Pugilistic

I had been blacked out until just now.  I don't even remember the music I had come out to.  I think it was probably the Batman Begins theme song by Hans Zimmer.  Anyway, I became un-blacked out when...

"Hey champ!  You're a prizefighter!  Don't forget your training!"  My coach was yelling loud as fuck at me, and I looked around.  I was bouncing up and down and hitting my gloves together.  I was facing my opponent who was on the other side of the ring.

Oh shit.  What am I doing?  Why the fuck do I get myself into these damned things.  I thought the same thing every fight.  Fuck it.  I looked around the arena, but it was too dark to see anything.  I looked at my opponent.  What's up, little bitch?

"Hey!  Don't forget your training!"

I turned around and leaned toward my coach, "Hey!  I think I'm just gonna rush in and beat him in the first round!"

"No!  Hey!  You stupid motherfucker!  Hey..."

I turned back around and ignored the coach.  I continued bouncing, biting my mouthpiece, and staring at my opponent.  I didn't care anymore.  I didn't want to fight anymore.  I wanted to get this fight over with.  I never wanted to fight again.  Ever.  Like, ever.

So, I braced myself.  My coach's voice faded away.  I would rush in and use all my energy in the first round.  This motherfucker wouldn't know what hit him.

I remembered something.  I looked nearly, around the seats around the ring.  There she was: Taylor Swift.  I waved at her.  She blew me a kiss.

I immediately forgot her.  I went up to my opponent.  We smashed gloves and went back to our corners.  It was almost time.  It was time.

BING! BING!

I rushed forward.  I blocked my left and threw a wild, hard right hook that smashed into my opponents head.  The crowd went wild.  Everybody was standing up yelling, and telling me what to do next.  They were like absolutely insane, caged animals--like monkeys mixed with hyenas that had absolutely lost their minds.

I covered my right, and with all my might I threw eight jabs into the other pugilist's face.  A couple of them made it through, and it seemed as if he was about to turn around and ask his coach what to do about me.  I decided I was done, so I would use all my force on my next two punches.  The crowd was roaring, and I was certain I wouldn't make it out of the arena alive.

I used my whole fucking body.  Covering both sides, I cocked to the right and threw the hardest, biggest, strongest body shot I could imagine and that I had ever thrown.  My opponent's body was jolted, buckled, and he looked as if he was going to fall.  He was slightly leaning toward me, not knowing what to do with his hands and arms.  Within a millisecond we caught eyes, and our souls spoke to one another.  As you know, souls operate in a different space/time world.

"Your eyes are full of fire," my opponent said.

"It's not because of you.  Your eyes are full of fear and confusion.  You look like you're about to drop out," we were being cordial.

"Yes... well... you kind of blindsided me.  We had been studying your tapes, and you have never fought like this.  It's as if you're absolutely mad... like the audience here."

"It's just that I'm done fighting.  I never want to fight again.  Like, ever."

"I see.  Well fucking-a.  You caught me off guard, but I should have been ready for anything."

"You'll have plenty of fights yet.  As for me, I am done.  I'm going to walk off into the sunset with Taylor Swift over there.  Did you see her?  Did you bring a date?  I hope you don't feel embarrassed.  I've been the champ for a long time now.  There's no shame in losing to me.  Hell, there's no shame in losing to anyone.  Fighting is crazy."

"Yes, I saw your Taylor Swift over there.  She looks great.  Yes, I brought a Victoria's Secret model.  She's not that famous yet, but her name is Doutzen Kroes."

"Oh ya.  I know her.  She's hot as fuck."

"Why are your eyes full of fire?"

"I don't know."

"Shall we get on with this?"

"Sure.  Thanks for being my last fight mate."

"No problem."

I threw an insane liver punch.  It was as if my left became a viper and a scorpion at the same time.  The other pugilist's eyes went dark, and then they went white, and then they closed.  I stepped out of the way and down he went, and he would not get up before the count of ten.

I went to my corner.  I waited.  The fight was over.  The crowd swarmed into the ring, but I didn't care about anything anymore.  I didn't even put on the promotional t-shirt.  I stood there motionless, with my stupid arms hanging down, with my stupid hands with stupid gloves on.

Oh well.  I thought, and I just looked around, like a confused man--a pugilist.  Taylor Swift joined my side

The fight was over.

Finally, I wasn't fighting anymore.  I took a long walk.

The Beggar Man

It was wet and raining and cold outside, and the beggar man was outside.

The sky was gray with gray clouds gray from all the sadness in the world.  The whole world was gray.

Well the beggar man looked up at the sky and smiled.  He knew that where there were clouds, there were silver linings.

He looked and looked and looked and looked and looked and looked for the silver linings.

His brow creased, his eyes narrowed, his lips turned downward, and he started getting choked up.  And then, he really started getting choked up.  And then he began to sob lightly, but he was trying not to cry.  You know how that goes?  When you're really trying to hold it back.  And then, through the tears, he looked up at the sky, again.  He squinted and looked hard for the silver lining--there was none.

And then he let go.  He began to cry and sob hard, and the tears came flowing out like the rivers of the Ganges.  He reeled back as if he was hit, until his back hit a wall, and then he felt along until the wall led him to the nearest alleyway; he crept in and slid down against the wall.  He cried and cried.

He slid over to his side, huddled up in the fetal position and cried some more, until he fell asleep.

He woke up, as it was raining, very windy, and had become nighttime.  He was soaked.  It was freezing.

He struggled to his feet, felt around his big empty pockets for his flask, until he found it.  It had been a dreamless sleep.  He took a small swig and began to cry again.  He made his way to the main street, which was empty.  He was a weak beggar man.  His back hurt.  His fingers were creaky.  His nails were black.  His face was nothing but creases from his youth when he used to laugh and smile all the time and from his old age cringing.

He looked around, and it was dark all around.

Afar, he saw a lone light.  His stomach grumbled.  Underneath all the layers of black, shit clothing that he was wearing was a saggy body with shitty bones.  Well, he made his way to the light, to beg for food, of course, because he was hungry... you see?

It took him an hour to get there, and it got darker and scarier every second he traveled.  He was sure he would not make it this time, and he was not sure that this light would be very welcoming.

Knock, knock, knock, at the light's door.

He propped himself against the door jamb, and took his flask out.  He emptied it into his mouth.

Finally, the door opened, and there stood an extravagant looking man.  He was tall, young and handsome, and strong, and his hair was perfect, and he looked brave like a lion.  He was wearing a grand, fine robe of many deep colors, and he was holding two swords.  He smiled at the beggar man.

"Well, look at you!  What are you doing at my door?" He looked around outside and around the beggar man, "Are you alone?  Well, look at you, won't you?"  He sure was a happy looking man.

"Your light was on."

"Oh!  Ok."

"Mister?"

"Yes?"

"Were you awake today during the day?  Were you around town?"

"Oh, no.  Not me.  I was asleep.  Not today.  I slept all through today, and just woke up when you did, at nighttime.  It's a dark night ain't it?  I like it."  He shivered, "So, how can I help you beggar man?"

"There weren't any silver linings in the clouds earlier today during the day."

The grand man looked at the beggar man in the face, and he put his right hand up to his closed mouth, as if he were studying his face.  He had a serious countenance now.  "Well, look at you beggar man, won't you?  How can I help you?"

"I'm hungry."

"I see," he repeated a couple times and thought some more, "no silver lining in the clouds today huh?"

"None."

"What do you think that meant?"

"That there was nothing good to be found.  That it was just a gray, unforgiving world, where you can't find nothing good nowhere.  Not even in all the shit we live in, can we find a glimmer of hope.  That everything is always going to be shit, and nothing is ever going to change, is what I think it meant."

"Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, that may be so, that may be so," the grand man mused for a while, and then, "Hah!  Well ok!  Who knows, right?"  He had alighted again.  He was bright and cheery again, "that's very interesting.  Who knows, right?  Maybe that is so!  But, look at you, won't you?  For now, why don't you come in and eat?  You said you're hungry did you not?  So, what are you waiting for?  You even look like you're hurting!  I have a whole mess hall of food that I just made with my butler and my cook!  We're just hanging out!  We'll talk about all that shit you just said!  You must be a philosopher or something, you crazy fucking beggar man!"  The man was yelling at this point.

"Thank you."

Well, the beggar man went in and ate a whole mess of fucking food, and he was full.

I Never Asked to be Born! Stations in Life!

I grabbed my skull.  Oh!  I grabbed my skull!  But I didn't quite grab my skull.  I only put both of my hands on my head, and my head was made out of skin, hair, and all sorts of other shit, including a skull and a brain.  In that manner, I grabbed my skull.

And I huddled in a corner.  This corner was in a corner of a dimly lit room.  Yes, there was some light in there.  I didn't know where it was coming from.

What's my name!?  I didn't only ask the question in my head... I shouted it.  Well, my name is Danny Castro, and my name is Daniel Castro on my birth certificate, but I go by Danny.  Ok.  My name is Danny.

I grabbed my skull in the aforementioned manner.  I thought about my brother Ismael and all his wild ideas about light, color, and sight.  On his own, he had figured out that we never really see anything but reflections of light.  I never get to see Ismael Ismael, and Ismael never gets to see me me.  I tightened the grip on my skull.  Let me explain.

The human eye can only see because light shines into it.  If there were no light, the human eye would not be able to see what it sees.  The human eye is a mechanism that picks up light.  That light--and the colors and gradations of that light--is then interpreted by different parts of the brain, and then we "see" what light has reflected.  I'll try again.

If there is no light whatsoever, our eyes see nothing: only darkness.  They see nothing because no light enters into our eyes, and our eyes need light in order to see things.  So, all our eyes really see is light.  So, when there is light, what our eyes see is light reflected off of other things.  The sun shines on different parts of Ismael, and those are the parts that I see, so then I "see" Ismael, but what I really see is a reflection of Ismael.  The light.  Our eyes only see light.

I thought about that because, when I thought I was grabbing my skull, I was really grabbing a bunch of different things.  And when I think I am looking at something, I'm really only looking at the reflection of light off of that thing.

Oh!  Strange things filled my mind.  The room was empty, but there was a dim light coming from somewhere, and I was in a corner grabbing my skull.

All this honesty was thrashing around in my mind.

"What do I do?"  I thought to myself.  "I didn't ask to be born into this."  Outside of the door was waiting my normal life.  I was born in Southern California, and my parents loved me, and it was hard to swallow, because so many people were suffering around the world.

"I didn't ask to be born!"  My mind raged.

I imagined a twelve year old girl born with AIDS in Africa.  There in my corner all huddled up and grabbing my skull fiercely, I thought about her (I also thought about my perfect grammar).  She was poor.  She has had AIDS since she was born, and I forced myself to think hard about this.

She sat in an empty room clutching her skull.  Outside, there was chaos, and there were her siblings waiting for her to take care of them, because their parents were long dead.  The HIV had taken them away.  And her mind raged, "I didn't ask to be born!"

"What is fair?" I thought to myself.  Nothing is fair.  Is it fair that I was born in Southern California to a nice family and she was born in subsaharan Africa with AIDS?  Who the fuck decided to put us where we were born?  Why wasn't I born in subsaharan Africa, and why wasn't she born in Southern California?  Maybe she was?  Maybe I was?  Maybe we were all everybody, and maybe everybody was everybody else!  Why was I thinking so abstractly?  Mark done said, "Love your neighbor as yourself."  Maybe everybody was everybody!

I clutched, and I was losing my mind.  Nobody deserves anything.  I thought hard, and I thought logically.  There must be a god.  Ipso facto, when/how/why/where we were born was not arbitrary, nor meaningless.  Considering the massive implications of all of this, I came to a conclusion.

We are all orphans, to an extent.  What do we deserve?  Almost nothing.  But not nothing.  Something. We deserve something.  For he we are!  We exist!  What do we deserve?  Do we deserve to be rich?  Do we deserve to be poor?  We can't deserve those things, for we had no say in which station we should be born into.  What do we deserve then?  For, we do deserve something.

We deserve love.  Every single one of us deserves love from everyone else.  And we deserve to love everyone.  "Love your neighbor as yourself."  We should be hard on ourselves and on everyone else, in a loving way!  That's the way we should love ourselves and others!

We deserve the chance to be loved.  More importantly, we deserve the chance to love others.

And most importantly, we deserve the chance to be saved.

And so have we been.  Drowning and seemingly without hope for one last gasp of air, we have been saved.

Although it seems that nothing in this life is fair, there is hope and at least we do deserve something and not nothing.  That is fair.

I let go of my skull.  I walked out of my room.  I hugged my family.  I got on my computer.  I sent a couple bucks to whatever organization givewell.org told me to.

I went back to my room.  I closed the door.  I got on my knees.  I was humbled.  I don't deserve any of this.  Hell, I don't even deserve to be alive, probably.  I thanked god and I took George Harrison's advice: "Everything else can wait, but the search for God cannot wait; and love one another."

I heard U2 in the background.

I went back on my computer and thought about true love.

The Opera of the Proletariat

I was about 32 years old.  It was a beautiful day, ironically, as you shall see.  Casually strolling down a beautiful avenue, busy with fine automobiles, I was mulling over which café I'd choose: order a bold black and find an advantageous vantage perch from which to perv on some fine ass chicks.  I preferred crazy, silly, bouncy, bright-eyed, long-haired, blonde girls that enjoyed not being inhibited by the invention of habiliments and thus were hardly hindered by donning hardly any of it at all.  I wasn't picky though, as long as they were beautiful.  Call me what you must.

Having improved my gait over the years by meticulously studying the most fashionable modus operandi of the day concerning detached coolness, I sauntered down the boulevard with panache.

I saw an old man and a young boy walking toward me.  They looked like they belonged in a different era--perhaps 1960s Italy.  And then everything slowed down.  Two British thugs ran up behind the grandpa and the grandson.  One of the maniacs shoved the old man against a parked car, and the poor old man crumpled to the concrete.

The other fuck had grabbed the child.  The kid must have been around three feet tall, and he was slight of frame, with shaggy black hair and a fair complexion; he had no clue what was happening.  And now this British-looking fellow was about to run past me, but everything was in slow motion...

I transmogrified into an elite Israeli Mossad agent; I stuck an insane Krav Maga fist into the pirate's throat before he could escape with his adolescent stolen treasure.  The boy was under the pirate's arm.  I took the ability to breath away from the assailant and shocked terror into him.  He spun wildly around and accidentally flung the boy with accidental incredible force over a parked car and into traffic.  The pirate was forced down to his knees, making strange and terrible sounds as he grasped his shattered throat.  He dove face first into the concrete, hacking blood all over the fucking place.

The other British pirate, the grandpa, and I stood paralyzed, as we watched the grandson fly gloriously into the running of the fine vehicles: he crashed onto terra firma, and then a beautiful, elegant, exotic machine took his ability to be alive away by crashing him and making him die.

Slowly, I looked at the other pirate--I mean this guy was wearing a leather jacket and everything.  Slowly the pirate looked at me.  Slowly he lifted his right arm and pointed at me with his index finger.  Then he spun around, looked at the old grandpa, pulled a gun out of somewhere, pointed it at Grandpa, and let a single bullet fly, but not before I shattered a giant, sturdy, ceramic flagon that I got from somewhere over his bald stupid head.  Who knows which way that fierce, angry little bullet went off flying?  I sure don't.

I killed two pirates in all.  At the hospital, the old man held my hand and cried, telling me that his grandson and he had been the only people left alive in his family, and now his little relative was very much dead.  "I don't want to live anymore," he sobbed.  "Thank you for putting your life at risk and trying to help us."

"I don't know what came over me.  I'm sure anyone would've done the same thing," I responded.

"Who knows.  Thanks again, young man."

I told him he could call me if he needed anything, but he died a couple days later.

And a couple days after that, I found out that he left me everything that his family had acquired: all told, I became thirty-seven billion dollars richer that day.

So here I was two years later, about 35.  I stood in my insane suite, who knows how many stories up in who knows what building, overlooking New York City.  I was looking over the whole city is what I mean.

Look at all those poor people down there, I thought to myself.

That night, I would have the same dream I had been having since I had become super very rich.  A dream about desperately poor people performing a very elaborate, genius, and quite beautiful, but sad opera, that was what I saw during REM sleep.  The cast was immense; if not infinite, almost infinite; if that's possible.  At the end, they all amassed on the immense, almost infinitely big, stage, faced me, and bowed.  I was always the only person at this opera of the proletariat.  Crying, I would give them a standing ovation, and I would whistle, cheer, and clap loudly.  My cheering sounded like oceans of praise.  And then I would wake up.

Still I hoped that a crazy, silly, bouncy, bright-eyed, long-haired, blonde girl that enjoys not being inhibited by the invention of habiliments and thus is hardly hindered by donning hardly any of it at all would join me for the magnificent and magnificently tragic and melancholy opera.

And then I hoped she would join me in real life too.