Metamorphosis

Our Founder of Bad Dreams

I am joshing with the investigator. He is looking into a crime which is of a very serious nature but which is of less significance because it's offset somehow, like in a reality show. I want to both gain his good opinion and perhaps distort his findings, because I'm the guilty party. I was convicted of another offense of the same nature this past year, in fact.

Someone is tracking me. He is Turkish; with a traditional beret and goatee. Here he comes. Crossing the street. He makes to impale me with a multi-forked device that hurts not at all but the meaning is obvious. I am a suspect. I accept the guilt, although I do not understand at all the crime.

I report to ER. We must dress in those bare-back hospital gowns. To do this, we are expected to lie down and wallow on the floor, squirming in and out of garb. I see a matron do this calmly, without reservation. It seems the more sensible because everyone else does it automatically.

The Old Stations

My ancient vinyl Jazz collection is stacked on a bookshelf, waiting to be translated to the new format. Tapes replaced the LPs for a time, but they're gone now as well.

Movies morphed out of theaters into the den, but now those tapes are gone, also the DVDs which replaced them are rotating into the past in favor of streaming on wires, which will themselves be no more when the wireless universe comes to town.

All the old stations, as Waylon sings to us, are being torn down, and the high-flying trains no longer roll.

I write this, in fact, on a tiny gadget that fits in my pocket and also contains a vast library of literature and music which it will quickly and easily display and play for me. I can visit the Web and handle my email and search Wiki and be directed to any destination out on the road - and I can even talk to family and friends over it. What I want to know is, isn't there a time coming soon to a library near you when the allocation of large chunks of public funds for the purchase of items and storing and staffing of facilities for last millennium's text technology will be considered misappropriation?


Sent from my iPhone