Tag: truth

Handling a Harpoon

~ Richard Schulte ~ Leave a comment

The student doodled, wondered why a whale would be white, made a note in the book’s margin, underlined a sentence.

His pen descended again but couldn’t harpoon words. The elusive whale submerged into unseen pages.

The young man slammed the book shut and jammed it into his heavy backpack. He slung the bundled freight over one shoulder and rose from the desk.

The white whale moved, too.

It swam inside inky darkness, from one book to another.

It moved through Physics, Biology, Sociology, Philosophy, Religion, Statistics, History. It migrated from ocean to ocean.

The student quickly navigated to his next classroom. Thinking of nothing. Thinking of everything. Suddenly he felt the whale slip into his bent back, shiver up his spine, then a whirl of awful whiteness in his head.

Anxiously he sought a harpoon.

But the whale swam away.

The Perfect Snowflake

~ Richard Schulte ~ 1 Comment

Sanji was aware that he was dreaming.

He was walking through a silent white forest. Pine trees blanketed with snow rose on every side.

When Sanji was a young child, the lucid dreams had been frequent. That was a lifetime ago, when he spent his waking hours pretending to streak past a billion billion stars as he traveled in a spaceship to the far end of the universe.

As a middle-aged man he slept without dreams.

Until this night.

Sanji moved through the white forest deliberately and searched the snow with devouring eyes. He turned his feet in every direction, crushing fresh powder with every step, and at last halted on the bank of a frozen river. He could hear running water bubbling beneath the emerald ice.

Sanji had searched the unknown his entire adult life. Somehow, after many dreamless nights, he had become a leading theoretical physicist. He lived in a small world of unending numbers, odd symbols. Penning equations, scratching them out. Now he gazed down at the frozen river and knew for certain that he was asleep and dreaming, and that what he saw before him was absolutely real.

Looking up, he saw white particles floating from the trees. One drifted down, landed on his fingertip.

He held the snowflake next to one eye.

He stared at its shape.

The tiny snowflake was an infinity of jigsaw pieces fitted together into one seamless whole. Pieces of infinitesimal essence.

He caught his breath in the airless cold.

He had found something that he had never seen before. A perfect snowflake. The most simple of all possible truths.

The crystal snowflake was an unbidden, elegant revelation, like inspired strokes of chalk on a newly-cleaned chalkboard: a brilliant equation of white: a mathematical certainty that explained all things.

All Sanji’s life he’d grappled to unravel the truth. He had fought to weld together that desperate mathematical Theory of Everything.

Now it was on his finger.

In the perfect snowflake he saw the precise truth that was written at the beginning of all things. He saw the origin, the movement, the destiny of the universe. The final equation shimmered before him. He saw each finite number distinctly. It was simple. He’d found it.

Sanji heard a patter of rain.

He listened to the rain and was aware that it was dark. And that he was warm in bed.

Outside his bedroom window streaked dark ghostly rain.

Suddenly he remembered his dream.

Despair.

He had to write it down. That equation.

He knew there was a notepad on the desk by the window–and on top of the notepad a ballpoint pen. He jumped up.

The ghostly rain outside his room drew his eyes to the window. Softly glowing raindrops were coursing separately down the pane, like pulsing atoms or universes, flowing, colliding, combining, accelerating, vanishing. The raindrops followed defined courses, courses easily formulated, with destinies known. And yet each was a mystery. Each drop was birthed out of darkness–each was a vision beyond his reach.

Sanji blinked. He’d forgotten his dream.

Beth’s Window

~ Richard Schulte ~ 1 Comment

Beth loved to sit by the blue ocean. She loved to watch the clouds, the sea breeze sway white sails.

Her special park bench was planted among flowers. Like the dancing sails, the flowers came to life in the breeze, their bright colors tickling her eyes, tickling the sparkling blue that stretched away beyond sight. At the horizon the aquamarine water transformed to topaz.  From there, ascendant magic lifted sun-sculpted clouds.

The world of flowers, water and sky seemed to her like a living window. A window with no frame.

. . .

The afternoon of the total eclipse brought a wall of people to the water’s side. The wall stood in front of Beth’s bench.

The wall’s eyes were down.

Anxious hands clutched a blank piece of paper. The people minutely examined a tiny crescent of light produced by a pin hole.

At total eclipse, the people craned their necks momentarily toward the black hole in the sky.

Then stared again at slivers of light.

The wall finally crumbled.

Sitting on her bench, her small, single perch beside the stretching ocean, Beth breathed in with relief.

The shutters of her window had been reopened.

Beth gazed with her ever-thirsty eyes at the water, the endless sky. Above crushed flowers white sails still swayed in the ocean breeze, moving across the blue water. The living clouds were touched again by eternal light. And she knew her flowers would regrow.

Writing Infinity

~ Richard Schulte ~ 3 Comments

A writer with pen must write infinity.
Must dot that first i.
Must steady the hand.
Now to descend.

Confusions of essence produce absurd jots.
And ink must be elegant.
Steady that hand.
Carefully aim.

A tiny dot, uncertain, of a sudden.
One instant.
Forgotten.

A Short Bloom

~ Richard Schulte ~ 7 Comments

The old man was puzzled by so many selfies.

“Why? Because people want to see themselves in Heaven,” explained the gardener. He held a rake loosely in one hand. The park was crowded.

“That is why eyes look into cameras, into lenses. For one moment in spring the cherry blossoms bloom, so everybody smiles, frames their own face.

“They would like to appear in Heaven. But few understand the nature of what they see.

“Blossoms soon fall. Blooms are crushed under feet.

“With a button every person will make a painting of Heaven. Perfect white and pink clouds, angel faces, snowflakes fluttering in this unending wind.

“But snow melts into the thirsty Earth. Delicate blossoms are tread to dust by a thousand searching feet. All things return to the Earth. This good Earth.

“Paintings are put into vaults. And we become old.”

The Child and the Koi

~ Richard Schulte ~ 3 Comments

“What’s that, Mommy?”

“That is a koi.”

The child leaned over the still water to stare down at the beautiful koi. The water was perfectly clear, like crystal. The koi rose to the surface, mouth working.

“Hello,” said the fish. “Why are you looking at me?”

“Because you’re orange.”

“Is there something wrong with orange?” asked the fish.

“No. I like it.”

“I’m glad you like my color. But if there’s nothing wrong with orange, then why do so many of you people stand there and stare down at me?”

“I know why!” said the child.

“Then please tell me.”

“Because they think you look like fire.”

“I look like fire? What is fire?”

“Fire is a mouth that rises.

“Fire is always hungry, like you. It eats every little thing it sees.

“Fire eats houses.  Fire eats schools.  Fire swallows cities and sacred temples and palaces of adamant.

“And fire is very beautiful.”

“It is?”

“But fire quickly vanishes in clear water,” explained the child.

“Now I understand. So I must go.”

The koi swam away.

The Piano Player Sat Down

~ Richard Schulte ~ Leave a comment

The piano player sat down. For a moment he paused. Then he opened his hands.

From his fingertips emerged a shining coin.

The pianist spread 88 playing cards smoothly in a row. Every listener picked one card. With a touch he found it.

A flower sprang from his sleeve.

Inescapable ropes were cast aside with the twist of his hand.

Handcuffs fell off.

Into the black cauldron his moving fingers stirred fallen tears, a sprinkle of stars, lost memory, alchemy.

A white rabbit leaped from the cabinet, vanishing.

Applause.

Final Real Magic

~ Richard Schulte ~ 2 Comments

The Great Sampson was a magician without peer. Five thousand shows in a hundred grimy towns and he never complained. The stiffs working the carnival regarded him with a mixture of wonder and derision.

“And now,” the Great Sampson waved, “my final act!”

A few people in the dingy tent regarded the theatrical old man. They were thinking about home. In a few minutes night would fall. Other sideshow tents were already being hastily dismantled, folded up. The Great Sampson, in his black top hat, had picked up a thin book covered with gold lettering and had shakily climbed into an open black box that resembled a coffin.

The old man ran his fingers through an ebony beard, which he had obviously curled and dyed. He opened the shining book as he faced the audience: several bored adults and one boy.

“Until this very moment,” he announced grandly, “no magician in the entire history of the world has actually performed magic. Illusion and deception have been substituted for magic, and millions of believers have been told by deceitful entertainers that they are witnessing the effects of true supernatural power. You, my good friends, will be the first to ever witness real magic. You will remember this day for the remainder of your lives. So pay very close attention. Don’t blink!”

The Great Sampson took a deep breath. He hesitated. He visibly trembled. “And now, after years of struggle, after years of false starts and dead ends, after years and years of searching: my life’s greatest and only worthwhile achievement!”

He held up the shining book with gold lettering and read: “Minui fines vitae justo in aeternum!”

The Great Sampson vanished.

The carnival sideshow audience stood with jaded expectation on the crushed dirt floor.

Nothing happened.

The people waited patiently for a minute, then two.

Nothing happened.

A man in back finally slipped out of the dark tent.

Nothing happened.

A couple near the black box shrugged, laughed and left.

Nothing happened.

Everyone left.

Everyone forsook the black box except the boy. In that shadow of doubt he didn’t dare move.

Something terrible–something extraordinary had happened. The boy could sense it. A shivering thrill fixed his feet in place.

Summoning courage, he inched forward, leaned slowly over, and peered into the box.

Skittering nervously at its bottom, a gray mouse was frantically trying to escape.

The boy’s heart pounded. His mind raced.

He jumped.

“Show’s over,” boomed a voice behind him. A carnival worker’s face was poking into the dark tent with a glare of impatience. “Time to go home kid.”

“But what about the Great Sampson?” the boy protested.

“What about who?”

The boy was indignant. “The Great Sampson is gone!”

“You need to be gone, too. Now get the hell out of here or someone might call the cops.” The worker shot him a exasperated look and left.

The boy hesitated. Nothing that had just happened–the magician’s strange speech–that split second when he had vanished–none of it seemed real.

The boy remained alone in the tent, looking down at the small helpless mouse. He had to decide. Quickly. He reached into the black box and took the mouse gently into his hand and slipped out of the tent into the twilight. The carnival was over. Indistinct lumps of canvas littered the ground.

The soft mouse in his hand had calmed down. The boy saw a man heaving plastic garbage bags onto a flatbed truck and hurried over.

“I think I know what happened to the Great Sampson!”

“What happened? What the hell are you talking about?”

“The Great Sampson disappeared about ten minutes ago! He was doing his very last magic show and I think he actually turned into a mouse. He said it was his final act! He said he would finally do real magic!”

“Get the fuck out of here. You’re crazy.”  The man turned back to the garbage.

. . .

As the boy walked rapidly home, he stared frequently through his fingers at the mouse. It seemed to be an ordinary gray mouse.

He slowed at the grassy park several blocks from his home, and he sat down on the bench in the lamp’s soft light. He opened his hand just enough to closely examine the mouse. It seemed perfectly ordinary. “Can you hear me?” the boy asked.

The nervous mouse looked about, seemingly at nothing.

“If you can hear me, let me know. Do something. Nod your head.”

The mouse’s head quivered. It looked up at the boy.

“I don’t know what to do. Are you really the Great Sampson? Can you turn back? Are you going to turn back?”

No answer. None was possible.

“If that was really your final act–” The boy looked at the mouse feeling puzzled, hopeless. “Why did you do it?

“So you wanted to do real magic? Why? To become something different?”

He leaned sideways to pull an object from his back pocket. It was the strange shining book with gold lettering. It had also remained at the bottom of the box.

The book appeared to be a journal. It was the type of cheap mass-produced journal that anybody can buy for a couple dollars at a store. The boy read elegant gold letters on the cover. They formed the words: Follow Your Dreams.

. . .

Sitting on the bed in his room, still holding the mouse in one hand, the boy opened the thin journal. Its few pages were handwritten in black ink, clearly and elegantly. Page after page after page, with an occasional word or sentence neatly crossed out. Page after page. It seemed to be the life’s work of one person.

With one hand he clumsily turned the pages until he reached the last, where his eyes froze on the final words: Minui fines vitae justo in aeternum. Those had been the final words spoken by the Great Sampson. The fatal incantation. The final words.

Were they really magic?

He mouthed a few of the dangerous words inaudibly, a shiver crawling up his back, then stopped.

He jumped.

A very loud knock on his bedroom door.

“What are you doing” demanded his mother. “I called you for dinner five minutes ago!”

“Just a second.”

“I’m running out of patience–you come out of there now!” His mother opened his door. “What on Earth have you been doing?”

“Nothing.” He turned and quickly placed the mouse in a drawer by his bed.

“Well, come on. You know how your father doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

Reluctantly, the boy stepped out of his room and headed for the stairs. Turning back, he saw his mother enter his room.

. . .

The mouse was gone.

Whether his mother had found it, or the mouse had escaped, the boy couldn’t know. It didn’t matter.

He lay on his bed, almost in tears. He didn’t know why.

Of course, it all was plain silly. Everyone knows there’s no such thing as real magic. The Great Sampson was gone, that was the only thing that mattered. The Great Sampson had performed his final act. And nobody really cares about an act. Everything in life is an act.

The boy picked up the thin book with glittery lettering.

He didn’t dare open it.

He placed it on his bookshelf, among other wise books he would probably never read.

Perhaps he’d read it one day.

Dew on the Grass

~ Richard Schulte ~ 2 Comments

Missy smelled dew on the grass.

She smelled the damp earth and yesterday’s rain. The roots of trees, mouldering leaves.

She smelled freshly broken twigs, the scent of crisp, tart, yellow and brown autumn.

And a newly blue sky.

Simply by breathing, Missy understood everything.

A ten-mile-away fireplace, a nearby muddy puddle.

The rising warm sun, startled birds taking flight.

Bees, butterfly wings, the erosions of mountains, dandelion dust and the movement of time.

From beyond the horizon, just as clear as the smell of autumn, Missy sensed infinite things. An unending motion. The residue of untold lives.

She smelled happiness and loss and the atoms of those long-vanished.

She smelled the new moon and hidden stars.

A human pulled impatiently on her leash. Missy followed.

A Dance in the Lightning

~ Richard Schulte ~ 4 Comments

Angie was dead tired. The steep, stony hike up to the mountain’s summit had taken longer than she and her sister had planned. The air was very thin.

Karen was anxious to begin back down. “I don’t like this. Look at the clouds.”

“Let me rest for a minute,” said Angie, gazing down.

Silent, very far below, the familiar Earth seemed empty, unpeopled. The tan and green plains, like a rumpled quilt, stretched curving into the distance. A river one hundred miles distant made a loose thread. The world’s floor was dappled with creeping shadows.

It seemed the two sisters could reach out to touch moving white clouds.

“We better head down. Staying up here is dangerous,” warned Karen.

“Just one more minute,” begged Angie.

The shadows of scattered clouds marched across the world below. The amorphous shadows seemed like creeping ink. Up on the mountain’s high summit the atmosphere was clear and icy. The wind shivered Angie’s skin. Range upon range rose to the east, raking more boiled white clouds. The farthest peaks were minuscule and dreamlike.

Up in that heaven everything was like perfect crystal: the air, a shining glacial lake nestled straight below in a cathedral of rising granite, the sharp stone walls, panels of sky painted blue. The white clouds, now so close, seemed the only things that were alive.

They were moving, growing, indefinite, changing. Becoming deeper. Deeper. Dark.

“Come on!”

But Angie couldn’t move. The strange beauty of the darkening arrested her.

The freezing wind became razor sharp.

A shadow came.

“Hurry!” shouted Karen, running over tumbled boulders to reach a small shelter that had been built on the mountain’s summit. The shelter was made of carefully assembled stones, built by someone long ago. One who feared heaven turned dark.

Angie did not follow.

A cloud very close above blackened.  A hard rain began.  Angie stood alone, watched for the first flash of lightning.

That first revelation was a blinding, searing spear of fire. It pierced a mountain ridge just below.

The lightning flashed just a moment, a jagged burning finger, cracking open the height of heaven, transforming the rain into sparks. The booming rebound from unseen blasted stone was the voice of thundering, echoing power. A momentary awful power shaking the deepest foundations.

A second flash.  Closer.

The power descended from somewhere–from some place beyond the highest peak or reach of mind.  It was a pure light, a heedless Something, manifested from gathered blackness. A burning truth.  Then an explosion.

Another.

The white light burned in front of Angie. It was the light from an open door. Her eyes saw through for just a moment.

Then came another flash. And another. Even closer. Much closer. Exploding nearer and nearer. Angie’s sky-reaching arms waved in abandon.

She felt dizziness, danger, amazement, joy.

Angie danced in the lightning.