Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
I ride the wave of words until the surf crests and curls, breaking on the beach and dribbling up the sands. As the wave retreats, I consider the body of today’s output and the state of myself and my rising hunger, check the time and announce, done.
Another enjoyable day of writing like crazy has reached an end.
Say whaaat?
She was eighty-five, and didn’t want it announced. “I don’t tell people my age. Most people look at you differently when they find out you’re eighty. They assess you with a completely different approach, amazed how well you are, or sympathetic because you’re growing old.”
I understood. I’d felt the same about being sixty.
Ever think about how novel this day is? Similar to other days, it’s influenced by where you’re at on the planet.
The planet is stable but dynamic. Its core is changing, and cooling, affecting the mantle, crust and atmosphere.
The Earth is spinning, and the spin slows every day. Days are longer by 1.7 millisecond over last century. Innit that somethin’?
North of the Equator, the length of our daylight is increasing for the middle latitudes, like these “temperate” areas of Europe and North America where people are freezing their asses off. Sunrise is earlier, and sunset comes later.
While I know that we’re continuing a revolution around the sun, and the change in light is affected by the revolution, rotation, and earth’s axis, I think of the planet as being attached to a rubber band. The planet reached winter solstice. That’s as far as the rubber band stretches, with the rubber band’s stored energy. Then, snap, we head back the other way.
Oh, yeah, and did I mention that our planet’s orbit is decaying, and we’re a little closer to the sun, and the sun is cooling, and will eventually do us in?
Put all these things together, and you see how unique this day is. That’s why you should make it special. There will never be another day exactly like today.
You ever notice that the threads of commonality, through events, emotions, and communications, that tie you to others, are actually strands twisted together that form carbon steel cable that’s much harder to cut or break than you ever imagined?
Yes, it’s easy to say, that’s all over, it’s in the past, but those cables keep you tied. You need to keep cutting and cutting….
When I was young, I imagined great careers for myself, glamorous and exciting vocations, like rock star or racing driver. Didn’t come close to either of those, but fulfilled one of them in last night’s dream.
Yes, I was a racing driver, an unknown in Formula 1. Being unknown bothered me not. I was just happy to be there. I was with another rookie driver. Short, he was from somewhere in South America. This was the season’s second race. He’d won the first race. I wasn’t in the first race, but the media was mobbing us because we were rookies, especially him, winning that first race, and his F1 debut.
The time for the current race arrived. There wasn’t any qualifying for reasons I don’t know, and I was starting from the back. (I think this was just a dream contrivance as a metaphor for how I view myself and my life sometimes.)
Then, just like that, I was surging through the field, was at the front and gone. My wife was in the pits, watching, and was mega-impressed. (Yes, I was given that view.)
“Where’s the other guy?” I wondered about my fellow rookie while the race was still going on. That question permitted me to view a screen in my car that showed the car’s relative positions, a setting that you can sometimes select in video racing games.
There was my car, in light blue, number one, and well ahead of the pack. The other rookie, in red, was fifth from last. I was exuberant for myself, and sympathetic for him.
I won, of course, amazing all. My wife’s excitement seemed to equal my own. If only life could be more like my dreams….
Woke up with this streaming in my mind. An apt, reflective song for a new year rising, here’s Steve Winwood with “Back In the High Life Again.”
“I had to kill him,” he said with a calm voice.
“Assassinate,” a Secret Service agent said.
He smiled. “Assassinate, kill. Funny how we decorate our killing terms. War is acceptable for killing, but terrorism, murder, and assassination are not, even though it’s all about killing. The differences are the who and why, and sanctions. Well, I killed him — excuse me.”
His smile developed a humorous tint previously absent. “I mean, I assassinated him because he was a threat to me and my family. He scared us. The way he spoke on television, the way he sounded, the things he said, all of it, he sounded insane, and it was scary when he started talking about nukes, and using nukes. I don’t want a nuclear war. I don’t think anyone does except crazy people. Like him. And the thing is, as a crazy person, he’s the one that can order us, our country, to use our nuclear weapons to attack another country. But the thing is, we don’t what would have happened then. It would have been like opening Pandora’s box, except Pandora’s box is filled with nuclear and biological weapons, war and terrorists.
“So it was simple. I had to kill him to protect me and my family, and our way of life. It’s funny, but I think he would approve.”
Catcerdotal (catfinition) – of or relating to felines.
In use: “Stepping into utility room, we discovered a trove of catcerdotal items.”
Ever see a bird soaring, kiting, or flying over the planet on some destination and think, I’d like to to fly like that? I’d like to fly away, sail, soar and wheel. Maybe you just wish for it in a more metaphysical way, dreaming of rising above your days of toil, strife, and trouble, longing for a better life.
I know I’ve had those days. Steve Miller captured the sentiment in musical expression in “Fly Like An Eagle” from 1976.
Feed the babies
Who don’t have enough to eat
Shoe the children
With no shoes on their feet
House the people
Livin’ in the street
Oh, oh, there’s a solution
Michael Seidel, writer 