In all my years as professor of Paleontology at Ublique University, I never thought I'd have a bad day. My life was a happy one. I had a car that was payed for. A cold refrigerator, full of food. New & improved gadgets & gizmos. A wife who would rub my back on request. & it all changed when I turned 42.

It was the morning of August 12th when things changed. An orange & cool, slightly windy day. The sun had a warmth that started as soon as I woke up. No heat. Just warmth. I woke up to find nobody at my bedside.

"Bacon." I quietly whispered in excitement.

If Sharon woke up before me that meant breakfast. & that meant coffee. I could use some. The night before, we had a party celebrating my 42nd birthday. A special one I think. Making it to 40 is a feat. Surviving the next year is an accomplishment. But, driving gracefully past 41 into a mature 42 is... smooth.

I stretch & roll out of bed. Squeezing into my slippers I noticed the bedroom is messier than usual. A few things are missing out of my drawers & the rest of my room. The bathroom is missing a few things as well. Soap, washcloths, towels &...

Oh dear, lipstick!

There's a lipstick message on the mirror in elegant cursive. "Goodbye" is all it says & needs to say. Sharon's left & taken my heart & soul with her. & the bacon.
"Alright, time to think." I keep repeating in my head. I'm thinking, but only one thought comes to mind.

"Why?"

Sharon's gone. I get up from the bed. My heart drops to the floor. That's not her handwriting. We've been robbed & she's been taken for ransom.



I sit down for a minute.
No!

Not for ransom!

It's a sicker crime. They only want her. For their own sick, twisted reasons.

"****, what should I do?" the only thing rushing through my body.

Again. Stop it.

I run downstairs into the kitchen. Alright, i have a knife. I'm armed & dangerous. I run into the living room. My blood runs cold. They're still here. ****, ****, ****, ****, ****, ****.

I run back upstairs.

In a flash of white light the scenery changes.

I'm in a hospital.

"How did I get here?" I ask myself. My stomach hurts & my left arm & leg are wound in casts. There's a vibrant red lipstick stained kiss on my left foot with the words, "You knew all along" written in cursive along the bottom of the kiss. Before I can collect my thoughts, a sharp looking doctor walks in.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to run with scissors? Or rather, knives?" he asks.

She did & I musn't have listened. I had a hard time listening. Sharon! She almost slipped my mind.

"Doctor, I need to go home." I semi-ask.

He rebuttals with, "Nope, the wound in your stomach isn't life threatening, but we want to keep you here for a few days."

I bite my tongue ax logic kicks in.

"Okay." I say.

I'm going to escape.

I pull out the IV's in my arm & look for my clothes. Can't find them, so I settle for the guy's down the hall. They're a little loose on me, but the belt fits. The shoes however, do not. ****. How am I going to get past the guards?

Wait, there aren't guards in hospitals. Are there?

No.

Maybe.

No.

Definitely not.

I take the elevator down to the main floor & walk out the front door. It was easier than I thought to escape from a hospital.

I'm outside & no one is chasing me. I hail a cab & realize my wallet is back at the hospital. This whole thing is crazy, I know.

I arrive at home & pay the guy with some of Sharon's jewelry. Looking around, I realize the living room isn't trashed. & only Sharon's purse & shoes are missing downstairs. Maybe she wasn't taken for ransom.

Again, time to sit down & relax. Not relax, but think.

Last night. Something must have happened last night.

Okay, there was a party. It was a surprise party. Ron, Sue, Burgundi, Jon & a few people from the campus were there.

I'm not that guy who hates surprise parties. Or surprises for that matter. They're great. So, I remember walking in the door a spectacular Friday. All my students  wished me a happy birthday.

The house was dead dark when I walked in & then, KABOOM!

The place lit up. "Happy Birthday!" they all shouted & champagne is thrown my way. All was normal there. I talked to everyone. Had cake & opened my presents. My favorite was the pen/pencil combo.

Then I went outside to the backyard, lit a cigar & watched a silvery, grayish cat scurry along our wooden fence. Night had fallen & the moon was half full.

I can't believe I broke my leg, my arm & stabbed myself in the stomach. I walk back upstairs to change.

Wait.

There's no blood on the stairs. & who called 911?

It's quiet in the house. Too quiet. Someone's here. I'm three steps up the stairs, no point in turning around. The bedroom & office are safe. So are the closets. Under the bed as well.

Relax. Change clothes & relax. It's difficult getting into pants now, but I make it happen.

Back downstairs. The living room, kitchen & bathroom are safe. Okay. Either I don't bleed or something strange is going on. Maybe, Sharon came back & saw me.
But she couldn't be that heartless as to leave me in the hospital alone, could she? Oh no! Maybe she didn't come into the house. Maybe, she really has been kidnapped.

I'm staring at my hand. Noticing the deep & fine wrinkles along with my veins & cuticles. My palms look like satellite images of rivers & microscopic views of capillaries. There is a candy bar on the coffee table. I eat it & instantly feel better.

My head swings back & my body warms & tingles. I close my eyes & see my granpa showing me how to measure & cut wood to turn it into something useful. We're making forms for a concrete pathway from the house to the garden. A blooming garden with peas, onions, spinach & okra. I reach my hand to write my name in the wet concrete & a bee stings me. It hurts for a millisecond. Then the pain moves away. My granpa looks at me from in the garden. Then he hunches over to look at something in the ground. My arms goes numb as I walk towards him. I feel something pulling me back.

I look behind me & see myself unraveling. The threads of my shirt & cast are being unwound like thread from a spool. In a few steps, I'm naked. I keep walking as my granpa shouts my name. I see his mouth moving, but can't hear him. My body feels lighter with every step. I look at my bee wound & find that my hand is unraveling along with my arm & the rest of me. Layer by layer I'm being unwound. I'm down to my nervous system, brain & eyeballs when I open them & see my granpa's face. he's smiling. I'm down to my eyes when I start to look at what my granpa sees.

Time slows & my eyeballs unravel,
leaving me in complete & silent darkness.

Sun and traffic - day economy.
Six a.m. drive to plywood mill. Too tired
to be angry. Each day a step
toward death. What is being accomplished? The
small satisfactions
within each day. Book consciously read.
And frustrations. Package dropped, honey jar broke.

One of 175 soil types. With the fifty
tree species
comprising the canopy under which Eric and Lisa clean
      their baby's face.

Sun in winter, old apples.

Inside the school
a brilliant but rebellious history teacher
is suspended by the school board.
200 students
wearing armbands and painted teardrops
protest. Another 400
are silent.

Within each structure
human dramas and routines.
Nancy will not love
any man who cannot do as many push-ups as she.

Trees grow,
porcupine **** in snow.

No job,
no niche,
no existence.
How you earn money is who you are. You are
what you do to get food to eat
and shelter from the winter, summer heat.

Each morning I seek God
by holding still
waiting for the smoke to be black or white
coins heads or tails
wind dark or bright.

Flock of evening grosbeaks
nipping maple buds:
the sign I need.

                   --------------------------------------

Less need =
more wealth.
2/23/89. So much equipment just to sleep.
More than a bare floor.
Plumbing vs.
wash at stream, find a log in woods.
Implements of human existence
unlike the deer or bear who
nip buds, forage berries.
I cannot eat the gum out of balsam fir
or bark from a popple.

I am not Wendell Berry
with a wife, a farm, philosophy.
I like the accuracy
of counting pear thrips in maple buds.
8/bud = complete defoliation.
This insect has four wings fringed with hairs
and is minute, 2.5 millimeters.
Two species within the genus:
one with tubular abdominal segment,
the other with conical abdominal segment.
Sugar maple their preferred food.

All I need
are names.
Names and habitats.
Elements, products, decay fungi, egg masses.
Marriage, copulation, regeneration, education.
Machinery, accounting, hand tools, laboratory.
I need your names
and histories.
****** histories, books read, imaginings, unrequited loves,
      significant landscapes, broken bones, periods of boredom,
      favorite shows.

                   --------------------------------------

Immediately means
without mediation, intermediate moments
time in the middle.

Time in the middle
time in the middle.
I'm bummed I never saw a dinosaur, an ice age, a cave man,
      even missed the last world war.
Thanks to paleontology, geology, archaeology, history
mind equipped to take
time out of the middle.
It's in our DNA!

Why should she love me, her tenant?
Because I pay the rent on time.

                   --------------------------------------

Excellent. The white sun rose
and lit the frost.
Early February, late March, or in between.
Birds begin
discussing family. Sap starts to flow.
Where the borer spirals in, it comes out wet.
Birch or maple.

I watched from the window. Beautiful
but no desire to go out and touch
swelling buds of elderberry.
Is this shrub crazy? It knows what it knows
with elderberry knowledge.

Come Spring, so much to identify and name.
Insects, diseases and new flowers.
Lepidoptera, root rot, the pinks.
I think I might get married too
and watch the moons pass through the mists.

                   --------------------------------------

March rain.

Some snow remains
roads dangerous
but truck deliveries must be made.
                                                           ­ The light
pushing back the dark.
Bark
getting softer, slippery
at the cambium. Sap
simmering. Summer
and spring are here and there
although only winter birds are in the air.
Some buds
break swell
want
to turn inside out
but wait
knowing better.

I too will not break or run
early
hold hope bound by ropes of discipline, experience
time the magic moments to come
take the last sleet and pain
slap in the face
glad for predictable seasons.
                                                 We anticipate however
drought, maple defoliation, increased gypsy moth infestations
which some attribute to our existence.
That may be true.
Or it may be that the universe
has reversed its decision on us
and there's nothing we can do.
But we will do
what we can
and some things we shouldn't
because that is human.

Continuing
into the space inside me
unconnected to the light switch, plumbing
fairly independent of materials beyond
food and sound.
Where I pray
like an oak
that the light will enter me
unbroken, forever
and I will live the meanings in the wind.
                                                           ­          Basic
necessities, wood
wine
and friends. And
the names
of everything
by which we know our way.

Baby, we're a meteor
and we killed the dinosaurs.
We scorched the Earth and
turned all that was
into ash.
Time has passed,
and not much has changed.
To this day,
I find myself
studying the fossils
and wandering
what could have been
if we had landed smoothly.

The girl curled up in her chair
Scribbling away in her purple notebook
3/4 of the paper filled
Scars deeper than I though possible
Neatly lined up her arm

The youngest kid
Destined for paleontology
Sits in the back playing solitaire and fusball
His reading of being here
Completely unknown

Her high bun in her blonde hair
Match perfectly
With her soft-spoken tone
A complete shock
To learn of her purging past

The average girl
Moved here from New Jersey
Her foot tapping anxiously
Due to her parents misunderstandings
And from all of the Tylenol she swallowed

Her hand aimlessly writes
Pages and pages written
To her boyfriend of who-knows-how-long
Who supports her
And does t care about the scars

She sleeps all day
Except for when the therapists torment her
Trying anything
To get her to eat
Or even say a single word

The oldest one here
To everyone, her happiness seems more than just a bluff
But she's here for a reason
Clearly, her rocket scientist dream
Hasn't worked out yet

He was out in two days
His feelings more if a passing thought
For his puns
And love for horror
Prove his happiness

I sit and listen, alone
My suicidal-ness a shock to most
Still misunderstood
I can't wrap my head around it
I just.
Want.
Out.

once a ***** habit...
     now a guilty pleasure...
                         i don't even think it's
about the taste coming back:
i could season just fine when i was
smoking 20 cigarettes a day...
it's not about that...
      when you're cycling and you're
not coughing up any phlegm...
and as you start breathing... it's like
you're breathing lactic acid and menthol
while walking in high altitudes...
i remember that sensation...
    before i met my downfall and she "introduced"
me to cigarettes... since... she used to lace
the marijuana we smoked with probably
too much tobacco...
    i know: Garden of Eden deja-vu...
                 where's your mea culpa?! you might
rightfully ask...
and i'd reply... she was a huge metal
freak back then... probably still is...
          she even got those lip piercings done
like the lead singer from hed(PE) -
scabby lips... dreads trimmed...
she even chose a song for me... i was her
herr mannelig and she was the troll living
under the bridge...
    i had to persuade her to take those rings
out: the scabs were an issue
but not a blatant issue (yeah, right...
every now and then rushing into the bathroom
to scrub my mouth...
would i go as far as dipping my lips
in some bleach? probably)
   i just told her... hard to kiss with three rings
in your lips...
i think she was hitting rock bottom...
so she had to convince herself that even
at her most unappealing... she could still
swing by a man's house and some love
and obviously if she kept her ***-antics intact...
the guy would not mind...
by the time i turned up in St. Petersburg...
nice... girly hair... short... but i liked short
anyway: since i had long hair at the time...
and she would be wearing make-up...
she would be cooking (i did all the cooking
in Edinburgh) - and she would wear this amazing
summer-time dress...
while i was wearing all linen: trousers, shirts...
brown leather sandals...

    regrets?! yeah... i wish i told that *****
to get out of my house in Edinburgh sooner!
before she dangled that carrot of visiting Russia...
if i only threw her back out of my privately rented
apartment on Montague St.
back into her student accommodation...
back into her cess-pit of Cow-Gate drag-queens
and hybrid-goths... i would have been so relieved...

well... this is not the first time i'm "kicking" the "habbit"
of smoking cigarettes...
i've done it already...
   but since my grandfather's... sorry: my best friend's
death... i sort of started the choo-choo train
once again... but i recently figured...
can't just let this June cold onslaught not be used...
my throat was killing me...
i can't smoke... well then...
              but... but... it's not fun if you just let go
of smoking...
i already mentioned:
what was once a ***** habit has now become
a guilty pleasure...

or like me studying the incel phenomenon...
studying: yeah, "studying" - i'm sort of testing the grounds...
dating apps are out of the question...
what prompted me?
last time i was in the brothel
and waiting for Khedira i started to this one
lucky Irish lad with a name that sounded feminine...
jacked-up with a bottle of laughing
gas and a balloon...

   yeah... i'd say so too... hard to place my accent...
the English are father suspicious of my accent...
and that too: depends where...
but ask an Irishman and he'll think he's talking
to an undercover journalist...
that's the aura i give... some Oxbridge ****....
but not exfoliating in your atypical class
hierarchies blah blah...

well... incels... should we mention Christine Chubbuck?
and the urban myth of: you know what
happens to a cockroach that is decapitated?
it dies of starvation two weeks later...
i swear this urban myth comes from the execution
of andrei chikatilo...
i never get bored of this quote from Bane
in the Batman movies...

'well: perhaps he's wondering why someone would: shot a man!
before throwing him outside of a plane???'
that's me... with the execution of the Ukrainian
serial killer... why would you drag someone
into a cell and shoot them in the back of the head?

anyone see the movie about Christine's suicide...
oh... when a woman does it... it's a cautionary tale...
but when a man does it: it's somehow "immediate":
the death: the bullet in the head...
Kafka: for ****'s sake... foretold!
aim at, the, *******, heart, like, you're, a vampire...

because sure... sure... and who isn't brain dead
at the best of times?! zombie ******* lovers...
idiotic trespassers of traffic... ******* ninjas!
making bad parking decisions stretching from Ilford
through to Stratford...

i'm sorry... what were we... talking about?
quitting smoking... me... i like...
this return to my teenage self...
when i wasn't interested in smoking anything...
just drinking... ah... this old taste of alcohol...
it's like sherbert pop-pop-pops!
  hmm mmm...

                yeah... i'm sort of worried...
thank god i don't have any children...
so she tells me she loves me after i returned
oral *** favours on her... listen... my tongue was
probably the 2nd tongue that ventured that far
while i'm not even going to imagine a tally...
deer... female deer? doe(s): does?! doe...
it's not: d'AZ... English... pretentious language...
keen on spelling one way...
speaking another... no wonder dyslexia is
so rampant in your people...
"my" people just have a terrible orthography...
i'm sorry... Charles Dickens  an ******* with
that elevated term for a spelling term...
notably?
morze "vs." może (a sea... vs. maybe) -
you can discount the worth of dots above
i and j immediately... **** it... revise the language...
drop those hovering dots... it's not like you
use any diacritical markers of: proper distinction...

well then... hmm... incels...
i was all for categorising them as terrorists...
why? are actual terrorists treated like... zombified
psychiatric big pharmacological zombie-inverted-thought:
no thought experiments?!
i think i argued the right point...
i've been on a rainbow of medications...
i gained around 50kg from one string...
well... roughly... i was a colt...
i used to weigh circa 72kg...
    came up to 120kg...
                         oh now i'm drinking excessive...
i need the momentum...
and i believe most of them...
you're a terrorist...
                   that's your ******* card...
"your": their...
                       who the hell wasn't to spend the rest
of their... constipated: interrogated by iron
bars of a "life" doubly subdued by
having no access to their mind?
  
   it's my inherent Slavic distrust of the: science...
ah ha ha ha... "science": the art of psychiatry...
the art of? creating monsters...
            the only "science" that... cuts corners with
the employment of pharmacological pinks and violets!
thankfully in England a psychologist can't
prescribe you any drugs...
but... psychiatrists reverse that boundary by
prescribing you all the sweets... but no conversation...
get the idea?

it's not fair that frustrated white boys
are deemed mad while all the terrorists are these *******
grand architectural logisticians of the exploration
of Islam into the decaying mind of the West!
well **** me! bring me more eggs!
let's make this omelette the size of an al fresco sized
paella!

maybe that's what's bothering me...
but i'm not bothered... i've went through it all...
at least that's how you test your sanity against
the backdrop of women...
you go to a *******... 3 / 4 times...
you escalate each time...
one hour... half an hour...
first three encounters you feel selfish and make
her give pleasure to you...
by the 4th time... i'm tired of watching you
give me a blow-job while we look at each
other in the mirrors...
so... from a *******
to slurping on a bucket out oysters of ****...
wow!
        at no extra cost?!
well then... bilingual that i am... let me just ask
my second tongue to come out...

i love you...
    waiting for two days... getting "sick": the clarity of
transaction ... i knew it was coming...
i was gearing up to it...
i was going to have two days and two nights
of cold-turkey...
i was going to subdue my drinking...
and i was going to quit smoking...
          
                     today's tonne of sand was a grand
exercise... i even had to take a break
to sweat off the sweat i was sweating
from carrying the nibbles of the tonne from
the access road into the garden to even up the down
*****... by cycling...

personally... i just wish some of these guys
could have reached out to some ****-wit
of a mentor... i re-watched Good Will Hunting today:
wow... only men could write such *******
about women... it's like: it almost felt like...
reading Madame Bovary wasn't a waste of time...
it's like... the only book every written by a woman
about women: wasn't written about  woman
after all... but by a disambiguation of Darwin (ism & co.)

so no mystery left... the nunnery project
of man's former investment... fizzy: into the ever
thinning air...
but if the walking ****** are to be imported
from Africa... can i import walking trouser pockets
from Asia?!
i could probably fit two in my suitcase...
unwrap them with some LEGO gravitas...
good as new...

             no... i think this goes deeper...
the freaky girl freaked! maybe! ooh! she found one of
my profiles on the internet...

it's troublesome though: but at least
these either best get shot: dead...
or don't plea the: i'm white therefore i'm insane...
no! you're a terrorist, mate!
you don't need some extra pharmacological cocktails
in your diet... i ingested those...
and i was apparently the one allowed
to safely walk the streets of this society
i watched crumbled circa 2007...
i still think the genesis 2007 and my own personal
memory are the best two movies in town...
ah ha... ha ha...

it's ******* snowballs and snowmen!
and it was only until i was 35 that i first tried
******* and i was left unimpressed...
since?! i managed to balance the intake of caffeine
with nicotine and ethanol...
the higher tier drugs disappoint...
                                 time... longing... hmm...

let me reiterate in another way...
put on the following song...
TERMINAL SERIOUS - GIFT FOR YOU...
and then start looking for
Walter Sickert's: Off to the Pub (1912)...
i do own the glossy art-book: i attended
the exhibition...
now tell me... the archetypical study
of the: hiding the Greek intellectual genius
coupled with older men ******* young boys?
well... terrible... the girls might be involved....

oh right! right! hello Freddy... Mc'fckn'Kruger...
really? that bad?
it's like watching a circus with have lemonade stashed
in plastic bags... your grandfather leaving you
with an umbrella in a circus freak show...
somewhat calm...

i hate commuting through Warsaw... i'm always
on edge... i always feel like needing to bite into someone's
aorta... and leave them to bleed out...
but once in London i sort of calm down...
i love the efficiency of London traffic...
     i'm a spider and London is my spider-web...
although... i'm jokingly arachnophobic....
what could cure me?
a girlfriend who'd want to own a tarantula....

so much for a girl that loves snakes...
a girl that loves lizards...
but she still doesn't love spiders...
what?!
              i want to cure my idiotic phobia
of spiders... somehow... i'm supposed
to find some godly Lilith with a snake
wrapped around her neck?
how about less the apple: how about
you hold a spider in your hand...
and let it crawl onto my shoulder and whisper...
what the crows did wrong...

because... after a while...
it's no longer about either truth or (lies)...
funny: how the English language disintegrates
from its casualness...
like so... good "and" evil... when people recite:
the definite article prefix of good...
pure evil? no?
    by now language disintegrates for me form
all conversational practicality...

the more imaginative lie is...
   the plagiarised scare of a reimagined lie...
that is not the frustrated truth...
which in jurisprudence is unlike an unshakeable
scientific fact...
man could celebrate science...
but it's "habit" of law... it's jurisprudence
is still a subjective-objective "shcizophrenic"
of nostalgia and will to reform...
         at least the study of history leaves one
able to write fictional historical novels...
what does law do? it fakes judgement...
it serves wrong judgement... when...
            ah ha...
   what a backward area of human "evolution"...
jurisprudence = paleontology...

   that's why i think that the supposed "mystery"
of "lawlessness" actually implies?
avoid the courts at all costs...
by then it's not a mystery... law is behind science...
as much as man tried to free himself
from the ******* subjectivity of hierarchies of
other men... exploring science...
nope! he still was dragged into the subjectivity
of jurisprudence... ahem... the "philosophy" of "law"...
the mystery of lawlessness?
  avoid making contact with your peers...
in a show-of-force...
   nostalgia passes... history estsblishes...

the mystery of lawlessness...
   what you live... with the ability to never entertain
a courts' summons for...
hmm... placebo-solipsism...
it's not a thought experiment...
it's an anti-thespian DE-MAND...
           the more cameo experiences you can
muster... oh really... the actor?
no longer need... the stage...
the rotten fruit an veg thrown at them?
well then... let's dig trenches... i'm good at waiting...
i don't need to be a lunatic reciting my
words on the street...
i'm good at waiting...
                    i'll wait... for what?! ah ha! beside death?!
my shadow... detaching itself from my body
and coming back with an extended index
telling me: follow "i"...

             oh, but now i'm ******* bored...
of this "exceptional" journalism, this false-safe mechanism
that spin-doctors used to rely on...
there was only one spin-doctor to my knowledge...
Alastair Campbell... that's before...
1990s England was sort of recognisable
before i was deported back to Slavic lands
and made my comeback in 1998...
what?! ooh... oh don't worry... i have my grievances
with England... but they're...
post-colonial grievances with England...
a bit like... John Inman / Michael Crawford...

well you never truly... know...
you need some dislodged limbs from time to time
to test your anti-racism propaganda...
don't you?
   does it? bulb... doesn't it? bulb...
then my sort of: lack of sympathy for Ukraine
because i don't give a **** learning from the past...
ah you know... tea-two-crumbs-a-penny...
if she's going to be the daughter of Michael... Owen...
******* toes off the readied off the plantation
gimmick...
hmm... looks like i'm peeping into Mongolian tribe
music...
   this... interracial... croack-load of ****...
it was once a cuck-hard-on that... disappeared
after a second ****...

            now i'm thinking: hmm...
9" proud... shame you can only fit 2" into her ****...
and about 1" into her mouth...
ha ha! better start find you a elephant ****'s worth
your type of "*******-egoic"... eh? heroism?!

this spells out  DANGER for me...
but what... do i know....
social engineering is more important
than actual engineering...
social engineering is a bit like...
once you build up a taste for psychiatry...
what?! talk?!
you're just going to prescribe me some
more medication to subdue my libido in
favour or a poor white girls... diabetic ****...
surprises?!

i like writing... what most people can't convert
their thinking into writing...
the whole idea of res vanus contra res cogitans...
the continuum ..
people spew ******* all the time...
no one thinks par insomnia...
beside intellect...
by mere principle of ad continuum...
any and each narrative can be exhausted...

Islam used to interest me...
Rumi... Sufism... Omar Khayyam...
Christianity used to interest me...
the Gnostic heretics...
after a while... find me a lion!
i'll start hunting for a yawn among the hyenas!
let's trade!
eh?! what do you mean what we're trading for?!
you find me a lion's growl...
i'll find you a hyenas' laughter...
we'll swap... by the concern of the crow's croak...
marbles... we'll swap marbles...

yes no yes no yes no: yes?! no?!
ah... the same...