Lunatic Fringe

The Saint Anthony Falls Bridge took me over the Mississippi once, I looked out to see where the 35W lay, not too long after it took it's bow into that big river. And I spent a few days of a winter blowing around Iowa, I ran up and down a highway of the same number, near a different river, though, the Des Moines. The one that gave that city it's name. I don't know how much I liked those places, maybe one a little more than the other, but that could've just been because of the sunshine, and how one was a little bit nicer than the other. Or at least warmer, anyways. I bet it's still windy on the run down from Ames. I fell in love on 35, too. Somewhere outside of Waco, it was a hot night, and I had a feeling like something was there, just out in front of me, the kind of thing headlights don't pick up on. Maybe it was coming in through the windows, or maybe it was that song on the radio. I guess it just could've been that Texas weather they're always talking

Perhaps the strangest truth of life is that even a million years from now is still closer than yesterday. For time will never come again. We remember, but we cannot return.

I can see you are like me, most morose friend. These are not words of comfort, these thoughts between you and I, are not a safe harbor, nor a place to find shelter from the things that some day may be. This is common ground we tread now, your furtive glances see the same as mine. Our misgivings are born of the same realities. When did you come to this secret? Where did you first walk that you realized the thorns which held strong were lacking for the rose? This thing is true, a sad truth that is held for much longer than the rose, though the bards do not espouse it, such a thing does not make it any less true. But be certain, such things should not harden the heart, and you should not shrink from the joys which life will assuredly afford you, quite the opposite. You would be well served to lose yourself, as earnestly, and wholly as you can, in whatever it is that breaks against the odds, and runs for sunshine. For this is not the rule, these things are neither promised, nor certain, de

Anonymous (A): so awesome quote in [a] book i thought you would like A: Personal affection is a luxury you can have only after all your enemies are eliminated. Until then, everyone you love is a hostage, sappng your courage and corrupting your judgment. -Orson Scott Card Me: And who/what does he propose these enemies are? A: well i don't kno who his were the author just quotes him cause it's relevant to her story line Me: Yes, but whats the story line? its meaningless for sure outside of context. A: really? i always put things into my own context anyway, but in the story bella wasn't supposed to have a baby and people will be coming to try n kill it. A: without that part i thought the everyone you love being hostage was meaningful to me anyway Me: I dont think it makes any sense. A: i guess i can't explain it Me: I'm sure you could explain it as it relates to the story, but as a stand alone idea its supposition at best. A: well, not entirely, like when

Cleaning grave sites is perhaps the most contemplative activity there is. It was, I suppose, what one would call unseasonably cold today. Compounding this being so was an intermittent breeze, not strong enough to be noticed, but vital enough to be real. And with the late afternoon soon peering in beneath the brim of my hat there is no room for immediate, or familiar thoughts. Just the sort that linger. To think that there will be someone I've not yet met, or as yet has not been created who will care enough for my remains after I have left this place is mind-boggling. But I do my best not to press this issue, to those before me, or the phantoms after. There is no room for thought here, though there is plenty of time enough to think. More succinctly it is not recommended, I cannot. The confrontation with finality is all too intimate here, and all too abrupt. To be certain. It troubles me to think I struggle with the thoughts of an old man, then again there are just as many dead whose

I lead inside a girl I knew twice in two different past lives, this is all past tense now, so read it as such. Arm in arm you might say, determined to forge ahead, away from what we both lacked. I’m not sure if I ever really took a shot, if I did I half suspect we never would’ve kept formalities intact this long. Love or hate, love or hate for and from them all, is the rule of engagement as far as she’s ever known. The rule this night was indifference, however, and she chased a name as soon as we hit the door, I was left alone, to face the world, and a crowded floor. To my left a name I myself knew, an old friend calling my own, and I joined their party. One true friend and a bunch of false ones, for they were not known. But that is an old friend’s worth, you will accept his lot, if for no other fact greater than the one that he was willing to accept you. We ate meals that had no name, from dishes that had no shape. And all about silence abounded, lest the lights should flicker and fin

H1N1 will be back, in the fall. And I'd guess in a much more formidable incarnation, much like the outbreak in 1918. You heard it here first.

Most afternoons the old man would take his walk through town. He would stroll idly, though with a gait and pace which readily betrayed his age to those he would pass before. The hours would winnow away in this same idle fashion, some days with a breeze blowing through the trees which had grown here, their years mirroring this man’s. Other days rain, other days a hard sun, and still other days nothing, or more truthfully those other days were too perfect to ever be worth writing about. Perfect days are full of incomplete, and half thoughts. And if nothing ever comes of them but happiness, then all the better. But the breezy days, they were always the most pensive. The wind whistled down the same streets as this man, sometimes through familiar haunts, sometimes breathing change. The casual observer would be unable to match the elderly man’s thoughts though, on days like this. A vacant lot would elicit a frown, for a house- and a family it once sheltered within- long gone. The large trees

Aliens come to get you when you're dying. The stars are moving against us. Can be seen in the sky, flying around, like fireflies. I try to shoot them down, blow them up, try to run them away. Someone close figures it out. Figures out he’s dying. These aliens are coming for him. These aliens are coming for me, too. Tonight we fight like brothers, for the light. The light of tomorrow, the light of the dawn to come. We’re fading away, we’re fading away. We’re sparkling, but we’re fading away. So we fight them off, we chase them away. We’ve won. We’ve won. Will it last?