Bat Shit

Yeah, I know, said a bat in Human Land.

Over centuries my relatives developed a super efficient immune system against any viruses. I mean SUPER efficient. They passed this DNA through generations and like magic here I am.

The sad unpleasant fact is that Wing Free, one of my relatives shit in the forest. Normal shit. Another animal friend named Pangolini, a species with scales like a reptile ate some delicious berries flavored with the shit.

Pangolini will eat anything. The jungle is a vast repository of succulent treats.

The shit had a virus named C-19.

A hunter - like all of us - trapped Pangolini and sold it to Wet Market Woman in Human Land. She killed it, sliced it up and served it a New Year's Eve party attended by thousands of voracious two-legged animals. 

Their mantra was "Eat Fast or Starve."

They were happy because 1) it was delicious and 2) they were leaving Human Land for a two-week national holiday.

They didn't wash their hands. Their bland joyful faces were masks.

Millions went to the train station, bus station and airport. Bye-bye Human Land. 

They travelled to all parts of a blue spinning rock called Earth. Except cold Antarctia where penguins dance.

They enjoyed their holiday without knowledge or fear. Many became sick and died. Many strangers in remote yet accessible villages, towns, cities, countries and continents got sick and died.

Survivors freaked out. Their lives were turned upside down, inside out and permanently changed.

Forever and a day.

So it goes.

Profit Before People

A global virus has a long term effect. Humans adjust priorities.

Big busine$$ restructures their operations. Oil, banks, pharmaceuticals, travel industry, automotive, and airlines.

It's a numbers game, said Profit Before People.

Story time...

...He unlocked the door. Five empty freezing rooms.

The kitchen counter displayed empty soda bottles, a black plastic bag of cheap harsh stale tobacco, a box of lavender herbal tea flowers, 1/2 jar of Nescafé, one white coffee cup, one spoon, a sharp knife, a fork in the road and one bright yellow plate.

On a white laminated shelf was a first edition of Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, signed by the author.

“Read this,” said Silence, the loudest noise in the world.

Next to it was a black key for a teachers’ cabinet at TEOL.

“Call Trabzon,” the German man informed Ebru. “We have an MIA.”

She rang Sit Down in Trabzon.

“Lucky Foot took a hike,” she said.

“Call out the SWAT team and dogs. Hunt him down. Kill him with extreme prejudicial kindness.”

She called SWAT. The line was busy.

The German returned to TEOL and gave Ebru the key. She approached the cabinet. A rancid smell smashed her nose. “What’s that god-awful stench?”

Gagging, she threw up all over a teachers’ desk littered with empty tea glasses, cell phones and half eaten Simit pretzels. Regaining her composure she approached The Cabinet of Dr. Cagliari (1920).

She heard a ticking sound. Maybe it’s a bomb. I should call the bomb squad.

They arrived. A man in a bombproof origami suit applied a stethoscope to the front panel. Yes, something is ticking.

He drilled a hole and pushed a microscopic eye into darkness. A mirror inside the cabinet reflected a thin piece of pulsating metronomic metal. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.  

“We’ll have to open this with thrilling caution. Get the Die Rector.”

The Die Rector, an economist, knew what to do. “Let’s assume there’s no fucking problem. Give me the key.”

Ebru handed it over. Everyone backed up hard drives.

The Die Rector, 56, who was scheduled for a heart-valve transplant in January, unlocked the door.

Inside was The Language Company by Zeynep, class rosters, green, yellow, orange highlighters, a

magnifying glass, telescope, world globe, hourglass, a bag of hazelnuts, radioactive isotopes, a red rose with

thorns, a dissolving image of a smiling ghost playing with Lone Wolf in a mountain meadow, a mirror, a

dozing Black Mamba, a high voltage Dream Sweeper Machine from Hanoi, a Honer blues harp in the key of C,

a magic carpet, one sugar cube, a glass, spoon, dry tea leaves, an empty bottle of Xanax, a ticking

metronome, a bamboo forest, dusty footprints and rusty Communist loudspeakers squawking:

We are Authority, Power and Control. Surprise!

51 Days in Turkey

The Language Company

Study currency with a friend.

How did I grow?

Ghost in exile

After 364 days an officer pinned red and yellow campaign ribbons on me. I caught a freedom flight from Saigon to Alaska, ran across a frozen tarmac in thin khakis for java and flew to the City by the Bay.

“Anybody want a steak?” said a sergeant processing arrivals.

“Screw the steak. Give me a new dress green uniform. I’m out of here for a flight to Colorado.”

I became a ghost in exile. No one spoke to me. I understood their reticence, fear, guilt and awkwardness seeing me in a military uniform.

Passengers were anesthetized by their life and media propaganda and TV images seeing the dead come home in black body bags. Prime time madness sold soap.

I remembered Samuel at the 265th, “Better than going home to abuse, derision, scorn, apathy and unemployment.”

I’d seen things they would never believe. They averted their eyes with social indifference and I understood. They’d remained static in their work, eat, and sleep routines.

I’d shifted my consciousness with quantum precision. I survived a transforming life experience.

You die twice. Once when you’re born and when you face death.

Surviving a year in a macabre police action zone where an imperialist government tried to impose a Catholic leader on a Buddhist people gave my life new meaning.

It taught me impermanence.

One life - no plan - many adventures sang with clarity and awareness. I create or destroy my freedom.

In my dream I hike past a crude sign hanging from rusty concertina wire at a deserted firebase:

Normal is a cycle on a washing machine.

I locate normal in my portable lexicon.

Normal is someone you don’t know very well. Like yourself.

I used to be somebody else but I traded him in.

ART

Virus Life

A short story with universal repercussions.

Once upon a time (for 10,000 years) a Bat lived in Human Province. 

It carried a disease in its small black body. 

Bat shit landed on the ground. 

Another animal named Pangolin ate the shit.

A starving hunter trapped Pangolin. 

He sold it to a woman working in the Human Wet Market.

She killed it. She cut it up to sell.

Hungry customers bought Pangolin parts. 

They took it home, cooked it and served it at parties.

Everyone who touched and ate the Pangolin became sick. 

Their sickness infected their communities.

A doctor at a Human Hospital diagnosed a patient with a strange disease.

He notified other health care workers about his discovery.

Police came to the doctor’s house. They said, “You are spreading rumors. This is not allowed. It is harmful to the people. Sign this paper saying you were wrong and repent your actions.”

The doctor signed.

He became sick. He went to the hospital. He died from a virus called Corona. 

Some citizens said he was a HERO. Big Brother said, he was not important.

Big Brother made 11 million Human people stay indoors until the end of time.

More died. 

The virus escaped and infected many humans on Earth. Some lived, some died.

Big Brother said, “We are victorious. We have eliminated the virus.”

"Holy Bat Shit!" said Robin.

51 Days in Turkey

In 2008 while facilitating English in Bursa, Turkey he worked with Azra, a personal tutor. She told him about Trabzon on the Black Sea near Georgia. “I was born there and it’s beautiful.”

In the summer of 2012 while meditating in Asia he applied for a Teaching English Foreign Language (TEFL) job in Trabzon.

They needed native barbarians with clear pronunciation.

Let’s see the terrain, said Omar, a Touareg Berber ghostwriter friend. Reconnect with Z, the author of The Language Company, meet diverse people, do street photography, write about it and analyze the situation with diamond mind wisdom.

Go on an adventure.

He arrived in September.

Satire and curiosity witnessed the deterioration of educational quality. Rampant commercialism and artificial empowerment. Dystopian reality. Greed is a hungry animal. So it goes.

51 Days in Turkey

Many clowns are not in the circus.