This Is All So Random... The Random Happenings of Happenstance in One's Life

Last weekend, I was at a war memorial for all American wars. There was an individual display for each war starting with the Revolutionary War all the way through to the current conflict in Iraq: in each display case, there was some clothing and other accessories from that particular war. At the end of the memorial, there was an empty display case for the next war.

First thought: “Wishful thinking.”

Second thought: “It’s sad that they have to have an empty display case for a future war.”

Third thought: “It’s sad that I think having only one empty display case is wishful thinking.”

What food here is good to eat?

And the middle-aged, middle eastern lady standing behind the counter says, “Everything is good.” Bold statement. I don’t let her off easily and order the veggie sandwich: no meat to hide behind. I wish I could eat this sandwich now, but I need to go outside and wait for the bus going the wrong way.

Nearly every morning, I take the 145 bus south to downtown. Today, as I wait on the opposite side of the road, I get a brief chance to bask in the glow of that wonderful star that warms our planet. The bus pulls up, I jump over the gutter puddle, and get on.

About two stops down (or up, rather) the route, these two women with their two daughters get on the bus. “I love having fun on the bus, Mommy!” shouts one of the girls at the top of her lungs. “Buses aren’t for having fun, dear. They’re for sitting,” her mother replies.

When did living life stop being fun?

Our bus passes a church with a nativity scene on display outside - it’s only five months until Christmas. One of these little girls says to the other, “Let’s pray for Jesus.” They dive into a rehearsed ritual of prayer said both in Spanish and English. Flawless and synchronized, they wrap up their perfect performance with the traditional Catholic cross across the chest.

Brainwashing. That’s all there is to it. These girls aren’t more than six years old: they are completely incapable of comprehending the concept of what believing in higher power could possibly mean.

On the train, I listen to this couple behind me make love with their voices. The train comes to the Glencoe stop, and this couple suddenly realizes that they need to get off at this stop. The girl makes it off the train and the guy does not. The guy gets off at the next stop and begins to desperately search for a way to find his girlfriend. Luckily for him, it’s Ravinia night and these cooler-toting suburbanites will be taking a path north to Ravinia Park. He will see them taking that path, and he’ll take it south to where his girlfriend is.

Further down the line at another stop, I watch a man pick up a chunk of concrete and place it in a pile of other chunks of concrete. For no reason. He was just so OCD that he couldn’t leave that lonely chunk of concrete be. I also notice the Starbucks in the front of the Jaguar dealership. Our train is running roughly eight minutes late due to “heavy passenger traffic”. The man behind me quips, “Yeah…I thought I saw a few more fat asses on this train than usual.”

In the car ride back to Kenosha, I’m able to decompress a little bit. This sandwich is really good.

with my fly down.

Oh, well.

I love to slooshy some Ludwig Van before a nochy with the ol’ ultra violence.

I love the novel “A Clockwork Orange”. Not the movie so much.

lauraf229:

Today is my last day for my summer session class at DePaul! I take my final tonight and I turn in a paper Friday noon. I will finally be able to enjoy my summer, read all the books I collected, and not worry about deadlines. I know once September hits, it will be chaotic, so I just want to soak in as much of the summer and my break as I can.

And summer in Chicago is the most beautiful thing on the face of the planet.

And it was at that moment that everything became still.

I could hear the Earth breathe.

Inhale. Exhale. And repeat.

There was no time for thinking, no time for conscious thoughts.

The only thing that I was capable of doing was letting my unconscious spill its contents on this canvas that we call reality.

They were just droplets and driblets out of a hole in the bottom of the bucket at first, then, turning into a slosh here and there just over the rim. Before I knew it, there was a downpour coming out of a spout.

Grammar, diction, and delivery fell by the wayside; everything that had been learned in a speech or English class seemed to have been obtained for the sole purpose of being forgotten at that moment.

And it was at that moment that everything became still.

I could feel the mountains move.

They stretched in this direction and bent in that one over there.

They were my restless eternal soul, knocking the dust off and the cobwebs out: it had been so long since they stirred.

They had been held motionless for an amount of time unfathomable by any mortal being on Earth, for the mountains are the outermost branches of the Earth’s soul.

They are the part of the soul that has gloriously reached through to the surface to take part in the everyday lives of the mortal beings that cover the outer layers of this planet, to watch the successes and failures, and to see successes and failures cease to become goals and fears in a liberating moment.

And it was at that moment that everything became still.

I could smell every molecule of water at once.

The salty sea, the refreshing rain, and the cleansing creek were all at my nose.

The smell of water that had been wasted needlessly down the drains during the day’s routine could be found in my nose, for my entire body drenched itself in the world’s perspiration.

It was not the sweat of anxiety, nor was it the sweat of fear: it was the sweat of a job well done and the sweat of a mission accomplished. It was the kind of sweat that you proudly wipe off your brow at the conclusion of a massive construction effort.

It was the kind of sweat that you watch roll down every crevice of muscle and facial feature of the tireless marathon runner so as though to prove that, despite his portrayal of effortlessness and relaxation, he really is giving his all in that very moment.

And it was at that moment that everything became still.

I could taste the desire of every mortal being on Earth.

Their wanting, their needing, their will power all became mine.

This fuel propelled me forward in every direction at once and, just as I was about to be ripped to atomic particles as a result of my omni-directional force, I reined it in.

I controlled this new limitless ability that I had been gifted: all at once I mastered every aspect of this foreign yet oddly familiar potential. I could feel that this was not the first time in my eternal soul’s history that I had donned such an endowment as this.

This universal need and desire to create everything for all and destroy nothing for no one put me at peace. It created a violently calm and peacefully irresistible space within me where I nestled my brain, my heart, and myself into place. It was in this space that all of eternity became but a mere moment.

And it was at that moment that everything became still.

I could see the past, the present, and the future as one.

There was no difference or distance between the 20th century, the Dark Ages, and the Paleozoic Era.

Trilobites and submarines both traversed the primordial soup. Pterodactyls and B-2 Stealth Bombers bobbed in and out of an infant planet Earth’s volcanic skies.

Frank Zappa, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham, and Socrates all sat at my table discussing the finer points of time travel. Each was well versed in many of the world’s languages, as the conversation weaved through Vietnamese to Aramaic to 30th Century American, and each of them took turns talking about what it is like to experience the passing of a million years in a moment.

And it was at that moment that everything became still.