WILL SOMEONE

HOWEVER STRANGE AND UNLIKELY

READ THIS AND RECOGNIZE

HEY!

I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE

In a sea of reasons, that might be a zinger sounding noble, or perhaps a compensation for loneliness. Here it is, flopping on deck. Prior to catching it, I just wrote. Not for any particular reason, nor for whether it made much sense. And since landing my unwelcome guest, nothing much has changed in how I write. Try to mix and match the metaphors, it won't matter.

So why this?

For my sister, I wrote about a colony of ants. They lived in a colony under asphalt, in the path to the microwave shack. This was in Owada, Japan. It became something of an anthropological war correspondent’s report, or maybe a child's tale. An imaginative journey into a buried city. She enjoyed the letter.

In the Philippines, I spent many evenings alone in the day room, typing on my Olivetti. After starting college for a career upgrade in engineering, I changed my major to English. It has been like a lode stone compass. For reasons having nothing to do with anything else.

Is it useful? Doesn't matter. Like a lode stone or a hamburger bun, a word has its meaning wanting to be born. Not born again, as in some biblical interpretation, or as a dandelion seed sent to wander in the breeze, a remake of religious awe, a storm drain gobbling leaves in a deluge. Metaphors don't worry about whether they're aligned or not. The urge fulfills itself, indifferent to what I may say.

So just rambling on, friends with Muse while offering no pat on the shoulder. It's impersonal.

You might want to hear a little more about Owada, out there in the agricultural boon docks. It was a military antenna farm, surrounded in greenery, with rhombic antennas directionally sensitive for SP1000 receivers that demodulated teletype tones. And here, just in the process of getting tones, a structure forms, a spider web of meanings. Owada, ensconced in agricultural fields. Our microwave tower with its flat panel reflector on top. Glowing vacuum tubes in the shack beneath. All the elements of a story that might be told. And are these useful now?

Anyone might spot that, if it was vacuum tubes, it was long ago. Oh well then, perhaps some patina of history, like an elaborately carved wooden frame, would justify it. But no.

Words themselves, in their secret life, are the conspiracy of meaning. It would seem strange, but isn't there some comfort in this?

HEAR THE LATEST HIT BY THE JET STREAMS --

WHY DON'T YOU CRY ME A RIVER

CRY ME A RIVER

I FRIED A FOREST OVER YOU

OH, YEAH

Coming to the West Coast, next performance in the Midwest, then on to New York. Bookings far in advance, even Fox News. Area 51, Burning Man, sold out.

Here in the calm, before we become the center of what's possible (Santa Clara's City slogan), a suitable refrain would seem: Feed The Fish.

When called, they splash excitedly. What do they know, living in their element? Do they dream? Their horizon is a fluorescent sun.

Excitement over, I bid them good night. And they pay close attention, swimming right up against my end of the tank, staring, listening. In fact, they had reoriented before I noticed. It was hard to see the change, and worrisome at first. They did still go back, from time to time, to beneath the water pump.

One of them had taken to staying on the bottom, not moving much, eying me as I ate dinner at the kitchen table. My end of the tank. I watched closely. Then at last, when it came time to feed them, both were heading up to gobble flakes.

Well, the new home base had to be that by mutual agreement. At first there was a bit of an argument. The water pump home body fish swam up to the pioneer fish and began nudging and pushing from beneath, presumably to get things back the way they were.

To no avail.

Home base is now at my end of the tank, and that having been settled there was yet a surprise.

Once wordless communications were restored, the pioneer fish knew that the home base had been accepted by all. Come feeding time, as I watched, it shot up out of the water, leaped like a porpoise, and did a back flip!

.