John Swinburn

The feathers of those big, raucous birds are as black as carbon. The sheen of their plumage reflects light like mirrors. The creatures’ morning routines consist of boisterous interchanges—perhaps conversations or arguments or mocking laughter. The trees surrounding the driveway in front of the house are laden with all sorts of birds, but the most visible and most audible are those huge black ones that look too large, too heavy, and too cumbersome to fly. Watching them fly, though, erases judgment about their clumsiness; their stunning twists and sharp turns and death-defying dives in flight are the province of expert high-wire acrobats. Mi novia just bought a little black display dish, modeled after those intriguing critters, in which she keeps an assortment of decorative quartz crystals. Crows—real and abstract, straightforward and abstract—are everywhere I turn lately. Crows; they did not choose that name for themselves. Humans, English-speakers with scant knowledge of how the birds live their lives, selected that word. I prefer the word used by Spanish-speakers: cuervo. Perhaps if I had experience listening to French conversations about them I would have developed an affinity for corbeau. What do the caws of crows symbolize? Are they mocking humans for our bureaucratic minds? Or do those vehement shouts say something unflattering about our lack of feathers? Perhaps they will warm up to me if I deliver daily treats to them—mi novia bought a big bag of unshelled peanuts that I suspect are intended for los cuervos. As for the image above: I do not know the source, I did not create it, but I admire the artist who did.

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Tomorrow marks a week since my most recent chemotherapy session. My patient portal shows that tomorrow’s scheduled visit includes two hours for treatment and two hours for labs, injection(s), and a visit with the oncologist.  I cannot rely on the appointment times to reflect the actual visit, due to the impossibility of predicting how much time each patient’s condition will require of the oncology team. Last week’s treatment went by incredibly fast; faster, I think, than any I have experienced before. Regardless of how much time my appointment requires, though, days involving more than collecting blood for labs seem to require me to spend a full day, including going to and from the cancer center and the time I spend there. Tomorrow, I will ask my oncologist whether I can get all the vaccines I need at any time or, if not, when I can get the injects. COVID, flu, pneumonia, etc., etc. I’m tempted to request vaccines for measles, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, rubella, and any others that may be available…if for no other reason that to express my utter disdain for the “other Kennedy” who is trying to convince us that vaccines are poisons. Asshole! I have developed a moderately productive (and mildly irritating) cough. If I had a legitimate means of laying blame on him for whatever ails me, I would do it. And I would call his actions deliberate attempts to kill me. Unfortunately, felony convictions have been proven NOT to disqualify people for Federal “service” to the public.

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Preemptive euthanasia (PE). I first used that phrase a number of years ago. At the time, I was unable to find any reference to it on Google or other search engines like Dogpile and Bing. Today, though, a search yields quite a few hits; all of them, though, are post-2017. My use, though, refers to the termination of a person’s life to eliminate the high risk that the subject person will make others’ lives miserable. I do not recall ever finding that definition applied to the phrase. I also used the phrase “euthanasia once-removed” to describe the same thing. Unlike the first term, though, the latter one does not yield results in a Google search. I am confident many people would find both terms repugnant, despite the purity of the underlying motive; that is, to eliminate or prevent suffering to others by terminating the cause of suffering. I am not in favor of the death penalty, though, nor do I think the “state” should take individuals’ lives for any other reason. “The State” has been shown to be utterly untrustworthy in the death penalty’s application. So, to overcome my objections to a concept I find both appealing and appalling, I propose the death penalty be eliminated and that “preemptive euthanasia/euthanasia once-removed” be overseen by a Citizens’ Council on Death at a Distance. The Council would have several representatives from every country who would be charged with making a determination (Yes or No) to invoke PE involving candidates from other countries to which the representatives have no connections. For example, a panel of PE representatives from Sudan might be enlisted to determine whether an insufferable individual from Japan should be administered PE.  A panel from Guatemala could be chosen to provide the same service for Iceland. If I ever had to make a decision about whether to move forward with implementation of PE, I think I would have to withdraw from the process. It’s easier to adopt hard and fast rules for hypothetical situations than for the real world.

While most of us were busy with our cluttered, frantic, and questionably purposive lives, a few among us spent time and intellectual energies on more esoteric matters. Twenty years into the twenty-first century, a group of astronomers devoted their days and nights to revising the ways in which the boundaries of galaxies were determined. Traditionally, galaxies’ boundaries were defined by using fixed levels of brightness (surface brightness isophotes) as a means of determining galaxies’ sizes. A team of astronomers, led by Nushkia Chamba of the NASA Ames Research Center, developed a physically motivated criteria for the boundary of a galaxy based on the required gas density for star formation.  A better understanding of astrophysics and related matters might enable me to more fully explain Chamba’s criteria. In the absence of that understanding, though, I willingly accept the results of her explorations. My acceptance of her work, though, did not answer the question that led me to answers to other questions. The question for which I was seeking an answer was this: Are all stars a part of a galaxy, or do some stars exist beyond the limits of galaxies? Further research led me to the answer: Most, but not all, stars belong to galaxies…as far as we know, based on our present understanding of the universe.  My  original question, though, was even less pragmatic. Rather than call it a question, though, I probably should call it a matter of general curiosity concerning subjects about which knowledge is pointless. If there were a corner of the universe, where would it be? In an attempt to recover from the boundless irrelevance of my general curiosity, I kept looking. That’s when I came across Nushkia Chamba and her work.

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We’ve begun watching Lynley, a murder mystery series involving two mismatched detectives on BritBox. The series is only four episodes long (about 1 hour each), but based on what we’ve seen so far, I hope it is renewed for another season.  I started watching Los Gringo Hunters on Netflix. It’s an action series in which a specialized Mexican police team is tasked with catching and deporting U.S. citizens who have fled to Mexico to escape imprisonment in the U.S.  I find it entertaining. And I am a little embarrassed that I find such a show appealing.

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The veins on the back of my hand and wrist are clearly visible. I would think I should be able to see those veins move, if only very slightly, with each beat of my heart. But they do not move. When I stare at my hands, they remain absolutely still, as if they had been carved in marble. I can hear my heart beat, though. And I can hear my stomach growl. Those noises are the reasons I want to experience total silence; just to understand what the experience is like. One’s body is a mysterious amalgamation of baffling pieces, sewn together with tissues so thin they are almost invisible. The thought of being able to see inside the body reminds me of something I had as a kid: a clear plastic figure shaped like a human body. Inside, colorful models of all the organs and muscles and tendons and tissues and the like were clearly visible. By removing the top half of the clear figure, I could remove all of the individual pieces. I should have kept that figure. I wonder where it is now?

Some days, virtually everything within my line of sight appears dull, as if bleached by the sun or treated with whitewash. Like an old, weather-beaten wooden fence painted with a thin mixture of lime and water, every image on those days seems dimmed by an invisible haze.  Or viewed through an ancient metal window screen that’s worn and dusty…a light breeze away from total collapse. I have, for years, blamed my eyes for the decay in my vision. But my eyes are not entirely responsible. Pollen and heat and the dust and smoke rising from rice fields set ablaze after harvest contribute. A few years ago, while driving through acres and acres of corn fields in the mid-west, i watched the pollen and harvest dust tint the sky beige. I recall thinking that, if I could scratch my fingernails across the sky, I could have left marks…like a blackboard overburdened with chalk.

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Once again yesterday, I had a multitude of things on my mind, but my brain refused to cooperate in documenting any of them. So, after I had been up for quite a long time, went back to bed, where I spent most of the day. Consequently, I missed  visits by two friends. Later, between brief periods of consciousness, I tried repeatedly to focus my attention on something that might trigger thoughts of a subject to write about.  Finally, sometime between daybreak and its subsequent midnight, a few topics of interest crossed my mind. If I had been sufficiently energetic, I might have recorded some thoughts on my smart-phone or jotted a note to myself to serve as a reminder for later. I was not energetic. I did not  have a pen and notepad nearby (nor did I have enough drive to go find them). So, I gave up. And I do not recall yesterday’s ideas. Such is life.

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I had another massage Saturday afternoon, my third since being introduced to the massage therapist not long ago. When the session concluded, I set another appointment for two weeks hence. Between massage and sleep and movies/streaming series, I think I could occupy all of my time and then some. But I’d still have to fit in time for my oncologist and people like her… people who rely on my Medicare and supplemental insurance to fund their current lifestyle, their retirement, and so forth. In fact, I do not begrudge members of the several medical teams that serve me. They chose careers that would flood their bank accounts with money; I settled for an employment trajectory suitable for sustained mediocrity.

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I would like to find something worthy of celebration…an event or an idea or an attitude that merits festive observance. This worthy “something” need not be especially noteworthy—just deserving of appreciative acknowledgement. Additional caveats: it must be something positive (not involving the cessation of something negative) and it must be unusual. Oh, it also does not need to be relevant to a majority of the world’s population, but it must have an impact on large percentages of at least half the countries of the world, as presently configured. Why, though? Why the desire for something to celebrate? Why the limitations on it? Why must it be relevant to so many people in so many places…but not necessarily to everyone? Those questions have answers that matter only to skeptics and cynics…and, of course, to people like them in meaningful ways.

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Mass casualty events—especially those that are planned and executed with the express purpose of generating fear, terror, and hopelessness—can almost immediately wreck a society’s frame of mind and keep its spirits low for a very long time. Multiple invasions of a society’s psychological condition have the potential of radically altering nations’ collective perception of one another. Distrust can morph into malignant invasive kudzu, spreading so fast within even healthy communities that, once detected, its spread is nearly impossible to contain. In my opinion, deep research into the after-effects of a few of the mass-casualty events since the 1960s illustrates how such events can remain in a nation’s/society’s collective consciousness for years, shaping long-term reactions and responses to them. For example: the Vietnam War; the 9/11/2001 Al Qaeda attacks; the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing; 2016 Pulse Nightclub attack; 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting; 2022 Uvalde, Texas school shooting; the 1994 Rawanda genocide; the July 1995 Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina massacre; etc., etc. A quick search of Google returns a very long list of such catastrophes. In each case, I believe thorough research would yield information about deviant psychological and sociological  reactions directly attributable to the triggering events. What can our descendants expect in response, over time, to the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol? Ongoing school shootings? Murder and arson perpetrated in religious venues? The “disappearance” (at the hands of a Federal government laden with disdain for morality, legality, and human decency) of hundreds or thousands of potentially-undocumented immigrant children? The lists of such events are beyond comprehension…mine, at least.

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An apple turnover is visible in a cool display case, nestled among all sorts of other pastries. They, along with apple fritters, donuts, cinnamon roles, kolaches, klobásníky, and cake donuts plead with me: “Please take me! I need to be eaten joyously, and I know you’re the man to do it!” This little display case is directly in front of the door to the pastry shop. Almost everyone in this sleepy East Texas town visits Patricia’s Pleasing Pastries at least once every month; either right before or right after church. Most of the working-age population of Palestine, Texas is employed by Patricia’s Proton Plant, a facility that manufactures original-equipment-quality products for use in restoring atoms whose neutrons are fully operable but whose protons were damaged beyond repair during various stages of the atomic restoration process. Patricia’s Proton Plant is the largest employer in Palestine, with a workforce of roughly 28,000. Patricia’s Pleasing Pastries employs the remaining 200 workers. Some people in and around Palestine call the town’s employment situation a “closed-loop semi-serfdom system,” but most of them still call it “Bruce.” Before Patricia bought the proton plant, Bruce had been the owner; old habits die hard. I hear the turnover’s plaintive cries again; “I am the last one. The one with the most flavor. Don’t forget, too, I was baked in a nuclear oven! ” The apple turnover tried to retract that last sentence, but it was too late. Before the exclamation point could leave its lips, the  turnover burst into flames, blackened layers of its crust spraying into the air. My eyes barely had time to scan the room, before I could see and feel and smell the fear in the air for just a fraction of a second. I was the only one left alive after the terrifying, apocalyptical explosion…but the blast made me invisible to the first responders, who flew in from Percilla, Texas on the papal helicopter. You might recall the year before, the global religious community was shocked when the merger was announced between Christianity (formerly the Catholic Church and  the Southern Baptist Convention), Islam, and Hinduism. The Pope was named church leader and the headquarters of the combined church units was moved to Percilla. I was delighted to be, essentially, a fly on the wall, to watch and hear the religious and political ramifications of the merger. Thanks to my surprising invisibility, I was able to manipulate conversations and agreements so that, ultimately, the “Unaffiliated” faction, comprising only 24% of the total membership of the combined religions, was given irrevocable religious powers, thereby taking absolute control of religions, worldwide. Petitions from the “unaffiliated” faction to ban the Bible  notwithstanding, the book was retained as an historical resource for religious fables.

The forest-green, long-sleeved, t-shirt I am wearing is covered with strands of white cat fur, thanks to my decision to hold Phaedra (the cat) in my arms  for an incredibly brief moment a short while ago. Judging from the amount of fur Phaedra left on my clothes during that fleeting embrace, the gravitational pull of my body must be enormously powerful. So powerful, I think, the fur from cats locked in solid steel vaults can be extracted from the animals by gravity, pulled through thick steel walls, and permanently affixed to cotton fabric. And not just sufficiently adhesive to cling to cotton, but strong enough to behave like welded stainless steel nuts and bolts encased in material a thousand times harder than Time and Distance, multiplied by the largest prime number, commonly known as M136279841.

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I heard footsteps. Or I felt them. They belonged to someone else; not to me, nor to anyone I knew. Who is so careless that they scatter loud footsteps in their wake? Who, especially, is so unafraid of the crushing sounds of boots on bone that fear, to them, has an aroma like smoked roses and the desolation of an ice storm? Is that a pathway to escape or, instead, a passage to purgatory?

The first leaf-drop of the season may have taken place just moments ago. Whether it was the first one or not, watching the leaf break away and float to the ground seemed symbolic to me; change is on the horizon. The air outside is absolutely still. Looking through the windows is akin to staring at a still-life painting. When gentle breezes or powerful gusts pry hundreds of leaves at once from branches and twigs, one can miss the transformative symbolism. But a single leaf falling in the absence of even a hint of air movement calls attention to the metamorphosis. If I allow myself to focus intently for just a few minutes on what that leaf’s surrender signals, I feel privileged to experience something readily available to millions—but ignored or dismissed by all but a few of us. Our good fortune is not evidence that we deserve something special; it is simply a piece of luck whose jagged edges have been polished to a luminous, smooth, high-polish luster.

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Years ago, when I lived in Chicago, a woman with whom I worked initiated a friendship with me. Her husband (who, if memory serves me correctly, was an immigrant from a Middle Eastern country) was an engineering professional, though I do not remember what kind of engineering he practiced. Whatever it was did not satisfy him. His wife said her administrative/managerial role in the company for which we both worked was just as unfulfilling to her. Both of them sought radical changes in their lives. She told me they wanted to move to Puerto Rico, where they hoped to buy and operate a venue they could transform into a bed-and-breakfast facility. Their visions for the venue were vastly different, though. The venue of her dreams was a stately old mansion. I think he, though, would have been thrilled to buy or build a place with a much more modern style…closer in concept to the Lakeshore Drive building which had been designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, in which they rented a condo in Chicago. My memories of her husband are hazy and rare. Because she and I worked together, I recall my relationship with her more clearly. But my memories of both of them end abruptly. I do not know what happened. She could have been fired and subsequently disappeared from my tiny social circle. They may have moved suddenly. There could be a thousand reasons my memories about both of them simply stopped being made. One of the last memories I have of visiting with her took place at El Rancho Mexican restaurant, a delicious dive of a place where I think she introduced me to tacos al pastor.  It’s odd that she is on my mind this morning. I believe we worked together and knew one another for no more than two or three months. Nonetheless, that brief budding friendship remains imprinted on my brain for no discernible reason. Perhaps an article about van der Rohe I skimmed recently was the trigger for my short detour down memory lane.

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I built a shrine to the sky, using stars to define the monument’s most distant edges. Within the shrine’s inner sanctum is an endless tribute to understanding and truth. Construction of the altar began long before I knew how the story would end. By then, though, too much time had passed to enable me to start over. I could only hammer at the weakest sections and, when they collapsed, replace them with improbably timeless alternatives to words that no longer have meaning: tomorrow, later, forever, always. Shrubs and trees are related in the same way as are crime and criminality. They erupt from a common bloodline that’s ripe with opportunities for deviance. Watch carefully as vines assert their dominance by smothering interlopers. Peer deep into the night sky to see the full shrine and its pieces fall into place.

I think it’s important for one to take a certain distance from oneself.

~ Václav Havel ~

Sixty-eight years ago, members of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division and the National Guard escorted nine Black students to class at the Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. I was roughly four years old at the time. Until right-wing conservatives wrested control of powerful governmental, political, and social institutions in the past few years, I would have though the Central High School experience was history that could never be repeated again. But, now, history is rewriting itself with pens supplied by racists, bigots, misogynists, xenophobes, greed-mongers, and other people in common with such human scum.

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Friends came by yesterday afternoon to chat and to deliver a marvelous gift: a fabulous apple pie. We spent time talking about what all of us have been doing of late. The way to have a happy conversation is to engage in the discussion while consuming apple pie à la mode. not long afterward, another friend came by to visit briefly and to deliver a different gift: tasty treats designed to improve one’s state of mind.

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Sixteen hours…and then some. That’s how long I slept, beginning last night around 8 p.m. While watching television, I partook of a tranquility trigger (from a friend) that prompted me to have a desire for pretzels. While munching on pretzels, I partook of another—but different—treat; this one with the distinct aroma and taste of juniper berries. Before I went to bed, I wondered how well I would sleep. I slept like a log.

When I sleep as long as I did last night and this morning, days and day-parts combine. Early Thursday morning devolves into mid-day Wednesday. The moments following the sky’s darkening after sunset become the final few minutes preceding sunrise…with only a blink of an eye in between. I blame the confusion on sleep, but the truth could be this: confusion could be to blame for sleep.

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The safest countries in the world today, according to worldpopulationreview.com, “tend to display high levels of wealth, social welfare, and education” and they “typically have effective criminal justice systems and governments that maintain very healthy relationships with their citizens.” The five safest countries in the world, based on the 2024 Global Peace Index (GPI) score [lower is better] are ranked as follows:

1. Iceland
2. Austria
3. Ireland
4. New Zealand
5. Singapore

The remaining top ten safest countries are: Switzerland, Portugal, Denmark, Slovenia, and Malaysia. The United States ranks #131 out of the 163 countries ranked on the Global Peace Index.; a ranking that suggests the relative peril of living in the USA. Unfortunately, according to the 2025 GPI report, “global peace is at its lowest level since the inception of the Index, while the conditions that precede conflict are the worst since WWII.” Moreover, “global peacefulness has deteriorated every year since 2014, with 100 countries deteriorating over the last decade.”

While a lower GPI score is attractive, it is no guarantee of peace or safety. Essentially every country’s most heavily populated cities, for example, have at least some pockets in which crime, social tensions, political battles, etc. take place. But, over all, the most peaceful countries are the most serene places and their populations are happiest.  But if all of us who long for peace and tranquility were to rush to the safest, most peaceful countries, I am afraid the influx would reduce the safety and peacefulness of those places. A more effective, but much more time- and energy-consuming approach would be to change nations into environments in which conflicts would be fewer and less damaging. In other words, lifetimes of dedication would be required for such transformation. My optimism about the likelihood of improving safety and peacefulness for all humanity has all but disappeared over the years. Yet another argument for insulation, isolation, solitude, and withdrawal. I wish I could look forward to changing my mind, but I am too much of a realist for that to be likely. On the other hand, the possibility exists. With enough dedicated, charismatic leaders who possess sufficient collective will to radically change global society, my mind could be changed. If my mind can be changed, so can the minds of enough others.

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Last night’s thunderstorms were audibly violent and visually engrossing. Every clap of thunder and flash of lightning shook the house and illuminated the air with an eerie blue light. I have no idea whether the storms were all show…or whether they demonstrated their power by breaking limbs and causing terrified forest beasts to race through the woods in an effort to escape the chaos. I went to bed early, unmoved by Mother Nature’s tantrum. But when the NOAA weather radio shrieked its warnings, I believe the unbelievably loud, shrill noise caused skin to peel from my scalp and burst into flames. My pulse rate jumped to 1200 beats per minute, keeping pace with a hummingbird’s heart beat. When I woke this morning, shortly after 3, I discovered I had survived the night; at least it appears so.

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It was another one of those seemingly endless nights, blending the remnants of the fading day with encroaching darkness. The night again lasted far longer than did darkness, finally giving in halfway into another day. I find it hard to recall where Monday ended and Tuesday began; both were firmly rooted in sleep that lasted much longer than usual. Sleep seems to have replaced fantasies and dedicated saferooms and caves—the promise of serenity in the form of unconsciousness has become a shelter from the storm…in which the consciousness represents the storm. Psychoanalyzing one’s own sleep patterns is dangerous, in that a person might begin to actually believe the stories one tells oneself. The reality, I suspect, is simple: the facts of—and the treatments for—an affliction that feels mysterious, regardless of the vast amounts of information about it that are available.

During last night’s overload of sleep, I dreamed I hired a young man to provide management for an association client I wanted but did not have time to serve, personally. I did not train the kid, reasoning that he should be able to figure it out for himself, since the client was simple and unsophisticated. The guy’s performance was a train wreck; I fired him in the middle of the new client’s annual conference, with no one available to manage the event. And I had to catch a flight to meet with another client. So I resigned from the client, leaving its board to deal with the carnage. Halfway through the flight to the next meeting, I realized my decision to resign the client at such an awkward time would almost certainly wreck my company’s reputation, so I began thinking about planning the closure of my business. And that was that. My shelter from the storm, in the form of sleep, put me in the middle of a fierce typhoon that was sure to drown me. Maybe I should force myself to stay awake and confront the wind and waves.

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Yesterday, driving home from the appointment with my cardiologist, a pickup truck passed us on the right. Its rear window featured graphics of an AR-15 style rifle, along with some aggressive printed statements clearly meant to tell the world that the driver was a mean S.O.B. who would immediately use the gun to eliminate anyone who threatened him. I think the display of such stuff, which I find offensive, reveals some fundamental characteristics of the person(s) who owns the vehicle. First, they are constantly vigilant about the many potential threats they believe constantly face them. Second, that vigilance is a reaction to their own deep fear of the world around them. Third, they are likely to react any perceived threats as suggested by the graphic statements—they are like frightened dogs under attack that can choose either to flee or to fight in the face of danger; they would choose to fight because their fear of injury is not as great as their fear of humiliation.  The window sticker is intended as a proclamation of machismo; in reality, though, I think it is a revelation of either fear or cowardice or both. Regardless, they may likely be dangerous.

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I rarely stay up to watch any of the late night talk shows, nor do I watch reruns. While I think some of them are interesting and funny, they are not sufficiently interesting to me to merit making extra efforts to see them. That having been said, I think the shows’ broadcasts should not be subject to the political whims of government officials. Censorship is, in my view, a direct attack on democracy. People who do not voice opposition to governmental censorship (whether directly or by various forms of pressure) because they do not watch the shows are, I am afraid, aiding and abetting censorship and, therefore, attacks on democracy. Apathy and lethargy can be used (even unintentionally) as powerful weapons to undermine freedom of speech.

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In my opinion, artificial intelligence (AI) could determine the income (or other financial resources) necessary to give every human being on earth a safe, comfortable, and fulfilling lifestyle. My guess is that the figure(s) would be considerably lower than most people might think. And the collective amount of financial resources necessary to deliver that lifestyle would almost certainly leave a considerable amount “left over” to serve as an incentive to people who want “more.” With a strict limit on how much “more” would be achievable, long-term balance should be attainable for everyone. Only after those figures are calculated and verified, though, could we expect the population of the planet to collectively agree (in sufficient proportions) to accept reductions or limits. If I had the brainpower, the information resources, and the time to work on such a project, I think that could become my life’s work. But it’s a bit late for that, anyway.

The time is almost 7:00 p.m. I decided to write a short post, despite the late hour. I may write again tomorrow or I may decide I have nothing of interest to share. Time will tell.

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I thought I would drive myself to the appointment with my cardiologist this morning. Thankfully, mi novia thought otherwise. Before I could ask her to drive, she had made the decision. I am not sure I could have made it myself; I was more than a little tired—I felt a powerful need to close my eyes and rest. The cardiologist visit was uneventful. When it was finished, we went to breakfast at a diner near the race track; I was feeling much better by then. When we got home, though, I slept. For at least 3 or 4 hours. Ach!

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Unsullied by artificial light, the sky above the far northern Scottish coast was awash in starlight against a backdrop of the blackest black. Standing at the edge of a high cliff at St. John’s Head, Hoy Orkney, overlooking the Norwegian Sea, the scene mesmerized me. There’s no telling what possessed me to do it, but I did it nonetheless; I leapt off the cliff. I suppose I expected to plunge into the sea, ridding myself of years and years of unpleasant consciousness. What I got, though, was entirely different. Instead of dropping to the sea below, the sky drew me upward into the darkness and toward the stars. My experience from that point on was far too involved and complicated to explain. But I can relate something I learned. There are times when the gravity of the sun and the earth pale in comparison to the magnetism of the stars. And I learned that being swept into thousands of clusters of stars at the distant edges of the universe is an incomparable experience. The gravitational pull of elsewhere is beyond comprehension.

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There is a moment beyond which the propellants of rage cannot be restrained. More than “a  moment.” Many, many, many moments. So many that rage can erupt with virtually no warning. Regardless of the steps that might be taken to harness rage, the blades to cut through that harness are so sharp and so numerous that restrictive actions are fruitless. That pessimistic vantage point is brought to you—in the absence of meaning and purpose—by fragments of broken humanity and shards of shattered compassion.

Much of last night, spent on the fringes of sleep, felt like punishment for an unspecified crime or major infraction. Half-asleep and one-quarter awake, the rest of my hours of “sleep” churned in unpleasant semi-consciousness. Now, when I try to recall the disturbing dreams or fantasies or illusory tangles that comprised the environment in which I immersed myself, I see only translucent curtains, behind which are shadows of unrecognizable figures moving in urgent fits and starts. Though I have no idea of specifically what cluttered my mind last night, I know it was ugly and unsettling. Whatever it was, it sapped my energy, as if had I spent the night fighting to escape something troubling and frightening. By the time I woke, I had decided to surrender the fight—but, after I woke, I remembered nothing about what and to whom I was surrendering. I then got out of bed, went into the kitchen, and promptly decided to return to actually sleep. I left the Sunday morning visit I normally enjoy with my sister-in-law and mi novia to go on without me.  The time is now about 1:30, roughly an hour and a half after I woke to shower and shave and otherwise ready myself for the rest of the day. My memory of last night’s dreamworld experience remains only a tangled nest of dark grey wire, wrapped into a ball. I want to probe into it to explore what happened last night, but I do not want to find myself stuck in the middle of the sphere, unable to extricate myself from its center.

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Entertainment. Our television-viewing lately has including the following:

• Department Q, Episode 1
• Hostage (limited series, episodes 1 to 5)
• Untamed (limited series, 5 episodes, ending with Terces
• The Black Rabbit (limited series; 1 episode so far)

I am sure I have not documented everything we have watched recently. I become lazy, coupled with uncertain about the value of keeping a record. Netflix makes it easy to review past viewing habits; the network keeps a record. The others we watch, though, do not make it so simple…they require viewers to keep their own records. So, if I want to keep track of viewing on Prime, Acorn, BritBox, etc., etc., we have to take action to record each program on a spreadsheet (or whatever). I have discovered, over time, that I am perfectly happy to rely almost exclusively on streaming services for my entertainment. When I include music resources from those services, I am close to completely pleased to sit at home: watch streaming programs, listen to music, think, write, and sleep. Sleep has become a perfectly fine pastime, by the way. It is no longer just a way to replenish my energy; it is a way to relax and enjoy comfort and, at the same time, enjoy thinking without the effort that can accompany thinking.

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Yesterday afternoon, a good friend stopped by to visit with us. And, as is often the case, she brought some tasty goodies…these from a pastry shop. The fact that she takes the time out of her busy (should I say “frenetic”?) schedule to spend an hour or two with us is so very meaningful. Her actions are both compassionate and educational; compassionate in that she shows that she cares and educational in that I learn from her practice. If I recover enough from my experience with cancer/cancer treatment, I hope to follow her lead and visit more often people who matter to me.  Of course, she’s not the only one. I remain more than a little amazed by how many people have come into my life, in very positive ways, during the past decade.

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I’ve begun writing posts for this blog a number of times during the past few days, giving up each time after admitting failure. Today, regardless of my judgment of the quality (or lack thereof) of what I write, I will post something, if for no reason other than proof of life.

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In the thirteen years since I began writing in this blog, tentacles of my past life occasionally have reached through time to wrap around me for a while. Several months ago, a high-school acquaintance who had stumbled upon one of my posts left a comment for me. He and I chatted by way of email for a short while, but that connection did not catch on. A year or two earlier, a woman with whom I had worked in my first association job inquired through a comment  whether I was who she thought I was; I was. Our limited chat via email lasted only a short time, as well, disappearing into fading memories. For a few years, a woman with whom I had worked more recently started following my blog; until she died, we enjoyed conversations, both in the comment section and by email. The most recent connection began when a woman with whom I was close for several years came upon my blog. Though she does not follow my posts, we occasionally converse via email. As I think back on these interactions, I realize my characterization of them as “tentacles” that “wrap around me” is grossly misleading overstatement.  I can legitimately classify only one of them as a truly powerful connection to the past. I think I must have a tendency to sever weaker connections that are unlikely to survive distance and time intact.

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Until I was in the midst of a conversation with my oncologist yesterday morning, I had not given much attention to the agenda for the visit with her. I had assumed it would be a short follow-up of no consequence. She reviewed some of my most recent lab results, noting some of the numbers were, as usual, significantly out of the “normal” range. Though most “abnormal” numbers are not serious…just bear watching…some need to be watched more closely and addressed accordingly. The decline in my weight, always a concern, was more top-of-mind to her yesterday morning. Another issue:  the effects of chemotherapy on my bones, as indicated by lab tests, led her to prescribe an injection to deal with the effects. Finally (but not really…there was plenty more), hemoglobin levels were significantly lower than they should be, so she wanted me to get a blood transfusion as part of  plan to respond to the decline. As a consequence, I drove to Hot Springs, where I was given a blood transfusion—one-unit. My oncology clinic visit, which otherwise would have ended by around 10 a.m., dragged on until 2:15 p.m.; another day claimed in the war on cancer.

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Some people in my sphere have warned me that I am starving myself. Until recently, I dismissed the warnings as hyperbole; just exaggerated expressions of concern. I readily acknowledge that I am not eating as much as I should, but I’ve been of the opinion that my disinterest in food is simply a temporary side-effect of chemo that will disappear when I no longer need chemo.  That opinion, though, is flawed on two levels. First, the evidence suggests otherwise: I have noticed a direct and obvious correlation between my reduced intake of food and my energy levels. When I go for several days with little or no food, I become quite weak and lethargic. Second, the idea that there will come a time when I no longer need chemo seems to be closer to a fantasy than to reality, in which case the side-effect will not evaporate. During the visit with my oncologist, she expressed concern that I had lost more weight since my last appointment; I weighed just over 148 pounds, the least I’ve weighed since long before I first started seeing her. It is far easier to decide to overcome the bad habit of going without food than it is to convert that decision into action. Somehow, though, I need to do it. Otherwise, as mi novia often warns me, I may wind up in the hospital again to try to recover from the effects of unintentional starvation.

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The days and nights continue to demonstrate that they—not I—have the power. They shuffle me around as if I were one of an unmatched pair of socks…stuffed in an empty drawer, awaiting the other sock to be found. The problem, of course, is that the missing sock might have been left in a hotel room in Houston or taken by gypsies who rummaged through my luggage while my bags sat unguarded on the tarmac during a brief layover in Bucharest. Except I’ve never been to Bucharest. So I suppose I should offer my apologies for insulting gypsies.

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Nothing else worth recording remains in my fingers. Nothing worth recording was there from the start, but that never stops me. Except when it does.

The day began later than usual after nearly two more days of nearly non-stop sleep. Sometime during the last umpteen hours, a concept took root in my brain. I expected it to express itself in the form of a short story, but when I tried to set it in motion, neither my fingers nor my brain were cooperative. The resistance I encountered insisted the basis of the storyline was far too intricate to fit into a short story—even a long one. Nothing short of a full-length novel would accommodate the story I wanted to tell. Had I switched gears and started to write that novel, I am confident the first few pages or paragraphs would join the dozens of others hibernating on my hard disk or on thumb drives resting uncomfortably in a desk drawer. My perpetual problem: inadequate discipline made worse by waning interest and loss of belief in my ability to finish the project. The enthusiasm that fuels the first few pages or paragraphs is like compressed gas in a propane tank. The smallest pinhole allows it to escape into the atmosphere. Another problem is that my fingers cannot keep pace with my brain. The words on the screen lag far behind those in my head, the distance between them increasing with every beat of my heart. If I try to get an upper hand on the problem by initiating a competition with myself, I quickly realize I am not in the same league as my competitor. Even if he intentionally put the brakes on his productivity, I cannot keep up. Damn. If nothing else, I’ll keep in my WordPress file folder my very short draft of this morning’s abysmal failure. At least I’ll have something to trigger my memory if something sparks my creativity. I can always continue where I left off. Or I can simply resurrect the names of the characters I began creating: Perfidia Adebayo, Insidia Aaberg, and Ephemera Foreva. Perhaps using more traditional names would help? Names I might find easier to remember?

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My earliest recollections about the Sargasso Sea and Sargassum seaweed are from my early years in Corpus Christi. I do not recall with certainty whether I learned about them in school or during optional “classes” held at the Corpus Christi Museum; probably the latter. Memories of the free classes at the museum are dim and vague, but I think attendance was a reward of some sort. Sometimes, memory fragments—buried beneath layers of Time and the detritus of unexpected incidents and unfortunate accidents—are exhumed in response to inquiries made by simple circumstance or demands made by experience. The relevance of memories is never assured, but sometimes crucial to understanding.

The feeling of elation that accompanies an unexpected contact by someone who mattered and made an important positive difference in one’s past is impossible to difficult to describe. But those feelings include emotions touching on giddiness, gratitude, admiration, respect, and a dozen others. Those sensations also tend to replace some others that time has permitted to wither: self-respect, social value,  justifiable pride, among others. As the initiator of such contacts, though, others’ reactions can be disappointing—recollections may have faded, responses may be unenthusiastic, memories may not be as positive as anticipated, or a long-lost reason for a past rupture in the relationship may could suddenly erupt into flames. I think the potential for recovering the positive aspect of the relationship outweighs the dangers; but it’s best to be prepared.

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Dread feeds on powerlessness and the sense that your opponents desire nothing more than your utter defeat, up to and including your death. Your dread is based not only on fear, but on fact. Once dread takes up residence in your mind, you can never again be free. Even if your dreaded opponent is imprisoned or dies, his animosity lives on. It grows.

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I am staring at one third of a demi-tasse cup of espresso that has lost its warmth and could not capture my interest this morning. In its place, I would like a cold glass of sparkling water, kept cold with crushed ice and flavored with a generous squeeze of fresh lime juice. The ideal accompaniments would include chunks of cantaloupe, papayas, strawberries, mangos, grapes, and various citrus fruits. Considering where I live and local seasons, I am afraid I would have to import several of my preferred taste treats. Maybe a freshly-baked almond croissant would go well with the rest. Of course, the moment these delectable things appeared on my table, my taste for them probably would transform into an interest in beers, chips, pretzels, and beef jerky. Or nothing at all.

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If Christians and Muslims and Jews and Atheists and all the other people who identify with descriptive terms used to categorize religious beliefs (or the lack thereof) were serious about peace on earth, that seemingly impossible dream would be easy to achieve. Religious texts have long since outlined behaviors that would accomplish that aim; plenty of secular writings have done the same.  The keys, of course, are tolerance and flexibility. The countervailing obstacles, hidden in full view, assert themselves through intolerance and inflexibility: two vital components of control and power. Darkness conceals illuminated pathways. Light struggles to escape into brilliantly-lit caverns. These are not places; they are fierce ideas that thrive in the right circumstances or starve when kept in cages.

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My interest in television programs, films, documentaries, etc. has declined lately. The good stuff requires me to think in order to fully grasp the messages triggered by the content. Much of the rest is either dull and empty or unnecessarily violent, raw, and predictable. My tendency to want to sleep around the clock interferes with the entertainment value of everything I watch. Or try to watch. My poor vision makes watching television a demanding effort. I’ve essentially given up on reading for that reason, as well. Though I somehow manage to wade through some of what claims to be news. I am not quite sure why I spend my time writing about such stuff as this. I might be far happier if I would just copy and paste one of dozens—or hundreds—of updates I’ve already posted here. Less work, and it would require less time and energy wasted on replicating experiences on which I’ve already wasted plenty of time and energy.

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I tolerate the side-effects of chemotherapy, but I would prefer my unpleasant reactions to be more appealing or, at least, less disagreeable. Actually, I’ve grown rather fond of my tendency to sleep so easily and for such long periods. Sleeping lessens the time available to me to experience the discomfort of constipation, the pain of…whatever causes the pain…the annoying dry-heave expressions of nausea, and the various other physical and emotional attacks on my sense of well-being.  I think I would enjoy the ability to sleep, uninterrupted, for months on end, provided my lengthy naps would not end in fits of ravenous hunger. That’s not been a problem so far, though, as food remains unappealing, in general. I had  a chemo session last Friday, with Navelbine and Gemzar. The two together, I think, pack quite a punch, making me sleep all day and all night and otherwise reminding me of their potential side-effects; none of them serious so far, but enough to make me distinctively conscious that the medications play havoc with my ability to live a “normal” life, whatever that may be. I go back in today for my routine post-chemo injection and, possibly, to learn when my next visit with the oncologist is scheduled.

Cold, wet strips of the sky fell in pieces, leaving behind darkened and discolored patches of pastel-stained air. On the ground, those shiny globs of fallen sky were almost transparent, their barely discernible pink and blue tints giving them an ethereal, ghostly appearance.  Within minutes, streets and lawns and rooftops and driveways were coated with the thickening globs but, because the sky-fall occurred in the the pre-dawn hours, the village was asleep, so no one noticed. By the time people awoke to begin their days, all types of communications—telephone, short-wave, wi-fi, television…everything—had been rendered inoperable by the massive amounts of sky-fall. Residents were unable even to contact their neighbors, because the sky-fall had piled up to the tops of door frames and windows. Looking up through the slits of window glass that remained uncovered at the tops of the windows, only dark and discolored strips of pastel-stained air were visible. What had been the sky was only a vague reminder of what had once been, but was no more. At least not now. Not at this terrifying moment of utter confusion. The insurmountable distance between experience and understanding had never been more clear, nor more horrifying.

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Friday, I learned when I went to the cancer center, was a day for chemotherapy. Unlike most “chemo days,” the normal procedure—labs, followed by a visit with the oncologist, followed by the infusion—was not followed. I did not see the oncologist. Just labs and infusion. What followed, though, seemed to replicate the last “chemo-day.” Extreme fatigue, nausea, and a great deal of sleep. If memory (or consciousness)  serves me correctly, I slept most of Friday afternoon, through the evening, and all through the night…until around 2:30 a.m. on Saturday (with a brief episode of dry heaves some time before midnight), when I got up for a while. I tried and failed to blog, then “rested” on the loveseat in the TV room until almost 11 a.m. I woke for a while, then napped again for most of the afternoon, before getting off the loveseat and going to bed early. I slept late this morning…until 5:30 a.m. I woke thirsty, but not in the least hungry. My vivid memory of two or three dreams has already begun to decay, so much so I cannot remember enough to document anything of substance. Something grotesque involving watching a man eating spaghetti, while several strings of the pasta slipped out of his mouth through holes in his cheeks. And another, in which I may have been interviewing as a trainee for a sales job; the remaining snippets of memory are too slippery and nonsensical to make any sense of them.

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The introductory short-short-short-short-short “story” above intentionally leaves the reader hanging. There is no explanation, no solution, no hope to escape the inescapable. The despair and panic of those experiencing the inexplicable is implied. There is no hint of a “cause,” though; the experience, the dread,  just is. The experience suggests nothing could have been done to avoid it.

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Please remind me to create a questionnaire, the responses to which can be used to correctly determine the degree to which the respondent adheres to, or departs from, widely accepted beliefs about morality. The same responses should enable the questionnaire’s user to correctly determine the respondent’s placement on a scale indicating political positions (e.g., liberal, conservative, etc.).  I’d like that questionnaire to be completed, in widespread use, and accepted as valid by and across all political and moral affiliations no later than the first Friday of the first month of the fifty-seven-hundredth century.

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This morning, so far, all is well. I do not feel even remotely energetic and I’m already tired, but I’m not quite ready for a nap. I’m beginning to feel a tiny bit hungry, but my interest in food is extremely limited.

No matter how tightly I close my eyes, the monochromatic images remain—as if they are permanently etched on polished spheres that spin at high speed inside my eyelids. The dark forest green figures—thousands of distinct, unique items—fill my entire field of vision. They move so fast I can barely register one collection of images before the next one flashes past my consciousness. Though unique, each item has a commonality with the others. They mostly are typographical symbols one might find on a computer keyboard: dollar signs, pound symbols, punctuation marks, ampersands, parentheses, commas, question marks, asterisks, tildes, apostrophes, and so on. I cannot focus my attention on any one symbol for more than a microsecond before it has been replaced many times over. I am confident the combinations of images carry with them a complex assortment of messages; not mysterious concepts nor mystical enigmas—just communiqués designed exclusively to enlighten me about matters I have yet to understand. The source of these messages is unclear, but the longer I am exposed to them, the more likely it seems to me I am both their source and their target. I do not want to be misunderstood about these images, though. I realize these visions could be random space-fillers in my brain; completely devoid of “meaning” or relevance. Or they could be symptoms of a neurological disorder that has been with me for almost all of my 71+ years. They might even be fantasies that do not exist in the real world…only in my imagination. That is unlikely, though. They are too consistent, too predictable.

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Today, I will spend quite a while at my oncologist’s office. Whether today will involve chemotherapy infusions or not, I do not know. I’ve lost track of whether today is just another day of lab work and hydration and injections or whether I will be pumped full of cancer-killing chemicals, etc. If my post-recurrence treatment had gone as originally planned, I would be approaching the end of two years of immunosuppression drug therapy. But plans got derailed early on when I developed an allergic reaction to one of the primary chemo components. I’ve said this already, haven’t I? I just repeat myself, it seems.

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When a person has little or nothing left to lose, he can become either heroic or deadly dangerous or otherwise transform into someone new and unpredictable. What, I wonder, determines whether “nothing to lose” leads to philanthropy or, instead, to murderous pathology?  Those are not the only options, of course, but they are among the most impactful. Wealth and hopelessness can lead in entirely different directions, of course, but poverty and optimism can spur the same….or radically different…responses, too. We’re too complex for anyone to be able to “read” us. That’s one of the delights and dangers of humanity.

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And now I will sally forth into what the world holds for me today.

Until yesterday, I knew very little about Charlie Kirk. I had heard about him or read his name online, but my exposure to him was limited to reading a few quotations attributed to him. I found offensive his condemnation of virtually anything remotely “liberal,” but beyond that I knew almost nothing. The volume of reactions to his assassination surprised me, but only because I did not realize he had such a large following. If his assassin thought Kirk’s death would diminish support of the man’s ideology, the killer was more than a little bit stupid, along with being mentally unhinged and morally deranged. I expect the assassination to be used as fuel for the fires of bigotry and hatred by those among Kirk’s supporters who are equally as unhinged and morally deranged as his assassin. My understanding is that Kirk’s wife and  two children were in attendance at the event at which he was killed. I can only imagine the depth of the trauma and pain they must be experiencing. I hope the assassin is caught soon and brought to justice.

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A word or action, as expected, sparks an obligatory reply: indignation. Indignation provides fuel for frustration, which leads to exasperation. Exasperation builds into the ire that becomes the foundation for anger. Anger expands into rage and then into hatred. The fact that hatred unleashes unbridled and irrational fury should come as no surprise. At the end of the day, that simple provocation—that spark—too often leads to  violence. The cycle is as predictable as sunrise. But, unlike the sunrise, we have the capacity to intervene in the cycle of violence. What’s missing is the will to intercede on behalf of tranquility and understanding. And the acknowledgement that responsibility for creating or perpetuating the cycle belongs not just to “them” but to “us.” Unfortunately, attempting to reason with a psychopath (which are numerous on every side of every issue) is an utter waste of time. So, often, our capacity to intervene is thwarted. Victory, then, goes to the one with the most patience and the longest fuse. In the meantime, we should try to minimize the number of casualties.

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Yesterday’s bronchoscopy was, happily, uneventful. It (and the sleep before and after the procedure) consumed the bulk of the day. The “moderate sedation” administered to me amazes me. I recall a nurse saying the doctor would begin the procedure in a moment, as she was spraying lidocaine into my throat. The next thing I recall was opening my eyes in the recovery room. The doctor had told me before that I would be awake during the procedure, but would not recall anything about it. He was absolutely right about that. I think the anesthesiology process is like magic!  But, the results: Nothing of significance. The concern about a fistula was, apparently, unfounded. I return to visit my oncologist tomorrow; perhaps I will learn something new then. Probably not, though.

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Today, I plan to send messages to all of the people who were so kind and thoughtful to record video messages to me (as I mentioned in my most recent post). I have learned that some people attempted to submit recordings, but were unable to get the technology to cooperate; I appreciate their efforts, as well. I may try to figure out a way to incorporate the video here on my blog; that’s probably beyond my technological capabilities, though.

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I thought I had more to say…and I did. But empty spaces where fragments of the alphabet might want to congregate are sometimes better left blank. Unfinished thoughts can reveal their familial relationship with balloons…stretched so tight they are on the verge of exploding into invisible clouds. I’ve ridden in a hot air balloon and I’ve jumped from an airplane, but I’ve never jumped from a balloon and have no plans to do so.

I’ll start by acknowledging that my writing frequently (and intentionally) merges reality with fiction. People have told me they do not know whether, when they begin to read them, my blog posts are factual, fictional, or a combination thereof. But, even after reading a post from start to finish, the question sometimes remains. So, I’ll begin this post by confirming that it is intended to be a factual summary of what’s been going through my mind.

The last few days, on reflection, seem to run together as a single period, rather than each day its own unique moment in time. My memory combines those days into a swirl of numbness, withdrawal, elation, gratitude, regret, and other emotions too numerous to count and too complex to explain. Sleep commanded much of the time, beginning about mid-day a few days ago. I slept essentially all afternoon, then all night and into late the next day. That cycle continued, I think, the following day. Somewhere along the line, I missed a dinner arranged to celebrate my sister-in-law’s birthday. Between long, dream-infested periods of sleep, I spent my time silently observing the stillness around me, using that time to resurrect pleasant memories and dredge up incurable regrets.

And I watched a collection of videos my friend, Jim, had put together. He had asked friends from our joint work and social lives, along with a few other people he knew I had been/are still close to to record brief videos with their thoughts about me. Watching that collection of videos was an incredible emotional experience. After I watched it, it occurred to me that he probably did not ask some people who might have wanted to include a video…and some people probably could not submit a video for one reason or another. My assumption about the reasons Jim invested his time in creating the video “memento” is that he wanted to give me a meaningful gift before my time comes…whenever that is. If my assumption is right, he accomplished his objective many times over.

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Off for a bronchoscopy this morning.

I hope somewhere in this empty universe, something capable of turning me inside-out will become apparent to me. Something that has clawed its way deeper and deeper into a protective cavern. But, unless I dig deeper—scratch harder—and scrape with every shred of my energy, I will fail to reach it. My strength, though, has evaporated. At least for now.

Since starting to write this morning’s blog, I have bounded from mood to mood. And idea to idea—most, fortunately, did not find their way to this post. I have bounced between emotions and passions. And stumbled between rage and love. Fortunately, most of the ricochets have done no visible damage. They have done little more than tear gaping holes in my compassion and fed the sources of warmth and despair. For every belief to which I have expressed commitment in my writing here and elsewhere, there is a reservoir of doubt waiting to be fully articulated. Every assertion of compassion pairs with animosity. When I demand kindness, I need not look far to find more than an adequate reserve of mercilessness.  Forgiveness is readily offset by blame.  No visible damage? Steel corrodes. Wood rots. Plastic degrades. Paint can cover the damage done, but surface finishes cannot protect the damage done to the substrate. Eventually, in the absence of protective care, even the Great Pyramids will decay and even the Eiffel Tower will collapse under the weight of its own deterioration.

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Friday began as a reasonably decent day. And, as it wore on, it stayed on track for a good while. A friend from church (a place I’ve largely avoided for quite some time, thanks to my oncologists’ team’s advice that I avoid unnecessary social contacts) came by for a welcome visit. After the brief visit, though, I drifted into fatigue-mode, so I took a nap. And, later, another. And then another. And the day wore on and continued into yesterday. And so on. A telephone call from my sister brightened my afternoon, with some discussion of the possibility of another visit from her in the not-too-distant future. But, then, back to the routine. Sleep.

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Perhaps my series of overly-long naps—each one lasting several hours, with shorter periods of slumber in between—finally have ended their cycles. But since I awoke just before 3 a.m.—only two hours ago—I have begun to feel very tired again. Sometime during the hours preceding my most recent awakening, I emerged from an experience that left me drenched in sweat and feeling intolerably cold. The sheet beneath me was wet and cold. The top sheet, too, was unbearably cold—uncomfortable in the extreme. My discomfort was made tolerable by putting on a t-shirt, aided by a dry towel between me and the bottom sheet. Still, after I slept a bit more, I had to get up and attempt to get warm. A long-sleeved t-shirt and a pair of lounging pants has helped, but my feet and my hands feel frigid. The idea of resting my extremities in the flames of burning logs seems both horribly painful and wonderfully warming. The outside temperature is 55°F. The temperature of my hands and feet probably is closer to 15°F, on the way to -250°F. I am afraid the sun has burned out much earlier than I expected; certainly earlier than I had planned.

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Because I was up so much earlier than usual, I skipped my usual espresso and delayed taking my morning medications, opting only to feed a ravenous cat and consume water and Ensure. So, I took a break from blogging to fulfill my pharmaceutical necessities and partake of my mood-enhancing espresso.

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I have plumbed the depths of anger, only to discover its base is always beyond reach. Anger refused to be the tool I dreamed it could be. Rage, too, fell short of my expectations. There must be something else that smothers gasoline-drenched embers.

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The total number of speakers of most—but probably not all—languages is much larger than native speakers of the language. For example, the most-spoken language is English, with 1.5 billion speakers, but only 380 million of them are native speakers. The language with the greatest number of native speakers is Mandarin Chinese, with 941 million native speakers; its total number of speakers is 1.1 billion. At the other end of the spectrum are:

• Ongota (Ethiopia) – Estimated <10 speakers (likely extinct);
• Taushiro (Peru) – 1 speaker;
• Tanema (Solomon Islands) – 1 speaker;
• Lemerig (Vanuatu) – 2 speakers; and
• Njerep (Nigeria) – Possibly extinct

Access to people who share political philosophies and who are fluent across a wide range of languages may prove crucial to the success of governments. Equally as important, though, is access to people who combine the following:

• shared philosophies of governing;
• fluency in various languages; and
• expertise in a broad array of disciplines;

In other words, people who seek (or seek to retain) political power must assemble strong supporters who “speak the language”  necessary to exercise political control. Extensive linguistic skills—coupled with comprehensive knowledge of complex engineering, scientific, and  managerial disciplines—are required to seize and preserve power.

What must the opposition do to foil attempts to establish such control? The very same thing, I suspect…just more aggressively and through any means necessary.

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Yesterday’s visit to the pulmonologist was a precursor to a bronchoscopy, scheduled for next Wednesday. The appointment for the bronchoscopy procedure conflicts with my next chemotherapy treatment. So, today I will attempt to reschedule the chemotherapy. Ideally, I would be assigned a personal/medical scheduler, who could use my availability as shown on my calendar to make appointments on my behalf. The reason my oncologist referred me to the pulmonologist has to do with an (apparent) fistula somewhere in my torso. I did not ask the right questions about the fistula, so I do not know the type. I hope I can safely rule out a colovaginal fistula and an enterocutaneous fistula; there are several others I expect can be dismissed, as well. Next steps in dealing with the fistula will depend on the findings from the bronchoscopy.

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Aside from the conversation about the bronchoscopy, an awkward and slightly uncomfortable conversation took place between the physician and another person (not me) in the examination room. The interaction could have devolved into a knife fight but it was resolved amicably.

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I have grown immensely tired of writing about my ongoing battle with lung cancer. And it’s not just writing about it that is wearing me out; it’s the inevitability of the outcome. If I could completely erase my awareness of cancer until just hours before it declares victory, I would consider the engagement a success.

I remember very little of my early childhood, when I was known as Sherlock Shakespeare. But my few memories from that brief period of my childhood are crystal clear. Ours was the first family in our tiny English village to have both an automobile and a television. By the time I was recruited into the new English standing army in 1660, my uncle had acquired bayonets, hand grenades, and sacrificial children—the latter who carried into battle weapons of self-immolation. Flame-throwers capable of broadcasting sizzling streams of flammable aggression came soon thereafter. One of those devices was stored in the attic of the house we built after losing our original home to arson—that fire, we learned later, was set by the fire brigade. Oh, those were brutal times, they were. Had we not fought tooth and nail to protect our homesteads, we would have been made homeless…and then butchered. As it was, several of us were severely injured during face-to-face confrontations. Most of the men between the ages of 16 and 26 lost at least one limb in battle; some survived with only one leg or part of one arm remaining. My memories of childhood and young adulthood end with those gruesome recollections. Beyond those ugly early periods of my life, my recollections commence again with vague memories of cell phones and 900-foot tsunamis. The recent spate of publication of autobiographical fiction works (e.g., novels, poems, diaries, textbooks, and survival cookbooks) is, of course, top of mind, inasmuch as they have been produced only recently. The first such published work was completed and offered for lease only two months ago. At 6 million pages in length, the book was necessarily published in series format.

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Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York…

~ William Shakespeare/Richard, Duke of Gloucester ~

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I could go on for days like this, but my knees won’t permit it. Nor will my elbows. Nor my fingers. And, if the messages I’ve been receiving from my brain are legitimate (and they are), and the attitudes oozing out of my head are reliable (which I cannot verify), I will go on record as an honorable man with nothing worth hiding and nothing worth telling. Where is the value in emptiness? Why do blank pages leave so much to the imagination? Black fades to grey and grey fades to cream and cream fades to white. Predictions hide beneath their messages. Honesty and nudity have nothing to hide but regret and shame. But in a world in which truth is not a weapon, nor does embarrassment fracture peace, fear is just an artificial intruder.

Another busy day awaits—oncological blood-letting, Fall seasonal maintenance of the fireplace and propane heating system, and a long-delayed haircut. Tomorrow will bring still more attention to my healthcare and to periodic household upkeep and maintenance. To start this day off with suitable fanfare, and after I properly introduce myself to an otherwise unpredictable day, I’ll shower and shave and wander aimlessly into the abyss. Subsequent to my cleansing, and depending entirely on my state of mind afterward, I will stumble into a day unlike any I have experienced heretofore. I refuse to make predictions about this as-yet-unencountered day. Ahhh..it’s not so much a refusal as an inability…similar to one of the reasons I avoid knife-fights. Predictions often lead to blood stains on pristine white shirts.

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I do not cling to even a shred of hope that I will one day understand quantum theory. Quantum theory is at odds with “truth” and “understanding” and “observation” as I believe them to be. Those conflicts exist, no matter what definition I might apply to quantum theory and its applications in quantum mechanics. People who are comfortable with the discomfort of knowing that observing a behavior changes it live in a dimension far outside of the one(s) in which I live. In other words, an observation of relative distance (“far,” for example) is possible only in a dimension in which Schrödinger’s cat is both dead and alive at any given moment, yet simultaneously neither at the same time. Some people think the concepts around quantum theory and Schrödinger’s cat are simple in the extreme. Other people are certain those concepts represent the ultimate in complexity. Yet those same groups of people neither accept nor deny the legitimacy of those theories, opting instead to embrace both through repudiation and confirmation. Nothing is “known” at this moment in time; everything is “doubted,” “questioned,” and/or “probably unlikely” with an extreme level of certainty in denial.

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A nuclear fence surrounds the observable universe, making observation beyond that fence impossible. The term, nuclear fence, is arbitrary and nonsensical, but probably is the closest we can come to describing—using the English language—such a barrier. Regardless of what is it or what we call it, that barrier to understanding was conceived and a prototype designed and built by supernatural vagabonds who troll failed galaxies and feed on the remnants of stars…event horizons encircling black holes.  Carl Sagan was the only human who ever saw beyond our own nuclear fence. What he saw was incomprehensible in size and beauty; more than 990 trillion universes, each one at least 100 trillion times the size of our own universe. The least intelligent beings who live within some of those 990 trillion universes possess intelligence that far exceeds the brilliance of Carl Sagan. In fact, those dim-witted sentient mistakes labeled Carl a “knuckle-dragging product of interspecies  incestuous bad-behavior derived from intellectual cesspools.”

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On the other end of the spectrum is a pocket where purity, decency, and love reside. Carl spent most of his time on Earth there, surrounded by like-minded people. That distant point on the spectrum is visible today only as a dim, pulsating speck of light. Perhaps it will grow brighter one day. Or it will be extinguished under a cloud of deadly cosmic dust.