Endings

E n d i n g s

                                                                                  By «im Uhr

She sat alone in the gazebo.

            The wind blew her hair. But there was no one there to see the rumpled mess it was becoming. She didn’t try to brush it, for she had no brush even if she wanted to. The wind blew hair into her eyes, causing tears. But there was no one there to wipe them.

She starred off into nothingness, for there was no one else to look at.

She was alone.

A cold breeze blew past her. The weather was changing. Summer was ending. Autumn was creeping in, like a thief in the night. One day it was summer, but sometime in the middle of the night, while no one was watching, the leaves started to turn, birds got ready for their long flights, and cool breezes sunk up on you. Now at night it was wise to carry a jacket, an extra layer of protection.

Autumn brought many things to an end; Ice cream, Baseball, Swimming, Walks in the park, Bike riding, and Love affairs…

She didn’t need to know reasons. Things ended. Autumn came. Winter would soon follow. It’s just they way things were.

She wiped a final teardrop from her eye and headed home alone. Before winter came. 

The end.

Alone Again                      'Nother sad song

                                       ALone

A Day in The Life

A DAY I N THE L I F E

I am listening to the radio, trying to write. I remember how unsuccessful that has been for me in the past, so I turn it off…

God, the silence is killing me…

I lean back on my chair, carefully so as to prevent the tablet from falling off my knee. The distant sound of a barking dog and the infrequent passing of cars, echoes in my head. I can hear an indistinct ringing. Not sure if it's church bells or in my head, I block the sound out. The dog continues to bark…

The smell of oil penetrates my nostrils from the oil heater at my feet. Thank god it also penetrates my bones and gives me momentary warmth and protection from the cold.

If there is such great warmth in Hell, then is heaven frigid?

There are two table lamps in the room I occupy, for in this room no overhead light exists. I write in shadows, as the light from these lamps barely succeed in chasing away the darkness.

I like the light…

I thought I could hear the wind rustling through the rafters, but it's just another passing car. I wonder what it would be like to be in that car. Though I cannot see the street below me, I wish I was a passenger in that car I hear moving by, living in his or her world – a world that I will never know or have a chance to understand.

Would that dog please shut-up!

I look at the typewriter on my desk in front of me, smiling at its presence. I think of all the work involved in first writing everything in longhand, half printing and half writing, only to later two finger type it all over on a fresh piece of paper. What a waste! I don't mind the time involved, I just hate to see another fresh, clean piece of paper dirtied… What a waste. Maybe I should start using my computer. But the dust has settled nicely on it and I hate to disturb it.

The blackness that engulfs my soul comes out by way of words and spreads out to cover and taint a nice white piece of paper in the form of black. From white to a slowly growing blackness filling the page. Words defecating on the pristine white of the page, changing it forever

Maybe I should change my font color to red, or something more happy…

It's a shame that there aren't more outlets in this room so I could plug in all my lamps. It's a shame there aren't more outlets in my life so I could put to use a head-full of ideas. I can barely afford to allow two of the plugs for lamps, I need my typewriter and radio, for I am running out of sockets. My radio is off and I'm not using the typewriter, but to exchange plugs on a temporary basis, just for another couple of lights, would only be extra work.

I get tired even thinking about it.

I am glad that dog has stopped barking.

The heat from the burner feels good on my body, just as the light feels good to my eyes. I gaze upon the masses of books about, most of which are scattered allover the floor. The biggest and heaviest of the hardbacks are presently being used to straighten out a crinkled poster in the middle of the floor. I think it's a picture of mass nudes on a beach, but I'm not sure, seeing as it has been a long time since I had last seen it. It takes a long time to straighten out wrinkles in a poster unless you could bend them in the opposite direction for a period of time. But I am in no hurry and I don't mind things a bit wrinkled, a little bent out of shape.

I wonder if there is snow outside. These past days have been so cold. Running the heater continuously is a temptation, but then I would need a steady flow of oil…

Then there is the matter of the smell…

Even after getting up to look out the window, I still cannot tell if there is snow. Even the small amount of light the two lamps shed make the windows look like mirrors, so the wall behind me is all I see when I look out. I notice that the dog has not barked for quite some time as I listen to another car whizzing past. I imagine the zagged tire marks he leaves in the imaginary snow. I'm sure the snow covers those tracks before he can see them in his rear-view mirror. No one will ever know he has been down this street.

Possibly the dog has stopped his incessant barking because he has escaped and found his way to the street… the car… in such a hurry…

I have a globe in this room. The Earth. Smooth. Mostly blue. I look at it and wonder at all the water. So much water, and I – never to have seen an ocean. The land has freckles, spotted with names and bumps, but the water is smooth and a consistent blue, with fewer words written on it. The words and the land dirtying the perfection of the blue. It's a nice globe, except for the land and the writing…

I wish I would turn back on my radio, but I know I really don't want to. It's funny how my radio just sits there next to my filing cabinet, in which this article will also sit upon completion. God knows when that will be! I know that if I were to open that top drawer of my filing cabinet all the way it would topple over, probably on my radio, which really wouldn't matter because I bet if that cabinet fell it would crash right through the floor, taking me and everything else in the room with it. My own private sink hole. The top drawer is the heaviest, mostly filled with supplies. If only I would keep the heavier things in the bottom drawer there would not be the fear of it falling over. I wish it could be better arranged but that's the way things go. Some day I will learn. I hear floors are expensive.

The football pennants and the posters in this room give it a sort of presence. The various posters have a pretty wide range of topics and scenes. From spaceships to oceans and other worlds, from kittens to feathered friends, and robots and lasers to baseball players and fields. Life to death.

I would like to see if there is snow outside, but I dare not turn out the lights so I can see out. I notice a slight headache as I look to the time on my watch. I can almost hear it ticking, but I can't hear that dog that's always barking. Time doesn’t really tick, it ebbs.

I close my eyes, feeling a bit funny, but not abnormal.

If I felt fine – I wouldn’t pay it. If I felt more funny – I wouldn’t laugh. If I felt… If only… I… felt.

My stomach is about ready for a beer or two as it's about time for me to get ready to go out for the night.

I wonder what I'll do tonight?

                                                                                 ‘Til Later,

       èim  Uhr

                                    P.S: Maybe I'll see you tonight…

                                           Bet you won't recognize me.

Silence and I                        Should I let it show?

               Secrets

Windows to the Soul

Windows of the Soul

Windows of the Soul

Windows. I have always loved windows. Standing in one atmosphere, gazing out at another environment that may be totally different. Removed, unconnected. Like looking out at a blizzard from a cozy warm home, the totally white frozen obliteration contrasting to the warmth and varied colors within. A thin, clear membrane separating you from frostbite. A thin clear line between Nevada and Alaska. It’s like looking at an historic painting that you feel so distant from – like instead of gazing at another time, you are looking into another dimension.

Sometimes when I’m depressed I can gaze out a window and imagine another life. It’s always nice to put glass between your pane [sic].

Just as children growing up strive to separate themselves from grownups, so we in general as humans are prone to feel the need to separate ourselves from history. Denying past errors. Maybe that’s why windows dominate today’s society, since we like separation, with windows we can at least be conscious of the division and pretend to care. (Kind of like seeing starving third world children on television and feeling compelled to send off a dollar or two to alleviate our guilt, pretending that we're not separated from their blight.) We air condition against the warmth outside, just as we heat when it is cold outside. Man – always trying to be separate from, trying to change reality. Never satisfied with the way things are.

For it is the change that always stands out. The difference is what’s important. If almost all birds were either blue or red, I’m sure that it would be the brown one’s that we considered beautiful.

We climb mountains with great delight in being able to look down into valleys. We live in the valley in order to have a view of the majestic mountains.

And it is with the help of windows that make all this so obvious. Windows let us see our separation, make us aware of the modifications we have made. Windows are constant reminders of man’s attempt to turn reality up-side-down.

Windows are barriers that at least let light get through so that we can fool ourselves into thinking there is no separation. Thus we can say, “I live in Moscow” or “I live in Cleveland” or “I live in Chambly,” instead of “I live in a 70 degree heated/air-conditioned bubble – just like you and most everybody else.”

We play with reality until reality loses it’s meaning. Is reality the inside of the cage or the world outside? It depends on which side one has his perspective from. Whether they are bars of steel or piled up bars of gold, poor are affected as well as the wealthy - as your personal prison can be from theft as well as riches. Money can separate us as it stacks up around us forming an inpenitratible barrier that no one can reach through. Seclusion can be our own private jail. The rich as well as the poor can experience alienation from society. Lock me away, or shun me. Observe me only through windows. Keep your distance! Not like a lion in a cage, but more that of a fish in an aquarium. You could never truly know my world. My glass separates universes, dimensions. My glass is a bubble that surrounds me as I float in and out of your reality.

It is sometimes said that separation is an illusion – but in reality anything and everything but separation is the illusion. Each object, each person, is made up of individual cells. Each cell in your body has as much connection to each other as do the planets in a solar system.

Space. Space is the truth. There is space between everything. The only connection between us is space. The Universe is essentionally empty. It is a vacuum by any standard. Even a pane of glass is not really solid. A neutrino passing through a window has a very small chance of colliding with any molecule in the glass – most assuredly it will pass right through without any effect. It would be almost impossible for it to strike anything.

Although you can see a completely different world outside your window, you have little chance of having any effect on it. Of all the animals on Earth it’s the human beings who are known as the creators on the planet, always building things, but in actuality our creations are small and usually temporary – just waiting for entropy to overtake them. As the debate rages on whether we are destroying the planet I think that we are locked in a perspective that is far from reality. I’m not sure we are as of yet able to destroy the Earth, we are only able to change it – possibly destroying the atmosphere and any possible living conditions. But the Earth, in one form or another, will survive. So the only thing we would probably be destroying is ourselves, along with a few billion animals. I think that long after we’re gone the Earth will repair itself. Maybe then the next incarnation of life will get it right.

Maybe we’re just like microbes in a Petri dish. The experiment of life on this planet may have passed its half-life. Maybe the scientist running this experiment has as much feelings for us as we do for mold spores. Possibly we are just a little experiment in filling up some space. We take up about as much space in the Universe as we do time in it’s history. We would not even register as a blip on the radar screen. We are dandruff on the head of the Universe, exaggerating our self worth. Is it man’s deterrent or his blessing to be so self-centered? Man’s ego is what has caused him to expand beyond any reasonable measure. In this microcosm, man is king. Man’s inflated self-importance is what makes him rise above the other microbes in the Petri dish.

The ultimate question is whether he can rise up enough through his own compost to really communicate with the scientist running this experiment and possible save himself with something more than complaints or simple pleas of help.

                                                                                    éim Uhr

P.S.   It is said that a millennium is just a moment to the Universe. Do you want to give me a moment to see if I can unstick this widow?

The eyes have it. [sic]

which window video is the best??? - let me know!

Window1                                   Window2

Window3

W I N D O W S

From the archives... "Article Worth Framing"

#written over 30 years ago - dredged up from the pits#

A R T I C L E    W O R T H    F R A M I N G

Typing my life away. Words appearing on paper, with nothing to say. But today is different. No, my typing has not quickened its pace, I have not taken typing lessons. Typing is just as tedious as ever. No, I have not sat down with something special to say ahead of time. This article will probably drift by word by word just like all the rest in a sea of paragraphs, being fed from a babbling stream of consciousness. Yes, this writer has his "Gone Fishing" sign up.

So what, you ask, is different about today's article? Today I face the typewriter alone. I have, for the first time, not written any of this down ahead of time in longhand. The thoughts flow directly from my head to the printed paper, with no middle pad involved. No change, no chance to update, cross out, add, or disintegrate. Leave the editing to the editor.

Darn, I'm not done yet. I don't want to let this paper sit in the typewriter too long. I don't want the editor to think the paper was yellow before I started. A true vintage work of art.

I have always believed in honesty, and anyone who says they believe differently is a liar. I have always told my readers how it is. If I'm having trouble writing a particular piece I come right out and admit it. If I doze off every now and then when writing I tell of the experiences of my dreams upon awakening. I try to get as close to my readers as possible. I have a theory that the majority of my readers are between the ages of 20 and 30, female, and beautiful. Now you can understand why I want to get as close to them as possible.

But of course this only applies to my articulate writing, when I know that the reader knows that she is reading me, and not just something about one of my characters that I made up, as in a novel. When writing a story about other people and places I really don't care how close and personal I bring my readers in to their particular lives. When I want to bring my readers close to my characters I just use a frame. By using unsung characters as a way to tell and develop a story about other characters whom the readers never come in direct contact with is my ploy to keep the readers far away from the story. After all, my characters have their own personal lives, and letting you into their minds might hurt their feelings. Me, I don't mind you coming into my mind. Don't worry-- there is plenty of room to wander about. But I think of my characters as people in their own right, and I wouldn't feel right about letting you trample around in the mind of someone else. My mind doesn't mind trampling, but I cannot speak for others. It's good to have my mind occasionally filled with something, even if it is unceremoniously trampling and generally mucking about of others, for it cuts down on the echoes and reverberations of thoughts past.

Most of the time my writing is intellectual and emotional, so it is not hurt by distance. My stories can be told just as well from the overhearing of another's conversation as from the contorted drivel from one of my main characters' brain. Creating distance in stories also can create new characters. The people you eavesdrop on become a secondary part of the story. These people must somehow be related to the story they are revealing.

Yes, creating a distance between the reader and the story can be useful in works of fiction. First of all, it doesn't embarrass the characters by letting a total stranger see something that they do not wish to show to just anyone. It resolves the writer from the sin of letting another beings brain be trampled on. It keeps with the intellectual aura of my usual writing. I don't like my stories exaggerated and overblown like the common "fish story." There is an art to creating new, unimportant characters and confusing the readers. I have often noticed that the more confused the reader is, the better he likes the story. Also the use of more characters makes the story longer just by having to take the space to explain their presence, and remember – writers get paid by the word count. So the more words I can force on to the paper … the greater the masterpiece.

He stumbled into the bar, rejected again. It was tough to be an unsold writer in New York City with revenues as well as patience dwindling. Five rejections in as many weeks! Maybe he was forcing out the novels a bit too fast…

He needed a drink…

Tom Collins. Didn't his brother used to be a wide receiver for the Browns? He dug the folded money from his wallet. The money he was counting on lasting until he started selling was running low. And not yet even one sale. He placed his head in his hands, trying to clear his head. He couldn't, wouldn't! go back home without a sale. As tears welled up in his eyes and trickled down through his fingers, his ears popped, and as they did the mull of mixed conversation dropped to a level of inaudibility and from the table behind him he could just make out what the participants of an interesting conversation were saying. He listened in a half dreaming state …

"…broke into the New York Times with a bang." a man's voice was saying. "He comes from Ohio. Already he's got a huge following, and to think that just weeks ago he was an unknown!"

I think he's gorgeous," came the lovely voice from a girl over twenty, but certainly not more than thirty.

"Certainly the new sensation. By his third article he had made the front page!"

“It's destiny."

"Truly words of wisdom. This one is something special…"

"Where has he been hiding all his life?"

"They say he's only in his teens. I think he's so gorgeous!"

"Surely words so wise could not possibly come from one so young. Where does he get his vast knowledge and experiences?"

"Truly a gift from above…"

"Yet, his words are so deep…"

"Deep, reaching the bottom of my heart... "

"…and meaningful…”

"Bringing his soul along with every word…"

"Did you read his latest masterpiece in today's paper?"

"First thing I do every morning!"

"Wouldn't miss it."

"Well, actually no. I save it for the night. When I can read him all alone in bed at night, sharing our inner feelings. Every time I read him I feel so close to him, like he's right there with me… He's so gorgeous!"

"Well, then let me tell you what he wrote today…"

"No! I told you! I save him for the night! I don't wanna hear…"

"That's not all you save for the night, Sally."

"Actually I get more of a thrill from reading the dictionary than I would if I was with you…"

"But Bob, I thought that you said that you and Sally, last weekend… "

"Shut up, Phil!"

"All a writer has to do to get a woman is to say he's a writer. It's an aphrodisiac." smiled Saul Bellow as he passed by their table on his way out, catching part of the conversation.

"He typed his article today directly from his head, he didn't write it first out in longhand like he usually does."

"I told you," Sally was growing furious, "I don't want to have my night spoiled. So shut up!"

"Hey, I wonder if the editor had to read yellow paper…?"

Ha.Ha.Ha.Ha!

"Hey, I have the article right here…"

"In your pocket?"

"Yes, I cut everyone out and carry it around with me for a week and then I have them framed. They hang nicely over the fireplace. I'm running out of room to hang them, though. I think I might have to buy a bigger house."

"Come on. Come on! Read that article out loud. I haven't memorized the third paragraph yet!"

"Ahem… Typing my life away." Bill read in his best voice, standing and waving his arms about, "Words appearing on paper, with nothing to say. But today is different… No, my typing has not quickened its pace, I have not taken typing lessons. Typing is…”

"I can not hear you! I can not hear you… I can not hear you… I can not he… " Her voice fades away as she leaves the bar.

As the dramatic reading of the article continues people gather around the table. Most of them are very good-looking girls… Those who haven't already, are busy memorizing every word coming from Bill's mouth. Soon the whole bar, as most of them already had the article submitted to memory, joined in with Bill and recited the article, and it sounded no less than a choir of angels, a symphony of words.

For one moment in one bar in New York City people forget everything and simply listened. All forgot their private worries and for one brief moment all was right with the world. Peace and harmony were plentiful and men were brothers as they finally found a commonality that could unite the world and solve all differences. One light that could shin for everyone for the common good and benefit of all mankind and lead us all to enlightenment.

The tears of sorrow turned to tears of joy on the young writer’s face, for young Isaac Asimov now knew that there was hope for him, and that soon he too, would find his place in the writing world, and maybe also write a thing or two.

                                                    Successfully Yours,

                                                           èim  Uhr

P.S. Don't feel too sorry for poor Isaac,

I feel that after his 200th book he is gaining

 some confidence and will soon grow up to be

 a better than average writer. 

old things sometimes crash

And people do too (and I thought Browns fans were  ridiculous )