Brothers dreaming

This story is loosely based on reality. At the age of about nine, during a strange and memorable dream I called out to my brother to come and join me. One of my biggest regrets is that subsequently I never got around to asking him about that night. Nor will I, at least not in this life — he died three years ago, at the age of 58.

Oh and one more thing: please ignore the title "Nanofauna" on the music video (it's a long story). "Portal to Forever" is a much better title. You might want to crank up the bass.

Once upon a night, a nine-year-old boy named Cain dreamed he was soaring like an eagle in the skies above a land so beautiful that he wept with joy.

He felt so full of wonder and delight that he called out to his younger brother Abel, asleep in the bunk below. Cain wanted Abel at his side, flying through the air of that mysterious land. Cain knew in his heart it would be a long time and a far way before he’d see those colours or hear that music again.

The next morning Cain felt off-balance. He was happy and excited, as if he had discovered a great secret that would change everything. But he was also angry and resentful that he had to get up and go to school. He wished he could just go back to sleep and resume the magic dream.

Abel woke up that morning feeling hot and dizzy. Their mother, Eve, took one look at his pale sweaty face and said “no school for you today sweetie, you must be coming down with something.”

Then Cain said “he’s faking, it’s not fair…” and Abel said “am not!” and Cain said “liar liar your pants are on fire!” and Abel said “well your pants smell like poo!” at which point Cain flew at his brother in a rage, throwing punches as hard and fast as he could.

Global warming's habit-forming

Detail from Hungry Ghosts Scroll, late 12th century, Kyoto National Museum, Japan. You don't have to be Buddhist (or even human) to feel that life is pain and misery. But some lives are more painful and miserable than others. One of six lifeforms available to humans for reincarnation purposes, hungry ghosts (aka anguished spirits) can never satisfy their monstrous appetites.

If humans were to go away
Would nice terrestrials stay and play?

Were we to leave for outer space
Who'd stand and say we're in disgrace?

Fish don't know its paradoxic
Waste is food and food is toxic

No birds there be, or bees, or trees
Who realize we spread disease

We'd like to say with deep remorse
We're very sorry, yes of course

But where's the mailbox on the moon
To send the Earth a Get-Well-Soon?

To tenderize a tough old bird
Just cook her longer, so I’ve heard

But like revenge, or so I’m told
The Earth is better eaten cold.

Published in AWAREWOLF & OTHER CRHYMES AGAINST HUMANITY for kindle, tablet, smartphone or e-reader. We all hate poetry, right? But we might make an exception for this twisted stuff, a devil's banquet of adults-only offal featuring more than 50 satanic sonnets, vitriolic verses and odious odes.

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The magic painting

Portal to Forever, oils on canvas, by SRS

Someplace, sometime, somehow there was a Magic Painting that was a doorway to another world.

Anyone who looked into the Painting fell into a trance and entered that other world, just as Alice through the looking glass. And on the other side, they found themselves entangled in exciting and wonderful adventures. And when they returned they felt happy and healthy and healed of all their wounds and woes and worries.

One day some Bad Men stole the Magic Painting. Sly as rats they snuck away to the Low Places of the City. Quiet as snakes they slithered down a Crooked Street to a Hidden House. In that Hidden House was a Secret Chamber. And in that Secret Chamber was an Iron Safe that weighed as much as a mountain and was big enough for thirteen people to stand inside.

In that Iron Safe, the Bad Men put the Magic Painting. Then they locked the Safe, slunk out of the Secret Chamber, left the Hidden House and went their separate ways.