a_story_about_random_epiphanies magicforest The diner was busy. Smokers shuffled ashamedly towards the back, closed off by the owner’s vain attempt at following by-laws; the small wooden partition with posters of Hendrix and Jim Morrison and even Bob Dylan tacked up. Once a hopelessly retro-themed eatery, the diner was now aiming for a hole-in-the-wall type of mystique: the ceiling had been sledged open and the walls sloughed away, revealing old grey brick and thick black and copper piping. Rather than making the diner seem eclectic and trendy, the dilapidated-on-purpose decor caused a prosaic and weighted depression. Red chairs and couches did not improve the dinginess. It felt almost like an office, nicotine stained. I didn’t want to go in, but she made it evident to me earlier on that she did, and I was willing—given the weird circumstances—to make an allowance. Strung-out nobodies drifted by, vessel-like, fingering plastic forks and packets of no-name ketchup, looking for their fries. I found her immediately and slid into the leathery booth. “Thank God you’re here,” I said with a businesslike sigh. “I’ve been having such a day. I really felt like talking to you.” “Your work?” She drops questions like billiard balls and I like that. There’s no supposedly-alluring evasion in this girl, and no extra words. She’s tidy with her mind, and wilful. “No. Strangers, actually.” She smiled at me. “Strangers, eh?” “Yes. I keep running into them. It’s almost supernatural.” “As in, you keep meeting them unexpectedly?” “No. I keep running into them. I mean running into them. I’m walking down the street, and then smacking into someone. It’s happened three times today. I’m starting to suspect that there’s a God up there trying to tell me something.” “What do you think he’s trying to tell you?” “I don’t know. Love thy neighbour? The first time wasn’t even my fault. She staggered into me, a homeless woman I presume, and crying. I don’t mean a sort of whimpering, or that I-am-in-a-rush disapproving sound from those dominating businesswomen. I mean really hand-wringing tears-pouring Shakespeare-inspiring weeping. It was sort of gruesome, actually.” “Gruesome?” “Crying is gruesome. Really. To get upset enough about something to shoot water out of your eyes is a grisly thing. I never do it. How macabre.” “Surely you did, as a child.” “Well of course, as a kid. We all did, didn’t we? But I never did that ridiculous soul-searching hormonal moany-groany adolescent thing. I grew up, as real people do.” “Real people do not cry? I have girlfriends who would argue the opposite.” “Oh, women. Women always think that tears are a sign of humanity.” “The growing soul is watered best by tears of adversity,” she quoted. “Is that Socrates?” “It’s Schultz.” “Who’s that?” “Good grief, never mind.” She was smiling now, enjoying herself. “So this homeless woman was crying, you were saying.” “Right, right. She comes up to me and looks me in the eye, and then she’s supporting herself on my body, and leaning in—and right away, of course, I’m thinking that I’ll probably get head lice—she was all gray and filthy. Just when I think she’s going to try to kiss me—God, that would have been awful—she hisses at me, right into my mouth, almost unintelligibly. I felt her breath before I realized she was forming words. Odd, now that I think about it, she didn’t have bad breath. I think she’d just eaten something with lemons.” “What did she say?” “She said that I was rotting away.” I tried to make myself look as lugubrious as possible. “That can’t be good, can it?” She didn’t laugh, as I was hoping she would. “Are you rotting away?” she asked seriously. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Do you mean emotionally? I mean, physically we are all rotting away, of course, ever since we were born, or at least since we reached adult maturity, we’ve all started the decay process—” “Have you been decaying since you reached adult maturity?” she said very softly. For some reason this angered me. “Christ, no. I’m successful. Success, and pride in your success, is a sign of emotional growth, wouldn’t you say? She gave me a peculiar smile. “Besides, if anyone was rotting, she was. She seemed to entirely consist of old bags and blankets. If she’d disintegrated into urban flowers with a strong wind I wouldn’t have been the least surprised.” “You don’t like people, do you?” “Of course I do. I love people. I’m here right now, aren’t I? I’m just not going to go around acting as though these urban misfits are my cup of chai.” “Are you superior to these urban misfits?” “Well, no, we’re all equal as men, I mean, but—” “But you don’t know them.” “That’s right. So how am I supposed to come to a conclusion about anyone? I have to take them in at a first glance. I have become quite adept at it too. It’s not judging. Just perception. These days people like to confuse one with the other and then you get labelled a self-righteous elitist.” “I see. So what did the woman do after she whispered?” “Just tottered off weeping. I would have asked her if she was all right, or if she needed something, but evidently a woman who tells perfect strangers that they’re rotting couldn’t use my help.” “Maybe you underestimate your powers of aid.” she commented gently. I shrugged. “Maybe not. But she’s gone now, isn’t she? Anyway, about fifteen minutes after this incident, there was a man. Thank God he wasn’t crying. I might have pulled a weapon or something. He just slammed into me at full force, and then he grabbed me by my shoulders and screamed oh my God into my face.” “Maybe his wife had just delivered.” “Funny, that was my first thought too. But then he started talking. He was rambling about gay rights, marriage, all of this. He sounded downright accusing at points, shouting phrases like ‘this belligerent society’ and ‘that calorific agglutination of attorneys’. As if he knows the evils of society—he was wearing a brand-name tracksuit and a visor, for crying out loud. He looked like a caffeinated jogger.” “You sound a little condescending…” “Well, a little condescension is appropriate, don’t you think? Although God knows I have no interest in marriage. Actually it’s money loss I have no interest in—I’m paying for my apartment already, and then I’d have to pay for a nice new house and a fancy wedding, and then for underwear and pants on my children and a soccer-mother minivan, and then for whatever she needs when she goes through her mid-life crisis—I really don’t think I will—and starts wanting even more kids—and I know that I won’t—and then whopping legal fees from some foul lawyer when we divorce. She’ll get the house and the kids, and I’ll get the television and the bad reputation. So it goes.” “That’s a cynical view of love.” “Love. I don’t scoff at love, I know you think I am doing just that, but I don’t. I am more of a romantic than you think. But we all know divorce rates. We all know what happens when you settle down. And we all know what’s happening to the concept of love now that they’re bringing homosexuality into it.” “Why can’t homosexuals love?” “Homosexuality is a foreign concept. Homosexuals can’t love for the same reason that two strangers can’t love. Why didn’t I love that homeless woman, or that gay man? I don’t know them. We have no created connection. Homosexuals can’t connect. You can’t love someone you don’t know.” “In that case, why can’t homosexuals know each other?” I stopped and puzzled doubtfully. She had a point. “You have a point,” I said. “I guess I’m just a homophobe. It’s the way I was raised.” She grinned. “We are not always our parents.” “Oh, I throw my hands up.” I said irritably. “Then perhaps you shouldn’t have eaten them in the first place.” she quipped. “Was that Schultz?” “No.” She was smiling beautifully now. “So what are we doing?” I stepped back, feeling rather like I was talking to myself, and that she was a frozen portrait. “I don’t know what I’m doing with you. I’m just starting to wonder about this whole thing.” Before she could interrupt to ask what I meant, I quickly added, “Life, I mean. And love. And people. Especially people. It’s all goes back to wondering if I’m being told something. I feel rather like I’m being corrected. I don’t see any flaws in my logic, but I think it might be wrong. Who knows. Intuition, maybe?” “I think that’s a good step for you,” she said. I reddened a little. “Anyway, speaking of steps, you might want to put some ice on your ankle. I do feel quite bad about it, you know.” “Well, everyone is a little inept sometimes.” she said. “By the way, what is your name?” 040424 ... sirflaccid It is a common phrase, “time flies when you’re having fun.” If “Einsteinian” theory was to be applied, we would find that the previously mentioned is absolutely correct. Think of a man flying a plane for instance. If he is traveling with a supersonic velocity relative to the spectator, then he has experienced time travel. He has caused a wrinkle in time. And came out on the other side in a shorter “time” relative to his counter-parts. If this is true for any object, then human perception of time must differ as well. If this is true, then time can affect brain function. If the previous is true, why couldn’t the opposite be applied? 050221 what's it to you? who go blather from