Writing & Creative Writing

My friend Stork asked me to cover his shift and since I have nothing better to do apart from fishing since my messenger skills are not in vogue anymore, like they used to be in Egypt, China, Greece, Japan etcetera.

I found a note at his place and some bags that emitted weird sounds, like a whimper or a fussing, which was relatively soft and short, but it sometimes quickly escalated to a loud, piercing call that can was sustained over several minutes. Definitely Stork was working for humans. Yikes!

I ventured to the destination, indicated as a small island, inhabited by the hairless monkeys. The instructions were clear: “land softly on the beach, ensure no predators are around, open the bag and leave without looking back”.

So I did, minus the last part… I had just delivered a human chick or cub whatever they are called. I felt betrayed, Stork knew how much I hate these polluting mammals!

On my way back, the trickster joined me and thanked me: “Hiro, you are the best heron, you heroically saved my day, they have been waiting for delivery for nine months”

–

My friend Stork asked me to cover his shift, and since I have nothing better to do apart from fishing—my messenger skills not being in vogue anymore, unlike in ancient Egypt, China, Greece, Japan, etc.—I agreed.

At his place, I found a note and some bags that emitted strange sounds. They started as a whimper or fussing, relatively soft and short, but occasionally escalated to a loud, piercing call that was sustained over several minutes. Clearly, Stork was working for humans. This kind of device, container, must be man-made. Yikes! I don’t want to catch some weird bug.

I ventured to the destination, a small island inhabited by the hairless monkeys. The instructions were clear: "Land softly on the beach, ensure no predators are around, open the bag, and leave without looking back."

I followed all the instructions, except the last part. I had just delivered a human chick—or cub, whatever they're called. I felt betrayed; Stork knew how much I detest these polluting mammals!

On my way back, the trickster joined me and thanked me: "Hiro, you are the best heron. You heroically saved my day. Hehe. They've been waiting for this delivery for nine months!"

https://twitter.com/polyMatto/status/1783197342474047569

Void and matter are intertwined, much like light needs darkness, and gain comes with pain. Even within matter, much remains void. We look up to the sky and down to the ground, flipping the convex to the concave, revealing more of the unknown. There is so much we do not know about our inner workings—how we function, cease to function, think, and came into being. The 'why' questions are the hardest to answer. Perhaps it is beneficial that we lack answers; it keeps us wondering, believing, and searching. Meaning can take many shapes and forms. It is certainly not void; it must be found where there is substance. One thing we do know is that substance and mass connect us, even when we are distant and vastly different from one another. Our perception of scale also shifts; we are minuscule in the universe yet immense compared to atoms. These dualities are essential for understanding our existence.

https://twitter.com/polyMatto/status/1783707082341880094

And I walked and walked and hiked and hiked until I forgot why I was pushing forward. Was I walking away or trying to reach something?

I lost myself along the way, in my thoughts, in my own realization that my senses have been dormant for too long. Feeling the heat, the cold, the smell of the pinecones, the sound of my steps on gravel, my own breathing and—I dare to say, the sound my own heart beating. Its strength manifesting itself before my eyes, with intermittent web-like lines. A reminder—I am just flesh that moves propelled by flesh moving. I work because parts of me are working.

While being supposedly lost, I reconnected with myself. I was found. I started feeling again, I stopped wanting stuff—ballast. I wanted meaning. Meaning packaged in a house full of love. Kids running around and driving me insane up until realise that I am going to miss that insanity one day. That insanity I ran away from, was the only sane thing I wanted in my life.

–

And I walked and walked and hiked and hiked until I forgot why I was pushing forward. Was I walking away or trying to reach something?

I lost myself along the way, in my thoughts, in my own realization that my senses have been dormant for too long. Feeling the heat, the cold. Smelling the pinecones. Hearing the sound of my steps on gravel, my own breathing, and—I dare to say—the sound of my own heart beating. I saw the blood vessels in my eyes pulsating like rivers in fast-forward, a vivid testament to the vigour within. This is the manifestation of my strength, a clear vision of life pumping through me. A counter, every beat is a tick and there’s no “reset” button.

I am just flesh that moves, propelled by flesh moving. I exist because of a symphony within me, where every cell plays its part in harmony, like a society thriving in perfect order and mutual benefit. This is the symbiosis of life, a system where homeostasis mirrors the ideal functions of capitalism or libertarianism. It doesn't matter how you wanna call it, definitions can always be changed, meanings cannot—no corruption, no failure, only purposeful action and balance. Any imbalance is a call to action. Utopic perhaps. “Have you ever met anyone?” I asked myself. It can only truly work within people. To be selfish is part of our survival instinct but how far can one’s taking go?

While being supposedly lost, I reconnected with myself. I was found. I started feeling again, stopped desiring the superficial—ballast. I stopped wanting to track scores, counting coins, bodies, reps, whatever. The only thing that counts, that is worth counting is the time we have. The impact we can make. How we’ll be remembered.

I craved meaning. Meaning wrapped in a home pulsing with love. Kids running around, driving me insane, until I realize that one day I will miss that insanity. The chaos was, paradoxically, the very sanity I yearned for in life.

“You guys will read this one day when I am gone and all I want for you is to smile when you think about me and the father I was. Please look after yourselves, love each other and look after your mum. She loves you more than anything else. Don’t allow this simple fact to harm her. Don’t take advantage of her. Family comes before everything else. Never forget. I want you to be proud of me. If I failed, I am sorry, not for you but for myself. You'll be OK regardless, I believe in you. I will keep trying until the end—This is where you should nod and say that I did and that I am insufferable even from beyond… where I will certainly keep loving you guys”

https://twitter.com/polyMatto/status/1784103364197806568

A picture landed on my journal and I tasked myself to write something about it. The problem: it was just a full frame coloured with a beige tone. Nothing else.

I felt challenged. What is this thing? It could be anything, there’s no information apart from the colour.

I kept looking at it, writing a few sentences. Only to erase it all in disgust.

Boring. Stupid. Stupid and boring.

Then the block hit.

The girls woke up and I skipped breakfast with them. That was a first.

“I have to do this, I’ll join you in five” I apologetically told them after having at least wished a good morning.

Thirty minutes later I was still staring at it. Nothing.

Frustrated, I was nearly ready to give up when my wife entered the room. Or worse, I would have kept trying putting aside everything else. I could be quite… intense sometimes.

“What’s up? Are you OK? We were waiting for you, your daughter called you fifty hundred million times!” my wife asked me, concerned about my odd behaviour.

“It’s this image, I have nothing to write about it. It’s pissing me off” I replied, looking at her and giving her a reassuring kiss.

“You’ll figure it out, there’s a story about not having a story. Most lives are like that if you think about it.” she said, while leaving me to my thing, showing full support.

My focus was now on her words. She was right!

So I wrote:

“This could be anything, or nothing. It’s all about perception anyway. I choose to see a beach. The beige is sand and sunbeds and the white buildings that in the early morning take that tone. It’s very peaceful, the sunbeds are closed and on their side so that they wouldn’t be soaking wet in case of rain. The sand is clean and cold. The palm trees wave at me. I smile back. Today is going to be a good day. The day my baby boy will see the sea for the first time and one of the hopefully many days I will see my baby boy doing something for the first time.”

“That’s it, a window in front of the sink, that is having made it” the realtor confidently boasted right before laughing with a very loud voice, an incredibly deep one. He looked like a very pleasant man, round glasses, like a Statistics professor or something, was a bit chubby but you could tell he used to lift back in the day from the size of his tailored suit around his arms. His voice was the most memorable thing, clearly it served as a sales tool as well. You could almost feel his laughter with your chest like if you were out in a club. Insane.

We kept looking around and, as you can imagine, the decisionmaker in disguise—the wife—was already sold on the kitchen.

Make it cute. Functional, with storage space and a peninsula and you are golden. Any extra is just insurance. That’s what I had learnt from staging my own properties but now I was on the other side of the fence and I just wanted to be done.

Viewings are painful.

“Look, we can sit the kids there after we cooked something all together while playing some jazz” she said with an angel’s face.

“Do you think that peninsula can hold the weight?” she said with the fallen angel’s face.

Fine, the gravel fell. I was sold on that last sentence. I thought I was a rational man and indeed I probably was up until I broke the rule to never ever take the wife with me to view a property.

I summoned my inner stoic, it was hard but I succeeded somehow. That’s life. Often, it gets good after it gets hard.

“There’s no extractor fan, how do you dry up your plates and stuff if you are washing something by hand? You know I basically meditate while massaging pans and giving them the odd slap to remind them who’s the boss” I jokingly answered her, knowing that she likes to do that. The meditating part.

Doubts started creeping in her head, I could almost see them visiting the left and then the right hemisphere.

“Yeah. You are not wrong… Let’s think about it” she replied, sounding defeated.

“Turn off your engineer brain. Turn on.” my tattooed mantra worked once again. I probably saved us a few grand already. Pavarotti noticed the change of tone in my wife and me heading for my shoes. Getting ready to leave after having checked the outside once more.

https://twitter.com/polyMatto/status/1784798340808323182