I built a being unlike any other.

Instead of carbon and iron and the like, however, I used charcoal, potassium nitrate, and sulfur. The analogous anatomy is not that far off from the parts of the human being that allow it to think thoughts, make decisions, and alter its destiny. After all, it's a continuum of electric potential, sequenced in ways that form consortia that produce thought.

And love.

And hate, ambition, and self-preservation.

My creature is one of incendiary potential.

The beautiful thing about the human being is that its ingredients take nearly a hundred years to burn out…or less. True, some humans die explosively when crossing paths with irresistible forcies, e.g., trucks or bullets; but barring such calamitous interactions, the parts all fire together, albeit skewed, in an orderly arrangement of neurons and nerves in concert with the biochemicals that are associated with these machinations.

How many actual thoughts does a person muster before the end? Axon to neurotransmitter to dendrites to neuron to nerve is a linear tract firing off to propagate onward to one’s intentions or great ideas. And that’s not even considering the circuitous hovering of ideas in and out of the sensorium. Or the imagination, where typically unsynchronized embellishments of thoughts ascend wildly into the mindscape without even a destination in mind before they settle into a bemused awareness.

Who can say in the busy brain where any fuses are lit?

In my creation, however, I light the fuse.

I have assembled a novel tangle of intersecting, flammable paths that will accomplish what the complexity of the human mind does effortlessly. But whereas the human being is hard-wired with checks and balances, it also has a complexity I could never mimic.

My gunpowder man is designed much more simply. He’s going to burn out much sooner than a hundred years.

Once its process—its purpose—is initiated, by my hand, there can only be one thought that ends up reaching the powderkeg. Thus, my gunpowder man has only a wherewithal of potential for just one idea to make his life worth the trouble. To give it meaning, even if briefly.

I wonder what his one thought will be. Love? Hate? Ambition? Or self-preservation?

The only path toward self-preservation is to dampen the fuse and kill the lighted thought before it reaches its destination. But that’s as likely as a human being un-pulling a trigger that engenders the irresistible force of the aimed bullet therefrom.

Good luck with that.

Taking existential inventory, on one hand there’s the complicated human being with hopes and dreams and the striving toward actualization and fulfillment…and then on the other, there’s my gunpowder man.

His life will be simple and quick. But he will be able to enjoy one thought.

But his one thought—be it even brilliant in its isolation or just stupid foolishness—is as meaningful as the lifetime of thoughts concocted in the human brain.

Because each of their lives must end. And with that, for each, there ends up nothing but ashes.

Fucking birds! Fucking Canada Geese! Every time I go to the library, which is quite often, some goose shits on my car. This only happens at the library. Why? I park at the post office one half mile away with no issues. I don't know if you have ever seen seen a goose poop but it is huge! Then I have to spend $12 at the car wash to clean it off. Go home! You are supposed to be in Canada. And you people - stop feeding them and they will go away.

*thank you mishmash for sparking my brain.

Mother is not a title, but an action. Caring, supporting, loving, this makes a mother. A mother does not have to be blood, just as a blood mother does not automatically earn and keep that title forevermore. When a person becomes so outrightly toxic to their own children, when their behavior is more childlike than their own children, when their actions would not be tolerated by a complete stranger, that person has lost the title, the rights to use that title, the ability to weaponize that title. They are deposed by their own actions and their children bear no guilt.

The old front porch wooden door— swings opens- revealing a kind of dark, & tall shadowy ghostly figure. Martha steps back, and gasps. “Greg is that really you?” But Greg does not respond…Martha now simply stays in one fixed point, as her body trembles from the sight of a trail of Greg’s blood that is oozing out of his ears, nose, mouth, including his eyes.

Martha finally out of nowhere hears something in the back of her head telling her to run~as fast as her Olympic gold medal marathon legs can go in a matter of decaseconds.

#CORVUS.

Mardi, 20.05.2025

They all think I'm pretty crazy, safely tucked away up here in my attic. But I still can hear the rumblings and stumblings of those out and about below me. Fools! They’ll never find me, and that’s just fine. I’m done with all of 'em. I’m done with the world. Maybe one day someone from down there will wonder what’s up here. They might one day lower the disappearing stairway and climb the wobbly steps into my domain. And that’s when they’ll find me. Alone and happy. And covered by a layer of dust. In storage. And out of style.

I’d be pretty durned crazy if I talked to my dog, wouldn’t I? I mean, talked to him like he was a person?

Pretty… durned… crazy!

But it would be crazier still if I thought he could understand, if I believed he was actually responding to my idiocy. Wouldn’t it?

Like this morning, when I whispered, “That woman on the bench there sure is hot. I wish we could meet someone like her!”

And Jolly immediately trotted over, sat at her feet, and shot her dead with the sad eyes.

That’d be pretty crazy, huh?

Yes, Sir-ee.

Pret-ty… durned… crazy!

Brittle nails dragged through coarse soil. Tousled hair like that of a tumbleweed intertwined dirt, debris and rusty blood. Sweat beaded and dropped off, bringing a glow back to the pale, gouged face of her old lover. Brittle nails stroked that cold, firm skin one last time before filling the gap of his lips with more mud. He was always pretty while still. The sun, unforgiving in its glare, heated up the live lover, although that could’ve been the satisfaction of the dead one finally disappearing under the sludge of country fields. The city roads couldn’t provide hunting like this.

Her hair is the color of autumn leaves

the dead ones that crunch

the ones that float in the air

her lips always pursed

but no value should slip from them

only illegible language

sparkly incantations

she will bring you light like the moon

she can only survive in the dark

her hair is the color of autumn leaves

same resemblance of the trees bark

but she can't bite you no not yet

her crazy is still lodged in her throat

her pretty hides it well just beneath

the smile she duplicated

she is crazy and dead and pretty too.

I must be crazy to take you back, but this’ll be the last time. The absolute last time. Not like the other times. It’ll be different this time. I mean it. You say you’ve changed and can’t live without me. Ok, I’ll let you back in my life. But from now on, I don’t want any more of your hollow apologies. I’m serious when I say I’m done being trivialized and made to feel stupid.

Although your unfulfilled promises are stockpiled in my mind, I will give you one, and only one, more chance to not break my heart again.

Ball misses. Hard.

Thunk. Spins in a lazy death circle.

"Shit!"

Wipes his mouth with the back of his hand like he's proud of the mess.

"You get it though, babe? Like that — that cat. That fuckin' science cat," waving his stick like a preacher, "dead and not dead. Same time. Like, this shot coulda gone, coulda not. Until you look. Quantum, baby."

She laughs into her drink. Ash dangles off her cigarette.

"You’re an idiot,"

loud behind them.

Turn.

Guy standing there.

Hair a mess. Shirt stained. Swaying like a building about to fall.

"You don’t even fuckin' know what that means."

Pool guy grins. Wide. Fake tough. "It’s possibilities, man. It’s... it’s like, everything, until you check."

Drunk guy stumbles closer.

Finger out. Poking the air.

"Schrödinger’s Cat was a fuck you, not a drippy flex. He wasn’t saying the cat is dead and alive — he was saying the theory’s broken.

That maybe math doesn’t own reality. That maybe you should shut the fuck up unless you know what the fuck you're quoting."

Girl backing up. Still half-smiling. This could still be funny.

“It’s a cat,” the pool guy says, shrugging. “Alive and dead. Long as the box stays shut, anything’s possible.”

“Yeah,” the drunk says, voice cracking like glass. “Anything’s possible. With your girl—maybe she’s still behind you, maybe she’s on her knees in the bathroom. Depends if you check.”

Silence.

Air pulls tight.

Pool guy steps closer. Stick drops to the floor, clattering.

"You wanna say that again?"

Drunk doesn’t even blink.

"Maybe she's dead and alive too. Schrödinger’s bitch."

That’s it.

Fist flies.

Catches drunk hard across the jaw.

Wet crack.

Body folds. Hits the floor, arms tangled under.

Laughter spills from him, leaking blood out the corner of his mouth.

Grinning up at the cracked ceiling tiles.

"Still right," he says.

"Still fuckin' right."

Nobody moves.

Nobody cares.

Next rack.

Next drink.

Next mistake.