All Wrong

  by Howard Kleger

    Early in the morning I was forced out on a walking trip at the command of Brian.  Bit paranoid, by halt and by vault, in the silver Toyota Celica.  Brian's rain, and Brian's reign.  Brian's brain, his bells, or bells; do we have reigns?  Brian's rain posed concurrently with scriptures.  Chapter twelve, verse two, perhaps, to determine our conversation.  An urban project, a floating island satellite mind of trees.  The kind that talk back to you.

    Our conversation, they tell us, or, in the "civilized woods" of our conversation, or some place geolocally and spiritually unrelated, a lonely island sits in mimicry of the orbiting technotrap.  I never knew I would be able to share paranoia. But still... Which side am I on, if any?  If only I can figure out this Brian thing. Until then, all words fall into the present intelligential landslide of an incorrect nature--my own zen buddhist paradigm of self-whiplashing with no recursive path ever directly attaining any genuine outcome, not even the insubstantial wall that my mind trickles from.  To breathe my true afterlife, satanic born, half-birthed, retarded and reboot-pickled brain of a weed, a mere sprout that just may fall--even here in the virtual absolute path-skimming reality.  Me, college, welfare, financial aid, Social Security, Howard Lee Kleger, Jerry Kleger, Judy Kleger, Susan Kleger--all wrong.

    Salvador Dali had his bitrthday one day later.  The great black jazz singer--I forget her name--had died that morning or the day before. Dali called this self-verified panoramic stereophonic paranoia, as part of the concurrent dynamic of my faulty British civilian pervert's social crutch, that really poses no more than rightful humor.  In this case, a faulty idea of some ridiculous modern age Dr Livingston character that might, at specific moments, among fellow hikers, be likened to a diametrically opposed ornithologist:

    "Oh that brown speckled bird is not sexy."

    "Here is an interesting specimen of industrial debris," picking up a piece of rubber with a stick, "the kind that talks back to you with an open city energy, at an oceanic trot to the New Jersey beach, in normal time.  Like, you know, life." 

    With ease I embarked upon the forest.  In my excitement I never considered a frightfully natural tendency, until we smoked and vibrated our bodies' cosmic-consciousness four hundred tree lengths into the forest.  I figured my usual edge and panel-down regard was maladjusted to the malady of marijuana.  Just a joint.  And such possibility revealing toxins.  And I had an inkling, though still superficially and unsteadily, an edge, wisdom, and an uncertain confidence as to what, and of what worth determined the strength and unknown of the paranoia that so preceded and proceeded it, behind it, in front of the technical, complicated, sometimes natural bush. Jibber jabber, in other words. You cannot jibber a jabber without jab.  As long as I shook my head fast in my pants, moving forwards steadfast, alarmed yet comforted by my ability to sustain logic enough to know the sources of consistency of logic, that all people having read this far will put down this book.  And persecutors of such half-Jewish record shop owners such as Brian, and the source of South Park areas, extensions and follies that exaggerate from the root of logic, and hidden divisions of Brian.  I soon discovered talk of split concrete vault-mass, eroding... Oh, he did not know.

    

    We, and the dog, a hefty bulldog, seven years of age and not young, walked like an old grandmother.

    "Can you keep an eye on her, Howard?"

    He looked back to make sure.

    "I have a visor, a mental ray communication on her, sir."

    He looked dartedly up with his boxed head, short, shaven brown hair and squared off beard of personality, a quickly approaching middle-aged, responsible narcissist and paranoid conspiracy theorist with OCD.  Am I jumping too much to conclusions?  Wide, concerned eyes open; bulldoggish features, yet semi-attractive and without the drowlishness of the bulldog, obviously.  With a crescent shade of an aura of health, and vigor of a sustained and fighting youth of a still new generation of people, held in suspense and ready to discord and uproot like giant trees from the ground and reroot vaguely in a more vaporous, unsteady gypsy grounding.  A fresh new start for hybrid alienated yearlings and sproutings in the same area, with the memory chip of awareness switched to "Alien Origins, et cetera," and "That was wrong, this is something yet to come," and "Take us over as we die around it." 

    An older system, according to the American Indian way of re-adapting and living in seventh generational developments, caretaking mother spaceship earth, on 700 journeys around the sun, read in the fossils and layers of detailed comparisons of experimental growth on planet earth, spaceship earth.

    "Do you see this break here, man?" he said as he called us over to join him, the dog stumbling, resting and panting behind us.

    "C'mon, step closer here, check this out."

    "It's a different use of the senses.  It's quiet.  We're not bombarded by the outside, artificial, ego-driven drones and screams of automobiles.  It attunes your senses to a subtler frequency, not exactly quiet, but much quieter, much more natural and real.  Our bodies must identify again with this.  It's our true primal origins.  There's a lot to learn from this.  We can learn, if we listen.  I can sit here all day and study this.  I feel I've hit upon some basic, untapped intelligence here.  We have to start over.  Not exactly over.  We have the resources.  We can set up encampments.  We have the instincts of hunters and gatherers, and with the present technology we must have individuals that can harness it.  Cause, the shit's gonna hit the fan.  The old system is dead.  And nature and "god" are going to take us over again.  So we have to learn the signs and do a complete panel analysis, slowly, of our inner workings and more highly advanced information systems, our primate systems, talk to nature, learn which berries are poisonous, learn to live, gather handbooks, forage, re-acquaint ourselves with stuff like old vinyl, but work like a reality DJ with balls, no fears or tears attached, ready to die, or live... be humiliated, have humility.  Learn when to beat the wife, the mistress, the agent, or when to get mauled by a bear, a pack of rodents, a stick of Dentine gum, or an uprooted multidimensional chameleon technofern, the kind that breathes multidimensional oxygen and will stop you in your path... and whisper an exhalation... to breathe love into the ugly within, slowly, like the running river, uprooting rock rust and red moss and lichen, unremarkable, as slow as the river; those people were much slower.  We are as old as this river... time to pass... we have heaven."

    "Our bodies are trapped, but we will be reborn. Or something like that... who's in with me?" I think he said, calling out to Sage the dog, as we continued back up the slope.

    We stopped in a bit to let dogs and people pass.  Three girl hikers.  Still, remarkably, not a word of sex.  I was wondering. Remarkable, I thought. What is this?  I grew further unsteady and re-evaluated myself and others quickly, fluidly re-adapting the elasticity and longevity of a palapable, emergent, obviously parallel force, if seen through critical analytics from old-view eyes, ascertaining continual self-worth and a firm onward and upward grasp of my corporatized ego bot (self-calculated.com) at all costs (also Howard.com).  Who was I fooling?  I let the Stone Age wear away to survey the scene and noted my tendencies as an opposed standerby, and mentioned I was on... um... indebted and controlled at the heart of the government.  So I said I was someone who was like a direct filter and communication; my fetal, umbellical, life-experienced chord was attached to the heart of Satan.

    He looked half at what I was saying, sort of uncaring or disregarding.

    "I don't know man.  Sometimes you have to change, things must change... that's all a lie.  We're transformed into units.  We need to see that, and kinda learn from that.  I hope people see this. It's happening. There's no choice. The universe is talking to us. It's what we want, our inner souls, not this guise.  It's only a better, clearer reality.  But some people, like you, perhaps... who knows... some need to start at the bottom, and maybe become feed for generations, grind the mills. I'm just talking.  Listen.... here's an underpass."

    "Wow this is high," Nevin said.

    I thought this would break the tension, but I was half-amused that I was perhaps reading and insulting Nevin.  Of course, being who I am--or once was, as a matter of fact--did not and does not care.  Proportionally, to keep on a real note, at this moment recollecting these week-old thoughts on paper, precluding disaster, which made its introduction slowly, evidentially, paranoically--in other words, when I first met Brian, who had recently used Dan's coffee machine, saying, "Did you hear the news?  The Mississippi Delta oil spill?  This is deep geological cultural ballistics.  We're fucked.  The earth, or whatever, doesn't like us.  I'm prepared, I'm ready to shoot a deer or a person.  Me and my friends have a shelter with two years of government surplus military rations and canned goods in South Carolina.  A fallout shelter.  I'm ready to go when the 'bomb' drops, so to speak."

    We would laugh, but half warily, or less so.  What I'm saying is that I have recovered my senses.  I'm lying; I have never lost them. I give myself up temporarily to the onset of new situations, but I am a super-realist, which allows for the onset of abuse, even self-abuse with a surprise whooping Indian attack from the left side of my Brain.  Confederates in the lower cortex, Northern Liberties and Fairmount Park sharing the frontal and occipital lobe (this is simplified for literary reasons, of course).  Howard Kleger sharing the midregion, and a scattering electric corona fire of auric belts, humming and stampeding over the soft evispheres of terrain, charted and yet uncharted--maybe by Aliens, but always me, in other words.  Y'know? C'mon, comfortable on a sofa or chair.  Strong, versatile, wealthy, enjoying life and bits and pieces of my to-be-continued existence as I put together my 'movie', an artistic independent film adaptation autobiography: Howard on Howard.  Duhhhh... Right?  Of course. Don't say I didn't tell you so.

   

    Back to the conclusion of the story.  Armageddon, take two.  In the next and final part I will explain Cliff-Note Theory, Brian as defined by nature, an inconclusively vast, reality encompassing eminence, and all in contrast to that, supposedly, including himself, for a diametrically opposed, to-be-continued and revised, open to death but willing to jump from a waterfall and embark with wonder, wanderment, and discern, or spoil vaguely and mistfully, but also honestly, with boils.  Old age? Infinity? The question. Not always an easy answer. What would the Druids do?  Where are we, obviously, or for some, not so obviously, at fault?  What is the expression?  "A bird in hand..."  Who was Ben Franklin, really?  What type of scientist, and person, and world diplomat was he?  How does he affect us today?  Lastly, lest I forget, though my weak, nimbled chemical 'romance' with my self-preserved statements fades, their weakness exposed by the technicality of delaying the immediacy of the onset of the final descriptive, as would be expected in text, essayistic influence, main topic, diatribe, whatever.  I'm not self deflated out of a nervous disorder, I'm just testing the grounds of the possibilities of looking like a do-do, a wingless bird of prey, a pigeon, an oil- rigged fowl, unable to take flight, as, presently, real birds chirp happily in the oncoming, uncaring South Philadelphia preservation outside my friend's window.  Hello, good morning, in other words.  Jeez.  Semi-colon, dah dah dah... I hear the end of the George Harrison record coming clicking into view as I get ready to lay this last sentence down on the page... circa 1970, Electronic Sound/ Under the Mercey Wall.  I wonder.  How much would Brian buy that for?  Questions.  Questions.  No easy answers. 

    What of the symbology and analysis of the dying dog?

    "I communicated with her psychically, sir.  She told me she prefers basic 'communicating' through the eyes. Not mind rays."    

    "Okay," he said with his guise, slightly, and went onward, forward, as we check the next paragraph. The trashmen are yelping, "Yay... ho!" as they remove the garbage outside. In front of, or to the side of, this laptop, this chapter.

    The dog began gasping.

    "Oh... no," Brian murmured and held Sage's muzzle. Sage's aura is off, something is wrong.  It's grayish green.  To explain thoroughly, Sage had developed an enlargened heart condition from a tumor of still unknown origin, but common in older dogs.      "Can you look it up on pet MD?" 

    "No way am I going to look up an ailment for a dog that I can have examined by my neighbor friend who works at a vet clinic.  She checked the dog out."

    "Maybe you can just check the facts out, with actual dog results for the same type of ailment."

    "Well, she said a better diet and exercise out in a natural environment with a lot of oxygen should help reduce or slow down the symptoms. Sage is old though. Seven years old.  She lived a good life." 

    "How about water?  Or a valve replacement?  Or a medicine to soften the tissue?  Heart medicine?  How about holistic healing?"

    "What do you mean?  Like herbal remedies?  I'd rather stick to a professional.  There are too many kooks out there."

    "Well, it couldn't hurt.  Energy and chakra aura healers might work on pets as well, or their might be a witch doctor-type hand healer specifically for dogs."

    "Well, enlarged heart conditions are irreversable. It's two or three symptoms now, not just one. Less oxygen gets to the dog's brain.  You can see it in her eyes.  She's especially confused.  Sort of like a diabetic attack or anemia."

    "Maybe the dogs scared her a little, or she's just tired," said Nevin.

    "Or what if we put down some food, maybe there's some dog nutritionist. Maybe she's just hungry."

    "She just ate.  She's probably just tired."

    "Yeah... this is the furthest she's gone out in the wilderness ever. And it's been awhile since I had her out on a nature hike.  More protein, something to oxygenate the cells.  Extra protein, maybe a tender beef, fish diet, eggs and bread, maybe...?  I don't know. Whatever."

    He patted the dogs back.

    "Hey Sage," Nevin blurted, with a possible semi-conclusion.  "She seems to normalize and brighten up as if completely normal when you say her name."

    "Yeah, maybe she's just lonely," I said.

    "She needs some extra love and attention."

    We stopped at that point and exited the forest. But before we completely do so, let us review some other topics at hand I said I would mention here.  The Cliff-Note Theory.

    "What the hell are you talking about?" Brian asked. 

    I did not have time to explain, but here it is: Artistic types, creative eccentrics, scientists, inventors,

architects, fashion designers, actors, politicians, often share a trait of a distant relation to facts, which are often irresolutely locked in a complex pattern larger and also minutely smaller--an intrinsic trait for visions. The larger and more complex the patterns and time-space transparency and filaments that incorporate this invisible, dimensional, meaningful or sometimes stupid or fact-based terrain, the more adaptable the situation.  When I mentioned my writing of this "hiking story", Nevin called it flexibility, a means to survive and thrive in a swarming chaotic environment.

    It would appear indubitably, and I told him so, upon which he revoked this credit to his name. The perfect brainwasher cult leader. 

    "No, no. I don't care, let people make their own decisions."

    "He's just a mission guider, a stick pointer."

    At least I didn't call him a troll bridge collector, like Dan said of him yesterday, as we headed to the beach in the afternoon.      "It's raining more often," he said, "people are identifying again with ancient earthen components with a higher understanding. Its all in a quest to evolve. The old Roman system is dead." 

    Obviously.  People need to get their heads out of the sand.  They are the ones that are being brainwashed.  Deep indetermined value systems, mysterious travels, vague insecure designs. The quest of life. The story of dreams.