We really are powerless over everything. A feral kitten in my back yard, full of play. A few months later, grown, wounded, limping. Eventually to die in the cold. And where it goes? It never comes back to tell us. What it was before? The cat never knew the answer to that. It has no choice over its own birth or the disposition of its own remains, devoured by chaos. It doesn’t preside over its own creation. It can’t make its own terms with death, how and when it shall die. It belongs to Life. It’s owned by whatever Life becomes after passage of its body.
The dreams, the pomp we invent for ourselves in a few short years are mocked to dust. The control we had over destiny was only a delusion. We are slaves in time. Slaves in form. Slaves to time. Slaves to form.
And where we stop? Nobody knows. They have theories and religions and afterlives dreamed of. But no one, not one person we know, has ever come back to tell us.
We try so damn hard, don’t we? Just to survive. And when you and I got survival down pat, we try to make something of ourselves, to make meaning. But whether we’re just scratching and pawing to survive or striving to thrive, we all floated down the same river, which abandons itself to the sea. Life is indeed a strange machine.
© 2022 by Michael C. Just
Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.
You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23
Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002
Four of his short stories have recently been published online:
Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)
The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW
I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October
Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within