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Collection of Short Stories 

Waking

​Perhaps it’s only the fainting stagnate memory from my mind's drifting eye. I really cannot tell. My nerves whisper the pain and I feel very ill at my thoughts. Another day, perhaps, just simply another day.
           Wherefore are the dancing colors that surrender to fill the world with vivid realness. I truly cannot remember the lucid hues. Is leaf green? Maybe that’s what all that business of chlorophyll relates to. Rambling through the passages and corridors of classes with bobbing reflections creating only the mere fact that I was there. Knowledge appreciation, it seems, always comes too late. When the party is over and everyone has gone home, that is when the careening influences of what happened makes its imprint.
           Uncertainty fills my world with zeal. I know, calm down. I am nothing more than a dried-up pool of expelled thoughts. A shell of a skull enveloped with this rented flesh I call me
           My warmth has been laden down with the ice of a winter storm. A maelstrom is all those circumstances in my existence. Where shall I go?
           I cannot remain hunkered in the corner. The floor is becoming slippery with my blood and great carnivorous lizards are slowly crawling their way through the much to paw at me. What happened to my desires? What a strange brew I am entangled with.
           I cannot tarry too much longer in this condition. Monstrous manta rays will swoop me up and carry my load to the unseen places. I care not to navigate myself. Huge mountains with avenues of no return. Streets with no alleyways. Congested sidewalks screaming for some relief from the covey of human quailing’s.
           The next floor is on seven. The ceiling there is very low. I hear that crawling is the only way you go. Swaying lamps cause deep shadows to grow. Only forty-watt bulbs are screwed into the spiraling sockets. The exit is barely marked. I radiate nothing about leaving, but only generally dictates something about coming
           STOP
           The anguish is too much
           I cannot free
           Fall
This way
           I am not a one-cent stamp on a package
                                                                       Bound for the extreme reaches
           So, where am I? I look deep and hard into the mirror, but all I see is rivers meandering not to the sea but ending in abrupt channels that finger to underground water tables. I thirst for so much, just how can I achieve even a small piece of it?
           Tell me how many notes you can play in a minute? I whence at thirty and marveled at two…
           Time isn’t adding any more minutes. The seconds' pound by like a dripping faucet. Got to turn the valve and stop the flow – stop, stop, stop.
Nightmares are good for thinking, and walking is good for leaving. So shall I return until another time

Anthropomorphic Stain

​I look out and all I ponder our faces. I look out and all I can collect are reflections. But then again, all others who are looking out see the same as me. I am but an eying insect to them as they are to me.
           Enough! Experience is the perceived notion you have of me. I can gaze into a mirror but that tells me nothing of me except my interpretation of myself. Therefore, I suspect, I am only by asking you what I am.
           A young animal knows its mother by instinct. There is no mistake. Humans know themselves from the dialogue they cast out to each other. Shadows spewing out the greyish matter to one another.
           I've seen my reflection housed in windows, mirrors, and on paper. Sure, there is a similarity of form, but it runs amok by the image reflecting.
           A tree sleeps so quietly in the winter and jumps at the chance for life in the warm fingering silhouette of spring. The buds pop and burst to satisfy their yearning taste for life.
           “Do you know me?” the cocoon spoke to the white-spotted April butterfly in a metamorphic tone. The ugly duckling would ransack the tranquility of the snowy swan not knowing that one leads to the other.
           Is a fox sly or is the eagle only the vanishing symbol of a once beautiful creation?

It behooves me to truly speculate upon the conditions of us rational beings. We can be climbing the mountain today and tomorrow be selling used cars in Mozambique. Ah, well….
           Why is it that man pollutes
                       All his ideas
                       And assumptions
                       Through his own
                                               Egoistic base?
 
           Everything he touches gets
                       An anthropomorphic
stain.
           Truth is not what man sees,
                       But what he doesn’t see.
 
           To be objective in the
                       Search for truth
                       Is the key.
           All living things are involved in
                       Truth,
                       Not just
                       Man.

Rats 

(or the real truth-seeking task)
​It does seem to me that through meditation one learns himself and through self-learning and denial (discipline) one can begin to meditate on the wonders of the world. To meditate a tree and feel its very essence is to know the world is alive … the universe full of energy and sustenance. Enlightenment can only come from being alive.
 
Why does a wise rat have to attain the years of old before nirvana (blissful awareness) can unfold why are the young so full of life, so wise that they should spend the rest of their lives looking for what they already have?
 
I cannot tell what rats are made of, or what path to tarry is right. Seemingly, the twilight of paths, roads of ambition, mind coalitions, and rat endurance have to lead to disillusionment and the fusion of the entire era of rats.
 
Why so? Why does it happen that all roads seem to flow down separate streams? Shouldn’t it be that even tho’ we all be separate individual streams, can we not all flow into the same river and then sea?
 
Is being oneself so complex and unmeasurable that we cannot flow to the sea together? We all only trickle through the mountains of self-esteem and self-contentment.
 
I am told of a story of four young rats in search of their teachers of knowledge. All are told to go to the vacant lot by the foot of the mountains and await the form of Enchanted One, the big Cheese, for instructions on each of their quests. Each separately goes to seek and hear out the truth for his future aspirations.
 
A young heart and mind approach the garbage collected at one end of the lot and finds his place to wait for the Enchanted One. The scene becomes fluid and yielding and the Enchanted One from among the crap and filth of the lot echoes, “Tell me what you seek,” and the voice of the awesome ebb of a big rat dressed in a green and white Campbell's soup label warmly flowed to the youth.
           “Oh great cheese of life
           How I tarry and tarry so
           Of gold and silver, I care
           And none so more
 
           The call from succulent stale food
           The aroma of mucky-scum-filled shit
           My mucus-filled nostrils
           Spew out at your feet and tail
           
           My hopes and my dreams
           Like fade away
           To see me now
           In my place so low
 
           With scraps at my feet
           And rat ladies awaiting
           Glory hallelujah
           To be wealthy is to be free.”
 
“your heart has spoken you little rat’. So go back to the city and the street between the time you arrive and the time you see, a huge six-flat will offer you an invite and you will be – now go’.
 
Time is a marvelous continuum. It knows no rules but always knows how to play.
 
“Oh ratty Enchanted One, I know who I am,” the voice of another student-seeker of truth did cry.
 
“Speak to me and we will see scum!”
           “The guest of wealthy
           I did find
           That money sees
           But of fame hath I not
 
           I need for me
           To me, I see
           Prodigious and affluent
           For fame, I seek
 
           Fame thought the land
           From the sea to the sea
           From eon to eon
           Fame is my guiding star.”
 
A silent eye dripped all over the lot. Through the night the voice finally did come,
           “You’re a little late, stupid’. But I can see that Willard Two is about to unfold and be made into the most astounding motion picture ever made. Go back to the city and there, you will encounter a man who’ll make you renowned in fame. Just be careful of wooden cheese- now go.”
 
Precarious as it may seem, today was yesterday, and tomorrow is already gone. I’ll never know why living in the yesterday or the tomorrow of today seems so blue when living in the today of today is so gay and full of life.
 
Thru the trees, the sun oozed like cosmic light penetrating the cracks in the trees to bathe the forest and the shit in the vacant lot.
 
“speak to me, son of the earth, and tell me what your heart seeks.”
           The big cheese hastened unto another young light, most grey in color.
           “To be, to be
           Most of all
           To hold the role
           And taste the gold
           
           To see, to see
           Thru the golden smelly fleece
           Or the lord rat on high
           To fall at my feet
 
           Power-o' fire of hell
           To make rats
           To make the heavens roar
           To make me above all.”
 
The thunder rolled and the sky got dark and roared a voice, “go back to the city you little bastard with hell on fire and visit a friend in red who'll show you the way to command the uncommendable, to bend the lead bar, to raise a mighty hand and smite the alleys and junkyards with your glory and virtue.” Your destiny lay down and to rule that you with a similar and wave – now go.”
 
Purple and green and blue, like sparkling jewels, the rivers ripple o’er the land. Rivers have the power of beauty and can whisper to the ear of the listener of its travels thru time. Rivers flow and one cannot tell, where they start or where the waters go.
 
To flow is to go and flowing neither creates nor destroys but continues to run over the land. Following no set course, but always seemingly knowing where to go. Meandering here and over there until the rivers go to the sea to be…to be part of it all.
 
“Oh Enchanted one
I throw myself to you
And sing a song
Of knowing not all
 
I have tried to find my home
Something to hold
But I cannot see
Nothing seems right for me
 
I don’t want gold
I don’t want fame
Or the powers
That lay in being supreme
 
So is there help or hope for me?
I ask for away
To carry the load
 
Please, please
Help me find a home
Or at least another bottle
Of MD 2020.”
 
The young ragged rat poured the last taste of wine from his bottle of MD 2020 and then blow on his joint.
 
Far away the owl sighed and a tree breathed. The babbling rocks babbled so low that the rivers seemed not to flow. A grunt, a moan the vacant lot glowed, since a vacant lot can, and showed itself alive --- a filthy disgusting mess
 
“well, you stupid degenerate piece of shit, probably is nothing that can be done for you, but we’ll try to believe it or not, oh rat-son, I do care, I feel your yearning and see your alcoholic smile, but to answer you, you must climb the road that leads up, the path is marked well, but careful must you be. For there are those that will try and pull you off your course and plunge your head to death”
 
“Up yes, up the mighty mountain you must climb. First of all, no more wine and use up the last bit of dope you have and purchase no more.
 
“Careful is the seeking, weary are the meek. You must be a student first before you can teach. “
 
With that, the Enchanted One, the Big Cheese, vanishes. A limb from a tree quivers and extends itself exposing its finger-likee end showing the young rat the way.
 
“That lousy damn bastard, climb the mountain, no more wine … shit
 
So up the mountain, the crawling grey figure trudged. The ascent was not all that cumbersome. But, when the road looks easy, that is when there is a danger at the door lurking in the dark to ambush your very soul.
 
After a while, with the munches paralyzing the little rat’s ambitions, a sign appears almost out of nowhere:
           FEAR NOT FORSAKEN ONE
           THE FEASTS OF FEATS AWAITS
           YOU FOR SUPPER
                       ADO THE RIGHT TURN
                       BY THE STUMP IN THE ROAD    
“My my food,” thought the rat as saliva generated in his mouth and began to cover his teeth.  
 
A short distance off the golden path, the rat found an abundance of food.
 
He first rolled up a number and then began to eat and smoke. A stereo was along among the goodies and mounds of Grateful Dead records spired on the turntable. The music began and the rate ate.
 
As soon as he ate a hostess cream-filled cupcake, two more appeared. The more the rate ate, the more the food reappeared. The thirsty hunger did not stop.
 
The food caused the rat’s stomach to expand. After a while, he looked like a fuzzy grey beach ball.
 
“Hey, what gives?” the rat exclaimed. “the more I try and satisfy myself, the fatter I get. Hey, wait a moment, I get it now. It’s the old hedonistic principle. Oh Enchanted Cheese, you are clever.”
 
The rat stopped smoking and eating and bounced back onto the road. He rolled along and soon the rotundity vanished.
 
Roving on the path caused the young rat to consider many things. As it was that night was drawing near, the rat began to realize that tonight he would be sleeping alone. He wasn’t horny since the actual gestation period for rats is only at most a couple of times a year. Rats are also quite polygamous, so the concept of mating is limited. Anyway, it occurred to the rat that he wouldn’t have his raggedy tom cat doll to bug and squeeze, but then, there in front of him was a female rat with a raggedy tom cat doll! drooling at the mouth, the rat hesitated not a moment and followed the female rat off the path to her mole.
 
The warm feeling of togetherness filled with two grey rodents. They exchanged lice, rubbed whiskers, took turns with the raggedy doll, and clawed at each other for days. One morning the young truth-seeker was gone and left a note for the other rat to find. It was pinned to the box of rat yummies in the pantry.
           Dear vermin-infested honey,
           
           Please pardon my exit. I am being tested for what I do not know, but somehow staying
           Herewith you have not satisfied me. Perhaps when you are in heat again …
                                   Love,
                                               Your pious student of truth-seeking rat
 
“Aint it just like a rat,” the broken-hearted female rat thought.
“Scratch each other for a while and then they’re off again on some mission. Truth-seeking my tail! By the way, I can’t find my raggedy doll …”
 
The sojourn continued. A young vile rat climbed higher and higher up the mountain dragging a doll. The mountain began to get more treacherous. Crevices filled the rocky road as the vertical incline approached one hundred and twenty degrees. Slippery, crumbling rock with rain and snow bombarded the little poor thing.
 
“shit, not another deterrent.”
 
Sure enough, there before the rat’s eyes was a neon sign all aglow.  
TINY TOWN
           POPULATION: THOUSAND OF LITTLE TINY MEOWING CATS
           A CHANCE TO GET EVEN IF YOU ARE A RAT
The rat foamed a smile and jumped off the path and made his way to a little town. There he found thousands of miniature cats scampering about.
After eating several hundred meowing cats, the rat once again returned to the path. A sign greeted him after a short distance
 
           YOU ARE ALMOST THERE
                       BRAVE IDIOT
           JUST CLIMB THE SHEER
                       90 DEGREE WALL FACE
           AROUND THE BEND
 
The wall was quite a match for the rat. Faith, hope, and desperation from falling kept the grey four-legged little animals going. The summit did come and at the top was the omnipotent Enchanted One. The Enchanted One pointed at the rat and suddenly the rat changed color from grey to pink to pure white like dandruff flakes.
 
“Now you have completed the ascent. You are truly a knowledge seeker and incredibly stupid, but alas, no matter. Your journey up the mountain is complete. Now for the main thrust of your excursion.”
 
“what do you mean? There is more of this damn shit?”
“You think finding the truth is easy?” retorted the Big One.
“Well, can I have some wine first?”
“Shut up! You may ask what your journey now will take you … hey, ask it’s in the storyline.”
 
“Wait oh, great Cheese-eater will I have to do or go now?”
 
A front leg was out-stretched and a claw pointed the way. From atop the mountain, other mountains could be seen as far as the eye could reach out and see.
 
“There … more mountains to pursue.”
“Fuck you. I’m goin’ back to the food at the bottom of this mountain.”
 
“Tell you to want, I’ll join you. This truth stuff can get to a rat. I got this new Dead album for you to hear. I also got this great ass kickin’ weed…”
 
How, you ask, can a story like this end without a moral? Well, give me a second to think of one.        
the 
        Truth is     
        always 
        
        tttt
        iiii
        cccc
        kkkk 

            And good night … 
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