The Hunter

The hunter, he does not see the forest. He does not see the jungle.
They mean nothing to him.

The hunter, he walks into a restaurant. A lounge. A bar.
Gently, he leans on a wall by the entrance. He stands still.
He lets his eyes do the walking.

And he is no longer capable of seeing the bar. The lounge. The restaurant.

And his eyes report back: Busy three star bar and grill looking for an energetic self-starter. Two years in the industry required. Knowledge of wines a plus. Apply in person.

And he leaves.
He keeps walking. The eyes, they stand still. They roll back at him. They see nothing.

And he enters a doorway.

And his eyes report back: Hip casual restaurant. Searching for new prep and barista. Opportunity for advancement. Paste resume into the email. No attachments.

And his nose gathers the thick coffee aroma. And red brick walls surround him. Several paintings are scatter throughout the space.
But he does not see the walls, the people. He does not see the paintings.
They mean nothing to him.

And he keeps walking.



The hunter, he does not see his own eyes.
The hunter, he misses them.
Because this is one job for which he never asked for.

Because the hunter - he's starving.

It's a Beautiful Day

A beautiful day. A perfect day.
It has to begin the night before.

When you sit at your desk. The whole night you sit at your desk. And you look at the blank page. Into it. The characters, they're all there. They're talking.
You listen more closely. You wait until it gets quiet.
You push.

And the characters tell you to go fuck yourself.
To hang yourself off the chandelier.
To beat your head on the radiator.

And you know it will be better in the morning. The arguments always seem silly in the morning. You just have to sleep.
But your body is already miles ahead of you.
"Sleep?!" It laughs. "Go fuck yourself!"

And you walk outside. You do circles around your house. You walk your feet numb. You smoke. You smoke your lungs tired.
You drink. You drink.
And drink.
You drink your body dumb. So it won't care. You outsmart it into falling asleep.

The arguments always seem silly in the morning.


And in the early morning you awake. That urgent wakeness. The hot and cold flashes. The whiskey, it wakes you up.
And you feel like a million bucks.
You shower. You eat.

You sit back at the desk. You smile coyly at the page. The arguments seem so silly.
But the characters, they want to have nothing to do with you.
You sit. You stare.

By midday you flee.

And in the train you can't read. You can't sleep. You think about having children. About nurturing them. About how they will do so much more than you. Because you won't do anything. Because you can't. Because you won't. Because it's pointless. You're pointless.

And you think about a carreer. You think about the future.
And it wants to have nothing to do with you.



The streets are flooded with people when you come out. In jeans in sunglasses, vendors, professors, models, bums, freaks, they all crowd the sidewalk. Bike messengers cut through traffic. Waiters smoke outside the cafe's. There's barely room to walk. They crowd around you.
And you're suddenly goddamn glad to see them.
Each and every fucker.

You've been using the same earphones. The same goddamn earphones, found in the back of your closet. Graham Bell must have used them. Last night, the scotch tape holding them together finally snapped.
You buy a new pair. It's not the top model, but it isn't the lowest one either. You've been wanting to do it for months.
And the muscles around your lips begin to spread within.
You don't really get it.

You keep walking.

And on the corner a brother is hustling rap cd's. He makes eye contact and you stop. He starts selling.
Last time you heard rap, Michael Jordan was playing baseball. But you listen to the guy anyway. His eyes are tired.
He gives you a cd. You hold it.
"Free?" you ask. His eyebrows narrow sadly.
"Come on, man," he stretches out. "At least spare five bucks."
And you shake your head. You give back the cd. "I can't," you offer. "I have no money on me."
He chuckles softly to himself. He grimaces. He's been hearing this all day.
"Why?" He snaps.
You pause. "I'm looking for a job. I'm walking around, looking for a job."
It's not the truth, but it's the closest thing to it you've said in a while.
And his eyes suddenly focus on yours. And all of a sudden the both of you understand each other.
He nods. "God bless you, man," he says.
And you nod back. And suddenly you feel real whole inside.
You don't really get it.


And a few blocks down a woman is yelling on the top of her lungs. Free samples at Ben and Jerry's, she screams. Go get yours, she screams. And she looks at you. You look at her. Her face is flushed red from screaming. Her hair is grimy. And for a second she smiles. You smile back. You get your cherry garcia sample. It's a milkshake. And it's a beautiful thing.

You go to Strands. This was the one thing you wanted to do. Because you want to check up on Fitzgerald. This Side of Paradise. You flip the book. You windowshop. You already know the pages. The jems you come to look at. The jems you don't yet have.
And you reread the preface. Begun during college. Completed at twenty-three.
And you nod to yourself.

You put the book back. Coming out of the isle you bump into something. You look.
Her face is covered in freckles and she has auburn hair. You don't say sorry. You smile. Like an idiot.
And like an idiot, she smiles back.

And the both of you stand in the middle of the store. Smiling.
And a huge mass of fat suddenly plops into both of you out of nowhere.
"Idiots!"

And you laugh. You laugh and feel something rising in you from below. And you suddenly feel about as light as a snowflake, even if it's August.


Somewhere below your belt vibrates. And somewhere below a hand reaches for it. You're not quite sure if it's your hand. You don't really care. You smile.
"Hey," an old friend says at the other end. She's calling from work and her voice is low and tired.
"Hey," you say, smiling the words into the receiver. At the other end there is a brief pause, as if she's checking whether she has the right number.
"What's up with you?" she asks.
"What?" You ask. Still smiling. You can't stop smiling.
"You're high or what? Got a date or something?" She's puzzled. And for better or worse, so are you.
You shake your head. "No," you say. "No date. Just a beautiful day out there, that's all."
"A beautiful day?"
And you nod. You're standing at the crossroads of the isles. Unsure of where to go, blocking everybody's way.
And you can't stop smiling.
"Yes," you confirm, taking a look around you. "It's a beautiful day."

Up, up and away

I'm going up. Way up. They tell me there is no humidity there. No people.
The good life.

I'd put a vacation flag up, but I hardly post enough for it to be down. So, instead, I have offered some readings from the previously unpublished absinthemind archives.

That's right folks.

All that black soot holding the mind together.
Now yours.

Only $2.99 a minute.


.. I really should make a paypal here.

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10.22.05


Alone.

The hours approach morning, and the word begins to gain new meanings. A black crow, it begins to slowly flap its wings in the wind of the coming morning. Somewhere far away, a taxi scratches its way through the grid of this island.

Alone. Me and the clock. Tock, tick fucking tock.

I want to sit on my roof, breathing the last warm winds of summer, cutting the moon like a watermellon into slices, having a feast with old friends. But the gusts are cold at the peak. I shudder.

Soon it will be morning. Soon the ants of the world will step out from their buildings and apartments, emptying out into the streets, seeping through tunnels and elevator shafts, filling the world with a march of random, well articulated noises. Their proud hymn will fill radios and televisions everywhere.

But for now the world is empty. White from the moon, it lies flat and round beneath it. Towards the morning the world loses a dimention, becoming its own shadow, collapsing onto itself. Flat, like a clock, it keeps running, keeps breathing. Soon, morning will come. Soon, this all will be gone.
It knows this. I know this.

For the time being, it stretches its larger hand towards me.
I shake it.

Thanks for the company, I say.
Thanks once again.

Don't read me.

Don't even look at me.

Give me my pen. Close the door on your way out.


Thanks.

The Last Autumn

В последнюю осень, ни строчки, ни вздоха.
Последние песни осыпались летом.
Прощальным костром догорает эпоха,
И мы наблюдаем за тенью и светом



There are several songs that I listen to almost every day. I have listened to these songs when I was 16, and I will probably listen to them 16 years from now.

There are some streets where I walk every day. Some of them are near my house. Some in my memories.

I have often ridiculed myself for this. Move on, I would say to myself. Move the hell on. Find something new for God's sake, you're not an old man.

No, I am not an old man, and I realize this the older I get. If this will keep on, the most youthful day of my life will be the day of my death.
Life is not without a sense of humor.

But I digress.


I have often wondered why I do this. Why I return to these songs, these streets.
I had my theory, and in a way, it was confirmed today after reading an interview with Jonathan Safran Foer, the author of the recently popular "Everything is Illuminated" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close."

In the interview, Foer speaks of how Joyce Carol Oates, (who he was fortunate enough to have as a professor) wrote to him: "You appear to have a very strong and promising talent coupled with that most important of writerly qualities, energy."

Yes - energy. Energy.

Often I can't contain it. Often I sit at the same spot for eight, ten, sixteen hours at a stretch. And I write. By god, I write.
But at other times I have about as much energy as a lamp during a power outage.
The bulb is there. The wire is plugged in.
But there is no current.
None.
Zilch. Zero. Nada.

The last time I saw a grown man cry, it was my father.
He was constipated.

I finally understand him.



But even during the darkest outage, these songs, these memories - they are still there.
Little capsules of energy. A whole case of them.
Break in case of emergency.

This is an emergency.
I turn the player on. To the memories I stretch. In them I draw in every ounce of sunlight. I feel the heat on the leaves. The streets. The people.
Because this what it's all about. Because this is where it all began.
This is where it's going to end.

Some jump from bed to bed. Some develop healthy drug habits. Some walk across continents. All in search for one thing. That one little thing.

But the drugs fade. The sheets empty. Continents sink.
What remains?

You know what.


Someone turn the power back on.