What is life? Mostly. It is time spent pondering. Or. Avoiding pondering. While being poked. And. Prodded. By not-so-gentle reminders from the Universe, that while we may not be dead. Yet. We will be. Sooner. Or. Later.

(b) Mostly? I want very little to do with humans. Except? On rare occasion. When? I feel a connection. And? I confess. I do despair. I have tantrums. Because? It ain’t reciprocal. But? I would never. Ask anyone. For anything.

What are omens? Are they the figments of the fear of mortality? An echo in the looking back with regret shadows. Or are they guideposts and waypoints? A whisper from the imagined dread in the unknown periphery.

I’ve long considered the “cabin in the woods” as the go-to hermit destination. But. Recently. I’ve been contemplating. That. Perhaps. The better place to “retire”? Is the “shack in the desert” – it’ll go faster.

The clink of the token. Tick, tick, tick, tick. The whirl of the gears. Swirling, swirling, swirling. Thud! The machinery deposits the unwanted prize. My soul.

(b) Hmm. I wonder what it would feel like to be ripped apart alive by scavengers? Well. On second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and forever on to infinity thought … I don’t have to wonder all that hard.

Given my unwanted and inappropriate place in the middle of an existing “situation”. I will invoke my “platinum rule”. If you leave me alone? I will leave you two alone. And the world … can keep on spinning.