Parsifal and the Philosopher in the Year 2034
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‘The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure —who can understand it
(Jeremiah 17:09).’
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Synopsis: We Are All Ghosts!

Before reaching the banks of the Hudson River, Parsifal relates how the United States of America, like the Roman Empire, came to disheartening end, and how the scattered stones and haunting ghosts share a common fate with the wailing winds of history.

The Philosopher let out some tears at such awful reality, and cannot believe how history was irrevocable in recurrent tragedies for humanity.

​Chapter V was written in the year 2010, I was 40 back then, but I have been adding more characters, nays and yeas. For the most part, it deals with the human heart.

Herein, you may relish the love-story of witless Josh Manson, a drug addict, and Don Sebastian Cornelio. an alcoholic (in process) and how they became stones through the insidious, hypnotic, bewitching powers of Lilith, a.k.a., Medusa.

With the ubiquitous influence of the internet, it is fair to say that we are now living half-dead (absent-minded), or, whether we would admit it or not, most of us are under the spells of fleeting entities (the Internet’s hooks and tight knots) no less than ghosts, all trapped in the Nest of Time.

A millennial, Josh Manson, is a beautiful although melancholic youth, has little by little become disillusioned with post-modern city-life, and set up to immersing himself in the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri.

By shirking his livelihood, he becomes a maverick verging on homelessness, but does not relinquish his deep-seated passion for classical literature.

J. Manson self-taught himself by reading the Bible and the Divine Comedy of Dante. Unfortunately young people are often seized by formidable surges of both inspiration and testosterone-levels, and like relentless bulls, their book-dreamy-footing in the world can lead them to their own demise, and so, Josh Manson’s fantastical limerence became his own undoing.

Finding himself homeless, and unable to come to terms with a hard, callous, materialistic world, he commits suicide on Thanksgiving Day.

Dante Alighieri’s platonic ideas of women led the chump (a fool) to go around seeking his angel, but she happened to be a minx, pert and a hussy.

He is to be followed by Señor Sebastian Cornelio, an alcoholic, loses his salvation in exchange for mundane fame. Although he is a man of probity, he finds himself afoul in a web of false accusations, intrigue and debts culminating his life with a heart-attack.

​His girlfriend-wife put the horns on him, ripped-him off, accused him of inappropriate advances, and then threatened to put him in jail for the rest of his life.

An alcoholic with a penchant for the arts and literatures, Don Sebastian Cornelio, may remind you of countless freelanced artists like me. You may laugh, out loud. When writing about this Latin man, Don Sebastian, I preened myself like the pelican.

Of course, I am not an alcoholic, though I have to admit my “gloomy days under the weather,” and would not deprive me of a few hearty glasses of wine.

I wish to give an entry-ticket to a former neighbor Ana Asulsona (as yet missing), a prodigious consumer of cigarettes and cigars, the old lady died of a lethal bacteria gnawing at her guts.

While I had in my mind’s far-echoed chambers the heart-rending story of Ms. Asulsona, suddenly, a mad ruckus-tussle had ensued between two men: Charlie Jone-Stones, a staunch xenophobic American citizen against an audacious Dominican immigrant, Juan D’ Los Palos, a former member of the Catholic Church, or at least, he professed to have been reared by a devout Catholic aunt from Sabana Iglesia, Dominican Republic.

Juan D’ Los Palos, as we recall Josh Manson’s love-story and shocking betrayal, was believed to have been the main culprit behind the romantic fool’s tragic end on that fateful Thanksgiving Day of 2017.

A staunch admirer and secret disciple of renown although notorious playboy and lecherous Porfirio Rubirosa, Juan D’ Los Palos’ dark side, was believed to have struck a pact with Satan for supernatural powers.

The Dominican cloven-hoofed goat became renown, even in Hell, for his formidable libido prowess, and he is to be counted among this crowd.

I am adding and deleting a substantial portion of distended paragraphs taken from other sources.

Due to the rapid-fired surges of our time, one is compelled to being concise, lucid and pithy like the British people.

Most dishearteningly of all, I was compelled to blotting out a substantial section on homelessness, on chivalric, courtly love, on the shackles of civilized society and so on.

My goodness, on the heels of John Milton, I have to keep an eye on the unfolding sequels and plot against Shanti and the Philosopher.

This is not an easy homework. It seems people are fond of heart-wrenching passages (Lilith and Nihilo’s savagery and wanton passions) but I cannot do so without due rest and leisured respites.

Suspense is the key to achieving a sudden throttling surge of adrenaline, and I cannot dispense of the indispensable “all of a sudden” (all on a sudden) literary devices to achieving some genial brushstrokes.

It is quite a daunting task to keep soaring into great literature (Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri) without veering away into some mediocre passages. Distraction (Lilith) is our worst enemy, and so it is advisable to seek the inner scribe in the sequestered shrines of Mother Nature.

As I peruse my meditations on the Hudson River, I had to delete countless sentences as unworthy of the self-esteem of a writer.

Today, I donned a fancy suit, and with princely mien, I stepped out for fresh air, and I asked God to infuse in me that same conviction which led a simple squirrel to win a major victory against the Lynx.

It is now propitious to say that every chapter tackles the equation of life from a different perspective. Therefore, it is, in earnest, a philosophic treatise on the meaning of life.

Hence every character may express a worldview: from atheism to theism, from paganism to the soothing promise of Christianity (1 Corinthians Chapter 12:53) you are free to choosing your path.

Atch! Some of my readers told me that Shanti can be a difficult read, but if you go slowly, then they are as legible as they are “comprehensible,” and hence, enjoyable.

Most importantly, your life would unfold as though unveiled, free from the illusion of Maya, you would awake in the early morning, as though dawning to a “new glorious aspect of your own existence,” and perhaps you would not fall victim to the hexes of Lilith…ha, ha, ha!

Affectionately,
Eddie Beato (Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, NYC)

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Squirrel-Parsifal:

"The time is at hand to sound the hollow heart its fortitude. Come nigh so ye don't get lost in crooked ways of delusion and skepticism, for, down this Woody Hill, there are many zig-zag precipices, erroneous labyrinths, tobogganing pathways that could send a careless soul swirling headlong to destruction.

Across this gnarled tree, there are the hard boulders and rough cliffs' ribs, the downward ways that could make any soul shudder with fright.

If we don't drop off either by a pitching budge, the many erroneous steps on these cruel slabs' faults and beetling brinks, or that cruel protuberance of a stumbling stone athwart our track, then we should be able to meet the staid Scribes of Millennia.

Temper thy guts to confront the Sentinels of Yesteryears, hapless souls whose disfigured visages, however eroded by the merciless blasts of time's wrath, may bear witness to posterity; albeit aghast and silent, they forever sealed the history of thy past generation: the mad History of Homo Sapiens."

Philosopher: “Speak clearly to me. Your words are a puzzle.

Why so anachronistically?

What time are we now?"

Parsifal: “Believe it or not, ye just entered the threshold of a twilight.

It is now Wednesday, October 13 in the year 2034 A.D. Many things are long past, and many others are made new under the moon's haggard brow.

Why speak so laconically on Homo sapiens' sad chronicles?"

Philosopher: (frowning dubious) “Are you saying it is now a thousand years later from Shanti’s woody chronological standpoint, that is to say, it is now the year 2034 in the latter days of history?

O my goodness! This has to be a fantasy, a dream. Have I eyes?

This cannot be true.

What happened to the destiny of those seven billion souls?"

Parsifal: “Take heart and be strong, because ye will hear and see the other pallid shades whimpering and weeping, ranging back and forth the wastelands of New York City, Manhattan.

Now some human feelings remain aloof, diffident, timorous to those who may dare fetch them near.

By the banks of the Hudson River, there are the other wordless stories that beg attentive ears, nay, an iron-fortitude to embolden the human heart undismayed.

Now some ghosts, former citizens, are hovering, sauntering and perambulating, to and fro, the accursed Isle Manhattan. Unfriendly, like night-roaming leopards or hyenas, these souls are said to be trapped in the Nest of Time.

Sometimes they would stay their feet briefly, to slake their thirst in the sour waters of the filthy river. When some one is nearby, the beasts, would turn around to observe the wayfarer while contorting their grim visage; but soon they would retreat backward, receding like a mist to yonder spot; and from there, they would stick out their tongues to lick their muzzles.

If we win their trust, some ghosts would trail in light steps the muggy ground of Human Ingratitude, to interchange a few words —-their steady stare could melt even the gut of Achilles.

Approach them not so substantial, because resisting, they had already been scorched by the fires of heaven, which to us are but the soothing powers of loving-endurance.

Ye would not negate these hellish truths, however terrible, creeping and clutching the slimy cliffs from the precipitous navel of the Pit of Hell, for, only the warty cocky head of Satan would convince them otherwise, to cease drinking the Sour Waters of Ingratitude, but only for this bargain: the other swaps of suffering, pains and ennui.

Do not dare comprehend the physiological language of their facial features, dim-lit may give us the creeps, nor keep thy sight too steady in their worm-cankered orifices; nor quickly erase from thy mind those lying lips twisting in distorted odious faces, because ye will never limn or efface, however describing or recollecting, the grotesque grimaces of those invincible foes at war with themselves.

---Are they the ugly indescribable expression of time?

Like ghosts, or insensitive rocks discarded by an unknown architect, they now haunt the threshold of thy sad history.

By the sully ford of the stygian river, we will find them roaming, lugging, shuffling and dragging their limbs towards the rough Pavement of Insensitivity, thy once beloved city, beautiful gem, which now is but wreckage, wracks and ruins helter skelter.

On certain occasions, just before the gloaming hours, strange watery figments seem to form the hideous image of Minos (Divine Comedy of Dante in Hell). The monster, Nihilo, like a shark, appears to be trawling the fetid currents of the Hudson River.”

The Tragic End of Drug addict Josh Manson —Year 2017:

Phoenix Bird: “As the Master-Squirrel was speaking about the Hudson River, no less than a purgatory, amidst the foggy atmosphere, there appeared a grubby man of a rather slim frame.

His livid visage seemed to express much remorse and guilt. Showing his blister-stricken soles, the phantom, in a husky voice, every now and then interjecting a resounding amen, claims to have gone around the Isle of Manhattan, like a pilgrim, thrice the circle of his heartbreaking penitence.

During his time among the living dead, Josh Manson was an incurable romantic fool, and now here, he is expiating his sins for falling prey to the amorous although fatal arrows of Cupid, and how unrequited love led him to commit suicide, could break our hearts to pieces.

At length, and unremittingly, he spoke of incredible sufferings while living homeless in the cold winters of New York City.

I, the Phoenix Bird, caught sight of a former self, just before he passed on due to an overdose of cocaine mixed with cyanide.

A self-confessed drug addict and Christian, Mr. Manson suffered bouts of depression. Thus he sought solace and strength by stoking his drooping spirit with strong hallucinogens.

The handsome man couched on the ground like a jackal licking his forepaws, went on to tell us his heartbreaking last moments while existing betwixt the living dead and the otherworldly beings of his own making.

Philosopher: “Who is that shadow?

If my eyes don’t deceive me, I have often seen that chump strolling by 181st Street and Fort Washington Avenue.

And now is he is to be reckoned here among the dead.”

Josh Manson: “Dear gentleman, covered in sheets and comforters due to a bone-chilling winter, my life was durable thanks to my unquenchable passions for science-fiction literature, the Bible, and the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri became my sole schooling, but also of much motivation was my high-flown hope to finally settle with a beautiful woman, a wife, and thus realize the dream of my life.

Philosopher: “So, you too have been searching your Hellen in this old wood?”
By heaven’s sake, tell us your story, and what calamity brought you here?

John Manson: “O man! Despite my humble education, I could perhaps win your ears attentive to my love-story, and perhaps find me a leisured respite in the hereafter.

Philosophy may nourish our mind for the improvement of ourselves, and had I known its medicinal healing powers, I would have not fallen prey to the enchanting snares of that turtle-dove —-she can hurt to the core.

Only God knows the grievous moments I had to endure for my kin. May I blame Dante for these lofty ideas in the woman of his delight?

Divine poet who thus forged his inspiration with opposite natures.

From the fatal hexes of Medusa and her sister Lilith, so the bard of yore would then nurse my wounded bosom with the sweet tenderness of a woman so holy as Mary, so faithful as Beatrice.

O passers-by, take heart at this love-story, for every time I reprise it, my weeping eyes are overcome with the sad tears of Selena.

It is the real struggle of life, and how frightening to see human beings of the finest kind finally destroyed by that dreadful spirit. And the grim fiend knows that need, like necessity and weakness, has the face of heresy.

The pain of losing a mother is indeed unbearable, but the sight of Selena, now a phantom haunting the waste lands of the purgatory, could rend my heart to pieces.

The history of the Latin people in the United States, seems to get lost in the oblivious waters of the Lethe River (the stream of forgetfulness).

And so it happened, one splendid autumnal day of that unforgettable Fall Season, year 2017, I fell in love with a beautiful passerby, a woman whose kind heart and cordial hands I had misunderstood for a romantic transport of love.

One lovely afternoon, she invited me to eat at a local bistro restaurant, and my heart was soon throbbing and swelling with the butterflies of love. She treated me with the daintiest bits of meatballs for a fine meal, red wine and desserts most fitting for a prince.

Soon after, I made greater efforts to rising up to a more respectable existence, to find myself a job, even as a courier or as a porter in downtown Manhattan, because the pinions of love, especially in the prime of youth, could raise us all above any adversity.

Propelled by the winkling eyes of this smashing beautiful woman, despite my circumstances, I could now fly aloft into rapt moments of limerence, reveries and happiness. And so I spruced-up my physical appearance to winning the heart of that woman.

Thank God! I had finally found an amazing reason to while away my days and nights with purpose and meaning: a strikingly beautiful woman, whose bewitching charms I could not resist!

Caught up with recurrent inexplicable paroxysms of self-propelling thoughts of the most fantastical otherworldliness and unearthliness, I would henceforth rise up early in the morning. By daybreak, I would have a most meaningful walk by the Fort Tryon Park.

Lost in paradisiac instances of strangest longings and love, I would fix my dreamy eyes on the leeway trails of those languishing autumnal leaves in yonder path.

Just two days prior to that fateful day of my suicide, the lonely path was lined with some leafless trees already yielding to the chilly breezes of November, but the promenade was soon warming up with loveliest shafts of glorious sunlights casting their beams upon the partially shaded veils of Mother Nature's nuptial gowns. ​

Lovely chinks of lights filtered through the tree’s branches and twigs, and I felt as though transported to another dreamworld.

My! How beautiful is to fall in love!

In the midst of this garden, so entranced by this Garden of Eden, I fancied to see my will-be-wife Eve, a woman of palest skin, a nymph of mesmerizing beauty hiding her pretty face behind those enchanting bushes and purple shrubs.

And so I made out my bride-to-be, wearing a crown of twisted twigs, roses and drooping leaves smooching her pretty countenance. My bride-to-be was standing in an open-gated arbor.

The olden gothic structure was covered with loviest greeneries interspersed with gently-toned browns, half-lit penumbras of emerald greens and foliage of daintiest hues, thus creating an ideal background for a nuptial ceremony.

​Meanwhile, I would fancy to see my angel slowly coming into my wide-open arms.

My bride-to-be would be embellished with immaculate roses and tulips, and the pleached alley would be a footpath of merriment and boisterous celebration.

Among my dearest guests and invitees, I have these beautiful ladies-friends, fragrant jazmines and hyacinths, still unscathed by the falling autumnal leaves, would soon flaunt their delicate, petalled pretty faces to greet me along my path.

The scenic landscape could grant me an incredible mystical nexus, a Jacob's Ladder, a dreamscape between the expanses of heaven and the uncharted unfettered woods of this absolutely ravishing wilderness.

Thus, every morning, I would visit the same terraced cliff overlooking the Hudson River, but my high-flown dreams could not become a reality any more than those bright castles built in mid air; or, those gold-gilt, fabulous temples cushioned in the scudding clouds' pillows for an obtuse lover.

Much to my mortification, my dream-woman was not reciprocating my love, but I pined hopeful, day and night for that lady’s yes, whose twinkling eyes, had filled me with high expectations.

Nevertheless, just like a legendary unicorn ever-trotting into the unfettered paths of limerence, so I was a diehard romantic nut.

I would not let go the idea. While fixed in deepest thoughts for a concealed truth behind those blue eyes, I would stretch out my widespread hands unto that looming-promising-rainbow in the imagination of a fool.

—Perhaps she loves me.

What an idiotic infatuation, and yet I wholeheartedly loved the idea! The possibility of love proved to be tempting and irresistible!

Am I out of my wit? Thus I would say every morning. Indeed! I loved that woman!

Spellbound by her pretty face, day and night, with the tips of my fingers, ever assuming the shape of mythical steeds galloping up into the vault of heaven, I would reach out to that beautiful rainbow of flying colors.

Such charming smiles, such flirtatious twinkles, such tacit suggestions, amorously receding, ever-soaring into the haze of distance...were so promising to my heart.

Indeed, the pretty woman was driving me nuts. O God! How much I loved that woman. She was my inspiration.

If you answer my prayers, I shall go to church every Sunday.

Unfortunately, the flight of days passed on quickly, inexorably, and my efforts, my self-will and determination, were not advancing me a whit to any foreseeable reciprocity in the flashy horizon of tomorrow.

My high-flown dreams, for so they seemed to be so unbelievably chimerical, were ever-wafting, ever-receding, ever-waning, ever-disappearing far-off into the immeasurableness of the boundless sky, and my touch with concrete reality, little by little, became an embarrassing self-delusional enterprise, a divine comedy, the epiphany for a madman, a hard-to embrace self-realization that perhaps, in spite of my self-denial, such divine a fabulous creature was meant for another man.

By heaven's sake, I really longed to reach that twinkling daystar of my heart, but the angel was inaccessible. The bombshell blond was meant to be destined for another man's hugs and kisses.

Thus, my dear friends, as much as I tried to rise myself up to a more serviceable, worthy, honorable existence, the tight bounds of Fate had been fastened around my neck: I would end up living in this awful, starless realm for those who lost their way and salvation to heaven.

Madam Fate had decreed my destiny: an incorrigible romantic fool, and the joy of my sweetheart deserted me as a pitiable man.

—November, 2017, a cloudy day had cast a drab pall upon my once beautiful sky and prospective days.

Squatted in that corner of modern society, like a cur lovelorn—my poor soul, a drug addict, so I appeared frowsy, bedraggled, unkempt, neglected and forlorn, relapsed to my former condition.

Unfortunately, my dream-woman had not reciprocated my love, and the jilt, sourer than woodworms, hurt my feelings to the core.

The hard ground could make my body ache with nightlong pains, but these thorns would be but minor afflictions when compared to the sharp twinges of unrequited love.

Rejection is one of the hardest blow to our precious self-esteem.

What a poor devil I am here still suffering the stings of love.

Who would caulk my aching heart from the constant bleeding woodworms of love?

The raging winter, which, by the way, could reach temperatures below zero, could knell a toll of sufferings and death at my rear, and my once youthful attractive appearance: fine-chiseled facial symmetries, brown eyes, impressive aquiline nose and enameled-white teeth were little by little wearing off.

​The elements were taking a toll in my physical appearance, but a romantic fool was still buried deep in my heart.

Once self-held to have been born in the likeness of a Greek statue, I then found myself razed to the ground, muzzle dipped in the scum of a wretched existence.

​The brittle shards of Apolo the Great came crashing down, and so, with him, I hit the hard ground for the destitute and forsaken.

Almost on the fray, my countenance, was already showing unequivocal signs of internal weariness, uneasiness, dejection, unsteadiness, defeat, despair.

Eventually, the young man would lose the mincing gait, and so I lost the divine treasure of the happy youth, and with unstable steps, I trudged on, like a lamb into the hands of uncertainties, perhaps hellbent into the slaughterhouse of modern society.

True, I never harbored a grudge for an unfair life, but the rutted path of forgiveness tested my endurance and resilience to the breaking point —always edging on the fringe of necessities and mounting debts.

For years long, I slept in the streets of Manhattan, always lying and squatting in that cruel corner of modern society, but thoughts of suicide had not yet assailed me till I met my doom in that baneful woman.

A few months ago, I complained the awful conditions in the basement of a local Church, but I had very few choices, very few books, very few friends, but to lay me down on that hard ground for losers.

True. My witless limerence became my own undoing and nightmare, but even through the Pit of Hell in Washington Heights, I would not desist from living under the spells of love, whose quasi-numinous effects could grant my soul pinions for things mythical, fantastic and otherworldly.

Nevertheless, I still shudder when musing on the heart's unfathomable reaches, its resilience, its endurance, its amazing obstinacy, for I cannot believe that after all these years, it is the same silly thing, foolish, immature.

The heart is always the same silly thing —a romantic fool.

It occurred to me, that perhaps I was born in the wrong time, in the wrong society, and my constant retreats to the Fort Tryon Park was perhaps a psychological reaction to a modern world ever-going callous, cold, unnatural —a valley of dry bones.

And how much the word success blames me for lagging behind modern society, an abortive failure, I am inclined to sympathize with this my secreted reclusiveness into the wilderness, my revolt against the machines of our time, civilized society, which is but the slaughterhouse for the soul.

I doubt whether any human being could speak of life and love in earnest, ‘I have lived,’ without those inevitable thorns and thistles. Love, therefore, should be the gist of our lives, even when loving may entail some share of sufferings.

Phoenix Bird: “As Josh Manson was speaking about the beautiful woman of his own hell-making, my heart almost broke into pieces at the sight of a lovely maid, a virgin, in the likeness of Mary, the immaculate conception, was nearing too close to the troubled waters of the Hudson River.

O my goodness! Belle Selena, once a gorgeous mermaid wearing a saintly veil of chastity, is now but a totty, slutty blond. Her svelte shapeliness is being devoured by an impudent demon.

The maid, whose stunning beautiful face was that of a heavenly angel, came to grips with a horrendous sea-monster.

​The monster, all on a sudden, put a tight choke-hold around the victim’s neck, and then dragged her into that river of fetid waters.

The poor blond, unyieldingly, unflaggingly, tried hard to wrestle herself out of his tight clasp to no avail. The monster, doubling down, grabbed her by the disheveled tresses, and took her further into the deep-embosomed waters of perdition. From there, I heard the beautiful mermaid moaning to her wit’s ends:

‘Yes darling, harder and harder, don’t stop, move on, I am yours my love.’

At this frightful sight, the Philosopher almost swooned in disbelief, but again, he looked on, though most cautiously, at this unholy couple engaged in love-making by the clammy banks.

Parsifal-the-Squirrel to the Philosopher:

“Watch out, watch out! Don’t set thy eyes on those two demons. They are here among the dead, King Nihilo and Madam Lilith, one assumed the form of a handsome god, Zeus-like, Ethiopian black man, and the other snake, the form of a restive strawberry blond.”

Philosopher: “This is, indeed, by any stretch of the imagination, the most lascivious of any conceivable love-making tryst, scuffle or violent mating by any mammals, dead or alive, to ever walk the surface of the Earth.”

Phoenix Bird: “Like a grim shark taking possession of the seal, whose fragile fins could not match the claws of a bigger beast, so the dreadful demon, Nihilo, all of a sudden set his lurid eyes on the mermaid Lilith, and making an indecent gesture with his middle finger, forthwith, amidst the impetuous waters, took the hapless victim, la belle, now a dreadful snake as his rightful property.

We were all flabbergasted at that bad boy’s savage tryst with his beautiful girlfriend, Lilith. but that she chose that punk, a lowlife roue, a geezer instead of good-looking Josh Manson was beyond our wits.

Meanwhile, Josh Manson, while patting his grievous wounded heart, resumed his love story.

Josh Manson (with rheumy eyes):”An audacious man, a dandy of society, Juan D' Los Palos, with tempting scheme and treachery, was able to gain a "secreted retreat" with my dream-woman into the wild woods of the Fort Tryon Park.

For day and night, my dear friends, I had to come to grips with the bats of jealousy and suspicion gnawing at my guts and carcasses into the dark quarters of hell.

In-rushing thoughts of infidelity were not to be discarded, but it was during that time (Winter of 2017) when I felt compelled to cry out to God for help to no avail.

The other day, as the in-roiling clouds
of rejection and defeat gathered around me, my heartbeats, ever-throttling in a hasty pace, all in a sudden, cried out, betrayal, betrayal, betrayal —-she is not yours!

Soon my bosom’s innermost being, hagridden, felt as though stabbed by a sharp dagger; my mind, ever-reeling and flailing with acutest twinges, felt transfixed as though lammed against a hard wall by the fury of fiercest winds.

In this manner, my heart, heavy-laden with a cumbersome load of sorrows unsayable, could not endure the she-cheat of life any longer, and so I made up my mind to commit suicide.

My adamant resolution, was prompted by an in-rushed multitude of heartbeats at war within me. An incessant ambivalence racked violently from within, which, on and off, made me fret about the narrow circle of my circumference, back and forth, in a rather frantic outburst of both self-pathetic pity and incompetent outrage against me for my lack of wisdom and foresight.

This internal rackety felt as though Hell had opened its floodgate of fires into the unfathomable depths of my soul.

Nevertheless, I moved on resolutely to meet my tragic end with a lethal intake of cocaine mixed with cyanide. By the river’s banks, in the gloaming hours of that fateful Thursday’s eventide, Thanksgiving Day, I laid me down atop a flat-stoned ledge overlooking the incomings and goings of the darkly waters.

From there, lying supine and ever surrendering my drooping spirit to whatever whims the sluicing elements would have on me, amidst those far-echoed, drawn-out maudlin, heartbreaking wailings of a mermaid, once again, I set my heavy-lidded eyes unto the ever-wheeling axles of the vaulting skies breaking loose on top of me.

Though I had a tad amount of the baneful mix, the deadly concoction would soon render my fidgety limbs motionless, tense, and rigid like a rock.

Headlong into the abyss, so I surrendered myself into the hands of death. The icy inside of me, felt as though transfixed into a frozen stone by the insidious, bewitching powers of Medusa.

Hours passed on, my execrable corpse, sprawling dead on the hard ground, like a carrion or a rat, ripe for the devouring vultures of modern society, thus I quit that cruel world of the living dead.”

Phoenix Bird: “At this point, Josh Manson, held silence, once again, tapped his grievous bosom, and amidst the evanescent shimmering haze, the specter continued his penitence along the dank banks of the Hudson River.

Every now and then, he would cast a thoughtful glance at the glaucous waters for any signs of that wicked couple, but the streams’ ever-rolling ripples have effaced any trace of danger beneath the imponderable currents.

The phantom, then turned around, his livid eyes, all on a sudden, flashed with terror and dread, as though wishing to vent his spleen for some unresolved issue committed to his persona, uttered this warning in a most gruffly-sounding lamentation:

‘The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure —who can understand it
(Jeremiah 17:09).’

His last words were soon defused amidst the soul-harrowing uncanny hushing sounds of the restless eddying waves. They brought me alike relief and disquietness for the unfolding chapters of our lives.”

Parsifal warns the philosopher about the dangers of the deep currents:

“Quickly, guard your heart with the shield of integrity and wisdom. Therein, you may find huge monstrous things, insatiable piranhas, voracious leeches, nauseous snakes, gruesome reptiles and sharks, whose fangs and mouthful grasp could swallow whole even ladies the likes of Mary and Marta.”

Phoenix Bird: “ His warnings set my knees a-jerking, and I felt as though gulping down a lump of cold, rotten fish or rat down my gullet.

For a short moment, I felt alike queasy and squeamish, and had the uncanny sensation of a persistent foul stench clogging my uvulas and tonsils.

But I knew it was occasioned by the nightmarish sight of Lilith and Nihilo. Unholy things seem to awake such morbid psychosomatic effects, and best we can to do is to set our mind on heavenly things (Philippians 04:08).

Ever dashing the jagged rocks, the ponderous splashes set my mind in a state of both awe and apprehension for the journeying experience of life.

Josh Manson’s tragic end, nonetheless, brought me sad memories of the fate of my Master had he not escaped the Lynx vs the Asp-Snake’s shocking coitus in the wood of Transylvania.”

Squirrel: “This hapless man should have had a better ending. And so it is with countless souls relegated to oblivion in the cemetery of modern society, their memories are soon blotted out as the withering flowers for the dead.”

Phoenix Bird: “At this point, both, the philosopher and the squirrel, held reverencial silence, but my Master was soon in high-spirits and tacitly empathetic for an incorrigible rebel and maverick like Josh Manson.

Once again, like a full-fledged sociologist of the first order, my Master spoke at length, albeit in a rather sardonically mordant tone, unapologetically, unabashedly, against the insidious prowess of civilized society grown soulless, and had no prudish reservation when comparing the urbane with the savage:

‘…this patent social inequality wedging an awful gash in the heart of the human species.’

Like a father, he fixed his penetrating eyes on the Philosopher’s, and with his typical archaic circumlocution, went on to take a few stabs at the revolting discrepancy between the poor and the rich.”

Parsifal: “O Manhattan, my sweet isle, how ye have become a sanctuary for the living dead, a spacious cage for all kinds of impure spirits, a harlot among the nations.

These woody hills are said to be the consolation for the homeless pilgrims. Some are endowed with noblest feelings, and have found their strength redoble in the sacred shrines of Mother Nature.

—-But to what use such an excess of soulfulness in a city-state ruled by machines?

Where once was the healthy stir and bustle of life in industrious activities, one now finds a downcast people...

True, some ghosts, dear former neighbors, especially those unfortunate souls who may have suffered an unhappy ending, are said to be the most commonly reported by solitary areas congenial to ghosts, specters, outcasts, destitute souls, bums on the verge of madness and succumbing to the lower instincts of the beast.

Who would build a dwelling place in the hereafter?

By any stretch of the imagination, these ghosts are living a veritable hell of an existence.

Soon, around bedtime, these poor souls, however hard on themselves to avoiding the harsh stigma of the riff-rafts or vagrants, midway to becoming outcasts, would fetch out their comforters and rags anymore than a savage in a jungle, would fetch out some logs of woods, would gladly set them afire against the in-coming bone-chilling winds of the winter.

In the drooping hours of the evening for Homo sapiens, these hapless people, tormented by the fiercest winds of the long winter for humanity, are said to be destined for the yawning grave of the living dead.

Philosopher: “Do they have any place?.”

Squirrel-Parsifal: “Rarely. This unfortunate army cannot go anywhere because, often times, they are either too physically emaciated by the burdens of a hard existence, or too busy protecting their "few appurtenances," which, as I said, may amount to a cumbersome load of heartbreaking personal issues: substance abuse, perhaps a drawing board filled with incomprehensible scrawls and dilettantish undertakings, perhaps a journal, wherein some homeless could jot down the train of circumstances prior to succumbing to a wretched homeless existence.

Thus I see some homeless folks wandering back and forth, with slouching gait, hunchback, haggard, gaunt-cheeked faces whose sinking stares may remind me of sub-human beings, from the netherworld, on the brink of despair and suicide.

Day and night they toil hard for a longer wretched existence.

Post-modern civilized society, which, by the way, is worse than the wood for the peasant of yore, or, as observed by Jack London (People of the Abyss), may fall below the primitiveness of the aborigines whom could still till the land for crops, sustenance and a tolerable existence.

The homeless of today, like a madman frantically mumbling, bawling and crying to his wit’s ends in a sanatorium, is now set loose in the streets of New York City.

Within those tightly-hewn walls, find the shackles and fetters of slavery, whose tight grid and grips few souls may dare break free without provoking the grim master.”

Phoenix Bird: “May the virtuous ones survive by the grace of God!”

Squirrel-Parsifal: “Sure! The Master of Technocracy would flog the slave a thousandfold increase for every daring of liberty and emancipation, and so slavery has become the status quo for the homeless.

Fortunately, there is a trapdoor in the backyard of civilization, and perhaps we may be able to escape far into to the unfettered woods in the unpalatable pages of history?

The pitiable drudgeries of the homeless automaton of civilization could fill me with indignation and reprehension for this patent social inequality wedging an awful gash in the heart of the human species.

Admits the bone--chilling winds in the cold winters of New York, I hear them wailing and whimpering like a poor mother begging her grim master to spare her child the sharp dagger of death.”

Phoenix Bird:” At this point, my master paused, and I set my heavy-lidded eyes on the other side of the beautiful island, Times Square, and Downtown Manhattan.

Lo and behold! There was a big crowd of hawking spectators in the Central Park.

Like a flock of high-ranking turkeys flaunting their multicolored plumages for all to see, so they were celebrating the Thanksgiving Day with boisterous hurrahs, cheerful roisterousness, bouquets, pomp and circumstances.

Their callousness sent shivers down my spine. These upper-crusty folks were well-dressed in splendid attires and customs —the privileges of the wealthy classes.

Indeed, they all appeared to be congratulatory themselves for their sybaritic lifestyles and accomplishments, but outside, by the sidewalks of that grand concourse of success, I cast a glance at these ubiquitous beggars.

Like a bevy of wretched dogs, licking their paws, whining and yelping for some leftovers and crumbs strewn here and there by the benches, in like similitude this homeless crowd may teeter and totter forward to an uncertain future.

Their vacant faces gave me the chills.

And thereat, by the subways, in the public squares, by the sidewalks, in the parks, I daily come across this lost army of humans packing and unpacking their few belongings.”

Parsifal Squirrel: “Understandably, by consuming potent drugs and hallucinogens, they would expect to alleviate their precarious conditions with such ill-concocted potions and rostrums.

Contrary to the general opinion of the drug-addict's inner cravings for such pain-killers or ‘highs,” it is true that some drugs (among other powerful anesthetic ones) may dumb the body’s sensitiveness from feeling the nipping cold, an overdose, nonetheless, is often the main culprit of mortality, not just among the homeless, but also among the well-to-do and the urbane.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Author’s footnotes:

The shocking love-story of Josh Manson has left their indelible marks upon our souls, but, however hardened by what we have seen and heard so far, we were not, as yet, prepared to meeting so a staggering, never-ending throng of ghosts —believed to have been former neighbors in Washington Heights— now huddling here like sardines, immigrants and citizens alike, jam-packed, were pushing themselves for some roomy space by the rutted banks of the Hudson River.

Like a pack of dogs with doleful eyes, hopeful of some leftovers to satiating their hunger, so they were at pains to telling us their heartbreaking stories.

And so my dear reader, I have here, most conscientiously aware of the distending length of these long-winded stories, later relegated as Memoirs of Former Neighbors in Washington Heights, only culled and gleaned those most memorable to me.

—But who would separate the weed from the chaff in the social weltering of humanity?

Nevertheless, this realm is peopled by a motley crowd of humans well acquainted into each other's social differences, morals, provenance, and status, for some folks enjoyed the enclaved areas for the well-educated and the well-to-do.

Occasionally, the old and the new, the well-mannered and the downright uncouth, would cross paths in the market places, or in the ever-roomy bodegas, or in the open squares, the food vendors, the bazaars and flea markets, whose items, for the most part sold at very affordable prices, could bridge, at least for the moment, the gap between the poor and the bourgeoisie.

These multitudes of ghosts created a variegated social tapestry, a multifariousness, a multiplicity of the most interesting types.

But in that sloping path for the needy, for the destitute, for the orphan and the widow, there was a heart-wrenching scene of revolting discrepancies and inequities: humans beings flitting, trudging, and roaming here and there, like lost sheep, whose precarious existence could send my blood throbbing to my head with quivering thoughts of fear and apprehension.

It is just incredible how the pool-flow of humanity, "the survival of the fittest," continues to ripple into the jam-packed quarters of New York, but alas, against these inner strivings, there are countless hurdles for the “very-poor,” and the cumbersome load of sufferings may dash some unfortunate immigrants against the high walls of a hard reality: it is indeed an outcry to the meaning of existence.

Back in the year 2000, as I was browsing through the shelves of Barnes & Noble Bookstore, 66th Street and Broadway, a Jewish woman asked me whether I had read People of the Abyss by Jack London?

"...Read this book like a Bible."

With my humble smattering of sociology and psychology, I studied the little book of Jack London like a sleuth, ever marveling at the underlying forces in the abysmal trenches of the human soul: the good and the bad. I wanted to know why some people are so incredibly different in New York City.

However living in the land of opportunities, the distances between people and people's moral fabrics, are sidereal, and the good quality is not to be gauged either by an intellectual culture or by the glossy social veneer of education, but something uncanny in the bosom of a great human being, in the healthiest sense of the word, may resist and defy the mechanization, dehumanization, robotization, automatism, or imposing machineries of modern society. By the way, I would rather prefer to be a savage with freedom of thoughts than an automaton with the shackles of modern civilization.

Where is the missing lacuna to understanding the chasmic discrepancy of the human soul?

1990s: Ever since I dared set foot in the ghettos of New York, this huddling together of crowds from the far corners of the world, day and night jamming and jostling the ever-rolling locomotives of a hectic society, like canned sardines carried away in heavy-laden barges, such diverse hordes of the human stock, ever-heaving up and drifting away by the tidal waves of immigration, racism and discrimination, at times, was indeed a jittery scene of much tension and collision, because here, in Washington Heights, one could find the good and the bad folks, the well-mannered and the downright vulgar living together, side by side and in tandem.

Back in Latin America, I found out that some remarkable people, Guatemalans, Peruvians, Salvadorians, Hondurans, Colombians, Dominicans among other Latinos, could survive under the most inhabitable circumstances, amidst muddy lands, by the river-banks, or even at the foot of some volcano, but rarely would these hapless stranded peasants —from the Caribbean Islands— build their shanties, huts or shacks amidst the slimes and asbestos of those slum-landlords' murky quarters, or, at least subsist inside those caving-holes of civilization to inhale and exhale the pernicious soot amidst the abject conditions of those peripheral areas in the State of New York.

Don't these pensants hanker back to their former pristine bucolic existence?

And, perhaps the lovely woods are still redolent of unspoiled human innocence and internal beauty.

But Washington Heights, at least in the 90s, was populated by a new people whom had lived, all their lifelong, a kind of peripheral existence.

But as previously stated, among these group, there were to be found wonderful cases of probity and virtue, even cases of geniuses and saints, and If we inspect the matter closely, some of the best people I ever met —like the fabulous Indian lotus— are often found in the simplicity of a tolerable existence, poor, indeed, but perhaps rich and even blessed when life is reduced to the priceless essentials and vital.

Admirable Dominican Catholic Peasants: unlike the newly arrived rowdy hordes, spawned in the slummy outskirts of every city, are known for their meekness and time-tested loyalty to the religion of their ancestors: Catholicism.

It was indeed heart-breaking to see some peasants, smashing beautiful Dominican women, of the finest moral caliber, Catholic, cohabiting with those hellish rabbles produced in the worst neighborhoods of the Dominican Republic.

In the slums of New York, nevertheless, hither and thither, one may find the old abandoned buildings, forlorn churches, time-stricken alley by some byways, quite often rife with the other mammal-denizens of our conviviality, thus attesting to an unfortunate generation somehow devoured by the horrific ghouls of decadence, poverty and dehumanization.

A Hooting Owl (Una Santera)

An old lady, whose sunken-cheeks, flaccid facial features, deep-set hollow eyes reminded of Madam Fate in her other mysterious guises, and who had perceived in me some remaining relics of a fine gentleman from the time of Don Quixote, opened her pursed lips to warm me this wise saying:

"...You must come to terms with these amigos if you wish to reach your goals!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
​
Squirrel-Parsifal: “Lo and behold! Amidst this crowd, ye may find a hardy soul whose probity or merits may win him or her victorious a better existence in the hereafter.”

Philosopher: “I wish to inquire on the former lives of these shades, and perhaps find the virtues ones, like the legendary lotus-flower, still unyielding to the pernicious powers of King Nihilo and Lilith.”

Squirrel: “Thy wish shall be fulfilled as we carefully vet the spiritual fabrics of our interlocutors, and should they merit an ear attentive, let us then let him-her come forward. My dear precious friend, the Phoenix Bird, should write their memoirs for posterity.”

An Alcoholic, Señor Sebastián Cornelio (Winter of 1996-1997)

Phoenix Bird: “At this point, a Latin man with a swarthy complexion, of a rather short stature, wearing a short-sleeves white shirt and blue jeans, had a corpulent body, but with very gracious manners, every now and then adjusting his eyeglasses atop his protuberant nose, assumed the air of an important personage, an intellectual of the first order, a great artist, avant garde, a writer and freelancer.

Though he never went beyond the mere dilettantish and amateurish, he had placed himself alongside Van Gough, Salvador Dali and Picasso.

Nevertheless, friends and critics alike, would demote Don Sebastian Cornelio’s self-conceited high-regards of himself, as a pretentious charlatan, a buffoon, ‘a wanna-be,’ but he would defend himself with an acrimonious diatribe against his detractors and foes.

He went around with the short alias Señor Sebastian (eponymous hero to his great admiration for Johann Sebastian Bach)
a composer and organist-pianist by trade, made his meager incomes by playing at local churches, senior home centers for the elderly in New York City, or by writing simple, easy-listening music for commercials, movies, jingles, et al., he was able to secure a tolerable if perhaps a rough existence plagued with debts and subpoenas from shady ladies, alleging eye-rolling cases of sexual harassment against him.

Nevertheless, he had won for himself a tolerable existence, indeed, not deprived of the high places reserved for those who, enjoying the high leisures of a privileged mind with a penchant for the arts and literature, had the gated-doors of downtown Manhattan’s posh restaurants, art-galleries, museums and ritzy theaters flung wide-opened for him.

As a man of culture, he was a cordially-welcome guest to a string of upper-crusty cliques and claques in Manhattan’s elite schools, and thanks to his knack for high society, could enjoy an entry-ticket to the affluent residential areas of the upper classes.

Despite his humble income and a shoddy apartment in the crime-ridden residential area of Washington Heights, Don Sebastian Cornelio presented himself as well-traveled, first-class, urbane citizen of the world.

And indeed, he exuded an air of grandiose which is often associated with people of high birth and nobility.

Don Sebastian’s main purpose in life was —though he would not admit it— a lifelong commitment to finally becoming famous and renown among the living dead.”

Don Señor Sebastian Cornelio: “Dear gentlemen, Josh Manson’s love story moved me deeply to come forward, and here with you, lay my heart bare, express my sincerest condolences for such tragic an end.

I hope you will learn of my time in New York City, from the corner of a ghetto, to the affluent enclaves of the wealthy and privileged.

Thank goodness! I was able to dodge the arrows of Cupid, but as a composer, I have to confess my absolute dependence and devotion to that turtle-dove, a beautiful chic, whose honey-distilling lips could grant me the loveliest melodious moments and inspiration.

Philosopher. “How come a man of your caliber would end up living among this rabble?”

Don Sebastian Cornelio: “Like Josh Manson, I had stupidly imbued my mind with the mystification of Helen, a divine Minerva, a charming Rosalinda Conception, whose yo no se que (uncanny veils) would drive me nuts for the wide-opened arms of Venus.

Without such exalted ideas, I am bound to admit, my art, my life, would be but a dead horse, lackadaisical, boring, meaningless”

Philosopher: “And who was that woman of your perdition?” (Proverbs Chapter 05).

Don Sebastian Cornelio: “La Señorita Rosalinda, a Spanish ballerina, a beautiful brunette, whose whims and prettiness would drive me nuts, became my woodworms, bitter as gall, and I resigned life as an alcoholic.

​The bats of jealousy, day and night, were gnawing at my guts, but I was in denial.

​Every day I would gush plenty of booze to my heart-content, but in so doing so, I was digging my own grave, plunging myself, headlong into the Pit of Hell.

Nevertheless, she was the true author of such dramatic output of musical inventiveness, artworks verging on the macabre, the chaotic, the demonic, the brilliance of a genius —a monster of creativeness.

I commend to you, my dear friends, to ponder in your heart the things I lived-through during the 1990s, and how I found my thought-material to composing and transcribing some of the organ musical pieces as found today on YouTube.

These musical variations, a heartiest homeward return to the soothing solace of tonality, however toned with struggles, sufferings and inspiration, have found my best expression in my recent transcription for the organ: Dr. Faustus.

Such echoes may better convey the thoughts which I have cozily harbored in my heart and mind for years long.

Moreover, though I am a tolerably happy person, I even dared ask the homeless man in the street to lend me his heart for a few days, so that I could write music as only possible with some propitious share of sufferings, compassion and love.

Unlike Dr. Faust, I would seek inspiration in the Golgotha Path of Christ, whose sufferings and passions had furnished Johann Sebastian Bach with glorious music for a human being still in possession of his-her soul.

Now, my wife, La Señorita Rosalina, however an inspiring Venus, was not a good girl as I later learned: she put me the horns. On and off, she would have her secreted tryst with a bad boy. Secretly, the punk had conquered her heart, and by so doing, had also grubbed a good chunk of my marriage.

Silly I, continued giving her plentiful, obsequious gifts, and unbeknownst to me, she was squandering all my savings with that roue, low-life, a good-for nothing scoundrel.

​As a man of honor, we agreed to separate, but she kept my apartment, and this became sourer than gall to my soul. Thus I ended up living as a roommate on the verge of homelessness.

Just for a few months, I lived in an enclaved residential area on the upper west side of Washington Heights, a few blocks away from the famous Fort Tryon Park, whereat I had, on certain unforgettable encounters (year 1996), heart-rending conversations with Holocaust Survivors still bearing the infamous marks of the genocide in the bleeding trenches of their souls and bodies.

Such Jewish survivors are probably dead by this time.

Their stories still throw my mind in state of fear and apprehension. In the summer of 1996, an olden Jewish man (probably in his late 70s) showed me his arm still prodded with the mark of a slave in a concentration camp.

His wife reprimanded him for confessing such inhumanities and cruelties, but he went on telling me that Russian Jews were routinely hung by the Nazis. At this point, his wife, a Polish-looking woman with a rather stern voice, asked him to stop.

At her behest, I simply departed with a heavy heart, and on my pensive ways, alongside lovely beds of jazmines and hyacinths exuding their luscious fragrance, I noticed another old couple in yonder spot, probably Jews from Poland, quietly brooding under the shades of a gnarled tree. I realized that these old couples were perhaps Eastern Europeans, or Holocaust Survivors. Their flaccid faces gave me chills. ​

O my! The beautiful Polish couple brought me fondest memories of my paradisiacal time with my adorable wife, Rosalina, though she turned out to be a minx —but I sincerely loved her— to my own outdoing.

Hitherto, I was a happy man, but my unfaithful wife’s heart fell prey to the tempting scheme of Don Juan D’ Los Palos. In cahoots with her secret lover, a gigolo of high society, she sought to do me harm, and she fabricated a serious, malicious, false accusation against me.

—December, 1996: My heart almost melted when I got a certified letter, a subpoena against me. Therein, a shady lady alleges that, while playing Chopin’s Nocturne in E flat Major on the piano, I have inappropriately touched her cleavage and buttock.

Though the case was dismissed for lack of substantial evidence, the cunning hussy then sought to kick me out of my apartment by bringing another serious indictment against me.

Nevertheless, my patience and nerves were tested to the boiling limits, and we wound up fighting in the Civic Court.

Over the years, like a punctilious lawyer, I had amassed a veritable mountain of dossiers and carefully-dated papers attesting to my legal rights as a tenant of probity and a law-abiding citizen.

As much as we all need to back any right with a competent lawyer, I actually dislike fighting in court, even the best of ethical principles are often compromised by our stubborn attachment to material things, but the heavy load of ill-feelings could rarely compensate for the wounding gash of fractured relationships, broken homes and a sense of betrayal to one's sense of dignity and respect.”

The Civic Court:

Squirrel Parsifal: (with a most serious visage, interrupted Don Sebastian’s love story to warn us about the dangers of civilized society):

“From the wild woods in Transylvania (The Forest, year 448,), we are now back to New York’s civil society, and much to our surprise, people could still be as aggressive (litigious) no less than the Lynx, the Asp-Snake (Lilith) or the grizzly bear —these folks are all savages spruced-up as decent citizens of civility.

If you aim for a high office position, reading Baltasar Gracián, the Art of Worldly Wisdom, would make you wealthier than ‘Diddy’ the famed rapper, and wiser than Eric Adams, the big guy of New York’s high skyscrapers.

The latest indictments against some famous public figures, ‘celebrities,’ have left me speechless.

Whenever there is a slight brush with the law, or a serious indictment to be reckoned with in New York City’s judicial system, there is always a tense atmosphere in the court, but when the lawsuit or indictment involves a major political figure, such as was the case of the Mayor of New York (year 2024), Eric Adams, we are the more disappointed.

Society is, on closer scrutiny but a jungle, and that’s why we have to be mindful of our business: seal your personals with three layers of safety. Learn to be alike trusting and cautious, but above all —be sharp as a tack.

Keep records of your personals as a lawyer of the first order. Most importantly, if you are to fare well with society, do not neglect yourself the knowledge, mien and healthy activities (go to church on Sunday) of a person of integrity and character.

Phoenix Bird: “Maestro, I am simply pondering on Don Sebastian’s heartbreaking legal issues, the modus operandi of some lawyers, a.k.a., profiteers, good and bad ones, and why it is so difficult to becoming an affluent lawyer if you are a law-abiding Christian.”

Parsifal-Squirrel: “True! The most successful lawyers, of course, with the few exceptions winning the fair cases, are said to be “
‘incisive’ shrewd, and I may add ‘beyond good or evil.’

Don Sebastian Cornelio: “My dear friends, thank you for your soothing but belated advice among these ghosts, the aftermaths of those who lost their ways to heaven.

I was shocked by the hypocrisy and circumspect comportment of the clever opponents, but even more disappointed was the occasional though silent interjection of a cursing word (f-ck) to rectifying the cases.

The lawyer against me, as I observed the proceeding protocol as befitting his discipline, was a polite, Italian-looking middle-aged man with a rather Brooklynite English.

Mr. Marino Botticelli, his last name, reminded me of the renown Cuomo family, but his lighter complexion was that of Northern European ancestry.

His face already showed the legal toils of his profession, a lawyer, which reminded me of those two-faced Janus statues from the early Roman period.

His manners were rather perfunctory, nonchalant, soft-spoken but incisive and apt to worming out secrets from his opponents.

He trims himself as a dapper man of high society, but most of his clients, as I later learned, are couples embroiled in serious legal marital disputes for a fair share among themselves, i.e., properties, assets and finances, et el., you name it, and let there be any other trifling issue requiring further court appearances and affidavits.

Upon completing the time-consuming rigmarole, the lawyer would seek to grab some goodly substantial share of the settlement and divorce. After all, he makes his living as a lawyer, and as such, he is not stranger to the art of rhetorics and persuasiveness.

Bereft of qualms or conscience, some are said to be money-grubbing licensed profiteers anymore than a businessman or a gambler of fortunes.

Of course, there are good lawyers out there, whose probity and uprightness may win my approval, but unfair profitable gains can crook the heart of the finest for the works of darkness (Satan).

Between these extremes, nonetheless, one may come across an affable lawyer, a philanthropist, man of culture and high society, a notable citizen who has mastered the crook and the righteous in the face of Janus.

True! There is something Machiavellian about some lawyers, because sometimes they are hired to defend shocking cases of downright wickedness and corruption.

As long as there is some big cash-cow for the kill, some lawyers, as though beyond good and evil, would go to great length to defending a patently obvious notorious case of human weakness, corruption and depravity.

I am not a psychologist, but duplicity was already creasing Mr. Marino Botticelli’s forehead with rugged furrows, and two conspicuous lines of aging and sullenness were likewise leaving their indelible marks around his nose and thin-lipped mouth.

His English lilt at first amused me as rather hilarious for an Attorney at Law in New York City, but I knew he was just acting his cool-side to kick me out of my previous apartment with little vexation or confrontation.

True! The lawyer against me, a natural psychologist by the rigor of constant close scrutinies on his opponents' moral fabrics, had perhaps perceived in me some head-scratching ambivalence, torn-apart by the moral duty of an upright person fighting his way out of this rabbit hole.

—Was I silly?

‘So, when would you like to vacate the apartment Señor Cornelio?’

True, at times I felt like a dog licking his paws, and a piercing feeling of psychological displacement pressed on me with unexplainable bouts of uncertainties, forebodings, unquietness and silent rage.

Rosalinda, the adorable turtle-dove, assuming a remarkable counterfeit of pitiable victimization, put on on a doe-face of the innocent turtle-dove shedding crocodile tears, and much to my outrage, was able to win her pleas attentive and approved by the staid judge’s final verdict.

At this, my lawyer got short shrift from the infuriated judge, and impugning my character and integrity, as ‘flawed and lecherous’ sternly asked my useless attorney to keep his mouth shut.

‘Keep your big mouth shut.’

Without further ado or ceremony, the judge, always acting peremptorily, his eyes flashed with both rage and indignation against me, gaveled the case in favor of the snake’s crafty guiles and lies.

Thus I had no chance of winning a legal fight against such an implacable unfaithful wife.

​My lawyer, keenly aware of the injustice committed unto my innocent persona, advised me to surrender the premises.

​—Indeed, ths possibility of being beaten by a lethal mamba snake was not an overstatement.

Attorney at Law to Don Senor Sebastian Cornelio:

“Dear Joe, by heaven’s sake, haul your ass out of that dangerous situation as soon as possible, lest all the fires of hell be unleashed upon you.

The wailing woman (La Llorona) can beat the crap out of you.”

Don Cornelio (making long faces): “And so I lost my apartment to a devil in human form, who, not only had surreptitiously cheated on me for years long, had also ruined my finances to the nadir-point of bankruptcy, and even threatened to put me in jail for the rest of my life.”

Phoenix Bird: “My dear reader, at these last words, we almost fainted to the ground like a dead man.

A few weeks later, Don Sebastian died of a heart attack. Some of his closest friends speculated that he still loved that audacious chic, and that perhaps the cruel dagger of infidelity, ever rubbing anew his bleeding heart with the thorny twinges of unrequited love, worsened by the ensuing litigations, endless court appearances, had forever left a ghastly gash in the trenches of his soul.

Lonely he died, of a heart-attack on that cold winter of December 23, of the year 1996, just one day prior to Christmas.

I wish I could write a fitting panegyric to Don Sebastian, because his funeral was scarcely attended by some family members.

As a man of solitude, he had very few friends, and by some ironic arbitrariness of life’s unfolding scroll of circumstances, some critics and friends alike learned of his death but fortuitously, at a latter point —much later, that’s to say, in the Spring of 1997 (Resurrection Day).

A good friend of his, who happened to be a writer for a local newspaper, albeit belatedly, had written a most moving although short obituary. And thanks to his faithful friend, who preferred to remain anonymous, in those moving lines we learn of Don Sebastian’s lifetime’s achievements and oeuvre.

His few extant quaintly tonal compositions, amounting to a few simple songs, ballads and preludes for the organ, were later published posthumously, but the ethos of his time had changed, and hence, are, as today, for the most part, relegated to the shelves of oblivion.

All the same, Don Sebastian, a hardy man known for his effusive persnickety personality, had left strict orders for his remains to be cremated, but, out of religious feelings, his pleas were ignored by his devout Catholic older brother, Dr. Mario Jose Maria Cornelio.

As a man of faith and honor, Don Mario took on the responsibility of paying all his brother’s debts and funerary expenditures, and thus felt beneath his conscience, sense of dignity and respect to incinerating whatever was left of that poor man or devil.

His remains were taken back to Bogota Colombia, the end of 1996, to be interred alongside his beloved parents. On the capstone, an epitaph was written with most conspicuous characters. There we read:

‘Aquí descansan los restos de Don Sebastián Cornelio.’

In this manner we left behind Don Sebastián Cornelio, now a haunting phantom in the hereafter. Roaming aimlessly, back and forth the same circumference of his heartbreaking strains, he is hopeful to escaping this starless place of so much gloom and unspeakable sadness.

We then cast a glance around us, and made out some ghosts, now ambling in yonder spot, and then lumbering most pensively behind our back, like sleepwalkers, were very busy with their restless drudgeries and hurly-burly in the hereafter.

Just as they did when they lived among the living dead, so they are here, forever and ever, repeating the same painful, tedious cycles for the human species.”

Parsifal: “Stupid people, though ye try to convince them of their delusional enterprises, don’t even know that they are already dead.

‘Leave the dead bury their own dead.’ (Luke 9:60)

Nihilo and Lilith already killed them, but they have little bearings of their former state of existence and the latter one amidst the dead.

Indeed, changes in human consciousness are as subtle and unnoticeable as are the grievous wounds of a drunkard

Inebriated or tipsy by the effects of alcohol, humans are scarcely aware of themselves, but for these hapless ghosts, their former phantasmagoria may still be as palpable and real as are the load of their personal sufferings.

Philosopher: “My illustrious master, I can’t wait to reach the time-stricken skiff (boat) upon which you have promised to ferry me around Manhattan, but this crowd, however worth our caring ears attentive, have tarried our journeying experience.”

Parsifal: “My good friend! By all means, this is quality time!!!

We are not wasting precious time by coming across these former neighbors. So good to meet them here! Let us continue further, and as we go along, we may finally reach our destination.

—Can ye recognize any neighbor here?”

Phoenix Bird: “The Prince-Philosopher was about to open his mouth, when all of a sudden, we were shaken beyond our wits by a mad hubbub at our rear. An altercation has broken out, in full-swing, between two full-fledged hawkish men.

These two mortal foes were embroiled in a most serious bickering of what appeared to be a lamentable cultural, political, religious or racial clash.

My goodness! We were caught off guard at this astonishing juncture, and I felt this episodic chapter, however verging on things bawdy, uncouth, salacious, sleazy, devilish and downright vulgar, to be but in stark contrast to our high regards for some former neighbors, whose exemplary, virtuous lives deserve our due reverence and respect.

While we had in my mind’s far-echoed chambers the heart-rending story of a former neighbor, Ana Asulsona, a mad confrontation had ensued between a staunch xenophobic American citizen and lawyer, Charlie Jone-Stones, a ‘WASP,’ against an audacious, womanizer, clever Dominican fellow: Don Juan D’ Los Palos, a.k.a., ‘Rubirosa’ by nickname.

A former member of the Catholic Church, or at least —from what we later gather from his love-story— Don Juan professes to have been reared by a devout Catholic aunt from Sabana Iglesia, Dominican Republic.

Juan D’ Los Palos, as we recall Josh Manson’s love-story and shocking betrayal, was believed to have been the main culprit behind the romantic fool’s tragic end on that fateful Thanksgiving Day of 2017.

A staunch admirer and secret disciple of renown although notorious playboy and lecherous Porfirio Rubirosa, Juan D’ Los Palos’ dark side, was believed to have struck a pact with Satan for supernatural powers.

In 1969, it was reported, in Sabana Iglesia, Santiago, DR, that a mild, gentle man of good manners named Juan D’ Los Palos, would not accept any goodly victual given to him during daytime, but later, in the night, the soft-spoken man would show up in the guise of a dog wagging his tail; and thus, in such animal form, he would devour the few remaining crumbs strewn on the floor.

The infamous case and practice, came to the attention of an old lady named Nina Diaz, who suspicious of Juan D’ Los Palos' erratic behavior, had the curious idea to strike the night-roaming cur on his flanks with a hard broom.

Don Juan, who, neither as a dog, nor as a good man, henceforth lived on in human form, stopped visiting Nina Diaz’ house, was reported to have suffered broken ribs, sudden convulsion of inexplicable wriggles and twinging pains for many months on end.

With tempting schemes, Don Juan, already a geezer, had also cajoled beautiful Rosalinda from her vows of eternal fealty to her husband, Don Sebastian Cornelio.

Thus, the Dominican cloven-hoofed goat became renown, even in Hell, for his formidable libido prowess, and he is to be counted among this crowd.”

Squirrel: “Dear fellows, what the heck is going on between ye twain.?”

Don Juan D’ Los Palos: “ While strolling by the Hudson River's banks, a defiant hound had been watching me with suspicion, and following my footprints, the distrustful creature pursued me as though sensing a convict, a hooligan, an outcast.

I retreated back to a propitious stripe of narrow woody lands unfolding into a maze of downhills and hillocks, which, as I continued treading and skittering along the edgy curves of jagged stones, quaysides, dangerous slabs, all these mad pathways sometimes would steep into precipitous, perilous ravines of distrust, suspiciousness, unfriendliness.

A German dog, a beast of most frightening aspect, property of an American fellow, Charlie Jone-Stones, was not pleased at the irregular pace of my clumsy gait, which he felt was absolutely alien to his culture, and deemed me an unwanted fellow in his own territory: a natural distrust, which frankly speaking, could be very embarrassing for any humanist who believes in the intrinsic goodness of mankind.

Sniffing me, and leering at my face with a disconcerting curiosity, the outlandish dog growled, grumbled and encircled himself around my feet, and then hunkered down quietly on his angular rump to muse about my unstable gait.

With lurid eyes ever fixed on me, he suddenly addressed me this wise saying:”

Charlie Jone-Stones: “Tell me the truth. By God's sake, are you Dominican?

​—And what the heck are you doing here in this neighborhood?"

Don Juan D’ Los Palos: “Yes Sir! I am Dominican, Catholic background.

I was born in a small Island, Hispaniola, La Española, named after the adventurous Spaniard conquistadores. In 1492, Christopher Columbus beached his ships, La Pinta, La Niña, y La Santa María, along the splendid seashores of this lovely Island, Quisquella.
​
The Spaniards were completely captivated by this virgin world of innocence, beauty, pasture, naturalism.

By contrast, the Spanish crew consisted of an entourage of unkempt criminals, convicts, lowlifes, that have entrusted their fate to an adventurous mariner.

Christopher Columbus, was a clever jew, and he was known for being a fearless navigator, would eventuallly win the friendship of an antisemite Spanish Queen: Reina Isabela.

The inhabitants of this Island, Taínos, though small, were a very beautiful people. Fond of nudity and simplicity, they would daub their cinamon-colored skin with coco oil to ward off the stings of mosquitos.

The beautiful Taina girls, innocent, natural, so we are told, would soon fall prey to the all-clutching fingers of these devils in human form.

El Diablo (Satan) tiene su interés en la República Dominicana (the Devil is very interested in the Dominican Republic), for he knows that the history of America would be incomplete without the genocide of the Taínos, and from these atrocities, coupled with every conceivable crime against humanity, slavery, rapes, pillaging, dehumanization and piracy, galore, the biological frosty stuff of history would finally produce a remarkable species called ‘Dominicanos.’

Dominican people, therefore, are the sum total of every possible interbreeding among the various races during colonial times, hence, why it is so difficult to classify us within the bracketing of any conventional racial terminology or category.

Every Dominican person, more than other races, is lavishly bestowed with the generic traits of the whole of the human race.

Some philosophers, if they are to seek interesting cases of human experiments in the ever spawning womb of history, would have a great supply of biological types among the gene-pool of the Dominican people.

On closer inspection, nevertheless, we are bound to admit, that contrary to the churchy views and baseless prejudice associated with race-mixing in some parts of the world, there are people, whose physical constitution and musical sensitiveness, would make them more suitable for the equation of existence in the dissonantly jarring chord of pain, boredom and struggle...

The History of Colonialism, its crimes, genocide of the Aborigines, cannot be expiated by simply relocating this hapless progeny to the lands of North America, and thus would Fate write her unutterable pages in the ever-rolling bloody Sea of History.

The Devil has left his destination-signature across the blood-tinged waters of el Canal de la Mona, a few miles off the Capital of the Dominican Republic: Santo Domingo.

The crimes of our ancestors pursue us even unto this day. The disheartening screams and plaintive signs of those hapless Taina mothers, raped and then humiliated, could still still be heard in the heart of the Dominican Community in Washington Heights.

Of course, any intelligent person would admit good and bad people among any group of people; that some have exceeded more than others in the bad reputation that goes along with the hard reality of hardships, eviction, drug-trafficking, adaptation, assimilation, et al., I cannot think of any immigrants, or migrants, that did not have to fight their way up to a more civil society.”

Phoenix Bird: When Don Juan D’ Los Palos finished this succinct account on the Dominican Republic's infamous past and the extermination of the aborigines, Charlie Jone-Stones, while curbing his dog, held silence for a moment, but was soon most willing to dispel his doubts by drilling Don Juan with other queries.

He smelled something fishy about Don Juan’s love-stories about the Catholics of Santo Domingo (Holy Sunday) and was not yet persuaded about the origin of the prefixed adjective "Dominican" to its religious connotation and provenance.”

Charlie Jone-Stones: "Are Dominican people really Christian?"

Don Juan: “Dear friend, I would like to explain myself in religious terms, but your dog, my goodness! is now bent on smelling my limbs, my torso, my buttock.”

Charlie Jone-Stones’s Dog: (Ever inquiring on this incomprensible ambiguity between the religious order and the eponymous patrimony of the Dominican heritage or nationality, went on to mutter to his boss):

"Hmmm, is this true?”

Don Juan: “At this, I felt somehow decomposed at such close scrutiny and inspection; perhaps the dog was suspecting me of some mischief, duplicity, cowardice, treachery, embezzlement, fraud, hypocrisy, rascality, deception, impertinence, uncleanliness, corruption, humbug, foolishness?

A ghost in sotto voce: (“after some closer examination and inspection, the hound seems to have been pleased at Don Juan’s moral constitution. The playboy, Rubirosa, then resumes his love-story of the Dominican Republic”):

“…Gawking at me in disbelief, this upper-crusty dog, a former lawyer, is somewhat surprised at my love-stories of Santo Domingo (Holy Sunday), capital of the Dominican Republic, for I have displayed a level of intelligence, shrewdness and irresistible charms that would challenge previously-held theories on the detrimental effects of a simple menu of crops and ‘mondongo’ (e.g., trite, viz., the guts of goats and cows), which, are believed to undermine the immune system. If truth were told, their aphrodisiac effects cannot be overstated.”

Phoenix Bird: “Originally from Chicago, Charlie Jone-Stones, was a staunch xenophobic American citizen —an attorney at law!

His build was of a rather stocky frame, and as I stared at his finely dapper presence, the dude was not a night-roaming cur like Don Juan, but rather a pedigree of noble European stock.

​He wore a shaggy, fur coat of an upper-crusty intellectual living in a residential area, and it seemed that Don Juan’s detailed accounts on the devils (Conquistadores) of colonialism in La Hispaniola, their crimes, their fiendish atrocities against the Aborigines, had only confirmed his views: that most nations are founded upon the ruins of wars, rapes, genocides, bloodshed and miscegenation.”

Philosopher: “Don Juan, as I reconstruct your love-stories, very unhappy ending for Don Sebastian, my heart contracts within me for some missing lacunae.

It is believed that you were the one who seduced Josh Manson’s adorable turtle-dove, and story has it, that you, most shamefully, had also slept with Don Sebastian’s wife?

Tell us something about Rosalina, that heavenly maid of his heart-ache and twinges?”

Don Juan: “Dear friends, I did pay my final respects and adieu to that great composer at his funeral, La Funeraria Ortiz, located at 190th Street and Broadway Avenue in NYC.

We were always in friendliest terms, and if it wasn’t me the one to attend his wife’s wildest dreams. another man would have done it anyway.

Of course, I knew he was struggling with the sharp pricks of unrequited love, but it was not my fault, Rosalina, own her account, simply dumped him for another puma.

While married to Don Sebastian, right in front of her husband, she had ogled another man in the prayer-room, thus further tormenting her saint to be wretched till he became an alcoholic.

His friend and priest, Rev. Freddy Montez, time and time again, would ask him to forgive his ex-wife, but the mortal dagger of infidelity had cut deep into his heart. His wound was always bleeding profusely.”

Philosopher: “How did he fall in-love with that saucy pert, a minx?”

Don Juan: “It was a lovely spring of 1993, while strolling by the Hudson River's banks, I saw the couple wholeheartedly enchained into each other’s arms, thus enjoying the sweet butterflies of passion, love and reciprocity.

O darling! I love thee!
Mi amor! Te amo.

Back then, Don Sebastian Cornelio could not be happier. Break-days unfolded with the sweet twinkles of a heavenly maid.

During that time, it was all heaven on earth my dear. Like a good Latina nerd, the bride-to-be, Rosalinda, was a Spanish Cleopatra bestowed with very delicate olive skin, svelte, torso and flanks fashioned with amazing guitar-like curves, and gracious hips ending in well-rounded voluptuous shapeliness at her rear.

Her nose, Romanesque, was perched up there like a statue of Venus in her beautiful face. ​

Indeed, she had outward qualities to send any man a-rocking. Even a saint could be swallowed whole by Rosalinda..

As I recall now, at a Christian meeting, I heard the good man, Don Sebastian, muttering in sotto voice, ‘gratia plenas,’ gracias Señor, for this heavenly gift, and he even wept his tears for that adorable woman.

‘Gracias plenas mi Señor por esta chica tan fenomenal!’

At this, his wife kept silent and politely received the compliments out of courtesy.”

Philosopher: “ How about her countenance?

Don Juan: “ Ah! The bride's face, her countenance, was stamped with some inexplicable feminine enigma: a mystifying beauty conceals the Mona-Lisa reservation in her innermost being: a human being designed to make silly men easy prey.

Her bewitching eye-to-eye looks captivated the heart-buttered sensations of the young man, such eyes, such lady, my goodness, could even melt the god Sun.

In her expression, every now and then, there were the gentle smiles, the slightly-given turns and nods which some men, however grown-up fools, may try to decipher in endless delightful reveries and dreams.

Indeed, Rosslinda, was the source of much joy-giving and inspiration for Sebastian. In their fore-head, as in the silvery face of the moon, I saw written the high-flown hieroglyphics of Marriage and Felicidad Infinita: the Love of Eternity transfixed their hearts!

Matrimonio y Felicidad!”

Phoenix Bird: “Don Juan D’ Los Palos was about to say another word on courtly, chivalric love, but Charlie Jone-Stones’ dog, all of a sudden, fell in a fit of frantic behavior, and soon started barking at us with such hideously ugly grimaces, ferocity and peals that we were compelled to run away from such devil a man.”

Squirrel: (Set his eyes on the Philosopher’s) “Dammed this scoundrel Don Juan D’ Los Palos, Son of Satan.”
​
(adding more stories at a latter point, Ana Asulsona).

Fondest Regards,
Eddie Beato
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Side By Side With the Brutes: Homo Sapiens!

(Brief History of Homo Sapiens) by the Phoenix Bird:

In every noble endeavor, humans could not find peace (Shanti) among themselves, the equation of survival far exceeded their capacity to coping humanely with an ever-increasing population; perhaps the she-mist, or the he-wolf, was a grievous truth at the end of a starless day's predicament!

The narrow slab was their growing unbelief in that nonsense jig and plain ugly truth: the meaninglessness of an existence in thousands of years of wars, trepidation and destruction, or the lack of confidence in human capacity to finding an answer-solution, a final resolution to a jarring, dissonant chord in the core of Mother Nature, a looming discord in the noble pavilion of science and the high goals of humanity.

Hence a potential chit or a she-cheat was suspected in the intrinsic fundamentals of human dignity; the question of man and his internal fabric were placed, side by side, on equal standing with any other brute; whether he or she be a reptile, or a mammal, or a rat, odious vermin, or an insect, had all the scientific fancy to explaining the mystery of good and evil (utilitarianism), as no other riddle than the mere survival of biological dynamics in the struggle of existence --the survival of the fittest.

On The Dignity of My Fellow-Creatures

Hence, beyond the ethical systems of humans, other biological dynamics struck a far greater answer-yes than the noblest ideas of mankind in search for a silent God; the Lynx-tailed link between man and the beast, despite obvious differences, had the secret nudging and sympathy of many a priest and scientist; consequently, the arching heaven denied any contact with these recalcitrant creatures called Homo sapiens.

These little gods of stardom benighted, would fling their meatballs even unto the moon, in great defiance boasting above any other species: they ---mankind’s hubris, themselves but supreme, always puffing up in self-aggrandizement while mocking the gods of yore.

O my friend! How these constant truces and endless summits failed by the trapped door of a sudden intruder, a sharp dagger was always dripping blood in the neighbor's hand; thus, soon humanity shook the firmaments with appalling commotions, and the scandals could reach far off, even unto the very gold-gilded temple of Zeus, that polygamous god par excellence.

In this manner, assuming themselves no-where wayfarers, thy mad generation chose silly tangibility with some curious things nigh at hand (anima mobile, a.k.a., an iPhone), the false simulacrum of dreams (the virtual reality), the embodiment of transient forms in ending transformations and transmutations, the myriad things ever-changing in rapid-heaving cumulations: all this in more-repletion, all that in more-completion, had all the world leaders at a loss, for they could neither please, nor employ the big throngs of people toeing lines for some menial jobs, the recalcitrant crowds of unemployment ever increasing in numbers, rioters and looters, indeed, going amok and berserk to chew the cud of nothingness.

Crisis In Any Belief System

Many skeptical people could not dive beyond the quagmire of their indolent wiring muck, little by little, forsaking the sweet rosy cheeks of heavenly rainbow's rings.

Other resilient skeptics, displaying greater fortitude, against the cranking machine, resolved dwelling amidst swamps, moraine, fetid moats, their feet smearing in mud and bog hither and thither; and yawning caves that sink lower and lower into gulfs insatiable, could have wolfed every soul whole, had not some people be saved by an Unknown Providence; therein, few incredulous souls escaped the hungry maw of Nihilo --the King Ravenous (Nothingness).

Other straggled souls, sat themselves alone in the deserted grounds of Despair and Hope, where nipping winds, like bitter fleas that snip the skins naked and itching, so the raging gales tormented the hapless rabbles day and night.

Soon they would cry out in raspy voices to the sky lamenting, procuring armistice and submission to Lilith the vile hag, seditious, insidious, grim.

The cruel lady would then twirl her golden tresses round her helpless lovers --bewitched! For learn this mystery of mysteries, that almost every bosom surrendered their precious sense of being to her: to non-being but in a shadowy existence, a huge file of miserable souls marched macabre, penitent, stamping hooves in great din and peals of horrors inexplicable; and some hard hooves stamped the hollow earth so terribly bounding and banging, which even unto the farthermost places, everything shook in hellish terror and commotion.

Yea, thy mad generation was not so free as they believed themselves to be.

The Intelligence of Evil or Lucidity Pact) in memory of Jean Baudrillard:

(silence)

In this manner, the intelligent bipeds started doubting and squeaking on what was real, hence, what was unreal and wrong in their silly little screen of ghosts?

The delusion was wide spread, more and more, turning every thing and every-one into a mere guess-play of speculation; for, even the world-leaders raved and raged in the unreliability of their concrete methods --striking unison with the All-For-All grand masse of Jose Ortega y Gasset in an on-lined matrix: terrible beasts enchained for fury alone, and ripe for a total alienation.

These what-rabbles were intent on tearing apart the flesh and bones of some invisible oppressor.

And where was he?"

Philosopher: "Who?"

Parsifal: "The Beast, Homo Hominis Lupus."

Distrust increased, din and feud alike between man and woman tolled high, and broke apart the familiar ceiling of homely nuptial love; for, due to a new type of social depression and consternation --unparalleled in the annals of Homo sapiens ( The Social Contract of Jean Jacques Rousseau) -- few people would dare risk their tiny fingers in silly solidarity; the fire's tongues burned high to scorch the hybrids' buttocks, and they were ready to consume the putrid guts of thy society; verily, with little mercy, the flying flickers tapered long, quickly sieging and charring alike entrails and bowels of any living things that ever walked, crawled or crept the surface of the earth (a nuclear bomb?).

Henceforth, all these miserable people, now to ghosts transformed, are stung by errant winds, roaring and bemoaning in this cold plain of solemnest retrospection.

Hither and thither, they flit like drones or flies, buzzing and wheeling around some nauseous valleys of human morgue and carcasses, the putrefaction of history in endless knobs of torn torses, cadavers and endless mounts of skulls helter skelter, now staidly grinning at some colossal farce in The Question of Suffering.

Hold on, ye will see them hence, like stray dogs, sometimes wagging their tails, sometimes yapping and panting to some stand-by stranger-friend: O thee! the sole foreign friend who would like to beckon the peace-token of truce, but in vain, because these stealthy shades, in their dim visage, could not, but make up the remembrance of an evil generation in thy semblance; for, like shadows or gad-flies that fleet aloof to and fro, avoiding any way straight in the valley of dry bones, in like similitude these ghosts would fear and loathe human presence; they smack of death or cheat, or perhaps, they resemble big columns of debris wafting in the drab-colored clouds of futurity (Mind You The World Trade Center Attack, September 11th of 2001)).

And now and everywhere, the unfortunate ghosts constantly rummage, pry and snoop some piled-up junks of civilization, some trash and rusty chunks of human follies buried in that book-floor of yesterday.

The History of Homo sapiens is but a colossal tome of incomprehensibility, the hard- to-match chronicles of thousands of years of wars, consternation, trepidation.

Per-haps therein, my dear friend, some genuine thing is to be found. At pace with their unresolved passions wanton, these ghastly entities have no need for more hope and technology, but to dash their fate in the indelible characters of grotesque rocks and stones, to speak clearly and yet feebly to posterity, the unpalatable history of Homo sapiens.

(Reverential Silence)

This is the timeless-hour whence perhaps a nearby Specter-Gargoyle --leering at the hard blows of human indifference -- may wish a draft-man fearless a rendezvous, with wide-eyed gaze to stand in his hind hooves, heroic, intrepid --to speak out, to decry aloud the other sad story of the human heart.

Meanwhile, the other Silent Effigy just looks on, unmoved, unperturbed in that steady stare, piercing deeply, penetrating, enigmatic, perhaps loosing the limbs of any mortal, a lonely soul whom would dare walk this wide road of perdition: it is a disheartening desert stretching far and far unto to those looming forms bare, gruesome waste; and yet, a quiet world now chiseled by endless uneven lines of scarps, steepy hillocks and screes many that obey not the rules of art or understanding.

--Where is the Sphinx of Mankind?

Look! Look! Look at down there, in the shadow of that tree's lee.

Can ye see the scattered shards of some unknown artist?

Perhaps this is the discarded clay of a great potter; or perhaps, it is the shattered remnants of a great utopia-builder."

Philosopher: (let out of a few tears for the History of Homo Sapiens)

"Are these the sad stones of pains you have brought me to weep?

Scattered stones of Human Endeavors, Ingratitude and Indifference, the many souls left behind in oblivion?

In the first place, why such sentry-stones were given a heart?

Bear in mind, that I am more afraid of the human heart than the gloom of a night-walk with a mummy or specter.

But where are the ghosts?"

Parsifal: (far-gazing unto the lowlands of sweet Manhattan)

"If you would like to see the sweet lady Shanti someday, then be bold, and hold thyself fearless, because the ever-rolling track is no-way smooth; in fact, it it is rutted and marked in a halting tempo of cracks and spoors, the hideous signs of the beasts (666) still prowling all over the desert; for us two my friend, there is a long pilgrimage amidst many a sad moods of stumbling blocks and alas --and sighs...

The Question of Life cannot just be crammed into thy moldy shelves of insipid doctrines. I, more than once, have been puzzled by the Profundity of the Human Heart and Ghostly Apparitions, because many a night-walk was shrouded in sober clouds of daunting thoughts, questions, dread.

The Solitary Path, not always yielded a propitious footing to my well-being. Alas, my poor soul cried out unto heaven: where is the snug hut for me?

Where is my home?

Sometimes, the Question of Existence, certainly, borders and blurs into the Realm of Pre-fixed Feelings and Pre-monitions --Pre-Sence.

It is the realm of our being, lived in that non-spatial reality of other pre-sent moments, whereat our auto-biography may seem to convey greater meanings, the personal significance of that enormous mansion forlorn --perhaps it is a beautiful church abandoned in a ghetto: or, our many memories and souvenirs still cherished in the inside of our spacious habitation.

The spacious place is not wanting in burning ashes, nor in embers and sparks many to rekindle anew the warm blood of the spirit.

The panic could be greater when there is no set fringe to our mental penumbras, nor there are fixed margins for this world and the other; nor we possess a rod-gauge, long enough to plumb the profoundest palpitations in the human heart's depth: the hitherto unexplored dread of our short, and yet long journey through this mysterious existence; for, even unto the unknown, the *mine being in the human heart,* may wish to beat, throb and swell and sprain the unfathomable forces of love and hatred... "
​
To be continued (wait for Chapter VI)