Ruvin spotted beads of sweat forming on the waitress’ forehead.

He placed his hands on her shoulders.

‘‘Angeline? What’s the matter? You’re acting as if you’ve seen a ghost!’’

The young waitress tried to speak, but it was as if she had forgotten how to do it.

She slapped herself and said, ’’No, it’s much worse.

’’We have a customer who is waiting to be served.

‘‘He doesn’t seem to be a ghost or even human.’’

Ruvin gave a slight nod.

‘‘Erm...ok..Then let’s serve our guest. Come on, cheer up, Missy.’’

Ruvin walked away from the kitchen area to take a peek at their guest. Angeline was right. He looked more like a demon.

Well, I guess this would be an interesting challenge to take on.

What do demons like to eat? Do they enjoy meat, or maybe it would like to have a taste of mixed fried vegetables?

Ruvin took a deep breath. Time to head back into the kitchen!

He grabbed a metal pail & dumped a bunch of coal into the firepit grill.

Ruvin quickly arranged an assortment of meats on skewers and placed them on the grill.

He chopped some garlic & chuckled. This might do wonders and get the demon to choke— maybe a bit.

When he was done preparing the dishes, he hit the bell and moved the dishes onto the serving counter.

Angeline grabbed a silver tray and placed all the plates on it. She dashed to the client and slowly bowed her head.

The guest stared at the waitress and watched Angeline make a quick get away back to the kitchen.

All the food had a lovely aroma. The guest shook his head. Was that some garlic scent that he had picked up?

Hmm, now why would they think he would be bothered by it? Garlic was one of his favorite flavors to have when he dined on grilled meat.

Usually he had no time to add garlic when he had fast-food. And by fast-food, it was more like on the spot, ready-to-be-eaten kind of meal. Yum!

He slowly munched on all the assorted meats on the skewers~ he squinted his eyes, oh, that was an eye he had spotted as part of the dish. All right, not bad.

Angeline paced back and forth in the kitchen. She was glad that at least she was not on the menu.

Ruvin told her to just relax. All the pacing back & forth she was doing was making him feel woozy.

They heard the sound of snarling. What kind of guest was this?

When their guest had finished all the meals set before it, Angeline trembled as she dashed to take the plates away.

It smiled revealing its razor-sharp dog like teeth. Angeline gulped.

She smiled nervously at the guest and when she was about to ask how it would pay for the meal...she was left gazing at an empty seat.

A small pouch was left on the table. Angeline careefully opened it & took a look inside.

The coins glittered from inside the pouch.

‘‘Gold!’’ Ruvin heard the waitress exclaim.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9IHwqdz8Xhw

#Au (#Gold) 25.02.2021 ©

I wouldn't have said it

I wouldn't have said no

I wouldn't have looked away

I wouldn't have hurt you like that

But I was young

And pushing folks away was my defense

Against it all

And if I could go and take it back

gods

I'd take it back

all of it

because

that's not what you deserved

not from me

not from anyone

and knowing what I know now

about you

about me

about life

about love

The answer might still have been "no"

But

I wouldn't have said it

Not then

Not like that

Not in front of so many

I would have grabbed you

I would have faked it

maybe we couldn't make it

but

It would have been a damn sight kinder

Than admitting

we weren't gonna work

before even giving you a chance

to realize

why

I’m not sure you like me

and that’s ok

fine line between love & hate, see?

It’s rarely any other way.

You admire my spirit

how it sparks and shines

then secretly covet,

jealousy blinds.

Your eyes skim my body

i know what you need

chemistry is never our problem,

in truth it's your greed.

Driven by ego

you punish & shame

hurling insults like snowballs,

seeking others to blame.

There once was a time

i’d make efforts to conceal

my soul in its prime,

so you could feel.

Those days have passed

i’ve uncovered the truth

free at last,

toll paid with my youth.

I’m not sure you like me

and that’s ok

truth is,

I never needed you anyway.

Last month I decided, on a whim, to pick up “Cannery Row” by John Steinbeck. I left the place too soon and immediately felt nostalgic for each and every person I had met. Steinbeck's greatest gift is his empathy. There isn't one stereotype, judged because of a singular deficiency in attitude or physicality, or even fashion. If a fellow character doesn't know the truth about his neighbor, we know, as readers, and God willing we remember the lesson long after the bookmark has been returned to the deck of cards, and we're stranded at the checkout lane, resenting strangers ahead of us.

I am not omniscient. But a book like “Cannery Row”, written by a humanist like Steinbeck, imbues me with similar powers. It is up to me, as some plain gridlocked human being, to apply them to my life. I'm talking about empathy, the ability to understand that I can never fully understand the grumpy asshole wasting ten more minutes of my day. In the same vein, he can never fully understand me. Unless we are stranded for good and the only thing left to pass eternity is to share our life stories, we will never see each other in three dimensions. It is as disheartening as it is irrational, and it is probably the biggest lesson I have taken from my reading life.

We can never fully understand. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try, at least.

My day job is at the local grocery store, where I am forced into social interactions of every variety. Being shy and inward, I have two options: I can stand there awkwardly, face steaming as the hour-long seconds drag by; or I can fully engage with customers, most of whom are friendly and warm. A ten to twenty second conversation can't yield a revelation. But it is still empathy in practice, the conscious sacrifice of ego – even if I had no choice but to hand it over for my job.

At the risk of being hyperbolic (or is it too romantic?), my day job would be all the more difficult if I wasn't a constant reader. I see real people in characters, characters in real life. I read to understand motivation, and I listen and engage, tuning into some shared wavelength.

You know that absence of everything that occurs when you first push your head under water? You can’t hear the normal things but you can hear bubbles and the swish of the current rushing by, even vibrations have a uniqueness under water. The world seems to stop revolving for a moment and nothing is as you believe it should be.

You open your eyes and notice how light moves almost the same but with an otherwordly glow. Each drop of water taming electromagnetic radiation in such a way that you don’t quite recognize it, yet it carries the familiarity of a dream. In water you find an entirely different world trapped on the same planet. Our ocean of mysteries that we’ve barely begun to explore, holding tight to it's secrets. All you have to do is open your other senses to know this truth.

The thing you have to understand is, we don’t know everything, Scientists don’t know everything. There are things still unexplained about our own universe. Like dark matter, thought to account for 85% of the matter in the universe yet somehow cannot be seen. It does not absorb, reflect or emit electromagnetic radiation. Primary evidence supports the theory that many galaxies would fly apart or not have formed nor move as they do if they did not contain a large amount of this unseen matter. Its mere existence is implied by lack of explanation based on what we believe we know. I mean, how else can we know about something we cannot even see?

Now think about that shadow you catch in the corner of your eye. You know the one. When you’re not paying attention and your mind alerts you to something you aren’t even certain happened. That feeling you can’t quite explain when the hair rises on the back of your neck regardless of the hot, humid summer air. The deja vu moments you've experienced, so strong that they must have significance. Those are the experiences that make me question everything. How are these things all that different from the mystery of dark matter?

If the fabric of our universe is mostly comprised of a matter that we cannot understand then how can we not entertain the idea of an afterlife? What makes that any more absurd than the fact that we can't even see the primary matter that makes up our very universe?

What if we all hold a bit of dark matter within us?

What if it’s the material that makes up our souls?

What if we become dark matter when our bodies end and we are the core fabric of the universe?

Or maybe dark matter is what some call heaven and we lack the ability to see it as we are.

Perhaps we need to jump in and open ourselves to new senses,

a new way of seeing...

For decades I was locked in a dictatorial system. My political views were inappropriate. Under these circumstances, it was impossible to get in possession of a passport and travel the world. I wanted to live in Paris and discover the Lost Generation Writers’ traces, follow their steps, write and measure myself with the world. The gates of the world were closed to me. But I opened them for myself through the power of imagination and the power of reading and writing. With the help of books, literature, and art, I have traveled through the world and time. That saved my life, my soul, my sanity. I have overcome, and I am living in Berlin nowadays. Berlin is my Paris.

When life threatened to choke me, I read Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. That gave me strength, an infinite amount of power, to overcome threats, deprivations, and fears and hold on to my life. And my writing. Hemingway wasn’t the only one. The compass, which was supposed to show me the direction, moved tirelessly in all directions. From east to west. From south to north. I would mention Gertrude Stein and Virginia Woolf as part of this directed travel. Faulkner. Camus. Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoievski. And so many others!

Books offered me a parallel world I could live in and escape reality. But after a while, books also taught me to see beauty and bliss in every moment of life. In everything that surrounds me. To recognize the beauty in every aspect of life, even in the most frugal or dangerous moments. It was an important lesson that changed my attitude from seing myself as a victim to a person that was learning to master her own state of mind. It made me understand that mastering your state of mind and your emotions means freedom. Inner freedom. Something that no one ever can take away from you.

Reading moves me, shakes me to the core, and reminds me that I am not alone. It shows me how even the most peculiar, most private emotions and states that pass through me every day might be shared by someone on the other side of the world: The language of literature is so universal that it binds us to each other.

Good literature goes even further: Like Kafka puts it, it is an axe for the frozen sea inside me. It knocks me down and finishes me off with an uppercut. I am so moved that after reading it I will never be the same again. Such a story that has deeply shaken me to the core and shaped my worldview is the Polish author Olga Tokarzcuk’s short story “Flights”. It is the story of a mother, Annushka, with a special needs child, who one day walks out of her door and does not come back. As she becomes one with the city, Moscow, as she becomes one with the crowds flowing into and out of the subway, as she meets a homeless woman and goes through a deep transformation that blurs boundaries between the center and the margins, as she extricates herself from the regular flow of time and space, we change alongside her. We are privy to her thoughts and emotions, and as she moves out of her reality into another one and comes back forever changed, we share her most despairing moments alongside her. What takes this story beyond and makes it great literature is how the author is not making Annushka into an object to be pitied: She keeps her protagonist human and naked in her pain and loneliness, and makes us mere witnesses to her story: She is telling us the truth via fiction.

Tokarzcuk is an author who has accomplished this simple yet difficult goal of telling the truth without taking sides. In doing so, she shows me one of the best ways in which I can write my own truth: Honestly, simply, yet in such a way that it cuts through to the heart of life, of love, of pain and despair, of being human.

American history is full of instances of extremely popular snack foods being eliminated from public consumption by their manufacturers for a variety of reasons.

Often times, a product will be so popular and exist on the market for such a long time that it becomes a part of daily life (think brands like Folgers or Quilted Northern), and are often as natural and seemingly necessary to us as the air we breathe. Changing or disrupting the image or availability of such products often elicits an emotional reaction from the general populous. One of the most famous examples of this in American culture is the New Coke incident of 1985 which sent American soda drinkers into an absolute frenzy resulting in a public apology from Donald Keough, the then president of Coca Cola. It was a big deal.

I think we take for granted just how much of an impact that corporate branding has on our experience of life in the US. Logos exist in our minds and culture as symbols (designed by artists) that represent not just a product, but the intended experience that said product is attempting to provide via its sale to you. Just looking at the image evokes memories and sits in your brain as a link between a corporately manufactured craving or need and the product designed to satisfy it. Cigarettes are another prime example of this. It's very interesting.

So here's my question: Do you think that Reese's cups will ever be removed from the American snack foods market? Or will they exist on earth until the end of humanity?

12:23 am. i plunge sunburnt fingernails into mandarin rind and peel what is left of summer until it lands, in strips of trailer wall, on the ground. swallow wedges of a fever dream sun. or warmed diet coke before it lodges, viscous, in your throat. the mandarin fizzles away in bruised stomach lining, and i am left thirsty. just enough for a snake-scaled tongue to probe the water from my gums, always scraping, scraping. rusted blood thickens with saliva and i drink, too naive to know the difference.

6:53 am. my skin wilts in the shower; desert sand washes away noiselessly in the rain, and i cannot stop watching as the dunes of my shoulders collapse. head, shoulders, knees, toes: the domino effect until i am curled on the floor, painting cracked legs with discount razors. plucking hair follicles until they blossom and swell, stars burning in my thighs. momma whispers in my ear. “you don’t want to be that girl, do you?” i scream no, but pulped mandarin catches in my throat and the shorn hairs reply. they spell out liar, liar on the mildewed tiles.

9:13 am. i am seasick on the school bus, surrounded by a gordian knot of limbs. ellie’s shampoo teases me. i want to run my fingers through her curls, inhale jasmine so i can keep it in the smallest part of me. make myself beautiful like the rest. “braid for me?” she drawls, twiddling a bow. i plait, forgetting the way momma did it, tugging until i was sure she ripped my scalp. i tuck strands gently, let the jasmine vines have just enough room to flower. she grins cheshire when i finish. “thanks! ben lee’ll love this green ribbon.”

when i come home, i rip all the grass from their roots, feeling earth and something raw inside me come loose. i try to weave a ribbon better than ellie’s. i never do.

5:43 pm. thawed shrimp and grits, the wailing of fork on plate. i drag it on the ceramic, then stop. momma quiets in the rocking-chair corner, and i scavenge in the drawers for her makeup. (i tiptoe, because ghosts scare easy with noise.) for the first time, i want to see myself in this chipped mirror. waste away on cowhide eyeshadow, strawberry sherbet blsuh, the adrenaline rush of becoming. and then i am standing there, dandelion at dusk, artemis cloaked in shadows. she is me. trembling, i press two fingers to glossed lips and kiss until the sunset splits itself in two.

7:52 pm. i talk with the pinup girls plastered on pappa’s walls, perfumed updos bobbing as they listen to my story. (pappa left a long time ago, but he’d sure come back if he knew. momma would somersault in her grave.) i ramble like a fresh colt: about how boys smell too sweet under their breath and how the girls offer themselves up like marzipan and how i wish i could like how the sugar crusts on my teeth whenever ben lee calls my name. about the fever dreams of ellie i have, yanking off her green ribbon and breathing oh so close to her minted lips. how badly i want those dreams to come true. the pinup girls nod, the whites of their eyes unblinking, and i see how their cheeks flush like mine. how their hands fumble at the garters.

i drape mothballed sweaters over their bodies.

12:23 am. it’s just me and the coyotes tonight. the night sky tastes cold, pure as the constellations tumble over themselves. the moon wanes into a caladrius, ragged feathers sprinkling moondust to the stars. i pull open the window, straining past mesh screen to look into its eyes. it turns away.

momma once told me that each person is a dead star, fallen to earth to live their life over again. i squint and imagine me, in a past life: soul soaring with a lover, sketching her face in orbit, sea salt eyes, the moonbeam nose. somewhere, a coyote cries, piercing the silence. i wonder if they, too, are yearning for a person they’ve never met.

the caladrius is luminous, the heart of a pearl just out of my reach. maybe i was meant to meet the skies after all. i am burning now, longing reforging until it chokes my sternum, obsidian. orchestra pulsates past my veins; and suddenly, the rebirth of a supernova takes center stage.

the stars tell me she glided past galaxies, phoenix-wing until she met the sun. maybe i killed her. maybe she let me.

light only shines in darkness. so i stand, satellite, plucking holes in the sky in the shape of our names.

I stay alive because it's the least I can do after returning from my demise.

On the day I was born, I was cracked open like a big fat farm fresh chicken egg.

After I was cracked open I was scrambled until I was whipped up into a frenetic froth expanding beyond the limits of gravitational pull. There was so much air infused into my cells that I spontaneously evaporated.

By some stroke of luck, a Humpty Dumpty aficionado with sleeves rolled up to the armpits came along and saved me, dropping me back off into the arms of my protector along with the attached message:

This is a second chance. Don't look back to yesterday, don't look forward towards tomorrow. Take a deep breath and remember, yes it is true no one gets out of here alive, but while we are here…..

The rest of the message is unreadable.