Having my way with Ulysses

Your epitaph is written.

John hated butterflies.12:40 am

Changed, eh? Death will do that to a person. And then? Oh how sad, etc., and all the grief and crying and the sackcloth and the ashes. You’re gone and gone forever and so on and who? Oh yeah you. Never heard of you. You want to be remembered? Sign a will and leave money. Gather together as much money as you can and we’ll love you for it for as long as it lasts. We’ll remember your generosity. Your giving spirit. Your support of all your dearest. And your belongings. We’ll remember them too, as fast as we can. We’ll see who gets there first. We will defile them, crawl all over everything like ants. Then we’ll have a sale, invite in the strangers to trample the carpets and purchase your best whatever for a dollar. We’ll drag the leavings to the street free to take. And after all the mourning and the sad, couple of days tops, look at me see how sad I am, see me mourn, then what of us? You really want to know? Oh honey, come back and find out for yourself. I’m not your Christmas ghost.

The sins of the past are rising against you. Many. Hundreds.

The thing pleased him andt, and andt, He larved ond he larved on he merd such a nauses The Gracehoper feared he would mixplace his fauces. I forgive you, gorndt Ondt, said the Gracehoper, weeping, For their sukes of the sakes you are safe in whose keeping. 12:39 am

Thousands. They are raindrops rolling across a window, and you can see allpast right through them. Lets get up close. Magnification of where, distortion of how, inversion of what time, and with how many fluxes in octaves between convex and concave. Polytemporality wouldn’t know anything about that, strictly speaking, from here it’s ants all the way down. I dreamed something different perhaps maybe once if rememory serves. I disguised myself and walked, a dark visaged man, trailing hair, creamfruit smell.  I was dreaming and the dream was me. Like you. But you appear to be drowning just a bit. Partially drowning, like you misplaced your what’s that? Well, that’s your opinion, I’m just saying what I see from nowhen. Men like to ondts.

Every Friday buries a Thursday

And would again could whispring grassies wake him and may again when the fiery bird disembers. And will again if so be sooth by elder to his youngers shall be said. Have you whines for my wedding, did you bring bride and bedding, will you whoop for my deading is a? Wake? Usqueadbaugham!

11:45 am

Shhhh. Whisper. Keep your voice down.  Don’t let them hear us.  Here, lend an ear.  See them?  The living?  They are dying but they don’t seem to know it themselves.  Shhhh.  Not long now.  Look at them burying each other, like ants but with coffins.  What a waste of wood.  Ought to just build one and give it a sliding panel.  Thank you come again.  Next.  Shhhh.  Whisper when you laugh or they’ll hear you.  How many are they?  12, no, 13. Nice round number.  Now who is that lankylooking galoot over there in the macintosh?  No need to wonder.  We’ll know soon enough.  Keep an ear to the ground. We’ll remember him when he gets here.  We will, anyway.  None of the living remember each other for long.  Hope you are well, see you in hell.  Out of sight out of mind.  Shhhh.  One of them heard us whispering around them.  Pretend to be air blowing in a whisper.  Shhhhhh.  Whisper.  They just don’t look natural, do they?  Sure they are alive?  Maybe we can smash pillows into their faces, see if they breathe.  Pierce a heart or something.  Just to be sure.  Shhhh.  Who wears purple to a funeral?  Shhhh. Illdyed.  Quiet.  Wind.  Shhhhh.  Be the wind.  Wonder when the new guy will show up.  It’s nearly closing time.  

Some say they remember their past lives

And then he saw the child. It was a dry and bloated bag of skin that all the ants in the world were dragging toward their holes along the stone path in the garden. Aureliano could not move. Not because he was paralyzed by horror but because at that prodigious instant Melquiades' final keys were revealed to him and he saw the epigraph of the parchments perfectly placed in the order of man's time and space: The first of the line is tied to a tree and the last is being eaten by the ants.

9:09 am

After thousands of years of people reincarnating, with all the coming and going and waiting in chairs and general foot traffic, heaven’s lobby had become a crumbling old ruin. Indra asked Vishvakarma, who was an archetect along the lines of Dedalus and Frank Gehry, to fix up the place a bit and so he did. It was splendid. Dripping with jewels. Gardens. Towers. There were walls that could sing and there were stairs that rotated to the past. In some rooms you could smell the light just by virtue of the placement of the windows in ratios corresponding to the sacred formula (√5+1)/2. In one room he had squared the circle and in another he had trisected an angle and doubled a cube. I don’t even have to tell you what he did with time. Anyway, it was a ton of work and when he was done he was done and wanted to leave. Get paid and leave. Problem was, Indra wanted more. Wasn’t satisfied with good enough. More building if you please and even if you don’t please. So Vishvakarma had no choice, really. He went over his head to the supreme being. Well, this god in charge, this divine fixer, told Vishvakarma not to worry, be cool, just go back and I’ll take care of everything. The next day a kid all in white with a tattoo on his forehead (what parent is going to let that happen? must have been fake) showed up and marched right up to Indra as if Indra wasn’t The Man. And this kid said look, when are you going to be done with all this construction? No other Indra before you has ever built, well paid to be built for him at any rate, anything half as big or a third as great. And Indra, amused that this kid had what appeared to be the balls of a water buffalo to talk smack to his face just like that, said what the hell do you know about other Indras? And the kid said look dude, I’ve seen it all. I was there when they built the pyramids and that was like yesterday. I’ve seen the bang at the start of the universe and the one before that too. I’ve seen all the universes and all possible moments and the containers of moments and the things those are packed into besides and each one has an Indra, so don’t give me your shit. And while the kid was talking and Indra was turning purple with rage a line of ants marched in like they owned the place, which in fact they did. The kid cracked up to see this and laughed until Indra was nearly apoplectic with fury. Finally the kid took pity and revealed his true form. He was the fixer, the man in charge of the man in charge of the man in charge fifty five times over the whole time. Indra fell all over himself apologizing and in his curiosity which he could not contain even in front of the Supreme One, he asked what was it about the ants that was so funny? And the supreme being said those ants? Every one of them are former Indras.