At Peace

i will bring you water, if you will bring me wine.
we will sit together, until the end of time.
and you will call me yours, i will call you mine.
and we will stay together, until the end of time.
i will call you mine.
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i will bring you water, you will bring me wine.
we will be together, until the end of time.
you will call me yours, i will call you mine.
we will dance forever, until the end of time.

i had to walk a long way to get to the cloudy dwelling of the Legend, and at the end of my trip i was sweating a great deal. there were nice little shrubs and these odd-shaped, fragrant roots all along the side of the road. i couldn't take my ipod because of some provincial regulation, but that actually worked out fine because when you walk around in heaven there are all kinds of interesting things to listen to anyway.

you'd expect that daylight lasts forever up there but each little province has its own solar regimen. actually the occupants of each province select it themselves. there's a form you can fill out when you get your place, it's a neat little interactive chart that can be as detailed as you want, and since time and bladder considerations don't really exist, new occupants typically spend quite a while detailing the atmospheric conditions of their plot.

it's a cool setup, i have to say. they really thought things through. i heard they used IBM for all the operational stuff and they use Microsoft Surface now for the adminstrative tasks and bookkeeping. i'm not surprised that the Legend chose the environment he did: a sort of perpetual golden blue just-before-twilight, juuuuuust shy of overly humid, and no breeze. he did choose — as many do — to have a few hours of random weather generation every now and again.

you can restrict the types of random weather. for example, you can say, "random weather but nothing worse than 50 mph winds and nothing better than the nicest day i ever experienced on the earthball." the Legend did not put any such restrictions on the weather in his province, he didn't mind patching up his home if something happened, these were the pleasures he missed since he arrived, and he actually welcomed a palm tree or two falling through the roof of his garage.

i walked confidently along the dusty road and felt my heart fill up warmly and comfortably. i would love to join Him there for longer but I had to go back to the city after I spoke with Him, oh well, I'll definitely visit Him a ton when I get up there.

...

"i don't know, sometimes i take such a huge step forward and then i see them and they grab at me and pull me back. it's a little upsetting but i guess that's part of life." He told me to relax and not think about it so much. he told me a story about a dream he had. i smiled the entire time. As he told it, i mouthed some of his words if he elongated them or when he would emphasize a point with his hands or his electromagnetic eyes:

"I was watching my son play baseball near the airport and I saw a woman with a child down by the bay. She was hunched over with the little guy between her legs and he was splashing around with a red plastic shovel. I walked over to her and along the way I thought about lying down on the side of a road. I looked up through leaves and saw airplanes and the sky and the golden hair of my wife. I loved when she rode with me. She'd say things to me as we drove and I'd feel a little sad or a little happy. I felt admiration and jealousy, but what mattered when I stopped the bike was not my own emotions, but the beauty of where we were, how we were together, how beautiful she was and how comfortable the dirt was against my back."

...

then He told me a classic story about Him and His golden goddess. i told Him i wouldn't tell anyone about it even though He said He wouldn't mind. one of the things i always admired about the Legend was his understated dignity. in the most extraordinary way, his mannerisms conveyed epic dignity. sometimes i do things so wretchedly devoid of dignity and i am ashamed to even consider what He would think, how He would gaze at me. that memory alone should keep me from the rock-bottom. i don't want to go there again.

...

the blue light at the edge of the golden flame reminded me of the pavement — our city. the dusk and aromas and alcohol reminded me of argentina and motorcycles. i remember alternately the sterile white houses and the hangar-car-garages. we sat in these ungodly comfortable lounge chairs and looked around, over the fire, at the fire, at the harmless little flies. gorgeous creamily rigid jungle leaves relaxed there too. we all listened to Him. He told stories that made your hands recall an index of touches and shapes and feelings that your fingers may not have ever experienced. He cast my face into an uninhibited, effortless smile, and i miss that now. the glow must have been visible in the other provinces.

rest in peace Friend.

August 8, 2007