Espanola and Beyond

Sometime in the 1780s an Ojibwa tribe occupying a bit of land on the north shore of Lake Superior sent a raiding party south into what is now the United States. The raiding party brought back with them a white, Spanish speaking woman who married an Ojibwa man of a family living near the mouth of the river.
The woman taught her children Spanish. Much later, when French Voyageurs came to the area and heard the locals speaking bits of Spanish they called the place “Espagnole”.
This was anglicized to “Espanola” and the river was named “The Spanish River”.
At least, this is the story I’m told on the card on my nightstand in the motel just north of town.
I’m also told the town gained some notoriety in the eighties when the mill mistakenly discharged toxic waste into the river killing thousands of fish. The card goes on to assure me that the accident actually flushed the river. When the fish came, I’m told, back they were untainted and the mill now has an extraordinarily strict zero-emissions policy.
But I’ve never been one to believe everything I read.
And this is where I am tonight; watching the rain fall on the black, rocky hills where the Trans Canada Highway intersects with the main road of Espanola. I’m watching the warm red glow of the Tim Horton’s sign across the street through the white haze of the drizzle and wondering how I got to be so far from home.
The card on my nightstand also tells me that the CBC series “Adventures in Rainbow County” was filmed here and that the star of that show, Lois Maxwell, lived here for eighteen years. The card reminds me that I probably know her better as Ms Moneypenny from the 007 films.
Every shit town has it’s claim to fame. Even here, just outside of Sault Ste. Marie, nickel mines and all, a town no bigger than the one I grew up in can gain some fame—dubious or otherwise.
Al Secord—two time NHL All-Star—grew up here. Former Canadian steeplechase record-holder Greg Duhaime lived here. Some local yahoos played a three-day-long hockey game to raise money for a local hospital and managed to set a world record.
I cross the road and start up one of the black hills. Believe it or not, there’s some beauty in it. My sweater, damp from the rain, catches on some thistle and I sit down to pull the needles free.
Sure, folks in Espanola Ontario have a handful of things to brag about. They have their stories to tell. Doubtless, if I were to step into the dingy-looking tavern I saw on the main drag I could find a few faces—deeply lined, dirt so at home in the creases you could grow radishes in it—that could entertain me for an hour or two. I could hear tall tales and drink watered-down lager from dirty glasses and—I hope—hear a song or two.
But here I am, at the end of the first day of my journey between Tilbury and Prince George and while I can’t decide which of those is really my home—I know it ain’t here.
So I sit there, unaware at that point that the rock under me was turning my shorts an evil shade of black, and I smoke a stolen cigarette, reminding myself that the ungodly amount of smoking I did in Ontario must cease. And trying to decide where home really is.


Don’t count on the stories I tell about my time in Ontario and the trip back to be in any sort of order. The stories I want to tell will get told, in the order I want to tell them in. Simple.
Really what this is about for me is getting back into the swing of storytelling. I did so little of it on my vacation that I need to reestablish my footing and relearn a few of the ropes.

The (just short of triumphant) Return

Okay, so, I didn’t write a goddamn thing in here while in Ontario. What’s more, I haven’t written a fucking thing since I got back. But you know what? More and more Chinese made products are being found to be made of dangerous materials every day and people are coming up with just about every solution under the sun short of calling a stop to the use of Chinese sweatshops to produce North American goods.
So you’ll forgive me for thinking my lazy pen is maybe the least of our troubles.
You know, it reminds me of a business class I took in high school. They were teaching us this shit about supply and demand and how the economy constantly cycles between recession, depression, prosperity and inflation. “It’s all inevitable,” the teacher said. “Sure, sometimes we skip outright depression and the prosperity portion of the cycle is sometimes short but this is the cycle and this is how it must work.”
I raised my hand and, when called on, I said, “Well, couldn’t we nip inflation in the bud? It seems to me that constantly charging whatever the market will bear is what makes recession inevitable. If producers and retailers just voluntarily lowered their prices now and then couldn’t we avoid the jugfuck of recession and depression altogether?”
The teacher, the look of a fawn caught in a Hummer’s headlights crossing her face, said, “Well, how does one convince a retailer or producer to lower their prices for the common good?”
“Well, assuming that a businessman is less interested in the common good than in profit, couldn’t the government regulate it?” I asked.
“That’s communism,” she said, “and that’s evil.”
So, before you suggest to someone that production of goods be moved back to America or Canada where the government can regulate the process and materials involved or (heaven forbid) suggest that Chinese workers and producers be paid fairly and, in return, expect that the materials used be of the highest quality (or at least demand regular inspections) remember: that’s communism and communism is evil.

As far as my lack of entries goes, I do have some good news.
While I was away, in Ontario and as I drove back across the country, I did take notes. Lots and lots of notes. Oh your God… they’re scribbled in pen on hotel stationary, printed in crayon on the backs of pictures drawn by my niece… they’re fucking everywhere. They detail the origins of little towns in Northern Ontario, they describe the joy of the wedding of a lifetime, they exalt the beauty and simplicity of friendships rediscovered.
I would imagine that somewhere in that mess of scribbles and scrawls I can find a story or two to share. In fact, I’m certain of it. This is a wildly wide country and I’m an obsessive storyteller. The things I’ve seen… they’re worth a keystroke or two.
So!
Apologies for my blogger’s delinquency. I am back and I have time. The stories will come if you’re patient. In fact, the more patient you are, the sooner they’ll come…
…or maybe it’ll just seem that way.
Either way, take heart in the fact that someone is here to tell it.

Burning Spirits

The quiet is pervasive. It’s the sort of silence that makes you want to reach inside and stop your heart for fear that its next beat will ruin the moment. The sort of silence that brings that image back to your mind, that image of the earth from 4 billion miles away. And what you think about is how it’s just a wet rock amid myriads of burning bodies.
And this is the sort of silence that’s intrinsically linked to your sense of insignificance.
And for good reason.
Your boots, the ones with the worn heels and rusty buckles, meet the wet blacktop that looks like obsidian. The streetlights reflected orange and fine between the rocks and cracks of the road make you think of some far off night when… never mind.
You bend over instinctively at the sight of a dime. You pinch it between your thumb and forefinger and pick it up. You put it in your pocket, still wet with dirt clinging to it. In the space of two or three breaths you’ve forgotten the entire moment.
You continue on—one foot pulling the other forward and brining the rest of you with it—because what else are you going to do? What else is there to do? Another revolution of the engine, another breath, another step.
And you think of how combustible all this is—your life, your world and your body. You think of roman candles and striking sparks against the things that try to slow you down. You think of a furnace that burns everything down to ash that blows away in time. And you know how you want to burn—in mind, body and spirit (as though you really believe in any of those things as separate)—and how you want to exhaust the fuel and leave the cinders for someone else to wonder at.
Then the smell of woodsmoke—or better: of a fire extinguished—hits you all at once and reminds you of your place in time. And, as though that thought weren’t dismal enough, you remember picking up that dime. And how bad you actually need it.
You know life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. But knowing it doesn’t make a lick of difference. One booted foot swings out ahead of you, finds purchase against the obsidian blacktop, pulls you forward, and you continue on. Because this is what you do: survive.

I tend to think of things in terms of what will burn and what will not. Maybe this is vestigial—some mental remnant of my days as a preteen firebug. Nonetheless, I look at what will sustain a flame as valuable and what won’t as expendable.
I suppose it really goes back to watching the faint orange glow behind the soot-blackened glass of my parent’s woodstove. Remembering those moments as irreplaceable and defining makes warmth and fire somehow more important than anything else.
Consider:
Buddhist monks in Saigon, 1963, burn themselves to death as a protest against the Ngo Dinh Diem regime.
In 1965, 82 year-old German imigrant Alice Herz committed suicide by self-immolation in Detroit as a protest against the Vietnam war.
In the same year Norman Morrison, a 32 year-old father of three, set himself on fire outside the Pentagon office of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara as a protest of the destruction of a Vietnamese village by napalm.
The same year a 22 year-old Catholic Worker Movement member named Roger Allen LaPorte burned himself to death before the UN building, again, to protest Vietnam.
In 1968 a Polish lawyer, Ryszard Siwiec, burned himself during a Communist ceremony in Warsaw to protest the Warsaw Pact intervention in Czechoslovakia.
In 1970, Kostas Georgakis self-immolated in Genoa to protest the Greek military regime.
Need I go on? I have examples from 1970 right up to this year. How about Heo Se-wook who took his own life by self-immolation on the first of April of this year to protest South Korea’s freetrade agreement with the US?
Not close enough to home?
In November of last year Malachi Ritscher immolated himself by the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago to protest America’s occupation of Iraq.
A little over a month later a man in Bakersfield California set himself on fire (along with a Christmas tree, an American flag and an American Revolutionary flag) in front of the Kern County Courthouse as a protest against the Kern High School District who had voted to change the names of their schools’ winter and spring breaks to “Christmas” and “Easter” breaks. He had a sign that read “Fuck the religious establishment and KHSD”.
I guess that’s why the song Ash Ground into Concrete by Ann Arbor hardcore band A: The End Result resonated so strongly with me when I first heard it. A lyrical sample (that heavily influenced the intro piece to this entry):

“Which way would you say you’d like to spend the rest of your days: letting the embers burn out on the hearth, or throw fuel on the furnace burn it all down to cinders and take the inferno to heart?”

The sixth rule in The Thinking Person’s Guide to Suicide is this:
Have a good reason. Losing your job or your partner or your mind is not good enough. If that’s all you’ve got then swing one foot out in front of the other, find purchase on the ground and pull yourself forward.
Have a good reason, because there have been plenty of people before you who had damn good reasons.

(near) TOTAL RECALL

I’m told Paris Hilton is not a “popstar” per se. I suppose this term has been reserved for use on young famous people with at least a dubious amount of talent. Your Britneys, your Lindsays, your Hillarys and so on.
I submit to doubters that the two words that make up the compound “popstar” indicate that the recently liberated heiress does, indeed, fall into that category:
First word is “pop” being a shortened version of “popular”. Second word is “star” meaning not a burning, gaseous heavenly body (though some sources suggest this may also be true) but someone who is preeminent in a particular field. Paris is a preeminent party-girl heiress.
Paris Hilton, whatever else she may be, is a popstar.

A brief update on my doings of late:
Slouching Deathward has gone through two sets of revisions and will be sent (hopefully today) to disinterested third parties for critique. When I receive those comments a final revision process will begin.
In the mean time I’m thinking about getting back to work on Malvina Arms as its structure lends itself easily to being written on a part-time schedule. I’ll also be looking at some very smalltime indie publishers who might be willing to put out a dystopian novella written by a nobody.
Vacation starts in two weeks. I take the redeye from Prince George on the evening of July 9th and wake up on the tarmac in London sometime early on the 10th. If you’re looking to hang out, get in touch now because I’ll be going offline a few days before that.
I’ll be driving back to BC in early August. I’ll be journaling the whole way back and I’ll probably post those entries one at a time when I return. No specific plans or sights I intend to take in so if anyone is familiar with interesting stops along the Trans Canada let me know. I’m especially interested in anything that could be considered “bizarre.”

Being back at work part-time, certain things in my life have been forced down the ranks of importance. It used to be that as far as writing went, this blog was #2 on the list of things that needed to be kept up.
This has been the first casualty.
Actually, the first casualty was sleeping in. Blogging fell moments later.
Though I am taking a lengthy vacation beginning July 9th and intend to blog as much as possible during that time, I feel the need to update more often than I have been. I’ve been searching for a way to do that and I’ve encountered a few difficulties:
1) When I do have time to write I would prefer to work on fiction. Finding time to do both was not a problem when I had eight hours a day, five days a week to write.
2) On the off chance that I don’t have any fiction to work on in a given day I’d really rather relax than try to come up with a useable subject for a blog entry.
3) What am I going to write about? The superiority of a latex-base paint? The inherent problems with oil-bases?
It was as I was considering these things that I opened up the old MS Word file in which I wrote and revised entries for my previous blog, The King of Stinktown. I thought, maybe, I could remember how it was that I managed to both work and blog back then.
The answer was obvious: I wasn’t working very hard on fiction at the time.
This is not an option now.
But reading those old blog entries was enjoyable. It did cause me to chuckle from time to time. I enjoyed some of the wordplay and found myself a little saddened that these entries were no longer available.
Then it came to me: When I find myself going too long between blog entries I could post up with excerpts from the old blog. The folks who read the old blog can reminisce about those halcyon days of hyperbolic humour and newcomers can find out what I was up to a year or two ago at this time.
That being said, here’s the first one, written just about a year and a half ago, shortly after arriving here:


9/28/2005
You can all relax. Jesus has returned: he’s operating a recumbent bicycle-drawn rickshaw for donations in Prince George, British Columbia. The Rapture should start roughly on-time. He just has to scrape together enough cash to get himself settled into some digs suitable for the Son of God at the outset of a new century. After all, if he’s going to pass judgment on man, he ought not be doing it from a cardboard box, right?
The bad news is that none of you are going to make it. Sorry. Apparently heaven, like CBGBs has limited seating capacity so, regardless of the size of the act on stage (and God, I’m told, is a pretty big act), they can only allow so many people in and you just aren’t righteous enough. Again, my apologies—don’t shoot the messenger.
I suppose, if you’re crafty and determined, you might be able to grease St. Peter’s palm at the Pearly White Gates. I’m guessing you’re going to have to go with a denomination higher than the twenty bucks in your wallet. Especially if you’re paying in Canadian dollars.
I have a hunch that the standard accepted currency in heaven is Japanese Yen. If God really is all-powerful and all-knowing then his investment portfolio these days probably leans heavily to the east. They’ll also take Visa and Master Card. But not Discover or American Express.
I always knew Christ would return. Mainly because the only Clergyman I ever trusted told me so. Of course, Father Robert (French, pronounced: Roe-BARE) was forced to resign after taking a few too many surreptitious gulps from the communion wine. And the gin hidden in the toilet tank in the rectory. And there was that rumor about one of the alter boys…
Regardless, if Father Robert says the Son of God is on his way then I believe him. He had big hands that had done real work at some point and an impressive, mountain-man-type salt and pepper beard that screamed, “I can’t show it to you, but I have a huge dick!” I’ve never seen a priest like that since. If you go to St. Francis Xavier Church in Tilbury now the cleric has a smooth, chubby face and hands like a little girl’s: soft and delicate and not at all manly.
Or maybe I just distrust him because he gave a sermon about the evils of homosexuality at my cousin’s wedding. How a man so clearly gay can denounce his own like that I’ll never understand.
Either way, really. It’s not like he ever even suggested to me that Christ would return. I suspect that men of the cloth are growing a little less assured in their ludicrous convictions.
To that I say: About damned time!

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You’ll forgive me, of course, if this entry seems disjointed, disorganized and dissolute. After all, I spent the last week writing eight hours a day. Can I be blamed for feeling a tad burnt-out on words?
The longer short story I mentioned and excerpted in my last FIK-shuhn entry (05.31.07) has morphed into a full-fledged novella. Its current (though not necessarily final) title is Slouching Deathward: A New Myth. At this point it is one revision process away from the time when I will allow a few copies to be read by a few choice individuals. After that, the final rewrite will begin in earnest.
It’s a quick little read and it’s the first time I’ve written anything that could in any way be called “plot-driven”. That’s not to say that I sacrificed character development or forwent any sort of emphasis on style. It merely means that I’m attempting to improve certain areas that I once believed unimportant to literary fiction.
The story is a dystopian satire that owes a lot to my love of books like 1984 and Brave New World. It centres around an anonymous gentleman in the Detroit area who struggles to reconcile his disgust at what the world has become with his own role in turning the world into what it now is.
Most of the characteristics of the near-future world I’ve created are logical (to me) extrapolations on what I’ve been seeing on CNN and CBC the last few years. I don’t want to reveal too much but I will say that xenophobia, religion, vanity, corporate control and climate change play important roles in this world. I will also say that, yes, I do see what I’ve written as an inevitable future if things in this world remain as they are today.
In a philosophical sense I attempt to suggest that entropy—the tendency of systems to move from order to disorder—is not limited to natural systems but can also be applied to government, economy and religion. The idea is that the “Arrow of Time” dictates that everything must fall apart, that “the centre cannot hold”.
At the same time that I issue this clearly fatalist dictum I try to inject a sense of hope. I want the reader to come away with the feeling that, though these systems must fail, we as a species must make an effort to survive.
Usually I try not to talk about what my stories mean. As I’ve said more often than I care to remember, what I put into a story is less important than what you get out of it. However, since I’ve gone this far into the no-no land of explaining my themes I may as well conclude by saying that I hope that, upon finishing the story, at least a few people will ask: Should we try to survive because mankind is capable of behaving decently, or will we try to survive merely because self-preservation is a simple, biological imperative?
Other themes, if you care, include the uncertainty of the modern world; disgust at commercialism; the possibility of redemption and the devastation and experience of loss.

The writing of this novella was an exercise in writing a dystopia. As many of my friends know I have, for ages now, had this world living and growing in my mind waiting for the day that I could develop the skill (and find the time) to write the epic novel required to appropriately tell the story.
By no means am I saying that now is the time—I’m quite sure that novel is a few years off just yet. What I am saying is that I feel myself getting closer all the time. I really feel as though my ability as a storyteller has advanced significantly over the last year or so. When I read what I’ve written in just the last three months and compare it to the things I wrote at this time last year I’m shocked, frankly, at the improvement I’ve made.
I have to say, it feels good.

Now what I have to worry about is finding a way to publish a novella. It’s not exactly a popular form in North American literature. It’s too long for magazines and publishing companies don’t think it’s a profitable venture. (Probably because they can’t charge $20 a pop for a 120-some-odd page book, not because people won’t buy it.)
So I don’t know what will happen to Slouching Deathward but I assure you, if anything does happen with it, you’ll hear about it here.

Also: is anyone else hoping Conrad Black goes away for a long, long time? I get so sick of these rich, white, business criminals. Popstars, too. If only we could get Paris Hilton to commit a really atrocious crime… you know, something slightly more atrocious than her simple existence... like a warcrime.

Bad Puns: Setting Sail on the Ownership

It’s hot—not sauna hot but boiler-on-the-fritz hot—and I’m peeling dried latex paint off my fingertips. Maybe it’s because it feels so much like peeling dried glue off my fingers in Kindergarten, maybe it’s because I’m stalled, but I’ve got the distinct feeling I haven’t gotten very far in the last twenty-three years or so.
The cigarette I borrowed from Andy dangles from my lip—more because of the saliva-paste than any actual effort on my part. I refuse to touch my sandwich until I’m certain there’s no wet paint on my hands.
This is how I know I’ve only been back at work for a few days. In a month I won’t care what’s on my hands, I’ll just eat my fucking lunch. Conscientiousness is always the first thing to go.
I’m sitting in the van. If you look behind me you’ll see the wreckage of my occupation: soiled drop sheets bundled rather than folded, spattered roller cages and empty cans, used up rags—it’s all standard faire in the van of a contract painter.
Finally convinced that my fingers are relatively clean I extract my soggy sandwich from the Save-On bag. What we have here is roast beef, cheddar and spinach pressed between two slightly stale slices of whole wheat. It’s not appetizing, but it’s what’s available.
I take a big bite—I figure if I can get through the sandwich in seven-or-so bites I’ll be done before I decide it’s inedible.
This time last week I was eating spaghetti, prepared in the Tuscan tradition. This time last week I was taking a break from writing. This time last week I was probably happier.
But today I’m going to tell myself that this is the better thing to do.
This work is more important.
I’m going to tell myself that I’m not miserable.

Once I’ve finished the sandwich I steal another one of Andy’s smokes. As I puff away at it Andy joins me in the van. He starts in on his sandwich—whole wheat, roast beef and spinach—before he says anything. When he does speak he says, “I think we should be able to knock this house off tomorrow.”
I don’t say anything. What’s there to say?
“After lunch,” he continues, “I’m going to run to the paint store, I need some Penetrol to thin out the oil paint I’m using on the doors. I want you to just continue with what you’re doing—cut-in the living room and roll it out. If you finish that before I get back move on into the hallway, through there and into the den. You know the drill.”
I ought to, I’ve first-coated it all. I’m on the second coat. I really don’t understand why he’s telling me this.

Back in the house, Andy’s left for the paint store, I turn the radio back on to CBC. I grab the cut-can, the roller and tray and my paintbrush and head up the ladder to cut-in around the ceiling.
This colour—this pale pink that I’m privately calling dead-baby—is actually sold under the name “Spanish White.”
In a daze I drag my brush along the wall. In a daze I dip my brush in the can. In a daze I move my ladder five feet to the right. In a daze I repeat ad nauseum.
I’m going to tell myself that this is a good thing I’m doing. I’m going to tell myself that this is right. I’m going to tell myself that it’s not so bad. I’m going to tell myself that it’s only for a little while.
And if one of the things I’m telling myself turns out to be true then I’ll tell myself it’s okay to lie if it keeps you alive. Keeps you sane. Pays the bills.


Okay, so, I’m back to work after a long lay-off. If that piece bored or depressed you then I did my job as a writer—I made you feel what I feel in doing the job. It’s shit work and I think the most important lesson I’ve taken away from doing it is that I should have gone to University.
It’s true, I regret the path I chose after high school. I used to refuse having regrets. I owned that tired old saw: “What I’ve done has made me who I am and I love who I am so how could I regret anything?”
That, by the way, is bullshit and I wish everyone would quit copping to it. If you’re over eighteen years old and you’re still bullshitting yourself and everyone around you just give it up. It’s really quite liberating to look in the mirror and say, “I made mistakes that I would gladly take back if I could.”
So the new plan is to go back to school. University this time, not college. I’m going to get my Bachelor’s (at least) in journalism. Unless I can cheat my way past the Bachelor’s to a Master’s as a mature student, in which case it’s MFA all the way.
Because I can keep telling myself whatever I want to. But sooner or later I’m going to have to own up to the life I’ve chosen and I think I’d like to choose a different one while I’m still young enough to do so.

So I guess the big thing I want to say here is that updates in this blog (which are already few) are probably going to be even fewer for a while until I get the hang of working again. Sooner or later I’ll be able to do both (write and work, that is) but for now it’s either or.
Don’t give up on me. There’ll be more.

There’s no certainty in philosophical circles that we actually have freewill. The fatalists and some more adamant determinists make strong points to suggest that we really are bound completely by our genetics and our environment to make certain choices and walk down certain paths.
Even I find myself thinking that whatever freewill we have may not be complete—though I held on desperately to the concept of total freedom throughout my youth.
So maybe, just maybe, you are fated to take your own life. I don’t like it, but if I’m to be honest I have to admit that it’s a possibility.
But perhaps there are a few moments where your will is free. Just a split second of inaction where you could go either way. If this is the case, an interstices where you have the power to make a real choice is something that should be taken seriously.
The fifth rule in the Thinking Person’s Guide to Suicide runs thusly:
Whether or not your will is free it seems unfair to blame others for the decisions you’ve made. If your life hasn’t turned out the way you want it to I feel for you. But don’t assign blame. If you’re going to check out, in that last moment, take ownership over your life. Remember: you are killing yourself.

[FIK-shuhn] IV: The Red Herrings that Swim in the Water Treatment Facility of Potemkin Village

How many obscure references can I slide into a blog-entry-title?
At least two, unless the term “red herring” is more obscure than I believe it is. In which case, I guess three.

Sometimes a story is an accident. Sometimes you get a half-formed idea as you’re dozing off or getting ready to go to work so you scrawl a few sentences on a torn receipt and forget about it.
Nine times out of ten, if you ever see that scrap of paper again, you see that what you’ve written is garbage.
But sometimes you find those sentences and you think, “Hey, not bad. At least worth starting a Word file for.”
So you do.
And whatever the original idea was, doesn’t matter. Because you’ve got something new on your hands that’s being reshaped and re-imagined every morning. Every time you think about it, every time you turn on the computer, the story grows and surprises you. And sooner or later what you’re writing seems like it came from someone else—not in that you’ve read it before, but in the sense that it never seemed like and idea you had in your head.
And you’re as excited to see where it goes as anyone you’ve been brave enough to show it to.

What you’re about to read is the first few paragraphs of just such a story. Originally the idea was a very short story about a man whose marriage happened to be falling apart. I thought I might juxtapose how one’s personal world can fall apart against the more literal idea of a dying planet.
That’s still the central idea. What’s changed is the scope of the story. I find that every time I try to end it something in me says, “But wait, there’s more!” and I have to give my inner Ron Popeil an opportunity to sell me on it.
The story now looks to be taking shape as a novella. I know there’s no market for long short stories, but what can I do?

I will briefly say that what you are about to read has gone through no revisions whatsoever. It is raw and probably not what you will see in the final version of the story.
Still, try to enjoy.

(Title withheld for now)

J. D. Buston

Nothing that starts in slow-motion ever stays slow-motion. Everything’s cumulative. Like floodwaters; like a river spilling over its banks. Like an invasive species experiencing a population boom. Like a new mutation of a virus becoming an epidemic. Like the greenhouse effect burning the grass on a dry prairie. Like a marriage falling apart.
Are these similes getting through? Everything speeds up. Like the end of the world.
And what I want to know is; if there’s eight pints of blood in the human body, how much cement mix do I need to inject for my blood to become rock?
Some people say this is just the way it is. They say these are just the laws of thermodynamics doing their thing, asserting themselves. The game you have to play. The game you can’t win. The game you can’t break even in. This, they say, is merely the entropic principle. This is another system breaking down. The game you’re destined lose from the beginning.
And what I want to know is; if I stay away from major arteries, can I extract enough veins from my body to weave myself a noose? I know I’d have to learn how to do surgery and I’d have to give myself enough time to heal between extractions and I’d have to refrigerate my rope—forget all that. What I want to know is; could I do it?
These people, these thermodynamicists, they’ll tell you it was evident from the outset. No system can continue indefinitely—it will always break down. Order will always become disorder. The very idea of a perpetual-growth economy, they say, is laughably absurd when viewed through the scope of science.
They’ll tell you most things are absurd when viewed through the scope of science.
And what I want to know is; is there a poetic way I can kill myself for my own crimes? For my part in the absurdity?
My wife—my ex-wife—said I was a cynic. It’s starting to look as though she was right. I think, at heart, she was happy to see entropy at work on our marriage. It forced her to craft an exit-strategy. She never could have done it on her own.