Details

I recently wrote about some sort of altercation that occurred with the front of the house as the epicenter. If you are reading this, then Off to the Races may have been taken down. I'm still pondering it's worth. Before I had written that I had decided that while there were certainly a number of fights, what I saw and what happened were completely different. I was unwittingly baked beyond all human comprehension at the time. Maybe the things I saw were the result of feeling the vibe in the air between certain people. Maybe here's a darkness in me so large it could swallow the Eastern seaboard. There's no way to be certain. I am certain that what I saw did not take place in the earthly realm, so let's just call it imagination.

The altercation that took place happened quickly and unexpectedly. None of the parties involved struck any sort of cord of recognition, however, shortly after it commenced it became clear it was a fight between good and evil. Maybe that should have clued me in that my mind was not functioning normally. But I have always been one to see and experience as much of life as possible. So I was outside, where it was dangerous, and that fact had to be true on every level.

There was a beautiful Asian woman squatting down amid a long row of blooming butterfly ginger. Every few seconds one of the gibbering underlings I identified as fighting for evil ran down the sidewalk, and past the butterfly ginger. The Asian woman sprang to her feet each time, and with a hand held crescent moon blade beheaded each and every one of them, which took three or four seconds. There was a pile of heads collecting neatly between the sidewalk and the street.

I walked down the sidewalk, but did not notice the heads or the woman until I was right on top of it all. She smiled at me right before she beheaded another. The man's head fell into a mud puddle. His mouth open and closed, vainly sucking for air for a second or two, before it rolled face down into the shallow water. The ginger flowers smelled delicious. 

There was blood on my shirt from from the violence. I have not washed the shirt yet. The blood is still there.

Witnessing that, whatever it was, dream, hallucination, message from God, message from a devil, sent me into sort of a trance. I can't fight at all, but when somebody stepped in front of me as I walked back to the driveway I caught him around the neck with my elbow and threw my body forward and squatted. I heard his head hit the pavement with a sickening thump. People were yelling at me, “He was trying to protect you!!”

I felt nauseous down to my toes and headed for my front door. Across the street a kid I know (somebody in his younger twenties), must have had a small knife. He broke down somebody's defenses and cut holes in the man's cheeks before blinding him in one eye. I've never seen a beheading before, but that sort of nasty street fighting is something I did witness numerous times when I was in college. Thankfully the mean streets of Baton Rouge are a thousand times safer these days than when I was young; young people don't deserve to see such things.

I'm never going to write about all the things I saw. For one thing, I knew most of it wasn't real, and I have no interest in relaying stupid games my subconscious might play. For another thing, even I got bored, and if it bored me I can't imagine what sort of negative reaction a reader might have. Lastly, I tried to tune a lot of it out, and so I missed a lot of details that would have made the following events into a coherent story. I tried to paint a vague outline, but the details all strike me as stupid, and so I deleted it. There is one thing I'd like to mention though.

My paternal grandfather died when I was six years old. He and my grandmother were raisin me at the time. He taught me how to speak, how to whistle like birds, how to make my bed, straighten up, get cleaned up and brush my teeth, from the age of two. He taught me how to read, and was teaching me to draw when he passed away. He was a brilliant artist, although he worked in the petrochemical industry here most of his life (work for which he received numerous awards for innovation). I think my ability to draw was stunted because of his abrupt absence; my abilities never progressed beyond what they were at the age of six.

There was a chair in our living room on Archery Drive that grandfather would sit in early in the morning. After I would wake up, make the bed, wash my face and brush my teeth, I would walk into the living room. I would walk straight to the chair to see him. I could not see him sitting in the chair as I approached from the bedrooms. He was a small man, and it was a large chair, but he would always be there when I woke up. And we would begin the experiences of another wonderful day on God's green earth, as such is every day when one is a child.

After grandfather passed away, for a long time I walked to the chair in the living room hoping he would be there again, but he never was. It was just an empty chair. Whenever I passed crowds of people I would look for him, but I never saw him again. I never forgot him. I never forgot his face or the way he walked.

On the night of October 4th I received a message from my father and grandfather. It was not a message in the conventional sense. I have no desire to relate the manner in which I received the message, nor the contents thereof. I will say that there was one overriding, imperative theme. Life is power. Life is power. Everything else I experienced that night stands out like a hollow tall tale told by jaded old men sitting around a campfire whiling away the time until sleep comes to clean the slate.

Life is power. I'll probably write an explanation as to why that phrase holds special meaning for me, but for now it is enough just to say it. There is no power in death. Life is the only show in town.