I've been swiping peanut butter and jelly onto crackers, standing in the kitchen window, the final resting spot for weak beams of sunlight. Millions/Trillions of miles this stuff travels and in the end, its sometimes just me it ends up with. Other sunbeams find lions fucking under shade trees or just born babies writhing in their Mama's arms. Crystal rivers sliding through emerald valleys. Vast hidden mountain meadows of top-notch ganja. All of it desirable, most likely, for falling bits of sun.
But me?
What about the ones that slip through the junk trees in the strip of dirt by our driveway and coast down on to my arms and across my grinding peanut butter jaws? Is it still a good life? Is it still a good thing to have traveled all the way from the damn sun just so you could shine upon some SnackDude's fingers wrapped around a butter knife?
I don't know.
I don't know the answer. Probably, no one does.
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The other day I stared at the photo of The Falling Man for a long time. Like hours. It is a sad stunning shot. Maybe the hardest picture ever taken. Hard to look at. Hard to take. Hard to be in. Falling, upside down, mid-stride; just a moment in time when it seemed like maybe the fellow could walk his way down off the melting World Trade Center...through the air, to the street below. Maybe you haven't seen the picture. A lot of people are pissed off when they see it. It's too difficult. It burns.
Whatever. You have to see it to move beyond it.
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I have spent nearly all of my life narrating the scenes of my movie/in my head.
Here is Serge,on a cold salty morning, walking by the sea. Here is Serge at Kiddie City groping Boba Fett. Serge, what are you doing this for....drinking this beer in this barroom window? Everyone is looking at you, laughing at you.
Serge, lay off the fries. People are watching.
Serge-Man, don't be kissing the pictures in the Hustler magazine. Alright: one kiss!
Serge, you're walking down the aisle at K-Mart, past the Blue Light Special cart, past pizza stones and beach towels and Easter cards. Keep walking. Keep walking. Go past these shower curtains, man. Ok wait! Stop. Pick up that dvd. GLADIATOR! Ok, put it down right there in those socks...don't worry about it. Ok, walk on.
Who am I talking to? Who is all this narration for? What happens to the thousands of miles of tapes when I'm gone?
Will anyone be able to listen back? And why would they even want to? You have your own tapes to carry around. Your own walks through K-Mart to pick apart.
Its lovely isn't it? This madness of life. Talking to myself for 38 years. That's luck.
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There are the 911 calls too. I found them on YouTube but they're everywhere. Just a few lost voices still echoing when summoned. They've been picked over and listened to fifty million times by all kinds of people, living people in front of their computers, chins atop fists. Pulses quivering. They're voices from beyond now. Crossed over. If there's something else...they know now. But at the time: they didn't know. They were just scared like anyone would be.
The voices speak of smoke and heat. Of not being able to see much of anything. They ask if they might be rescued soon. They say Hurry. Please. It is hot. We're way way up here.
It breaks the heart, of course. To listen to them, through the scratchy static of bad connection. Through the buzz of Doom coming down the hall behind them. Yet, somehow when I do listen,I can't help but think of things I never seem to have the balls/brains to think about otherwise. Things like love. Togetherness. Dumb stupid smiles. The baby's fingers in my mouth.
I look over at my wife's toes poking out of the blanket.
Why can't I get certain shit right before I get cut down forever?
Sometimes the questions themselves are the answers.
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Maybe:
You don't go and stay gone. You come back, in the wind at night. On the backs of sunbeams. You ride 'em like buck stallions down over mountains of cobbled cloud. You smash across prairies of stars. Over the crests of distant hills you come riding hard and fast back down along the old familiar trails, dust clouds rising high behind you. Steaming snot shoots from your horse's face. You fire six-guns at the sky. And you ride and ride and ride.
People who loved you love you still. They eat crackers at the window. Unknowing.
You hurtle down the final slope and heave through their glass.
They feel you and smile and just like that you're gone. Again.