that monster there...

“Turquoise? I can't even say the word without falling down. You want me to spell it?” “No, no. Just describe it.” “Describe turquoise? The color or the stone?” Lucy laughs and scratches her head. “Hmmm… I suppose it doesn't matter,” she says. Stephen twirls a finger around Lucy's bare foot then traces her toes gently before glancing up. “Hang on,“ he says, “it’s the same problem!” Stephen was fascinated by Lucy's ability to confound the simplest notions with an ease that surpassed the remarkable agility of her practical mind. It was what first sent shivers up his spine that first week in thesis for biomedical engineering.   Dr. Shirkfield, the startling young star professor, had asked for the students to share their topic concepts for the attendant research course. When no one took the bait, and an uncomfortable silence grew in the room, the young woman in the front of the class raised her hand and flopped it about. “Ah! One fearless target… I mean, stu...

     On the quiet car there are signs about how to be quiet; directions, suggestions, vague pleadings…      On the quiet car there are announcements about the quiet car; how to recognize that you are in the quiet car if you've missed the six or seven signs hanging from the low ceiling along the aisles.      The quiet car is mostly quiet. Mostly. This alone is a fair indicator that you have found your way into the quiet car if you happened to wend your way onto it by accident or, as is the case on many occasions, you never even knew there was such a thing as the quiet car.      There are occasionally other things beside quiet on the quiet car. There are brawls on the quiet car; screaming matches, arguments, altercations and insults – a lot of insults… oh boy.      Even though it is the quiet car, there is enough noise and hubbub to go around.      The quiet car is an experiment in human behavio...

     Fredrick      He was burbling, wrestling the words as they rushed out of his mouth and losing balance, falling over then righting himself. No one heard the words. They were all too busy stepping over the shadow on the sidewalk, too disgusted, distracted and too burdened with the next step and the one after that...      “The passage, unseen in plain sight – the door is formless and nowhere and everywhere and the key to the door is emptiness. Here…”      He holds out his filthy hands, cupping nothing, smiling and squinting into the sun, blinding white hot above the black shadowed shoulders of rushing figures.      “Mama, look!” exclaims a tiny girl draped in a hibiscus summer dress.      “This way,” replies Mama, fingers our, distracted, thumbing her phone and grasping for Papa.      “The restaurant should be over here, wait, no, over there… Lucy! That's a crazy man, yes! Se...

     There is cause for alarm at nearly every moment. The universe is tremendous, violent and all encompassing, while we are tiny, soft and mostly irrational.      This is what is bugging you. This is the cause for that horrid sense of groundlessness that attacks you just when you think you've put everything in order. This is the sudden, momentary dread that grabs you between the sugar packet and the spoon as you fix morning coffee.      If you bang your head in the shower at six am, you could be dead before noon. This is the way it works.      We are tiny drops of water mixed with tinier bits of clay and rock, glued together with specks of sunshine…      If only we were less distinct. I know, I've thought of it. If we, as individuals, were less solid and more fluid in both space and time – less individual really  – then we really wouldn't be as concerned about things that might grab us off the planet: a...