The streets are empty. Wind skims the voids keeping neighbors apart, as if grazing the hollow of a cut reed, or say, a plundered mailbox. A familiar note is produced. It's the one Desolation plays to keep its instrument in tune. It is your thirteenth birthday, and as with all twelve preceding it, something feels missing from your life. The game presently eluding you is only the latest sleight of hand in the repertoire of an unseen riddler, one to engender a sense not of mirth, but of lack. His coarse schemes are those less of a prankster than a common pickpocket. His riddle is Absence itself. It is a mystery dispersing altogether, like the moon's faint reflection, with even one pebble of inquiry dropped in its black well. It is the most diabolical riddle of all. "Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire." -Walt Whitman Yes, you are certain Walt Whitman said that. One hundred percent positive. You have a feeling it's going to be a long day. "When two great forces oppose each other, the victory will go to the one that knows how to yield." -Oscar Wilde Wise words by a man who likely could resist everything but temptation. You wonder if this rain will ever let up. It's driven since the month began, perhaps long enough to forget its purpose. It no longer even knows to assuage fire. Somewhere a zealous god threads these strings between the clouds and the earth, preparing for a symphony it fears impossible to play. And so it threads on, and on, delaying the raise of the conductor's baton. How you hate this season. "April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain." -American sports legend, Charles Barkley Dude, that bird is long gone. It probably won't last long in this heat anyway. You don't even know what's up with this sick heat. The sun threatens to set but won't step off. It's staring you down, like the big red eye of a hot needle skipping on a groove its tracing 'round the earth. While lingering in midair its heat seems to suspend time itself, stretching it like warped vinyl. It's meant to rain this season but there ain't been a drop in sight. Even a little drizzle would help. Might help to fizzle this sizzle a little bizzle, set the record straight on this global turn-tizzle. "So don't change the dizzle, turn it up a little I got a living room full of fine dime brizzles Waiting on the Pizzle, the Dizzle and the S
