U F O

Piloting my red space cruiser across the green galaxy, I traveled in rhythmic, separate, repeating lines. Scouring the cosmos with exacting purpose, but it was too large. It continued on and on.  

That's what I let my imagination slip into for a little while. The reality was I was cutting my grass with my gas-powered lawnmower.  The relativity of my yard is annoying to me.  Partly because of the relativity itself, and also how dull and trifling a yard is. When I want to have people over, or throw a ball, or run around with my dog, it's so small. Painfully small, like an animal shelter cage. When I want to mow it, however, it may as well never end. You had to drive the mower slowly and deliberately to cut efficiently.  I was barely finished with half the yard, and the second half was hanging over me like the shadow of a raincloud. I stood still for a couple seconds, but didn't want to start the mower again, so I let it run loudly while I gathered myself.  The yard may have been small, but somehow it continued on and on.

There is a sense of peace nestled in with the minuscule accomplishment felt when I finish mowing the lawn. The roar of the mower quiets down, my muscles can relax, and the yard has a fresh haircut.  My laziness surpasses my work ethic at this point, so the mower tracks clippings across the driveway and into the garage. All to make myself feel less guilty about spending the next hour, or longer, sitting in a lawn chair in my yard. My brain gives me a gold star for the day, and that's enough to convince myself. 

It was one of those wonderful summer nights I remember from when I was a kid. The sun was beginning to set, but it would still be bright for a long while yet.  The sky was a dull, baby blue, cloudless, stretching below the horizon and mixing up, into the stratosphere.  I could hear cars driving a few street away, but couldn't see any. There must be children playing a game, perhaps jumping into a kiddie pool, a few houses down, from the sounds of it. The more distinct memories I have of nights like these involved me with Fourth of July sparklers, or arriving home dirty from sports, or simply sitting, like I am now, but with my mom and dad and my sister.  Nostalgia is funny that way, where I am enjoying the moment now, while longing for a similar one from the past. It is it's own emotion entirely. A combination feeling of desire, yearning, and comfort.  A new memory is about to be made, that will both encompass and eclipse these.

In the current technological age, I make a concerted effort to not access my phone for long periods of time if I can. I hate myself for making a habit of reaching into my pocket to check my phone for notifications when I have a lapse in activity.  Here, I take it out of my pocket and place it on the ground next to me, deliberately dropping it into soft grass without leaning out of my comfortable position in the chair, to reinforce the idea that getting it will disturb my position.  The beer I placed in the chair's cup holder earlier is so soaked with condensation that it slips out of my hand and stays down at first grasp.  The tab pops the lid open loudly and crisply, and the first freezing gulp whelms my taste buds, but acts as a palate cleanser for my mental state. It signifies the transition from phoned to un-phoned.  In a form of meditation I don't even realize I am doing, I take a few deep breaths as I gaze at my surroundings. The old, rotted, wooden fence separating my neighbor's yard and mine. Scattered clumps of dust, rock, some garbage, and what I assume is dirt, skirting the fringes of my lawn, a sort of wave of suburban detritus.  I let the thought creep into my head for but a moment that I should clean that sidewalk up before I continue my assessment.  The big, empty field catty-corner to my house. I can't glance at it without thinking of all the backyard sports, snowball fights, rock throwing, and laying down I have done there for years growing up. Those moments are a maelstrom of memories that pass by in a flash. What a joy it is, to a child, to have a grassy field.  Down the block, a smattering of houses, similar to mine in every way except for the persons living there. Some butted up against one another, some separated by a yard or a fence or a little dividing alleyway, but identical in spirit and purpose. They blend together into a single area, "the houses," and I move on. I can almost see the top of the hill at the end of the street I live on. It creeps up and up and crests at the perfect angle to block my sight. I know there is a small playground and a basketball court up there, even though I can't see it.

The other direction has more houses, with a hospital sitting behind them.  From my position, the center, I am home plate and the hospital is the center field stands. The outfield is many homes.  I can't see beyond my neighbor's house and fence to the left, so that's my entire sight line. I know there is a train station behind me, and behind that further, a small forest, with giant mounds of rocks, even though I refuse to turn my body to look.  The mounds of rocks had always intrigued me. They are not one rock, like your typical mountain. It looks like there are hundreds of thousands of individual rocks piled on top of some black dirt, or silt, or something. I honestly have no clue. I've always wondered what it was back there. When I was a kid, I never questioned it. We just climbed up it and then threw the rocks. Now, I question it, but feel too  adult to ask.  "Hey what is that stuff back there, like a dirt mine or something?" I've tried once or twice before and nobody seems to care.  

I center back on myself and take another sip. I sink down deeper into my chair to get into a more comfortable position.  My legs stretch out in front of me, and I cross my ankles over each other.  My left arm hangs limp over the armrest, and my right holds my beer firmly in it. I have entered this position many times before, so I know I'll be comfy this way for quite a while. I settle in for a bit of a haul and gaze up at the sky, thoughtlessly.  

I don't know exactly when it entered my field of view.  Had it been creeping along while I was surveying other things at eye-level, or had it jumped into position suddenly? Was my awareness that low? Was it just so foreign that I could not fathom to take stock of it until it was more apparent?  One of many things I learned I will never know. 

A large, dark orb floated across the sky. It was massive, large enough to immediately be frightening. It wasn't careening towards us, at least I don't think, because it wasn't getting larger. Once it caught my attention, I stared, mouth agape, for what could have been seconds, minutes, or hours. Completely transfixed, I didn't dare look at anything else, just in case. In case of what? I was never even sure. I wanted to be prepared in case it adjusted course, as if it wasn't fully in control. A "just in case" attitude doesn't work on something so obtuse, so large, so foreign to my senses. Moments like these you cannot prepare for, and you don't realize until it's over that you are nothing more than a helpless observer. I've quickly realized I know nothing and I control even less.  I was ready to activate flight, to run, to find some form of protection or defense. Against what? My fear overtook me.  Yet the orb felt nothing towards me. As I stared, a husk of a man, I began to realize it was moving. It continued on and on.

It was traveling across the sky. To me, in my perception, at quite a slow rate. I could tell it was moving, but it was going so slowly that I needed a frame of reference to notice.  

In these summer nights, another memory, which I didn't perceive until now, was the moon. When you are a child and you see the moon out in the day, it is a wondrous thing. The large, gray ball, hanging delicately in the blue sky, almost translucent, surely majestic.  There is an intrinsic and shared joy to seeing the overlord of the night grace us in the daytime. But now, this fortuitous sighting intriguingly became my earthly shackle.  As the mysterious black sphere moved in front of the moon, it gave an even greater fear. I now had a reference for it's size, it's shape, it's speed. In a matter of seconds it had blocked out the moon entirely. Now we had a new moon, a dark and ominous one; unfamiliar and unwelcome.  As quickly as it blocked out our satellite, it allowed it to appear again. It continued on and on.  My grip was tight on both the arm of the chair and my beer.  I hadn't even realized I had been squeezing them both for dear life as if I were on a roller coaster.  As this massive thing crept across the twilight sky, I forced myself to relax.  The power it displayed unfathomable, I acquiesced to it's demands.  Hope had left me.  For if this thing wanted destruction, I was to become dust myself.

It continued on and on.  Then, as eerily and hastily as it has appeared to me, it began to vanish. It wasn't getting smaller, but further away.  It was leaving.  Without warning, everything and everyone returned to what we were doing, whether we liked it or not, by virtue of the interloper departing.  Changed, yet unchanged.  Different now, yet not in a quantifiable way.  A communal witnessing, and nothing else.  It was as if the sky had become a drive-in movie for the entire globe.  We watched, jointly captivated, summarily enchanted.   All we could do was watch.  Then the movie ended abruptly and we were left staring at an empty screen.  

Weeks have gone by but there is no more information. Plenty of news about it, all speculation. Months go by and people start to forget, to care a little bit less. A year goes by and time has made fools of us all.  Memories are funny that way. There is a deep nostalgia lingering in me.  Brought on only by a brief sight, a simple glance.  A moment of scent sends a flood of recall in the form of emotions. I relive moments in my past just by being in an area I've been in before. Yet as we distance ourselves from this visitor, and as it becomes more and more distant, it, too, becomes forgotten. The government agencies said they were unable to track it. Not when it was arriving and not after it had gone. It was there, it passed by, then it left.  A blink in time. A light bulb flickering off for a moment before maintaining it's shine. Ships in the night and all that.  No different than me watching a bird overhead.  We pass by each other this way in daily life constantly, but we pay it no mind. And soon, nobody will pay mind to this as well.  

Five years pass.  It's summer again and I've finished my yard work. I sip a beer, I sit in my chair. I scan the horizon, the blue sky, the zenith.  I no longer think of my childhood. My eyes crave the sight of the orb like a desert oasis.  Have new memories formed in this area in the meantime? The thought never enters my mind. Life has gone back to normal for everyone, it seems. Yet I have become fanatical. I miss the traveler. The unknown.  There is nothing I want more. Upon first seeing it I was struck with fear, held in place by dread.  Now I have a form of bravery brought on by my anguished thirst for an answer. A second meeting. 

Once, I was in the present, but tied to the past. A vessel for nostalgia.  Now I'm gripped by a longing for the anagogic, the abstruse.  Either way life was passing me by.  It continued on and on.

Manufactured romance

A man and a woman are in the backseat of his car. They finished dinner and drove for a while before pulling over in the parking lot of a city park. They start kissing and she stops him.

"This feels really trashy," she says. She wants romance, she tells him. 

"You want romance? Use your imagination."

She rebuffs him.

He doubles down. "I'm serious. Imagine you're my mistress. We're in a lonely mansion, lit only by the moon and the occasional flash of lightning," he takes a break from the story to begin to pull her shoulder strap down. "We can't see one another, only feel light touches. You are the object of my affection. I desire only to have you, even though we can't. That's us right now, only a different setting," and he smiles at her.

She frowns. "That's not funny, I'm being serious." 

"So am I," he says. 

"Why can't this be romantic? Because we're in a car? Because we're not in a bed? I live with my parents, I can't bring you home." 

She feels bad. Or rather, she doesn't know how to feel. She begins to acquiese. 

He sits up and pulls back from the story.

"Wait. Don't undress. How about this?"

He launches into another diatribe "You're a hardworking, breadwinning woman. Head of your field. You come home after a long day and sit in your favorite chair. I stroll up, place a cup of tea on the side table, drop your book into your lap. You sigh as I begin rubbing your shoulders, your neck. Then I quickly pivot to the foot rest. You put your feet in my lap. Without a word I take off your shoes and rub them until your head goes back in relaxation. This romance intensifies as I move up your leg, massaging you into ecstasy" he's enacting the gestures of his story on her body the whole time.

Spastically, he switches topics.

"We can be that. We can be anything. I am striving for your affection. Wooing you. I am a poet. Your eyes pierce me. Daggerish. No, much kinder, full of life. The way the sunlight pierces our atmosphere to warm us. The way an elegant swan pierces the surface of a lake to wash itself. Your face a vision of beauty. Not biblical, not angelic. Real, magnificent. As if sculpted by a man tasked with creating beauty itself."

He sits back. "Romance isn't rose petals leading to the bed, or candles lit around the tub, or soft music playing, or kissing under the moon. Romance is ever present when we're together because it's present in me. I am romance."

This worked and the woman he was with lunged into their sexual activities with delight.

A few days later a friend of his was asking how his date went. 

"Great dude she let me fuck. I'm not really interested in a relationship though, so I had to ghost her."

Men are pigs, don't fall for it.

Do Tell

 Lately a few people have been pointing out my mannerisms to me and I love it. I guess I should be astonished, or afraid even, that I don't know myself that well, but I'm not really paying attention. My mind wanders easily, and my imagination takes over. That sounds like something someone would say about a five year old. I don't mind. If I can be as carefree as a child, I've attained a victory, however subconscious it is. 

Speaking of my subconscious, there must be a lot going on in there. Wherever it is. Or whatever. Not too sure. Either way, the idea I have of myself and the idea other people have of me don't seem to line up. I'm often lost in thought, and in doing so I scrunch up my face like I'm trying to strengthen my forehead muscles. I'm just as often lost in song, and I routinely get caught singing some eclectic tune that has been jailed in my skull, or some song I made up entirely while drifting off. When I catch myself I imagine someone else seeing me. How strange he is, they must think, to be staring so decidedly at nothing at all. How angry he is, they must think, glaring at everyone around him.

That line of thought recently got turned on its head due to the state of the world, now that we are all wearing masks. Walking into the break room at work I was greeted by a coworker who told me they don't like me wearing a mask. They can't see my smile. I was taken aback. I flat out asked what they meant. They told me that I was always smiling, and they found it pleasant, and now the mask hides it.

My shock was immeasurable. I don't remember smiling. Perhaps they were wrong. But what kind of person would lie about something like that?  How kind of them to say such a thing to me at all.  A wonderful moment, indeed.  It changed how I saw myself. I was so happy to be a person that they saw was smiling all the time.  I have never cared about wearing a mask for health reasons, but suddenly I wanted to never wear one again.

Once I started to have my mannerisms pointed out to me I started to notice some myself. Looking at old pictures and sometimes videos, I would pick out my own mannerisms. A video of me watching my dog spotlights how I hold my hands and my arms when I am stationary.  I fiddle with my hands when they are by my sides.  My hands reach up and rest themselves on my neck, in the crook of my elbow.  It felt almost foreign to be watching myself from an analytical point of view. It also made me feel like these involuntary actions were my personality manifesting itself through my body.  Where many people may feel strong-armed by the idea of fate, destiny, of being a vessel, I was reinvigorated by my own quirks, steadfast in my love for myself. What an odd creature I am.  

This was many years ago I began to write this story.  Back when I worked in a job with a break room and having to wear a mask.  In a stroke of coincidence, I have had another feature of mine communicated to me quite recently.  At a restaurant, the people across from me told me I had nice eyes.  How lucky for me.  Something I have no control over, something I use exclusively for perceiving my world, people like to look at.  When I was younger, and susceptible to negative influence, my eyes were a point of derision. Quite large and alien, back then.  My love for myself grows once again with the help of the people around me. They took a moment to say a nice thing, and now I feel it in my head and in my heart.  

Can you see the disconnect?  I had wondered how I looked to the people around me.  Feeling strange as a being.  My habits look foreign, quizzical, deviating, unfamiliar. Perhaps even contentious, bothersome.  My mind told me this before any person did.  Still I took pleasure in being the way I am, in spite of the potential perception.  Concrete evidence was then presented and now I can take pleasure in the way I am, but from a different place, a better place, a more wholesome place.  Does the source of my inspiration make a difference? Very much so.  Living for spite, with spite, in a constant state of animosity with suspicion will take you down a path of acrimony.  Perhaps not full of malice, but

inspired by a rancorous gusto.  There is a peace that washes over you when your internal accusations are trimmed up.  A turbulence that I did actively notice was pacified.  How harmonious life can be when you are not fighting false diffidence.  A boon of arrogance washed over me due to not a kind word, but an honest one.  The nullification of doubt, of uncertainty.  Mental strife, inner turmoil: a revealing affirmation, much like a lifting fog.  

I am reminded of my forgetfulness often.  Nothing of major import, but noticeable to myself.  Being told my mannerisms lingers eternal, an adamant yet unconscious reminder that I wage no war, I need not live in the shadow of hostility.  My courage is impetuous, my certainty is impregnable, my style is convivial.  Thank you for letting me know.

The kinds of relativity that interests me

 There are many things that qualify for the subject: I don't quite understand and nobody can explain it to me.  I often wonder why Giants in fiction move at such a slow rate.  First we must dissect the relativity of speed.  Ants, humans, and elephants all exist, and they are each fast in their own regards, yet the difference in scale changes how we understand that.  Elephants are much larger than humans, and have been clocked running faster than most, at up to 25 miles per hour.  How many miles per hour can an ant move?  When I asked myself that was when I realized, at least colloquially, that we measure speed not in parameters of speed itself, but of how quickly a distance is traveled.  If an ant were scaled up to be similar to a human, would it be faster, similar, or slower than ourselves?  I do not have the faintest clue of how to figure that out.  When the question of fictional Giants is introduced, it becomes even more difficult.  We see Godzilla trudge through Tokyo, the size of a skyscraper.  Menacing, imposing, but also able to step several blocks at a time due to his size alone.  I have to imagine his size alone allows him to travel at least 50 miles an hour at a walking pace.  Is he faster than humans or just bigger?

Either way, my initial query is about their motor function.  In depictions of the Titans from Greek mythology in popular culture that I have seen, they are positively enormous.  Yet they will throw a punch or try to stomp on someone, and it is an unbearably slow, telegraphed, and laborious process.  They will lift their foot and groan like a zombie, as humans underfoot simply run away before they can get stepped on.   More questions spring up. Loads and loads of questions that either nobody cares to explain or doesn't know.  Why would it not be more comparable to myself stepping on an ant?  If I went to step on an ant, I wouldn't raise my knee to my chest and then slowly drop my foot over the course of an entire minute.  I'd riverdance upon the ant with gusto and be on with it.  Why, then, does every iteration of Giants have them be slow, lumbering buffoons when they would be enormous, destructive, terrors? Is it all bad writing, bad storytelling? A horrid understanding of their mechanics? Deliberate misdirection or depictions made unscientifically? 

Something I have speculated, quietly in my own head where nobody can make fun of me, is that time is also relative to size.  By that I mean that maybe an ant sees us like we depict fictional Giants.  Far-fetched, I know, as there is no real way to test or understand this, and the basis for the idea comes from fiction.  Nevertheless, it is interesting to think about, and fake-reason about, as far as speed and size go.  Many problems arise from that.  I am still able to stomp the ant.  If they experience time differently, and I look like I am moving slow to them, then there is a disconnect between our different time dilations.  I look slow and pedestrian, but the foot drops nevertheless, crushing them.  So they are not actually moving slower in time, only the appearance of time moves slow. 

Extrapolate this to anything else.  What if the smaller you are, the longer time lasts? What if the larger you are, the quicker it flashes by?  At least in the sense of how time feels.  Well that would mean the universe feels like it could be just days old, at least to itself.  Ants feel like they've been around longer than time has, in their own ant minds.  This only brings more questions, namely the concept of "feeling" itself, and the very concept of relativity.  Both of these being human created concepts.  The universe doesnt feel anything.  So if there is an unfeeling entity also experiencing time, it cannot interpret it differently.  A mountain doesn't feel like humans are slow moving and itself is quick, for it is un-emotive, un-alive (in the interest of discussion this will not be discussed currently), and uncaring.  It simply is a mountain, existing throughout.  The Earth as a planet does not feel as if the mountains on it are changing faster than the humans.  There is a clear timeline of those events. 

I'd like to backpedal to the nature of Giants in the first place.  The scale we created is still rather small.  Imagine a Giant so big, that it floats in space and the Earth seems like a soccer ball to it.  Would it not be able to dribble us like Ronaldo and kick us into the sun?  Humans cannot comprehend or imagine this type of speed.  If it were ever depicted in fiction, each dribble would last for hours as we slowly drifted across space and the foot connected again for another bounce.  This depiction constrains our thoughts and encourages us to think slowly.  Everything is faster than we think, so fast we don't have words or ideas for them.

This disparity that defines relativity itself is also but a question. While scientific studies are not popular culture, I have to imagine there is a formula somewhere that encompasses what I am saying. But maybe there isn't. There are a multitude of factors that go along with size, some probably will remain questions forever. First and foremost, could something that large even exist? Godzilla-esque or larger. Probably not, based on meal consumption alone. It would have to eat a church full of people twice a day to sustain itself. Anything bigger wouldn't be able to live very long. BUT! What if it could? Are there theoretical devices to see how they could move? 

That's too many questions. I already have an answer. This Giant would move quickly, deftly. If it wanted to be deadly we would be at it's mercy. To a Giant, a monstrous, planet-sized space demon, we are smaller than the pesky ants. Poor ants. They are the first thing we think of when we imagine something very small. They are constantly stepped on just for existing where our feet are.  Let's leave them out of this. My theoretical Giant would blast us across the cosmos like a child throwing a bouncy ball as high as it can in the air for fun.  We'd careen through space, dead as fuck, an empty planet, slam-dunked further into the universe. 

I stopped caring about relativity when I realized it doesn't matter. Somewhere along the way I started feeling bad for the ants. I hope the cosmic giant who finds has the same compassion. 

FROG

 

A frog croaking on a lily pad. Darkness below and darkness above.  Streaks of moonlight, scent of flowers and mud, the buzz of a million, trillion insects.  Peaceful.  Tranquil. 

Curled up on the floor.  Fetal.  Crying endlessly.

There is some hilarity to be found in my recognition of frogs.  The last time I happened upon one in the wild was over a decade ago.  Yet the sound of their croaks is familiar, unforgettable.  Memories have slipped from my mind endlessly during this period.  Some just after their creation, some longer than that, but many have faded from my recollection entirely.  Without having seen or heard a frog in what I would guess would be half of my life I can tell you exactly how one looks, how one sounds.  Is this knowledge so simple that it is unable to be lost? So innocuous that it will forever hold a small portion of my brain for itself?  Eventually all of my memories will fade to black, and the only image left in my consciousness will be a large frog, floating on a lily pad.  The water jet black.  The piercing white of the moon a sliver of shine through the deep.  Bugs stirring about it.  Unaware.

Sometimes I get thinking about how there is no meaning at all. People attribute these effects to everything. Some things are bad, some things are good.  "Good" and "Bad," they decided.  It is more like we are dancing for nobody. All performers, no audience. When I think about it too long I can't materialize the thoughts as well.  Sort of backwards isn't that.  Lately I have come to think that the meaninglessness is cool. It makes me feel alive. It makes me want to live.  Like, really live.

Before I used to think this way, forces would impart themselves on my thought process.  I became a person who worries about the world around me, more than it worries about me.  Instead of that, I want to feel completely free in my own body.  I want to put on a song and get lost in it. Not in a simple way, either.  To listen and feel and move. Surrounded by people, perhaps, but dancing by myself.  Fully grooving. When I fully accept that nothing matters, it doesn't sap me of hope and wonder. It makes me feel free. The cognitive shackles that I attached open right up.  Rather, the mental self-flagellation. All the ideas I have about fear and worry and perception were developed before I knew I didn't have to develop them.  Which makes me realize that my mind has gained strength.  As my body grew, so, too, has my mind.  Wisdom fully realized.

When you conjure certain ideas and gaze upon yourself from an outside perspective, you have a certainty to face. There will come a point when my life will end. There won't be a chance to look back and assess it, it will come without warning and without preparation. I want to know at the end. Know without knowing. That I tried my best to be happy.  The only way to ensure that is to create my own fulfillment out of nothing.  It sounds daunting, but when you are at a level of introspection it is involuntary.  Natural.  As natural as a frog on a lilypad.

In the face of certain Calamity, in the face of Inevitable Defeat, the only thing left is to live.  We all do it by virtue of having no other option.  Whether we enjoy it or not.  Whether we understand it or not.  Whether it ends up good or bad. You only have yourself, the idea of yourself, a sense of self. To pursue is the only choice. Better than nothing at all and better than not trying.  Better than fear, better than submission.  A formal summation is non-existence and I am forced to strive.  Strife in the face of everlasting void.  The simplicity of it all is quite stunning.

A song ends and the feeling that it thrust upon me lingers slightly longer, but the silence takes over.  Back to the norm, the standard, the rigorous lockstep of complacency, the frail machine: unthinking, unquestioning, uniformly nondescript.  My soul pours out of my ears and my eyes and my head until I am altogether empty.  Another song pops on and joy and love and otherworldly desire grip my heart as if to pump start it.  New blood flows in on the notes, and out comes waves of melodic emotion, soul fuel.  In these moments we are in touch with something greater than ourselves.  Not out of our control, not knowingly out of our desire until we seize it.  I am here to seize it.  As a frog on a lilypad on a jet black lake seizes a fly with it's tongue. 

So long and thank you.

It's easy to forget how weak and fragile and frail someone was when you can only imagine them full of life. Having seen her every day, in these ways. Skinny, down to the bone, her flesh barely a buffer between inside and out. Moaning, in pain or fear or anger, it's hard to tell, maybe a combination of all of them or maybe just an unknown ailment. Immobile, struggling to walk, leaning this way and that, falling over, slow. Weak, too tired to eat, too fatigued to move or talk, uncaring to overcome such large hurdles for basic functions.

Its not something that is seen in the moment. It's the same girl you've always known, strong and fierce, lively and spirited. Noticing on a subconscious level but in denial of what you know is happening. She's sick, but getting better. She has a good day and you think to yourself, there we go, she's on the up and up. Then all that comes cascading back when she falls hard the next day, literally and figuratively. Still, it's so difficult to change your perception at this point. You're certainly not trying to change it. Even when my logical mind knew what was going on, I was convinced, by her majesty, that I was being foolish. Maybe she was actuslly the first being that will live forever. 

After her passing, some old pictures made me realize what I had refused to see all along. In those photos she was bright and charming, eyes full of light. More weight on her bones and more bounce in her step. Videos of her quirks, mannerisms. Ones that didn't happen anymore later on, when she couldn't be bothered, or couldn't muster the energy. I had always viewed her this way, which is a testament to her essence. Leaving such a legacy of your personality, that even when it's gone, you're still a picture of yourself. When the power drains away and your being is unsound, yet the difference is not acknowledged, the vision of you that you have created never wavers.

It was strange to, at the same time, be reminded she wasn't herself at the end, and to also know that you never thought that, not once, until you were absolutely forced. Not until things were over did reality set in, pull back the veil and stun you with the truth. I couldn't be happier to have things happen this way.

Happy is a relative term. Once more I tell myself I am, tell others I am, then suddenly tears are dripping from my chin, and I'm fighting against my body not to convulse from the sobs. Again I am tricked by my mind, by my perception. This doesn't feel like happiness. My emotions tell me otherwise. But I know. A picture of her, bright green eyes highlighting her trademark scowl, goes in and out of focus as I clear my vision and have it subsequently blurred again by a rush of emotion. Though it does make me smile. She made me smile a lot, almost always, even when she was mad and didn't like me. When she wanted nothing to do with me. Later, also, when she was happy at the sight of me and let me know that. My body is telling me I've been wronged, that I should be sad, that I'm better off a pool of filth on the floor. She reminds me, even now, without presence, that my body is wrong.

Memory is sometimes what you choose, and in this instance, I can be glad, because it was chosen for me. Her influence so positive, so joyful, such a wholesome, innocent factor, that I had no other option than to be happy. During her struggle, I saw her as her brave and daring self. She was always a coiled viper and a blooming flower. Her heart beat fully and strong, her body rumbled and shook with power. Never compromising herself, even overlooking the void. An obelisk of confidence, of perseverance. Steadfast in herself through trial and tragedy. She was never anything but herself, until the last day. She had no choice. The same way that now, just by knowing her, I have no choice. It was chosen for me to be happy. There may be tears in my eyes, but there is a smile beneath them. To be like her would be a blessing. We would be lucky. 

The burden of a livelihood

Power doesn't instantly course through my veins when I pull the lever.  There is an idealized form of my job, but that doesn't really exist.  There are simply different types of people who do it.  We all do the same thing.  I stand still while pious types do a lot of grandstanding, and I fasten the noose and tighten it around the neck.  I wait a tick to let things settle and I gently pull a lever.  The rest is done by forces of nature and time.  The floor drops, along with the body, and then it's over.  Quick and blank.  

Talking to some of the others like me you get a sense of who they are.  I'm strange in the way I have gone to see them work, asked them about it afterwards.  Got their feelings, studied their behavior.  People who don't do this job think it's a tale of stoicism.  A life of death, misery, but also a demented sort of power, as if we handed down the sentence.  As if we were more involved.  Some of them distract themselves.  Get lost in their persona and public perception.  Feed into it because it's easier than fighting it.  Others end up wishing it was them.  They feel responsible, they feel powerless, and they can't come to terms with their actions.  There is no internal struggle for me.  I am not conflicted.  There is no joy in my pursuit, but I am in control of my emotions.  I do not let my proximity to death allow it to encompass and eclipse me. 

I didn't kill those people any more than the smiling spectators did, or the rope, or the stage.  I am not a harbinger.  So distant am I from involvement I may as well be ethereal.  A ghost.  I am no more a murderer than a wave crashing a body against a cliff face.  No more at fault than the ocean swallowing a sailor.  I share the same blame as gravitational pull. So steadfast in myself am I that I do not need these comparisons.  I am unlike a powerful unseen force.  I am removed from contention.  So light is my footprint I elude detection from the keenest eye,  Hidden in plain sight.  No, I am not a killer. The death may as well be natural.  Often times it wasn't even their actions that caused their death, other than having the misfortune to exist in a time when the people who say you get hanged don't like you, or worse, don't even think of you at all. I am the pillar, the anchor, the lightning rod. 

The clothes are a part of the act.  The demeanor, the methodical way I move are because I'm distracted by my own thoughts.  Sometimes about what is happening on the stage, but other times about what is happening in my own life, or the lives of the people I consort with.  What I do is precisely that: my actions forced my chosen profession.  I am not a hulking demon obsessed with death, nor am I an unfeeling ape, taking lives with instinctual malice.  I am not a sadist, torturer, or lunatic.  I am not deranged.  But I am not unaffected. 

A swaying body is no longer foreign to me.  Not wholly comfortable, but something I see more frequently than a shoreline or a theater show.  It has taken it's toll, but mostly, it is dull.  My mind distracts me and I come to watching the corpse swing, hypnotized by the pendulum.  Imagine my surprise when this first happened to me.  Being comfortable enough with a cadaver on display that I idled like a feline. 

And while I do not feel guilt, and I do tend to wander or fall into a trance, I do feel something for the loss.  To me, life has become even more cherished.  The spectators, the crowd of thrill-seekers, the revenge-stricken psychos eagerly waiting for the drop are the scary ones.  Truly frightening it is to see a mass of villagers gather to watch a man die, only to disperse once the entertainment is over.  Once the soul flees the body, the last twitch melts out of their bones.  They care not for what each person has done.  To them they are criminal, deserving.  Maybe a few people are apathetic.  The rarities are dissenters. They somehow feel less for these doomed vessels than I do. I can hardly blame them. You would assume my desensitization to the ordeal due to my inundation with it, but I've learned a valuable lesson about the preservation of life. I wish to prolong it now, in all things. Seeing that husk dangle carelessly now makes me see the life in things thought lifeless and vacant.

I'm no executioner. I'm no madman. This isn't just a job. When you see death every day you become desensitized to it, but I've become hyper sensitive to life. When a man is stood strapped with a rope around his neck, staring into a crowd that is waiting to watch the soul leave the body, that makes you wonder. I see myself in them. Perilously walking the line between worlds, as we all are. Facing mortality by virtue of awareness. The grand illusion of complacency. Fear behind a veil of delight. So much is unknown, and for that, please be thankful. If we had more knowledge, understanding, and comprehension, we might not be able to leave our homes. All of us, fetal, crying, feeble against the futility of it all. We're all dead men, yet we walk, breathe, and deliberately encounter strife. Only to be hung by the neck, have an axe brought down on us, or to be lucky and go without splendor, frail and empty, alone in a bed. No purpose could have enough merit to warrant this. No virtue could eclipse the dread of an eternity as a corpse. 

There is no duty in life. Piousness or reverance cannot save us, from ourselves, or our fate, or the long dark of after death. I am thankful, being the one who pulls the lever. The man who commands the drop. It is a constant reminder that I should be happy because I can be happy. Misery would be easy, and just as fruitless. To be defiant in the face of extinction is to live. Guilt doesn't plague me, death is but the one thing we all have in common. I do not take them there with a light heart, but a stone mind. Fastening the rope, pulling the hood over their heads, changing them from living to something else. A daily reminder, not of the utter futility of life, but that to squander it is the only true sin. So easy it would be, under the circumstances, to give up, to quit, to laze about and cry and whimper. Easier than hanging a man. Easier than having a noose rend your consciousness from its cask. Choosing difficulty keeps me sane, makes me happy, creates a purpose. 

Each person must derive their own purpose. We are not here for a reason. There is no power, no majesty, no cosmic camaraderie. Futility is beaten back into its cage like a mindless beast, who will eventually overpower us and win, but for now, is only a threat in our minds. I feel no guilt as a hangman, but I do feel something. As each life wanes, I am reinvigorated in myself. Not as a direct result, but through my introspection. If we must all meet our end, let us face it strong and passionate. We can choose how to meet our fate. I will face it with a smile and a wave, to be remembered. Or maybe I'll face it with a noose around my neck, a hood on my head, and someone pushing me into the void.