They sit that way for a very long time. The strangers glance at the bottle of Midleton now and then, but the man ignores them. They will be drinking this soon enough, he thinks, when I am dead.

First stranger: Actually, we’re not actually here to kill you.
Second stranger: No.
Man: Ah.
Man: (Pours himself a fresh glass, and puts the bottle away)
Man: (takes sip) Then you will be going soon, I imagine.
Two strangers: (Shrug, look at each other)
Man: Before you go, I want you to know one thing.
Man: All I want is for you to be happy.
Man: That’s all I want. But I realize that just saying it is useless.
Man: I mean, there used to be people who wanted only for me to be happy, and it had no effect. I disappointed them and myself. Happiness is an elusive target, anyway. I suppose what they wanted was for me to achieve a situation, a mental state and social/economic situation conducive to self-actualization and a condition of agency in life, and here I am, the same lost bobbing cork as always.
Man: But I am content.
Two strangers: (Give each other puzzled looks. One glances at the glass in the man’s hand)
Man: I am sitting in a garden, petting a cat and waiting for death. I have not achieved all I dreamed, but it no longer matters.
Man: All that matters is that you are happy. That you attain a state of agency and personal power. That you can speak of yourself with honesty. (Drinks the last of the whiskey, sets glass on table.)
First stranger: (Licks lips involuntarily)
Man: (Looks at the sky outside) Now I wonder if, when someone told me “all I want is for you to be happy,” they really meant “all I want is for you to have a life of your own and get out of my hair”.
Man: If, when they said, “Do anything you want,” they meant, “do something.”
Man: Hrm.
Man: (Notices the strangers have left)
Man: (Pets cat) (Drinks the last drops of liquid in the glass)
Man: (To cat) I wonder if that is what I meant.
Man: (Sighs, begins typing fresh story)

You walk to the store. A kid has a party, another kid says, your cat is so cute, the first kid says, that’s not my cat, and suddenly you’re walking to the store for extra catfood on your lunch break, plus something from the bakery in case a crow passes your way.

Of course it does.

Every day is the same. Get up, make coffee, read, clean something, feed cats, take shower, get dressed, go to work. Get lunch, or don’t get lunch. Read. Go home. Clean something, go to bed.

At a certain level of magnification, anyway. At a microscopic, sub-atomic level, I suppose things vary wildly. This electron will only ever be exactly here once.

This quark, now you see it, now you don’t.

Just say you’re fine.

He thought a minute.

Oh yeah he stubbed it earlier in the day.

One mystery solved.

Odin walked to the store, not raining, crow recognized him, followed him to the store.

Do animals have consciousness? They think. They solve problems, is that consciousness? Also crows lie and steal, they look over their shoulders when they’re doing something shady to see if anyone is watching.

Here, Odin gives the crow a hard sausage. A piece of one. Then he gives the crow a second piece to see what it will do.

It studies the pieces. It arranges them side by side, perpendicular, then parallel until it has them arranged in such a fashion that it can get both into its beak at the same time and do something – hide them or fly off with them, Odin doesn’t stick around to watch.

It could have just flown off with one, left the other, come back for it later, but a second crow was watching so it had to take both.

What say the hanged?
I seen you on the dock letting the sunrise warm your face, you were smiling.
I remember how you liked to pick cigarette butts out of the gutter, back when you were still learning to walk.
Second-prettiest eyes I ever saw, some mechanic, brown eyes glowing amber in autumn sunlight.
Prettiest: green-eyed girl in an airport long time ago stopped me in my tracks.

What say the slain?
Nihilism is childish.
Agnosticism is where it’s at.
Certainty is for morans.
Who knows? Not me.
Who knows? Not me. Let’s find out.

Ffff, dunno, says his daughter.

Neither one of us is listening to me, he says.

I’m really tired, says his daughter.

Oh, right, slugs, he says.

Right, she says.

I feel better about killing them with beer traps than catching them and salting them on the sidewalk. Because one is murder, and the other one is their choice — hey look, beer! you know?

Right, she says. OTOH they end up dead either way. Although drowning in beer is maybe nicer?

But we’ll never know. Maybe they are paralysed and drown slowly and in great terror, he says.

It is a beautiful morning, with a variegated sky. They discuss meteorology. From there (spurred in part by their previous discussion of the ethics of killing slugs) they discuss human values, the nature of existence, the existence (or non-existence) of god, the relation between atheism and faith and agnosticism, astrophysics and the Big Bang, and economics.

At one point, the hymnologist avers that it makes no difference whether god exists or not because he does not intervene (since what would be the sense in that? If there is a god who creates the universe, it would only make sense if he did not intervene), and his daughter tells him he is an Epicurean.

We should like go to Colorado or Washington State and get high and talk about this stuff, says the hymnologist to his daughter. Once you’re over 21, of course.

They discuss the value of philosophy, and how impoverished a life without art and philosophy and other goofing around is.

Some days they sit in the car and don’t say a word to each other, but some days are like this.

And he thought, you know, she’s right.

“You know, you’re right,” he said, even.

And he thought, thank goodness I never speak explicitly about philosophy.

Or write about it explicitly.

He wondered what it would read like if he wrote about philosophy explicitly.

It would sound like this:

The elevator starts moving but existentialism reaches over and hits the STOP button with a big thumb. Before Cartesianism knew it, he’s got both of Cartesianism’s hands in  a viselike grip above her head and he’s pinning Cartesianism to the wall using his anguish… his other hand grabs her doctrine and yanks down, bringing her face up and his facticity is on hers… Her truth tentatively strokes his and joins it in a slow, erotic dance… His despair is hard against her corporeal body, which she reminds herself is the source of all untruth and illusions.

“It’s all pointless, in the end,” whispers existentialism in a gruff, stubbly whisper.

“That’s how it seems to you,” says heterophenomenology.

“Where’d you come from?” gasp existentialism and Cartesianism simultaneously, still whispering.

“Google Daniel Dennet,” says heterophenomenology. “You might want to try me, though, as an alternative to her,” it says, gesturing languidly towards Cartesianism.

“Not that it matters,” says nihilism.

At the touch of zeitgeist, Cartesianism quivers and gasps. Existentialism shakes his head as if to clear it from cobwebs, and walks around her there in the elevator full and increasingly fuller of philosophies and their throbbing elements, trailing his despair around the middle of her doctrine. The second time around, he suddenly flicks the despair, without any warning, and it stings Cartesianism underneath her ineffability … right in the metaphysical mind … The shock runs through her, and it’s the sweetest, strangest, hedonistic feeling …

“Everything sucks,” says the first noble truth. “I’m dying for a pint. My job sucks. I am insufficiently kind to those I love.”

“I’m sorry, we don’t serve alcohol,” says the bartender.

“What?” says the first noble truth.

“You are only miserable because you think you should always be happy,” says the second noble truth.

“I’m miserable because I have a splitting headache and you somehow found the only bar in the world that doesn’t serve alcohol,” says the first noble truth.

“You only think you have a headache. But who is the You who has a headache? There is no You. The headache has you, and not the other way around,” says the second noble truth.

“WTF are you talking about,” says the first noble truth and lights a cigarette.

“No smoking,” says the bartender.

“Oh ferfuckssake,” says the first noble truth and puts his cigarettes away.

“What the second noble truth is trying to say is, if you could overcome your craving…” says the third noble truth, but the first noble truth jumps him before he can finish his sentence.

“Bar fight!” someone yells, and everyone else in the bar whips out their smart phones and films the first noble truth fighting the third noble truth while the second noble truth tries to break them up.

The fourth noble truth sits down at the other end of the bar, laughing and laughing.

“What’s so funny?” says a woman on the next stool.

The fourth noble truth shakes his head. “Everything. Nothing. I don’t know. I was so thirsty I drank a liter of ice water and my stomach sloshed for hours. Someone I love needed a compliment and a pat on the back and I didn’t notice until hours later. My dreams have been unusual. The world is mysterious.”

“You from around here?” asks the woman.

“Am I ever,” says the fourth noble truth.

He lived in that old house until it got so full of junk he never threw away that there was only room for the mice, then he moved into that old trailer in front, the one covered with the green algae because it was so shady under the big fir tree and it rained all the time. He lived in there with his dogs. In winter he let them sleep on the bed because he had no heat.

The neighbors complained about the dogs howling. When the Humane Society came for those, they found crazy old Mr. Cordyceps dead inside the trailer.

The dogs hadn’t touched him.

His house was full of musical instruments and boxes of doll clothes.

Most of the musical instruments were warped and broken, because the roof leaked and the windows were broken; or gnawed by mice. The neck of the banjo curved like a boomerang, but the trombone worked fine.

The trailer was full of styrofoam hamburger trays, all licked clean. There was a bag of onions, and a couple changes of clothes. There was a stack of notebooks on a table, with the years written on the front in ballpoint pen.

The last entry read, “Everything will be alright, just not in the way you imagine.”

Someone is always responsible. If you cannot find them, ask your wife, she’s good at that sort of thing.

Hair or fingernail clippings will suffice. Sew them into a voodoo doll and follow normal voodoo procedures. Cause daylight savings time, man. Seriously.

Then go for a walk while it’s still dark, along the creek. It is five AM, not four AM despite what your phone says. Apparently you forgot the clock on your phone when you were resetting clocks yesterday.

Go walk in the dark. Are you walking? Is it dark? By the time you get to the bridge where you turn right to follow the bike path along the creek, you’re already wondering why you felt it necessary to justify your existence in the first place. A calmer voice in your head is beginning to tell you it’s not necessary. That existence is not something that requires justification.

DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS VOICE. If you want to justify your existence, ignore this voice even though it sounds reasonable.

Christ, it’s dark.

And yet, people are still driving around. Austrians are crazy.

Look who’s talking.

At least they’re not out walking around.

Keep walking until you think of a justification. Spring might work. Does spring justify your existence? Frog eggs? Or a journal full of words? Or the steadiness you can give a child dealing with rapid change? Can you teach someone something, like how to ride a bike or that finger snapping/bottle-cap shooting thing, or throat singing?

If you can teach throat singing, please mail me. I’ve tried to teach myself in the car but I keep passing out, which is dangerous when you’re driving.

There must be some way to justify your existence. Maybe you’re not thinking hard enough.

Maybe you just need a cup of coffee. A little caffeine and all these justifications will pop into your head.

Go back to the house and make some coffee.

Sometimes you are the anvil, and sometimes you are the coyote.

Sometimes you are the coyote, and sometimes you are the roadrunner.

Sometimes you are the roadrunner, and sometimes you are the highway.

Sometimes you are the highway, and sometimes you are the bus.

Sometimes you are the bus, and sometimes you are the husky kid shouting crazy shit in the back  seat so that everyone holds their pee from Omaha, Nebraska all the way to Salt Lake City, Utah.

Sometimes you are the crazy man, and sometimes you are the psychiatrist.

Sometimes you are the psychiatrist, and sometimes you are the asylum.

Sometimes you are the asylum, and sometimes you are the world.

Sometimes you are the world, and sometimes you are an idea of the world.

Sometimes you are an idea of the world, and sometimes you are a chai latte.

Sometimes you are a chai latte, and sometimes you are a girl standing in line thinking about how good a chai latte is going to taste.

Sometimes you are a girl standing in line thinking about how good a chai latte is going to taste, and sometimes you’re a guy standing in line thinking about how good the girl looks.

Sometimes you’re a guy standing in line, and sometimes you’re another guy standing in line, picking the first guy’s pocket.

Sometimes you’re the pickpocket, and sometimes you’re the wallet.

Sometimes you’re the wallet, and sometimes you’re the money.

Sometimes you’re the money, and sometimes you’re the drink.

Sometimes you’re the drink, and sometimes you’re the bartender.

Sometimes you’re the bartender, and sometimes you’re a rabbi, a priest, and Lindsey Lohan.

Sometimes you’re a rabbi, a priest and Lindsey Lohan, and sometimes you’re a chicken.

Sometimes you’re the chicken, and sometimes you’re the road.

Sometimes you’re the road, and sometimes you’re the chariot.

Sometimes you’re the chariot, and sometimes you’re the horse.

Sometimes you’re the horse shoe, and sometimes you’re the nail.

Sometimes you’re the nail, and sometimes you’re the hammer.