Caste Shadows

On a certain night every lunar cycle the shadow people rise. Under sunlight, moonlight, or artificial light they remain imprisoned in the cast shadows. Some call them the shadow caste. You may notice when out for a night walk or when out for a night drive that at times the shadows appear to rise up into three dimensions. These are the conditions in which the shadow people prosper. On certain nights they come out and dance the darkness.

Now this is a secret, but I will tell you all the same. They have been collecting the shadows made by humans. Darkness can be gathered just as sunlight can be held by phosphoerescent materials. These collected shadows are not bound by laws of sun or moon. With the shadows they are building mirror cities. Soon they will no longer be trapped within the caste. They will soon live free in their dark world. The shadows will rise below Chicago and Saint Louis, below Sacramento, below Anchorage. Right beneath your feet. They will be partying.

Complicated Dreams

It is funny how emotions and situations that are so complex and so intense can be so perfectly captured in a dream.

I am a male. I feel more comfortable around women than men. I am more attracted to women than men. I identify more closely with my female friends than I do with my male friends, even though I enjoy a good cyber battle now and again with guys.

Nudity. Sexuality. This is the area where things get tricky. In the dream I am in a corporate shower in a woman’s body with an intimate friend of mine and fellow female feminists. There is sexual tension between many people but also a sense of trust and camaraderie. I am enjoying myself and I feel comfortable and excited and something else bordering fear and arousal. In my heart I believe that I am a fraud. I don’t belong. If I am discovered for what I really am I will be despised, hated, loathed, humiliated. I am at once included in the ultimate feminist club as I have always wanted and at the same time distanced from it as always due to what at times like these can only be considered male handicap.

My friend does a very good job of including me. My awkwardness is taken as shyness at being new. Nobody suspects that it is the fear of a combatant being discovered in an enemy camp. What sort of punishment might await me if I am found out I can’t help but wonder.

Eventually the time comes. All is bound to be discovered. My friend and I are alone in the shower. She is sharing a plan with me of how things might work out. She is showing me a bizarre contraption which would allow me to remain in the shower but separate from everyone else. Separate but equal I suppose in retrospect. I see the word masturbation next to the picture of the fence like contraption. The thought of masturbating in a little box while the women shower fills me with depression. I feel rejection for the idea because it grinds against my sense of feminism and social comfort, but I also sense that such an experience could in fact be arousing. Masturbating in a room full of attractive feminists might be nice if it didn’t seem so wrong and so strange.

As I am trapped in my sad and sorry sensations the other women arrive. I am exposed and I have a penis once again. Things often make sense emotionally in dreams without having to make logical sense. The dream ends at around this time. These last few moments blend together scorched into my heart. The women both ignore me and see me. Perhaps they feel pity and disgust for me. I am not really sure. In any case, I no longer belong. I am no longer one of them. I’m not sure whether my friend decides to comfort me or leave me to join the others. I fade away.

Baulo

Baulo was a cursed being. He lived among humans, but could never fully become one himself.

Baulo awoke to the sound of a strangers voice.

Are you alright? How did you get here?

Baulo could not answer because he could not understand.

The stranger’s name was Earl Benton. He was at this moment Baulo’s only friend on earth.

It won’t do to leave you here now will it?

Baulo lived with Earl for three years. He learned the language and learned a trade. He was a carpenter now, a fine one at that.

One windy Sunday afternoon, Earl introduced Baulo to an old friend of his. Baulo and Liola made marvelous companions. Liola returned twice a week to teach Baulo how to play piano. A lesson ran late one night. The moon glowed full through the window leaving blue squares on the carpet and mantle. Before Baulo could protest, Liola touched her lips to his cheek. Baulo instantly turned to stone, just as he had been moments before Earl discovered him.

As always, Baulo would not reawaken for another three centuries. In the mean time, his sturdy figure would haunt many obscure museums before falling into dark boxes in forgotten storage rooms.

Gravity and the Ghost

When you die, your soul doesn’t rise up to heaven. Loosed from the bond to a body, your soul does not find itself free and weightless. When you die, you find you are no longer tethered to the world on the surface. You find that even as a spirit you are effected by gravity. Then, flailing frantically, desperately, you sink. You sink down through layers of rock and sediment. You sink down past deposits of limestone and quartz. You pass from the Earth’s crust down into lakes of magma that make up Earth’s mantle. You may think that these lakes of fire are the river that will take you to the gates of hell. This is not far off.

When you arrive, you will find that the Earth’s core is filled with spirits like your own. Likely, for the rest of eternity you will remain trapped in this congested space like too many dozens of people in an elevator. You will find that the only hope that remains within the overwhelmingly dense confines of this place is the hope of new creation. Within the concentration of souls there is a concentration of energies. If you manage to form a determined collaborative effort, you will find that it is possible to change the perceived nature of your environment.

On very rare occasions, hundreds of souls may band together in such a way. When they do so, they transform the center of the Earth into the hottest place in the solar system. They transform it into a club of transcendental proportion. In this club you will have the opportunity to mingle with famous figures and the dearly departed. You have the opportunity to bond between others in ways far more intimate but far less gratifying than you could before. But most importantly, you will have the opportunity to dance. You yourself can become one with the rhythm of the cosmos. You can augment the universe with your own energies. You can unwind yourself into the heartbeat of the planet.

If you put your ears to the ground and listen very carefully, you may be able to hear the beat already, thumping and bumping deep underground.