reaching the end of the line

reaching the end of the line

fiction
edward w pritchard


Vanishing identity, resting heart, disappearing mind, absent soul.
The end of the line accomplished, oblivion.

autumn leaves, they fall each November

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

It overwhelms me when the autumn leaves fall. Millions of folded pieces of fading color whisking about the yard calling to be contained and controlled by my invisible neighbors and the faceless people of our hostile town.

In semi darkness each November I dread the fall of the Autumn leaves. My sister gives me chewable vitamin D to combat the vanished Sun. Insidiously the leaves pile about the yard. Sometimes I wake early and try to control the piling leaves but they defeat my intentions as more and more leaves arrive from hostile trees to weigh down vanquished grass; grass which will never the less strain to grow in the semi-darkness of a long dreary Winter. Defeated I slump into the house for caffeine and music.

Holiday music rescue me from the cacophony of noise made by the leaves as they fall and scrape about the cluttered yard. Defeated Sun peep fifteen minutes of sunshine and brightness into my lonesome soul.

My shoulders slump and my feet drag as I bend in attack against the leaves with bent short handled rake.

Cover mine ears; my neighbor jumps on the double quick from his double sized Truck and aggressively pumps up the volume with a Sears deluxe 1000 decimal level leaf blower to order his world.

It's overwhelming when hostile nature ushers in Winter loneliness and darkness with endless flurries of useless, discarded leaves.

end

Consider the leaves, [for] men are like leaves
[for] when leaves into dust are whirled
soon green forests buds millions anew
So come, so pass, all that are born of men
Homer
Iliad book 6 lines 146 to 149
as paraphrased by EWP who doesn't read original Greek

we suffer the most when we suffer for someone else unselfishly

fiction

Edward w Pritchard

It's easy to be detached in a sermon addressed to others.

We suffer the most when we suffer for someone else unselfishly.

No matter how empty I become inside there is still a space occupied by you.

Step into the light, I can't see you but for the total darkness.

Whisper aloud, I can't hear you but for the silence.

Move, I follow the shadow left by your absence.

climb to the highest window

climb to the highest window

fiction
edward w pritchard

Climb to the highest window straining your eyes to see the distant fires of burning cities in the path of the invading armies. Are they coming or going? No matter you are a recent convert to the new cult of self. A recent disciple to the religion of the disease of imaginary sin and mystical supernatural beings.

They can't hurt you anymore. Clutch and count the string of beads around your neck and mumble the secret incantations as you make the magical sign of the fish.

The fires of the invading armies will maim and kill many people. Don't dwell on that it's for the best; a better place away from this wicked world high up far away safe and serene.

 Who will maintain the aqueducts to bring thirsty children water if all the arches are recycled to manufacture altars and sanctuaries? Who will lions eat given that converts are worshiping in underground grottoes and catacombs?

we stand, we stand, pathetically we wait and cringe

we stand, we stand, pathetically we wait and cringe

fiction
edward w pritchard


Fences everywhere, high strong fences and rail road tracks moving traffic in every direction. The trains roll slowly, shaking and choking side to side as they sway to a solemn halt. No one inside the fences look up to greet the new arrivals. In line to leave, we stand, we stand pathetically we wait and cringe.

Some leave, a few of us randomly selected for ejection while hoards roll in dark eyes staring between wooden slats at us in such a straight line, we to board after they de-train.

Freedom oh freedom we are free men now, soon we will be outside the fences. Just don't touch the wire fences and don't make eye contact with the jailers.

No more standing for us the ejected. We sit on the floor of the train as we leave the prisons, free men with the full rights of honest men again. Clutch your elbows to your bony knees and crush your palms to your head to restrain your thoughts sitting in a circle on the floor of the dusty rail car as you return to civilization.

Free men, we are free men.

Jesus Christ on the last day of school

Jesus Christ on the last day of school

fiction
edward w pritchard


Over and over Jesus tries to collect all the pencils and pens to finish the check list and clear the milling students out of the room. It's a daunting task for the temporary fill-in substitute teacher Jesus
because students from the other halls and classrooms already dismissed for the day keep coming into the room over and over to spend one last minute with their pals before they become instant and permanent alumnus. Jesus can't remember any of the students names but all the details of their future lives and sins overwhelm the busy teacher/coach as he struggles to dismiss the official students in his charge and return his assigned classroom to original position for cleaning and post inventory readiness.

Every time a happy student bursts into the room to wish one last tearful sayonara to their chums Jesus sees in his mind's eye which one will lose an eye or leg in the future wars over in Turkey or North Africa and who will lose a child to cancer twelve years hence and which rushing laughing student now making the horse laugh just outside the classroom door as his girlfriend off key sings the school anthem one last time will do two years for embezzlement of the local 79 Union Iron workers dues and retirement funds.

At last exhausted and temporary deaf from the noise and commotion Jesus Christ will sign the post readiness inventory form, bundle the bulging wad of pencils and broken pens with two gigantic rubber bands, turn each of the three classroom 16A wastebaskets upside down in a straight row, shut out the lights and drop his time card off at the crowded central office, all the while avoiding eye contact with the boisterous mobs in the Halls and on the stairways.

Not invited to the coffee and cake retirement for assistant principal Murphy Jesus will leave the building and disappear into history again wondering why the government of this country doesn't run it's school system along the ancient Roman model which worked well indeed back when he studied as a boy himself so many years ago.

he loves me he loves me not; life with Adolph Hitler

he loves me he loves me not; life with Adolph Hitler

fiction
edward w pritchard

Only I can call him dolph for I alone am an intimate of our Fuhrer. Still never am I jealous when majestic head of Fatherland receives 150,000 Nazi salutes at Nuremberg.

My time is short. Amongst the ceremonies and rituals Adolph took a moment in a formal meeting of Party to use his two fingers as imaginary clippers to chide me for needing a haircut. Actually for a moment one finger grazed my Head as he play acted. He so hates to touch or be touched. I know he will order me killed soon.

Adolph never calls or acknowledges me anymore. A bullet in the back and it's over. I don't think I would like to be shot in the face or back of the head.

Goodbye I guess  dolph.

There's no time to wait to experience the urgency of competitive being

There is no time to wait to experience the urgency of competitive being

fiction
edward w pritchard

There is no time to wait to experience the urgency of competitive being. Time is short directionless opportunities rot on the vine. Rejoice in the choices. Plunge to surrender to luckless circumstance.

 The play that contains your life is script-less; it's authors anachronisms of the chains of past collisions. Hear the thump of  imminent extinction. Leap backward. Howl into the future.

Amanda Peterson, the discombobulation of one's self

Amanda Peterson, the discombobulation of one's self

fiction
edward w pritchard


Next time please stay in the sunlight Amanda Peterson. It's so sad that all those dark things had to happen to you.

I just found out that you have passed and that the image you played in " can't buy me love" wasn't all there was to you. I always liked that movie, a light romantic comedy. Why do us, the audience, always fall for it every time?  It being that movies, the stage and that everyone's life we don't really know is just an illusion.

So now you are gone Amanda. It's so sad all those dark things had to happen to you. If you can read wherever you are at now here's something I wrote about the discombobulation of one's self. Maybe you can reap some comfort, but is there more Amanda?

MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2014

a sense of belonging; I am he but there is no me/ part 2

a sense of belonging; I am he but there is no me/ part 2

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


David Hume says that there is no me, it's just a collection of properties. Eye brows, toe nails and memories of the time I got robbed at gunpoint. Some Buddhists agree with Hume for other reasons; there is no self.

We discussed the ship of Theseus, the Ancient Greek idea that if a ship is totally reconstructed with new materials is it the same ship?

Ego, famous people have 1000 pictures of themselves over a life time on Google images but they are not them.

Go to the art museum and look at the Greek vase with the painted soldiers on the side. The vase is 2500 years old. Is the picture of the soldier- himself?

Let go your ego and sense of self and you are on the path to enlightenment say the Buddhists.

Can you forgo your sense of self? If there is no self how can there be souls?

If there is no self and no soul what is there?

Metaphysical speculation. Is a person and an apple both just a collection of properties that came together and are gone?

The ancient Egyptians thought a person was made up of five properties. Two physical, the name and shadow and three invisible properties, the Ka- the life force, the ba, the personality, and akh, the spirit. The Egyptians believed in an after life and spent considerable effort to prepare for it.

Atheism and metaphysical speculation; is a person and an apple both just a collection of properties that came together and are soon gone?

I don't know but I suspect there is more.