June 27, 2020 · 5:07 pm

Make The Super Colony Great Again?

“Our supercolony has expanded to 24 miles said the largest Lepisiota canescens, named Ralph. “We are the now the greatest Lepisiota ant colony on earth.”

“We can go further east,” said the queen. I know we can.”

“Problem,” said Ralph . “Sand Puppies.”

“Explain, said the queen.

“Better known as naked mole-rats,” said Ralph. “They have set out a large colony within our eastern quadrant.. I’m not sure how they got in, but they are here in our domain. They impeded progress.”

“Criminals and drug dealers,” said the queen.

“We stop them on the paths as much as possible,” said Ralph. “We shot some, but now they’re complaining about discrimination.”

“They have hairs between their toes,” said the queen. Expel them and their followers. That is the best way to deal with bad creatures. Ground dwelling immigrant scum!”

“But we live underground, and we came from somewhere else,” said a worker ant positioned off to the side.

“Are you suggesting we have something in common?” said the queen.

“Well, yes, “said the worker ant. “Like everything! We both do all we can to survive, propagate, thrive. We can both contribute. And we can test for that. Use science.”

“Lock her up,” said the ant. “She’ll spread fake news. Too much testing going on as it is. We don’t need science. We just need me. I’ve never read a book through but I know everything. I am the smartest ant that ever lived. Take her away. Ship out the trouble makers. Make the super colony great again!”

“Hooray!” shouted the ants as they carried the worker off to prison.”

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November 26, 2016 · 1:18 am

The Explanation

“How long did you live?”

“I died when I was eighty-seven. You?”

“Sixty-five. Heart attack.”

“Lucky, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“So, the other day, you heard the explanation, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Made sense.”

There was a long pause.

“Not really.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Its interesting, when we were alive, people would say stuff like, ‘Well, someday we’ll understand.'”

“I suppose there is something to that. I now get it that much of what mattered so much didn’t and what didn’t, it did.”

“That’s for sure, but the explanation of war, disease and natural disaster, did you follow that?”

“What, did he cover that?”

“You weren’t paying attention?”

“Were you?”

“I was, but, well, to be quite honest, I still don’t get it.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“Well, this might be heaven, but I’m still not God?”

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June 25, 2016 · 2:00 am

The Gift

Once a great wizard had a son, who grew up with every benefit, and yet was ungrateful and unhappy.

Willing the son’s good, the wizard removed him from his grand estate, and set him on a lonely road in a foreign land. But as things went, the son wandered off the road, got lost in the dark and fell in a pit some hunters had dug for beasts.

He suffered there. He grew hungry, afraid, hopeless. Just when all seemed lost, the great wizard came to his rescue and lifted his son to safety.

Seeing his son’s miserable condition, the wizard magically healed his injuries, gave him food, dressed him in fine new clothes, and loaded his bags with gold.

Thus equipped, the son again set on his way, and coming to the next city, using the gold he had been given, invested in land, married well, prospered and forgot his near-death encounter.

He became a great man in the community. And yet, and yet, over time, as before, he again became unhappy.

All he could think of was his work, his possessions and his fear of losing all he had gained.

Then one day, the wizard came again to his son, in disguise, and finding him on his estate asked, “How is it that you have come by such a vast and beautiful home, and such a wonderful family?”

And then the son answered, “I worked hard, and invested wisely.”

The wizard sighed, the looking keenly on his son, he noted his continuing deep unhappiness, and again having great compassion on the him, the wizard stuck the estate with a spell and it disappeared in an instant.

The son was again on a remote road, again he was poor, and alone, and again he wandered from the path and again he fell into a covered pit and again the wizard came to him, again as his father, and lifted him out.

But this time, willing his son’s happiness more than anything, the wizard did not give him clothes, or food or gold. Instead the wizard, out of great love for his son, gave him the gift of a powerful memory.

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November 21, 2015 · 9:10 pm

The Insult

“You tormented raccoon!” she said, floating off the kitchen floor.

“You rabid cockroach,” he responded, floating like a helium ballon to the ceiling light. He hung there in midair.

“Demonic feline,” she said rising and circling him.

“Diseased bat,” he called coming face-to-face to her by means of a soft arm flap.

Hovering together in the kitchen, they took hands and free fell giggling, in formation, to the floor. They bounced softly off the tile, and then tilting, they helicoptered into the front room.

They separated. She wafted over the table lamp and tossed off, “You psychopathic possum!”

From near the ceiling he chortled back, “Demented camel!”

She rose in the air to meet him, and eye-to-eye,  in the cathedral vault they tickled each other, laughed hilariously, took each others hands again and tumbled softly from this great height onto the couch. Leaning back on the cushions, they moved closer together and watched some TV — with caramel popcorn, dark chocolate, lime bars, chai tea, warm blankets and fluffy cats on their laps and all around.

She reached over and ate some of the popcorn out of his bowl.

“Beastly beast!” he muttered.

“You wingless termite,” she reparteed.

“Thou field,” he turned to her, “thou stone, thou clod, thou summer dust thou!”

They both laughed. She touched his cheek, and then pulling up the blanket that covered their legs they settled in for the next show.

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November 2, 2015 · 8:48 pm

The Refinery

A man walked into an office, and looking at the woman behind the desk he asked, “What’s going on here? Are you guys open for business or what?”

“Yeah, we’re open,” she said.

“I saw your sign,” he said. “Are you a new business? The Refinery — what’s that? What do you guys do?”

“We refine,” the woman replied.

“Really,” he said, “Is that new?”

“No, it’s what we have always done,” she said, “We just have a new name to help people understand it.”

“Okay?” he said.

“We’re a church,” she added.

“Oh,” he said.

Then he turned and walked out with a wave — that dismissive, cool, shrug and gesture universally popular among people who have it all together.

“Wow,” the woman turned and said to her colleague in the adjacent office, “He left so quickly that I’m not sure if he was interested in our matte finish, or our high gloss.”

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October 19, 2015 · 9:09 pm

1 and 0

It was 1.

She just knew it! It  was different than what she grew up with, but It felt right to her. As she thought more about it, she felt that she had always leaned this direction anyway. She heard a TED’s talk on 1.

1 was in the news. The last three books she had read were either for 1 or acknowledged 1. The last four friends she had met for coffee had all favored 1.

1 was interesting. 1 was inspiring. 1 was trending,

So she sat and reflected on 1. 1 solved a lot of philosophical issues. It gave her a solid mental stance. Being for 1 made her feel like she belonged, was protected, had hope. She embraced 1, she promoted 1, she fought for 1.

That lasted for about six months. Then in a conversation with a fellow worker, she was introduced to 0.

“Wow, 0! Who would have thought?” 1 was so different from 0.

0 was the other side of the river, the contrasting position, the alternative viewpoint. At first 0 rattled her, then it intrigued her, then she went for it. 1 was old school. 1 was extreme. 1 was inadequate to explain things. She heard a talk on 0. She picked up a book on it. She brought 0 up with her friends and found that they also were intrigued with it. 0 was radical. 0 was inspiring. 0 just made sense. She joined an 0 group, she gave to the cause, she lobbied for 0’s inclusion.

Then the leaders of 0 went off the deep end and began to require 0, to demand 0, to fight for 0 and to kill for 0. This shook her. This rattled her mental cage. This was too much, and she began to become disillusioned with 0. 0 had become too narrow, to authoritarian, to extreme.

She didn’t know what to believe. She was distraught. She felt like giving up. She was lost. She remained that way a good while, until one day, early in the morning, as she drank her coffee and sat quietly reflecting on her experiences, her reading, her mentors, her friends and her beliefs, she calmed and realized what it was.

It was 1 and 0. It was both, twinned, paired, teamed. You needed 1 to balance 0, and you needed 0 to balance 1. In some situations  you went with 1, in others with 0. If you made it all 1, you lost your way; if you made it all 0 you also lost your way. 0 and 1 could be combined, in an infinite number of ways, and processed in an infinite manner and they could carry all knowledge and truth as long as you had both.

It was 1, and it was 0 and within the mix of both lay what she had always wanted — wisdom.

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September 15, 2015 · 2:40 am

Don’t Do That

It always came down to shnick and shnack — table throwing, ear slashing, glass breaking, hitting the host, cussing a family member, jumping out of the window, crashing the car — dysfuntio-fabulations of a sordid kind.

Always.

“What do you think?” she said tiredly, looking up at the doctor.

“Alcoholism,” he replied.

“He just likes to drink,” she said.

“Really?” he mused.

“He is a genius,” she said. “He has done what no one else has done. I want him to be able to do more of that. Throw more paint.”

“Here is the deal,” he replied, “and you are not going to like it. He is sick, and you, you are sicker than he is.”

She schnacked. “Your fired,” she said.

He schnicked.

“Bring him in again.”

It didn’t end there. It never does.

What?

He was suffering from pycho-socio-sicko-chthonico. He had a case of the egotisticomatrio-cyclical-patrio-addictio-protopathia.

What?

It was some kind of variation of  abyssopelagic-anhedonic self-disgustico.

Are you sure?

Yes, I’m sure, and it was compounded by heredio-familio-rejecto-emphatica tinged with non-confessional, decompressional nilio-justiofaticom.

Do you mean he was dysfunctional and depressed and he was to proud and insecure to admit that?

Yes, he was.

What kind of fable is this, and who talks like that? And how is it that I am even allowed to interrupt, and contribute and why do we get this summing up and moralizing in the middle when that should be presented in the action and then given up in one line at the end?

It’s a modern kind of fable, a kind of fabulo-emperico dialogue. And by the way, the reader can interrupt the story. They always do, and they always add to it.

Will you just finish?

No, it’s not completely fabulized yet.

Really?

Really! There is more action and then the moral. A fable always has a moral at the end.

Okay, what’s the moral of the story?

I’ll get to that. But first, more action. It scrambled up all fumble-di-medicalio. Got it? It morphed drastofastically into artistico-competico-doministico bombasticus.

Okay? That’s action?

Yes, and then came the climax: a tragico-auto-fininico!

Finally!

He was coming home one night, drunk, crazy, girls in the car and he went off the road. The car flew into the air and his girl friend came flying out of the window, and the huge, shiny,  powerful, bling-ridden, paint-covered sheet metal flipped several times through the air — like thrown paint — and came to rest upside down in the woods.

He was dead.

Is that really how it ended? That is so sad.

Yes, those are the facts, post-conclusio, moral-emphatica. Now get out of here, and don’t ever do that to yourself.

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September 6, 2015 · 3:36 am

Through the Roof

It was surprising how quickly they were on the roof.

It seems like one moment they were at the curb, then in the yard, then on the roof.

And why? She knew immediately. They were coming for her. She could hear them ripping the concrete roof tiles up, pounding with their hammers, tearing at the wood.

And she knew what would come next. She had played it out in her mind, every last, horrific, terrible detail. They would fall crashing through the ceiling, fall heavily upon her with all their weight, screaming, pounding her with their hammers, pounding nails into the center of her forehead. And she would run, under the bed, with the nails sticking out of her head, and they would drag her back out, and it would end that way, them over her, blood everywhere.

Bang, bang, bang, went the hammers. She jumped off the couch to the floor and threw up on the carpet.

Then the door opened, and her master entered, and said gently, “Oh, poor thing, it will be alright.  They would never hurt a little, soft, furry thing like you. They are just fixing the roof.”

And she relaxed — until they came again the next day with their hammers.

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July 20, 2015 · 5:11 pm

The Magician

Once a country blundered along in the typical unjust and oppressive fashion until it eventually came to be led by a particularly powerful leader in the possession of deep magic.

His power came to him out of the hard things he experienced in his younger years. Once he was beaten for trying to save the life of a thief. He grew in perspicacity.

Another time he was stabbed because he took the blame for a friend’s violence. His prescience increased. With each of his hard experiences he gained arcane knowledge into the ways of the soul.

He experienced the contempt and scorn of authorities and suffered the pity of his peers. These experiences did not make him vengeful; they made him compassionate, and they gave him his deep magic, so that when he eventually came to power, he did not weld authority through laws and the courts but through intuitions, subtle stratagems and situational ironies.

Under his leadership, one citizen became very rich by exploiting his workers, and so the magician-leader, through deep magic, deceived the man and led him into poor investments. All his wealth was lost. Then the magician gave him a way to become rich again, and after this the citizen became very altruistic and generous.

This irony went undetected by the populace. Another citizen secretly killed some good people. Seeing this, the magician blinded him, left him to brood, then healed him. The man spent his life serving others.

Inexplicably the leader-magician fired a member of his cabinet. He saw ahead that one day the man would betray the state. He replaced him with a woman with no experience in government but deep experience in conflict resolution; she excelled.

He appointed another woman to a high position in the courts. Unfortunately she betrayed her office, but the offense was forgiven by the magician and the woman was put into an even higher place. The general populace was disturbed, but the forgiven leader excel in her new role. She became incredibly loyal to the leader and the country.

Another man, a rogue doctor, duped his patients by telling them they had diseases that they didn’t have and then prescribing power remedies that caused them great expenses and physical suffering. Through these stratagems he became very rich and by means of his powerful lawyers was not adequately punished.

In this case, the magician-ruler used his magic to deceive the doctor’s own doctor. He diagnosed the rogue physician with a terrible disease — that he didn’t really have — and then prescribed the very same terrible remedies to the punished doctor that he had described to his hapless victims. The rogue doctor gradually wasted away.

None of the magician’s strategies were discovered, and so after a time, thinking that their leader was negligent, that he ignored good and failed to punish evil, the citizens rose up and rebelled. They removed the magician from rule over them, grumbling that his magic was useless, and they began to take matters of vengeance and punishment into their own hands. They brought the former leader to trial, accused him of dark magic and executed him.

Then they wrote new laws, increased the role of the military and police, fortified the courts and built new prisons. But the problem was that without the deep magic of their former leader, they couldn’t figure out who was good and who was evil, nor could they determine what punishments and rewards would be effective in changing the behavior of citizens.

After a time, the entire country fell back into the traditional mode of justice, and evil began to thrive again precisely as it always had, within the system, in the most traditional manner possible, respectable, acceptable and particularly harmful to all but the most powerful.

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July 12, 2015 · 3:43 am

Two Men

Once there were two men, living at the same time, doing the same thing, thinking the same way and having the same result. It was a shocking similarity of a very different kind.

The first man grew up with a father who collected houses, and the time came when he too began to collect buildings of various kinds. Following his father, and using what he got from his father, he began collecting hotels, offices, casinos and malls. In short order, he owned a beautiful mess of loans, properties, bankruptcies, wives, divorces and children.

The second man grew up with a father who was a alcoholic, and the time came when the son too began to drink in excess. Following his father, and using what he got from his father, he became homeless and he began collecting shopping carts and wagons, stuffing them with trash of various kinds, covering them at night with tarps and blankets. In short order he owned a veritable wagon train, a massive amount of goods, a traveling entourage excluding several homeless companions.

The men never met, although they lived in the same city, and the first drove by the second on several occasions. Once they were even in the same store together and bought similar items.

Then one day, on the same day, at the same hour, the very same minute and the exact same second they both died.

Their relatives were informed, and when they came together to deal with the end, both families had the exact same problem — what to do with the stuff.

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