Chapter 13

     “Play that song again. The one that I like so much”
     The crowd in the lawn, none of whom were musicians, averted their eyes and tried to strike up new conversations, but he was persistent. He gesticulated wildly, almost losing his grip and falling out of the tree.
     “I want to hear it one more time before sunrise!”
     He was ignored again, so he started throwing pine cones with unnerving accuracy. After a couple of dozen found their marks, the people began screaming obscenities at the man in the tree, whereupon he sat back and sighed, “That’s the one. Thank you!”

Chapter 12

His long beard and unwashed robes made him stand out among the other people in the city.

That, and the fact that he was an orangutan.

Chapter 11

     “It’s a sign from God!”
     People always say that when gigantic spheres of flaming rock appear floating in the sky over all of the major cities on Earth. You’d think they would learn better, but they keep hanging on to those foolish superstitions. Everyone should know by now that the spheres are the results of kobolds mating with fire elementals.
     Sheesh.

Chapter 10

     In ancient times, before writing was invented, it was easier to lie and cheat since there wasn’t any damaging evidence left lying around. People’s memories were better, of course, so it was harder to convince people that you really didn’t say you were going to rape sheep and that you really said you were going down to the temple to make a sacrifice. Then again, people believed in all kinds of supernatural beings, so you could just say a demon had clouded their minds and leave them to worry about being stoned by the other villagers if they persisted with their delusions.

     That’s all I’ve got to say about the subject.

Chapter 9

    If you fold it right, Saran Wrap can make a formidable weapon. I should know as I couldn’t get the image of that Saran Wrap shuriken out of my head as they wheeled me into the ER.
    I couldn’t get the shuriken out of my head either, but that’s what doctors are for.

Note: I'm going on vacation so if anyone is actually reading these, there will be a one week hiatus on posting...

Chapter 8

Simple and Complex

To move and to think
Which is more complex?
An ant can move.
A human can write a sonnet.
Simple?

To choose an action is
A snap of synaptic state --
A mapping of intent that changes
Nothing without action.

To take a step is
An interplay of gravity, muscle, nerve and synapse --
A juggling of balance, perception and feedback
That changes the face of the world.

The rules of baseball are reducible
To logic and formula.
Catching a baseball is a magical act
Of memory, chemistry, physics, and calculus.

It is a human conceit
To deify the complexity of thought.
But it’s all we’ve got.
What part of us was created in the image of God?

Chapter 7

Time Traveler’s Will

A pocket calculator to Sir Isaac Newton...
A camcorder to the disciples of Jesus...
A tape recorder to Mozart...
Star Wars to a 1950’s Saturday matinee audience...
A map of the world to Columbus...
A screening of Branaugh’s Henry V to William Shakespeare...
A hearing aid to Beethoven…
A Xerox machine to the library at Alexandria…


Note: be sure to include batteries and/or portable generators as well...

Chapter 6

     Amazingly enough, my ham survived the fire. It was a little crispy and blackened, but I like it that way. Of course, it didn’t taste much like ham, but as chewy pieces of carbonized animal flesh go, it wasn’t bad. I couldn’t find the eggs – I think they were vaporized by the blast. Gone to egg heaven with the milk and orange juice. Actually, I guess the milk went to milk heaven and the orange juice to orange juice heaven, but I was always a little weak in inanimate theology. I sat amidst the twisted steel wreckage and chewed on the blackened ham and watched the confused fire fighters assemble below me. I bet they missed their breakfast. I was just too lucky.

Chapter 5 - Dive

d i v e

A sea of brown beer bottles collected on the knife-scarred table
Like amphorae from a Greek shipwreck, swaying in the current.
He took another from the weary waitress, turned it up
And thought of clear water washing off a reef top after a wave has passed.

A couple danced over by the jukebox, not touching, swaying in rhythm.
He remembered a sea turtle fighting the surge along a reef wall.
But the girl’s eyes were distant and she held
   the sleeves of her sweater in her hand
Dreaming of calmer seas and a warm beach somewhere.

The noise washed over him and blended into a loud silence,
He could hear the hiss of his breath and the pounding of blood in his ears,
All alone in the crowd of brightly dressed people
Like hanging motionless inside a school of fish.

The bar, of course, was dark
Sunlight cannot reach into the depths.
The colors were warm -- brown of beer and wood
Only the blues penetrate.

It was time to go back to the boat,
He checked his watch,
Because he was afraid of the darkness,
He took a breath of staling air.

He rose and stumbled to the door,
He ascended with the bubbles,
And walked out into the crisp quiet night.
And broke the surface in dazzling sunlight.

Note: This poem was published on my other blog previously, but it was also in the book...

Chapter 4

     “Doog!”, he said conversationally.
     I ignored him and kept on slicing peaches. He put his socks back on and left through the window and I heard the sirens as the ambulance came to scrape him off the sidewalk.
     “Forgot about them pesky gravity waves, I reckon” I said to no one in particular

Chapter 3

     I like the feeling of sand between my toes, but when the sand is 125 degrees and laced with tiny, needle sharp thorns, I prefer to wear shoes. I’d left my Birkenstocks back on the boat, so I wore some combat boots I found attached to some skeletal feet sticking out of the side of a sand dune. They clashed with my sombrero and thong bikini, but since there was no one around to see me except the buzzards and a few wandering rhinos, I figured it was OK.
     Besides, it was after Labor Day.
     If I had thought about it more, I would have brought some water. I had a squeeze bottle of chocolate syrup, but after sucking down about half of it, I was thirstier than ever. I looked longingly at the rhinos.
     Suddenly, and without warning, one of the rhinos fell over dead and the buzzards left to get some of their friends.
     Later that afternoon, I saw a plane, but it was only paper.

Chapter 2

     My dog, Fletch, was gnawing on the doorknob to my bedroom this afternoon, keeping me from sleeping. I’d been up all night, counting my toenails, and I was pissed. I picked up the Ghanestian hoolbangler on my nightstand and hurled it at his head. He ducked so quickly that his fedora fell off, then he looked back at me and said, “There’s nuns out there, man! Let me out!”
     “Get back under the bed where you belong, cat licker.”
     I turned over and pulled the newspapers back over my head and tried not to think of the Guatemalan land crab I had seen hanging from the light fixture. If it falls on the bed, the weasels will go crazy, I thought. The nagging worry about the crab/weasel confrontation drove the last thoughts of sleep from my mind, so I got up and went to work.

Note: This is one of the weird ones.

Chapter 1 - A Poem

I have a multi-dimensional geography
In my head
Where the real, unreal,
And barely imagined
Co-exist.

In my universe
(and everyone holds a
universe in his or her head),
Arrakis, Middle Earth, and Discworld
Are fleshed out more completely than
Kazakhstan or Arkansas.

An idle thought can create a world
And a brief daydream can write a
History of things to come.

I am Death, Destroyer of Worlds
I am Legion.

My universe began when I was born
And will die when I do.

It is not a closed system.
It interacts with the
Universes of others,
Like n-dimensional Venn diagrams.

New worlds and ideas are siphoned in.
With force of will and action,
I can shape the universes of others.

Nothing is lost,
But things are forgotten –
Sometimes misplaced,
Sometimes disconnected forever
Depending on electro-chemical whims.

Places, friends, and lovers are created
From dust in my dreams and
To dust they return
When I wake.

I am sane because
I can sort and classify.

Title Page, Dedication, Table of Contents

Title Page:

Symptoms of My Encroaching Insanity
A Work in Progress

by
Christopher M. Palmer

Dedication:

Dedicated to the authors of every book I’ve ever
read – they’ve made me what I am today.



The bastards.

Table of Contents:

Table of Contents

Page 1..................................................................................... 1

Page 2..................................................................................... 2

Page 3..................................................................................... 3

etc.

Notes:
As I said in the introduction, I actually made this into a "real" e-book, so this was the first couple of pages. It didn't actually have chapters and most entries were untitled, but I will turn each page or entry into a "chapter" for the blog. When I finish publishing the online version (or if I get tired of doing it), I'll post a link to the full book. I don't want to give away the ending too quickly...

That's a joke. It doesn't really have an ending. It's just stuff.

Introduction

At one point in my life, I thought I would really like to be a writer. I had just moved from a fairly good, but boring, job to one that was potentially better, but the work environment was driving me crazy and I started re-thinking my career choices.

In both jobs, I had a certain degree of free time, both real and as a result of procrastinating on tasks that I should have been doing. I read a lot of books and articles about writing and, of course, the advice boiled down to "If you want to be a writer, you have to write!"

That wasn't much help, and neither was "Write what you know." So I started looking at writing exercises and the one that fit me best was: "Sit down and just start writing something. Anything. Write dialog, write scene descriptions, write stream of consciousness, write poetry. Just put words down and you'll get better at it."

So I did. Whenever I had some free time, I'd open a Microsoft Word file on my computer, scroll to the end, and start writing something. After doing this on and off for a while, I didn't feel much more like a writer. As a matter of fact, reading the random stuff I'd came up with made me think that if anyone else read it, they'd think it was the ravings of someone slowly going insane. Instead of deleting it, I created a small e-book that I called "Symptoms of My Encroaching Insanity". I sent it to a few of my friends and they thought that, yes, I must be crazy. It's sat on my computer (actually on a succession of computers) for nearly five years now. I went back and started reading it today and it's actually not too bad. Some of it is kind of funny, some of it indescribably weird.

So, since I had a few free minutes, I decided I would publish it on a blog - one chapter a day (or so) - and share it with the rest of the world (assuming that anyone finds it and reads it).

Feel free to comment. I can take it (I think). Just don't call the men in white coats to have me committed. I'm sane. Really.