prolix

Regards,

Edinburgh is fairly clean, as far as cities go. The unavoidable gumspots dot the sidewalk, but, where in other cities there would be discarded fastfood bags and pizza boxes, here there is clean stone. Don't be mistaken, the dark denizens who haunt the pubs do their best to scar the streets, smashing used cigarettes with their shoes before stumbling home to sleep. But there is a force that no ragged drunk can overcome, which rages through the teeming city crying fell dominion. The city retreats into itself as the invisible chthonophage scourges it clean.
I seal the cracks in my window with tissues to keep it out, and it beats protest against the panes. If I play my music loud enough, I can't hear its complaints, and watch from comfort as it shuttles the chaff left to right. When the weather abates, everything is gone. But to where?
A few weeks ago, I constructed a sail in preparation for the next storm.
When my window began to rattle, I attached my sail with sturdy rope to a harness, and strapped the harness on. In various pockets, I stowed water and mixed nuts for energy, just in case. I opened the window, ready to deploy the sail and see where the wind would take me. Before I could act, the wind reached in and yanked me out. I must have hit my head on the sill, because I can't remember what happened next. My sail probably worked, though, because I awoke with no more than a mild headache and a few abrasions on my left arm, and definitely nowhere I recognized.
I was lying on a dusty surface, dirt with a few tufts of grass. The harness was still strapped to me, so I groggily loosened it before standing and looking around. It was a hazy twilight, I could see about twenty feet before lines faded into a neutral, streetlight-orange fog.
There was an alleyway behind me, and two stone walls stretched away from it. The wind down the alley was strong enough to impede a much stronger person than myself, so I put it to my back and wandered into the silent fog.
You can't see ghosts, you can't hear them. Old houses and restaurants that claim to be haunted by wailing victims and forlorn, jealous lovers that toss plates in the storeroom have always annoyed me. You smell ghosts, and that's all. It's a mundane cryptaesthesia, one we all unwittingly possess. There, between the exhaust from buses and the soup boiling over on the stove, in the olfactory cracks, exists a record of the past.
I don't believe in ghosts, but if I did, my foggy surroundings would be the place I'd go to encounter them. It wasn't pleasant to breathe, the piles of collected refuse that faded in and out of sight while I walked reeked of decay.
After wandering for a while, I met an old man. He was not tall, he had thin, wiry white hair that shot from his head like motion-lines drawn by an overeager 10-year-old cartoonist. He was eating a sandwich. I introduced myself, and he said hello. I offered him some of my mixed nuts, because what else was I supposed to do. His eyes lit up and he took them with a word of thanks. I asked him to tell me where I was, and his eyes clouded over again. In a distant and wistful voice, he said this was not a place for someone like me. Before I could ask any more of him he wheeled his wide-eyed head around, flipped me off, and told me to leave immediately.
I would have been happy to oblige, but I wasn't quite sure how, so I continued walking. Eventually, I met the wall again, and followed it back to the alleyway.
I didn't bring many clothes to Edinburgh, mostly because I couldn't fit them in my luggage and I didn't want to ship anything here. So few clothes, in fact, that I was familiar with each piece, and had a mental catalogue of my sartorial resources. I do my laundry in a little room that I need to walk outside to reach. Earlier this year, I lost a sock from my favorite pair. I didn't know what happened to it, but my post-laundry audit came up one short, and its lonely partner sat unused in a drawer.
This time, when the alleyway's outline sharpened out of the fog, there was something unfamiliar about the scene. On the ground there was a large manila envelope, and a piece of paper. I opened the envelope, and there was my sock. It sparkled white at the bottom of the envelope, it was just as I remembered it. I was surprised, and happy.
Turning my attention to the piece of paper, I noticed it contained the following words written in faded grey ink:
You are free to go. If you leave your sock as an offering, the wind will continue to blow. If you take your sock, the wind will leave Edinburgh. Be careful, do not choose hastily.
I took my sock, of course, because I don't have many. I walked down the alley into an unfamiliar street. I didn't take note of where the entrance was, I walked until I recognized familiar landmarks, and came home. There hasn't been a windy day since. As I walk to class, or the grocery store, I happily kick soda cans with a spring in my step and glance down at my complete pair of awesome socks.

take care of yourself,
walter

peregrination

Please help me,

Today there is white on the ground and in the air. This is not a normal thing for me, I am frightened by the flecks that land on my window and the absence of the grass. Where did the grass go, and why is it no longer green where the grass should be? In the program called paint, you can select a little bucket, and select the color white, and change the grass on any picture you want, but then it is empty like you never had drawn anything to begin with.
Here's a story that I will tell to comfort myself:
This is Antipodes, the wayward tortoise.
"What's a tortoise?" I make you ask naively.
You may be familiar with turtles, and you may be familiar with terrapins. Turtles live in water, terrapins on land. Tortoises, their element: the air. High amongst the treetops, slowly, gracefully flinging themselves branch to branch. A majestic sight as they glide.
Now that you are familiar, we join the wayward tortoise years ago as he reposes idly in the joint between two massive branches of a fig tree. He calls this fig tree home. It is a temporary label, for the wayward tortoise truly has no home. Infrequently does he have the time for idleness, so he enjoys it while he can. From his vantage, he can see the trees stretch away into the distance, down a gentle slope, and the view causes a moment of self-reflection.
"I am the king of the canopy," he thinks, with no hint of arrogance, and the moment is over.
This is Trudy, the friendly worm. Though friendly, Trudy has no friends. On this day, at this exact point in time, she happens to be in the fig-tree home of the wayward tortoise. From her vantage point, Trudy can't see anything, nor could she from any other vantage point.
The wayward tortoise chooses this moment, this precise instant, to take his gaze from the slope below. He spots Trudy, and reaches out his neck and head and mouth to lazily chomp her up. Yet, he hesitates, and finally withdraws his powerful jaws.
Sensing the maliferous bulk beside her, Trudy begins to communicate, with the deference typical of a friendly annelid, "O great and gentle beast, I beseech you hear my plea. I am but a lowly worm, with naught but kindness and my name to keep me warm. To you, who has so much, I can offer little in return for clemency."
The wayward tortoise, intrigued by this eloquent worm, comforts it with his kind words, "You have nothing to fear."
The two conversed long into the night, and so it came to pass that two journeys became one. When a bird or squirrel came to threaten Trudy with ingestion, the wayward tortoise would protect her. When the wayward tortoise grew hungry, Trudy would offer a few segments of herself, which she would later regrow. Their teamwork and friendship won them renown in the hearts and minds of the forest creatures. And that's pretty much the end I guess.

Sincerely,
walter

Resumption

Greetings from Scotland once again,

Several commercial flights ago, I temporarily adopted an old man. Though he was most certainly of Indian descent, my private name for him was Boris Van Der Waal. Boris because I feel the name is grossly underused in both my life and this, my blog. Van Der Waal because it ties it together, after a fashion.
Well there it is, the whole point of the story, naked and premature. Allow me to incubate and see what develops.
Put your small bags completely beneath the seat in front of you, we appreciate your cooperation as this will be a full flight. Wending my skinny way amidst the Brownian throng, I always manage to board near first, and as restitution I promptly find my way to the back and settle in next to the window, waiting to see which fellow traveller will sit beside me. Most of the time, no one does. The sole empty space on the plane is the middle seat in my row. Am I that intimidating? Part of me likes to think so, the same part that might enjoy knifehunting or raw meat or politics. But this is not the point.
Boris, among the last passengers to arrive, shakily sat down in the aisle seat, and directed either a nod or an involuntary jerk of the head at me, which I returned. He looked at least seventy, small, balding, and wrinkled. After takeoff, I shut my eyes for a little nap, but heard the rustling of blankets and magazines and jackets. I opened my eyes to see Boris making a pile against my armrest. Curious. He swiveled in his chair, put his head on the pile, and shifted around. What little hair he had left brushed against my arm. The entire affair startled me, this was a practice entirely new in my experience. He said to the stowed middle tray table, I am old, can I lay down. Didn't ask, just calmly conveyed. I was in no real way inconvenienced, and had no real influence, so I said sure. The people across the aisle laughed, and made comments under their breath about poor old Boris, and eventually the attendant came and asked him to sit up. Boris was not happy about this, and protested. I am old. He stayed as he was, and I told the attendant it was fine. She left him alone.
When it came time for peanuts to be distributed, Boris sat upright. He received two packets, and said I want more. He was calmly informed that there weren't enough for everyone, and repeated I want more. Turning to me with more fury than I expected from an old man he said From Dallas they gave me more, why can't I get more, this is ridiculous. He tried reaching into the basket the attendant carried, but was unsuccessful against his more nimble adversary, who stepped ahead an aisle with a dismissive grunt. Poor old Boris. Only two peanut packets. Which are unsatisfyingly small. Boris sulked, arms crossed, acataleptically muttering something about Dallas and his righteous ire.
When it came time for peanuts to cease distribution, I excused myself to the bathroom, and on my way back asked the attendant for two more packets, which were kindly and promptly given, since there had been a little more than the passengers had wanted. Except Boris. I sat down again, and gave him my winnings. Only two peanut packets, which are unsatisfyingly small. He was ecstatic. It was me and Boris, interstitial comrades, united against the airborn waitstaff, and he appreciated the help.
We left the plane, and I walked much faster than Boris could. I never saw him again, nor will I, and I am indifferent to this.

until the planets align,
walter