Talking Stones Project

The night is the hollowest I've seen.
Soundless. The thud it makes is practical
and here and tangible.
You can feel it.

There I was waking and this is reality.

My dream was local.
I was in a hospital, diseased not breaking.
And there was a cure.
Therapy was wearing glasses.
Cure was color. Mine was chartreuse with a Middle Blue spot
that I believed was my cause.

Causes were big there.
Blue under chartreuse. No one told me what it meant.

It was very loud. That was how he knew, at the beginning, that it was something. He would lay awake at night, not thinking, and the rush of it in his ears was louder then the train around the block, or the humming of the power lines. The problem was, once he recognized the loudness for what it was, it was always there. Even when he'd turn the stereo up full blast and take a shower, the combination of the water and the music didn't really muffle the loudness. So, over the course of the days after, he just learned to live with it, like a person in a crowded room will learn to filter out the noise of a hundred conversations so he can hear the one that's happening in front of him.

But the first night, the important night, it was loud and it was everywhere. He tossed and turned, and kept trying not to think of anything so that he would sleep, and kept hearing it. It wasn't like any other sounds he had heard, or even like any combination of them. It would just roar in his ears like a train in the subway as he threw the sheet off, then pulled it back up, then threw it off again. Eventually he fell asleep, he knew this because the drone of his alarm clock pulled him out of the sleep with a jolt that sent his glasses and a CD flying from the nightstand. But, trying not to make too much of a feeling that was so strong that it would manifest itself in a deafening blast, he shrugged it off and went about the business of preparing for another work day.

It was during the drive to work that the next thought hit him. How, he wondered, would she feel about this? He knew that there was no way he could communicate this feeling to anyone else, let alone the one who inspired this din in his head. Even on the phone he would usually end up tongue-tied in normal conversations, and with this girl it only ever got worse. He usually chalked it up to nervousness, the butterflies in the stomach he'd always gotten when talking to a girl he liked. But this was bigger then liking her. I mean, God, he thought, I can HEAR it.

So, he went to work, prepared to force his way through a typical day that left little time for independent thought in more then short bursts, and let the matter rest until he had time to pay it more mind. The closest thing to a resolution of his feelings he felt was possible was the thought he had as the light turned green: This is going to a weird day.

* * *

She lay in bed, reveling in the lack of a 9 to 5 job like she did most days before she forced herself up and into a chair. The writing she had to do today was more then enough to keep her busy for a few hours, but it was hardly taxing. She would relax, take it easy. Luxuriate in it a little, even.

When it came, it was fast and hard, like a baseball thrown by a major league pitcher. Except it was nothing so physical, or so easy to understand. Instead it seemed like a concentrated ball of sound and light that deafened and blinded her. Her eyes closed involuntarily, and they wouldn’t open again when she wanted them to. She lay there, shaking, waiting for it to stop, hypersensitive to the light on her eyelids, the sheet over her legs, even the places where her hair fell over her face. It was suddenly all too much, and the last thing she saw in her mind’s eye before giving in to the panic was his face.

spiderman
must have been
not yet four years old
& in a duplex front yard
built like suburbia
spinning

that lightness we forget
spinning
outside like persian poets
but firstmind and young
free
then just from gravity and real
senses

it was spiderman

reflection i think it was glass
front
door
single
pane
glass
single reflection
full stop

myself bounced through
no soul behind

He prayed, not to his God, or to a holy saint, but to his daughter, lost in your fire. Here is his prayer, stranger. Hear it, and then tell me I have no quarrel with you. Each day this simple man would stand before his God and weep for his daughter, saying ‘Your name is Julia, and when you were born I was not truly pleased. I am a blacksmith, and a blacksmith needs strong sons to tend the fire and help with the shoeing, but before a year had passed you had stolen my heart. You grew more hair, and then some teeth, and then some wisdom. You learned to say ‘Daddy’, and your pronunciation was perfect. When you were three you would run outside to knock on the door, and then run back inside and ask, ‘Who is it?’ When you were four your uncle came to visit and you played the host. Lifting your cup, you called out ‘Toast!’ and we roared with laughter and you blushed and covered your mouth with your hands, but I knew you thought you were very clever. Now they tell me it is time to forget you and move on, but it is hard to forget you.’
‘You were so smart, and could count the nails in a box when you were five, no matter how many there were. You played at guessing games, and picked flowers, and ran around the house laughing. You were also very brave, and when you fell and cut your knee you did not cry because you felt it wasn’t right. When you picked up a piece of fruit you always looked at people’s faces to make sure it was all right to eat it, and you were always careful not to make a mess.’
‘Julia, you have died, and you are probably very scared. It is all right to be scared, but you must not cry or make loud noises because Heaven is not like being at home with your own people. When it’s your turn to be judged, you tell them ‘I am young and innocent. I was born to a poor family that loved me very much, and I was content with scanty meals and ragged clothes. I was never willful or careless, and I never wasted food. Please protect me.” You should put it just that way, and I am sure you’ll be fine. ‘
‘I will miss you Julia, and if you are allowed by God to visit me from time to time, I would like that. I will be here. In the meantime, I will weep for you and cry out “Julia! Your father is here!” Since that is all I can do for you, it is what I will do. And I will not forget you.”’

Before we had blogs, we had prayers. It seems to me they serve many of the same functions: we take the things we can't or daren't say to other people face-to-face, and say them instead to a faceless thing-that-is-not-us, and look for our release there.

This time, let us turn to Somoa and learnabout the possibility of intelligent Cephalopods
under the scrutiny of Racing
with teaching and research responsibilities in Tree Physiology
for his adolescent years. ...

Pharmalicensing
from Stillwater, Minnesota
Former Copy Chief.
and is a fourth-generation carver,

He carved Indian heads, realistic


A collection of scenes of the Scottish Highlands and Islands
Devastation of a locust plague
Strictly Business
The Phantom of the Opera
the field of Christian counter-cult evangelism, apologetics,
MILD-MANNERED HEATING AND VENTILATION

serves up the fish.
and his groovy loos any day
. Moon Marathon
creator of pub empire
has three great loves: his family, bush flying, and the spectacular "color country"
the obsession is "Hamlet."
transportation chief
didn't post any project comments yet
A Protocol for Remotely Managing Sieve
won the individual Big Sky title
for he is Maps & Diagrams
a career patron


this was a very bad tattoo
three great loves: his family, bush flying, and the spectacular "colorcountry" of southeastern Utah.

shafted?
joining the Centenary family

oncamera image.

enlargement and its implications for the Translation Service
In the prolific was expectinga slick, powersuited cynic world
pre-human subject research efforts for consensus on the changes and they were approved unanimously
the unusual demands of doing science in the Antarctic

Pavement Life Cycle for the highway projects
Very much a one-man-band

This is a space for a theatic performance on the blogosphere. In this time, we are so connected to one another without being close. We are so available through cell phones and email, that surface information plays the largest part of our communications. Real communication the kind used in telegrams and letters. Urgent discussions of states are being are no longer necessary. I can pick up my cell and tell anyone anything as it is happening. This leaves us isolated in a way.This is the theme of the poject: how to communicate in this world. Here, by way of a blog, we are going to create a space for theatre. 5 writers will post letters, diary entries, hold conversations and ask questions. And whatever event comes from this need to communicate.