IN SEARCH OF TRUE LOVE.

To spite his desperately pessimistic soul, his sparse grains of optimism had oft driven him to search for evidence of the great romantic love told off so venerably by great poets, singers, writers and artists from now since yore. In oh so few moments of unadulterated joy he felt that he had stumbled right in its midst, only to have the moments dashed violently when reality quickened its pace and caught up with him. In such moments, his soul would laugh spitefully and blow away another of those quickly diminishing grains that where the abode of his diminishing hope.

One dull May day, when reality had been far outpaced, he sat in the midst of one of these blissful moments to lunch with the pretty eyed maiden who cradled in her petite hands, hopefully for eternity, the last of his golden grains of optimism. As they filled of the meal in front of them, their hearts filled of the happiness of their companionship, and their heads filled of the idle chatter that would be intolerable but for the magic wand that infatuation wields.

Suddenly, those eyes that he could only wonder into with a map for fear of being lost, where wide eyed with incredulity and she beckoned his attention to a woman perhaps in her mid 30’s, perhaps older. In breathless bated breaths, lest the woman should overhear, she spoke of her and what she deemed to be her sad tale.

Apparently despite her pretty features and a long list of ignored propositioners, Nadia’s lover of 15 years still had not made an honest woman of her, what a scoundrel and a scandal; no?

He had nothing against marriage but he was taken a back, because he could not see the crime. Surely if they loved each other a wedding ring and its accompanying charade of pomp should be nothing more than a pleasant plus and not the goal. If Nadia had stayed for 15 years and ignored all, then she must definitely believe it to be so.

The look of incredulity in his lover’s eyes was replaced with lightening and thunderbolts and those spinning round winds that carry away cows and barns and when she spoke it was with a slight dash of venom. She wanted the marriage most of all and she would abandon true love if he would marry her not.

‘Surely marriage should be a means and not the end, it should be happiness and love and companionship…’ The naivety in him spoke.

Perhaps afraid that the shallowness in her argument might be exposed, she changed tact and attacked from a different flank. ‘If it is true love then he that I love should marry me for sure, if he really loves me he should compromise, marry me regardless of his fears and thoughts’.

And it occurred to him that to her compromise meant bending to her will. But he tried once more, one last time for sake of his last grain of hope. ‘You mean you would turn your back on true love for a ring, a white dress and a little revelry?’

To that she fled to where all arguments that have been exposed to lack reason flee, they ascend to heaven and peep from within the shrouds of God himself. ‘After all it is God’s will, decreed in his holy book, that two when in love should be wed.’

And he looked over his shoulder and he saw reality huffing and puffing and catching up fast and he saw his last little grain of hope slip from her beautiful hands and snatched up in a violent gust and just as it seemed it and all was gone, a man sauntered into the room and the subject of their lunch time talk ran over to him and collapsed with joy in his arms and he saw what the poets, the writers, the singers and artists of yore must have used as a muse for their stories of the heart, because though they wore no rings their hearts beat as one.

And as they turned to leave, Nadia reclaimed from the wind his golden grain and with one quick glance she let him know that it was safe with them forever more.

As they watched Nadia and her not-husband leave, reality caught up and sighed because it was out of breath, his date sighed because her pity was misplaced and he sighed loudest because he envied them.

MYSTERY OF SIGHT

 

I met a man named Niwrad,

whom exceptional intelligence was bestowed,

when on a royal Beagle he rode.

He said yesterday I crawled out the sea,

I of single mass doubled it and walked on four.

My disposition growing weary,

I stood on two and abandoned my fur coat.

Jolly good Mr. Niwrad,

What about my saline globes,

Please sir, tell me the story of my sight.

MY FRIEND GRIM

Have you met my friend Grim?

He is the tall solemn fellow,

The one dressed in black,

The one who never smiles,

Always looking at his watch.

He follows me everywhere,

He says one day he will take me,

To a far and distant world,

If I am good I will like it,

If I am bad I will hate it.

Ah, my friend Grim,

He is always in a hurry,

He says he is just a messenger

He keeps asking if I am ready.

I say not today Mr. Reaper,

Today I am still busy,

I am still busy with living.

TO TELL OR NOT TO TELL, OF YOUR EXES AND SEX.

Once in Zapatia, the land of Trea, idleness and hunger guided my feet back to a bakery where marital bliss fell like sugar and cinnamon into the dough creating in each pastry a culinary Shangri-la. On this day, as always was not how it was, because I took bite after bite and my taste buds did not die and to heaven ascend. So I turned to Ol’ Zacharia and his wife and inquired as to why no angels sang in my mouth.

‘I mixed the dough as always’ said pretty Mrs and Mr retorted snidely ‘how would I know’ with a hint of tears she said ‘Zach be reasonable’ and he said ‘you have lied to me before’.

And needn’t more they had to say, because I could tell at once what ingredient was missing, they where fresh out of marital bliss. So with hope that tomorrow, heaven’s pastries I might taste, I sat them down to hear there tale.

You see she had married him only because his hands he stole from the baking gods and him her for no other reason than it felt right. On their 3^rd date as he wooed her with some cookies he had baked, she told him she had been with only one. On their 3^rd decade of marital bliss, she told him there had been ten before that one. Now Zacharia was mad beyond return and she could not see why, after all it was in the past and it should matter nought. So they turned to me for my wisdom to bestow, and though tempted to side with the wife for selfish sake of future culinary delights, I knew then that to heaven my taste buds would never return, for Zacharia was right and his lying wife was wrong.

‘Why didn’t you say then, on your 3^rd date, that a football team you could have turned out?’ I inquired and she replied ‘for the same reason I should not have said now, for there was a chance, unreasonable as Zacharia is now as then, that he would not have stayed.’

I could see where her reasoning came from, but she could not see the selfishness inherent, because you see it was not her choice to make; it should have been Zacharia’s. You see without that choice to make, it felt right for Ol’ Zacharia and he married her for nothing else. 30 years of bliss could not change the fact that she had hoodwinked him into marriage, conned him as he would have her, if those cookies had been store bought on that date all those years ago. Unreasonable or not, he wanted what he wanted and an experienced lady it was not, just as she wanted a baker and not a cookie purchaser. Yes, Ol’ Zacharia in my mind had grounds for an annulment let alone a divorce.

I was burdened with sorrow when I left, because I knew my future held no more celestial baked delights, but not too sad, for there was hope yet that a pretty ex baker’s wife might consider me for her baker’s dozen.

Drunken Teenage Nights

We sat under the night sky, under the darkest blue bejewelled by starlight bright. Eyes blurry and souls free of worry, we drunk of our cups what tasted like gas and we spoke only that that was funny and airy and upsetting to our bellies, because in between our laughter, we farted and burped and threw up our victuals.

 

And neither yesterday nor tomorrow played in our minds, just dreams of pretty girls in plaid skirts. We spoke off Mary’s round derrière, off Jane’s fast protruding chest, off how Michael kissed Susan in the pantry, off how one day Cris will be with Grace and how Bob had heard Charlie say that Claire was such a babe.

 

And on that strangely dark night under witness of moon and stars alike, that strange beast that we call friendship, bound us tighter than any chain could ever effort, because though we sat, we stood one for all and indeed all for one, if stand at all could any one, let alone all of us.

 

We sat under the night sky and puffed on cured tobacco, sending silver smoke strings into the dark heavens to signal to the gods our content. Letting them know we dread nought except for that hour when the sun would rise and prayed for nought except that our cups never run dry.

 

And though silent outwardly, deep inside we doth sung, a song of the purest joy, that filled our hearts and made them beat faster and faster till we knew not what made us dizzy, the intoxicating elixir we consumed or the unadulterated bliss of drunken companionship.

 

Now, oft burdened with duty and obligation, I know what I  must have known then, before ambition and goal my mind annexed and made me regret those special nights, that those hours that seemed to pass us by, those minutes lost to drink and smoke, were time that could not have been better spent.

Silent Mind

I have only one voice,

It has been grossly misused,

For idle chatter and gossip.

 

I have only one mind,

In it I have conquered evil,

And brought peace to mankind.

 

Alas, the world can not hear my mind.

 

The Lie

Everything else was filed in his subconscious, that radio hum and that something else. All he heard was the reason he called, that soothing and beguiling voice, that calming and enthralling influence. Like petals, light and airy, her words fell, voicing an excuse in a blanket of ‘baby’s.

 

‘Baby, I am taking a walk, baby, can not talk right now, baby, I will call you when I get home, baby…’

 

His itch scratched he retired to bed. With a smile on his face his conscious bade him farewell, with his eyes closed his subconscious came to play. A walk in the middle of the night? So how come you heard the radio play? That something else was bated breath and all those ‘baby’s were uttered in guile.

 

With a start he awoke, bruised and battered where the petals fell.

An Evening Jog

I have never had use for vanity, until one day upon rising, where once there was sinew and firmness, I beheld a protuberance on my belly, soft and flubby, that my age and beer had bequeathed.

 

New found narcissism considered, the sun like Nero is merciless, setting this Christian a-burning while it fiddles in the African sky. So it is under the soothing of the night heavens that I launched my battle of the bulge to reclaim from lipids and fats my self esteem.

 

The confrontation was brutal; the pitiless road put musket fire in my lungs and raped every muscle, fibre and tendon in my legs, until, like a matador waving a red flag to distract a rampaging bull, my mind took flight to save me from failing.

 

While my feet ate up the tarmac, I flew to my child hood, then on to my first time, my love and hate, fantasy of riches, super hero dreams, thoughts of my future, nostalgia, sadness and joy; all welcomed distractions, until my mind pondered an Austrian fiend with arched eyebrows and a malevolence so vile that my thoughts augmented instead of lessening my physical disquiet.

 

Then and there, weary from the pounding I was taking from my trot and burdened by the reality that the devil lives in Austria, a miracle came to pass. The stars sensing my disillusionment beckoned my attention and put on a show for me of spectacle and grandeur, they shimmered and radiated, they glittered and flittered and they wrestled the monster Fritzl form my mind and like they did for the three wise men and the shepherds they guided me to my haven in cerebral peace.

Like Lambs for Slaughter

 

I find myself at risk of plunging this blog into monotony, because once again, this time by proceedings in Asia, I have been forced to revisit the topic of global warming and its effects.

In the wake of the Myanmar disaster it has occurred to me, in retrospect, that I might have appeared insensitive or appeared to trivialise the effects of global warming in my earlier posts (see covenient truth and convenient truth; the sequel). I would like to assure you that it was never my intention or goal. Indeed My heart goes out to the family and friends of the over 45,000 victims (over 15,000 dead and 30,000 displaced) of the latest manifestation of nature’s wrath.

It is important and indeed considered good technique in problem solving, to set emotions aside when analysing a problem. It is that technique that might have appeared to be insensitive or trivialising of the effects of global warming and in that same breathe it is that same technique I will employ now to analyse the human race’s greatest challenge yet.

There are two things that can not be denied. One is that global warming is happening, fuelled by human industrial and agricultural activity. There is no doubt that the human race (not the planet) faces one of its greatest menaces in global warming and its effects.

The second is that since global warming passed from being a theory whispered by stuffy foresighted but oft ignored scientist to a biting reality, we have come no closer to effecting or even devising an efficient strategy to combat it. The cutbacks in our energy largesse and emissions championed by most environmentalists are simply not a solution, because they ignore the primary root of the problem, our expansive human population.

There is a latent irony in the strategy of cutbacks that dooms it to failure in the long term. The cutbacks will provide temporary relieve from global warming and its effects and in essence recreate the environment that led us to prosper and grow in numbers in the first place and we will do exactly that. This increase in numbers will mean more industrial and agricultural activities, which will mean more emissions (enough to offset the cutbacks), which in turn will put us right back where we started; in the frying pan.

I do reserve hope, although un-rooted in reality, that a combination of energy and emissions cutbacks coupled with a world wide effort to check population growth will provide a lasting solution. But the reality is there is no way to put in place global policies to check population growth and even if you could we are all ready too many to begin with.

The real solution lies tantalisingly close, but just out of reach. The human population has to shed some weight. The answer is obvious, but there is no way to effect it outside of finding a new habitable planet and moving half the population to it.

The sad reality remains that we might suffer a few more of these disasters as our planet attempts to cull our numbers for us and we will be powerless to do anything about it, short of postponing the problem for future generations. The planet is serving us up like lambs for slaughter.

 

One True Hate

They say there is one true love for everyone,

That leaves a lot of room for hate.

I would rather one true hate for everyone,

So that we could love all the rest.