Word From Elsewhere

March 4, 2026

What the Dead Think of When They Think of the Living

Only death can wake you up.

Sometimes a slow descent, sometimes a sudden shock, but always the same result.

I was riding the bicycle, along a familiar road—not only without destination but without the concept of one—at last creeping into an unfamiliar zone, materialized from some devious crease in spacetime. First, erratic debris along the road, then boneyards crowding both sides, then a beehive of random structures, empty spaces, disappearing corridors, rusting pieces of extinct machines. No people.

Unless you count me. Whoever you are.

A dismal, multi-tiered metropolis of the mechanical, littered with machines and pieces of machines, grudgingly admitting the light of a dull afternoon. Oppressive, silent, lonely. As real as the vacuum of a lost thought. Under a sagging canopy I leaned the bike against a grease-smeared metal wall, and stood there. No direction offered itself. Something, somewhere, had been important—I knew that—but there was no way back to it.

Walking nowhere, finding nothing, until I saw the man on his knees with his arms deep in the belly of some tube and wire-spilling contrivance. He looked over his shoulder and the bottom half of his face was missing.

“Can you tell me where—?” I started to ask.

But the man’s eyes only said he wasn’t the one to tell anything, and he returned to his work.

I heard voices, and saw below on a catwalk spanning a greasepit a group of young girls approaching. Seared with unfathomable longing, I watched helplessly as they came closer. One glanced up and caught my eye accusingly, crippling me with guilt. Then all but their contempt ceased to exist as they passed from my field of vision, and I was standing at the threshold of a room. I shuddered with foreboding.

But I knew I would enter.

And of course the room, circular, teemed with Everything. Boxes stretched to the ceiling, tabletops sagged under an endless potpourri. Trays, cabinets, shelves were gorged with the artifacts of a world: tokens and talismans without number. Books, magazines, notepads carpeted with spider webs of writing, lists, messages of one self to another, letters, photographs of lost faces—dogs!—wads of keys that locked or unlocked what?, bulging folders, amputated articles. Words that broke my heart, inspired a flash of grace, answered countless forgotten questions, testaments of love, gratitude, betrayal, the forgivable and unforgivable side by side. It was all there: the love, the hate, the regret, the pity, the hope, the despair, the disgust, the compassion, the blame, the disappointment, the self-loathing, the embarrassment, the shame, the longing for change, the courting of death—and each piece, radiating its story, survived only as long as I held it in my hands, then evaporated as I let it go. Impossible to hold any of it. The sum of everything is nothing.

Old riddle: what is this that is left of nothing?

When I could bear it no longer, I left the room, which itself disappeared behind me, as now I felt only the anxiety of the dying afternoon outside, and the forbidding prospect of the long ride back in the cold and dark, if I could even find the road. No bearings, and no one to help. The place where human presence belonged was only the low whine of an indifferent wind.

North south east west meant nothing. The irretrievable path that had led me into this labyrinth meant nothing. Then I saw the bicycle leaning against a wall which didn’t look like but could have been the one where I’d left it, though it sat at an odd angle. Then I saw that the front wheel had been taken.

A jolt which woke me into another now, starting out on a trip to another where.

And on it goes.

January 17, 2026

The Settler

The first time Hort saw the man, his heart beat faster and his breath turned quick and hard. He was far enough away the eye contact they clearly shared didn’t feel immediately threatening, only something it would be unwise to look away from. If this was the time of fight or flight, Hort could feel pulsing through his sixteen year old body nothing but fight. Flight was no option—Hort had lost all his kinsmen in the raids, and had nothing but his tenuous hold on his clan’s strip of land with its barren field and its one pig and one cow, and the weathered thatched-roof house: there was nowhere to fly. The mere demeanor of the man, standing just at the edge of the forest gazing his way, sword in a leather sheath at his side, spear held loosely in one hand, said he would bring all the fight Hort could handle.

Fires were still burning spottily in what had survived of the village, and the church had been ransacked and burned to a charred shell, the priests all killed. The assault had been sudden and then the invaders had moved on. There were other survivors than Hort, but they were huddling in what was left of their domains, with very little heart to unify and resist. Hort ate what  he could find, rationing out the stored grain in the house, constantly troubled by the question of what he would do when it was gone. With winter coming. His father had gone out to face the invaders and not come back, and his mother and sister had simply disappeared. He had heard nothing from his two brothers.

A day passed before he saw the man again, standing in the morning mist once more at the edge of the forest, looking, calculating. Then he disappeared again, returning in the afternoon with a woman and a girl. Hort took refuge in the house where he had his father’s knife, peering out a window at the strangers, steeling himself for the fight, or no doubt something closer to perfunctory execution, he knew was coming. That he was alone was certain—there was no hope of help from any quarter. He felt the grim irony of the burden of possessing something of value—indeed, the fragility of possession itself.

As Hort watched, the man began to approach, holding his spear upright. The woman and the girl stayed at the edge of the forest. Hort knew he was living the defining moment of his life, and he imagined the spirits of his kinsmen watching. All men died, he told himself—courage was everything. He raised himself from where he crouched by the window, grasped the knife, and came to stand in the doorway, watching.

The man, holding his spear, unhurriedly advancing, wore an unreadable expression, and as he got closer Hort could see the foreign features of his face, and his clothing. Something cold shuddered through him at the alien encounter. He took a few steps out the door and faced the man.

He could see in his face, in his posture, in his wild hair and filthy clothes the savage tale of his late experience. Hort knew well that he had no chance against him, and felt perfectly the terms of the ageless encounter: you have what I want. More than that—what I need. There is only enough life-energy in this meeting for one. Even if something in the man’s face said it was sad it was so.

Hort widened his stance and braced himself, holding the knife not as an instrument, but as a weapon. The man was bigger, and he slowed his steps as he closed the gap between them. His face showed no threat or menace, but something at close range no less unreadable than it had been from a distance. Not impotence by any means, but maybe weariness. Bone-deep weariness. The women in the background stood watching. Hort raised the knife. The man didn’t react.

Instead, he halted his steps and seemed to ask a question in his unintelligible tongue. Hort was paralyzed, unable to fathom how to muster a response. He let the knife fall a bit and said simply, “I can’t understand.”

The man relaxed his stance, held out his spear in both hands, parallel to the ground, and dropped it. It bounced, rolled a bit, then came to rest. He unsheathed his sword, likewise held it in front of him, and dropped it, then held his arms to his sides and said something else in his tongue, something that to Hort’s astonished ear had the ring of “No more.” The man gestured with his head towards Hort’s knife. Their eyes met. Hort’s knife-holding hand lost all its tension, and then with a nod of encouragement from the man, and wondering if this could be a trick, but why a trick when he could just kill him?, he dropped it.

The man’s face was incapable of a smile, so it wasn’t a smile, but something in his eye that seemed to see something else, something that Hort was maybe beginning to see a glimmer of himself.

The man turned and gestured to the women.

January 17, 2026

One More Sunrise

Walton was a problem child—meaning, he had a mind of his own. He came out of the personality oven fully baked, as though stepping into this Walton business from an immediately previous and unresolved life, fully equipped with an innate resistance to any force trying to make him do or be something he knew he wasn’t. No one but his father, the source of the gene, understood him. “You can’t help but love the stubborn little bastard,” he would say, frustrating the stubborn little bastard’s mother, in her relentless motherly campaign to shape him to a norm implanted in her, not his, head. She meant well, and for all her frustration, wasn’t immune to his charm. His willfulness expressed itself in laughter. Turns out, being Walton was funny.

“He’s just Walton being Walton,” people would say.

Then when he was twelve, his father died.

Walton’s rebelliousness changed key, and he became a different sort of problem child. He challenged his mother, he challenged his teachers, he challenged all authority, he skipped school, he shoplifted, he started smoking. He found cars with keys in them and took them on joyrides, leaving them wherever he happened to end up. But he was just Walton being Walton in a different key, people said, and as with all those blessed with charm, he tended to get off easy.

Then, when he was thirteen, his financially strapped mother remarried—sadly, a former Marine, who took it upon himself to “straighten Walton out.” In the process, the sadistic warrior succeeded in breaking the heart of Walton’s mother, but failed in breaking the will of Walton. The rebellious little bastard ran away.

Thus began the period of his living in abandoned cars, in homeless camps under bridges, stealing, dumpster diving, constant hustling, and, inevitably, in an on again/off again relationship with Juvie. All attempts to relocate him with his mother and the Marine, despite the locks, the corrective discipline, the threats, ended invariably in his running away again. “Let the little bastard starve,” the Marine would snarl. “He’s living in an abandoned car!” his mother would protest. “Freezing to death will do him good,” the Marine would counter. “Bring me another beer.”

As the years went by, the system grew tired of him. Wherever they put him, he escaped. No cell, no chains, could hold the little Houdini. And everywhere he went, fellow misfits fell over themselves to help him, because, humorously enough, Walton being Walton, they couldn’t help it! You just wanted to rescue the little imp. The unlikeliest ally of all, Sheriff Hurt, kept track of him, looked him up from time to time, brought him a hot meal, and shared a few laughs. And he was a rare sheriff in understanding that the secret to Walton’s charm lay in his willingness to endure any privation, any hardship, in exchange for the freedom to be Walton.

Then Walton turned eighteen, an adult in the eyes of the law, and began to be picked up for minor thefts, trespassings and squattings. He did some stints in jail, but they always got tired of feeding him. No matter what arm of the system tried to restrain him, he always slithered out somehow, and eventually they got tired of chasing him.

But when, at twenty, he held up a convenience store with a handgun, he crossed the line. This time they cornered him in an abandoned house on the outskirts of town, but since he was presumably armed, the situation turned into a stand-off. After a tense hour, Sheriff Hurt said, “I’m going in there.” “He’s got a gun!” his deputies protested. “I’ll take my chances,” said the sheriff.

With blue lights blinking all around, the sheriff approached the front door of the house. No sign of life from within. He reached the stoop. “Walton! We need to talk!” the sheriff called out. No response—then, “I’m coming in.” And he grasped the door knob. No resistance. Bravely, he opened the door and stepped inside. Walton was sitting in the ratty remains of an armchair, and as the sheriff stepped into the dim room, Walton raised the gun to his head. “I’m going to kill myself,” he announced.

The sheriff squinted. “That’s not a real gun, is it?” he asked.

“All guns are real at a distance,” said Walton.

That meant something, but the sheriff pressed on. “Don’t do it,” he said earnestly. “You’re the only Walton there is. I’m just trying to get you through this, buddy, and help you.”

“I appreciate that, Sheriff,” said Walton, “but I think I’m done. I can’t complain, I’ve had a good run.”

“I’m just trying to help you,” said the sheriff.

“That’s the thing, Sheriff. Nobody can really help me. Helping me will just make me worse. That’s how I see it. This is the only way. I only ask one thing—”

“What’s that?”

“I just want to see one more sunrise.”

The sheriff stared at him. “I can’t keep my men out here all night.”

“Well,” said Walton, “it’s not all night—it’s already after midnight. More like half the night. But, really, you could just send them home. I’ll behave.”

The sheriff started walking towards him. “The smart thing to do would be to give me that gun.”

Walton pressed the gun barrel hard against his temple. The sheriff stopped. “No, that’s not how it needs to go. I won’t get to see my sunrise.”

The sheriff stared, at a loss for words.

“I would like to be cremated,” said Walton. “And I want a community memorial service. So the angels will get word that I was here. I don’t care where it’s held. I would like my mother to be there, but my stepfather is strictly forbidden. People can tell stories if they want to. And I want two hymns sung, by a singer as close to Loretta Lynn as you can get, and a piano: ‘When They Ring Those Golden Bells,’ and ‘There’s Within My Heart a Melody.’ And I want my ashes scattered over the lake. That’s all.”

“We don’t need any funerals,” said the sheriff. “We just need you to give me that gun—” he held out his hand—“so we can get you to a safe place and help you.”

“I’m already in a safe place.”

The sheriff studied him for a moment. “Okay,” he said, “I’m going to send my men home, and I’m going to stay here with you until you come to your senses.”

Walton smiled.

The sheriff carefully returned to the door, glanced over his shoulder, then stepped outside. He called his chief deputy over, who approached with his gun in front of him in both hands. “Relax,” said the sheriff. “Put that away.” The deputy nervously complied, and the sheriff explained the situation.

The men got in their vehicles and drove away, and the sheriff went back into the house.

But of course there was no trace of Walton—who had left only, as always, the impression of himself.

And nobody did Walton like Walton.

December 26, 2025

Limits

“Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muβ man schweigen.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein thought a lot about the inter-relation of human reality, logic, and language, and his thought evolved over his 62 years. In his early thinking, the logic of a proposition could only be shown, not stated. But the logical form itself could not be pictured—so, like ethics, aesthetics, or religion, logical truths were, to him, inexpressible. There are no logical facts or truths per se—their “truth” exists only in reference to the structure that made them phenomena. The language play of philosophy likewise has no such basis—which leads to Wittgenstein’s infamous paradox: saying something is inexpressible is an example of saying something  inexpressible. The majority of human experience is perceiving the untranslatable, which can manifest only through the abandonment of any attempt to express it. He recognized the voluntarily imposed limits of science, and knew that philosophy was not a science. In later life, he pointed out that words don’t always stand for “things”—meaning is found abundantly elsewhere than in logical propositions. He was anti-Cartesian in his rejection of the idea of mind as foundational. For one thing, “mind” is not a “thing,” so doesn’t really represent anything—and then, language precedes it, and language comes from socialization. Public is prior to private. I am aware of myself not because I am, but because I have been communally formed.

Wittgenstein was a 20th century thinker through and through whose ideas remain inspiring. To me, we are all empiricists in certain moods. We perceive reality through our senses, but those observations can’t have meaning until they are logically expressed and impartially verified—in other words, converted into language, mathematical or otherwise. But of course, those verifiable things, important though they are, constitute such a limited part of human experience we are left wondering where in the filing cabinet of “real” we are to file the rest of it.

It’s hard not to think about the inadequacy of language in the area of abstract ideas—exhibit A, these reflections. If language is to be equipped to express meaning, its reach must be circumscribed and pre-established. The further away from the material one gets, the more inadequate language becomes, the more plural the possibilities of misconstruing. This does not mean that abstract ideas are foggy and weak—mostly, it’s just that an attempt to express them collapses them into a surplus of moving parts, though in fact they are usually the strongest convictions we have. When you get into an argument, you can’t win: there are too many vulnerabilities, points open to counterattack via the fertile haziness of language, via the gulf between ideas and the language that can only approximate them. That you leave yourself open to misunderstanding, or contradiction, is not merely possible, but certain, as you clumsily try to express a feeling that simply cannot be clearly and completely translated into language. No attempt to impose logic onto language beyond its own pre-installed logic, ie, grammar, the algorithm of downsizing reality, derived not scientifically but through folkways, can hope to be invulnerable to sophistry. Your reasoning brings with it all the invisible baggage of your biases, congenital and achieved. Hence, when someone dares you to “prove him wrong,” he is not inviting you to a duel of logic, but to a dip in his personal cesspool.

Science and mathematics, glories of human invention, deal with a subset of human experience, and say nothing more than the bulk of human experience is not that subset when they dismiss it as meaningless or epiphenomenal, a modern hubris dating to Descartes. And philosophy, religion, mysticism make a parallel error when they try to apply reason to their feelings. As Wittgenstein said, philosophy is obviously not a science. Its optimal expression would be poetry. I would say, music. And “mysticism” is what can’t be put into words but can still make itself manifest.

We might be tempted to suggest an expansion of what we mean by “language”—a recognition that it operates in the realm of intuition as well—but only if we are willing to blur the line between language and consciousness which, since they are perhaps synonymous, might be a reasonable thing to do—as long as we remember that the realm of human experience where grammatical language conveys meaning is nothing like the intuitive realm where it is an intruder. So maybe the ineffable awarenesses, the correspondences and gleams, the experience of the sublime or the terrors of Hell, the subliminal perception of Something Else, of the intuitive are their own language. I agree with Wittgenstein that where we can’t put something into language we must defer to silence. Pregnant silence.

Without using crystals I suggest that at some point there must be a recognition that the line between these two dimensions is actually impossible to draw.

The language that goes on in our conscious minds is, like the language of the outer world, a dialogue. We can’t help but wonder—who is talking, and to whom? We can focus our “self” in the speaker, or the listener, hardly aware that our “self” is infinitely protean, a nesting doll. The language of our intuitive (subconscious) selves is not a dialogue—it begins in the liminal space where the silence (escape from language) begins. For instance, we understand the scientific facts about the universe in symbols and pictures, but feel the terrible immensity in the wordless canyons of our minds. This is not consciousness of, but just consciousness itself—in other words, it merges with universal consciousness. Some would say, the ultimate destination of human experience.

Science and mathematics can’t go anywhere that is not governed by language. Of course, all great ideas are born in intuition, but are not validated until corralled into symbols—and are doubly validated by the intuition that reason is infallible. When Wittgenstein wanted to think unimpeded, get to the bottom of things, he isolated himself—escaped from language—such as to his remote hut in Norway, aware that his attempt to verbalize his intuition was ultimately futile. “What we find in philosophy is trivial; it does not teach us new facts, only science does that. But the proper synopsis of these trivialities is enormously difficult, and has immense importance. Philosophy is in fact the synopsis of trivialities.”

Language, along with climate stability, is what enabled civilization—and to be “civilized,” a word with positive connotations and a negative shadow, is to be completely invested in language. Just look at us today, slaves to the flood of mediaspeak. But intuition has been aware the whole time of what has been sacrificed for civilization. Religions, and ameliorative thought systems in general, have often arisen in resistance to the coercions of social subordination, even if they have typically evolved into organs of control. Modern mouthpieces of civilization—political philosophy, economics, advertising, the disgorgings of media, mainstream religion, are telling us what we are so loudly and incessantly, they threaten to smother the innate and ancient knowledge that we are not.

December 26, 2025

Chinaberry Lane

Things were not going well for Dave Posey. He didn’t exactly have a statistically valid sample by which to judge, but in his mind he had gotten a much rawer deal than that smug conglomerate known as “everybody else.” And now the latest addition to that edifice of calamity, his life: he had lost his job and fallen into considerable debt. He had borrowed a thousand dollars from Fast Eddie, who had just pronounced: “Time’s up. I want my money.” Yes—Fast Eddie, who did his talking with a crowbar.

Dave had googled “How to solve a personal problem,” and been offered one piece of advice that stood out: “When facing a crisis, make a change in your habitual behavior.” Which is what led him to Chinaberry Lane.

It had long been his custom to take walks to help sort out his problems, but now that he thought about it, he always took the same walk, with the same problems unsorted at the end. “Take a different walk, Dave,” he told himself—and immediately in his mind’s eye saw, with a shudder, the tunnel-like entrance to Chinaberry Lane, which he had instinctively avoided for years.

It was an obscure, overgrown, seemingly forgotten street angling into the unknown near the end of a dead end street at the edge of his orbit. He had never set foot in it—in fact, had never seen anyone set foot in it—no people, no cars, no nothing.

“There is nothing to be nervous about,” he nervously muttered as he started down the weedy, buckled sidewalk into a strange, haunted silence.

What a curious place! Like an abandoned movie set. No sign of life, the sagging houses appearing deserted, amok greenery smothering it all. Leaning, decrepit mailboxes vomited last century’s mail. Spring shrubbery bloomed for no one. Dave crept along slowly, distracted from his problems by the spell of the place, which he absorbed with all senses on alert. A cold shiver at the first corner almost sent him back the way he had come, but just then an odd structure half buried in a clump of wild vegetation caught his eye and he stopped for a closer look. Of all things—a Little Free Library Box, entangled in bushes and vines before a weary house looking as abandoned as all the rest. Surely no eyes peered through the cracks of those shaded windows.

He pulled back the branches for a better look. The few volumes visible behind the clouded glass looked antique, and Dave debated with himself for a few moments before deciding to take a chance. The box, in the style of a miniature church, seemed like a perfect place for a snake, but then to Dave’s mind, many places did, so he opened the little door cautiously. And found a thick wad of cash bound with a brittle rubber band.

Should he or should he not? Well—wasn’t a solution to his problems the very reason he’d come? There was a sense of fate to it. The universe had finally noticed him, and set about making things right.

With a furtive look around he pocketed the money, and made a beeline out of Chinaberry Lane.

It turned out to be a quite generous wad. He paid off Fast Eddie, and had enough left over for rent and a couple of weeks of food.

He didn’t thank the gods, he just thought, it’s about damn time.

❦

For two weeks he lived well, then, still jobless, found himself broke again. He pondered the situation, returning again and again in his mind to the Little Free Library Box. Perhaps he had overlooked something in there? Did he dare? His thoughts went back and forth and he found that he couldn’t resist. Taking up his walking stick, he headed back to Chinaberry Lane.

Anticipating a search into the dim, snaky corners, and behind the moldered volumes of the mysterious box, Dave was surprised to find, as soon as he opened the door, another thick wad of money bound with a brittle rubber band. As before, he looked around half-guiltily, gazing especially hard at the black windows of the smothered house, but saw no sign of life. He helped himself to the money once again, and made a hurried exit.

The payout was even more generous this time, and he lived comfortably for a month, neglecting his job search and eating well. Until he found himself broke again. Did he dare? He did—and returned with yet another wad of cash. Something like a pattern was starting to emerge, and Dave left off his job search altogether and began to live something like a life of leisure.

The months went by, a year, and the pattern became entrenched. When he needed money, the Little Free Library Box never failed to deliver. Beyond having his basic needs meet, he found he was able to indulge himself with choice little luxuries, such as meals from the finest restaurants, which he paid for in cash upon delivery, with a generous tip. And thought it all fully justified, knowing the universe was making reparations for the lousy hand it had dealt him.

Then a day came, an utterly cheerless day, that perhaps foretold itself in the cold overcast November dawn that started it. In a peevish mood, Dave remembered that he was low on funds—damned annoying!—but had no intention of forfeiting his breakfast. He called his favorite breakfast restaurant and placed his order: smoked salmon Eggs Benedict, avocado toast, fresh Turkish figs, pineapple mint juice, and coffee, adding “I don’t have the requisite funds at hand and will have to pay tomorrow. And please put a rush on it, I don’t feel like waiting all morning.”

The line went silent.

“Hello?” said Dave. “Earth to restaurant person.”

Nothing.

“Hello!” Dave screamed. “I’m in no mood for games! Get the manager on the line—now!”

“This is the manager.”

“Great. So get cracking and deliver my order!”

A brief silence, then: “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“I’m afraid you’d better! And I don’t mean in ten minutes, I mean now!”

“Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.”

“Okay, damn you, I’ll go out and get the money. But I won’t forget this!”

Silence.

Dave furiously threw his phone across the room where it shattered against the wall. “What’s wrong with this world? Doesn’t anybody give a shit about anybody anymore?”

❦

Greatly inconvenienced at having to get dressed and go out so early, especially into such a dispiriting day, Dave left in a self-righteous huff and marched straight to Chinaberry Lane.

The neighborhood seemed all the more lifeless in the raw air, and then with a sullen shock Dave saw something he’d never seen before: another person in Chinaberry Lane. Yes—a block ahead, and walking slowly away: an old, stooped man with a rucksack slung over his shoulder, walking an equally old dog. Dave watched the decrepit pair uneasily until they disappeared. Then wasn’t sure if he’d seen or imagined them.

His anger was decomposing as he approached the Library box. He stood facing it for several minutes, before stepping up to open the door. The books were there. But nothing else.

“Hey!” Dave cried, startled by his own voice, then down an octave added: “Is this supposed to be some kind of joke? Okay. Ha, ha. I get it. Now where’s my damn money?”

But for a reply he got only silence.

A silence that sounded all too familiar.

Yes, the world had it in for Dave Posey.