An Intro to A Long Walk off a Short Pier...
by
Mark William Darus.
Hey all! Hope you are doing good in your Earth-Journey today. I hope you are feeling a sense of awe, delightful wonder and inspiration at least one moment of your day as true beauty surrounds us. With every glance from tired eyes, audible laughter heard down the road/up the hallway with throbbing ears and/or a sniff of fresh made waffles greets you while you can only see a world of Isis decapitations, Evil-Speak from elected official and a world spiraling down the toilet of insanity.
"Earth Journey?!?! Damn, here he goes again getting all windy and whatnot!" one might say, running slender, tensed fingers through her frayed hair.
"Evil Speak? Dude has watched Blade Runner waaaaaaaaay too many times!" states a portly well dressed man, toking endless cigs while downing a blood pressure pill.
Well, in my mind, while we reside on our Blue Marble, what other journey could we have? We ain't dead yet, right? What else is there besides day to day drudgery at work and endless mental reruns at home while doing wash, making dinner and watching the Telie?
.....wait for it....
Evil-Speak, give me a bit of latitude on this one. Yes, very much in a vein of Blade Runners character Gaff and his City-Speak. I simply have no faith in elected officials. Period-point-blank. Best quote I ever heard from a politician was this: "Hey, I'm an elected official. When we're not kissing babies, we're stealing their lollipops." Does this sound accurate to you as it did me the first I heard it?
...again, wait forrrrrrr iiiiiiit....
Just a few more moments, grant me please...
"Get on with it!" an exhausted housewife in New York city yells as her dish washer is doing a Lawrence Welk in her kitchen, spewing shiny bubbles to the hardwood floor, causing her three kids with different daddies to laugh and play with them.
"Tired. Bottle the ends, Mate?" a sweaty, highly muscled and balding Iron worker in Perth Australia asks. When he left work he was greeted with an inconvience: A Roo was giving birth in the back of his rusty Ford pick-up.
Hmmm, did I ever tell you about the time when I was seven and navigating my Big Wheel down a sidewalk on Scranton Rd in Cleveland Ohio, USA as the Indy 500 was being watched by father on a hot late summer day? No? Well, let tell you-
"Owwww, Sweet Gentle JeSUS, not that story UH'gain!" a flowery sundress clad woman in Alabama cries out.
Okay then.
Here we go.
I have in my life seen so many disgusting, violent elements of humanity that impacted me profoundly so. When I was 18 and working as a delivery driver, I saw pack dogs going bonkers around a dumpster. Christ making me endlessly curious, I had to see what they were wanting. After tossing several large pieces of brick from a recently collapsed building at them, they scurried off. I walked toward the dumpster, cocky as any 18 year old long haired punk would do hearing Van Halen's Unchained blaring from my 1965 Dodge Darts AudioVox 100 watt tri-axials. I opened the dumpsters fading black lid and found the body of a dead newborn.
>>Authors Note: I will not go into further detail. I will not subject you to that. Sorry. if you truly wish to know, email me a request and I'll think about it. Okay?<<<<
I freaked, go figure. Found a payphone (remember those?) on the corner of West 25 and Lorain Ave and hit '0' for operator to reach the Cops. Keep in mind, 911 and cellphones were a Star Trek episode away in the future then in 1981. And yeah, there was no internet. Reaching Police, I told the Cops what I found and they dispatched. As they arrived my car was blasting Van Halens Running with the Devil, and they politely asked me to turn it off. I gave them what I had on how I found it and went about my day. I told my boss why I was late getting back, a great man/great boss, and he and the staff hugged me for having a rough after school day on the job. I went home, called my girlfriend Tammy and told her about my day. She got sick, endlessly echoing over raspy corded Ohio Bell phone, 's-s-sorrrrrreeeeeee, m-m-m-Mark! I-i-iiii, l-l-luh-V U! URRRRRRG!!!'
Yeah, a ride that would last in a lifetime of images had begun in me. But keep in mind this simple truth, one I will go into in with further detail a ways down this walk off a pier. Briefly stating a year and half before this event I went on a Methodist Church bike trip camp that took a weakly, shy and passive 16 year old and showed him a world when opening heart, reaching out and forsaking fear led to huge things far greater than expected. For this Trip I was with 5 total strangers from all areas of Ohio, USA. I Went from Introvert to Extrovert in 10 days. Christ was my friend even then, tugging gently at my heart, my parents giving me Instamatic 110 camera film to catch things with...
Let's keep the rest of that for later, shall we?
I know too well corporate greed and how for the sake of share holder confidence thousands of families get destroyed at the stroke of a pen as CEO's and their ilk PUBLICLY state as they "do the right thing for GM, Nestle and their quest to control the worlds water supply, steel makers, and every company that, lacking souls, Souled out American Jobs for cheaper labor costs and quality standards across an ever shrinking Blue Marble to make their friends wayyyyy more richer.
It is so easy to fall into depression and a massive sense of futility in your life. You work as hard as you can, go into work with fevered forehead, dizziness, churning stomach just to keep food on your table because calling off would cause those around you to suffer. The disdainful glances from bosses and coworkers greeted you on a day back at work if you had called off the day before. Your ears catch murmurings, voices sharp as knives, cutting like a butcher, from many about 'how bad it was that someone called off yesterday' the day before. Hurtfully nailing you squarely in the cross-hairs, looking down on yourself, scarcely willing to face your own image in workplace bathroom mirror, you hunker down, suck it in, and do what's best for your family sake.
There is a better way to see things as your life seemingly becomes little more than a drone in the cogs of a wheel of an angry master that only wishes for you to make them RICHER.
It is now I wish to welcome each and every one of you to A Long Walk down a Short Pier and What it led me to.
This world is such a manacled place controlled by others as we are lead by the media and agenda'd politicians to believe in their decisions , Feeding a sense of despair, anguish and futility as so many of us just wish to make it through another months rent...
Know this in your life: Regardless of what you are lead to believe by those in power, the news you catch on many media avenues, harsh words on shop/cubicle office jobs, standing in line at a local grocery store overhearing things disgusting you: Like anyone really wants to know how bad your boyfriend messed up a meatloaf dinner with your family last weekend as you ignore the patient,vastly underpaid teller before you in a check out line she asks for you to reswipe your card FOR THE THIRD TIME.
Nerves get fried, and may I ask you when your brain goes fried? When did anyone give you any personal , albeit politically correct option for Regular or Extra Crispy?
Starting something new here, so I beg your patience with me. I am having issues with how it looks and shares with you. I ask patience with you as Jesus has never failed with me,
I thank you for enduring this first post here. I have much to work on to make it easier to view.
May your day be blessed by whatever higher power you hold close to you.
I can say I love you and mean it. I can hug you with arms never reaching your back nor fingertips coursing your shoulder blades and know it so reaching out.
Welcome.
-Mark William Darus (only a pisspoor typist really. I know where the words come from and am happy to serve.)
