Sometime Before 11/3/11

This time I knew exactly what I was doing, but the concept was so completely new to me, it was as though I had invented it, like a composer dreaming up a composition, a scientist a solution or a writer an idea. I thought this was inspiration, but I knew right away it was inspiration destined for another man. Quite possibly even the dreams or a reality of another man. // I was deep under water, the bombs were large but manageable manually, their strength was to be in their number; sparsely surrounding the fairly distant coastline would be ample. They were chained and bolted to mounts fixed into the sand of the seabed, allowing them enough length to move with the current and float above their mountings, the waters were not savage and clarity was good, the sand was gold in colour and lay in gradients like dunes. I had no idea of what the effect of what I might be doing would have, and no idea why I would be doing it, not whilst in the midst, nor in the immediate hindsight upon waking, what I did know, was that they were destined to blow.

Sometime Before 9/11

Warm air rushed past my ears like a hurricane and picked up the dust spilled heavily from above. I’d been running up a series of escalators for what had seemed a long while, and then the fire fighters came, running down past me as quickly as I ran up the opposite way. They seemed like ghosts as they bounded by in silence, unaware of me, and for a little while, everything went slow. I could make out the bright hats and purposeful clothing, but they were faceless men. I could not fathom why I was going up the escalators whilst they and others, all seemed to be headed down, I was very much going against the grain. Never the less, this was a dream in which I exercised no control and minimum self awareness, I was someone else at that point. It wasn’t until I eventually launched off the top of an escalator and found myself in a large glass foyer that it became apparent I had in fact been a long way down, underground; it must have been several floors. I had been headed for the exit which now presented itself before me, then slowing to a walk, I proceeded in serene calm. A pang hit as I exited and saw law enforcement officers on my right, but then lifted, as I saw an old childhood friend stood waving over the roof of a an automobile from the driver’s side’s open door. I smiled and broke to a jog towards the automobile, unless I was shot from behind, which seemed unlikely now, something had been accomplished, there was a sense of elation. I have never felt a sense of achievement in a dream, before or since, to this day I can only guess at what had been achieved. // I only ever told my then girlfriend of what I had dreamt. When we were dismissed from a lecture theatre to telephone home and find the nearest television that fateful day, I hadn’t made a link. It wasn’t until I saw the much later footage of the fire fighters from within one of the buildings that I went green, I had seen it before.

Sometime Before February 2001

I was not alone, there may have been one or possibly two working with me. Distinctly vivid however, was the feeling of intense pressure; it was an anxiety ridden dream. // I found myself in a laboratory, it may have been the second or third floor up - I recall options of escape playing through my sleeping mind, the external windows along the back wall being one such option, and the height being an issue. A heavy sealed door with a thick circular window was for those few fleeting moments my only sanctuary from which to work behind. As if peering through the eyes of another, fully briefed more competent man, I worked quickly, methodically, and took something. It was something that I didn’t really see, perhaps a sample of some such. I recall test tubes and what looked like vacuum packs, but nothing more. It was then that I became aware that there were people in the corridor franticly trying to work their way in. They were armed and began to shoot through the glass in the door. I was again aware of a companion, the door swung open and the figure was gunned down, I would like to say by accident, in the midst of the frenzy; in that my associate had not been aimed at, but I cannot be sure. I was making for the window towards the middle of the room with whatever I’d come for secured with me, I slipped sideways out of the top of the window and was gone.

E-mail To The President

Dear Mr President, I understand that you have discovered a Vimana in Afghanistan, if so, why can you not tell the people? For if it is indeed the case, the truth belongs to mankind, the people must be awakened from their slumber. Yours sincerely Adam Grant

Know It All Do You?

There's nothing worse than a know it all. If they did know it all, then they wouldn't be one, there'd be no talking over, butting in, interrupting, showing off and belittling. They'd shut the fuck up and actually listen once in a while.

The Church of Eddie Stobart

There is a new build Church just outside the small west Cumbrian market town of Wigton, I went there once, with my then girlfriend and her family, her family were local to the area at the time. They were practising Christians and regulars at the Church, they were well respected within its community, and despite the father being virtually illiterate, or at least incomprehensible, he was given the honour of doing regular readings. Him being devout in every way of course, other than selling insurance and getting a young girl, the same age as his daughter up the duff before abandoning her. The poor girl in question had helped in the mother’s shop whilst the family had a stint at living in Peterborough, the family sold up and moved back to west Cumbria soon after. The daughter, and my girlfriend of the time, was the polar opposite of her father, she was far from devout in anything, other than the none practice of sex, in the latter, most unfortunately for me, she was verging on fundamentalism, in the former, dangerous, damn right dangerous, I never did trust her. Her brother was gay, but alas poor lad, was shackled by his good Christian upbringing. The mother, well, she had a slyness I could never quite put my finger on, on occasions it felt belittling to be in her company, but an excellent cook and wonderful smile none the less; I was sure that was semen down her blouse after she had collected the father from the station one evening, upon his return from a business trip, maybe she preferred to avoid full intercourse, like her daughter, it was the most I would ever get out of her. The Church had a relatively large but rural catchment area; the congregation was therefore also quite large once concentrated. The original Eddie Stobart, Eddie senior, was there on the morning that I went with the family, he was being honoured with a water colour on behalf of the congregation, on account of him paying a quarter of a million pounds for the building of the Church. There was some unashamed arse kissing going on that day, I can tell you, the water colour however, looked like it had been picked up in a charity shop and would be heading back to one. During the course of the service, all about wisdom, love and forgiveness, I noticed that there were some less than friendly glances going from one side of the aisle to the other, not to mention a far from devine atmosphere, but it wasn’t until the service had finished, and the mingling social of departing commenced, that it became apparent that the Church was segregated, completely split in two, like the parting of the Red Sea. I made some enquiries from the family. Indeed, there had been a colossus falling out between the members of the parish, it was of course to do with power and money; the distribution of church raffle funds and other such fund raising issues, and the best candidate to take the helm of the headless Sunday School for the kids, on account that a deeply strange and overly nice young couple were planning to elope. There was no disguising the lust that the male half of this couple was radiating towards my then girlfriend, and no disguising the lust radiating towards him from his young fiancée, and every other badly groomed adolescent girl in the place. If their plan was not to emigrate to a ranch in a desert of North America and form a ‘community,’ and that well spoken marra has not done so since, then he hath missed his calling. Anyway, between the sexualised undertones, the rift and the hypocrisy, I was beginning to struggle to breath, and my smile was beginning to hurt my face as I was being introduced to some plastic programmed, almost zombie like people, with their big smiles and over friendliness. I got out quickly, marching into the car park and a bright and fresh sunny morning, the birds were singing and the leaves rustling on the trees, I felt immediately cleansed. My conclusion; that the human element in religion is the reason for its existence, and yet religion in turn seems to do nothing more than amplify the flaws of humans, whether from the very large scale, right to the very small. For me, it is a hindrance in the pilgrimage towards goodness, and so I carve my own relationship with God.

Perhaps

Perhaps God has not abandoned nor forsaken us; God has given us life, life with free will and free reign. The fall out of our many difficulties may seem entirely unjust, but the worst of such difficulties are also often of our own making, and surely should not be blamed on God's lack of intervention, just as they should not be undertaken in the name of God. Had God not given us the free will just to get on with it, despite the efforts of religions not to let us, there would only be a fraction of what we have to gain, perhaps we therefore only have ourselves to blame. However, those man-made injustices that breach innocence; and those that are not man-made, they seem a tall price to pay for freedom of reign, and seemingly at random too. Perhaps therefore, mankind is a life form pushing forward as one, surviving through numbers, and surviving through the fittest of those numbers, like all life along side us. The greater the numbers, the more chances there are of at least some success, but alas, with that, and it would seem somewhat unjustly, a lot of individual cases come to nothing. The primary example of this is to take life at its very beginnings and to fertilisation. So too can it be considered on a galactic and subsequently planetary level, I wonder how many planets have died for every Earth that lives. Perhaps life must be cruel to be kind and yet be without concept of either. Therein, it may not be all about us; it may not even be possible for it to be all about us. Merely sewing the seed of the bang may have taken God to the very limits of possibility, maybe that alone is enough and the rest is down to chance, an infinite number of chances within ifinity, and for that to have in turn grown into something so astoundingly complex and beautiful, and to continue to do so, maybe that alone is enough. What there is, may not yet be perfect, but perhaps it is not yet finished, and in the meantime, everything coming into existence must play its part. Perhaps there have been many more injustices than there are now, just to get us here, and perhaps there will be far fewer as we move towards where we are going, perhaps the worst and the best are yet to come, perhaps, perhaps.