"Downstream" animation

Poem

STEAM TRAINS

We are born steam trains

and with each passing year

and each past experience

a freight car appears out of nowhere

trailing behind us

attached by a smell

or the sound of a record

And within each freight car

remains the first time you made love;

the last time you saw death;

the first time your mother held you;

the last time your father kissed you

When we are young

the load is light

so to look ahead is the only option;

as looking back seems so senseless

but with age

we become curious about the weight

the brilliance

the spectacle

In the wide expanse under a blown out moon

when the tracks bend north

with a slight turn of head

we are able to see the growing cargo

snake through the hills

an accordion full of sound

Silent in the night

Story

THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR $35

This is not what I had envisioned. In fact, I don’t think this is even legal. I went to great effort to make sure that the end was exactly the way I pictured it but as I scan the surrounds, I find this not to be true. Look, I can barely see through the 10 or so inches of lacquer on the outside of this modern day pine box even with the aid of x-ray vision that I now know the dead process. I see you all out there, my loved ones, in uncomfortable monkey suits, sitting on 19th century style wooden pews. I could simply move through this casket like a ghost you know, which is what I am, for the dead move in mysterious ways but I’m not sure if some of you out there would be able to see me. The kids are likely candidates for they can usual “see” things that adults are blind to but would more than likely be shushed by a mother or father and reprimanded for telling fibs. Anyway, this whole scene is wrong and after spending a good few hours of my precious time, when I was still alive, crafting this event in my will, I must admit that I’m sorely disappointed in you.

For starters, the fact that I’m in this brass-handled piece of over-priced crap means that my wishes (which I lodged over the internet for $35) have been ignored like some slight-of-hand Indian treaty from the 1800’s. The deal was that my body was suppose to be flown to the Tibetan Plateau, placed high upon a mountain cliff and left for vultures to pick at until I was reduced to bones. Then I was to be crushed and pulverised, baked into bread and placed back on the mountain to be eaten by whatever animal happened to be hungry and, therefore, returned to the folds of the earth’s natural cycle. I believe this is called a “sky burial” and I find it beautiful, poetic and moving. And appropriate. Plus one of you would have gotten a free trip to the Tibetan Plateau if you would have taken the time to actually read the document. This does not seem to have occurred and it looks as though I will take up way too much earth and be left in a toxic box that no earthworm could ever dream of penetrating. This image does not bring a smile to my blue lips.

I specifically stated on line 6, I believe, that if you thought it was important to have some kind of memorial service of some sort for me, it must be held within a natural setting. The church we are currently gathered in does not fall under that category by any stretch of your or my imagination. The lighting is too bright and, frankly, awful and there is next to no flow of air. It’s just plain stuffy even for a dead guy. You are all doing way too much itching of your necks and faces and shifting in your pews too frequently to make me believe, even for in instant, that you are enjoying yourselves. “Funerals are not meant to be enjoyed!” you may be saying to yourselves but I’m telling you that you’re way off on that one. Take it from me, wait until you’re in my position and you’ll realize what I’m talking about. "das macht nichts " or for you non-German speakers, ‘it matters not’.

And the music! Mein grosse Got! What is going on here people? John Denver? The theme from “The Titanic”? At least you didn’t book Celin Dion to sing it. I gave you a budget and a dollar is still a dollar these days thank God. I’m sure she’s a good person but, honestly, she has no business singing in public. What was suppose to happen (refer to line 12 of the afore-to-mentioned document) was we were all to be out in the woods somewhere with a small string quartet playing Grieg’s “Holberg Suite” and then, of course, Satie’s Gymnopedie was to be played on an old pump organ or something to lend a breath of meditation on an honourable life at which time you were all to mull over how I excelled or possibly fell short of your expectations in this life. There were to be birds flying around and the kids, if bored, could have wandered down to a babbling brook and thrown a few rocks around.

And me? I would have been nothing up there. Perhaps just a small, hand-hewn wooden bowl could have been situated up in the front with some water in it and a few floating flowers. This god-awful $38,000 piece of trash art and behemoth of a casket does not seem to meet the standards of which I requested - no make that demanded - even remotely. So what happened people? When one crafts a will through the internet, for each section they only permit 160 words so you end up not mincing any. In fact, I even dropped some punctuation to be as clear as possible and avoid any undue confusion. And this is how you translated my magnus opum? It was a set of directives and a very simple guideline with which to follow and you simply messed it up.

If it’s not evident by my musings, I’ll admit that I’m slightly depressed up here laying before you as a sacrificial lamb. (I’m being dramatic, of course, just to prove my point for there is, in reality, no depression among the dead. The black dog is merely a chain around the neck of you mortals and if you do suffer, worry not, for on this side the sun shines every day). I can see that you are all extremely bored and that the magic of my life is being lost in the predictability of this tedious setting. There’s a part of me that wishes to slap you collectively but also a part of me that could care less and just hug you individually. (Apathy is also a most common and wonderful trait among the dead).

So what is a guy in my position to do? The dead have no voice yet we rule you all in ways you’ll never comprehend. So maybe I’ll let this one slide. Just this once.