Hey! When was the last time you saw the streetlights turn on?
There’s an order to the feeling behind a lot of life’s background noise. It’s almost like it’s all meant to drift away by design.
The subtle sounds of other people’s problems becoming nothing more than unobserved events.
Sometimes a quirky hour ends up misaligned and a little distortion is accidentally let in.
The schedule slightly off, the sun setting early, night rain rolling in, or just another holiday flashing on the calendar’s momentary radar.
Adverse Stars
Just a little push.
Not nearly enough to fall off the edge.
Almost a contrivance and the hallmark of many a love story. And I did not think myself above such things while working on Significatorius.
In fact, I leaned into those tropes with the smaller town girl falling into a set of circumstances that allows her to fall in love with a rockstar from the big city.
As the story evolved, those superficial traits were refined into character arcs I believe to be compelling. Read that as subversion or simply a different retelling.
He was her adversary.
She was his star.
The awareness of who we are with the when and why never answered. It all leaves a gaping hole as to what exactly we are supposed to do.
The fanfare that comes with expectations being only slightly off their cues is a place where me and my style thrives.
An eeriness to the ordinary that doesn’t revel in the artistry.
More Edward Hopper less Salvador Dali.
Or if you prefer the written word, I’ve found this balance is met masterfully by Sayaka Murata and Ismail Kadare.
A layer of surreal fantasy cloaked in unmistakable melancholy.
Not exactly sad and far from hopeless, but unrelentingly human.
Examining the flawed life behind our scars rather than pretending nothing’s there.
And not in a grotesque desire for pain or gore.
Mine is a boiling pressure and agonizing passion to realize we are not alone.
You are not alone.
The isolation of one’s mind can make a paradise out of the mirage on the horizon. Visions of a tomorrow that is always just out of grasp.
Reality left to pass us by.
And before any focus ever arrives, the current is gone.
Our time is up.
And songs of lament are sung as a forgiving hymn.
Coffee Break
The chorus that defines my adventurous rambling through histories and holidays is easily found in Significatorius and all my other books.
I seem to always come back to a question that weighs heavy on the page.
Will I ever find a home?
Existing everywhere is an alternative translation of nowhere to settle down.
A hypervigilance of current surroundings at all times is a reaction to roots never finding enough soil to dig in.
Acting like these emotions are wrong only leads to bottled up frustration that is the stuff of nightmarish anxiety and furious rage.
Blind ignorance may numb the sound of a screaming soul, but it’s a false sense of security that provides only the most transient of calming sensations.
So I write.
I have no choice not to.
I can only hope you find something worthwhile in my words.
And if indeed you do, well then I doubly hope you eventually read my writing and share and spread those same words.
Until next time.
—JMB