25.1.15



He looked down at a piece of paper held in the clipboard he salvaged nearly thirty years earlier
out of a trash bin of some corporation whose name he couldnt recall which had one of its armed guards direct him to park the boxed truck he drove to the rear of the building where he could access its loading dock
despite the security he picked out the clipboard and several broken reams of copying paper

This is trash right  he said to the maintenance worker who was to direct him to where the company had assembled the 30x60 rental office desks and six-foot folding tables they didnt need any longer
 
If its in that bin its trash

Any feelings if I take this stuff

Hell no You cant believe the stuff they throw away  If you can use it help yourself

Done  Waste not want not  My parents didnt raise a shy child

Mine did  Did a lousy job of it  Just dont let the guards see em as you leave  Theyll shit  Security detail  my ass  or else and I shudder to think it  this is probably all we can expect of security


  
clutched in the Bear-of-a-Clip on the reverse-side of some advertisement mailed to him that he didnt ask for or want the page bore his handwriting etched in the black ink of a Pentel RSVP
fine point pen and also with medium point blue and red Bic Cristal inks
seeing his handwriting on paper soothed him
maybe  because few people could read what he wrote 
                                                                                        though sometimes he couldnt either 
particularly when what he wrote expressed a gnawing agitation that sped his hand as it helplessly tried to keep pace with the maelstrom at his reeling brain

but even his illegible handwriting soothed him
phrases appeared like broken shards and splashes of individuals names with whom he was unfamiliar  and then quite concerned that he didnt know of them because their names appeared in the midst of things and histories he had overwhelming interests in and yet they were sudden ghosts reared before him
apparently  however  having always been there 
how was what possible what else had he missed
                                                                                and they all turned looking out of the margins
or inward or upside down rightside up with no gravity to hold them
they were as he wanted to be  firm and unsubstantial  tethered and without the laws of physics
though their appearance on the page was enough to placate  and genuinely humour him
they eliminated any need or want of sedatives or script physicians happily wrote 
and then
                like a new toy or never-before-constructed jigsaw puzzle he went at them to satisfy his curiosity
  
there were so many entries that he failed to note where he found them or what they may have been bonded to
except  he would only have found them where his interests took him

rendering him they yanked a black cloth sack over his head and pitched him headlong onto the back seat of a comfortable sedan

there are worse ways to travel

                                                                     and worse places to find oneself




1242,  Sunday,  25  1. 15