12/3/06

I folded the kibbles of rodent poison into foil, then closed it up into a plastic sandwich bag, then placed the bag beneath the kitchen cabinet. And then I washed my hands of the matter. Twice I washed my hands in the evening. How many trees are felled to make these flyers crammed into my mailbox? Peeling content from the envelopes is like shucking corn. Once I was asked to pull the silk from the kernels but to keep the ears on, but I refused because it was too time-consuming. Better to eat the corn raw from the cob than to be precious. It would have suited me to pull the ears back, tear the silken strands from the ear, and toss it naked into the fire.

Serves you right Orville Redenbacher, no little resemblance to Kim Jong Il, only the latter portlier. Whenever that dude writes his autobiography, it'll be bound for Oprah's list. The man who knew when very young why flowers were not black, why streams did not reverse their course and why bees didn't sting when in a swarm around their hive, why cats curled atop the hoods of cars, why crows roosted in the chestnut trees in the dead of winter. He was the son of the sun , and even Il Duce would have had to bow in the sunlight--never was there such a narrrative for the national laureate to labor upon.

Perhaps your emotions clarify, become as light as the air you breathe. Or perhaps you're less morbid in your cast of mind. Cast out, outcast, the die cast, your cast hardens. Casting as in sculpture, outcast as if flung from afar. The die is cast; the dispositions have hardened. So I reify the object of my disdain until the sinner becomes the sin. Economy of resources dictates when this becomes the case. An infinitely patient being would do otherwise; that being would comprehend the failings of a personality without needing to invest itself in any kind of earthly involvement; as long as that being did not possess an individual body locked in a particular place, it could posess an infinite understanding and will to understand more.

But when Neanderthal confronted Homo Sapiens, or before that Homo Pithecanthropus confronted Homo Erectus, was understanding possible, one draped in animal skins and huddled in a cave, the other with elegantly serrated flint spears and trousers and moccasins, their only flaw being the weaker bearskin that covered them, the result of a misguided homeopathy: that what was good for bears was good for those who traveled like bears. But there was no time for understanding between species, no ground for patience. The wind was blowing the fires down, the fuel was harder to find, and the animal wealth was harder to extract from the mammoth, mule deer, or antelope. Eohippus, tiny horse hiding among gooseberry bushes, silently mocked his lumbering descendant on the steppes. The Neanderthal, back from having buried loved ones among beads and ochre, stared at Homo Erectus as he tried to assemble thoughts from fears he could not mouth.

There were no grounds for human understanding, which is based on a sympathy that is bodiless, composed from hte vapors of alcohol during Happy Hour, at the very beginning when no one is in the bar yet.