Jogging with Ghosts

I took my first slow steps toward the door. It was late, the lights had been off for hours and my decision was made. Inside of me I could feel a spark, a little touch of life that I had nearly forgotten. Could it be that it was a sign that I was doing the right thing?(on the right track)? A wave of memories bombarded my skull. I had gone all of three feet towards my goal of locking the door to the outside for good. I had spent the last four days drying out in my apartment, after months of mental instability. This apartment had become my refuge, my base. No one could tag me out here.

A year had gone buy since I started toward the bottom. The road has been long and bordered by death, drugs, and the devil within. Time has faded my once pure body. I am a shell of what I could have been. Looking as if my time had been spent getting knocked along the jagged rocks and course sand of a long forgotten beach. Left alone, corners chipped, not even suitable for some poor sea creatures home. A quick glimpse of shimmering light brought me back to my youth, if just for a second.

Just like that I had come out of my sheltered world, and burst onto a new scene. I was nineteen years old.

A few years later I had a memory of that very day. I had eaten some acid earlier in the day. I was all by myself. I liked it that way. Whenever I did acid the whole experience was pseudo-religious for me. Actually it helped me to figure out religion one day, but that is a whole other story. But with acid you remember things and you get to go to a level that cannot be attained without the drug.

We, a term I use to describe the immeasurable amounts of molecules, atoms, etc that make up us. Us, meaning the tangible objects that occupy space and time.

It’s that simple. Yet so complicated. While we never see a desk or a tree, or even a cat pondering its existence, you can find any number of humans trying to figure this very thing out. The ironic part is that a desk, tree, or cat doesn’t ponder this question because they have no need to. These things have an innate knowledge as to why they are here. In fact, if it were possible to communicate with one of them, and you were to ask them that one question, the question that has bewildered humans for millennia, they would most likely look upon you and smile. All the while, looking around at all the accomplishments of the human race and its self described brilliance. How, they would think, can they accomplish all that they have and still not have a clue.

The concern would be evident, right on the surface of that small two-word statement. Concern that the answer would be brushed off, as inanimate object psycho babble. How could the humans, who can solve many of their problems, and create such marvelous tools, not know why they are here? Will they be able to accept this answer as true or, in their increasingly complicated society, will they cast it aside? After all would a King take advice from a slave? Would a top executive make corporate decisions based on something the janitor has said? Surely the self-proclaimed rulers of the universe would not take what an inanimate object such as a tree or a desk would have to say about something as mysterious as this.

Yet this all begs the question of whether a highly sophisticated animal such as the human would ever think of looking past his secluded world to the world around him to find the answer.

I had left for the coast with nothing but some clothes, a pack of smokes, and my guitar. I had dreamed of this day for many years now. I had seen it in my dreams. The clouds rolling swiftly in the background, the hum of the power plant in high gear. It was the beginning of summer and my thoughts were fixed on getting to the coast. I had spent too much time landlocked in the middle of nowhere. The snow and cold of the long winters had destroyed any sense of life I had in me after my dad died.

We lived in a small town in New Jersey for most my life. My father had a job with the Navy; I was never really sure what he did. He went over contracts, or something, but it wasn’t like he was an officer or anything. My father was always a happy man, a free spirit. I wasunder the impression that he would be around forever. I was wrong. He died of a heart attack when I was 14 years old. No one ever really talked about it after he was gone. It was as if my family felt guilty or something. My dad put in twenty-five years of his life to his job. He was a work-a-holic. He would go in to work at the crack of dawn and stay past dinnertime most nights. Apparently he also had a drinking problem. Now that I’m older I understand why he was the way he was. He was making a good living but it was expensive to provide for a family and three kids. My mother never had a job, except of caring for us kids and my dad. I never really knew my dad was a drunk. He never abused us, or embarrassed us, at least not that we would be ableto see. My mother has a somewhat different memory of him.

I’m old enough, and I’ve talked to enough people to realize that my story is not that much different than many other stories out there. After my father died my mom met some guy that seemed to bethe nicest guy ever. This turned out not to be the case. About a year after my father’s passing, my mom piled us in the car and took us to Indiana to be with this guy. It would eventually end up being the end of my life as it had been. My sister, brother and I eventually became bit players in my mothers’ new life. Painful reminders of the past she had with my father. Slowly I began to remove myself from reality.

My first life lesson came during this time. I had been slowly removing myself, backing up to view the world around me, and try and figure some things out. One thing that my father had that he gave to me was his desire to figure things out. He could fix anything that you gave to him.It was amazing. Once when I was like five or six, my dad came in my room and I had taken apart the clock in my room because it made a ticking sound that kept me up all night. I had the whole clock out on my bed in pieces. I think he was happy to see alittle of himself in me. We spent the whole day fixing that damn clock. I don’t know how, but it didn’t make that noise anymore.

I had become accustomed to wondering around my town, and going to movies by myself. I never had really close friends, but I was friendly with most everyone. It was on these trips around town that I became aware of the separate realities that we all have, and how no one ever really wants to get involved in anyone else’s reality. It was a depressing realization for me at the time because I was looking for someone that wanted to share realities. My life had become monotonous. My reality was very small. The danger really comes when your reality completely disappears from the radar. My life had gotten to the point where I had become nothing to my mother except a chore. This led to a mental wearing away at the tiny atmosphere of reality that surrounded me.

I’d walk around town a lot, and it always annoyed me at the separation I saw between people. It was as if everyone would be completely content if they were the only ones on the planet. Where did we get such an attitude? We are animals that have evolved the ability to communicate and share feelings, yet we erect force fields around ourselves in order to limit situationswhere we may have to interact. I am prone to this conduct myself. I blame it on my mother pretty much abandoning me, and my father’s lack of being around. Had they been more caring and nurturing would I be more open? Maybe if all the parents in the world loved their children as much as they should, we would have a new generation of friendlier people. It’s impossible though.

We are a species that has problems. We are not perfect. Nothing is perfect because nothing ever stays the same. We are all caught up in a spiraling universe traveling at speeds impossible for us to even comprehend. Now add factors such as time, and gravity and you can see that nothing stays the same. Evolution has taught us that the ability to adapt is the only way to survive. If you can’t adapt you certainly can’t survive, because you will be living in an environment that doesn’t exist anymore.

There is a uniform system going on as we speak. It started the first milliseconds of the universes history. In the beginning theinteractions belonged to tiny particles. These particles beget new particles and so on. The universe was born. All the while the cosmic materials were colliding and interacting at an incredible rate. Eventually it calmed down a bit to its present state, which is by no means “calm.” There is a cosmic ballet going on that must have the creator completely enthralled. Think about it. Climb out of your tiny bubble and look around.

Now go out a bit further. Notice the interaction within our Galaxy, the Milky Way. Stars, clusters of stars, remnants of stars, nebulae, its all there swirling around in magnificent synchronicity. All guided by the invisible hand of gravity.

The thing that gets me, though, is when you pull away from one level to another. Those interactions of the small scale are still occurring at the furious pace as when you were right up there in the middle of it. But now you can’t see them so you think they don’t exist. The vision of the Earth from space is breathtaking. You see a myriad of colors, andthe motion of the clouds, but you can’t see beyond that. You can’t see the house on the hillside overlooking the river. You can’t see the people milling about. It’s all about perception and how you see yourself. Are you standing on solid ground, the king of all species, looking at what might be conquered next? Or are you hurtling through space, a couple of hundred thousand miles per hour, on the surface of a rock circling a medium sized star?

I spent a lot of my free time either watching movies or listening to music. Had it not been for those two things, I would have given up a long time ago. Both have the ability to take you away for a while, to help escape into a place that is beyond the physical world. It’s internal. Whether its moving picturesor swirling notes, they penetrate deep within your soul to ignite feelings, thoughts, and possibilities that may never had existed. I watched sci-fi movies at the special Saturday matinee. They made me the happiest. They took me further away from my situation then I could ever imagine. And they started me thinking about the world around me. I used to get teased by schoolmates who would see me going into these movies alone, while they would be going to see the latest big budget bomb that “everyone” wasgoing to see. It always made me laugh. I hated them.

These were the same idiots I would see at concerts, all wasted and stumbling around. They never even got to see the show. Sometimes I think people do things just because they can. And an added plus to that is they get to rub it in the noses of the less fortunate.

I went to concerts for the whole experience. To me there is nothing like going to a concert of a band you enjoy listening to. Live music can take you to some very special places if youlet it. But really the whole concert is an event. The anxiousness in waiting for the day to come, and then it finally arriving. The enormous amounts of energy generated by the crowd. I love the feeling of walking through the mass of people waiting toget into a show. The energy level is so intense. If only it could be bottled, …

‘presenting…the impossible…energy in a bottle…gathered from juvenile delinquents…at the local rock show…fossil fuels are history…’

I’ve been to many shows, most of them I went by myself, but once I got their I didn’t feel alone. I’ve met some of the nicest people at concerts. I can read people pretty well. A skill I got from my father, but one I think I honed during my various concert-going experiences. I always knew whowould be “cool,” who I would be able to hang with before the show and listen to music and bullshit. Music became the icebreaker. I’d walk around and find the people I thought looked like they were into the band, and the music. Also, I didn’t want to hang out with people who were going to get too wasted, and end up ruining the good time. Most of the time I tried to stay pretty sober. I learned early on that with live music, I wanted to savor it. I wanted to be able to relieve the whole concert in my head later on. But I noticed that if I got a little too drunk or stoned, I couldn’t really remember the concert too well. I have no problem getting into a song when I’m straight. The music just takes over.

Each day back in Indiana seemed like hell when I was going through it. I actually put all memories from before I left home in a locked box in the cavern of my brain. I only began to remember them again just recently. It has turned out to be a very important time in my life, I’m glad I made it this far to remember them. If it weren’t for that old man with a heart full of soul, I’d be in a ditch somewhere.

I lit up a cigarette and headed for the interstate. I felt like a character from Kerouac’s “On the Road.” Only I wasn’t as cool and nothing really eventful would happen on my trip to the left side. Don’t get me wrong, the trip was fun, but it seems to pale in comparison to my time spent after I got to the coast.

Hitchhiking was easier than I thought. Maybe I got lucky. Apparently a lot of people drive towards the coast. I think it may be biological for us humans. I think for some people, me included, living by or near the water is a subconscious necessity. Truckers, farmers, old men, and couples are the most willing to give you rides. I love them kind of people. The truckers are so transient, coming and going. They have so many damn stories to tell, and they aren’t afraid to share them with you no matter how off color they are. The farmers are great to. They are in touch with the earth much more than I ever was. They are hard workers and good family people. The old men are just so full of wisdom. The elders of our society. They may have a different slant to things, but they have their own kind of experiences. Like I said before, things change and we must learn to change with them. By speaking with the elders we can identify the changed areas in order to adapt to the new environment. If bad things stay the same, let’s look and see what we have been doing that hasn’t exactly been working, and let’s change that. We’ve got to look around and create our future. The couple’s were always nice too. They served as a good reminder of love. That there is such a thing. And that it can actually change the world. Love can cure the demons.

It was the first nice day I had in a long time. The sun was shining and it was early in the morning. It had been raining the past few days and I was just in a downright miserable mood. That is, until the sun shone through my window and ignited a spark in my dreary existence.I just love days like those. Waking up to the singing of some birds, and the buzzing of a newly awakened fly in my window trying to get out, I grabbed my guitar and headed for the nearest park. The trees were flapping in the slight breeze and the grass was filling the air with its intoxicating scent.

I plopped myself down on a grassy hill in a state park. The day had brought the whole town out apparently. There were people walking, jogging, and flying kites. Some college kids must have skipped class to hang out in the park and smoke some weed and hacky sack. I didn’t even eat anything before I left. I didn’t need to. The weather had pulled me from my funk and provided me with all the energy I would need. I played some familiar chords on the guitar, and started making songs up about what I was experiencing at that moment. The guitar has been an inspiration to me. I play as much as I can for as long as my fingers can take it. Like many other things, I enjoy playing it by myself. That way thereis no one to please, but yourself. I’ve taken myself on some fantastic rides while playing the guitar. It never matters that I’m only playing a few notes or chords; it is just the fact that I create something that moves me. Isn’t that what it’s all about anyway? And for those precious minutes, I am the greatest guitar player in the world. Yeah, that’s exactly what it is all about.

It seems so weird to be writing about my life and experiences. It helps though. It helps me remember things, and it keepsme in check. It allows me to write things down that I feel strongly about, and when I read over the stuff it helps remind me of where I was at a particular time. I think I’ve noticed that as life goes on, people seem to forget about their ideals, and beliefs. The power of the machine, working behind the scenes, is too much and people become brainwashed, or they just give up. It’s true you can’t fight the man. He is too big and powerful, and he has his hands into everything. But as long as you keep your own person thoughts, ideas, and beliefs, the man can never win.

My trip to the coast took a little over two weeks. I took my time. I was really in no hurry to get there, because I knew that that was the end of the line. I couldn’t hitchhike across the pacific, and I didn’t want to go back east. I spent the night in a cheap motel, got a six-pack and rented some porn. I stayed up all night long. I met a guy at the vending machine who sold me a bag of weed and a tab of acid. I wasn’t going to let this night end. I stayed up partying by myself in the motel room, playing my guitar, listening to music and writing.

It was about five-thirty in the morning when I decided to go down to the beach. I was feeling invincible, like nothing could stop me. The thundering sounds of the waves crashing on the beach almost knocked me over. The sun was just coming up. It was shimmering across the water, beaming prisms of light out onto the horizon. I could do nothing but strip down and run toward the water. The cold hit me dead on, freezing me in my tracks. I began to swim out toward the horizon as hard as I could. It was all I could do to stay warm. The horizon was close and seemed to get closer with each stroke. I swam until I could barely see the shore. My heart felt as though it would come crashing through my chest at any second. I felt alive. Floating on the salty waves of the pacific I felt as though the world was mine. I saw my energy change colors with each breath I took.

I was farther out than I had expected and it took me longer to get to shore. When I did, I just stood there, naked, warming in the sun. Just then, though, a man walked by. He startled me, and I wished to hell that I had my clothes. But he just looked at me, smiled, and walked on. He seemed to mean no harm, but he terrified me. After I got back to the room, I thought about that man again. I wondered what motivated him to go on the beach so early in the morning. And I wondered if I would ever see him again.

So I pour my heart and soul out onto blank pages of a notebook, or pieces of paper. Each time leaving a record of my existence. Things just sometimes have to come out of me, or they’ll be trapped inside my head making me go crazy. A teacher of mine once told me thatI have “lapse’s in my synapses,” referring to my ability to daydream. I tend to do that often, daydream that is. I get a thought in my head and I could think about it forever. I have become very adept at being able to hide the fact that, although my body may be present, my mind is nowhere to be found. Its not uncommon for me to hold entire conversations with a person and they wont know that I am hardly paying attention to them. It’s better that they don’t know anyway. People seem to talk simply because they can. Why is this?

I stayed near the beach in an apartment owned by a divorced couple. It was small, but the rent was cheap, and it had a great view. The house was on top of a street that led straight toward the beach. My apartment was on the top floor, with my bedroom overlooking the water. The rooms were bare, as if no one lived there. I lived without excess.

The next day, I walked into town and got myself a muffin and some cocoa. The young lady waiting on me was one of the best looking womanI had seen since I got here. Of all places, the corner bagel store. She had red hair, and a perfect body. She wore a ring on her thumb that had a butterfly on it. It looked pretty cool. I stared at it too long I guess, and she slammed my muffin in the bag. The crackling paper bag grabbed my attention, and I handed her the money. Man was she gorgeous. I knew there was nothing I could say to her at this point. It was early, she was working, and there was a store full of people. I figured if anything was gonna happen, it wouldn’t be now.

There was something about that day. I got a table in the corner, but not so far away that I wouldn’t be able to see the cashier girl. Someone had left a local paper on the table. Parts of it had been taken out, but I found an article that had the possibility of keeping my attention. I like to have something to read when I’m eating breakfast. It caught my eye because there was a picture of a man that I could have sworn was the one that passed me on the beach. My first thought was that maybe he died on the beach that morning. Before I even took my first bite, I had this guy drowned in the ocean, because his wife of 38 years had just died of breast cancer. I actually read the article, however, and discovered he was a billionaire, and has been missing for like five years. His name was Dylan Thair.

By now I had forgotten about the beauty behind the counter. I was knee deep in this guys life story, which read like hit-piece - it wasn’t kind. Apparently he had worked for the government, or something, but retired and started his own company, UpLink. Most of the business the company did was security systems for computer programs. But apparently, there were some subsidiaries of the company that no one really knows about. One day the government came knocking on his door, but he was gone, along with any evidence of these “ghost” corporations.

I read a few sentences at a time, then glanced back at the picture. A few more sentences, then back at the picture again. I knew it was the same guy. This picture was a little dated, but the resemblance was uncanny. In the paper he was smoking a pipe and laughing with some friends. In my mind he was running on the beach, a blur jogging past my minds eye.

### Dylan Thair

I finished up my muffin, took the article on the billionaire fugitive, and went to the beach. It was windy and cold, but my mind was warm with electricity. My steps took me toward a bench beside the walkway. It was high tide. The water was as rough as I had seen it since I got here. There was just something about this day.

I steadied my gaze on a seagull halfway between the crashing sea and myself. He just hung their, catching the thermals. He’d move his tail feather’s a bit, and his position would change. But he stayed aloft forever. Just riding on the wind. Letting his instincts take over, he hovered above the ground looking like he was laughing at me. I let that pass. I was floating on my own thermals. My energy level was through the roof, and I could feel my heart beating beneath my shirt. I came down to earth with an urge for a cigarette.

I figured that guy probably made it a point to go running on the beach every morning. Unless he is like me and has no ability to discipline himself that way. But he was a government man, and an effective business man too. He had discipline. He was just the type of man that would run on the beach at the same time every morning. It just seemed to make sense to me. I made it my mission to find this guy, and see what he was hiding from.

I smoked a cigarette and a joint on the beach. My mind had become calm. The sand felt great beneath my body. It formed a perfect outline of myself in the earth. I was happy.

The rest of the day seemed like a blur to me. I was on autopilot. It is amazing, how your body can do that. Totally go into a mode where your mind and body are operating as one, yet separately at the same time. Take walking for example. It is a series of complicated muscle movements that get you from one place to the other. Your mind sends out signals and receives signals and interprets and makes adjustments, and so on. Yet you can still walk a straight line, and chew gum. My body had been on the ground around the beach for some time, but my mind was wondering, to and fro. I couldn’t stop wondering about the old man. What was his story? He seemed so mysterious to me, yet I felt like I knew him. I know that sounds weird but its true. SometimesI meet people or hear about them and I get feelings either way, but not this guy. The story was told in a slant that tried to point this guy out as a bad guy, but I couldn’t see it.

That night I went home and ate some dinner, and listened to the radio a bit. The day had been long, and mentally exhausting for myself. I felt weird. Not depressed, but not totally happy either. I was in emotional limbo. Being in any sort of limbo is not my favorite place to be. Its not here, and its not there. It’s a place that, once you leave from it, you can either go to a place that is good or a place that is bad. I would rather be completely depressed or totally happy, at least then you know what you are heading into. That night, in my bed, I knew that the next day would bring me happiness or sorrow. I actually didn’t care which it would be; the uncertainty of it all was getting to me. I wanted so badly to go to sleep, it just didn’t seem like it was going to happen.

At about four-thirty in the morning I got out of my bed. I was anxious. I hadn’t slept but an hour, and I was nervous that I would never see this man again. I don’t know why but for some reason he had a hold on me. I ate some cereal, smoked a cigarette and headed for the beach.

What a beautiful morning it was. The air was clear, the waves were crashing, and the birds were singing. The light blue haze was slowing rising above the beach.I sat on a log that must have drifted ashore during the high tide. No one was on the beach.

I sat there trying to figure out what I would say if I did see this mystery man. I worked up a whole conversation in my head. It never even entered into my mind that this man might be an evil son-of-a-bitch. In my head he was always polite, and interested in what I had to say. He answered my questions directly, and shook my hand firmly. Of course I had no idea how he would react to me, but I had decided he was a nice, normal man who just happened to be wanted by the government.

A lady jogged by with her dog, and gave me a confused look. The look she shot at me made me think she was wondering what the hell I was doing on the beach so early in the morning, just sitting on a log. Her dog paid me no mind. Then, out of the blue, Dylan appeared. I watched him approach. He jogged leisurely, paying great attention to the sky overhead. A brilliant point of light was shimmering in the pre-dawn sky, his gaze seemed fixed on it.

As he approached, his gaze turned from the sky toward me. Our eyes locked, and he broke his stride, coming to a stop at the foot of the log. For a man that was wanted by the government, he did not seem too concerned. He seemed cocky. I said “hello,” and he acknowledged me with a smile.

I guess he definitely did remember me. But now I got a little more nervous. Was this guy for real? Or was he some crazy lunatic, with specific sexual fantasies involving young men. I looked away.

It was a bit upsetting for me, because I had received no information from this man at all. All I knew was that his handshake was firm, and his eyes seemed to pierce deep within my brain. I figured that he was concerned whether anyone was following him, or watching him. I’m pretty sure he didn’t suspect me of anything or he wouldn’t have stopped to talk. But why did he stop to talk? I took out my pocket notebook and jotted down my thoughts on the meeting.

By now the sun was up and I was hungry. I decided to head toward the bagel store. The girl I had admired the day before, must have had today off. A pimply-faced kid with aMidwest accent took care of my order. I was feeling down. I was no longer in limbo anymore, I had sunk into despair. Today was my chance to find out about this guy. I should be sitting down with Dylan, eating a bagel, and going over government secrets or something. Instead I was alone in the bagel shop once again. This time I didn’t read anything. I just sat there looking into space. I was tired because I hadn’t slept the night before, and felt that if anyone came up to me I would punch them right in the face.

Could I go down to the beach again tomorrow? I didn’t think I could. If I did he would probably get suspicious of me. While he did seem confident talking to me, he also looked around the beach with his piercing eyes. Had he been looking for the Man, hiding on the park benches near the parking lot? Was his life in danger? Did he just approach me to see if I was a threat? Was he prepared to kill me if I was? So many questions had surfaced since our meeting on the beach. This morning in my bedroom, I had questions, but they weren’t real. Now that I had met the man and shook his hand, the questions didn’t seem to stop. I needed a bit of a rest.

I slept for three hours on the floor in my apartment. Sometimes I sleep on the floor to realign my body. It takes the cricks out of my back, and I think it mentally makes me happier the next time I am in my bed. I have found that purposefully denying myself things makes me a stronger person. I’ll sit in a roomful of food, very hungry, and not eat. I’ll sleep on the floor, when there is a perfectly good bed, empty in the next room. Somehow it seems to have an effect on me. I don’t ask myself how or why, the results are enough to convince me that something happens.

The next day, I slept till noon. My nap in the afternoon the day before, made it impossible for me to go to bed at a decent time. I had decided that, at least for now, I would stay away from Dylan. It was too shady a situation for me. I thought that if I stayed away, it would be better for all parties involved. I did, however, decide to find out as much as I could about this man on my own. Plus, I needed a job and couldn’t waste my time on the beach early in the morning, while I should be sleeping.

The local library looked like a shack. The shingles were falling off, and the grass was overgrown. I can’t really compare it to many other libraries because, frankly, my experience with libraries has been very limited. I went a few times when I was young, and our high school had one on the second floor.

I walked around aimlessly for a while just trying to get my bearings. I felt very out of place in the library. I felt like a foreigner, or a tourist. And I didn’t want anyone to help me. I didn’t think I’d be able to explain what I was looking for and I really didn’t want to talk to anyone. The article from the paper I took from the bagel shop served as my starting off point. I figured from there it would be easy. I was wrong. For some reason I thought that things would just jump out at me, as if because I was in the library surrounded by all this information, if I just thought hard enough about it, the books would pull themselves off the shelves for me.

It took forty-five minutes of hair pulling and pacing around the three stacks of file cabinets in the “newspaper” room of the crumby library to realize I had no idea what I was doing. I needed a smoke. My clothes were half-drenched in sweat, and I was nauseous and had a headache from the fluorescent lights in the low ceiling. I had to get out of the library basement quick if I wanted to live another day, I thought.

I took a deep breath as I swung the creaking door open. I was immediately calmed by the salty mist of the air outside. I lit up a camel light and took a seat on the flowerpot next to the door. I wondered what the hell I was doing. I had no job, very little money, and I was obsessed with some old man I didn’t even know. My insides were burning for something. I didn’t know what it was, though, I thought it was a cigarette, but I was wrong.

As I lit another cigarette the library door swung open. A sandy haired surfer with a cheerful disposition that seemed to precede his earthly body, came through the door. At first I wondered what the hell he was doing in the library. The thought was a shallow one based on his appearance alone. I noticed, however, that he had a name tag around his neck. It was for employees of the library, and his name appeared to be Scott.

Scott gave off tremendous vibes of happiness. Right away I felt like we were on the same level. He smoked American Spirit cigarettes, and wore raggedy brown sandals. He was the complete opposite of anyone I had ever seen working in a library. He wasn’t old. He wasn’t a woman. And he didn’t wear glasses that hung around his neck with beads. He had shoulder length curly hair, green eyes, and a real laid back tone of voice.

We talked for a while like that. Just back and forth banter as if we had been friends for a long time. I asked him if he had ever heard about Dylan Thair and he told me he didn’t. Without getting too far into it, I gave him a little rundown on what I was doing in the library. He told me that they had a computer upstairs that was hooked up to the internet. Scott seemed to know a whole lot about the internet, and said he would point me to some places where I could start looking.

Scott laughed pretty hard when I told him I really wasn’t too familiar with the internet or computers. I guess he’s right though. Everywhere I seem to look in the world, there is this machinery. I was never really into any of it. Some of the kids at school had video games, or computers, but we never had anything like that. Everyone would talk about how well they did and what great new game they just had their mother buy for them. I would always rather play in the woods, or build a model. Then this whole world wide web came along, and now it seems everyone, everywhere, is hooked up or connected or linked. I guess I still don’t get it.

After about four cigarettes, we went back upstairs. Scott showed me the basics of how to get around on the computer, and I was off and running. I got the hang of it pretty quickly, and before I knew it, I was knee deep in articles, and press releases that had something to do with Dylan Thair. Scott suggested that I print as much as I could out, and then look it all over later. It was a good idea because I was able to then get more information without sitting there and taking notes and squinting my eyes. I guess computers are good for something after all!

As I approached the door to my apartment I leaned in to the door, pressed my head against the window and turned the knob. It had been a long day, and it wasn’t over yet. I hadn’t eaten anything in hours and had a hard time finding the energy to open the refrigerator door. Of course there wasn’t really anything in there. I made myself a bacon sandwich, washed it down with some beer, and headed for bed.

I spent the next few hours in a brilliant subconscious reality. I dreamt of colors. Colors that can’t be described with words, but must be witnessed and felt with your eyes. It was as if I was floating down a rainbow river inside a bubble. I woke up refreshed as I have ever felt, and was eager to get on with the business at hand.

Most of the articles had been from a newspaper a couple of years ago. Apparently, Dylan had bought out a satellite manufacturing company under what the reporters labeled as a “shady deal”. The company was called Taurus and a few of the stockholders were upset about the deal. They felt that Dylan was going to shut down the whole operation, and that was exactly what he had done.

A few years before that, he had started his own little subsidiary that was researching space technology. His contacts with the government allowed him to get started. He even had a space shuttle mission added for his own experiments. Dylan had a lot of money and was not afraid of spreading it around. His friends in the government had no problem cashing those checks either. So time went by and Dylan set his sights on space. He was consumed with it.

Before that merger, though, Dylan Thair was a relative nobody as far as the public was concerned. He flew under the radar while he amassed his fortune, and made a name for himself in the business world. I finally came across an article that dealt with his own personal history. Some reporter had interviewed his family and friends and wrote up a nice article about him. It was the only article that painted him in a pleasant way.

Good journalism will paint a picture using nouns, pronouns, verbs, and adjectives. It should be up to the reader to make up their own conclusions. The reader should be able to look at all the words and see the picture in his head. Then the brain takes over, and draws conclusions. It’s a shame that it doesn’t really work this way. Reporters, while they should be simply reporting the news, tell you exactly what they want you to hear. No more and no less. They leave you no room to use your own head to make up your own decisions. It’s a travesty. But when you find a journalist who actually has faith in the reader, who truly believes that the reader, John Q Public, has a brain and can actually use it, it is something to behold.

So when I started to read the article on Dylan that also included his family and friends, I was pleasantly surprised. Of course the reporter was new to the game. He hadn’t been tainted yet. He did a great job of telling the story of Dylan’s life, through short quotes from family members, and little anecdotes paraphrased from what must have been hours of interviews with everyone that seemed to know Dylan. He talked to teachers, next-door neighbors, family, friends, ex-girlfriends. I finally felt as though I was on the right track. The reporter’s name was Brian Nataman. I wrote his name down and the paper I had gotten it from, for my records. Hey, maybe I would interview him one day if I needed to.

According to the article, Dylan wasn’t your normal run-of-the-mill child. He had an advanced intelligence for his age, and became consumed with the great beyond at an early age. His grandmother purchased an old beat up telescope at a yard sale, and gave it to him for his 9th birthday. There was a quote that had him saying that the world as he had known it changed the first time he looked through that scope. He went through high school, won awards, went on to college, won awards, and later to graduate school, where he was recruited by NASA. He didn’t immediately take the job at NASA though. The reporter went on about how he had taken some time off after school to find himself, and relax for the first time in his whole life.

He orbited the earth on foot for about a year and a half. He went to Australia, Hawaii, Arecibo, the Grand Canyon, and Amsterdam. That last place grabbed my attention. It is well known, especially around the drug circles, that Amsterdam is the place to be if you want to get high and not be hassled by anyone. I could understand why I, or some of my friends would want to go there, but why would Dylan? The other places, as was pointed out by the article, are places where huge telescopes sit atop mountains, where the pristine seeing conditions allow for some great stargazing. I’m sure his trip was not all a vacation, he did some casual observing and solidified more so his love for the world outside of us. Maybe he took a little layover in Amsterdam to check out the Van Gogh museum, the red light district, and some hash bars. I could appreciate that.

After his hiatus, Dylan came back and worked for NASA. The thing is, no one ever knew what he did for them. In fact there was really nothing to report about him for about 19 years. I thought this odd. Here he was, a man of exceptional intelligence and skill, and yet he apparently was a relative nobody. His name was never mentioned in reports, he never commented on anything, and never got into any trouble. It was either the classic story of the really smart guy who washes out at a young age because of the constant pressure, or he purposefully had given up for 19 years. Resigning himself to government worker status, a mule for the man. Pushing buttons and crunching numbers until his eyes bled and hands were numb.

But then all of a sudden, 19 years into his employment with NASA, he takes an early retirement and forms his own corporation, UpLink, on the California coast. He believed that the company had something to offer the world.

Scott had stopped by later that night. I gave him the rundown on what I had found. It was weird, he seemed interested and uninterested at the same time. I think maybe he thought I was a little crazy or something, but with all the time I had on my hands, I had to find something to do. Scott had brought a six pack and some reefer over. He had come straight from the library, and seemed a little antsy.

I know what he meant. Even with the lights on, the apartment was dark, and dismal. It bothered me in the beginning, somewhat, but now I guess I was used to it.

We were barely halfway through the joint when we decided we both had had enough. Scott told me that he knew some guy that knew some guy that grew a bunch of reefer up in northern California. It was some great shit. I wanted to ask him for some, but felt a little foolish. It was great stuff though. A girl I met at a concert once, described reefer of this caliber as ‘change your life weed.’ I wish she could try this stuff.

After pounding three beers apiece, we decided to head for the beach. It actually wasn’t as if we sat around and talked about going to the beach, we both just sort of levitated out of our chairs, and out the door.

It was a spectacularly clear night out. The waves were thundering on the beach just a few blocks away. That same bright star that Dylan had been staring at the other night was glistening overhead, beckoning us toward the Pacific Ocean. Scott must have seen me trip over the curb while I stared at the bright object that seemed to illuminate a big portion of the sky.

We passed some surfers that Scott knew on our way down the sandy path toward the beach. He introduced me as ‘the new kid’ and we continued on.

I laughed hysterically at that. Like it was the funniest thing I had ever heard in my entire life.

I was counting my change after purchasing a pack of cigarettes and noticed that something had been written on the ten-dollar bill. It simply said “Be Grateful”. It got me thinking about who had wrote it, and how many people had handled that bill before me. I wondered if it would ever be returned to the original author of those words. It came at a time when my money resources were low, and the prospect of a job was nil. Not that there weren’t any jobs out there that I could do, it was the fact that I wasn’t looking. I didn’t really want a job. I had a little money in the bank, and thought that I would live on that till it had run out. But that graffiti’d ten-dollar bill gave me pause to think about what I was doing with my life.

Basically, I have been floating around and just doing what I pleased. I was young, and I had yet to find something that I felt I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Why is it that I have to find something to do with the rest of my life. My worst fear is sitting in an office with a suit on for a couple of years because I’ve been ‘told’ that I have to. You know what happens then? You die. You no longer exist. Your life becomes one 9-5 twilight zone, where you wake up every day and do the same thing, over and over. Next thing you know you’re 59 years old, counting the days until your retirement, and you get hit by a bus, or your heart explodes from the stress you put on it the last 40 years. Is that life? Is that what living is all about? Worrying about your paychecks, and where the money is coming and where it is going? Did anyone ever ask me if I wanted any part in this scam, called life?

But the scribble on the ten-dollar bill, ‘Be Grateful,’ made me sort of realize that it doesn’t really matter. Like that old saying “Don’t worry, Be Happy!” These are things that are easy to say, easy to write down, but extremely hard to put into practice. Will I, or anyone, for that matter, ever be able to not worry and be happy? It’s a joke right? A statement made to fool people into thinking that life is good. Well it’s not good for everyone. Not in the least bit, and faking that it actually may be, is a bunch of bullshit. Like when it rains on a wedding day. Everyone says it’s good luck. Good luck, my ass. In reality it is something that has to be said to a hysterical bride who is about to get her expensive gown, makeup, and hairdo all fucked up. ‘Ohhh, don’t worry about the hurricane blowing the town away honey, it’s good luck!’ Nice try, but it would never work on me.

That’s what gets me though. Everyone, it seems, has a vision of a perfect life. Now of course it is different for each person, but the bottom line is that they are looking for, and thinking of, the perfect life. A life without hurt, or pain. No cancer, no AIDS, no starvation. Even if they are not thinking on the grandest of scales, we all want those things to not happen to us, or the people we know. Then you hear your uncle has cancer, or your friend gets hit by a drunk driver, or whatever. And the world comes crashing in around you. Suddenly, for a brief period, life becomes reality. When real pain sets in, and it forces you to think about all the things that get shelved while you’re at work. Reality.

It’s all a part of being human, and having emotions. What are we going to do, though, when something really real is about to happen to all of us? When the population becomes too much for the planet to sustain. Or when a terrible catastrophe threatens our very existence. Then it’ll all matter I guess.

It happened to me then. I got stuck in a rut. I saw the walls caving in, and I just couldn’t do a thing. I would like to say that I grabbed a hold of whatever I saw and held on for dear life. That I was able to pull myself above the crashing waves of reality. But I just couldn’t. Like everyone else, I had drowned.

Scott’s uncle worked for an Insurance agency and they needed someone to sort and stack the monstrous amount of files that the company generated. I bought a shirt, borrowed a jacket and shoes from Scott, and found a couple of ties at the Salvation Army. I worked from eight-thirty A.M. till five. I was dead. My life had been sucked out of me. My ambitions were gone. I went to work tired, came home even more tired, and developed a minor drinking problem.

My days were spent in an antechamber on the bottom floor of a disheveled office building. Everyone who worked there seemed to take on the persona of the building. No one was happy. In fact I’m pretty sure, everyone was completely miserable. My memory of this time isn’t really what it should be. I spent the better part of five months there, but couldn’t really tell you the names of anyone who worked there or what they looked like. Mostly I kept to myself. I had a lot of busy work that kept me going throughout the day. I stopped for lunch maybe three times the whole time I was there.

It’s funny when I try and remember it; all I can see are files surrounded by blackness. Little manila folders with red, orange and green tabs on them, and my hands gripping them and throwing them around the dungeon they had me working in. I didn’t do anything else except file things away. Some were folders that had been around forever, and needed a permanent resting place. Others were files that needed to disappear into the abyss. Files that the insurance company wanted nothing to do with. I couldn’t care less. I needed the money, and it passed the time between waking and sleeping.

I would see Scott most nights. He had stopped working at the library, and was working in the insurance company. He worked upstairs, though. His uncles’ little pet. It didn’t bother me as much as it bothered him though. I figured if I was in his shoes I would be doing the same thing. He got paid really well, and he didn’t have to do anything. He made some phone calls, got coffee, and read the newspaper. We would meet up after work for a few drinks and to smoke some weed. It was becoming very much a habit for the both of us. Now that we had money, though, we constantly had a supply of beer and weed. We didn’t need much of anything else.

I spent zero time wondering about Dylan Thair during this period. The stack of articles and magazines were in a pile in the corner of my apartment. I put them there to make room for a table I had found in the garbage. I did read the paper everyday, though, and not a word was mentioned there, either. He had slipped away again, both from my memory and the face of the earth.

### The Descent

I was floating in a pool of water, naked. My eyes looking straight up towards a darkness I was unfamiliar with. I felt like I was weightless. There was a buzzing by my ear. It seemed to get louder and louder, as the water started to churn. I looked to my left and noticed I was floating towards a buoy, and the ringing was coming from inside. It was approaching very quickly and I tried to get out of its way. Just then I banged my head against the dresser, and woke up. I had been dreaming. I fell to the floor and noticed that the phone was ringing. How long had it been ringing? What the fuck time was it?

Nothing.

Click. He had hung up. I called his apartment, but no one picked up. I was starting to get nervous. I threw some clothes on, and doused my face with some water, deciding I should go to his apartment to see if he was all right.

His apartment was dark, and he wouldn’t answer the door. Actually I didn’t even know if he was in there. I went around back and jimmied myself up the ledge to his apartment window. I could barely see in, but made the executive decision that he was not there. Now I was downright scared. I ran as quickly as I could back to the apartment in case he decided to call again. I waited by the phone for hours. I called everyone I could that might know what was going on, but no one could help me. I felt like throwing up.

At around noon the next day I got the call I had dreaded. It was Scott’s uncle. He told me that Scott was dead. They had found him in an alley by my apartment, curled up in a ball. He had overdosed.

I slammed the phone down in a rage, kicked the table and crashed to the floor. I didn’t get it. He never mentioned that he had done any other drugs besides what we had done together. And no person in the history of the word had ever died from smoking pot or eating mushrooms. I felt betrayed. I remember having conversations with him about this and how stupid it seemed that people would put themselves in positions like this. Where they are willing to die, just for a high. It was insane. I was enraged.

Of course the next day at work had everyone talking about it. Talking about my best friend being dead. I got no work done that day. I just sat in the basement staring at the stacks of files I had masterfully put together. It turns out he was with a girl he had known a while back in high school. Shehad come back from college and they were hanging out all night. One thing led to another and he was dead by the side of the road. He used her cell phone to call me, and she left him there. She left him there. Lying in his own vomit, and piss.

I had pictured what it must have looked like when they found him. Just another day. Just another dead body. I still can’t get that vision of my friend lying lifeless on the sidewalk, out of my head. It has been etched into my brain. A constant reminder of life at its worst. Young life, crumpled up and tossed to the ground in a heap. I was entering a dark time in my life and I knew it. The sun was shining, but it felt as if I was walking under an enormous cloud. The kind that hangs overhead, taunting you, before it unloads a shitload of rain into your life.

It later came out that Scott had taken some heroin that night. His ‘friend’ had brought it back from college and thought it would be fun for them to do together. Now I know Scott, and if it had been me offering the heroin to him he would have declined. I would have asked him a couple of more times, but he would still have declined. This time, though, it was a woman. A good-looking woman that left my friend to die by the side of the road. I guess they were in a bar, and then he left and she couldn’t find him again. That must have been when he called me. It still makes me sick to think that I probably walked past him in the alley that night. I could have helped him. The least I could have done was be there, so he wouldn’t die alone in the alley like a bum.

I quit my job the next week, and started drinking. I guess it was a bender. I have glimpses of my life during this time, but most of them are through an empty bottle of Jack Daniels. The tiny apartment I had became a solitary place of existence. I hardly left, and no one came over. I ate crackers, smoked cigarettes, and drank. Everyday, for four months. My stomach became bloated and I developed a tick in my left eye. The tick was driving me crazy, as if someone had placed an electrode just under my eye and shocked me when I least expected it. I was so messed up, though, that someone could have been there, shocking me, and I wouldn’t have known. So long as they stayed away from my booze, I wouldn’t care.

I left periodically when I needed refills. Refills of booze, food, cigarettes, or reefer. It was a period of self mutilation, only I wasn’t scratching my arms with razors, I was ripping my insides out and turning my brain on end. I would get looks from people on the street. Looks that pierced through to my soul, tied it in knots, and spit it out. My soul was gone, if I even ever had one. Looking back, I realize exactly how much time I had spent in complete oblivion, fueled by alcohol and cigarettes. I have mixed emotions about that time. On the one hand, I wish I had been able to handle the situation a little better. I wish I could go back in time and smack the shit out of myself for being a selfish idiot. But, then again, I wonder what would have happened if my life had continued on the path it had been on, uninterrupted by the selfish grieving for a close friend. Most of the time now I look back on that period with a twisted fondness. The walls were caving in around me, the sky was falling, yet I remained standing. What the hell had kept me going and why? Questions that never seem to get answered, and never seem to fade away. There are too many things going on around us for us to be able to figure it all out. The beauty is in the balance. The delicate dance of the world in and around us.

I don’t want to harp on the time in my life I now kindly refer to as ‘the bender.’ In actuality I had taken some time off from everyone else’s reality. I tried to stay alone in my own world. Not having to interact with others was my goal, and I had accomplished that. I literally had no one. I hadn’t heard from my mother since I left home, and that was no surprise. It hurt me to think that I had come from a woman who was just so cold.Not even to care for her own flesh and blood, too caught up in her present life to care about me. It was just as well, though, I had nothing to say to her either. But I wondered if that part of her was inside of me, somewhere just below the surface trying to get out. And knowing this, would it be fair to anyone else I may affect with this personality trait. But was it a trait, or some choice she made long ago when I had broken one of her precious lamps in the living room? Had she hated me since then, and couldn’t wait for me to leave?

My sister had called when I first got to the coast, said she wanted to come visit. I hadn’t heard from her since. It’s just as well; we are two clearly different people. Not in a bad way, our lives just took some different paths. Talking had always been a chore, and when we did talk it was mostly about our mother and how much we couldn’t stand the hold she had had on us. Now that we had both broken free, though, I wonder if things would be different. She was about a year younger than I was, but always seemed so much older. I sometimes resented her for that. I was the middle child, but I always felt like the youngest. My brother was three years older than I was, which is like an ice age when you are in junior high. He was one of the coolest and meanest people I had ever known. He had so many friends and he would do things with me all the time, but he was also my older brother. Since my father was rarely around, he had taken on the role of father figure. He was the boss and he knew it. But there was also a sense of animal kingdom there. Without putting things into words, or telling me directly, he taught me how to live. He showed me my place in the family, and he would protect me to the death. I haven’t seen him in some time. He landed a job through some contacts our father had, and was working in England testing hypotheses or something.

I was a loner. And this time by myself was nothing new to me. I know a few people who would just as soon die than be alone with themselves for any extended period of time. I guess I’m just comfortable inside my own head. You have to be, cause you can never get away. You can never break free of the thoughts swirling inside the cavern between your ears, and you shouldn’t want to. I am proud of the relationship I have with myself. Sometimes there are just periods, or moments, in your life when you learn a great deal about yourself. And I guess that’s part of life. Self discovery. Knowing who you are in order to find your niche in this screwed up world. The great thing is you never stop learning new things about yourself, because life is full of change. And sometimes you have to initiate the change in yourself, upon discovering something that doesn’t seem right. I finally made that change on a rainy night in November.

I had come to a point where I couldn’t recognize myself in the mirror. Partly because I wasn’t able to see straight and partly because I had changed into a person I had hated. A person I thought for sureI would not turn into. No matter how crazy things would get I always felt as if I was in control of the situation, but that had changed for me. Suddenly, it was if I was drifting at sea without a sail or rudder. Riding the waves of booze and drugs, wherever they took me. I stared at the mirror in horror. I hated the reflection it was returning to me. I closed my eyes and wished I was hallucinating.

Running to the closet I grabbed for the duct tape and sliced my index finger on an open utility knife.My finger poured blood onto the floor, leaving a trail all the way back to the bathroom. I had wanted to tape over the whole mirror, but decided against it. Figuring I could get the job done by taping newspaper onto the mirror, I headed for the stack in the corner. I aimlessly grabbed at the stack, unfolded the first page and masterfully affixed it to the looking glass. I was now sweating and bleeding all over the bathroom floor. I couldn’t stand to look at the mirror, fearing my cover-up didn’t work. Instead, I cleaned my finger with peroxide, and duct-taped a tissue around it. I sat on the floor in the bathroom, crying. I was scared, and pissed-off at what I had become. I was also exhausted.

I don’t know if I slept for 12 hours or twelve days. I remember waking up in a sweaty heap cradling the toilet bowl. My head was pounding, and all I could think of was having a drink. I needed anything that would ease the pain of the morning after, and start the cycle all over again. The tissue on my finger was encrusted with blood. I stood up slowly, not trying to move my head too much. I had forgotten all about the night before. I didn’t remember coming in the bathroom, or how the cut on my finger got there.

Half asleep, I turned the faucet on and splashed water on my face with my good hand, trying to rinse away the filthy residue on my face. On the last splash, I looked in the mirror to see if I looked as bad as I felt. Forgetting the cover-up job of the night before, I yelped, and jumped back, at the duct-taped over mirror. Instead of my face reflected back at me, it was that of my old friend, Dylan Thair. It was unnerving to think that I had done something like putting a newspaper over the mirror and not remember it at all. My head felt as though it was going to explode any minute now. I could feel the blood pulsing in my temples. I looked back at the mirror again, and sure enough I wasn’t dreaming. Dylan was staring back at me, pipe in hand.

Falling back to the floor, I had a vision. I had jumped back in time to when I was much younger, I must have been ten years old. We had a two-story house in a quiet neighborhood. An old house with a distinct smell to it, but it was home. We had a stairway on the right side of the house leading upstairs to the bedrooms. All of my younger memories are in this house, and they are all pleasant ones. A time when life was much simpler, and my father was alive.

My vision shot past my minds eye in the time it took me to crash to the floor. Yet it seemed like it took an eternity. It started at the top of the stairs, a first-person vision. I saw my tiny legs and feet carefully negotiating the stairs. My hands rubbed along the banister, and the sound of paper rustling was in the background. I came to the bottom of the steps and before I turned the corner, I looked up, just like I had done everyday before on my walk to the kitchen in the morning. But what I saw has been etched in my memory every since. I can rarely look in the mirror without having some sort of recollection of that day. I looked into the hexagonal mirror and saw a stranger looking back at me. I had passed by the mirror thousands of times, I had looked into it just as many. But this time was different, I actually saw myself. For the first time in my life I had seen myself as I truly was. It scared me and confused me all at once. It was like hearing your voice on tape for the first time, you swear that it isn’t you because the acoustics in your head change what you sound like. I had a completely different picture of myself, I know I hadn’t changed over night, but this felt weird to me. I spent the rest of that day in a trance, trying to figure out what was going on. It was something that I will never forget.

My head hit the ceramic tile of the cold bathroom floor with a sickening thud. It had hurt incredibly. My headache doubled within a matter of seconds. I wished I had gone unconscious right away, at least then I wouldn’t know about the pain. My whole body was in shock I think, because I couldn’t move a muscle. It was as if my body shut its motor functions down. It did not want me to do anymore damage than I had already done. I closed my eyes and obliged. I fell into a deep sleep, while my body worked hard to repair itself.It had an injured finger, a swollen head, withdrawal from alcohol and cigarettes, and a lifetime of pain to sort through. It was a very welcomed semi-coma. I just needed to sleep.

=== PART II ===

As I stood and walked toward the door, the spark of life I hadfelt grew into a tornado of fire. It engulfed the waves of churning scum that had been my life, and turned them into vapor… dispensing into nothing. These past four days had been the hardest in my life, but now I felt like a new man. I hadn’t been happy, it seemed, in many years. These four days had given me the time to think about when I was last truly happy. I spent every single minute of the last ninety-six hours thinking about my life, trying to find that happy time.

I had made a pact with myself lying on that cold tile floor that it was actually time for me to grow up. I was fed up because nothing was working for me. I never got the chance to feel like I was part of the world around me, but I knew there had to be a reason. I knew this because all things happen for a reason. Now you can take that saying however you want, but I’m going to tell you what it means for me. Simply put, it means for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I don’t know who first said that, but I know I have heard it before. Nothing “just happens.” There is a reason why volcanoes erupt, or wind blows, or birds sing. Something else must trigger the end result. It’s like that other guy said about the objects in motion staying in motion and objects at rest tending to stay at rest unless, of course, acted upon by something else.

Bottom line is that I really think life as you know it can be molded, sculpted to your will. It only seems to work though if your bottom line is in sync with the cosmos around you. I don’t think that anything in this world is intended, things just happen and then the world changes or doesn’t change, but in the end everything moves on. Everything is dynamic, constantly changing. It’s evolution in front of our eyes. Not past, present, and future, it’s all just evolution, development, growth, progress, steps forward. Whatever you want to call it. Everything seems to be changing, being born and dying, built and rebuilt. But what needs to be done is to look back and see what has worked and what hasn’t. Then look at what is going on in the present time and see if it is working. Are goals being accomplished? Are things moving forward, not backward? Because if its not working then it is not going to last in the end. Time is like the harsh desert winds carving designs in mountains, it will eat up the excess and turn you into sand.

For some reason I worked backwards. While universal time flowed past my body, my brain turned time around. It was amazing because I could see the point where I crossed over. It was as if I pulled the emergency break on my life traveling down a wet road. I was floating past in a dimension that I had never known, it was not foreign, it didn’t frighten me, but I felt somewhat uncomfortable. Surrounding me, it seemed, was a completely different reality, another dimension. It was so surreal. Up until the day before, I had tried any drug I got my hands on, I had searched high and low, for the ultimate high and had never found it… until now.

I swept past the most recent years, watching in painful agony, this stranger that was me. I felt out of place just remembering, and realized that I couldn’t escape the empathy toward myself. My emotions relived these times and all the mental anguish, and sorrow. There were nice respites of happiness, though, but they never lasted. Like the lady at the diner. For some reason those few seconds were extremely good. My body filled with warm colors.

I have never really loved someone. I felt that reality, rather quickly.I almost mistook that feeling as love for the woman behind the counter, but that thought left almost immediately. And just as quickly, I realized that it was my lack of love that was shining through. My mind filled with sorrow for myself, as if it knew what I missing with not having loved, and I did not. But how could that be? While trying to figure that out my body convulsed. It was telling me to move on. We had stayed at this moment for long enough, I guess.

I went back further, and my mind settled. It was as if a migraine that had been festering inside my skull, where you can feel the veins thump thumping against your hair follicles, had disappeared into thin air. I was thrilled. I guess there are always going to be limits.

A funny thing was happening though. I was trying to remember how I got to where I was. I was somewhat aware that my reality was now altered, but I could not remember how. I started to freak out again. My migraine came back, and all I could do was grab onto my head. I felt as if my body was curled into a ball, but I saw that my legs were stretched out below me. My nerve system was running at full speed, and felt like it was about to overheat. It seemed that when this happened before I was stuck at a particular point, but now I wasn’t stuck on a moment in time, I was stuck on the thought that my present reality had somehow slipped through a door of the space-time continuum, and I didn’t know how I got here. How would I get back? Am I dead? Is it a dream? I saw my situation as being a slide rule, where I held it in my hand and moved it wherever I wanted. I felt a very underlining sense of happiness and well-being, with the surface covered in nuclear synapses blasted away at my skin. I just couldn’t deal anymore. I always imagined if insanity was an actual thing, I think it is and I think I’ve been there. My reality seemed to expand beyond me in rings. The thought struck me that they were like rings of thought, or intelligence. Is intelligence the ability to think? The rings spiraled out beyond my sight, but I still felt them as thoughts inside my skull. This is what I was stuck on, though, the thought that I could be so very conscious of everything about myself, and yet still be thinking of this and not being able to believe that I was where I was.

The next thing I knew I came hurtling back to the present. My headache had vanished.

My life, it seemed, had been turned on end. The funny thing is, though, that things don’t ever seem to stop. Not for a second. Your life may seem so out of control, like it had been plucked up by a passing tornado, and yet everything around you is passing by in total normalcy. The mail gets delivered, people go to and fro the grocery store, and it rains or it doesn’t. And then something happens that spits you out of that tornado and sends you hurtling into thin air. Sometimes you land on an old wrought-iron fence, and sometimes you fall gently onto a bail or two of hay.

A piece of mail had been shoved into my mailbox among the credit card applications, and long overdue bills, that caught my attention. I stood at the foot of the stairs outside my house, and lit a cigarette. I actually woke up that day thinking today was the day to quit, but it only took me two hours to break that promise. I would live another day, though, so I could always quite tomorrow!

The sun had just peeked out from behind a gray cloud. It was the only gray cloud in the sky. I thought that odd. Sure there were other clouds, but they were white. I was happy, though, because it seemed there would be no rain today. For the past sixteen days it had been raining. Not the light drizzle with occasional downpour, but the kind that comes from all directions stinging at the slightest touch of the skin. It must have stopped raining during the night because the ground was somewhat dry. I remember thinking at about the ninth day of rain that it was never going to be dry and sunny ever again.

The envelope reminded me of something out of the eighteen hundreds. It was brown, and bulky, and looked like it should have a piece of twine wrapped around it. I opened it with ease, as if it had been sealed years ago.

I took a drag of my cigarette and removed the contents of the envelope. I could feel my hands begin sweating. There was a piece of thick paper folded over with a sticker attached, holding it closed. I was a little pissed because I had no idea what this was and I hate getting mail, period. I have never gotten a good piece of mail. It is always a bill or some other bullshit that I don’t really care about. I have had some subscriptions to magazines also, but those don’t really come in an envelope and you always know immediately what they are.

So I unfolded the piece of paper and once again I was pissed. It said simply:

Let’s meet at noon in the coffee shop.”

I scratched my ear, put the cigarette out with my foot and headed indoors. The clock on the wall said it was just after ten a.m. I prepared a fried egg sandwich, and spent the entire breakfast staring at the letter, still cursing my life.

=== PART III ===

I had this thing happening to me lately where I'd be sitting in my apartment, just sitting there doing absolutely nothing, when I'd get this feeling like I wasn't alone. Not in a crazy way or anything, but like when you know someone's watching you. Only the someone watching was me. I mean, if that doesn't sound too crazy, which it probably does.

It started happening more after I quit that stupid job at the insurance company. That's the thing about jobs - they keep you so busy being someone else that you never notice who you really are. But when you stop, when you really stop and look around, that's when the weird stuff starts happening.

Like yesterday. I was just sitting there on my apartment - I don't have a bed frame because what's the point really - and smoking this cigarette that I swear I'd already smoked. I knew I'd smoked it because I remembered watching the ash fall on my jeans in exactly the same way. Made the same little gray circle and everything. And right then I got this feeling like I was watching myself from the corner, only when I looked over there wasn't anybody there. But I knew, I just knew, that some other version of me was standing there thinking "Boy, you really made a mess of things, didn't you?"

I didn't tell Scott about any of this when he was alive. He would've just thought it was the drugs or something. But it wasn't. It was like the opposite of being messed up - like I was finally seeing things clear for the first time. Although I guess that's what everybody says when they're losing it, so who knows. Maybe I am crazy. But if you're going crazy, aren't you not supposed to know you're going crazy? That's what really drives me mad sometimes, trying to figure out if knowing you might be crazy means you're actually sane or just a different kind of crazy altogether.

I took that letter to the bathroom and burnt it in the tub. I simply couldn’t burn the contents from my memory. I had spent that day, destroying my body with beer, cigarettes, and weed. I'd stayed up until I passed out on the couch watching an infomercial on paint rollers at 3 AM. What a miserable person I had become. It’s sad because I could not even realize how pathetic I was how I had convinced myself that the entire world was crazy and I was going to go crazy because I knew that I could never belong. But what is easier to believe that billions of humans are the crazy ones and one person is not or one person is crazy and the rest of the world is not?

At some point the next morning, I was awakened by glass breaking and falling to the floor. My head was pounding and of course, I thought I was dreaming. I didn't really wake up until from the haze of sleeping, I saw a tall man with a large belly approaching the couch through the sunlight. My body stiffened, he took a swing at me, and I went unconscious.

=== PART IV ===

I crawled out of the abyss. Not exactly sure how I had gotten here, or what I was going to do next. I felt disorientated, dizzy. I instinctively did my usual check - the one I did whenever I left on a journey of some import. Spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch - a newfangled measure-twice and cut once. I forgot where I picked that up, but I say it in my head in a British accent. A bad British accent, but I must admit it has gotten me out of forgetting lots of things over the years. Still, I m not sure why I did that. I wasn’t sure where the hell I was, or what I was doing. Its weird how somethings those things just seem to stay with you. The things that are somehow burned into your subconscious, from somewhere along the way. I swear I’ve felt some things that I don’t thin I ever experienced myself, but somehow knew in a pretty intimate way. Like I said, weird.

I gathered my senses for a few seconds. I had a thought flash across me that came through like one of those carnival lights, the old school ones with real incandescent bulbs. It flashed on, off and back on but it literally read “I am not CraZy” - with the capitalization and everything. In the moment, I was thrown further back. The juxtaposition of the old lights and the new font felt warm and inviting. It made me feel like I was crazy. I started to sweat in a way I hadn’t in many years. It beaded up and fell to the grown. I followed a sweat drop as it pooled on the bottom edge of my right hand. It gained weight and some momentum and started to fall. I followed it along the way, as it was illuminated from the bottom by the crazy sign. It landed on the edge of one of the bulbs and half of it shattered into the air, while the other half rolled down the curved glass bulb.

The punch really struck a nerve. I mean literally - my head was ringing like a bell. I felt exactly like the cartoons when they get a good whack - dong! - and shaking back and forth inside a bell. I was vibrating, a human tuning fork.

The bellied-man was gone. The room was trashed, although on my dazed first glance, it seemed more like what it would look like after a ruckus than from someone tossing things around. I don’t know, like I said I was buzzing. Nothing else really out of the ordinary. I skulked around the room with my hand on my head and my eyes half cocked. It wasn’t much different than how I usually see things when I’m fucked up. Anyway, things looked fine. I couldn’t remember anything except the belly of that guy, which kept changing size and shape in my minds eye. It didn’t matter. The message, whatever it really was, was received and I was scared again.

I had to get out of there. I’d usually look for my buddy Scott, or some other distraction but this time it felt different. Like the usual distractions wouldn’t work. And oh yeah my best friend was dead. Still dead.

At just shy of 1am, I must have covered a marathon distance. I didn’t feel a thing. I only stopped because I realized I had come to a dead end of sorts. I had meandered. I was mostly on the roads, although through some parks and side trails. I was under a streetlamp. Although it was more just a marker for the spot I was in. Wherever I was. The road was ending. There was that light, and a guardrail underneath it. There was a park bench, green metal and wood, and a barrel trashcan no bag. Just beyond I could see the beginnings of a trail. It extended out about half a football field, and then it seemed to shoot off in opposite directions. A fork in the road. I leaned up against the guardrail, placed my hands on the cold green metal and caught my breadth. I raised my left leg up on top of the guardrail, bent my knee and did a deep stretch. Same with the other leg. The stretch forced some cold night air into my lungs, and I savored it.

I looked up and around. I didn’t recognize where I was. I could be anywhere really. Although I could smell the unmistakable salty air of the Pacific so I knew I had either gone north or south. Ish. The trail fork went to the beach toward the left. I couldn’t tell much from the shadows cast by the light and the trees along the path, but the other side seemed to go up. Up and to the right.

I walked the beginning of the trail blind. I was struggling to take my sweaty shirt off and it was stuck around my head. it was like I kidnapped myself. I wasn’t walking straight. my left foot snagged on a root and I nearly crashed to the ground. I stopped walking and finished taking my shirt off. I took a left, and headed toward the water. I could hear it loud and clear now. I saw the glow of a fire far off in the distance. I couldn’t smell it though. I didn’t see any other life. The tide looked to be going out, and I sat at the edge removing the rest of my clothes.

I melted into the water, and floated under the clouds. I wished it wasn’t cloudy and I could see the stars.

The night was unusual. The sound of the Pacific waves crashing against the coastline sand were nearly non existent. Muffled to a degree that was unsettling. In the 25yrs of running to the beach and floating in the salty water, I couldn’t recall a time of such calm. Was I in the right place? Had I run to the Bay instead?

I’d become accustomed to fighting the current and the mighty sea to get my float on. I should have welcomed this reprieve. I should have saw it for what it was and lapped it up and enjoyed it. But I didn’t. I still tried to keep focused on my breathing rate and conserving energy and motion. I could float like the best of them.

The clouds were clearing slowly though. There were some high up going out to sea, and a distinct layer underneath which looked to be heading in the opposite direction. It blew my mind for a second, but floated on. I was getting nudged to shore. I didn’t mind though it was time anyway.

The kid wasn’t talking to me. There was a group gathered at the edge of the dunes, smelled like they were smoking, and sounded like they were having a good time. I had heard some of their conversation as I floated into shore. I cant help myself, I’m a nosey dude - you get some people talking around me and I’m all in on it.

The train they were talking about was apparently a line of satellites in the sky overhead that was just becoming visible through the rolling clouds. I slumped onto the sand, a bit out of breath, drying myself with the towel. Sure enough, as I looked up I could see this moving constellation gliding across the sky. A cosmic train indeed.

The kids were talking about the company that had sent them up and how these were the start to something pretty big but they didn’t really care. They laughed with the age-old laugh of stoners on the beach, and commented how they were just happy that they hadn’t shutdown some video app on their phones. Keep the satellites coming. I was trying to get the water out of my ear and thought I had heard mention of a name I hadn’t heard or thought about in a long time. Dylan Thair.

Im not exactly proud of everything I’ve done in my life. Im sure most people aren’t, or they are kidding themselves. I am proud of a few things, though, things that I feel like got me here. One of those things was I just keep going.

Sometimes life seems like it just won’t stop. It just keeps happening. Life keeps life-ing, sometimes until it kills you. Im not sure why we life at all, what’s the point? I mean sometimes I say that - what’s the point - and I hate myself for being so cliche. Such an unoriginal thought. How many before have had this stupid thought? How many times have I had this thought even? Did I ever even care to find an answer or even suss one out? Then I realize that’s a crazy idea - it’s one of life’s mysteries. It’s what binds us in many ways, and unfortunately what separates and destroys us depending on the perspective.

It was summer a number of years back, a hot weekend Saturday but there wasn’t anything “to do”. It wasn’t a holiday, no occasion, no unnecessary friend get-together scheduled months in advance, just a glorious summer day unencumbered by life. I had woken up earlier than usual for me at the time, but there was something about that day so I got out of bed and got the day started. It was still dark when my coffee finished and made an obnoxious beep for that time of the morning. I rubbed my eyes, and must have gotten some weed crumble that was still on my finger in there. I immediately started to sneeze, and my nose was running. I hated that, but muscled through as I usually did. I poured a short cup of coffee, took a sip and laced up my sneakers.

It was a short run, or was supposed to be. A few miles through the familiar trails down to the bluffs and back up the hills. Today was one of those days to go full-jedi, I would turn off my targeting computer and not bring any headphones or music with me. Just me and my stomping feet along the wet trails. It was an unusual occurrence to say the least. What got me started back into running was the thought that I wanted to test myself and see if I could run for the duration of a live concert. If those guys could play instruments and run around stage for that long I should be able to have a decent pace and run for the same amount of time. The problem was that I was really into 2 bands at the time - and most of their concerts were in the 3 hour range! Lofty goals, or me just being a short minded idiot?

I could probably run those trails blindfolded at this point, and even then I was pretty familiar with them. Sometimes though there’s that fork in the road that you swear was never there before. I went left. Thinking in my mammalian bird brain that was the way home like it always had been. Nope. My quick short fun run turned into a long slow distance run that I was not prepared for in any way.

Two things happened that day. On that run and misadventure it was the first time I experienced something outside myself not necessarily induced by any drug. Well, I mean I did smoke before the run like I always do - but that wasn’t it. I turned a corner, stumbled on a root jutting out of the ground and almost fell. I recovered after a step or two, but when I looked back up the trail seemed different. There was fog and I could hear music playing inside my head, a familiar tune but soft and almost not there. Thats when I felt it, I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t scared, but I knew there was more than just me jogging that trail. By now the sun was up I could hear the birds and see the squirrels.

In an echo, I kept hearing what I thought was someone saying “it’s ok”. Not necessarily to me, but the words were there in the air, disembodied. I am not sure why, but at that moment on that run I saw a flash of that newspaper article picture of Dylan looking back at me from the mirror I had taped it to in the bathroom. I stopped my jog. I had been running fast for the last who knows how long, and I hunched over put my hands on my knees to catch my breadth. The fog cleared and I heard the birds again.

My breadth came back quickly, and it felt like the temperature had risen 10 degrees. To my left I could see an overrun path that led to the opposite end of the parking lot at the edge of the beach trail. I could get home from here I thought to myself but still a bit rattled and I wasn’t sure why. It was like the feeling you get once an acid or mushroom trip is over. The comedown, when you understand very literally why it is called “a trip”. Coming through the fog to a point of clarity, a time to take stock of what just happened and what it all means.

I was thirsty and hungry, though, from the unexpected miles. I started to think of what to eat, knowing there wasn’t much at home currently. Instead of running home, I walked from the parking lot my mind still full but clear. I absentmindedly stopped at the coffee shop and got a medium black coffee. It was too hot to drink and I still had the full cup when I was back home.

The other thing happened shortly after getting home that day. I had taken only about 3 sips of the scalding coffee, and set it on the table. I was at the point that I wasn’t hungry anymore. My stomach was confused. It was a weird day. I grabbed a meat stick from the pantry took a bite and headed to the floor to foam roll my legs. In the span it took to make a roll from neck to calves, I settled into a nap. It was unusual, as I do not typically sleep during the day or feel the need to. I felt myself fading. I remember thinking how unusual it was, reminding me of my youth days after school.

I was relaxed for a moment, but then in an instant shot back out to the trail I was just on, fog and all. This time though, I definitely was not alone and I didn’t just feel it I saw it. I was surrounded. We were jogging in unison through the woods. The trail was as tiny as it usually is but in this dream it accommodated the group. The silence was no more, there were cheers and yelps and grunts and sounds of spitting and breathing heavy. We sounded like a heard of horses stomping through the fields. Then it went absolutely quiet again and I heard my name being called.

---------

The in between is weird.

---------

Things are always happening. They never stop. The arrow of time, its relentless. It can bring the strongest to their knees.

I’ll never be sure about some of the things that happen, or why they do or how. I’m not sure when I developed this philosophy but I feel like there is something deep down that we just know. Or some things that are sort of default. And we are partly on this explosion through time going just as fast. There is an optimal path, but we have some choices.

How do we know we are on that right path. I think it’s what I struggled with for a long time. Then I started seeing the signs. At first I didn’t know what they were. That they were anything. That they meant anything. I’m sure they are there all the time, and in fact I bet there are a lot more than I’m aware of. Animals mark trails all the time, leave a scent.

Something to ponder.

It was another of those days of my youth in a haze. I didn’t remember the day until years later, and it resonated in a way it probably should have at the time it happened. Actually, thats being harsh - when it did happen my mind was definitely kind of blown, but quickly drowned out by the booze and drugs that followed.

This was early on in the fog and haze of depression and youthful numbing. My later recollection was during a pleasant afternoon trip to the guitar store and my mind was equally as blown away.

I went on to explain what had happened to me earlier that day. I was sitting in the Library reading this random old book I had picked up from the shelf. I had just been passing the library about a block away when it started to downpour. I didn’t want to get wet, but didn’t have anything I wanted to read so I was just wandering. I ended up on the second floor not sure what section but saw a book that had some gold lettering. I grabbed it and took a seat. The book had an old odor, not a smell it was an odor. There happened to be a good deal of diagrams and pictures. Right up my alley. The Sumerians. They had these ways of communicating with tablets and symbols. There was one that caught my eye it was like an upside down triangle with a lid. Turned out to be one of the earliest way of keeping track of property and the description of this one talked about it being a tally of barrels of beer. I got distracted and thirsty for a few seconds but went back to flipping the pages.

Still mindlessly flipping, I was pulled back to reality by the screech of the intercom in the library. Then there was silence. My thumb landed on a page that was mostly not words. The focus seemed to be on whatever was being depicted by the pencil drawing of some weird lady god in the middle of the page. There was a few other images of actual artifacts that were found. This stuff was old, a bowl and cup and there was what looked like a straw. Anyway, I was reading the description of the drawing. It was about this poem or something to this goddess.

As I read the description the exact moment I was reading that this was from 1800 BC, the librarian seemed to be screaming something over the intercom about calling their phone number, which ended in 1 8 0 0 . I could not believe the absolute exact timing of those number words in my eyes, my head, and my my ears at the exact same moment. I sat up straight in the chair and looked around shocked. The librarian droned on overhead. The book fell to the floor, but I picked it back up on the same page. This hadn’t happened before. It was as earth shattering as when I had actually seen myself in the mirror for the first time. I looked back at the picture and read through that description again. Sure enough, as I did and as I came to the “...1800”, the overhead librarian was saying loud and clear those exact numbers.

I got up and started walking out. It looked like the rain was done, as the library was full of sun now. I was still processing that. It was cool, I thought to myself. I started trying to figure out how to describe what had just happened. I couldn’t get the words to match my thoughts though. I was on the sidewalk when I realized that I still had that book in your hand. Had I walked through the siren at the library in my haze? Did I knock out that librarian and run? What just happened?

The anti-theft system of the library was simple, but pretty rock solid. It always worked, and sometimes too well. A lot of times, books needed to be double zapped so the alarm would not go off. People hated it. I flipped the book open again, but there was no tag. There was no dewey decimal number either. That had me going in my head the rest of the afternoon until I got home, told Scott and we got drunk and high.

I’m not sure how, but Scott always just seemed to know things. I told him about the above, and it all registered with him and he thought it was wild too. It wasn’t something that had happened to him or at least he had never noticed. He said it reminded him of something he had read in the Science magazine at the library. He had recalled it being an idea called synchronicity or something. We went on discussing the craziness of that, and he tried hard to remember who said it and some details, but the night was getting late and we had more drinking to do.

The next time I was reminded of that book was on a drive one afternoon, while meandering through an area I had not been familiar with and using my cars navigation to find my way to the guitar store for some new strings. As I was driving, I was curious and thinking whether there was going to be a sporting goods store or something on the way or near the guitar store. I had just recently gotten my car and was making efforts to leave the house more often. I thought about the days when I would head to the playground to shoot hoops, and how it would be good to have a basketball in my car so I could stop when I wanted.

I hadn’t played or thought about playing basketball for many years. I wasn’t sure if someone my age should really be thinking about getting back out on the court and jumping around, the running was doing a number on my knees as it is. But my obsessive mind was toying with the decision. Playing guitar had taken up chunks of my time recently, and I wasn’t sure if I would have the time to take on another activity.

As I was rolling through a stop sign thinking about the potential of getting this basketball, the navigation voice told me to take a “...right on Dr. James...” I was shook. Wait, did she say Dr. J - the basketball icon, right when I’m having this conversation with myself? It was enough to get me to slow down a bit. I realized that was silly, Dr. J’s name is Julius, not James. As I was realizing this, and still with the basketball thought in my mind, we come up on the cross-section of the street and had to go left or right. Literally right in front of me was a sign that said “basketball school”. Like I said I was never on that road before or since, and I’ve never heard about a basketball school before. Sure enough though there it was. A double synchronicity to get my attention. And it did. For some reason that had triggered the memory of that book and the conversation I had with Scott that day that I had long forgotten about.

I still had that book. I never actually did much more than just take it with me and put it on a shelf of the next place I lived. Often times, early on, it would grab someone’s attention and they’d ask me about it. I’d usually just say something stupid my wasted mind thought up on the spot. We’d laugh and get on with business.

Somewhere along the way I stopped putting it on a shelf out in the open, and later it just lived in the box under my bed. That box was a weird box of odds and ends from various times in my life. Its got coins, cards, a harmonica, and all sorts of shit. I had a piece of Bazooka gum in there still wrapped with the comic around it, but it eventually melted all over the bottom of the box and I had to toss it. I should have enjoyed it when I had the chance.

The book was always a good base for the left side of the box which was a bit weak. It provided a solid foundation for the knick knacks of my life I felt the urge to preserve. At various few points I’ve dug inside the box to see if there was any drugs I might have stashed and forgot about, forgetting usually that this is the first place I come while drying out and it is always clean of anything that could do me or my future self harm.

It started by looking back. Into the past, and figuring out why I was feeling certain ways. Then the horrors. They keep coming and they never stop. A loop of misery. For the longest time I would construct elaborate stories to try and trick my own mind into thinking that it was not fault, that it was someone else’s. It didn’t always work so it would usually help if I had a drink, or ten. And so I did. And I stopped looking back.

It took me years to actually get back to looking back. I didn’t want to and in many ways I was forced to, but that might be another story.