Interlude

"Hello Darkness my old friend / I've come to talk to you again."
- Simon and Garfunkel, The Sound of Silence

That night I finished the new machine.

It was ready, and I was ready.

There had been too many false starts, too many disasters.

This time it would be right, it would work, and no one would be hurt.

But first I had to shave.

I had to shave off all the hairs, all the years: the grey ones, then the brown ones, and then the blond ones, until all that was left was pale pink skin.

It is 7:59 PM and I am ready to be reborn.

I've connected everything: hose to the machine, wires to laptops, laptops to machine, pipe to pipe, everything.

Now I begin, I flip the switch that sends the signal to the laptops which sends the signal to the machine which stutters and sparks and, finally, lives.

For a moment I hear the low throbbing hum of my childhood summer nights: the sound of an electric fan, the sound of the Universe.

For a moment I can see them being born, the tiny worlds in the metal womb.

They are beautiful and new and then it is 8:00 PM and everything implodes.

The lights stutter.

There is a blinding noise, and then a deafening light, and then darkness.

I am surrounded by its claws and the acrid smoke and the antifreeze and water that is gushing from my stillborn universe, mixing with my tears and misery.

"What the hell was that?"
"It's the aliens!"
"The power's out!"

Wikipedia has this to say on the subject of snow. Snow, it says, is a type of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by external pressure. Snowflakes come in a variety of sizes and shapes.

This is what it doesn't say. Snowflakes begin high above the world. They are microscopic, frigid, identical. Eventually, they become too heavy for their areal birthplace. Then they fall. They fall. The falling is important. As they fall they accumulate water molecules. Every snow flake does this. Ten to the Eighteenth water molecules. What you should remember is the pattern. Where they fall, when they fall, the humidity and temperature of the atmosphere as they travel; these things determine the pattern. By the time a snowflake reaches the earth, traveled its meandering path, it is unique among all other snowflakes. In this way, I used to tell myself, a snow flake is much like a person.

A snowflake is much like a person. Like a battered motivational poster, I still tell myself that sometimes, but now I've learned the crucial difference. Every snowflake has a pattern you can see, a pattern you can understand. Every snowflake is beautiful.

And so tomorrow I will start again...

The Badger and the Dragon

"And I took a look, a look down the road / To see a badger and a one-eyed toad / They didn't say a word, they just looked at me / With that wise old look of the old."
- Dispatch, Flying Horses

This morning I looked at my ghostly reflection in the apartment's single window. First I had to wipe off the window pane, coating my sleeve with a layer of grey dust. I looked much the same as I had two weeks ago, when I still lived somewhere where the bathrooms had things like mirrors and hot water. My light brown hair was still thin, flat, and just slightly too long to be respectable. My eyes were still grey. I was still wearing the same faded U.C.-Berkley sweatshirt and baggy blue jeans. But something was different.

Maybe it was that I looked slightly more tired than usual? Maybe it was the way my usual stubble had become a short, but wild looking beard? Do I really have that much grey? Maybe it was time I got out, restocked on supplies, and got a razor.

I give the new machine one last look before I leave the room. It's not going anywhere, I have to remind myself, but still I am tempted to stay. It is so close to completion. If I don't feed myself, I have to remind myself, no one will complete it.

Morning Jack, the doorman says as I leave the building. Did I tell him my name?

As I walk down Mercy Road through the cold and the sleet, I try to fold up in on myself. Partly this is to protect my laptop. Partly this is in the hope that no one will look at me. You might be surprised how many people would live in a place like this, and they all seem to want to talk to me.

Even before I entered the apartment building for the first time I was accosted by a man peddling coffee. Once inside, I was stopped by a young boy in a business suit much too big for him. He sized me up, looked me in the eye, and then asked me, Sir would you please sign this here? Merely a formality, he assured me, all Wilshire Tower residents must sign. The paper he showed me was purposefully decorated with a merry collection of crayon squiggles. Sign here, he said, indicating a neon green loop-de-loop. That was when the doorman rescued me.

Today I wasn't interested in meeting more neighbors. However, my luck continued unabated. Taking a glance up from my cold feet I saw that there was a badger in the road.

There was a badger in the road.

Certain animals are allowed to be on city streets. Squirrels for instance. Pigeons. Dogs with leashes, particularly poodles. Cats. Sometimes a falcon wheeling overhead. Badgers are not on this list.

There was a man with the badger. The man pointed at Wilshire Tower. He asked me what its name was. I told him that the creature he was standing next to was a badger, of the family Mustelidae, to which he replied that the badger liked to be called Tanuki, and that his own name was Mr. Takuya, and that he would very much like to know the name of the tall building over there if it wouldn't be too much trouble. I told him and he thanked me. I asked him if that's where he was going.

Yes, he said, that is the right place to be.

I quickly walked past him and collected my necessaries at the Big Dolla. Since the public library is right next door I decide it is about time I make another blog post. The same old woman is at the checkout desk as the last time I was here. The expression on her face says, Do you want to ask me for something, because too bad, I've had a bad day so I don't see why anyone else should have a good one; you can't possibly understand the hardships I've been through, so don't even bother trying.

On my previous visit I saw her verbally assault a small boy for attempting to return a book without the little cardboard card that no one uses anymore to keep track of how long a book has been checked out. I managed to sneak by unnoticed that time. This time, I was not so fortunate.

AHEM. Her glare is about to catch my sweatshirt on fire.

Umm, I say.

How dare you enter MY library so scruffy and dirty looking has everyone in this world lost any sense of decency I'm an old woman I don't need to be putting up with this a beard like that probably is a carrier of diseases and Lord knows it would probably only take one good disease to finish me off worse is that a bag of FOOD in your hands yes I think it is you should know food isn't allowed in a public library you might attract rats or more people like yourself though I shudder to even think the thought you might even touch a book which would be more than my old heart could bear.

Finally she took a breath and I take the opportunity to tell her the food is all still in its packages. She just scowls. I tell her I only want to use the internet. She mutters something about freeloaders and waves me inside.

This is all I have time to write today. Once the machine is up and running I'll post again. Meanwhile, I'd like to leave here before the librarian decides my bones would make good flour after all.

A fidgety old man in a tattered costume cloak has just entered the library. It looks like he's muttering something to himself. If I leave quickly maybe he won't try to talk to me.