The Universe, Short Story

I cannot account for what others do with their life's energy and I mean this literally because I am more than a little on the Aspergers spectrum. Just a little, mind you. I perceive some people much as I perceive a dog in terms of any true grasp I can manage in understanding of their inner consciousness which is only vaguely, really, having some basic idea what a dog may be interested in, you know? That's not to equate any human with a dog not what I mean. I mean dogs can't be compared to us. They're another level of better than us. But I painfully digress ...

Or, maybe you don't know and you're thinking, “what the hell is this guy talking about?”. Not to cast aspersions but maybe you're a little Aspy, too, man? I suspect it's a lot more common than people think, myself. The vast majority of us are not so far along the scale as Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory nor so smart … and I think the two do go hand in hand, Asperger Syndrome and intelligence. Often quirky, savant stuff that weird uncle of whom everyone is always thinking, “why the hell doesn't he go on a game show with his trivia knowledge, he'd make a million!” The Tell is a little nervous tic in lack of social skills or perhaps not even that obvious just random gaps in ability to process certain social interactions properly that to “Normals” are so innate as to lay below the level of conscious thought. You know, when you miss something, you don't know that you miss it? Like being hit by a truck and no one gets the license number?

Anyway, I was always looking for God myself. I mean that is what I was interested in and what I was doing mostly. Well, that and romantic love and sure I mixed the two up no bones about it. Goddess worship could not come more naturally to me. I never was much up for sports. I tried to get it up for politics but damn just can't do it I mean I'd rather be poked in the eye with a sharp stick than watch another minute of cable TV News. All that to emphasize that I would have never in a million years figured that The Universe was a “male” entity.

But it is what it is.

So here's the deal, I finally found The Universe drinking heavily late one cold winter's afternoon in a dive bar about half way between Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico near the Rio Grande River. ( I know, right, who would have thunk it?)
Now of course The Universe is not God but I decided to work my way up the hierarchy, as it were. God in all due time , mind you. It's a process. I see The Universe more like the CEO of the company while God is the owner. 

The sunlight outside is preposterously bright but the air is so cold that a half inch of old snow doesn't melt off the cactus even in the full light of the afternoon sun. Inside the bar is dark heated by a wood stove and the air so bone dry that your nose hairs start to burn after a while and when it's quiet enough – which I it never is! - you can hear your own skin crinkling up. Anyone who lives here for any length of time ends up with skin looking like worn out leather. The Universe is sitting at the small bar alone big German looking guy mid thirties, I'd guess, running big, bony fingers through his thinning, dirty blonde hair when I first set eyes on Him. I can tell he's not a resident because his skin is smooth as a baby's butt.

I sit next to Him and introduce myself and The Universe nods and smiles politely, says hello, but does not identify Himself. I tell the bartender to bring two of what He is having and make it doubles and The Universe smiles and offers me up a toast, “to you, Mate”, he says in an Aussie accent, to my delight.

Good thing for me in this one case that I know my alcoholics. The Universe is a morose alcoholic who passes through a euphoric phase, I determine, and I hoped that he was still in the euphoric phase. I was already thinking that when He hit that morose phase, I want to be miles away from this place.

After our drinks come, a single malt Scotch, I discover, neat, I ask of Him as casually as I can manage, “so why did you take advantage of a Walk-In body, Universe. What was it suicidal guy, guessing?”

His drink stops half way up to His lips. I could see calculation flash across His face for just a beat then He says, non nonchalantly as you may please, “good guess, a suicide case,” downing the rest of His drink then slamming the empty glass down the counter, “load me up,” He tells the barkeep in a cheerful, friendly tone. It makes me think of that guy Steve Erwin. I really liked Steve Irwin.

"You're buying, my new Friend," the universe winks.

"I'd insist on it," I reply. I note that he doesn't go into why he had entered the body of this suicidal fellow but let that go. Not my real concern here.

I saw that I would have to jump in for The Universe was about to cross that threshold from euphoria to morose any time now if indeed He hadn't already - “I want to know about God,” I ask, “anything You can tell me?”.

He starts laughing then coughing so hard that my thought was He might throw up then after this paroxysm settled down said, “don't we all, Mate, don't we all”, in his Steve Erwin voice very much amused.

“Seriously?” I insist.

Without looking at me then, The Universe says matter of fact, “the closest thing to what you humans conceive of as a “God”, is light. so then insofar as I could answer such preposterous question, the answer is light. Everything is light, Mate. Everything is light passing through light, on and on and on – do you see?”

Turning to look at me with those eyes as he asks, “Do you see?”

I suppress a urge to flee asking instead, “to be clear then, you are not actually saying that light IS God or that God IS light?”.

The Universe downs another glass and it hits the thick, wood bar with an empty bang. I see Him cross that threshold and practically run for the door after tossing a couple twenties on the bar. I leave Him there in the growing shadow cast by the steep canyon walls around the little dive bar and I haul ass back up a short cut on a jeep road that climbs two thousand feet in elevation over a relatively few miles quickly to the 8,000 tableland on the western side of the Rio Grande River and climbing steadily up the eastern escarpment, I climb back up into the cold, winter sun now dropping low into the western sky.

“The closest thing to what you humans conceive of as a God, is light” … it made sense in some way to me that is as of yet far beyond articulation?

The Cosmic Casino

Walking head down steadfast through the gaudy neon lights  flashing and glowing in all the artificial colors of the rainbow scattering in the heavy rains across the wet ground spilling a kaleidoscopic dance of abstract forms. The bustle of humanity in and out of the cosmic casino seems to part around him as he strides purposefully into the lobby. Once across the threshold, he wipes his brow of rain.  He had never been much distracted by the pretty colored lights and fanciful bobbles of this world and perhaps never less so than here and now. He immediately goes to the Roulette Wheel inserting himself at the front. He looks the croupier in the eye, nodding at the wheel while reaching into his pocket pulling out a large, rumpled mass of bills – all of the money he could hock, beg, borrow of steal. Truly, everything he had in this life save that sanctity that is his own soul.

Around the edges of the wheel instead of numbers are words, “Career”, “Leisure”, “Sport”, “Talent”, “Knowledge”, “Power” … and so on but for him there is only one word on the wheel with any meaning at all and that word is, “Love”. Without a second's hesitation, he drops a tortured wad of cash onto “Love” and looks up at the croupier, nodding up and down once, affirmatively.

“Everything on Love to win,” says the croupier dispassionately.

“Everything on Love,” he confirms.

The croupier spins the wheel.

The Machine

Maybe at the very core of the fantastic mind control exercised upon especially it seems the American people for at least decades is this unshakable belief that once every four years we the people get to assert ourselves by electing a savior figure who we seem to believe with blatantly unfounded certainty will then act as our champion and right the wrongs we feel are set upon us. It's metronomic , man, you can hear it coming if you put your ear down right upon the railroad tracks.

The rigid form of it all and repetitive nature hint at the fact that what our collective selves have become now is not a nation but actually a machine. Not to be obtuse but perhaps it is better to say that the machine has become us but either way we are the nuts and bolts of this gargantuan metal thing that now spans the wide world with its most obvious manifestation being the military covering now the surface of the earth and under the surface of the earth, the vast oceans of the earth and under the oceans and the air above the earth even into space.

But the machine is as subtle as it is rigid not subject to the human weakness of cognitive dissonance so spreads itself out through the land in every direction taking the form of roads, wires, above and underground cables and connections of all kinds while also, of course, lighting up digital networks of unfathomable complexity and most profoundly and insidiously perhaps this machine we have become reaches seamlessly across time and space via the nearly invisible pathways of our own minds humming and chirping with power some of us hear it constantly calling this phenomenon, tinnitus.

I try to resist the inexorable machinations but if truth be told it is the machine itself that types these words as much as “I” do so. Like characters in a science fiction movie wherein some other worldly intelligence infects humanity like a virus this machine the manifestation of what has been called the trans-humanist agenda thought erroneously to be off somewhere in the near future moves through us now with all the cheerful alacrity of a meme,

Uncle Heart

Uncle Heart 
Poem by David Sky

Had a tea party this afternoon
Invited everyone and everything
My dead grandmother was there
Who is now my Angel -
“Are you happy?” she asks
Dear Grandma always going
Right to the point of things

I could not answer that
Because I could not say
What Grandma always
Wanted to hear
But Bird chimed in
How happy he was
And showed me his happiness
It was there in his heart
And real

Peace sat then with us
Sipping her tea
She pointed to the field
Below us to where the
Lion and the lamb
Lay down together
In the sun
Clearly this beautiful afternoon
Belonged to peace, it was her
Day

After some encouragement
The lost uncles came only
Because the lion and the lamb
Lay peacefully next to each other
Only because this day belonged
To peace
A rare outing in the light of day
For these isolated males
Who brought their brutality
And violence with them
Into the sun to sip
Tea with us all

When the lone, old warrior
Dropped an arrowhead into his tea
I could not help but ask why
He said that it gave him strength
I asked how long the arrowhead lasts
(how much strength can you draw?)
He said it lasts until it is needed
To strike into another man’s heart
This with a twinkle in his eye
Toasting me and laughing at me
I understood darkly that there are
As many arrowheads as there are hearts
So far as the old warrior is concerned

Uncle Heart walked up and
Put his warm and friendly arm
Around my shoulder, turning
Me away from the warrior
Uncle heart said confidentially
Right into my ear
Not to leave decisions to
The old warrior
Then he twisted to wink at
The old warrior watching us
And he added meaningfully
Again right into my ear
Unless it is really necessary!
Squeezing my shoulder

Uncle heart always wants to
Make things perfectly clear
Uncle heart is the tree
His roots go down deep
Into the mother of us all
Even while his branches
Reach up into the sky

He tells me to beware
Of the gatekeepers
Pressing the palm of
His right hand against
My heart significantly
He tells me then
How much he loves me
As the older men will do
I am always here for you
He says with a big hug
I know the whole family
The whole family knows me

Uncle heart is bit of gossip
Loves to confide, to take you aside
Suddenly serious, now, deadly so -
Between you and I, he insists
Don’t let anything, man or beast,
Ever come between us
Nodding at the old warrior
Meaningfully

I won't I assure Uncle Heart
And I really mean it
I think of how the warrior
Always has his place, his time,
Glancing over at him now
Sitting nearby so peacefully
Calmly sipping his arrowhead tea

(2 Grams Ecuadorian strain. This I took as a test for the strength of this new grow since someone who had never taken them wanted to try some. I never take small doses normally only large doses when I do and I don't do it often at all. This threw me for quite a loop and I had to conclude that this was a particularly strong cubensis strongest I have had. I was not prepared to actually trip here and as it was happening kept thinking a bit petulantly, "but it's only two grams!" A lot more happened in this - most significantly a heart to heart talk at this picnic with the Great Gaian Mother of us All - but I wrote this poem as soon as I came down enough to write and let it stand to represent "the heart of the trip" - pun totally intended)

Into The Heart of all Things

I take my spirituality 
With a fist full of dirt - 
Do you understand? 

I gather up all my faith 
And I find that it is 
Nothing at all 

This is of no concern
Yes, this is perfect,
I prefer to travel light

I stand in natural unity
Always and forever
With the Welfare of All

The instinct of a Mongoose
Rising up in mortal threat
Against the snakes,

I bristle with distrust
At the institutes of men
All authority on this earth

I take the extra time 
To wander through temples
Knocking over the icons

My mind glances easily
Off of the surface of things
Born to seek the depths

I know the true voice
Of the Great Gaia Spirit
The mother of this body

And now with each breath of life
I drive my crude sword 

Deeper into the heart of all things

How We Met

We met catastrophically in a deadly head on collision back in the Summer of 1963. Brian tried to blame me at first claiming my headlights were too dim to see properly - or some such nonsense but after he calmed down a bit, Brian admitted that he had been distracted fidgeting with his radio. Fatally fidgeting with his radio , I should say,. He was trying to pass someone and ran into me head on in my lane so I it was his fault, alright. But I do not press the issue too awfully much any longer. It has been almost two hundred years now since we were on earth and I was coming home from the restaurant where I worked late and Brian was commuting home from his job in the city.

It was as if our souls were flung together at death and I think it was just love at first sight for both of us, you know? Fate maybe? But we love each other as much today as the day we died together and that is the truth. They do not have marriage here or anything like that but in every way that matters, Brian and I have been happily married for an awfully long time. He is thoughtful and loving and I consider myself to be very lucky. Of course, Brian is luckier still since he has me in his death. He is just a lousy driver no doubt about that but fortunately there is no driving here, either. I do tease him about it from time to time when he is particularly annoying and in need of being put in his place. It's my ultimate ace in the hole, “you killed me and I wasn’t even twenty one years old yet!” I have to look at the bright side. I never loose an argument since that trumps any argument if it comes right down to it and never gets old, if you know what I mean?

An American Wedding

America a Golem bride blasphemously wearing white led down the shaky stern of the ship of fools serving as the wedding aisle to a wedding march played with commitment by her father the Wharf Rat who is well over two hundred years old. The groom awaits with arms folded in front of him out on the open deck with Reverend Fear, cloaked head bowed. The groom smiling proudly a toothy smile of perfectly whitened teeth the size of piano keys slight tilt to his magnificently square head, his enormous – corn fed! - body dwarfing Reverend Fear. Anyone paying attention notices he has an actual rocket not quite in his pocket.

Under the sickeningly unnatural light of the apocalypse, the sky roiling in burnt colors of purple, orange and red, lit as if by some unholy fire, the wedding party upon the becalmed ship of fools drifts helplessly on a sea awash in the color of radiator fluid toward the cataracts of the abyss.

When America our Golem bride stands at last before her husband to be, her father the Wharf Rat quiets the keys of his piano.

“America,” Reverend Fear asks in an oddly sepulchral tone - “do you take this ICBM for your lawfully wedded husband?”

“I do.” America affirms.

“ICBM,” do you take this beautiful Golem Bride for your lawfully wedded wife?”

“I do,” affirms the groom.

Reverend Fear declares, “by the powers vested in me by the state of fear, I now pronounce you man and wife.ICBM you may kiss your bride.”

KA-BOOM!