Skydekkerix

Kiddo you know I aint had writing time this week. I got three jobs and two years on my kid and by god he’s climbing now. Two thirds of my babysitters are in various foreign places and damn if I’m not surprised my wife and I haven’t had more than one argument in this time. I just wanna sleep and play warhammer forty thousand and watch the lord of the rings but baby I gotta write cos it’s my damn purpose. So I fished through my bloated Previous Stories file and rustled up the first dang story I done ever got published and whaddya know I’m pretty happy with the ting. Even had the indents and errything. I don’t know if it’s illegal for me to put on my here website but its been over a decade and it was published in a Canberra uni journal and I know damn well they didn’t know I didn’t go to that uni so what I’m really trying to say is sorry for the clip show.

Ain’t judge me too harsh I was a teenager when I wrote this:

Pillars of Creation

“Nebulae,” said Ms Gordon, enunciating like she was performing a Shakespearean monologue, “Are areas of gas and plasma suspended in space. They are often formed by exploding stars, called sup-er-no-va’s. Scientists theorize that it is in these gigantic objects, thousands of light years away, that new stars are slowly created.”

Ms Gordon knew she was only really talking to one student here. In a small country school of only sixty-two children, there were six year five students. Two were girls, and only one was pretending to pay attention out of a sickeningly sweet politeness. The other three boys were either drawing fan fiction about their favourite violent video games and movies or throwing paper and lint at Billy.

Billy sat at least a desk or two away from everyone else in his grade, a measure Ms Gordon had to enforce for the poor kid’s own good. She had to keep him from sitting next to one of the boys to save him from constant arm burns and dead legs, and if she sat him next to one of the girls her hand would rise up and she would wittingly remark: “Miss, Billy smells.” The class would laugh and Billy would turn a deep shade of red and then refuse to speak for the rest of the day.

Billy was not a good student, much to the dismay of his teacher. “If you couldn’t make him popular couldn’t you have least given him brains?” she often asked the God that she saved for rhetorical questions. Billy listened, often intently, but when it came to exercises she would pick up his book and there would be no words on his page, just a guilty look on his face.

Billy was now staring at the projected slides with his usual look of intent fascination. The slide was a picture from the Hubble telescope of the Eagle Nebula. It was labelled “The Pillars of Creation”. They were immense plumes of dust and smoke encapsulated in a corona of blue light. They seemed to be stationary and brooding, like monoliths in the desert, but with the promise of violence and infused with a kind of dark energy, a storm rolling in from over the ocean.

Billy’s mind was reeling at the sight of them. His eyes flicked around the image, trying to drink it all in. These pillars were light-years across, and thousands of light-years away, and were made of particles that would be invisible to the naked eye and so sparsely placed that you could walk for a lifetime between them and not reach anything at all. It would be impossible to view from close up. “This is what Gods hang on the walls of their living rooms.” Billy found himself thinking. A silly thought, but not far from the truth.

The image started to make Billy uncomfortable. There was intense energy and movement in the image, even though it appeared to be stationary. He started to sweat and his forehead started to itch. The voices of his teacher and fellow students seemed to slow down and grow louder until they became a rushing sound, like the time he went to a theme park and stood near a roller-coaster as it went past. The Pillars of Creation started to roll and retract and the corona of light grew until it became a clear blue sky.

Jagged and triangular shards of white-hot metal flew inwards towards the imploding pillars. Billy felt a tugging sensation in his head, and a piece of shrapnel the size of his palm wrenched itself out of his skull. The piece joined with the rest and slowly pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle to form the shape of an old and rusted car. The Pillars of Creation, which were now plumes of black smoke and dust, slowly retracted inwards. The air rippled as a shockwave was sucked back towards the vehicle and the spread-out limbs and innards of a human being lying nearby picked themselves up and gathered together to make a young boy wearing a huge singlet and a pair of blue soccer shorts.

The boy dropped the soccer ball he was carrying and ran awkwardly backwards towards the dustbowl which was the soccer field he was playing on. The ball flew back after him. Billy didn’t know which game the group of kids were playing. He thought it might be an Iraqi invention. Billy watched from his position on the bonnet of the armoured jeep he was patrolling in. The game had similarities to soccer, but instead of kicking goals, the children seemed to be retrieving the ball from inside the goalposts, then dribbling it backwards to the centre of the field. Then they would slowly carry it back to the goal posts and place it down again.

Billy sucked the cool water off of his head with his water bottle and then placed his helmet back on to protect his skull from incoming shrapnel and bullets. He got back into the cab of his jeep and put it into reverse. The situation here seemed to be safe now that the dangerous explosion had been safely contained in a white plastic substance, and he was sure someone would be along soon to pick it up and dismantle it or pay for someone to bring it back to China or Russia or maybe the USA.

He reversed the jeep back to base; by now he knew the way off by heart. All the while the jeep sucked carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide out of the air and stored it in a liquid from inside of a petrol tank. Back at base this liquid would be sent back to be placed deep under the earth for safekeeping, where it would eventually grow to be prehistoric plants and animals.

Eventually the soldiers would be pulled out of Iraq in one big go, and the government of Saddam Hussein would be restored to power. Then soldiers would be pulled out of Afghanistan, and stealth aeroplanes would fly over to pick up all of the explosions that had been encased in cigar shaped capsules and fly them home for dismantling. Billy knew all of this; he seemed to know what was going to happen. In a way it seemed it had always happened. Billy thought about how none of this would make much sense in reverse.

What if, instead of picking up guns and using them to bring people to life by sucking bullets out of their bodies, they did the opposite? Why would anyone want to make something that put bullets in someone else, instead pulling bullets out to be dismantled to their base elements and put back into the Earth?

Time seemed to speed up for Billy now. His mind detached itself from his body and he watched events fold out like a movie. People dismantled houses used by the previous generations before they crawled back inside their mothers. They packed up all the cars and computers and power plants and put them back into the Earth. Playtime was over and it was time to pack up and move on. People stopped living in houses all together, they were unrestrained now with no walls and no secrets. They were finally able to shed the choking clothes from their skin and so grew a healthy coat of hair over their bodies.

The now free people climbed back into the trees to live a simple life free of war and poverty and hate and stock market crashes. Slowly, and then more quickly, each generation crawled back into their mothers and species came together to become one. Animals walked backwards into the ocean, unafraid of what they would find there.  The world became more peaceful as animals un-ate each other.

Billy saw the world now, spinning backwards at an incredible rate. The surface of it became ocean, and then volcanic rock. Chunks of the planet started to spin off into space. Earth slowly formed into a beautiful disk of gas and dust, which spread outwards to reach the disks of other planets which were doing the same. Each infinitesimal particle spread out from the others, until they were millions of kilometres apart. Billy could see it all now, the apex of time from which all lives spread out like fingers or roots. The Pillars of Creation. In front of him was the most beautiful nebula he had ever seen. It was filled with so much promise and energy, as if any emotion that had ever been felt had been used to create this piece of art. Everything became beautiful, and pain and death and love and life all became colours in the palette of the Gods.

 

My mother said that father was never the same after he came back from the war. The doctors said that he would probably become a vegetable for life as the piece of shrapnel that lodged in his skull had severely damaged his brain. He didn’t though, at least not physically. He came back emotionally dead. He also took up astronomy as a hobby.

My mother approached him in the kitchen one day and said, “You never smile anymore.” To which my father replied, “Yes I do, see?” and raised the corners of his mouth. He smiled often after that day, a dreamy smile that held no warmth, only depth. He bought a huge telescope and set it up in his room, fully obscuring the window and blocking all sunlight that usually flooded into it of a morning. I used to sneak into that huge room on winter mornings because of the warmth from the sun, but now that was no longer there, only depth.

From that day forward my mother slept in a different room. My father started staying up all night and sleeping through days. As a child I didn’t understand what was going on, I didn’t think it out of the ordinary. Eventually my mother and I moved out of the house, and after that out of the state. I moved out of home when I was fifteen, leaving my mother by herself. Our family spread apart until it was impossible to see the bonds between us. I rarely spoke to my mother and only ever once again to my father. I turned up at his house with his old military duffel bag stuffed with dirty clothes. I had been kicked out of the house I had been squatting in and his place was nearby.

I knocked on the door just once before he opened it. He was nothing like I remembered, though this wasn’t surprising as we left him in his twenties and now he was breaking fifty. He recognised me straight away, shook my hand and brought me inside. We talked for a long time, mainly about me. He asked how I was and what I was doing these days; I lied and said I was okay and just stopping by because I was in the neighbourhood.

When we were both sufficiently plastered on cheap beer I asked him what he looked for in his telescope. He lifted the corners of his mouth and eyes in the first real smile I had ever seen him try on. He told me about the war and the bomb. He told me he had seen God. He told me about Nebulae and God’s art on his living room wall. His eyes glazed over as he spoke and his grin widened. He was releasing it all, years of bottled-up thoughts and emotions. He told me how everything makes sense in reverse and that someday I would understand. We were both quiet for a long time after that. I was because I was deep in thought and my father because he had silently passed out on the couch. I left early in the morning without saying goodbye.

Internet baby you know sometimes I get mad. I am, at my heart, a real angry person. There be a lot to get angry about on this here planet, and I ain’t gonna pretend more than a few people don’t make me see blood.

I ain’t ever struck a person in anger, and I don’t ever plan on it. When I get angry I do the tough guy thing and write myself a lil’ poem with some swear words in like a real man. I got real angry when I wrote this poem, and now I am balling up my little hairy fists and posting it on the world wide web and you can take it or leave it but here it is:

 

Fite Me

 

Fuck you and kill me

 

Coward

 

I’m laid low and loathsome

 

Anger is a writhing wet worm in me

 

My stomach is detergent and shit and rot

 

Face me and cut me

 

Let me rub my bleeding wound

 

Above your door

 

I want you to tear chunks

 

From my rib cage

 

I want you to shatter my teeth

 

And bust my skull

 

I want to stand still while

 

You pulp me

 

And grind my flesh

 

Into the bitumen

 

With your dog cunt knuckles

 

I’m standing

 

Right here

Son, you know the good lord tasked me to pass down the extent of my wisdom to you. Much as I hate it, you’re a kid with destiny and a path like any other, and you’re going to spend your youth dreaming of saving or conquering this world depending on how good a job I do raising you. You’ll be smarter than me (fucking hopefully), and that intelligence is a dangerous weapon to use without a compass. You’ll hurt and be hurt. Despair will battle with your hope in endless combat. The world will keep crumbling, and you’ll have to do your part. You’ll have to choose between yourself and the world, even though they are both important. You’ll see the infinite in the minute, and the mundanity in the enormity of creation, and I will be here adding my lessons as a stepladder to your rising.

So here is a big one, for a crucial time in your life when your destiny can be set. For when the protean parts of your personality are being shaped towards the hero or villain you will become.

Never wake and bake.

It has never felt good and will never end well.

No good day in the history of this planet has begun with punching a dirty ice break bottle at 9:30am (If you get out of bed that early).

Most likely it will lead to a panic attack, followed by a crippling existential crisis, followed by a mid-afternoon nap, followed by videogames and then a whole precious day of your life wasted with you lacking the enthusiasm to grab a bic of the coffee table that is literally two feet in front of you.

I know you are probably going to experiment with drugs at some point in your maturing, and I hope to hell you save it at the devil’s lettuce and don’t go harder. I also know I might have listened to my folks about it if they’d admitted to me that they’d done their fair time in their twenties, so I’m not going to pretend I haven’t been there.

But, for the love of yourself, and the love I have for you, save it for lazy Sunday afternoons, or, as was my favorite before I took on responsibilities, 3am when you are desperate for a good cry and a sign from God.

Saying this, I know you’ll make your own mistakes, and quite likely some dire ones that I could never prepare you for. And the young that don’t heed their parents’ wisdom are just playing par for the course. I’ll be there to pick you up, drive you home and make you do chores in the morning every time. That is my task and I wouldn’t trade it for any other.

The possibility of a fresh morning is one of the most precious things this life can offer, you do not want to spend it freaking out for an hour about talking to the pizza delivery driver only to discover pizza places definitely do not take orders at 10:30 in the morning.

Stay safe,

Love Dad.

I ain’t write a lot of love poems, for the same reason I don’t dance or sing much. Indefinable angst. I do write a lot of poetry, of drastically varying quality for drastically varying reasons (drunk, angry, hungry, horny, sad, angry again). Truth is my brain works in poetry, which sounds like a big wank but I am very embarrassed about it and actually it’d be best if you forget that I wrote that down, edited it and went through complicated steps to post that on my website where there is lots of my poetry.

Anyway here is a heartfelt poem that made my wife cry at work:

I’ll be your towel

I’ll be your fortress

Your safety and relief

 

I’ll be the warmth

That fills your aching bones

When you sit down to relax

 

I’ll be your wise grandfather

And you will be

The twinkle in my eye

 

I’ll be your gossiping girlfriend

The worthy opponent

That makes your trial complete

 

I’ll be your dirty rag

For your worst tasks

For the daily mess

 

I’ll be the thin, worn blanket

That gets you to sleep

In the crisp before winter

 

I’ll be the biggest knife in the drawer

That you’d pick

If it ever came to it

 

I’ll be the wad of toilet paper

That you blow snot into

When you cry

 

And most of all

After the storm and the flood

 

I’ll be your towel

To dry you off

When the rain is gone

Devil we been at this a long time

You and I

And aren’t you getting tired?

Aren’t you sick of me

Getting pulled out of the fire

At the last minute

Every

Damn

Time

 

The book describes you as a hungry lion

But I know

A lion is a coward

Who sits on the edge of the firelight

And preys on

The small and the weak

And there ain’t any of that

Here

 

You don’t know me

Half as well as you think you do

But I know enough

About you

To know you are trapped waist deep in ice

Cold and hungry

With nothing to eat but yourself

And all you know to do

Is to try and hurt your way out

 

But happiness can only be made

You can’t take it from someone else

 

And even though it would be so easy

For you to turn around

 

For you

To make some good

 

I know

 

I’m not going to give you an inch

Cos inches start adding up to miles

I can’t leave anything for you here

No path or place

No way for your words

No room to swing your weapons

 

And maybe

One fine day

You will get tired of slinging sick

Onto a brick wall

And leave me alone

We can always hope

Looky looky here it me trying to be regular as my after work poo and post a little sumthin sumthin on this here website for the second week in a row. Ima tryin to prioritise the gettin words done stuff more, I got lot’s of books to write and time ain’t move backwards. If my brain melts out my ears I’m blaming your hungry and thirsty arses for it. Anyway without further french here it be:

Bungee Cord

Of course flying looked easier in movies, but it also looked worse. Especially coming just out of eighties special effects. And though I was barely five, I relished the challenge. Training with blue monsters in an abandoned quarry I’d never seen outside of my dreams. They taught me the skill over several nights, and I never mentioned it to my folks. How do you talk about that? To a failing marriage with overworked parents and probably one or two too many kids. I can’t remember specifically why I didn’t mention it, but part of me knew there were some things just for me, and like a lot of what I’ve seen or done in my 34 years, this was one.

Back to the quarry. Rust red Queensland dust. Rolling smooth walls, like deep sea waves in water not shallow enough to break. A sky as blue as a neon sign, fluffy white clouds in perfect cartoon clarity. And even back then I felt the clean air and smelled the fresh smell of dust. My dreams were always hyper-real. A thousand other lives I’ve lived, shared with no-one, my own to keep and shape myself with. Precious and vital. I wouldn’t have survived without them.

The monsters, random, refracted images of toys and cartoons and animals, taught me with joy. They welcomed me like toddlers bringing adults into their game. Gleeful and earnest. We ran at full pelt across the compacted earth of the quarry, the monsters whooping beside me as they leapt, showing me what to do. As they reached the arcs of their leaps, they’d be drawn up into the air, as if attached to an invisible bungee cord. Swinging skyward in erratic movements.

I jumped with them, and something in my core showed me what to do, a feeling like longing. I used all of my willpower and burgeoning imagination and pulled upwards, like grabbing a rope attached to the deep of my gut and wrenching it upwards. I flew and tumbled and ran again without stopping. The creatures pulled at my arms and shouted and I was in the air again. So high I was sure I would die if I dropped, the red earth now far below and I in the neon blue. The wind filled my ears like cotton wool and I felt blissfully alone. Like I was the whole world.

I never saw the monsters again after those dreams, but something strange and special had happened. In all my dreams from then on, I could fly. I knew the physicality of it, and it came easy. It was so real in my dreams it felt like it could bleed into real life. Like any moment I could wrench that rope up and take to the air. Like all the things that life tried to beat out of me were more real than the mask of the mundane.

And I’m not completely sure why I’m telling you this, now, to everyone. Maybe I’m just again baring my throat to the universe and saying, “try and take mine from me”, because you can’t. Because I can fly.

Oh chickens you done thought I’d forgotten you and whaddya know
I done did. I got three jobs and a toddler besides the bold and beautiful biznit so boy oh boy oh boy I am weary, but here a little post for my babies to remind you daddy still got some sugar. Here it be:

Decor

“Now, how hardy are these to heat?”

Mortaris gestured to the everbleed roses arrayed in front of him. His coal-black, gauntlets scratching the bestial helm fused to his decayed spirit. The Chamberlain looked up from his scroll, seemingly distracted. “I… I’m not sure my lord. I’m sure they’ll be fine. Very ominous. Now could we…”

“Because I want to surround them by fire you see? To keep with the blood and fire motif. I’ve explained that haven’t I? Because that witch turned my blood to fire and destroyed my body, leaving me a vengeful wraith.”

“Yes lord, you have made the motif clear. It’s a lovely idea for the throne room, but if I can just catch you up on the movements of the army of Gilead. You see they’re getting…”

“I don’t think roses are good with heat. Which would be a shame, as I quite like the symbolism. Maybe some kind of succulent? That still fits with the metaphor.”

“Lord their army has teamed up with the hero Renfar, he’s said to be the second coming of…”

“Or eucalypts, they thrive in fire. Hmm… I like that a lot.”

“Lord if I must, time is short…”

“Yes you are completely right. A snap decision is the right path, oft that leads to an unexpected and greater result. Yes, we will go with the roses I think. If they die, it will increase the sense of melancholy.”

The Chamberlain sighed, glancing out the ornate arched windows at the gathering horde. “Well if that’s sorted my Lord, I have some urgent business to attend to in… the stables. Yes. I’ll just nip off and grab my riding boots.”

“Of course Chamberlain, go see to the details, as you always do. I’ll get to work here.”

The Chamberlain was already several steps to the massive demonic maw that engulfed the doorway to the throne room, his scroll discarded on the floor.

“And Chamberlain?” The Chamberlain jerked to a stop mid-stride, the sound of trebuchets being constructed audible after the squeal of his boots on ruby flagstone.

“Yes lord?”

“Fetch my gardening gloves while you’re there will you?”

Chickens you know I been dealing with suicidal thoughts since I been a wee lad, and I been dodgin those uppercuts so hard my neck hurts. I gotta lot of tricks now, from mantras and prayers to full blown crazy person magic spells. You aint keep yourself alive from it for over twenty years without Learning, but recently I done found a good trick that keeps working.

When that thought stabs me and makes me say “I want to die” I counter it on its own stupid terms. I say “I don’t wanna die, I wanna have sex and play warhammer”. And though those aren’t the best and first things in my life, it works as a little circuit breaker. These thoughts are stupid, because you don’t wanna die. You want to have fun and stop hurting, and one usually leads to the other.

Life is full of little good shit I wanna do. And though it’s also full of big good shit, sometimes its hard to see cos it’s so large. Sometimes you just need breadcrumbs to lead you home.

Here some microfiction about that. Sorry I ain’t post last week man have I got Excuses.

Givin’ Up

Another man approached as he stood by the railing of the Story Bridge, hands resting flat, doing the maths on the distance to the asphalt and contemplating if he should dive headfirst for a sure exit, or if it mattered. Not holding back tears because he already felt dead. Despair replacing the water in his cells, fingernails and hair already grown out like a corpse.

He’d practiced for this, the speech he’d give. That there was nothing that man could say, because all the bonds he’d ever had to this earth had been broken, all the strings holding him down had long been untied. Faith and trust and promise were all just vibrations in the air, empty because there was nothing to fill. He’d searched long and far for home and love, but they’d never been there in the first place. Just little drips, sporadic like Chinese water torture.

He was sure now. God was dead in heaven and man was on his own. With no hell to avoid and no paradise to strive for, what was holding him back? What kept him from returning to the primordial soup of cells and atoms and elements?

He’d ask what the point was, but he was already sure. There had never been any. Just another empty word in a haze of gas. It had never mattered, and this grief is what he should have been feeling all along.

The man tapped his shoulder, and he spun, ready to unload his grief and rage. To bring the universe down with him. “Hey mate,” the man said, brow furrowing in an instant. “You know you’re standing on 50 bucks?”

He looked down, under his worn boot, one that had been laced to his aching foot for too many miles, yellow plastic peeked out next to the cigarette butts and blackened gum. A grin pulled his cheek like a fishhook pulled by a newborn.

“Ah, thanks mate. Yeah, that’s mine.”

He stooped and slid it into his pocket, looked up, then walked to the nearest pub. He’d wait there until this little gift from the universe ran out. If it ever did.

I done promised ya’ll I’d keep posting my stupid little stories so you can make fun of me again and I am a man of some of my words. I used to be a real tortured writer, and have to squeeze the words outta me like a dehydrated, no-poop-for-two-days roast dinner dump, but now I am a lot more things (day job, 18 month old, regular household chore doer) I find writing is like the best thing I can do. I can’t pretend this job is miserable no more, so in the interest of not appearing a wanker here another one that I had a lotta fun writing:

Baleful Polymorph

A new leaf, that’s what Frendrick decided in that moment of peace and wind and loud silence. The experiment had worked to some degree, and he was sure the university would be very interested in his findings, but suddenly none of that seemed important. If suddenly was the right word for how he felt, now maybe a better term, for now seemed so much more important than before, when after had consumed him. He scratched his arse with a giant hairy paw.

The bustling university district stretched out from his perch on the balcony of his penthouse suite in the transmuters’ tower. Magic potions and crystals were strewn across the floor, and the laboratory behind him was scorched purple. His new muzzle was aflame in the smell of his experiment, and with the soup of city fumes. Getting away seemed the only choice, somewhere with fresh air.

Hunger pulled at his stomach like a toddler trying to grab something forbidden from a parent’s hand. He considered going to the market, but the logistics overwhelmed him. Besides the fact that the strap of his purse wouldn’t fit over his beefy ursine shoulders, counting coins without opposable thumbs would be next to impossible, and furthermore he was quite sure he’d forgotten how to count.

No, a brisk exit from the city would have to do. Find a beehive, some berries and game and sate himself, then a long nap. His nose would lead the way. Science and wizardry be damned. It seemed so childish now, when dwarfed by the desire for feast and rest. He would go, but first there was the holy experience of sun and breeze to revel in. To ponder the universe and its bounty. The roar of silence and the ache of the biggest question there’d ever been.

What was he going to have for breakfast?

Aw baby(s) I know I been all quiet on the western front lately and you know I’m sorry but life been throwin me around like a gorilla that fukn hates a little monkey. I done been writing but this world be hungry in lots of places for it, so to show you I care ima start postin my little bits again here and there (the microfiction exercises I do with my wife while we do cheap korean face masks together). Take me back internet, maybe with a bit of lovin we can both die happy in bed together.

Here’s one:

Myxer

The Myxer sailed somewhere off the Whitsundays, the reek of booze wafting in the brisk sea breeze. Nano drones swarmed the air like mites, gathering footage. The cloud intelligence sorting through thousands of camera angles and years of footage to create the cheapest and most powerful emotional impact. Streaming it constantly in a fever dream to the world’s train rides and work shits, all the while the public manipulating the constant bender.

The Beverage Dissemination Officer was one of the few human crew of the ship, a savant constantly interpreting the Myxer app, getting beverage suggestions and targets from the internet audience and working in a blur of activity, making wild drinks and sending them out on cheap Japanese waiter robots.

Everyone was more than shitfaced, the constant running deep-and-meaningfuls a roar combined with shattering glass and sneaky overboard vomits.

Whether the Beverage Dissemination Officer liked his job or not was impossible to tell, maybe he didn’t have time for want or opinion. His concentrated frown was set in concrete, and he lived from microsecond to microsecond, buzzing like the nano drones, the biggest cog in the stopwatch.

And then, like the voice of God, an announcement played over the speakers of the super yacht.

“Sorry guys, we haven’t been picked up for a season 34. We’ll be heading for Singapore, economy tickets home will arrive in your inboxes.”

No one noticed, they continued to slam down random beverages and vomit and cry and fuck themselves into oblivion. And the Beverage Dissemination Officer barely broke stride, the app had shut down and now he was unchained. He made for the sake of making, because the universe had lost all time and contents. Drinks combined like chemical reactions in primordial ooze. New ones and old ones, created in instants by the divine, a constant flux of creation and consumption, with not a moment of space for anything but the frenzied now.