The Great Loss: Journals of an Old Man.

I have been writing them for twenty four years now, since The Great Loss.  I was never into journaling before but for some reason now I do.  I guess I hope to look back at them when this is all over and have a place for perspective to teach me.  

Remind me.   

When I say ‘them’ I mean my journals.  My books.  I have lost some of them because of all the moving I used to have to do.  And all the rancid places I have had to live.  Some of them I have lost to getting wet and otherwise damaged.  Some I have lost because I have had to leave in such a hurry, running from The Others.  I have lost some of them because I can’t remember where I had stashed them until I found a decent  and safe place to live.

Right now I don’t need to be reminded because I am hear.  

In the darkness.

Waiting for the light.

For now and for sometime, I have been safe in the trees.

I am old enough to remember when tree houses were used for kids to play in and build forts in and start neighborhood clubs in.

These days the ‘neighborhood clubs’ are more like mobs and the tree houses are more like fortresses hidden among the branches.  

Since I have lost the book that I had written down what had happened to me at The Great Loss I will explain it here again.  But first I will want to say what it is like living in these days.

When I say the darkness I don’t mean it is dark here always.  I mean the people.  There aren’t as many bright and beautiful days.  I miss the ones that start with a crisp breeze accented with  a slow fog being gently evaporated by a warm morning sun.  Days where you can walk through the forests for days and not come across any others.  These days are darkened by the mobs of others.  The Others whom have taken the mark.  Seeking whom to devour.  Not devour in a eating sort of way but in a consuming sort of way.  

Like consuming all things.  Like a wildfire consumes a forest.

That is another reason it is difficult to write my books.  At times it can be hard to find blank paper because they take it to burn.  Some of my books I have written over the copied paper of old books.  Since hardly anyone who can or care to read is left, I don’t feel so bad.  Sometimes I run out of pens and pencils and can’t write until I find some more.  

That’s what most of my days are spent doing.  Searching for food, writing utensils and books.  Preferably blank books.  Sometimes searching for building materials.  Besides my boat, I have all but given up on trying to make electricity.  Electricity is for the elite.  They have a hard enough time keeping that going even with all their resources.  Not like it used to be anyway.

I have built my house on the trees of life on the banks of the river.

When I say house, it’s more like a treehouse.

When I say treehouse, I mean it’s more like a fortress.

When I say Fortress, I mean it's more like a hideout.

I built my house out of things I can pull off of other buildings and trailers and anything I can get my hands on and carry with me, using the small hand tools.  There is no more lumber left in the lumber yards. There are no  more batteries for power tools.  No batteries that I am going to write about anyway.  I was an electrician for a time before the transition.  Not much good that does me now, I guess.  There is not much the same as it was before The Great Loss.

I have built my house up the river from the old city.  So that I can float in undetected and carry anything I find upstream with my solar powered boat.  When I say solar boat I mean it is a jon boat that I have wired four trolling motors together with a few solar panels I have gathered for power.  I try to stay out of the old city as much as I can, partly because it is too filthy and also I don't want to take a chance losing my boat but I do find a lot of blank books there.  And ink pens!

Until I find, which I probably won’t, any of my old books, I guess I will re-write what I can remember up until now.  I am advanced in my years, so I can’t make any promises.  When I say advanced in my years I mean I am only about fifty-eight.  Which is pretty old for this world.  

The Great Loss came to me in a time where I was already at a loss.  Not that I was poor, I grew up poor but became wealthy.  I became wealthy by any means necessary, some legal and some not.  Mostly in such a way that was wicked.  It was a time when I was overwhelmingly poor and overwhelming rich at the same time.  

Financially I had more than I could spend.  And I spent a lot!  I had more houses, cars and women than I could keep track of.  I had employees both legal and illegal and some in between.

Spiritually, I was in poverty.  Not like poverty in the United States, I mean like poverty in the third worlds.  The poor of the poor.  The valley of the shadow of death.  The spiritually poor of the spiritually poor. I can only believe and pray and hope that the promises that I have read of God are true.

Then Darkness came in the night, like a thief, stealing all that was shining.  Stealing all that was remotely close to light.  That’s when we lost anyone who knew the promises of God. Not knowing God in sense of know who God was, everyone knows who God is.  I mean truly knowing God and following Him.  

When darkness came, even death itself had lost it’s way.  We were left to figure it out from scratch.  Those that thought they knew, suddenly did not.  Others that said they knew the promises of God, used the ignorance to their advantage.  Those of us who can read the words of God are left in the dark to rebuild from nothing.

For us there is just barely enough light to see the trail by the river that leads to the mountain top.  We are bitterly hopeful.

For the elite pretend nothing has happened, they tell everyone to keep watch for the rapture as if nothing happened.

The Others have given up all hope if they had any to start with.  The Others are seeking selfish survival.  Only God can know their hearts.  They have one foot in reality and another in chains, with a bit in their mouths, being led by what is unseen.

The darkness came when I was in the elevator heading down, somewhere between the 13th and ground floors.  The elevator didn’t jolt.  The lights didn’t flicker.  The guy next to me didn’t disappear or turn into a zombie and try to eat my brain.  He let me go first as we stepped out of the elevator into the lobby.  He rushed past me on his phone, leaving a message for his wife.

“I am just leaving, don’t wait for me.  I hear traffic is pretty bad. Loveyabye.”

That's how The Great Loss happened.

They say darker days are coming.

The River.

He was never good at rolling tobacco but he considers it a repetitious sacrifice. 
Like his prayers in the morning. 
Awkward and sometimes ugly. 
Rolled and folded with rips and tears and tobacco leaves poking out 
where they shouldn't.  
Squeezed too hard in some places and too wet in others.
Regardless of cosmetics he lights it up and lets the smoke rise to the heavens
in no particular straightforward path, 
figuring God likes repetition as well. 

This morning he is down by the river.  
Fishing for lunch and dinner.  
Talking, and telling the river his stories and ambitions.
Remembering all the other times he sat there expecting to pull a fish from the water. Regardless of whether he could see the fish or not, 
knowing it was there for him to harvest.  

Telling his son about all the monster fish he had caught in the past.
With his son asking if they were going to catch anything that day or not.
"Maybe next time son." he would say 
as they packed up their fishing poles and tackle. 
Knowing full well that it may not be next time or even the time after.
It will be God's timing. 
His son noticed his father’s  jaw unconsciously clenching, 
but didn’t say anything.   
Looking down to make sure not to trip on the bare roots in the trail 
and looking back to his father to see when it stops.  
Wondering to himself why they keep coming back to the same river.
His father knew it will be when the river is ready to give up the fish 
that  they will eat fish for dinner. 
His father knew they needed the river
more than they need lunch for today.

The Young Woman, Melinda and an Old Man.

The young mother wiped the counter for the third time this morning and they haven’t even opened the doors yet.  She just needed something to do in hopes that Melinda, her co-worker, would not notice her blood-shot eyes welling up again.  She has grown weary of speculating why he left her.  Why he didn’t want the dreams anymore. Why he didn’t want them anymore.  She had grown weary of wondering what she could have said or what book she could have suggested that might make him love her again.  A book that might snap him out of his slumber and remember why he loved her so much.  She had given up hoping for the miracle of him waking up from the dead and walking out of the tomb to look for her.
She stood up from wiping the lower level behind the counter and rested both her hands on the counter.   Not sure if she was holding herself up or if the counter was the only thing keeping her from falling.  

She jumped when she felt something touch her back, “Who touched me?”
“Who touched me?!  Are you doing okay?” Melinda turned her and saw her eyes.  “Oh, honey. Not again. You have to just get over him and move on.  Don’t let him effect you anymore, he wins every time you get upset.”
She turned away. Not ready to move on and not ready to keep fighting.

Melinda paused and said, “Are you gonna be okay if I open these doors? It’s five after six and Larry is already waiting for his morning coffee.  Can’t keep him waiting.” Melinda tried to lighten the mood shaking her keys as she walked to the front door.  Larry was pretending to not be impatiently waiting for his morning coffee.

“Good morning!” Larry said, “Nice day out there!”
“Don’t start with me Larry. You and I both know it is cold and windy out there!” Melinda enjoyed the banter.
“Alright, just give me some coffee then.” Larry conceded.
“That’s more like it, Larry. That’s the spirit.” Melinda happy with the results.
Larry did his best, which wasn’t that great,  not to watch her as she walked back to the counter and pour his coffee.  “Where’s your little buddy?”  Larry tried to pretend he wasn’t paying attention to Melinda’s sophisticated beauty.  
“She’s probably beating herself senseless in the back.”
“Is she still hung up on that loser?  He better not come around here, I’ll tear him up!”
Melinda looked back at him over her glasses, handing him his coffee.
“I may be 78, but I still got it!” Larry said, showing her his karate hands.
“Why do men over in their 70’s always have to talk about how old they are?”
“Huh?!” Larry said, thoroughly confused by the change in topic.

The Man in the Red Hat.

He sat on the edge of the fountain without looking at the occasional commuter walking by.  The morning air blew cold spray from the fountain on his back, like it was trying to make him shiver to the bone.  He shrugged as he pulled the fresh bought pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.  The same pocket that he used to keep them in.  He pulled on the tab and unwrapped the cellophane like he had thousands of times before.  Pulled out the center cigarette out and rolled it between his fingers. Remembering the paper will separate if he rolls it too much, he put it in his mouth and opened the new book of matches.  Instinctively tore out the match on the far right and lit it. The burnt sulfur billowed around his head as he remembered liking the smell.  Brought the match to the cigarette and inhaled.

He remembered his covenant with God about smoking. 

He inhaled the smoke into his lungs.

He remembered his family who God had given him..

He inhaled bitterness and anger.

He stood up abruptly.  A bus roared by exposing his own  reflection to himself and he let the cigarette fall from between his fingers.  

The red hat.

Explosions of memories jolted him back into his walk.

~

"Daddy, you're not the man in the yellow hat!  You're The man in the RED hat!" his son laughed and grabbed his hat from his head and threw it  across the living room.  He knew that was going to happen as soon as his son started laughing and looking at his hat.  He had been doing this for two years now.  Before he even know how to talk.

“What the heck!  You can’t throw my hat! Who do you think you are Curious George or somethin?!” He said while pretending to struggle to his feet and go after  his hat.

His son giggled and ran to grab the red hat before his father could get there, snatched up the hat and went running down the hall.

~

‘I should have followed him down the hall.  I should have chased after my hat. I should’ve played with him more that day.’  Instead of playing with his son more he got in a fight with his son's mother.  Not the typical fight that everyone goes huffing and puffing into opposite rooms but the kind where he said everything he knew would cut to the bone.  He knew her well enough to know exactly what to say.

The Man in the Red Hat began to slow his pace and run out of breath.  Why would God snatch his family from him without so much as a warning?  He racked his brain for the millionth time, trying to figure out how God needed them more than he did. What the Man in the Red Hat did not remember is that it wasn’t God who took them away.   It is not good for a man to be alone.

Drunkard's Prayer.

God give me the strength to smoke these Lucky's

and get away with it, until the time comes to stop.

God give me the courage to stand up

in the face of this drunk on the street.

Set on breaking me into little pieces

of his own frustration.

God give me the wisdom to know when to start

and when to quit because

God knows starting in the morning with a shot of 'wake-up'

and ending with 22 ounces of 'goodnight' is too much for me.

God give me what I need because

this speed will make my days snowball

so fast I won't know what to see.

God give me the eyes to see the future

and what's behind me because

that pack of wolves growling through the streets

is following me around every corner.

waiting for a weakness to show.

God give me the strength to stand up

and fall down, walk around,

look around, breath

and see because God knows it's all getting the better of me.

God deliver me from evil, inside and outside of me.

I Used to Feel Like Ira Hayes.

Quiet in a room that's booming.

Hold fast to arms of a chair in the middle of the room.

Half empty bottle screaming my name.

Skidding into a beckoning whisper...

Ira... Ira...   Ira Hayes.

Drink myself into a sway.

Drinking into conversation.

Quiet at first across from someone.

Laugh and nod and laugh again.

Half full with intention,

clumsy me, doing okay now.

Drink myself into an interest.

Drink myself into a 'man'.

Drinking into a relationship.

Drinking myself out of a friendships.

Too loud and too angry.

Loving and hating in every sentence.
Half empty of courage,
Too weak and sloppy to keep going.

Drink myself into a coma.

Drink myself out of you.

Drink myself into heaven.

Drink myself out of here.