I awoke. A dream or no dream? O! Those glaring blank sockets! That skull of a dead man! No, no dream that. The day was bright, and it was nine. Nine o'clock! Work! Work? My last seven days and work? No way! But I have my duties. I'll call in sick. Downstairs, in the kitchen, I phoned the phone. Secretary: Database Management Systems, Pty, Ltd. Jeffrey Knight: Jeffrey Knight, the Knight's Knight, Knight of the Night here. S: Good Morning, Mr Knight. How can I help you? J K: Tell the boss I won't be in today. I'm feeling a little crook. S: OK J K: Over and out. S: Goodbye. Ahh! Those little pleasantries in life that keep us alive and vital. Human contact, satisfying the social instinct. But now hunger intruded. It was a cold morning. Bright but cold. Almost as if the sun out there, sitting atop the leafy trees, was just an image, signifying nothing (which Shakespeare play?). An image of warmth, growth, and life. Only an image to me because here I was cold, grown, and soon-to-dead. Those haunting words came back to me: "Jeffrey Knight, your days are ended. 7 more days and 7 more nights, and then the end. Make your peace with the world." O! Those words! Those sockets! That skull of a dead man! But I was hungry. Let's eat. I'll start with some peanut butter toast. Then I'll microwave some leftover rice and chicken and steamed vegetables. Then a pack of chips, and a couple of Scotch Fingers. All washed down with 500 ml of fresh, mineralised, straight-bottled, having-sat-in-the-earth-for-5000-or-more-years spring water. Ahh! Yum! But those words! "Your days are ended." No matter to me. We all die sometime. Being a believer in Buddhist thought makes things a lot easier. No Heaven or Hell, no tedious pleasures or tormenting pains, just an endless cycle leading to nowhere. An omnicycle we all are on, peddling in vain in all our vain pursuits. All is vanity! "7 more days and 7 more nights." That makes a week by my reckoning. (So says the foolish fool fooling foolishly). "and then the end." Yes, he said that before. Maybe he's speaking biblically (ie resolutely repetitiously). "Make your peace with the world." What's he getting at here? I'm cool, man. Peace, love. I love you! (fuckin' hippies). I'm at peace. I don't bother anyone, and no-one bothers me. I'm cool. Well, I've exorcised those words, and exercised my mind, so let's eat! My morning feast known as breakfeast was prepared and dispatched with able alacrity. The street lamp muttered The street lamp sputtered 10 o'clock. Ahh. 10 hours gone out of 168. How to waste some time? I climbed back upstairs, a little loaded, and sat down at my desk. A wide wooden structure with a leafy plastic patterning covering the top. Lots of room for the books that I read, and the books that I need. They're stored on the shelves to the right. Where? There. Let's do some reading. Dickens? dull. Dostoevsky? moralising Wilde? witless. What a bunch of gits! Throw them out of the canon. Let's see. What else is there? Jane Austen? very clever. Tolstoy? very grand. Shakespeare? very excellent. Umm. I'm feeling a little poetical this morning. How about some Walt Whitman - the Song of Myself - "I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me As good belongs to you." Ahh! Very deep. A holographic view of the universe. All is one and one is all. The Three Musketeers arrive in the New Age. OK, what else do we have? Keats, Pope, ... Man! I need to take a shit. Back in a sec. (Jeffrey Knight leaves the room, slams the door, and rushes to the bathroom. Silence. Then the splash of water, a toilet roll unrolling, and the sound of washing hands. Jeffrey Knight returns). Ahh. I tell you what. Never eat a big meal before taking public transport. The Law of Conservation of Intestinal Space will get ya. Now, what was I doing? Yes, poetry. Keats? overhyped. Pope? cerebral ... No! Nooo! That skull! Those words! "Jeffrey Knight, your days are ended. 7 more days and 7 more nights, and then the end. Make your peace with the world." Actually that's not so scary. I think I can handle that. A week to go, and be cool, man. I get it. How did the rest go? "But the cosmic entity grants you this. At the break of each midnight hour, one question will be answered you fair. Goodbye." Ughh. I don't want to think about that right now. Let's go do something else. Let's talk about me a bit more. I'm 28 and living alone. The house is mine, not the bank's. Or is it the bank's and not mine? Maybe it's both the bank's and mine. Anyway, the house is someone's, and I'm the child of someone's, though not the bank's. My father is English, my mother Spanish. My father is in England, my mother in Spain. They're divorced. One child of this lusty union. That's me! About my mother, she's a beatiful woman. You know, shapely figure, full breasts, the jet long length hair. Green eyes! A full face, with all the features clear, reflecting her unambiguous nature. 5'5" and full of fire! Very passionate - no-one plays the Appassionata quite like her. From her I inherited my dark skin and musical mind. And my father - he's an opposite. More controlled, suiting the English nature, and a tall angular man. Lean, though strong, and having a powerful sense of self. Read classics at Oxford, but ended up in Import/Export where he could place his personal stamp on things. The face tells the story. A generous brow shows intelligence, and the squarish jaw determination. The modest lips indicate an unruffled nature, a slim nose the same. My height and general nature I inherited from him. My mother and father divorced. Time away and time passing created a gulf not even lust could bridge. The secret to a succesful relationship? Time together and time pasr. As for relationships ... That skull! Those words! "But the cosmic entity grants you this." Cosmic entity? Why not God? Maybe god has too many conflicting connotations to use as a label. Surcharged with death and destruction by the Jews, hope and love by the Christians, ubiquity and omnity by the Hindus, god is a very varying term. Yes, cosmic entity is a very nice way to describe the abilities, though not the personifications of God. Grants you this? Is there a hint here of special favour, or is it merely a part of the death sentence, like free nibblies before three courses? I tend to suspect the former, grant gives the impression of being passed down from on high, a voluntary condescension. But it's not clear. "At the break of each midnight hour" Yes, so when it strikes 12 am or flashes over to 00:00 military time ... "One question will be answered you fair." No problems here apart from the last word, fair. The question will be answered fairly? Fair referring to me as a "fair" creature? Fair to make up the last iamb? What does fair mean here? "Goodbye." That was very polite of him. So let's put it all together, this message from there. "Jeffrey Knight, your days are ended. 7 more days and 7 more nights, and then the end. Make your peace with the world." "But the cosmic entity grants you this. At the break of each midnight hour, one question will be answered you fair. Goodbye." How would you like to get a midnight message like this? Oougghh. Scary. The street lamp muttered The street lamp sputtered 12 o'clock. Time flies! Lost in thought and reverie, the halfway mark of the first of my last seven days has been passed. Half, first, last. What about first half last? Or last first half? What do these combinations of time refer to? (No prizes for correct answers. Just ardent self-satisfaction, you a.s.s.!). What to do now? Too early for lunch, too late for brunch. Crunch, punch, munch. What is it? A celery stick. I wish I could die now, time's so slow. I wonder what the cosmic entity would do if I short-circuited his little plan? Could he hurt me? Put my spirit in too small a bottle? Put a hole in my soul? Even I can do that last one, let's go for a walk. ---------===ooo===--------- I walked down the street, up that one, across the next, and throught the rest. I walked to the shops. Take any old way you want. I did. I went to buy a loaf of bread. Ahh bread! The staff of life. The stuff of life. The staff and stuff of life. Sometimes stiff, sometimes not, the staff, and stuff, and stiff of life. Ahh bread! Bread! Sliced wonder of the world! What can not be done with thee? Toasted, baked, grilled, burnt, or burnished, it forms the base of any meal. Take two slices, butter two sides (on different slices!) and you have the wrapping of almost any dish. Go try it now! Go to your kitchen, find the hallowed loaf (for what house does not at any time have a loaf, no matter how green and hoary with age?) and some butter or margarine. Lay before you a plate and knife, and wash your hands for the critical act. "In the name of the loaf, the bun, and the long french stick, I do consecrate this deed." Impressive. Even more so in the original Latin. Butter your two slices in an arbitrary manner (depending upon taste and cholesterol levels) and you have before you a gift from God. A divine wrapping. The rudiments of a sandwich. What comes next typifies the wonder of bread. Anything goes! Chicken, pork, salami, sesame seeds. Tomato, gherkin, grirlandio, salza. Nutri-grain, vitamin C, beef strips, dyspepsides, bona sera! Whatever you want, whenever you want! You can't go wrong! O, the wonders of bread! I went to the shops to buy some bread. Along the way I did some thinking. "At the break of each midnight hour, one question will be answered you fair." Seven days, so seven questions. And seven answers. But that word fair worries me. Was I only allowed to ask "fair" questions (as decided by the cosmic entity) or was I to receive "fair" answers to my impromptu queries (as within the reach or jurisdiction of my midnight locutor). O! It was so very unclear! But let's say I could ask any question I wanted, and received the full and enlightened answers. What should I ask? The cure for AIDS? Would I have time to copy down all the involved and technical details if he answered that one? Was it even ethical to ask that one? Maybe AIDS was a sent plague to clear up certain issues? It certainly stopped the promiscuous 80's dead in its tracks (no pun intended). But then again, there is now pretty strong evidence pointing to AIDS having spread through key vaccination points in the heart of Africa. A concerted US conspiracy, or just a fatal, fatal blunder? WHO knows? Something about the dead perhaps? Since I was soon to join the ranks of this hallowed corps, maybe I should know something about their incorporeal members. Who killed JFK? Is Princess Diana in heaven? Is Elvis still alive? It's all a little trickery, deciding which revelation to ask for. The end of the world will come soon, mine even sooner. Forget it, let's buy some bread. So you walked to the shops, I to mine; it took me about 15 minutes, I hope it wasn't too much longer for you. Mine's a fairly pleasant ambulation, nice variety; hills up, hills down; busy roads, some quiet ones; large houses, and some smaller shacks. I live in a green area; lots of green grass, lots of green trees. But don't make me describe too hard; trace out your own journey in your own mind's eye; this story is as much yours as it is mine. I arrived at the shops. A small medium-scale development, with all the necessities of life, plus a few luxuries too. The necessities: food, food, food. The luxuries: food, food, food. I made my way to the supermarket. O super! Super! The super supermarket! In France they call it the hypermarket. O hyper! Hyper! The hypermarket! Why not megamarket? That's what it is these days. I made my way to the super- hyper-megamarket. All those lanes! All so full of crap. It's only crap because I rarely make use of them. A serious case of sour grapes. I found the bread isle. That's easy. It's always no. 1. With all the breakfast foods and spreads. I found some bread. I found some bread. I found some more bread. I found some more bread. I found some even more bread. I found some even more bread. I found lot's of bread! So many types, and I've tried them all! O bread, bread! The stuff and staff and stiff of life! O bread! It was truly bread heaven. White, brown, multigrain, wholegrain, 31 + 1 grain, wholemeal, sourdour, raisoned, reasoned, and regurgitated. O! So many types! Which one to choose? Multigrain is bad - it tears chunks out of my asshole; white is good on its own, but not as toast; sourdough has a special tinge for those special days; raison is good for a reason; but the preferred choice is wholemeal. Good for the bloodsugar, and good for the gut - those lovely stainless shits. Good all round - try it! I found a loaf of Tip-Top wholemeal bread and marched to the express line. Here there was another profound social encounter. Checkout Chick: How are you? Jeffrey Knight: Fine thanks C C: Would you like this in a bag? J K: Yes thanks C C: That's $2.85. J K: Here's $5. C C: And here's your change - $2.15. J K: Thanks. Bye. C C: Bye. O! It makes life worth living doesn't it? So I walked home with my loaf of bread. The street lamp muttered The street lamp sputtered 2 o'clock. Back home with nothing to do. Isn't life tedious without a fixed aim? Although some people manage to survive without one. But I wonder if they really get to taste the highs of life - the ecstacies of accomplishment, the acmes of achievement - though one's input, getting one's output. Life as an input/output machine - that's the way I see it. I/O, I/O Ho Ho Ho And so here I am, the rest of the day to fill, with no friend or family to speed the passing time. But that has always been the case; Jeffrey Knight, the Knight's Knight, Knight of the Night has been a loner from birth, a pre- programmed monk. No brothers, no sisters, few friends. We were speaking of relationships, and the relationships of time. Here is the place to expand upon that theme. First, some definitions. I see the human bonds and bondage that form in this life in three ways - the aquaintance, the friend, and the lover. The aquaintance knows your name, the friend lends you money, and the lover is a true twin. Test these definitions - very interesting results. The aquaintance, the friend, and the lover. Of aquaintances I have had many. My nature is fairly open with strangers, and my wide interests supply the bread for easy conversation. As for friends, the ones willing to lend you money, I have a few. These are aquired by shared experience and maintained by shared time. As for the lover ... Time! Time again! Let's eat. I made my easy, sessilating way downstairs. Now lunch involves a sandwich, of course, and some syrupy drink. I think I'll have coke, ham and tomato, no cheese thanks. I think I'll have coke, ham and tomato, no cheese thanks. No cheese thanks. Thanks. I prepare lunch. That done, I sit down and listen to some News Radio and I munch some lunch. "Jews and Arabs killing each other again. A Palestinian, imitating himself, drove an empty bus to an empty school and blew himself up. 1 Jew/Arab was killed, and an elderly bus shelter seriously injured." God! Those Palestinians have an identity crisis. "Gary Kasparov, Grand Master, wins back the title against Big Blue Have a Poo. IBM's master machine refused to comment after the match, but did stick its disk drive out at persistent journalists." Good stuff! Man will always conquer. "4 Penguins killed in Arctic snow. 2 Pelicans on scene say they saw nothing. Police are investigating." A clear case for Sherlock Holmes. "Rebel leaders in Nicaragua ... " More rebels! I turned the radio off. I sat in silence. I ingested. I digested. The street lamp muttered The street lamp sputtered 3 o'clock. How the day has flown! All those hours yet nothing to show! I think I'll read in my room until six. Then I'll go for a run. So up the stairs I climbed. They creaked. They groaned. Were they weary of life? Or is my anthropomorphism getting the better of me? A stair going up, and a stair going down. A stair and a stare. A stare and a stare. I stared at the stair. It was carpeted in blue, like the rest, this one stair, about midway up, where the case turned. I'm sure it groaned more than the rest. I went all the way up, and all the way down, and halfway up again. Yes, it groaned about 33% more than the rest; a miserable decrepit groan. Yet it looked in reasonable condition; a nice pile that ran both ways, and still very plushy. A bit wider than the rest (to accommodate the turn) it held central position. Without this step the stair was nothing. I jumped up and down on the midway step. It creaked and groaned. I assaulted it some more. It creaked and growned some more. My fun finished, I went to my room. Still, the sound of that suffering stair would not leave me. I promised myself I would treat lightly or overpass altogether the midway step from now on. Its duties were obviously onerous. As a good Buddhist it was my duty not to add to them. So I wouldn't. I sat down at my desk. The hours from 3 to 6. 3 hours. The heart of the afternoon. A lot can be done it 3 hours. Or very little. An afternoon nap can shorten one's day quite disproportionately. I'm sure that's where a lot of holidays go - squandered sleep. But no rest for me now, it's time for some serious reading. Along with my shelves of select works, there are two or three piles of borrowed books there on the floor. A continuing card from my old university supplies the serious stuff, the local libraries the rest. People often ask me how I read so much. Easy. Follow your interests and set yourself goals. Interests lead to interests (interesting!) and goals lead to hat-tricks. Snowballs snowball. Say you've just seen a film about Elizabeth 1. You decide to check out a biography (there's a good one by Anne Somerset) and her virile daddy, Henry 8, is mentioned (with his six sequential wives - Catherine, Anne, Jane, Anne, Catherine, Catherine - names seemed to be in short supply in the Tudor era). Henry 8 leads to Henry the 8th, the Shakespeare play, and other Shakespeare plays. From plays to poetry is not a big step, and so interests snowball. As for goals, you can use the 25 page method. Set yourself the goal of reading to the next 25 page limit - page 75 or 100 or 125 - if the book wanders, you have to impose order. It's a nice way of learning too, in 25 page sections, although specifics differ. You can't score if you don't aim - set yourself goals. I got stuck into the books. 'The End of Work" by Jeremy Rifkin; a scary look at the post-industrial post-2000 economy; "Shakespeare - the Invention of the Human"; personal analyses of all the plays; let's see, "Cartoon History of the Universe" by someone or other; oh! very good, very clever. Something all kids and all adults should have. "The Green Mile" by Stephen King; bleah! what spiel!; "Catcher in the Rye" by JD Salinger; um, not very edifying. I can see why parents kick up a fuss; "Life and Fate" by Vasily Grossman; a tough slog, but it looks like it'll be worth it. And onto that boom industry - biographies and their various variants. A new translation of the "Memoirs of Casanova" - full and complete; hey, reads nicely, worth a closer look; "Byron" by Benita Eisler; falls into the trap of many books - starts nicely, finishes poorly; "Jung" by someone or other; nice, very nice. Ahh! Time for a break. When the brain gets tired, it's best to stop; otherwise all sorts of nasty consequences can follow. (brain-fever, brain-ache, brain-pain, brain-sprain ... the list is endless.) I look out the window. Onto the street. A quiet street. An aging street. The sound of youth and youngsters and little munchkins comes not from here but further away. The days of bouncing balls and screeching bikes have passed by. Rest in peace this old street. I feel at home; I'm an old person. Aged at birth and aged right now. An old- soul is what it's termed in new-age parlance. One who's seen it call before, and knows it. I think it's reflected in my Buddhist beliefs. The idea/ideal of renouncement/detachment is the sign of an old man, not a young one. I'm an old soul. I look out the window. Late afternoon. People making their way from work to home just now. In another half day it'll be from home to work. And another half day it'll be from work to home. And another half day ... you know the rest. Until the weekend. Is that what people work for? I know some people do. I don't. Work can be interesting and involved - if you approach it the right way. Ah! Interesting and involved - just like life. Life. Life! That skull of a dead man! Those apodictic words! "Jeffrey Knight, your days are ended. 7 more days and 7 more nights, and then the end. Make your peace with the world." "But the cosmic entity grants you this. At the break of each midnight hour, one question will be answered you fair. Goodbye." Ahh! Ahh! The end! The end! But best make the most of it. Ask some really probing questions. Something about cold fusion or astral projection. But we'll think about that later. Let's do some more reading. "How to be a More Interesting Person" by Edward de Bono; ha! what a git! a fool dressed as a fool; "Karate Against an Unarmed Opponent" by Yesman; cool! I've got to try this on someone!; "Teach Yourself Greek" by Carlos Costenada; tough, very tough. "The sounds of life The sounds of strife Go get yourself a merry wife." (Where's that from?) "France Today" by John Ardaugh; very perceptive, why are the French the way they are?; "The Law Handbook" by the Law Society; what are your rights as a citizen of NSW?; And finally "Guitar for Dummies"; well, I'm a dummy! because I don't have a guitar! A nice selection of books, I'll come back to these. The street lamp muttered The street lamp sputtered 6 o'clock. Well, time for my run. But as I got changed, some words of Emily Dickenson came back to me: "Because I would not stop for Death Death kindly stopped for me." Yes, Death had come. In a big way. I got changed. A nice pair of blue shorts, and a white shirt. Well, it was white once. It was a sort of greyey colour now. Not even the latest high-tech chemical cleaners could change that fact. It was grey; but it was a friend, an old friend. I smoothed out my grey-once-white shirt and looked myself in the mirror. Oooh! Handsome! But is that monobrow alright? It was starting to grow a bit thick. Maybe I should divide it? Naah. Nothing divides two loves, or two brows. Monobrow and all, I was still a handsome bugger. Yeah! I ran. When I go for a run, I run. I don't jog, trot, or dawdle. I run. Flat out. For 15 minutes. OK, time for some audience participation again. Find the most gruelling 4-5 km course around your home and make me run it. It can be as arduous as you like. But it has to exist. And for 15 minutes only. I come back sweaty and breathing hard. I'm puffed. I'm doubled over a fence for about 5 minutes trying to recover. I ran, I ran hard. After a sea-side shower and some salt-spring spray, I'm feeling a little better. Ready for a quiet evening before my next encounter with Monsieur Death. The street lamp muttered The street lamp sputtered 7 o'clock. I had some left-over left-overs. I lay down on the lounge. I fell asleep. ... dreaming, dreaming ... "Wake up, Jeffrey Knight." It was a low gruff voice, rather like a drill sergeant barking out orders. "Get up now!" Ahh! I screamed! I opened my eyes, and there was Death full in my face, angry flames licking over the bone, the skull of a dead man staring me down. Ahh! My arms wobbled in front, my body shook from behind. "Jeffrey Knight, ask you question now." It was a command. I had brain lock. I said the first thing that came into my head. "Is Elvis still alive?" "No, Elvis died on the 2nd January, 1977. He was buried in an extra large mahogany coffin in the state of Pennsylvania. The King is no more." O! Idiot! Idiot! The skull of a dead man faded to black. The tinkle-tanker of black spots, of the nothing of nothing, of the anti-matter of the material world danced upon and around my midnight visitor; the shimmer of slow-motion disappearance, the splay of an incipient vacuum; the pinpricks of unbeing accelerating in a random pattern. Death vanished with a twinkle. O! Idiot! Idiot! But I had no time to curse. The cosmic entity, obviously concerned that I should get a good night's rest untroubled by tortuous musings over stupid questions, put me to sleep. Yet I did manage another half curse. O! Idiot! I slept.