Or The Modern Prometheus' Coloring Book

About a month ago I was picking up spilled crayons and came across one particular color. The crayon itself was in good crayon shape. The color was nice, I turned it over and read the always-interesting Crayola color: Brick Red. I was suddenly struck with an epiphany that made it imperative I write this essay. Now that the New Year is over and I'm sitting down with some time on my hands, well, I have no idea what that epiphany was. Why did Brick Red strike me so much? Beats the shit brown out of me. But it did, it struck a chord in my psyche so deeply that I still need to come to my keyboard and write this. Of course, all this may have been inspired by a tightly-wrapped radio signal from an interstellar craft which happened to have been in the course of the earth, and as such the eternal forwardness (or eternal backwardness.. being eternal we'll never know) of our blue-green paradise gardening pot sent my new house, of the backwoods in Massachusetts, directly into its path. What did this unseen, unimaginable life form -- OK so it's not that unimaginable since I'm un-un-imagining it all now -- say in that brief ejaculation of a radio burst? We'll never know, unless the They of the future dig up my body after excavating this essay from someplace bug infested and dirty and seeing a potential chance to decode an alien message scoop out the dust residing in my skull, add water and some cloning gel, when my gray matter is fully-replenished cut a cross-section in the cerebral cortex, 3D visualize my memories which as we all know never truly go away, nor do the memories of our ancestors up to conception, and at last learn that the message only said "...e right back after I brick red the carlo..." and release the findings to the Scientific Journal of the Third Millennia media stream, more to get SOMETHING out of the wasted effort, a.k.a. their names in the stream and, as all such things transpire, a religion will form around this powerfully obscure but intense clipping from the editing room floor of the Universe.

What the hell... (cough)... what the hell was I saying?... I don't remember... bricks.... "this will be the last light you see.." "Noooo!" ... no, no, that was Poe... or Dark Shadows... lots of no's in that last sentence... no, no broke my toe... on a brick....

I kicked a trash can once. Cracked my toe... Now there was an odd time.... Someday remind me never to mention it. Very odd the way situations can completely alter, or enhance, one's personality.

Brick red is a color not unlike Alizarin Crimson oil paints, except if you get brick red on your shirt you don't have to put it on the other side of the closet shelf, under the slate sign reading Abandon All Hope of Being Worn to Any Respectable Public Event Ye Who Enter Here. It is, indeed, the color of good, expensive brick. But you see kids just don't care. It's red, or maroon, or There's A Good Color for Ernie's Goiter. How many kids say, "I just drew some great bricks " -- this is a stupid train of thought, but I have to keep swimming. Keep swimming or the tide will suck me down like an oversized frog in an erotic web site. Ohhhh... what am I to do? -- I suppose a big finish is required here... but how to do a big finish for an essay ABOUT A FUCKING CRAYON COLOR???....? Ah:

The mountain waved its summit like a dancer entranced with the rhythms of the drums, the beat of nature's relentless pounding. The pilgrim gripped a stray root and screamed his repentance. Still, the upper half-mile of stone and frozen earth swayed back and forth. The screaming traveler could have just as easily been atop a palm tree in a hurricane, except he knew letting go now would send his insignificant body hurtling thirty-two thousand feet into the abyss he perfectly deserved anyway. This was true. Yes, he was unworthy. The pilgrim in the wind and swaying reality let go of the root. Everything stopped, except the wind. Like one lone juror standing against the majority, it still tossed its full, intangible weight against the pilgrim's insulated robes. But the mountain was now still. What's more, the cave was open. He stood, leaning into the wind, and entered the pitch blackness beyond the jagged crack in the stone. Dark, cold passage, wind tearing behind him as if furious for losing the sacrifice. Something blocked his way. The pilgrim's bearded, wind-torn face pressed into a barrier which gave way only a little. The barrier breathed, pushing the guest back one breath's length.

"Who are you?" the guard in the darkness whispered.

The pilgrim swallowed, nothing but frozen dust coated his cracked throat. He needed to answer, to find the right words. The world had sent him, him, the high priest of the eastern stream of the Message Unity Church. Oh, E Rite BaK, give me strength. He opened his eyes to the blackness before him. "I am here to see the Carlo. I am the Bishop of the rIckeR ED, eastern Stream."

The form blocking the entrance shifted, laid a hand on the pilgrim's shoulder. Still, no light, no spark. Simply the steady breathing. "You are accepted. I am the first of Carlo. Your red will be taken into the AfterEye." At that something really shocking occurred which will leave you breathless, gasping for a reason for this insanity, for the amazing bluntness of what this all led to. And don't forget the crayon color Brick Red will be worked in perfectly to it. Trust me.

January 1, 1999.