hot

Dear friends,

There is little to be said.  My apartment is about as hot as the 8th circle of hell.
Here's a story about an iceberg.  On the northernmost tip of Greenland there is a particular glacier, the name of which is inconsequential.  But let's call it Ladwig.  Warmer summer temperatures lashed the invitiate solid until cracks appeared.  Cracks that, under the incessant heat and strain of the ice's own ponderous bulk, irrevocably widened until the morning when, with no particular instigation, the outer edge of Ladwig slipped off into the ocean.  The resulting iceberg drifted slowly to the coast of San Diego, where I gladly hopped on, burrowed down into a cave, and could finally fall asleep as the currents carried us far out to sea.

Cool runnings to you all,
walter

artemis

Normals and strangers,

This friday evening, I was briefly the warden of an errant 14-week old black cat named Artemis.  Found crouching beneath a small palm, he (yes, he.  Parenthetical side note to story which adds very little and will leave the reader confused as to the continuity of the current, interrupted sentence:  I, arrogant in my cursory familiarity with Greek mythology, assumed Artemis would be a female.  My familiarity with feline genitalia is yet more feeble, but when "the beans" were pointed out to me, I eventually believed it.)  looked lost.  The slightest show of kindness won his trust.  After calling the number on his tag, and searching the park where he had been prowling, his true protector eventually came to claim him.  She chided him gently for getting slow enough to be caught (Apparently, he is given free reign, and the bell around his neck signals his presence), gave heartfelt thanks, and left.  I am loath to admit it, dogmatic as I am, but I actually enjoyed his company.

To the wind,
walter

lore

Friends,

A busy day. A useless story:

Unfazed, Homer squeegeed the black pit viper juice away from his taxi. He had gotten a car wash over the weekend, but parking where he did was dodgy at best. He had resolved himself to potential damage. Relatively, he'd gotten off easy. When the last of the venom was safely consigned to the asphalt with a flick of his wrist, Homer tossed the squeegee into his trunk for next time and climbed behind the wheel. Where to now?

To possibility,

walter

zoon

Gentle people,

I have recently traveled to Florida and returned.  Whilst there, I dreamed the following dream about a tropical fish.  I sit in the sand on a beach.  There are only small waves; I am facing the Gulf.  I shift my left hand along the top of the sand and uncover a fist-sized stone with a flat face.  On the face is a pristine, fossilized fish.  I am no ichthyologist while awake, but I recognized the fish in my dream.  Not the species, the specific fish.  And, although I hold in my hand its mineralized bones, I see in front of me the living fish, effulgent blues, yellows, and a crisp white.  After waking, I have no way to tell whether this fish was a chimera born of fever or some veridical amalgam of scraps from memory.

Until next time, friends,
walter

brother

Hello friends,

I have created a blog for my brother, who is too meek to do it himself.  I will post any and all stories he emails to me, and perhaps he will even begin to post directly.  To start you off, there are 2 parts of a 3 (or more?) part story here, at his new blog:

crazygeorgestories.blogspot.com

To the enjoyment,
walter

darkness

Dear readers,

I sit, wearing a red T-shirt emblazoned with a stylized turtle and the word Paraty.  She sits, points to my shirt and asks what it is.  I say you were with me when I got this shirt, do you remember?  We were in Brazil and the sudden rain caught us after our meal and I had to get a dry shirt because I was cold.  She looks away during my story, and does not respond.  Several minutes later, after the conversation has moved on to other lighthearted things, she suddenly points at my chest, her smile vanishes, and she fixes my eyes in a disarming, constant gaze.  Her voice a subterranean bell, hidden deep but not silenced, she whispers, "I was there.  In that room.  In the darkness.  I died there."  A second of stillness.  Her smile returns.  We do not revisit the subject.

May your rooms be well-lit,
walter

clairvoyance

Hello friends,

Wake, nomad.  Days spent traveling the ground remind me of my love for wandering.  Especially the desert.  I love the desert.  I always misspell it, because I was told in youth that you spell dessert with 2 ss because you want 2 of them, but desert with 1 s because you only want to go through it once.  Despite my sweet-tooth, I could never keep them straight.  Ok, you caught me, that was a lie for dramatic effect.... my spelling is impecable.  But there's something about the harsh vastness. The landscape, barren of artifice, provides a more direct connection to the backbone of the universe than a showier, livelier scene.

Sleep now,
walter

disclosure

Dear friends,

My thoughts of late have turned inward, toward the depths, a roiling, but not in the tumultuous, indiscriminate sense, rather that of the fiery kiln, inarticulate, again, not dumb but visceral, prelingual, magma, of my being, directed thus by the elastic recoil from benighted months of self-imposed self ignorance.  The results of this turning, themselves commensurately deep, have renewed my confidence and inspired me to put into words my public manifesto, comprised of every revelation and insight gained through introspection that I feel needs to be shared.  Behold: