In the Middle of Nowhere with Nothing

The world...in futility...I know.

Today a day of novels and memories of pale ladies in bookstores. I go where I shouldn't go. I know. Stop it. They say.

They're right, of course, but they don't know shit. There's a difference between being right and knowing something about the world. Being right is narrow, stupid and smacks of egotistical fear. Knowing something about the world is at the very minimum, broader and more open to interpretation. Sometimes, if you're lucky, it's kinder too.

Their world is busy, full of shopping for expensive bargain skirts and two for one pairs of boots. They scoff at my 1941 first edition Steinbeck. They say rude things to me and don't apologize.

They tell me I'm imagining things. "It's not good for you," they say while taking that $85 check I'm handing over. In the meantime I search for a psychic counselor to shed some other type of light on things. I study my Zen Osho cards. I look at my tea leaves for recognizable shapes. The search goes on, not that it will yield any results, but it occupies my time.

What do they know? Have they even seen a Godzilla movie before? Do they realize how comforting the Big Lizard is to me? How he used to help me ward off monsters that lurked in my bedroom at night when I was small and felt helpless?

I continue to throw my messages in a bottle over the side of my small wooden lifeboat. It's the same one Shackleton used when he went in search of South Georgia Island. I pinched it from the Museum of Natural History when it was there last. At least I have that going for me, that and the water pumps.

They ask me how I am when really all they want to do is be nosy and snoop around. They don't know anything. They don't notice my small art drawings on the bulletin board. They don't ask me why my feet hurt when I wander around MOMA all by myself. They don't know anything about Joseph Cornell or fishes that try to fake being sick just so they can get more food.

I want the walls that he walked on. I want the temples and the wells and, yes, I want him there with me. I want the whole kit and caboodle. The whole she-bang. The whole enchilada. I want those airport transfers, the waiting in the wings. I want all of it even in the middle of nowhere with nothing.