Selected Short Stories

Sitting in class Orlando cannot help but drift away in his thoughts, the lecture pace is at a crawl, the ticking clock resting unreachable off the wall proceeds with snail uncertainty, tocking drips from its hands melt into a stalagmite of time and the end is not drawing near in any forseeable horizon. So his mind proceeds its wandering and stretches out feeble strands of antennae hesitantly, searching to grasp at the source, reaching out to know the syrupy scent of honey-like

ether

noun | e·ther

Physics. a hypothetical substance supposed to occupy all space, postulated to account for the propagation of electromagnetic radiation through space

, an ambrosia of meaning missing from his current state. It has always been this way.

How to reach out for something that ever lies out of reach? And yet it's precisely its intangible essence that appeals to him much more than the instructor's lucid exemplification of convergence testing in sorting algorithms. Like the former, it is not something that the touch of his hand will ever know with palpable certainty, but the latter's arome right now is one of milde. Stagnation. The antennae retract from that direction.

Repeated revolutions of tock and tick take him next to a blue felt seat upon he now sits more comfortably. Several iterations have passed and his antennae feel brusied now from ceaseless search, as far from tasting honey as earlier on in the day; he takes out money from his wallet to pay the waitress for the first pitcher. And waits for his friend to arrive.

When Arjen walks in, Orlando notices him wearing a white feather in his fedora. It slants carelessly. Arjen notices Orlando's tousled hair and trots over to sit opposite to him. He smiles and pours himself an amber.

“Dude, did you notice the really cute waitress over at the bar?" Arjen asks.

“Which one? They're both cute," replies Orlando with

sheepish

adjective | sheep·ish

embarassed or bashful, as by having done something wrong or foolish

smile.

Arjen turns around to survey the tangled crowd, skims over the odd professor with headphones doing physics, glosses over the three girls splurging boy talk, barely glances at the couple sharing secrets, and finds her at the cashier handling over a pint to the other waitress.

“There", he points subtly, “the brunette at the cashier with the long braid and green eyes."

Orlando takes a sip and looks in that direction. Likes what he sees. “Yeah. She brough me the pitcher."

“Really?" Arjen blurts out. “She was totally checking you out when I walked in, dude. You should go talk to her later, tease her a little," he doesn't notice Orlando flushing, “maybe get her number."

Orlando averts his gaze off to the side. “What happened to the other feather?"

“Oh, the black one?" Arjen asks touching his hat. “I saw a sea gull dropping this one and decided to drop the raven one. A change of color for a change of mind."

“Oh yeah?"

“Yeah, a change of heart, a change in my thoughts on being and meaning."

They launch unraveling musings and thoughts atop the table, their words worm along the buzzing air of other conversation, merging with vibrant hums of feelings being expressed by others, resonating in the moving air of everyday talk. The stream

distills

distill

verb | de·still

to extract the essential elements of; refine; abstract

into the atmosphere, flowing placid: whether The Beatles are overrated, what algorithms have done to math, what Kubrik did and didn't do for The Shining, whether assigning art guidelines hinders its expression.

They pause as seconds are passed around and collect steadily on that still stalagmite of time. Moving on then to Sisyphus rolling his boulder, Arjen seizes with thoughtful talons the floor and roosts atop the discussion. He tells Orlando of pensive Pascal pondering misery, of Kierkegaard carefully carving out metaphor, dissects

dialectic

noun | di·a·lec·tic

the art or practice of logical discussion as employed in investigating the truth of a theory or opinion

laid out by Hegel for his friend to see.

The antennae perk up attentive and Orlando can almost discern the faintest trickle of that scent, can sense a trail emerge before him from these old writings brought to life in Arjen's utterances, blending with the breathing music of the bar.

“So what's the point?" Orlando asks. “If what you're saying is right, our whole culture's quest for happiness is flawed from the get go."

“Well yeah, I mean, look around" Arjen says with a slow wave of his arm. “Do you see these girls being loud over there at the next table? They sure don't seems like they even ask themselves the question. For them everything is bound to be celebrity gossip, getting through school because they have to, hooking up with the next guy. It's all diversion, a distraction from the fact that are not truly free in this world."

“You have no way of knowing that. And even if you're right, how could you blame them?" Orlando sighs. “I feel like we're all being cheated. Maybe you're right: deciding that happiness is only a state of mind is too easy. There has to be something missing."

“Yes, but what I'm trying to get at is that it has to be missing." Arjen caresses his feather. “After all, we don't know anything better than that. We come up with these desires because it's the only thing that we know. But the essence of being lies in this restlessness, in this yearning."

“No, I cannot accept that. Dude, my whole life would be pointless if I cannot ever find this Truth. How elsde would I feel accomplishment?" Orlando shifts in his seat

flustered

fluster

verb | flus·ster

to put into a state of agitated confusion

. Why have antennae in the absence of honey? “And no, it's not this stupid notion of success or money or any of the shit we're being sold. It has to do with this shell growing on me from being in this

noxious

adjective | no·xious

harmful or injurious to health or physical well-being

environment. It has more to do with molting it so that I can find and hold on to the Truth, whatever it is."

“The truth is always what we hope it isn't," Arjen replies; talons shred at the feeble searching strands “I would rather fly on for as long as I have a breath. There is no point in keeping still. Even if you were to get this thing that you desire, you would only find out that it's not the right fit. That would force you to move on. I tell you, it is fear, it is restlessness. That is the only freedom that we have."

“I don't think that is a freedom worth having." Orlando stands up and walks over to the register. As he pays for the last pitcher, he notices the brunette waitress mixing a cocktail at the saide. She gifts him a warm smile. He tries to smile in return, but the moment is past too soon; he looks away. It's too hard to hit on a waitress, anyway.

“Still," he muses as he and Arjen walk amid trees extending forward limbs to comb the night, the cool breeze reducing the previous murmor of the bar to a low hum amplified by electric motors in the distance, “even if you are right and the Truth is not something that I can reach, I still believe that it is worth searching for. The only way to denounce misery, even."

“It is there to be unattainable," Arjen replies. “Just another name among our endless stream of labels. Trying to define Truth, to assing Mearning to meaning, that's what we have words and religion for. Worlds of religion."

“Isn't it better to lie to yourself like that, then? I mean, in faith people can hold on to something that will carry them through the threshold of death."

“But the problem is that they try to give it a name. In confining meaning to a name, we confine ourselves to it. There is no winning, man. I don't think it's worth trying to define it."

“But why? Why do we ask ourselves questions in the first place if it doesn't lead anywhere? Why is there a world for us to describe if describing it destroys it? I don't understand."

“This is what Camus would call human nature. He said that the essence of being is rebellion, you know. Survival despite inevitable death. The goal of this struggle, the goal of life is the struggle itself. I honestly believe that the only way that we'll glimpse at the Truth is by rebelling against the very idea of it."

Arjen walks on in silence, collecting his thoughts in the falme of the match lighting his cigarette. He stops and meets Orlando's gaze, recognizing the Other. The both look at the moon above them and find themselves agreeing over the unsaid.

“It's so beautiful here, isn't it?" Orlando says as he begins to remember it now, this thing that he was about to place. He smiles at his friend. “I just wish to think that it tastes so weet, too. The Moment."

“What do you mean?"

“I barely hear it. It's so quiet, always at rest, without impulse to order, to create or, but whatever, the scene is still worth it." The moon of the absolute and the complete. “A perfect world. By light blending like this, it really stands out, don't you think?" Inside or outside, no distortion, no shadow, no Other.

Arjen says nothing. Pure Truth and Meaning have no form.

“Hey man, what's that smell?"

Their essence in this world of chaotic rest, only.

“You mean the smoke?"

Restful. Meaningful. Even now, as I speak of it, I do no justice to it.

“No, it's this very sweet thing. So weird." So

pungent

adjective | pun·gent

sharply affecting the organs of taste or smell, as if by a penetrating power; biting; acrid

needles knitting themselves ino this blood, cutting off all order to be what is—and this end is death. The last Honey. Right? The last unrest, because we would not be restless unless we knew it.

“Dude, what's wrong? Oh God, Orlando, are you ok?!"

The end of truth and meaning. It is the bell at the end of recess. &lquo;What?"

“You face looks all wrong. It froze!"

But the pain induced by fear is the very and only joy. “Bees. Get. Getting...honey." Cold hard pavement rushes in to meet Orlando's face. He lets it rest on the hard pavement. “I can't believe that I forgot...only vestiges now remain." The ether. The ambrosia. “The buzz of the traffic wasn't so loud before." It kills the looking for, but he then, misses to remember it. “Funny to think."

“You're freaking me out!" Arjen cries helping Orlando to a sitting position. &lquo;Your words make no sense. I...I'm going to get help. Hold on."

Truth is precisely what does not struggle and “Is moon, particularly?" I'd never seen it so bright before, the Rest is chaotic, and Chaos is a world of “Eternal rest. Think?" Just look at how it swirls, I feel it so close to my face. Definition without order: no limit, no differentiation inside, thus nothing to question, to define, to perturb, to know, form or order; they are limitless, omnipotent, eternally restful. In this world is Truth wholly graspable and meaning fully

poignant

adjective | poi·gnant

keen or strong in mental appeal
affecting or moving the emotions

? I look at these hands, pins pushing, because no word or thing can encapsulate the essence of end. Ending sensation.

“Like. The fractals. Moon. Fractals. Into."

Life itself needs an end result in order to be restless—the last thing we want is for it to end, but that is the source: unrest until the end. Death is the imminent return into the chaotic recess. When we fear, we feel unrest at its purest, and it is painful freedom of life. Orlando faintly hears the siren of an arriving ambulance. Blurring visions of meandering shards of moonbeam fill his head as the paramedics rush him into a stretcher.