to stop shirking my youth, for that matter, which seems almost nonextant. I want to take it back, I wasn't very strong then, but now I feel I have the power, the control, the understanding that I lacked so before. I grew up in a place I had no affinity for, I had no relations I would call close, even familial, the scars are still apparent today. The black tepid waters of Birmingham streets run deep.
I had an interesting run-in with some recent graduates of the same high school. For the past few weeks I've been spending my nights, usually after 11pm, on the grounds of a school, a block over from where I live, they leave a light on outside and so I go there, sit down for a while and scribble some lines. Two nights ago, I'd been there for about a half hour and then some guy walks by talking on his cellphone, to a high pitched voice on the other end, saying that he's going to be joining the army. She tells him to wait there in the park for her. He sits down on the swings some twenty feet from me, says hey man, what's your name. To which I responded by asking if he knew me or something. He says no. I say what's your name. He says John W_. I say Jennings Perks, nice to meet you. He says where do you live. Over yonder. He gets off the swings and comes over by me and asks to sit down. I say sure but there's spiders and cicadas on that wall since its got the light. He says he'll stand, and that his parents just kicked him out after finding his bowl and weed stash. I ask why'd they kick you out. He says they're as christian as christian goes. I say that seems like an overreaction, did you stoke the flame. He says man I hate spiders, I got a phobia of them. Oh yeah, arachnophobia. Yea. So I hear your going in to army. Yea. Why do you want to do that. Well since I was real young I've always liked to shoot things. And you think army is the place to be for that then. I also want to learn problem solving and team work. You can't do that where your life's not in danger. Well I really like adrenaline. You should be a professional wrestler. So, he thinks for a second, do you know ___. No. Do you know ___. No. Do you know ___. No, I don't know any high school folk. Oh, well, do you know ___. Dude. So what you don't like people from there. Not for the most part. Yeah I know what you mean, all the girls are whores and the girls that don't dress like whores and don't think they're whores, they're whores too. I doubt it. So what do you do. What you see; he had already been eyeing my pen and paper suspiciously. So you're like a writer or poet or something. No, I'm unemployed. So what are you writing there; at which point he grabs my notebook from off my lap. With my left fist ready in case, I rip it out of his hands with my right hand, No, it's all about trust. What. Because we're human I should trust you, but we are the choices we make, and our actions can say otherwise... His friend, a guy, can't recall his name, arrives and takes a seat next to John W. along the spider, cicada and moth wall. They begin to talk amongst themselves, mind you, I am two feet away from them. The newby, we'll call Dan, is talking about Joe, the drummer in his band, and packing a bowl. John W. is already stoned from prior to our meeting, possibly from prior to upheaval from former residence? Dan, you're in a band. Yea. What do you play. Guitar. (Now I know he's got more info in him, he'd already made a few well phrased sentences pertaining to Joe, and during our introduction John W. said This is Jennings Perks, Jennings got a gun. No, John wants a gun. It's nice to meet you Jennings. So I figured he needed some warming up or just a toke maybe, so I stayed quiet while they cashed the bowl.) John W. says We should take a picture, Dan brought his digital camera, this was obviously some sort of spectacle. No, he says, this isn't for a picture. Well take a picture of me doing a weird face, he gives a classic myspace pose, looking to the side with his jaw resting on his fist, a true-to-life Rodin model. Dan first objects but finally gives in after a few pleas and poses. Are you still shooting your video. Yea, I shot a scene down in Joe's basement, when Cherry was running all around. You're making a movie with your camera. Yea, it's really cool. What's it about. Well it's a bunch of random shots and eventually I'm going to put them together as a sort of montage. Right, cool, but what's it about. Well it's really hard to say, I mean it's really mind blowing and I don't think words can really do it justice. Oh yea, so what kind of music does your band play. We play it all, but that's what everyone probably says. Yeah. And that's where we'll end this, it would go on only for another few minutes; the dialogue is nearly replicated, but you're missing out on the whole why don't I smoke weed man segment, only John W. was extremely rambunctious talking about fucking a girl/whore, who was getting on his back and he also sported a huge hickey on his neck, which was not in the photo. The high pitched voice of a girl never showed and John W. and Dan took off to see what Joe was up to. I left twenty minutes later after making some crucial notes and finishing other works left undone.
I've been looking for some affirmations that my youth was totally fucked up in an Edward Scissor-Hands sort of way. That it wasn't just me mentally breaking down, freaking out at the word 'like' or the phrase 'that's so random'. I found another blog that implies agreeance, and it's so strange thinking of other people that went to the same high school and that went through the same thing. And the question lingers where were you then, it would have been nice to have fellow comrades in arms; to which my reply would be, in my basement, spending time in my sanctuary, my head, but, you know, you can be my head, and I'll be yours. It would be great.
At number four for recommended professions it said editor, and this is something I've been looking into for a few years now. I don't really want to be an editor, rather, I'd like to submit stories to an editor. But maybe I'll never have what it takes to write the way I feel writing should be done, and don't they say writers who can't write are editors. I don't know. Maybe I just made that up. Anyways, I'm tired.

I know one day...I'll be a winner!

I went to the library today and borrowed three books. I had to lie in order to take them out seeing as how I no longer live in the city of the library. It's just a white lie, harmless, I'm not about to steal them. On storming the check-out line I got this feeling that I always get no matter where I go, or what I'm getting. The feeling asks me this: "Did I get the right items for the prize?" I've always thought that if you buy, rent, or borrow the right combination of what-have-you(s), you'll receive a prize upon check-out. What this prize is, I'm not sure. I usually hope for some balloons and confetti, however, a pat on the back and some recognition for shopping well done and well timed would do. I feel it in my bones I'm going to win this contest one day. It's my destiny; I will go to check out and a festooned banner will drop down saying in bold black letters on a blue drape, hemmed with silver borders, it's gaudy like that, "JAMIE, YOU'VE WON A FREE RENTAL!" Ooh, and I'll cry and make a scene and whip out my list, because I'm prepared for this. This is my dream and my fate; fatalism is grand when you've got it good.

France

It's now been a little over a month since I've returned from France. I now feel fairly confident I won't start balling thinking of the folks and locales I came to know there during my six month stay in the city of Orleans, which is two hours due south of Paris. Orleans is located in the Loire Valley, which is known for two things: wine and impressionism(painting). Orleans is known as where Jeanne d'Arc commenced the retreat of England. Today the National Front, which hates immigrants and wants only pureblood French citoyens - kind of like Lord Voldemort now that I think about it - uses Jeanne d'Arc as their symbol. Oh, the sad ironies, muse, of misuse.
I resided in the downtown area, in the university Residence Dessaux, named after the inventor of vinegar (and that's such an easy joke), in the historical section of town where there used to be the old university. The new one being about 30 minutes south by tram, or above ground subway like public transportation, I prefer to say, rather, tram, like the L, no? I would say the People Mover, but the tram actually works, at least when the drivers aren't striking, which is of course, the French national past time, or else revolutions... It's relatively modern, l'universite d'Orleans. Which is apparent when you compare the architecture to any university in a downtown setting.
This was the first airplane I'd ever been on and I was lucky enough to sit next to a bloke named Daniel, like 'Danny boy, oh, Danny boy.' Daniel is a native Londoner and was visiting his girlfriend Ashley in Claire for a few weeks and now he was headed to Aberdeen in Scotland. Which reminds me that Americans need to work on their geography, because I was getting some stupid ass questions like: where's Egypt? And I stayed with a family whose daughter, Angele, came to Wichita to study, and a friend of hers, who was also in the study-abroad program, told their classmates that he was from Bolivia, of which nobody knew where it was located. What really gets my goat is that not a single american even went up to her to say a single thing, nobody tried to make friends with any of the foreign exchange students in Wichita. How fucking kind and we're talking about a university setting, and americans like to say how the French are snotty and high minded! And, don't get me wrong but, she's cute as a button! But the really cool thing for her is that she got to meet a bunch of people from varying parts of India, she's French-Indian, and all sorts of other countries throughout the world.
Daniel, as I was saying, is a cool chap, and even after I had finally fallen asleep (eight hour plane ride there), and then woken up almost immediately after and threw my arms out as if I was falling and smacked him across the chest, he said no worries mate. He was also a struggling musician, looking for his way and amid a sort of post-partum depression upon leaving his dear lass Ashley, and so we talked about music and movies for nearly the full ride. When we were preparing for the landing the sun had begun to rise and I remember one of the most beautiful stills I have ever seen. It is comparable, but far superior, to Matrix: Revolutions, when Neo and the dominatrix fly the hovering machine above the clouds and you see the sun peeking out atop the clouds and the colors are so vividly vivacious and visually vexing for you know you should not be looking at them. And so we arrived in Paris, France and upon exiting the plane, Daniel was taken away in a van to an awaiting plane to Aberdeen. I waved and yelped a goodbye as I had gotten swept away with the other folks aiming for the bus. Daniel had been much more fleet of foot and wisened to the routines of air travel. So marks the first 'goodbye' of my travels; I hate 'goodbyes', there's nothing more nerve racking for me.
The bus was to take us away from the runway to the main building, a mere 40 minute drive. As for the route the plane took during its flight, I did not guess it. Rather than a straight shot to Paris, from Detroit we headed over New Foundland, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, England and then cut down south-east to Paris. The reasoning being that if the plane has any problems, you won't have to 'land' in water. After picking up my luggage, which was no easy task seeing as how every piece of luggage looks the same (handy tip: tie a scarf or some fabric about the handle, much easier to distinguish), I met the family I would be living with for the first week of my sejourn in the Old World, la famille Radjagobal, with a mad cornucopia of ambivalent emotions boiling over within me.

Wrap your troubles in dreams

I woke last night with the laconic and lucid idea that "there's still time to run." I had just killed a man, a friend of mine it seems; two shots fired, he was squirming, inching on the street, to no end nor relief, save death; his knees at his chest, his bowels in relief, strung out behind him. I took a wary satisfaction in watching the pangs of agony accentuate and pulsate the vein on his forehead. His throbbing vein matched my every racing heart beat. He felt more dear to me than ever. Who he was I know not, and he was no longer; the reflected moonlight blinking upon his brow had failed to keep pace and soon after quit completely, and his entire profile now layed engulfed in shadow. I can still see in that darkness, where yet darker lingered inside, a wrathful countenace, one twisting and writhing, ripe for avengence, an abyss swelling of fear and hatred: ready to purge itself upon me.
The air had taken on the stink of raw sewage at the sound of the first firing, when the wind took stock and stood still. Standing just inside the gate of a city I too took stock of my surroundings and my body for what felt like the first time.

Diary of a Superfluous Man

...His feet situated peculiarly: heels in the grass and toes on the concrete. He stared down at the callous cement, his head looming over his legs akimbo, and saw his shadow. Jutting out of his silhouette were branches dancing with life: leaves fluttered like hatchling birds practicing for their first flight. One by one the wind swept the awaiting leaves from their perch. His eyes focused on loose individual grains of cement, like dry upturned dirt, the pebbles, the leaves, and the twigs, strewn over his body. A fly enjoyed a brief moratorium on a pebble becoming an excressence on his lower abdomen. The insect, perhaps prone to empiricism and the threat of security and a nervous twinge, took back to flight, or perhaps prone to fatalism and the threat of famine, had been mistaken. A light came abruptly through his left shoulder and pounced as if keeping time on his chest. He looked over his right shoulder to find an old man carrying a grocery bag some yards away, headed towards him. The old man, walking, was hunched over, circular; the bag recurrently scraped the sidewalk emitting metallic clangs, and the old man, each time: pushed the weight of his world back as he leaned on his heels, and his hump, now a foot behind his hips, to his head a hilt to his gnarled and beaten shiv, and his knees shook and he gazed ahead as in his youth and his knees to his mouth a grimace of pain and the weight of the world fell forward on him and the bag crashed to the ground. He only noticed the old man's left hand, holding the bag, adorned with a watch that left purple spots in his eyes when he blinked. He returned his eyes to the doppelganger only to watch his pulsating heart acutely narrow and his body fade into the stone as the earth will satiate in the forthcoming rain and the excess would return to the clouds and the cement would dry...(tabula rasa).
I used to see this old man everytime I drove to school, which was everyday, and he'd be carrying a plastic bag and staring at the sidewalk immediately in front of him. He always looked so brave. Some would say he was just getting groceries, I like to think of him as a knight-errant, keeping chivalry alive and well, providing safe passage for all, cross him and you'll take a bag full of campbell's soup to your grave (did you know the original label had the colors black, blue, gold, red, white and yellow, which is nice to know if you ever take a quiz on the normalities of everyday life, and don't forget Bashful, and pencils have six sides, not five, and venetian blinds have a handle on the left in order to open them, and ah yes the ace of spades has the symbol for the deck of cards on it - so don't forget) and I called him Malory le Grande.