Heedless Speckle of Stars

He sleeps easily now, and that bothers him. What right does he have to sleep so soundly? He never admitted with what relish he suffered in his younger days, those restless years of spiritual searching and his tired affectations of a struggling writer. He thinks back on his various experiments: fasting in the woods like a suburban shaman to see visions; subjecting himself to sleep depravation for three days to see visions; following a spirit of a young Navaho boy across the desolation of Utah. Great arches of stone formed a natural amphitheater from which to cup his screams and fling them skyward. Heedless speckle of stars.

He tries to stay awake all night like he used to, but can’t resist turning on the tv and falling asleep to Jay Leno. What more can you expect from a corporate middle manager? He thinks about buying a tank of ether and a mask and resorting to artificial means of hearing voices. He wants to see hallucinations whipping about the room, imaginary children playing in the hedges, recently escaped from Our Sacred Heart of the Feeble Minded. He looks dejectedly at the sterile rooms of his apartment. What kind of atmosphere do you need to lure the muses? They need a welcome mat, a comfortable abode in which to spend their long weekends, a place that feels like a bed and breakfast for the beyond. He pictures himself small-talking with them in the late morning hours, sipping tea and nibbling on pastries. What would they talk about? Probably how bad the traffic was coming out of Olympus, or the humidity, or his hammer toe.

He wonders what a muse looks like: silvery white, like a sculpture of Michelangelo’s that has learned to flex its limbs? Jade eyes in a marble face? No, his muses had always been the dead idols...Rimbaud, Artaud, and Morrison. He felt closest to Artaud; they shared the same despair. Morrison was his college comrade, his drinking buddy, his idol of excess raising hell and dancing on ledges. Rimbaud was the brilliant prodigy, the cocky boy of sixteen that invented a new language, and then disappeared into the jungles of Africa never to be heard from again. And who has become his muses now? Steven Covey? Scott Adams? Who comes to mind first when he sees the name Homer?

Mighty Mississippi and Pink Lawn Chair

I spent an hour this weekend in the sun by the river in Saint Paul. I’m not even sure which river it is, Mississippi or Minnesota. Seems a little too narrow to be the great Mississippi, but it probably is. I brought my little pink lawn chair; I really need to get a more manly one, something from Coleman with armrests that hold beercans. I packed a lunch of smoked turkey and gouda with a tomato, mayo, and country mustard, and a lime yogurt whip, and a bottle of water. It was kind of nice eating my lunch there in the sun and watching boats fight or coast with the current. Then I carried my chair down right to the waters edge to better hear the waves and let my vision skip across the water’s surface like a perfect skipping stone. Across the river on the far bank, dogs chased sticks into the water or chased each other along the beach. After the sun ducked behind clouds, I pulled out David Copperfield and read a few pages; it’s around the time his mother has died, and he is driven back home from the boys school to attend the funeral.