The Aegean Sea is Blue Again

If the Devil did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him, as with taxes. How else could we afford bombs to drop on brown children who speak a language I don’t understand? Our leaders tell us, “Without bombs, pilates classes and rifle ranges will close,” and then what would we do?

The only thing without an end is the present, and living in it, I have found eternity until I can no longer ignore the rain clouds of guilt that gather and give me a bath that is neither cleansing nor warm. I touch my forehead and can feel the distance I have traveled. My horse, Chimney, is stronger and thirstier than I am, but keeps plotting ahead. We cannot see any road. It is just rock, sand, and luck. We have found water when we needed it, and there has been no wind. Though the sun beats us, it too takes breaks behind clouds the size of my forearm, like Bill Gates on Jeffrey Epstein's Island, checking his genitals for STDs the way Brian Eno plays the keyboard.

On this imaginary trek, Chimney and I run into a feast of dead children being eaten by lions; behind them, tourists take photographs as their guides drink from flasks of gin. Some people want their money back, but the supervisor is on vacation in Tahiti, paying for sex. No one is happy.

Behind a rock of red stone, Winnie the Pooh carries a rifle and asks if we have seen Eeyore. We have not.

“He stole my honey,” says Winnie the Pooh.

“Oh,” say Chimney and I.

“Who are you?”

“Well, this is Chimney, and I’m Jason.”

“Where ya heading?”

“You know, that’s a really good question.”

“Do you know which way you’re heading?”

“That way.”

“Better take my rifle.”

“Why?”

Winnie looks at us like we're some bouncing tiger.

“You really don’t know what’s over there?”

“No.”

“Oh, boy.”

“What?”

“The less I say, the better. Good luck.”

Winnie the Pooh tosses us his rifle and wanders off in his red shirt, forever looking for honey, his pants, and Eeyore.

Chimney and I think about changing course. All we’re looking for is a home. Someplace we can plant vegetables and fruit, drink from a nearby river, and nap in the shade of some sassafras trees. We look out at what is ahead, and it is more rock and sand, but there is a glint, a flash of light to the north, and we proceed in that direction. The direction we’ve been on since the beginning. The direction Winnie the Pooh said we needed his rifle for.

Much to our surprise, it does not take long to find out where we have ended up, and why a pants-less, anomorphic, stuffed bear gave us a gun. We are in Glendale, California, the only city in the world with no driving laws. Chimney and I understand the rifle in my hands. We have been to Glendale before, and it is better to shoot a pair of tires and pay the property damage fine than the coroner writing on your death certificate, “A little too late with what they had.”

To stay as far as possible from any vehicles, we walk through the Glendale Galleria, a mall of cosmic proportions, and three Cheesecake Factories. They are building a fourth. The demand for such a large menu is high. The people simply don’t know what they want before seeing a movie about a child rapist who is also the highest-selling artist/pedophile of all time. That’s right, the new Mario movie. There isn’t a pipe he won’t touch, especially crack pipes that fuel his desire for mushrooms, and to step on thousands of turtles, mushrooms with vampire teeth, and a dragon-turtle named Bowser. He is a king. The Michael Jackson of his reality, and he has the princess because, instead of protecting her, Mario has been trying to get Toad into his car.

Chimney and I do not think this is home, but it is the only thing that exists.

***

The Aegean Sea is blue again.

My letter has arrived via donkey, along with the beer and cigarettes, and everything else that can’t be grown or made in the village of Çatistë, an ethnically Greek valley on the wrong side of the Albanian-Greek border.

My letter is going to Constantine Dertouzos, a former professor and head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is my letter because he wrote it to me, but it is a return-to-sender scenario. He does not complain. He puts out his cigarette and finishes his beer. He watches the gold, the shade, and the dark green sides of the mountains that surround him, breathing in clean air through clear nostrils that contribute to his clear thinking, along with the fresh salad, picked that morning by his husband, Dean, who enjoys gardening, and the sight of Constantine enjoying a beer and a cigarette as the sun falls behind the mountains.

The curtains come down, and the Aegean sea is blue again.

***

I took the gun Winnie gave me and shot a dog, because it asked me to. It barked and woofed, snarled and yelped. Really wanted to go. Really wanted to. At least that’s what Conor told me it said, but then again, Conor says a lot, and I always listen. He says I’m a very good listener.

Chimney and I find home in the village of Çatistë. It took a while to get there, but our friends Constantine and Dean wrote us and told us how they were doing, and it sounded like a good idea. We wrote to Conor, but we have no idea whether he received it. He’s an editor for an online magazine called Apocalypse Confidential, which Chimney and I read while we waited for the traffic to die down in Glendale. He told us he wanted a dog shot with a gun, and we couldn't argue with him, because that's the way things are. That's what exists.