Chapter 1.
Over the Herd in the Common
Never got out of his head so in his head he'll stay and that's final. Hey! Herman let spirit guard his heart and spirit guide his foot, spirit lift his chin, open his eyes. Turns out he only thought so. He felt want, he felt need, he felt feel only because he said so. Nothing is final.
Doesn't remember the first time but he's done it ever since, listen to Ramble On by Led Zeppelin grooving on the border-crossing twixt ballad and a rock hard place. Didn't make a big deal out of nothing when he struggled and lost and struggled and won with addiction. Compulsive Addictive Personality Disorder ought be in capitals, might as well give it a name, what is the name of this mortal adversary? Herman wondered, a cloud one drifts into and probably won't climb out that by disease trauma or self loathing will hasten death. He decided to call it Me.
Me theory. Outside you is where you're at. The story will come to the surface if you write like you like to. Listen, speak. The Others out are the Others in.
Herman put on a mask (like sort of kind a tried to hide (giggles and snickers)) because he felt bad about cutting down a scraggly old coniferous along side the house to make way for a big planter box. He didn't want the pine god seeing this sacrilege. Herm thought of it as euthanasia. Prickly old eyesore he'd hesitated about the wrong and the right of it. And now he was the judge, and the sentence was death, for being old and in the way. Herman in this way was often reminded how cruel.
Twenty twenty three no pay no play. Herman's God was and is One but less a number lately more an ambiguity, Cosmos. The earliest humans had pretty much the same time in a day as we the living of our species, the planet pretty much fixed in a groove as it was albeit with a perceptible wobble, by the time we came along. Dread hunger violence kept them, our old us riveted much of the time, the world is PTSD. Perhaps at night when listening for the beast that would eat their young they stared at the starry sky and flooded their wiry frames with whatever serotonin their diet provided. When sufficient complexities enabled presence in the dreamtime the Sky people noticed and paid us a call. And the some became pets the most became cattle. Tweaked and perked to meet an end, the now we have at hand.
Herman was excited. Was he prepping for a paradigm shift of transcendental human consciousness or merely his personal end? He was in the twilight hours he guessed if Life ran dry at midnight. Out of the fog into the mist, born when he was, precluded the application of advantages those just born might expect but Herman was of a generation when eighty years plus is ripe and pretty soon due.
When Herman assumed this mood he overspoke of himself as a cage of charmed monkeys. One learning and listening, one knowing and speaking and Herman aware, watching and mouth shut. And the whole bundle upon reflection distraction and untethered. Too late to start over too early to give up Herman mused maybe learn ukelele.
Herman felt Karma as sluggish, extra weight. One get's behind, not as crisp, when that happens confusion, chaos rattles and deeper chasms than ever imagined open, maws yawing.
Keep it to yourself, adjust, thrive. You in profundo are not any of your identifiable components body heart or mind. At the center of yourself you are Mr. E, truly unknown, we hope, we pray because otherwise surprise surprise look in the mirror look in Me eyes.
When Herman was a kid he went to hell in a handbasket on the way to heaven in a hurry. Surprised the Dickens into and out of him too. Villains and heroes can he befriend. Too honest to comfort himself, no that wasn't true and he felt a little better. He knew truth need not utterance but iteration.
The Adventures of Herman Fulboyle
