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Timothy M. Leonard's books on Goodreads
A Century Is Nothing A Century Is Nothing
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The Language Company The Language Company
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Subject to Change Subject to Change
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Ice girl in Banlung Ice girl in Banlung
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Finch's Cage Finch's Cage
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Tuesday
Apr102018

The Language Company

The Language Company on sale promotion April 10-17 with Kindle Direct Press (KDP). Cool.

Learn. Play. Share. 

Reading is power.

Meanwhile...

See with soft eyes

Gratitude
No mistakes in life art - happy accidents
Ink dances

Reveals point line shadow
Watercolor pencils
Creativity has no rules
Take a line for a walk

Create like a god, order like a king, work like a slave

Work like you don't need the money
Love like your heart's never been broken
Dance like nobody's looking

I am a short story
You are a novel 

 

Monday
Nov062017

Leo Walked to Saigon - Ice Girl

Chapter 7.

He met a woman’s storyline.

  When I was twenty I packed a bag and crossed the border. I went to the capital. I met other Vietnamese girls and they helped me find a simple room in a house for $25 a month. We shared a common toilet and kitchen. We became friends. They were my first teachers about life in Cambodia.

  Always look your best and wear high heels. They make you look taller. Men like tall girls. Always negotiate their offer. Negotiate means talk more. Get the most you can. Save it. Let them do what they want with you. Many will be rough and try to hurt you because they think you belong to them. They bought you. They hate their wives and will take it out on you. Women are only objects, things to be abused. Learn to be passive. Accept what happens. Close your eyes, pretend you feel pleasure and learn to close your heart. Close it tight. Don’t become soft and weak and open it for anyone. The only pain you will feel is physical. It will go away. We have doctors who understand our life and help us. You can choose to be either a bargirl and entertain customers there or a taxi girl. They go to homes and apartments. They make more money but they service more clients. Always give Tan her cut or she will throw you out.

  My head spun from all this.

  One night I put on my best red and green dress. I applied makeup and went to the Hello bar with two girlfriends. It was loud and crowded with men and girls. We bought cheap drinks and sat at the bar. My friends introduced me to Miss Tan, the owner. Her diamond ring flashed. So you’re the new girl. Vietnamese? Yes.

  You can demand more money. Your skin is pale. Men will want you. You work here as a taxi girl. You go out, you come back. You give me 70%. If you cheat me I kill you. I know everything. Understand?

  Yes. We shook hands. Hers were soft. Get to work girls.

  A fat Khmer man sat down and offered to buy me a drink. He ignored my friends.

  Where are you from?

  Vietnam.

  I am from here. This is my country. I am a rich businessman. You are very beautiful.

  Thank you.

  How much for one hour?

  I played dumb. What do you mean?

  He laughed. Are you stupid? I said how much for an hour with you.

  I looked at my girlfriends. One raised her right eyebrow. Go for it.

  How much are you willing to pay?

  $50.00.

  This was the most money I’d ever heard of. I gambled. Make it $500 for one night. I’ll take good care of you all night long. Maybe you can help out my friends.

  He looked at them. Five hundred is easy money, he said. Let me make a call and have another drink first.

  Ok, take your time. He bought me a whiskey. He talked about making money, exploiting the poor, twisted business deals using connections, land grab property development. I pretended to be interested. It was getting late. I gambled. Time’s up, I said. Are you going to help my friends? If you want me it’s $500. All night.

  Yeah, yeah. He called someone. I have some chickens for you. He laughed and hung up. I have a place near here. Get me a taxi.

  We went through dark streets and stopped at a house. Inside were two older men, drinking. They looked at the girls, paired off and disappeared.

  I was a virgin and he was my first man. It hurt like hell, he was rough but I handled it and didn’t cry in front of him. I swallowed silent bitter tears. He fucked me all night. It was brutal.

  In the morning I could hardly walk. He paid me in cold hard cash. Five clean crisp hundreds. I couldn’t believe it. I gave Miss Tan her cut and she was very happy.

  The pain will pass, she said. Get used to it. I was in business. Easy. Turn on the charm, smile, dress up, be smart, gamble, be open to suggestions, don’t drink too much and be ready, willing and able. Negotiate. Be a passive machine. Close your heart. Pretend you’re somewhere else.

  That’s how I became a taxi girl. I was beautiful and tough.

  Before fucking a stranger I’d take a shower, come out, drop the towel so he could get an eyeful, throw a condom on the bed, lie down, open my legs close my eyes shut down my feelings and let him have his fun. I dressed his hard sausage in a sock. Easy money honey.

  They paid for my time using my body. I gave Miss Tan her a share. I learned about business. I learned how to gamble. Bet big, win big.

  For two years I worked hard and saved money. I sent money to my mother every month like a good daughter. I told her I worked in a hotel.

  Now I live in Ho Chi Minh City. I work as a cook and domestic servant. I wear round cigarette burn marks on my wrists. They are my internal-external permanent anger memories.

  I don’t know how to write so I told this story to a man I met while working as a domestic in a Saigon guesthouse. He was a good listener. I worked with another girl. She changed sheets and dumped trash. I cleaned the toilets by hand. I was sweeping the garden balcony on my first day and a stranger said hello. He was drinking water and smoking.

  Hi. I saw you downstairs. You were waiting for an interview for a job here. I was shocked. He knew too much. I kept sweeping.

  I needed a job.

  You have too much class for this place. Come up tonight and we can talk.

  Ok, I said. That’s how it started. Talking at night on the balcony away from the mean old street.

  After two days I was fired because the woman owner was jealous and pretended I couldn’t do the job. She figured I was hustling foreign men. I had plenty of that job experience.

  I took advantage of his kindness because it was a short-term fix. A woman needs fucking, emotional security and cash.

  I felt open and honest with him. One night on the balcony we talked and watched stars until 2 a.m. He listened to my story. Sometimes I cried remembering everything.

  We became friends and lovers for a week.

  We can’t stay here, he said. He rented a room nearby. A place where we could sleep together and I’d be safe until I found a place to stay.

  The first night together I felt shy. I undressed in the bathroom and took a shower. I put on my underwear and blouse, wrapped a towel around me and came out. My short black hair was wet.

  Low lights were yellow. Classical music came from his phone on the desk. He wore blue shorts. You are beautiful, he said.

  I curled next to him and we held each other. I have a scar from my son, and my left breast is smaller than the right one, I said.

  It’s ok, he said. I liked feeling his arms. He stroked my hair. I closed my eyes.

  We both wanted the same thing. I wanted him to take his time. He massaged my neck, tracing fingers along the edge of my shoulders. He kissed my neck, throat. His tongue was wet. I rolled onto my stomach. His fingers spread down my spine, kneading tissue. It felt good, warm muscles, touch, and all sensations.

  He shifted his weight over me massaging my back through my shirt. Strong and steady. He pushed my shirt up to touch my skin with his skin. I exhaled. His softness increased pressure across tight neck muscles, shoulder blades, down my lower back. He kissed my spine, sending shivers through me. His hands and tongue were magic. He took his time with me.

  I rolled over keeping the towel tight around me in a shy Vietnamese way.

  He rested his head on my chest. I can hear your heartbeat, he said. It is a strong drum. Thump, thump. My heartbeat was a solid percussion instrument. My good heart was open and receptive. It was a shy love.

  I held him like an infant, pressed close. I felt safe with him. I am a little girl, I whispered, tracing his back with my fingers. I love your hands, they are small and soft, he whispered. They were dancing elusive magic fingers. It was all touch, gentle, and soft, exploring, shy. Pure sensations.

  He opened my blouse and kissed my left nipple. His tongue felt hot and soft. He massaged my breast with his fingers. He caressed my right nipple with his tongue. My nipples were sensual points in his mouth. His fingers examined soft curves.

  Kissing my breasts he opened the towel and moved to my scar. I didn’t stop him. His fingers explored my belly, drifting lower until he found my hair, then my pubis. His fingers gently massaged my labia minora and found my clitoris. The little button.

  No, I gasped. No. My hips and thighs were on fire. I was afraid from past abuse and a man’s fast anger slamming into me. This felt gentle.

  I knew from long experience that once I started sex I couldn’t stop. It felt way too good even if it hurt a part of me.

  It’s ok, he whispered. I love touching you here.

  I was wet. His fingers gently rubbed my clitoris. Sensations of pure pleasure filled me with joy. I arched my hips. I took his hand and put it where I’d receive the most stimulation. I showed him how to massage me. I knew he was experienced in the act of love, just out of practice.

  Women want fucking.

  He slid his pants off. I found his hard penis and stroked it.

  Ah! That feels wonderful, he said. I massaged his penis, moving under his soft balls. He tongued my nipples rubbing my hard little clitoris. He slid a finger inside. I was so wet.

  I have a condom. Ok. He rolled it on. I took off my panties and opened my legs. He climbed on his wild horse.

  Slowly, I whispered, Slowly.

  My vagina yielded as he entered me. He sighed in relief feeling me contract taking him. He was big in me and it felt fantastic. Again. There’s nothing that pleases a woman more than a big, thick, throbbing, meaty, hot penis. Take it from me and I’ve taken a lot of them in my time. Every time all the time. All sizes, shapes and colors. In my vagina, mouth, anus, on my breasts, between my breasts, on my face, across the scar on my belly.  Face up face down on my knees with my face buried in a pillow, raised on my elbows begging for it in perpetual heat. Some fucks are short some are long. I fuck for a living. A girl has to make a living.

  We established a fine smooth rhythm. He paid attention to my body, how I moved to absorb him, how I showed him what I needed and how I needed it. He was a good patient lover and I was his teacher.

  I kept him from moving fast. I knew if he got crazy from the sensation, he’d explode before I was ready. It was all about timing. He was deep inside and I was all around him, arms, legs, hips, everything was his to take, taste, savor and enjoy. He kissed my small breasts. I was hot.

  I grabbed his small ass pushing him deeper into me. His penis throbbed. He tried to get up on his elbows but I kept him against me for maximum penetration. He relaxed on me, sucking a nipple, feeling my vagina contract around his penis. He smothered me with kisses. His lips were frantic. Kiss me again, he said. Kiss me again. Kiss me again. I tongued him deep, exploring his lips, mouth, curling lips everywhere.

  As my arousal increased and our hips slowly pounded each other, he felt my timing and pace to reach orgasm. I paused, squeezing my vagina tight, priming him to complete the next-to-last stage of our orgasms. I was ready. His penis shuddered, regained its pressure and he pumped fast and furious. We fucked like two wild animals until our bodies exploded. I released wet waves of pleasure. I milked him long and hard. Pleasure rushed through me. His body jerked as he came twice. My vagina collected his hot love juice.

  Bathed in sweat, we collapsed into each other. His head listened to my rapid heartbeat. Don’t go, I said. I’m afraid to be alone. He held me until I fell asleep.

  That was the first time. He was crazy about sexing me. I was his bed rabbit and he couldn’t get enough of the good stuff. Skin the bunny honey pie.

  Most men just want to shoot their wad and get the hell out of your life. That’s why so many women have a kid(s) and no man. He’s long gone. No sense of responsibility. Zero. They run away. They’re long gone, screwing another stupid woman who believes his lies and opens her legs thinking the guy’s her savior. Live and learn baby.

  He was different. Maybe it was because he was lonely, undersexed, and hungry for a real woman.

  If you pay you owe, I said in broken English. Men had always taken care of me, monetarily, physically. I kept my true feelings inside.

  One night while eating sushi with miso soup I told him, Be careful. You can only trust 10% of the people.

  In Saigon I found a room with friends from my village. I came in at night to have dinner, talk, fuck and sleep with him. I took advantage of our relationship. He encouraged me to develop my love for cooking saying it was a good skill. He was honest with me.

  You’ve made some poor choices, he said. You’re street smart. Create a new life for yourself. Take care of yourself. I leave next week. My time here is finished.

  He left me for another country. Vietnam is a woman. Men come and go. Men left me all my life, beginning with my father. I never knew him.

  As I was growing up I asked my mother, Where is my father? He’s gone. I never asked again.

  I finished 9th grade in my village school and lived at home helping my mother with chores; feeding chickens, shopping, cooking, and cleaning. She beat me.

  You are a worthless daughter. You have no future, she screamed at me. I took it silently. I served my older brothers. They were strangers. Little kings.

  Growing up I heard stories about making money in Cambodia. I crossed a border.

  You are a survivor, said Leo. Yes I am. My precious life revealed user-exchange value and power using sex for money.

  Parting, they embraced mutual loneliness. 

  One hand washes the other, said an armless amputee in shadows.

*

  In another incarnation we were naked in a meadow. I am blind. He is deaf. We hold hands. Skin is our unified quantum field theory of tactile language, beyond feeble illiterate words. Fate introduced us at an NGO charity ball, Save The World’s Children Now & Forever.

  Deaf is a famous concert pianist. Blind is an Angkor Wat explorer. She scaled 88 keys seeking tonal quality, perfect pitch and frequency. He traversed twin peaks, smooth geography, labyrinths, valleys, and topographical jungle foliage. He discovered a secret cave. They had a tacit agreement to be gentle and kind together. Peel my skin like sweet aromatic fruit, she whispered. I am your skin mistress. One must sacrifice the peel to enjoy the fruit.

Ice Girl in Banlung

Saturday
Jun182016

kid joy

Ah, to be young and happy.

Where are you now? Central Asia. Where language began 9,000 years ago.

On a warm Sunday he went to the local Siem Reap java joint to draw, color and share stories with three kid friends. They played "king" wearing Merlin magician pointed hats from a birthday party.

One girl, 6, said, "did you finish your story?" She referred to seeing me last week with a red pen and pile of paper.

Subject to Change manuscript, doing a red line edit. Day by day. In the morning, in a quiet time/place before noon, no distractions, bird by bird, page by page, configuring words, structure, sense and flow. 

"Yes, I finished the story..it will be abandoned with intuition and curiosity."

I made images of them in magic hats, drew on blank paper, drank coffee, smoked, laughed with them and wandered off. See you in the next life.

It's always pure joy w/kids. We are innocent and mad. Trust and play.

He is a calm lunatic in the "fun zone."

Thursday
Aug202015

wheel of time

Tibetan monks created a Kalachakra universe at the Denver Art Museum.

They meditated on the impermanence of life.

After completion they destroyed The Wheel of Time mandala.

 In a procession blowing horns and clanging symbols they carried it to the Platte River. They released it into the river to eliminate violence in the world.

Seven billion humans celebrated.

“Not all the clowns are in the circus,” whispered a dying girl trapped in streaming media selling FEAR.

In her wishes, lies, dreams, memories and reflections she is a Wovoka, a Paiute weather doctor with power over rain and earthquakes. Her Ghost Dance returns souls of ancestors.

“You got that right!” yelled a boy spilling secrets from Pandora’s box.

“Yeah,” said a girl. “Reality is the funniest thing happening. It’s impossible to take any of this seriously.”

“True. When I grow up to be big and strong I will be an archeologist. I will play and dig in dirt. I will brush things off revealing stories. I will destroy things to learn things.”

“I want to swallow the world but I am too full of sorrow,” said one poignantly.

“I’m going to start a club for procrastinators,” another suggested, “anybody want to sign up for unlimited access?”

“Are your needs being met?”

“Excellent question. I have a need for freedom and a freedom from need. Perhaps I’ll end up taking care of people like us,” said a girl named Hope. “I’m the last myth that dies.”

“Yeah, you can work in a day care center for adults.”

“That’s a-dolts.”

“Hah! Everyone is heading back in the direction they came from,” acknowledged Martha Ann, fixing her broken glasses with duct tape. She died of leukemia at thirteen holding courage.

“Remember what Joyce said? Wipe your glasses with what you know,” said a kid watching her experiment with optical illusions.

“Are you plagiarizing again?”

“Not exactly. It’s taken out of context.”

“Textile, tactile, texture, context, content, abstract, where’s it all going?”

“Let’s not have this conversation in the abstract,” screamed an emotionally abused child after being whipped with a fishing pole by his neurotic scared angry mother condemned to a wheelchair.

“Are we wondering or wandering?”

“Where’s eternity end?” the astronomer kid asked.

“I’m going to study the bottom line,” said a boy raising a digit in air testing incisive imprecise global market index indicators based on economic assumptions. “If we control the debt, we control the country.”

“International financiers run the show, babies. Politicians are their slaves.”

“Welcome to the American Suffering Society, ASS,” said another.

“I thought this was the Academy of Healing?”

“You’re in the right place at the right time. Let the clinical studies begin. I feel free!” sang the chorus.

“Who’s got the placebo?”

“I’m going to cut cage locks, release birds, lone wolves and screaming eagles into the wild beyond where they belong,” sang a girl, “and then I’m going to cut through the net of ignorance.”

“They will never escape the sky,” said a child doodling on polished glass with a diamond mind.

“I’m going to take up the flute, lute, harp and violin,” chimed a musician. “Small ensembles are the coolest, Baroque style. The suites are the small sections.”

“Can you play The Four Seasons?”

“Depends on the time of the year, dear. I’m working on it. Violin solos are tricky. They’re intense without being tense. Be patient.”

“We’re all intensive patients it should be easy. Now there’s a lesson, to be sure. Patience is our great teacher. We should be grateful to people who make our lives difficult. They are teachers.”

“You’re a poet and don’t even know it,” said a kid with bedside manners.

“But your toes show it because they are Longfellows,” replied a youthful sage.

“They smell like the Dickens,” said a disembodied voice.

“I was born a poet like a bird’s born to be a musician. It’s all instinct, play, imagination.”

“Well, I’ll be smudged,” a kid yelled, lighting sage for a kiva ceremony.

“The future is in garbage, I’m telling you. Be a trash collector and find all kinds of cool, interesting stuff people throw away,” said one. “They buy it, use it, forget about it, get bored with it and trash it. I’ll start a recycling center. We can exchange old stuff for new stuff. Like blood.”

“That smells nice,” a garbage collector said to a sage burner.

“Let’s create a book,” said one to all, “and we’ll be in it.”

“Hey, cool idea, then we can use episodes for stories or vignettes or salad dressing.”

“We need stories, air, water, sex, shelter, food and...”

“Will it be a man-u-script or a woman-u-script?”

“Both. If it ain’t on the page it ain’t on the stage.”

“We are authors looking for characters,” said an Italian kid named Pirandello.

“I am a plot looking for a character. I am a plot dragging characters around with cinematic jump cuts.”

“It will have characters and conflict,” said a young scripter. “It will be full of irony, symbolism, weather and sex. Vietnam is a woman having her field plowed.”

“Absoultely,” said a writer. “More than that it will have want, obstacles, rising and falling action and resolution with emotion as characters change and grow and realize their authenticity. You will experience what characters feel, taste, touch, hear and see revealing themselves through action. Socrates subordinated character to action. Just get to the verb.”

“Sleeping alone is boring,” said Sunflower, a blind masseuse at Seeing Hands in Kampot, Cambodia. Her hands were all.

 “Wow! Let’s make it immediate and dramatic like focusing a lens. I’ll play director.”

“Exactly. A series of conscious and unconscious levels, you know, kind of like a maze or something, a puzzle palace. I need your help with internal and external dialogue as characters reveal their insecurity and fears in the dark night of the soul, how they trade their soul to the devil down at the crossroads at midnight, how they are comfortable with their insecurities and their desire for self-preservation by scheming because they want to be important. They don’t have principles or morals. They want recognition not fame. They have to survive.”

“Let’s act out their fears, hopes and worries.”

“Do your characters discuss moral ambiguities?”

“Yes. They speak with nouns and verbs and use specific adjectives for description. The slay adverbial dragons with an ultra fine red pen.”

“Is a place like this hospital, a character?”

“Sure, a place has character doesn’t it? Writers have used geographical settings: Vietnam, Morocco, Bhutan, Ireland, Cambodia, Tibet...Room 101.”

“That sounds like a nature versus man struggle or man versus man. You become the thing you fight the most.”

“Do they playfully deconstruct the truth with literal actuality moving the narrative forward to get to the root of their experience?”

“The roots are below the surface,” said a young nun washing teacups on a Taoist mountain in Sichuan, China.

Get is the joker word in English. A lick my clit agent at a Willamette Writer’s Conference said this is a beautiful word farrago photograph, a jazz beat stylistic work in process. She suggested throwing the narrative out and focus on one geography or one specific time.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Ice Girl in Banlung, Ratanakiri, Cambodia. It was a wild west town of 25,000 filled with red dusty roads near the River of Darkness and animist cemeteries.

“Beware of naysayers, soothsayers and book doctors,” said a kid. “We are in this together. Through thick and thin. Through health and illness. Writing is a disease. We lie for a living. No editor will drink champagne from our skull. We’re trapped in our bodies, trapped in this hospital, trapped in a never-ending labyrinth. You’d think there’d be a moonlighting word doctor around here disguised as a heart specialist. Shine on bright star.”

“Ok,” said kid writer, “how’s this sound? Write everything in the first five hundred pages, uh, I mean five pages. Grab the reader with a hook beginning every sentence, at the end of paragraphs and the end of chapters. Start and end sentences with a strong word.”

“Good idea,” said a kid, “keep them turning pages. What happens next? If there’s no plot, nothing happens.”

“People are born. People live. People die. People wait. People fart around. Nobody comes. Nothing happens. Is this a fill-in-the-blank trick life test?”

“Life gives you the test first and lessons later,” screamed a overworked, underpaid and undersexed Hanoi teacher losing face in front of 80 robots. She pounded a podium with her pedagogical Marxist elephant control stick.

“It’s ok to be horrible. Some writers quit because they want it to be perfect. Many never start. Many never finish. It ain’t about starting, it’s about finishing. Write your dash. You need to be passionate about your work without being obsessive-compulsive. Do it because you love it. Make a beautiful fucking mess. Clean it up and make another beautiful mess.”

“Editing is a form of censorship,” said a kid waving a pile of rejection letters. “You don’t want to make the average reader work too hard do you?”

“No, they’re lazy to begin with you know. Obese, addicted to fast food, screen visuals, social web sites, FaceLost, and sextexting with short attention spans. No attention span? No problem.”

“Rewriting is writing. Cold hard detached. Revision is the party. Being a writer is like having homework every single fucking day.”

“What’s a word doctor?”

“Someone who fixes man-u-scripts,” said a blind kid waving a Mont Blanc 148 piston fountain pen splattering A- blood on everyone in their radius. “They rearrange words and sentences. Writing is like digging a well with a needle.”

“Punctuation is a nail. Period.”

“Just tell the truth,” said a Cambodian orphan. 1 of 12,000.

“The truth is, speaking of a fix, does anyone have any spare drugs?” said an addict in a gazebo group, “I need to get out of here and take a trip.”

“We, you, he, she, us, them, they, little old me and I ain’t going anywhere,” they chorused.

“Where’s the scissors? We need a sharp edge here.”

“Cut it out! Who’s got the cosmic glue holding everything together?”

“I have two scissors and one brother.”

“Your English is fluent.”

“Paste it where the sun don’t shine!”

“In your wild creative dreams!” yelled a kid.

“Super cosmic glue keeps everything from happening at the same time.”

“Living well is the best revenge. Best served cold.”

“Revenge and ambition are why humans have wars. 4,000 years of killing each other and no knows who the king is.”

Rose knew they were doing hard time. Have mercy. A child chimed in, “I’m going to be a historian. I’m going to stand on a street corner begging people to give me their wasted hours.”

“Where have I heard that before?” asked a Chinese refugee child from an orphanage flooding the Yangtze with dead children.

“What will you do with the time you collect?” asked her friend.

“Visit sick children in hospitals where they do evolutionary experiments to stem the cells.”

“Or is it sell the stems?”

“Speaking of stems, I’m going to be a gardener, can’t imagine anything more beautiful than making nature astonishing to the eye. Leave something for future generations.”

“If you plant roses and need someone with experience to take care of thorns give me a shout,” said Tran, a brave one-legged Vietnamese warrior child wearing his heart on his sleeve.

“I’m going to study Donatello,” said another.

“Who’s he?”

“He was one of the greatest Renaissance artists. He was born in 1386 in a place called Florence, Italy.”

“And?”

“Well, he was very honest, had integrity and was super original for his time. Technically he worked with anything. You name it, wax, bronze, marble, clay, rocks, wood and glass. He raised the status from someone who created beauty to a craft, a real artist. He was always discovering new tricks of the craft.”

A child painting with smoke on mirrors blasted light, “Hey! That’s what the Greeks believed. Everything was beauty and order.”

“Order, structure, design, form, function, oratory, mathematics, seven musical notes. Beauty originated with them didn’t it?”

“You got it,” said the painter. “Hey, you know what? I think I’ll take the day off and be creative.”

“The present moment is eternal reality,” whispered a child, “We live in the eternity of the instant.”

“It’s about process not product.”

“Whew, that’s deep!”

“Yeah, we’re all in the shit, it’s only the depth that changes.”

“Yeah, if it’s not one thing it’s something else.”

“Fools speak the truth.”

“Fools are everywhere. We are fools whether we dance or not so we may as well dance. If fate doesn’t make you laugh you don’t get the joke. The value of truth value meaning is in the mystery.”

“Tunkashila is grandfather’s spirit. It’s wisdom and calmness,” said children inside a sacred circle. “It is the way of the warrior. We are all warriors.”

Rose listened with her heart-mind. She knew others were not ready to receive their insight and blessings. Terminal black tires left skid marks through lives. People they hadn’t met, contacted, or connected with would feel the heat and smell fire where their wheelchair rubber met the road. They were true spiritual road warriors with distinct calibrations, shifts, vibrations and energy frequencies. The future would be a scary time for older generations unaccustomed to their authenticity.

Rose knew it would be a real beautiful mess figuring out where to put the disability act in their short sweet Ghost Dance. Perhaps in rising action leading to the epiphany, or in the falling action leading to a beautiful heart breaking emotional catastrophic epiphany. Cut. The end. Cue applause.

“How can I know what I think until I see what I say?” a child said out loud with reported speech. Their wheel of life pealed skin down, playing tag inside crazy wisdom.

Who’s dragging around this bag of bones?

“To sleep, perchance to dream.”

“A dream is an unfulfilled wish,” said a kid with a PH.D in psychoanalysis from the Jung Institute.

“What else did he say?”

“He said, ‘There is no royal road to wisdom. To arrive in the future I must journey to the past. To attain the sanity of oneness with the One, I must risk the whirling madness of the possessed. One must confront their shadow or be crushed by it.”

“I like it,” said a seer named Rumi. “What else?”

“Well, here’s another cool thing he said. “I liken the formation of a character to weaving fabric. You know what happens when you make a mistake? The whole pattern is spoiled. You have a choice. You can finish the garment, however it will always be botched and ugly, or you can unravel the weaving back to the first mistake and start again. That’s basically what analysis is about. It’s a tedious job. The patient is scared and hostile. The analyst lends patience, honesty and courage.’”

“Excellent,” yelled kids, “here’s to our being patient patients with authenticity and courage.”

“Speaking of courage, I’m looking for someone who knows reading and writing,” Rose said to the children.

“Oh, I don’t know anything about reading and writing,” a child told Rose. “I thought you said eating and fighting. I know about that.”

“Perfect, let’s go together,” said Rose.

Subject to Change 

Friday
Jul312015

Species Specific - TLC 26

Welcome to another episode of Variations of The Species.

Today’s panel of exotic mutating organisms: Dancing cockroach. Used-car salesman. A soldier. IMF banker. Cambodian orphan. Amputee. Laotian monk. A genetically altered replica of your DNA, thanks to Crick and Watson, elementary. Some can and some Kant. Komodo dragon. Linguistic gardener. Blind typist. Mute femme fatale. A gravedigger.

The panel has agreed in scientific theoretical terms beyond a reasonable logical doubt to abstain from personal slander, libelous defamatory remarks and farting.

Profound physicists have proven that natural gas released by farting with regularity since the beginning of recorded time on Sumerian clay tablets leads to the demise, downfall, up-fall, where-with-all, you know it all disintegration of icebergs, glaciers, animals, plant populations, rainforests and human civilization.

It contributes to the extinction of diverse species. Period.

In conclusion we caution our panel of organisms to abstain from eating processed fatty foods high in sodium and imbibing fizzy sugar liquids while maintaining a high intake of organic nutrients like Korean red ginseng, gingko and lemongrass tea with Freedom after dark under a burning red light.

The Language Company