Odin is sitting on the bench waiting for Huginn and Muninn. He sees a lot of black crows around, but no grey ones and wonders if the grey ones have migrated.

The day is cold, it would be a good day to migrate.

Odin just read a book in which the main character spends some time at the bottom of the well. It is the second book he can remember reading in which this happened, and finds it a striking location for reasons he cannot define. Then he tries to remember other locations in literature that have impressed him, and can think of practically none.

He can think of four, off the top of his head: a well, the roof of a parking garage, a dragon’s cave, a forest. Three of those appeared in Haruki Murakami stories. Then he thinks of a fifth: the pit in the sand in “Suna no onna” (The Woman in the Dunes) by Abe Kobo.

Then he thinks of Gregor Samsa locked in his room.

Otherwise not much occurs to him.

Then he spends some time thinking of locations he can remember from his own life. He can remember a few. And the more he remembers, the more he remembers.

Muninn, the black one, finally shows up and gets a piece of chicken sandwich for his trouble. He swallows a piece of chicken, then gives Odin a dirty look and coughs it back up. Muninn looks at the piece of chicken, and tears it into smaller pieces before eating it again. This relieves Odin, who was worried that Muninn may have gotten a bit that was too spicy. It is curry chicken after all.

What say the slain?

A man decides to climb a tree as high as he can. He extends a ladder and climbs to the top. Then he pulls the ladder up after himself and wedges the base securely against a limb and climbs further up and pulls the ladder back up after himself. He repeats this until he is so far up the tree that no more branches would support him or the ladder further up.  He stands there and looks at things and looks at  a construction crane which is now at eye level almost. He extends the ladder and leans it over until it makes a bridge between the crane and the tree.

Carefully, for he is high up, he crawls toward the crane. Then there is a gust of wind and the crane shifts slightly and the end of the ladder falls from the top railing of the crane to the one beneath it, a distance of about two meters. It makes a loud noise and jars the man but he hangs on tight. Below the railing where the ladder now rests is nothing.

The man resumes crawling toward the crane but the closer he comes, the more his weight makes the end of the ladder shift and when he stops he thinks he can see that only about a quarter of an inch is still resting on the frame of the crane. He begins to turn to head back towards the tree but that makes the ladder shift, too, so he sits there still.

Sometimes Odin wonders about art and creativity and the point of it. The point can’t be financial.

What proportion of creatives would be better off financially working cleaning offices or stables instead?

He guesses one does it for the flow. It must be a good feeling to be a conduit.

Or they do it to give their suffering purpose: when you do it you’re creative and when you don’t you’re depressed.

What say the hanged?

When you look back and see a blank, remember: in this universe the interesting stuff is in front of you, and buses come from the side so always look left and right before crossing streets etc.

Things that come from the side: buses, streetcars, trucks, cars, carriages, motorcycles, pedestrians, horses, mules, rollerskaters, skateboarders, scooters, runners, mailmen.

Things in front: creative success, love, gratitude, self-knowledge, utopias, experimentation, improvement, laughter, knowledge, enlightenment, change. Also sometimes buses etc. so stay sharp.