The year is winding down. Goodbye to all that. Raise a glass to yesterday. Raise another to tomorrow. We have persevered. We have survived. We have struggled and grown and stared at the stars when all we were meant to be doing is taking out the trash, and we have contemplated the vast firmament of existence while holding in a dam burst pee. The future has whispered in our ear, yet again, upon this dead week between Christmas (now past) and New Year’s (coming up).
And what does it say? What wisdoms do the all-powerful coming years offer us mere mortals? Put your ear to the wind, my friend. Listen closely to the howling night. Out past your car. Out beyond your garage and out past your neighbor’s garage too. Over the fences that keep others out but keep the idiot dogs shitting on your own property (American Dream!), then over the houses and over the trees down the street in the parks and swirling up into the darkness with the gusto of all of nature inhaling the hit off a bowl in which you are there: the tiny speck of inn hearth light: waving up from the burning ashes: the deep faded coil of ancient fire that brings the noise: the expansive, unimaginable early winter sky peering cross-eyed down at your ridiculous teeny self as you stand in the fire pit, your little arm moving back and forth as all of space and time pauses to watch you for a moment.
You lose your breath. You feel inspired. You sense that everything you have ever known will culminate in honesty and beauty in the words about to be spoken at you/ to you/ for you/ forever.
The night releases the hit, lets out a mass of shapeshifting smoke as its eyes go slitty/ clam-like/ an entire universe/ your home of homes/ stoned out of its ever-loving mind.
It leans in then. So you lean up. Your foreheads nearly touch. It clears its throat, a scratchy oatmealish sound, like the pushing and dragging of wire brushes through the pipe. Your eyebrows raise in anticipation/ as if to say: I’m ready! Wisdom awaits! Good fortune is possible for all! Oh, night sky! Oh, titillated master of all to come! You tense up, your body down there in the bowl, its heaving and dimming with the pulsations of an un-hit cherry/ like a small Belgian pastry chef lying on his back upon a chunk of the Titanic/ breathing deeply/ staring/ alone/ at the boundless stars/ the sea below him/ the sea around him/ surrounding him/ calling his name with every sizzling shooting star.
So what does it say, god almighty?!
What does the future tell you, for heaven’s sake, man?!
Okay, okay. I will reveal it.
Ahem, the universe begins.
You pause. You ponder. You lick the cool of the abyss.
Yessssss? you say at last.
Inside the house someone is hollering. Something about an iPad charger. Voices collide and the dogs begin barking at the chaos of their lives.
Another year just like the rest.
That’s what the universe blurts before it sucks back into itself and leaves you standing there alone, piss roiling up over your bladder, a sharp rain of daggers beginning to pierce your fish-like skin.
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