Volcanic Shutters, Failed Connections and One Befuddled Seahorse

Here we are. I am here, and you are there. You are far away, or at the very least I am not particularly close. It's already 2012, the world is fixing to end, and everyone knows it. But what if the world has ended before and several times too? What about the abandon? What about the love affair that became what it was going to become? Wrapped in ash as we sleep at the height of Pompeii.

“Pay attention to this,” I said. I stunk of gin. I always stunk of gin. Juliana swung around me. We laughed. It was nearing four in the morning. And the party was in full swing. This was August, after all, Tucson, Arizona, four in the morning is the only time for a party. “We'll be writing about this for years to come,” I said. And to this day, I don't think either of us has mentioned it.

What happens when groups form? The Beats formed. There was Joanie and Edie and Lucien and Jack and William and Allen. The Romantics formed. There was Percy, John, Mary and Byron. There Lost generation formed. There as Scott and Papa and Gertrude. Groups. And they always seem so haphazard until seen from the future.

Then there is the volcano. This is no metaphor, but the eruption has a double meaning. It's no secret. It's pressure and then, boom, pressure relieved.

And then we were far away, you and me. I am here, and you are there. This is possibly a Brautigan riff, but it isn't very clear.

All we really needed to do was to hold onto the drinks and the smokes and the parties and our youths. But even that slipped away. It's all gone, the booze and the cigarettes and youth. And it has come down to this: once when we were young we partied for a cool summer in the heated desert and the end was near. It wasn't 2012 then, but the end was near.

This is not memoir. This is not fiction. This is worlds on a page. This is an operatic soapy thingy on the page. This is minutia. This is parlor tricks. This is one Befuddle Seahorse. Read it here on August 1, 2012.