The Story of Bob.

This is a story about a man named Bob.

Bob was not a lucky man, as indicated by the present use of the past tense.

Anyway, it was about a year ago that Bob went walking. He had nowhere to go. He had nothing to do. Still, he was quite set on the notion of walking, so he began to promenade about town in a most jovial fashion. His procession brought him to his favorite park, where he had spent many happy hours as a boy. A strange-looking man occupied his favorite bench. Bob sat next to the man, who was quite occupied with his sandwich and booze. A squirrel came by and started to talk to Bob.

The squirrel told Bob many naughty things. It made him uncomfortable. In fact, Bob was about to leave when the homeless man suddenly burst into a magnificent monologue, full of vibrant imagery and subtle allusions. Awestruck, Bob and the squirrel both sat down to listen quietly. The homeless man made some sparkling critiques of American society in a rather humorous bout of satire, and then left. Bob became hungry and asked the squirrel for some nuts.

A disgruntled and incredibly homophobic postal worker overheard Bob's inquirry and took it the wrong way, regretfully shooting Bob in the face with a 9mm pistol. The squirrel scampered over to see if Bob was ok, and seeing that he wasn't, stole one of Bob's eyes. The postal worker took off all of his clothes and danced a solo waltz.

The End.

Oh, and don't feel bad for Bob. He was a child molester.

The next person to make a patronizing comment gets stabbed in the neck.

Well, I learned a valuable lesson from my last post: if you ever write anything that you feel is even half-way decent, don't share it with your friends. Only give them the shallow things that can be safely enjoyed at face value. Anything else will be a startling dissapointment.

By the way, thanks to Rich for making an effort. Even sugar-coated, it's nice to know someone will give you the benefit of the doubt that you have some talent as a writer, even if it's only enough to fill a shot glass.

Goddamn, I hate you people. I'll probably end up closing this blog, too.

On a COMPLETELY unrelated note to my irritability, tonight marks my fourth night without sleep. Usually, when a person says "I haven't slept in two days," it's a slight exagerration to describe a period of little sleep, say three or five hours among two days. This, sadly, is not the case. I have not had one minute of sleep. Not one. In four days.

My roommate came back from Japan with lots of work, oh yes he did. So he starts working, all through every night (must be nice to be able to sleep in during the day, eh?). Now, noise doesn't bother me, but light does. I can't sleep with any light (hey, light. A symbol from my story. Heh, symbols . . .), so for three days, I was frustratingly prone in bed while fully awake. Sure, I should have asked him to go work in the library, but I would have felt like a jerk. I don't know. Maybe I felt bad because he's actually been doing work.

So Masa does eventually get tired. Glee. Not as much as me, but whatever. Sleep time for both of us. No lights; it is dark.

I still can't sleep. Why? I don't know. Too much pressure to perform? (or not perform?) Randomly, I'm hit with insomnia. Masa wakes up from his early sleep to play video games (which he's doing now), but it doesn't really matter. I can't sleep regardless.

I reason that however taxed my mind and eyes are, my body was still resting all these nights since I was still in bed. I mean, I have this crazy jack-hammer leg going on, so it must have energy. Maybe my body is just out of sync with my mind.

So what is the effect of all this? Well, I shaved my hand today. Yeah, that's right. I shaved my hand. Why? I have no freaking idea. There wasn't even really any hair on the tops of my hands, but it seemed like a good idea. I also shaved my wrists. I have some hair on my arms (which is normal) but no hair on the underside. Except this one spot where it kind of grows together. Well, suddenly that pissed me off, so it had to go.

Neurotic grooming aside, I also noticed that I talk to myself a lot. Now, I usually talk to myself (yes, I have internal conversations frequently), but not out loud. I noticed I was mumbling, which is just not my style. I was trying to decide if anything was bothering me that could be keeping me up, but all I got was the aforementioned frustration. I feel quite cleansed of that now.

So now what? I could write something, but I'm quite put out by that idea. I suppose I'll play video games, murder my roommate, shave off my eyebrows, and fly out the window.

The Boy That Could Not Dream

Isn't it dandy how often this thing updates?

I'm still working on my short story, but I'm not feeling it that much right now, so I've moved it to the back burner. My usual style is "less is more," so I wrote this little . . . thing this morning. I had the idea when I woke up, thought of a few ideas in the shower, and just kind of pumped the thing out in about an hour.

I was told that ninety percent of writing is revision. I respond to this by saying ninety percent of poetry is a single burst of feeling that cannot be revised, so one must take care not to lose his meaning during the process of revision.

It's kind of a poem, kind of a short story . . . I don't know what it is, but here it is.










































Almost there . . .

-The Boy That Could Not Dream-

By Anthony Celi.



Many stories begin in some far-away land,
Across many oceans on a beach of gold sand
Or perhaps in a dungeon’s terrible gloom.
Yet, this tale begins in some young boy’s room.

To begin our adventure in such an unlikely place,
Something here should be special; but it isn’t the case!
And in the boy’s mind, we’ll find nothing fun.
In terms of fantasy, he hasn’t got one.

Despite what you hope, I’m afraid it would seem
That we’ve found a boy that just cannot dream.
If you look closer (that is, if you dare)
You will be greeted alone by the blankest of stares.

This dull little child simply sits all alone,
Staring at the wall while he blinks at the phone.
He moves when he has to, but only to breathe.
He’ll gaze at the door, but not once does he leave.

The bees, of course, insist that nothing is wrong
And they hum this to him in a merry little song.
But the boy knows to beware, and his judgment is just,
For a bee is a thing that one mustn’t trust.
For though it bears many attractive and most fetching features,
It is among nature’s most treacherous creatures.

Now, despite his many efforts to hide,
It should be noted this boy was coerced outside.
He sat all alone in a tree’s thickest shade,
Nervously whittling some wax with his blade.

Now here enters Mary, a young candle maker,
Whose amazing talent was that few things could shake her.
Not even a young man that plays with knives,
Talks to himself, and throws rocks at hives.

She approached him one day, but proved quite the menace.
He just shied away from her rude iridescence.
But she was persistent, and after a while
The boy found himself with the slightest of smiles.

Feeling much less afraid and just a tad braver,
The boy found his life had much more savor.
He began to move more, and was much less elusive,
But Mary’s house call was FAR too intrusive.

She had decided to visit his drab domicile,
In hopes that her presence would make it less vile.
All her friends had agreed that she was quite funny,
Her smile was bright and she smelled like warm honey.
Ask all that had known her; search far and near!
No heart was untouched by her unbridled cheer.

So why did this boy now behold her with dread?
Surely her affection had buzzed in his head.
Yet he was reserved; Mary read well his clues,
But soon reassured him with wonderful news.
It seems she had permission to stay for the night!

The boy forced a weak smile and then blew out his light.

-fin-


Follow up notes:

Kind of a Shel Silversteen style, kind of a single-effect style . . . I think it's pretty straight foward. I'm sure you understood it if you read it.

Leave some comments, if you please. Rants, raves, suggestions, questions are welcome.

Empty Nocturnal

Dreams bother me. To be more specific, my inability to dream bothers me. Of course, I'm told that I do dream and simply can't remember. As though that had any meaning whatsoever. A dream is an experience. If I can't experience it, I'm not dreaming, am I?

If I have ever been truly jealous of something, it is the ability of my friends to dream. In ten years at least, I have only one vivid recollection of a dream: a nightmare in which my Memee is standing on the top of the stairs in my house. I run over to her and watch her fall before I can get there, missing her with my hand as I try to grab her. I had the dream once, after she died, and that was it. My dream. All I have. I've had the last parts of a couple nightmares, too. Just the part at the end where I hit the ground, get stabbed, or similarly die. Nothing recent, though.

I really feel like I'm missing out on something big, and it bothers me more than you may imagine.

At the suggestion of a friend, I tried spending the first moments of every morning recollecting things that happened in my dreams. I was supposed to keep a log, but there was nothing to write. I remembered vague details from a couple dreams, but no real images. I was really excited anyway.

I gave up, but I'll probably try again.

Supposedly, the inability to dream or recall dreams is common among the criminally insane. Glee. At least I know from my "journaling" that there is something there; I just can't remember it. I can't see it.

"Maybe my perceptions are just so vivid and imaginative in my waking life, I don't need to dream." That's was suggested to me once, and it's a thought I pull out to amuse myself on occaision. Nothing cures frustration like ego. Thank God mine weighs several tons and likes to destroy Tokyo for fun and profit.

Oddly, I seem to appear in the dreams of several of my friends. Often. Not the same person repeatedly, but I appear a lot in someone's head. They tell me about it, and I can't help but wish I had people in my dreams. I wish I could dream.

My head is in the clouds enough during the day, I know. I live deep in fantasy and I make an art of escapism. Still, I feel robbed at night. For all the sleeping I do, I feel robbed every time. I would do anything for a significant experience. Images. Something besides black.

I would even settle for a cheap, lewd, wet dream. Mess or not.

I feel that I don't have the luxury of true sleep. Every night, I die. Completely and totally. Every morning I'm born again; I'm fresh, new, and with nothing to connect the night with the day. No memory. No experience.

I have deja vu several times every week, without fail. Just what in the hell is going on here?

In dreams we are free; it is a reality for us, by us. It is another life, steeped solely in perception, existing only for us. Did I all ready die in that life?

My soul must be twisted. No surprise there.
No time for sleep anyway. The corpses are piling up too fast.

Saying good-bye.

What many people don't know is that I didn't come home this weekend solely for the purpose of seeing Kristen and Sam. While those certainly are good reasons that I enjoy fully, there is another reason. This weekend is also my only chance to say good-bye to an old friend.

Have you ever heard the expression "it takes a village to raise a child?" Well, my family has wonderful relationships with our neighbors, and many of them are closer to me than some of my uncles and aunts. My entire life, my family has included the two households on either side of our little den. They are family, along with others in the town. Simple as that.

Well, across the street live Joe, Josie, and Eleanor. All three are absolutely wonderful, even Joe, despite his raving homophobia and personal bigotry. (He's an old Sicilian man, pushing 70, that's very set in his ways. You have to make allowances for some people; we all have an ugly side.) Anywho, Eleanor is Josie's mother, and she is an amazing woman. She and Joe never really got along, which is unfortuanate, but still Joe and Josie have taken good care of her. She used to work out in the garden with them, but as she's gotten older her body has gotten weaker and weaker.

Eleanor fell a couple times, but always recovered. She began drinking heavily, leaving her blood currently very thin and her body dependant on the alcohal. Joe and Josie just gave her more, to make her happy. It's been commonly accepted that she is in fact waiting to die. It's been hard to see her, in the past year or so, because of that.

Well, Joe and Josie are by no means young. She is a burden to them, though they always accepted it. The two are going to Italy, and she is going to live with her other son in Ohio.

What they failed to tell her is that she isn't coming back.

Isn't that something? A grown woman, who has seen more than any of us, and is still as sharp as she ever was is treated like a child. The idea of this made me sick. Today is my chance to say good-bye, and I have to pretend I don't know I'll never see her again?

As it turns out, she does seem to know. I'm guessing she figured it out herself and confronted Joe and Josie about it. I said she's sharp, after all. I got to see her today and say good-bye. She was in bed, because it was cold (thin blood doesn't help with this weather). Surprisingly, she looked better for some reason. Less hopeless. I think she is looking forward to spending time with her son, and she knows what we know.

It really will be better for her. Both Tom (Eleanor's son) and his wife are doctors that care about her very much. It's their turn to take care of her now, and she may live another ten good years with them. I'd imagine they'd try to cut down her alcohal dependency, as well.

I'm not worried about her. I know she'll be fine. I just also know that I won't see her again. Seeing her today was essentially her living funeral. It's hard to say good-bye. I held my smile through the visit, but I'm sure that despite her vision, she saw right through all of us. No amount of hair in my eyes could help that.

I'll miss her. I'll miss her a lot. Saying good-bye brought back a lot of old feelings from when Memee died four years ago. Four years. A drop in the bucket. I wonder, slightly afraid, if I'll forget about Eleanor. If I'll misplace her until I hear about her death sometime in the future. Can a person die twice?

My mom and I both cried a bit when we got home. We're too alike, holding it in. It's kind of funny. Both of us have been thinking about Memee a lot lately. Some things just never go away. I feel like maybe the feelings came up this way because I ignored them. I feel a little guilty.

The entire experience is a bit sureal. I've decided that I don't want to die. This sounds stupid, but I'm not speaking in physical terms. It's a little too abstract to articulate yet, but it's certainly possible.


On a side-note, I changed the comment setting to allow anyone to comment.

Please be courteous and note that anonymous comments do piss me off. I'm just too lazy to equip this page with an IP tracker. If you'd like to be anonymous, please AT LEAST create a monicker of some kind. I like to know if two anonymous posts are made by the same person or not.