Day 15 - The Air Conditioning Saga

(a bad take on the Orkneying Saga)

When I'm stressed I write Vogon Poetry (that is intentionally bad poetry)

T'is Sven the mighty hunter
Who fought the mythic beast
Called the air conditioner,
The multi headed A/C

But instead of its destruction,
The noble goal he seeks,
Is to keep the thing alive
And keep it on its feet.

Sven found it getting warmer,
And when he wondered why
He found the heart not beating
And the freon had bled dry.

A mighty bolt of lightning
Or surge of electricity
Had fried the compressor
And left the fan a pity.

So for a second time
In the last three years,
Sven replaced the compressor,
The fan and all the gears.

The freon was recharged
And then the beast revived.
Then the air began to cool.
So the air conditioner survived.

But hidden in the wiring depths
A lasting problem lurked.
Not yet broken, but still crippled.
At least the A/C worked.

Then Sven the mighty hunter
Went on his merry way
Till he came home again
And found it died that day.

He hurried to resuscitate it
And learn why it was hot.
The freon had flown away,
The copper tubing shot.

And yet it took a long, long while
To find exactly where
The tiny hole lurked in the beast.
It was enough to make Sven swear.

The hole was found inside the giant,
Deep behind the condenser coil.
And though it was a tiny leak,
It caused Sven much toil.

But once the hole was patched,
The system did not work.
The condenser must be replaced
And there was still another quirk.

But at least the beast lumbered on.
And the world did grow cold.
It seemed all things were going well.
And Sven well, he grew bold.

But late one sultry evening
He awakened from his sleep
To find his world was too, too warm.
And Sven well, he did weep.

Up he bound, weary of the heat
And found the heavens all too cool
Yet Sven found he could solve the bug
Duct tape, the universal tool.

And so the story bellows on,
And so hopefully the air.
But Sven worries about a fault
That lies he knows not where.

Sure enough, the hunter's right
And the hidden problem rises.
Again the beast lies comatose.
'Tis electrical Sven surmises.

So he attempts to change the fuse
And finds he cannot buy it
Because the way the brain is wired
And summons another to try it.

And when the fuse is changed
And when the switch is flipped,
The mighty A/C roars to life.
Sven has the problem whipped

(to be continued)

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Day 12 - Dead White Turtles

[This one probably needs a little explanation.  When I am stressed, I write Vogon Poetry, that is intentionally bad poetry. The reference is Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy if you’re flummoxed.
This was at a time of great stress at work. My desktop was covered with large stacks of white paper. You couldn't see the desktop for the paper. After one particularly grueling 40 day (And I do mean day, not week), I had this dream (nightmare?) about dead white turtles. Hence, the poem.
Oh, yeah. I composed the lyrics trying to outdo the noise of bathtub filling up, the air conditioner humming and three cats providing syncopated rhythm by asynchronous purring. In my head, I hear a 'ba-dum. ba-dum' at the end of each line.]

Good little turtles,
They do what they're told.
They stay in their box.
They never grow old.
Bad little turtles,
They want to be free.
They dream of escape.
They long for the sea.
I'm a good little turtle.
I do as I'm told
If I stay in my box,
I won't ever grow old.
I'm a good little turtle.
I'll never be free.
And I only escape
When flushed out to sea.
I'm a dead white turtle.
I never grew old.
I stayed in my box.
Did as I was told.
I'm a dead white turtle
Floating in the sea,
Doing the dead man float.
Won't you be me?

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Day 9 - Selene

The moon begins to darken, lose its shiny grey appeal
And it blushes a bit to be in the gaze of the night
But as its darkness grows, at the fading of the light
The colour red strengthens, like a growing inflamed weal
To the east Mars glowers like a scorned lover
No longer the bright red thing in the chilly sky
Now it waits its turn with scornful eye
Not too close, not too far, doomed to simply hover
And down a bit below, glitters bright Spica
Not many times to glow so brightly
Would need the darker redness nightly
To entice, to flirt, like velvet scattered mica
But at long last the darkness grip has been broken
A sliver of white light skips along the lunar edge
Beginning with a tiny crown that becomes the wedge
Albedo white returns across the face. Normality has spoken.



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Day 8 - Grace

Grace

Life´s a die, and then you bitch.  Wait, backwards again - Life´s a bitch and then you die.

So yes, life is hard and it´s a one way path. And you still have to pay taxes when you´re dead! Not much fair there, eh? Some tunnels seem to have no end, some experience cave-ins, and that light is often an oncoming locomotive (steam if you´re lucky).  But sometimes that light is a firefly.  Just one.  Flickering dimly. But there.

Today wasn´t even a tunnel.  It was a cave.

And there was someone else there.

I don´t know about where you live, but in the rural parts around here and even the mid-size cities (their word, not mine.  In the UK, they´d probably be called towns)....where was I?  Oh, yes, my fellow cave dweller.  In these parts, there is a fairly transient and a small permanent homeless population.  Spring is storm season and this population often resides under overpasses, generally the big interstate ones but any will serve.

At the coffee shop near the interstate overpass, there was an older man.  Not as old as my folks, older than me.  He had a beat-up mobile plugged into an even more beat-up solar charger, a couple of plastic bags, no food or drink.  A thin grey beard, a very little jacket, clean clothes. He was on the coffee shop patio and it wasn´t busy, never is on national chain levels. So he probably could stay.

After my tea, I asked the assistant manager, cleaning up, if he was in often.  Pretty much every day, she said.

Bad day, long day, but I had bought a tea and croissant.  I went back to the cashier, bought a $25 gift card, handed to the assistant manager and said give it to the gentleman in ten or fifteen minutes after I was gone.

Suddenly the hole was more like a ditch.

Back on the road, a brief snippet caught my ear (I don´t do talk radio, or talk broadcasts at all.  Sorry podcasts, I know I'm missing a lot but not my media). ¨Live the hand you were dealt as if it were the hand you wanted.¨  Not much but it felt like being hit over the head with a 2x4.  Epiphany comes in many ways (I got hit with one years ago in a Def Leppard song).

And then

There´s a concept in Buber´s I and Thou about the will to ask and the grace to receive.

Today, I received.

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Day 7 - Colour

Colour

Anger is brown, not black like many think.  It is a dark, sludgy sewer plant brown.  It seethes, it reeks, it flows as a thick, viscous liquid. It´s not water- nor oil-soluble.

Rage is red, shot throw with darker swirls like flames on the sides of Mrs. White´s face.  It throbs like a racing heart beat, it thrums like the blood racing through your veins. It is oil-soluble, it thickens into choler.

Choler is blacker than black.  It emits no light, absorbs anything and everything thrown at it.  It can be a permanent shade for there is no solvent than can dissolve it externally.

Jealousy is, as always expected, green.  But that bilge, yellow-green of an upset stomach.  To be jealous is to be sick to your stomach.  Over someone else´s life, talents, monies, looks.  But be sure, it starts out as:

Cowardice is yellow-white.  The fear that grips the intestines, drains the blood from the face, that whispers ¨you cannot¨, ¨you will fail¨, ¨duck, run, go¨.

Lust is more purple-black than red. It sees only itself, there are no light streaks, no bubbles of pink.  It is, however, a water-soluble colour.  It can be mixed into other tints.

Love, it turns out, is pink.  It can deepen into fuchsia or remain bubble-gum with polka dots.  The choice is always made by the wearer even if they think otherwise.  Love abides.

Happiness is a brilliant orange, blithe and gay, bubbling out of every pore.  It is highly volatile, lasting only moments but leaving a Veuve Cliquot memory.

Contentment is a permanent colour like choler but can be dissolved by fierce external solvents.  It isn´t soluble in water nor oil, but persistent weathering can dull the luster and hue. Add Happiness or Acceptance to restore luster.

Acceptance is soft, permanent and useful for repair of other shades if desired.  It can be shed with grave reluctance, generally for rage, or worse, choler.  It should be treasured, respected, revered, chased.


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Day 6 - Stone

Stone

Time Lords tend to think they are Lords of the Universe too.  Nonsense, there were beings before the Time Lords.  There are beings here after the Time Lords. We´re still here, for one.  They aren´t except one.  Similarity can be fun.

But as always, The Doctor remembers. And forgets. And tells a ´good´ story no matter what the reality was.  Remember Rule #1, it doesn´t matter what face the Doctor wears, the Doctor lies.

The Doctor calls us the Weeping Angels.  That´s two conceits - we are not weeping and we are not angels. Nor do we take our life force from humans (or Time Lords, for that matter).  What tiny, pointless lives these creatures have. They are born and die on the same small orbiting rock. Robin Goodfellow said it best ´Lord, what fools these mortals be!¨  By the way, he was one of ours.  We do not hang around to the end because the true Star Killer has always been iron.  And it´s not condusive to us, even if it is conductive.

We don´t begrudge the Doctor his protection of these weary little animals; they look to him with such awe and love.  Who wouldn´t want to be that hero, that Time Lord Victorious.

And his tales of us are as a gnat chattering at an elephant, if you want Earth terms.  We are here.  We abide.  We play a longer game than even the Doctor understands.

Stone requires no nourishment; it fears not wind nor rain nor howling night.  We take our shape from the small dreams and fears of those around us.  We have been fierce in our form, awesome in our aspect, meek in our mien.  What ever the most sentient beings required.  We were there on Poosh, San Helios before the sand, and with the Kovarian Chapter, a most unimaginative people. We were there at Planet One.  We´ve chased the heat death across the universe, and we are still here.

Here and now, we look like angels. These humans find that safe, even comforting.  We´ve been mighty Athena in her Acropolis, the Moai before the Rapa Nui self-destructed, the legion of warriors in the tomb of Qin Shi Huang.  Not all of them, of course, but the ones still extent and still unfound.

Our life source comes from something very close at hand, something found throughout your tiny galaxy, throughout the unknown universe.  We follow the neon.  Oh, now don´t get worried about your little light pools in Vegas and Tokyo.  That wouldn´t feed a midge for a heartbeat.  No, we need something more robust, more plentiful.  And it is close at hand, only 4 billion years more.  That´s a Sunday nap to us.

That big yellow ball of hydrogen will someday lose its cool and go all helium on you.  You probably won´t care.  But all Real Housewives might care about the next phase, carbon, because carbon under pressure is just a diamond in the sky.  You heard that right, Lucy was one of ours and it wasn´t LSD she was seeking (She did make a wrong turn, though, and end up on your Earth way ahead of schedule.  Let´s just say she trusted the wrong Time Lord for directions.)

And before carbon goes all oxygenated on us, there is neon rich time.  That´s where we get our life energy.  We feast and fest, we live a great time and then fly out on the oxygen burn, missing out on the Iron Death.  On to the next midlife crisis stellar moment.  We burn so brightly in that time.  You could not survive looking at us.  Which is, of course, where the Doctor started his wild tales.

Don´t worry - blink all you want.  Close your eyes and rest.  After all, that is what we are doing until our next great party.

PS you scientific types who say that your Sol is too small to go on through to carbon-neon-oxygen-iron.  Seriously, you´ve lived. what, 15 minutes?  I’ve seen ¨Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate¨.  You get those dreams and whispers from somewhere.  Trust us.

(This is a slightly edited redux)



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Day 5 - A Little Help from My Friends

I hesitated at the door again. I’d been trying to screw my courage to the sticking place. But I still could not actually go in the door. 

“Just go in already.”

I stood frozen, hand on door. 

“In, out, in, out.  To-ing and fro-ing. You’ve been pacing in front of this door, every day for a week.  Just go in already. What’s the worst that could happen?”

I sigh, hand dropping to my side. “They could find my body, wrapped in plastic and buried too shallowly in the state park next spring.”

I breathe, the tension flowing out of me. My shoulders descend from around my ears, my jaw unclenches. It all seems so silly now, now that I said that out loud. 

I lift my hand again to push open the door.  

“Wait. That’s, that’s something humans do to each other?”

I turned to face my interlocutor and see, in fact, I’ve been conversing with a crow.  

The crow says “No, don’t go in. Don’t. They never come out. The girls who go in there. We thought it was a long party. But....just don’t in there.  Let me show you something.”

......

“Mama, this why I ended up on the 6 o’clock news, showing the cops to the largest cache of bones found in the state. No, I didn’t put them there. I found them, with a little help from friends.”

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