Improbable Cause

Hope and hopelessness do not belong in the same universe, do they? One is illumination, the other is darkness. One is a pathway to survival, the other a collapsing bridge over a bottomless abyss. Both, though, exist at opposite points on a single circle.  Each of them compete for dominance in the pursuit of the same objective: a point at which pain disappears. In answer to the question, then: they belong. They occupy the same space at different times; or different spaces at the same time. Opposites attract, but like a pair of magnets, they repel one another, as well. Collaboration and conflict emerge from different positions involving the same concepts, mirroring love and hate. Circles. Cycles. The physical laws governing what we know of the universe do not stand alone. They intersect in perfect harmonic discord with the ways emotions dictate the ways we respond to the world around us.

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I used to believe most of the one-off “hits” on this blog were individuals who simply “stumbled” upon it. I now think—with near certainty, supported by evidence too involved to share—that almost all the one-off “hits” are just “bots” that automatically visit websites to index them and for various other reasons unrelated to what I write. That being the case, my blog’s traffic is much, much smaller than I had thought. I had been under the impression that I had a small number of “followers,” but a large number of “accidental” visitors who could, conceivably, become followers. Based on site analytics, though, I now believe my regular visitors amount to fewer than fifteen. Only five or six  are frequent visitors; i.e., between daily and weekly. I am grateful for those frequent visitors, but on those rare occasions when I write something I would like to share with a larger audience, this blog is not the place to do it. So, I am considering taking the advice of a friend who suggested I consider creating a Substack site. Whether I do or not will depend on the strength of my interest in getting a larger audience for those occasional posts for which I would truly appreciate feedback. Inasmuch as I tend to be lazy, lethargic, and otherwise slothful, my consideration may take a while…a long, long while. Or not. I am, in many ways, unpredictable. Even to myself.

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A First Person Account of Events Leading to My Death

My disappearance went unnoticed for many weeks. Only after the third month of failing to receive my rent payment did the landlord make inquiries about me. She asked the postal worker whether I had been picking up my mail. The response was that my box had been overstuffed and my mail was being held at the post office. The next inquiry she made, to my bank, finally led her to learn (against the rules and entirely unofficially) that I had stopped my automatic deposits three months earlier. Another inquiry to her friends at the post office revealed to my landlord that the only mail being held seemed to be commercial “junk” mail. No bills, no magazines, no personal mail of any kind. Only after letting herself in to my apartment did it become clear to the landlord that I emptied the place and left.

I had intentionally withheld my landlord that I was moving out after seven years. I had never had a written rental agreement for the place in all that time, during which she had never said a cordial word to me. My secretive departure may have seemed petty, but it pleased me to cause her just a little bit of grief. She had done nothing else to deserve my wrath, but seven years without a smile or a kind word seemed, to me, to deserve a little unkind treatment.

Aside from my landlord, my bank, and a few creditors and magazine publishers, and the ever-intrusive state and national government, no one knew where I lived or where my income came from. I had long-since withdrawn from my already small social circle, so the only notices of my move were made to those few must-know commercial connections. But after my landlord went snooping, I took the next steps.

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Before my departure, I had withdrawn all but a couple of hundred dollars from my bank accounts. I paid to have new documents forged with a new identity; passport, driver’s license, birth certificate, and so on. Though it was quite risky, I paid an expert hacker to create false history records with my identity with the credit bureaus. And, then, the two-step move. First, an eight-month temporary relocation from Cedar Rapids, Iowa to Cleveland, Ohio. Then, a last-minute twenty-four-day seagoing voyage on a commercial cargo “tramp” freighter. My intended destination was Lisbon, Portugal, but I had to be flexible; my cruise ended in at the port of Tangier Med in Morocco. From there, I made my way to Lisbon, then Porto, Portugal, which is for now my new home.

During my travels, a badly-decomposed body was found on the north bank of the Mississippi River just outside Bettendorf, Iowa. It was identified as mine, thanks to the greed of an underpaid staff member in the county coroner’s office and her accomplice in the state medical examiner’s office. I was officially dead. In fact, the body had belonged to an unidentified homeless man who had drowned months earlier. May he rest in peace.

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My energy is on the rise, I think. When I let my imagination loose, I forget the reasons I want so badly to just go to sleep.