A World Unknown

Across these lush green fields of my youth,

under cloud-dappled blue skies of my imagination,

beyond a distant golden horizon of my dreams,

in a land unseen by man, a world unknown to all,

in a timeless realm with no beginning and no end,

in a wondrous life that knows no death,

beyond these fields, under another sky,

further than the horizon, much further,

in another land, world, realm, life,

far from hate and spite and human strife,

where peace and calm and harmony reign,

how could man be a part of this and still be man?

The End of Shane the Shit

Feeling like shit, Shane crumpled onto the damp park bench and wondered what he was going to do with his shit-life now.


He’d been sacked from his shit-job as public lavatory attendant because he didn’t give a shit for the work, consistently failing to clean around the top inside of the toilet bowl where all sorts of shit had a way of building up; he’d been physically thrown out of his shitty bedsit by his Kurdish shit of a landlord for falling behind with the rent; his ugly little shit of a North  Korean girlfriend had unceremoniously dumped him after a couple of months for being a useless piece of shite; he had no family to speak of as he'd never managed to stay in a relationship for long enough to sire one because somehow he just couldn't get his shit together; he was now past fifty and balding and looked as appealing as a desiccated shit-turd; and he had lost all the shitty friends he ever had because everyone found him tedious and boring and not worth a shit!

The only way out of all this shit-mess was to lie down and die right there and then on that cold dank park bench with a pile of newly-deposited dog-shite a few feet away. What stopped him from doing this so far was the idea that it would probably be a long and painful shit of a process and, in any case, some cop would most likely move him on or slap him with a shit of a fine for vagrancy! And that was the last piece of shit he needed before bowing out of this shitty life. 


But the reality was that he couldn’t afford shit like lethal drugs, didn’t have a shitty gun, couldn't stomach the idea of stabbing himself and bleeding to death or dangling from a rope round his neck, his feet thrashing around, gradually having the shit-life squeezed out of him (while he shitted himself from loss of control of his bowels), and he had a paranoid shit of a fear of heights, so throwing himself off a cliff or some shit like that was too shit-scary to even think about, as he knew the descent itself might knock the shit out of him before he dropped like shit onto the ground and he would die several times over like the useless piece of shite he was!

Hungry and undecided, he hauled himself up from the bench and headed for the nearest McDonald’s restaurant to eat some shit and think more clearly on a full stomach, but as he started to cross the busy main road, dodging the traffic, some shit bastard of a driver mustn't have seen him and literally tore straight into Shane the Shit, knocking the shit out of him for good! Shane lay there unmoving, killed on the spot and as dead as shit, and for all anyone cared he might as well have been another oversized piece of freshly laid dog-shite. But at least Shane had had a result, be it more by accident than design, and was now done with his mega-shit of a life and on his way to Shit-Heaven.!

Amen to that…

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011!

So out goes the Year of our Lord 2010 and in comes 2011. And for me it's been the usual mixed bag, with nothing exceptional or outstanding, or put another way, it's been no great shakes. But, having said that, it hasn't been a bad year either. There have been some good moments and some not so good moments and very few downright bad moments. In some ways it has been less than I had hoped for and in other ways it has produced some unexpected welcome outcomes. I've had bust-ups and knock-backs but also some worthwhile new encounters. But no demises and no sad losses. I would have liked it to be better but it could have been much worse. In matters of the heart, it's been a bit disappointing but nothing that cannot be remedied with a little more effort on my part. There is still all to play for, as they say, and I have expectations of the coming year, hoping that what proved unattainable in 2010 will be more amenable in 2011. Only time will tell.

I have learnt some lessons from the past twelve months and I go into the new year on a changed course, a new tack. I only hope for a favourable wind to fill my sails and take me forward. I'm at an age where I have no illusions about what life has to offer in general and what it is likely to offer me in particular. And, like most people, I nurture hope in my breast and I have dreams in my head and, health and fate permitting, I look to fulfil them in the coming months and years, be it in full or in part, at least while I still have a pulse! In fact, though it may seem paradoxical, partial fulfilment is preferable to total achievement, as the former allows scope for more and serves as a spur to greater effort, as well as enabling us to dream on. And when all's said and done, that is the stuff of life... hopes and dreams. When we have neither the one nor the other, we may as well lie down and die!

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!

The Fork in the Road

Many years ago I read a poem by Robert Frost entitled "The Road Not Taken" which goes like this:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear,

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I marked the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.  

 

At the time I was fairly young and, though I liked the poem, it did not and could not have that deep significance it has taken on for me today, as it resonates over all the intervening years. In our life, we all take many decisions, choose between one path and another, one course of action as against another. Just after embarking upon our chosen path, it may still be possible to retrace our steps, regain the fork in the road and take the other path, but as we travel on the road we have opted to take, it becomes progressively harder to go back, until one day there is no going back, no second chance, no alternative course. For good or for bad, we must now continue along our chosen path.

This question of choosing our life's path puts me in mind of a movie I first saw a few years ago, called Cast Away and starring Tom Hanks as Chuck Noland. I won't go into the plot of the film, you have more than likely seen it yourself, but if not,  go to Cast Away and you'll see what it's about. Anyway, at the very end of the film, the protagonist arrives at a remote crossroads in open countryside where he alights from his car and looks around at the four roads that vanish into the distance. A woman passing by in a truck stops to inform him where each of these routes leads. After she drives away, he is left looking down each road, seemingly unable to decide which to take, since each represents an unknown future which may bring him happiness or misfortune. The camera focuses on his face and we sense the mental anguish that he must be going through as he struggles to come to a decision. And that's where we leave him.

The ending of the movie is very poignant and moving, as the theme music kicks in and we wonder what his choice will be. But it really doesn't matter, as none of us knows in which direction happiness lies. The point is that he is literally at the crossroad of his life and the choice he makes now may well decide the course of the rest of his life. In one way or another, this is a situation that faces all of us at different stages of our life. And just as Frost's traveller opts for one road, knowing in his heart of hearts that it is unlikely he will come that way again, so Chuck knows that the route he chooses to go down is likely to be final and decisive.