Folded Thought of the Day: ------------------------ "A tormenting thought: as of a certain point, history was no longer real. Without noticing it, all mankind suddenly left reality; everything happening since then was supposedly not true; but we supposedly didn't notice. Our task would now be to find that point, and as long as we didn't have it, we would be forced to abide in our present destruction." -- Elias Canetti, Winner of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Literature ----------------- Memoirs of a Forgotten Man ... A Recurring Nightmare He leaves his room, closing the door behind him in a deliberate and gentle manner. He fumbles in his left-hand pocket -- searching for and removing a set of keys. He scrutinizes each key carefully, each one dancing with the rhythm of the motion, falling together and sounding a familiar tune -- a firmly tapped cymbal syncopation... a chained elegance. He chooses a key and slides it into the lock, placing an ear close as he makes the turn, listening to the bolt settle firmly into its resting place. A sense of security. He moves down the hall. What light bulbs remain provide a minimum of illumination, enough for him to make his way. The walls disappear and reappear at regular intervals -- an underexposed film strip moving too slowly for the projector, revealing a two-toned progression... of nothing and then decaying wall-paper... of nothing and then small child awaiting the guardian that may or may not ever come... of nothing and then a picture frame holding the remnants of a poorly painted mountain setting in which a river trails into the distance -- an image of beauty that never stood a chance hanging on these walls, perhaps somebody's idea of a joke. Descending the stairs he hears a phone ringing but cannot place the direction from which it emanates. Is it ringing in his room? In the room of a neighbor? Or is it ringing somewhere before him? The latter seems to be the case as the ringing intensifies with each step downward. He's moving toward the exit. He's heading outside. He reaches ground level and the phone continues its ringing, very close now. Somewhere, just beyond the doors of a ground level room, nobody waits. There's no one home to answer the call. He exits the building and the ringing diminishes as he moves further and further away. Eventually he can no longer hear it at all. He is a man out of time. The world flies by him or it refuses to move at all. With every step he takes he travels a hundred years. Moving back and forth through history. Ahead, on the corner, he observes a tribal ritual, a ceremonial sacrifice -- a native gathering... a celebration of community that dies with his next step, turning into a collection of well dressed commuters encased in self-imposed isolation chambers. He witnesses revolutionaries sitting at a table of a sidewalk cafe, hatching what will become one of the most successful plots ever hatched. Ahead of him a man drops some change, and in the bending pick-up maneuver he sees the destruction of a thousand forests. He cannot find the center. He simply moves through edges. He accepts his fate. He makes his way to the train station. Standing as train after train arrive and leave... faces in windows rushing by, slowing, stopping, moving away. He waits and waits... for the right train -- all seemingly headed for the same destination, but not destined for the same station. It is late when his train appears. Rounding the bend at a terrifying speed and stopping dead on its tracks. He boards the train and stands in the doorway as it exits the station. He stands looking out the windowed door, his back to the train car's interior. In the glass he can see the reflections of the other passengers -- ghostly images moving through the passing landscape. Ahead, somewhere in the distant night, just outside of a city's limits, two men in uniform await a whistle stop. Each holds the likeness of a man in their hands. A man who they will place in custody. ------------------------