Orange, blue, yellow, and green lights flickered in the second story window. They would be followed by other flashes in lavender, pink, periwinkle, and apricot. Sometimes the rhythms resembled code; at other times they flickered fast enough to invite photoepilesy. The gendarmes arrived one night, and let themselves in with a skeleton key borrowed from a belligerent, heavy-set building manager spewing nonsense. The apartment was cleany; the hardwood floors sparkled with fresh wax; there were almost no furnishings. In an old, upholstered black chair by the window, a gaunt inhabitant sat, drinking cider and playing with a little box of switches connected by cord to strings of light bulbs in various colors, shapes and sizes adorning a book shelf and wire and metal sculpture of a potted larch in the corner. A fire hazard, said one gendarme. It is not, said the inhabitant. The larch is a sculpture made of non-flammable materials. Why are you wasting electricity every night in this manner? Stop playing with the switch for one blasted moment! The room suddenly fell into deep darkness. Only a dim glow from the street lamps outside shone from the window. What madness to repeat the same thing over and over! the gendarme continued. Switching lights on and off! Are you mad? Night after night, playing with a light switch! It was silent for a long time. The inhabitant in the corner said, I do not think it is anymore repetitive that sleeping with the same tart every night, getting drunk and vomitting in the same gutter on the way home, losing at the same game of cards, telling the same lie to your boss to leave work early, refusing to fix a leaking faucet or burnt out bulb for the same imaginary reasons. It is not more repetitive than rereading old newspapers, washing the same clothes, arresting the same thugs, eating, drinking or breathing. It’s probably less repetitive, statistically even less frequent, quotidian, or ubiquitous. Why do you play this way? another gendarme asked. I watch the lights and think or daydream. Sometimes I remember things; sometimes I write in my notebook. Sometimes I pray the rosary. Sometimes I just have another sip of cider and enjoy the warm colors. There was another long silence. A philosopher and poet, muttered the first gendarme, and he placed the inhabitant under arrest.
postmodern
The Bottle of Syrup
Throughout the night, the man had coughed and gasped without stopping, exasperating his poor wife. In the morning, he endured a few threats over coffee, and set off for the pharmacy. Only an expensive bottle of the black-labeled syrup remained on the shelf. He bought it and went to work. In the evening, his wife noticed how good he sounded. That cough syrup worked fast! she exclaimed. It must have some very strong ingredients! I haven’t had any of the syrup yet, the man mumbled. With a menacing expression, he retrieved the bottle from his coat and slammed it on the table. The demons, he grumbled, only care about the money. Ingredients have nothing to do with it.
The Advisor
The old grandfather sat outside the city gate with his cats and cigars, warming himself in winter sun or listening to summer evening rain. One day, a young person came to him to ask for counsel. After listening to a lengthy diatribe, the old man stroked a gaunt, black cat and said: “It is a difficult dilemma, and I do not envy your state. I sincerely wish you the best. Nevertheless, since you will not listen to heaven, to history, to nature, to your enemies, or to your friends and kin, you have only yourself to listen to. And one’s self is not always the best advisor. What is worse is that having gotten into the habit of not listening to everything and everyone else, you will most likely not listen to yourself, either. In the meantime, you might sweep the street and find something to give to the cats.”
The Right Star
In the observatory, the children lined up to have their turn at the telescope. The astronomer patiently explained the different terms–galaxy, black hole, comet, planet, light years, red shift, gravitational pull, orbit, parallax, luminosity, relativity, and many other words that quite literally sounded as if they were from other worlds. Most of the children had no idea what they were looking; some asked inane questions about unidentified flying objects, and still others rubbed their eyes in utter boredom. A teacher finally said it was time for refreshments in another room, and the children began to shuffle towards the main exit. One boy lingered by the telescope. The astronomer looked down and gently asked if he still had any questions. The boy nodded and asked why his wishes never came true. He always wished on the first star he saw every night, and yet it was starting to seem pointless. The astronomer lit a cigar, for it was long ago in the days when men were allowed to smoke cigars, and thought about the problem. At last he asked the boy if he knew anything about mathematics and probability. The boy said he had done the experiment with coins once. The astronomer puffed out a large cloud of smoke and nodded with approval. Now then, said the astronomer, the brightest things tend to catch our eyes first. It is highly probable that you are always wishing on the same stars–Arcturus, Vega, Deneb, Altair, one of the stars in Ursa Major, or one of the stars in Cassiopeia. And everyone else is also wishing on those same stars because they’re very bright and they catch our eyes at twilight, when the stars first come out. Maybe your wishes get lost amongst all those other wishes. There is another possibility. At night, some of the brightest lights we take for stars are not stars at all–they are planets! Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn–all bright and visible to the naked eye. I don’t know if wishing on a planet has any effect at all! He puffed some more on his cigar as he watched a smile grow on the child’s face. My advice, the astronomer continued, is to look at a star map and make sure that you look in an area of the night sky where there are no bright stars, only dim ones. And be careful not to look up until you are sure you are going to gaze in the right direction. Then the first star you see will likely be a dim star, a star nobody else makes a wish on. And it will be your star alone!
Autumn Leaves
The arthritic sat calmly, like a statue, on the indigo swivel chair. The doctor felt his wrists, palm and fingers, mumbling what sounded like the names of the bones and joints. “Are you a typist?” he asked, puffing on his cigar. “Nobody types anymore,” said the arthritic. “True enough,” the doctor agreed, swiveling his own indigo chair to face his manual typewriter with its fresh new form. He punched some keys to make notes, and then turned to the arthritic to ask about his profession. It was not one the doctor recognized. He prescribed some ointments and aspirin and sent the man on his way. At the end of the day, as the doctor walked down a broad avenue of chestnuts, he saw the arthritic, standing in the shade to the side, counting on his fingers, pausing, and then counting again. What was he counting? Motorists? Transients? Lost friends? Syllables? Autumn leaves? “Nobody counts anymore!” the doctor exclaimed out loud, and shuffled off to the station.
The Asterism
The asterism mazes across the night sky in cold, bright stars. The shadow, an old man or child, gazing up from a field of tawny grass, does not know the light years of its breadth, the orbit of its galaxy, its right ascension or declination, its quadrant, the parallax, velocity or magnitude of its brightest stars. It does not know the formula for gravity or relativity, nor the atomic weights of hydrogen and helium. It does not know the mysteries of its galaxy that the astronomers do not know. And yet it knows the faithful pattern, the changless appearance and itinerary, and a handful of magical stories. Night after night, the shadow looks upward to the stars that lived long before him and will live long after him, sometimes wishful but always thankful for the endless sign and its brilliant silence shining back down on him.
The Orange Crate
There was no sky. And a light rain fell. In the black woods, the pilgrim walked through impenetrable darkness. The strange sounds of twigs, owls, foxen and just the wind and rain in the leaves surrounded him and made him fearful. The stones and ferns were cold and wet. Suddenly, he stumbled upon something. It was a cache–a lantern and a box of matches. There was one match left. One strike of the match was luckily enough to light the lantern, but the lantern was too dim. Even the little match had been brighter, but its light had only lasted for one flashing moment. Training the lantern on his surroundings, the pilgrim searched for landmarks or signs. He seemed to be in a glen surrounded by the black boles, leaves and needles of dark and formless trees. On the far side was an orange box, perhaps another cache. Close to him, in the opposite direction, was something resembling a path of pebbles and pine needles leading deeper into the mountains. Crossing the clearing, he found that the lantern began to flicker and grow dimmer. He could no longer discern the orange box in the darkness. Perhaps he had imagined it. Recrossing the clearing, he started on the path, and suddenly the lantern light grew brighter with every footstep. Stopping, he turned back toward the clearing. A small amber flicker, like Arcturus in the night sky, glowed in the distance amongst the black trees. It must be the orange crate, he thought. With the stronger lantern, he headed back toward the clearing, but the closer he got, the dimmer the light grew, and it was next to impossible to see. Only a dark glow barely illuminated his hand holding the lantern, some oak leaves and gravel underfoot, and nothing more. Once again he headed back to the path, and continued to walk. The further he walked, the brighter the lantern glowed. It is likely that he had gone further and higher than before. Now, when he stopped and trained the light in the direction begind him, he could read the contours of the path, the textures of the pines, oaks, larch and yew, and he even noted the fact that the orange crate was still there and seemed to be stamped with large text of some sort, but he could not read the letters clearly. A wolf howled nearby. It was absurd. What was even more absurd was the fact that he had traveled safely for hours before finding the lamp and the path, and now he felt only the madness of the whispering forest.
The Secret Number of Trees
A traveler came to a city by the desert. Outside the city gate he found a man lost in thought. “What are you thinking about?” the traveler asked. “I have questions about heaven and god. I wonder what it is.” The traveler shook his head and muttered: “What a foolish waste of time! Instead you should ask how many trees there are, how many leaves they have, what the tavernas are like, and follow your questions to the end!” The traveler walked off and entered the city. Some years passed and a great earthquake struck, cracking the streets and crumbling the towers. The traveler lay in a heap of stones, bleeding from his wounds. He tried to count his wounds. He wondered how many stones he lay upon. A thoughtful man was going from one injured person to another, bandaging wounds and giving them water to drink from a kettle he had found. It was the idiot from the city gate–the first person the traveler had met when arriving. “Are there many dead?” he asked, after drinking a cool stream of water from the kettle. “It would seem so,” said the man, who still seemed youthful despite his crow’s feet and scattered strands of gray hair. “How many are injured? What kinds of doctors and engineers live here? Am I going to die? Did you ever find an answer to your useless questions?” The thoughtful man sighed, smiled, and started to bandage the old traveller’s wounds.
The Clergyman’s Dilemma
Maybe it was not a real paradox, but it was enigmatic all the same. The clergyman noticed, as many will, that nobody sat in the front pews. He called the maintenance workers and had them remove the first row. This gave more space for his assistants, ushers and weekday visitors. It was an inviting space; it would amplify the sacred. The second row became the first row, and fell to the same fate. Nobody would sit there. The clergyman wondered why this would be. Perhaps some were too humble and thought it presumptuous to sit too close to the altar. Perhaps others resisted the front out of shame, coming from traditions in which the front rows were reserved for penitents who wanted prayers at the end of the service. There were likely those who just avoided being close to the pulpit and altar because they deeply feared what they represented. The second row was removed, and the third row of pews became the first row. Season by season, the pews and the pulpit would drift further and further apart from each other, but still nobody would sit in the first row. The clergyman greatly envied those heretics who sat in circles or stood during their services. They had eliminated the dilemma centuries ago.
The Great Sea
The river began to speak. It spoke to the poor dry land. It spoke to the acacias. And it whispered to the dried out grass . Then it called to the man who sat on its shore. Come and let me draw you to the sea, it said. And what is in the sea? asked the man. Great things, said the river. And years passed. The river drew silt; it hauled driftwood; it carried off scraps of paper and golden leaves and straw; it ferried swimmers and boatmen. And the old man wondered why he could not get to the sea, and why the river called to him, and why the acacias eventually died and cast their branches and trunks into the stream, but he would not set a raft upon the waters nor wade into the streams, though the river ran forever, beautiful, blue-green and deep to the sea of great things.
the lost way 