Letter to Francisca:
albatross_part - 4th book of a letter to Francisca.
In the air is the wind. On the wind is an albatross.
One doesn't find meaning, one makes it.
albatross_part_01

Book 4

Where were we? I had to start a new book. I knew I had another one that I had started writing other things in and almost thought I couldn’t find it but there it was, under my planter boxes on the table beside the chair I intended to sit in since the patio was getting a bit cool, on my ass mostly.

I was on a rave in story form. Mr. Mann was confronting Randy on his hypothesis.

‘How did you come up with you hypothesis?’

‘I used common sense.’

‘That’s not a bad method, though it doesn’t always work. I was a little worried about Randy yesterday when he came to the patio with us and didn’t have much to say, so today I brought in a little fridge with a freezer, a red mug, a blue mug and a kettle.’

Mr. Mann plugged in the kettle.

‘This blue mug of water has been in the fridge, if anyone cares to test it’s coldness, feel free. No?

What’s your name?’

‘Heather.’

‘Heather, please put your finger in the mug and describe what you sense.’

‘Cold water.’

‘And you name?’

‘Luke.’

‘A second opinion please.’

‘It’s cold, Sir.’

‘Yes, in the blue mug we have cold, I’ll write that on the board. In a minute, if we all agree that this is a kettle and I have plugged it into a socket in the wall which gives us electricity and this in turn results in hot water, I will fill the mug that is red and call it hot.’

Mr. Mann wrote blue-cold, red-hot on the black board.
‘The water wasn’t very cold, so it takes a little while to boil. Randy, you stay still now.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

Mr. Mann unplugged the kettle when it was boiling and filled the red mug.

‘Luke and Heather, because of the danger of this experiment, I’ll ask you only to feel the outside of the mug and respond.’

‘Shit.’

‘Hot.’

‘I think we can safely assume that we can translate Luke’s response to verify Heather’s. Now let it be understood that these mugs are the same size and mass and very only in colour and in the temperature of the water in them.

Luke, can you hold the freezer door open for me?’

Mr. Mann was careful to place the mugs in the freezer at the same time and give neither a space advantage or nearness to wall advantage.

‘Apparently, Sara performed a similar experiment at home and came up with the same answer to the hypothesis as did Randy, who used common sense. Both can be dangerously misleading but in some circumstances, they are what we are left with.

‘True, we can be told most things. If we listen and remember what we are told, if we obey the rules and follow the leaders, we can usually stay out of trouble. Unfortunately, ignorance is a tool used by the posers that be, to keep you under control.

It was maybe a little unfair of me to tell you this hypothesis was worth five percent of your final mark because I have deliberately, to show a point, mislead you. Though there is always someone willing to disclaim scientific laws, let me propose that as a scientifically observed generalisation, hot water does not, as Randy and a few others have stated, freeze faster than cold water. Hot water, Randy says, does not freeze. Although it may seem a little shocking and you may want to phone up your mother. Hot water has to become cold water before it becomes ice. This gives the cold water the advantage because it is already part way. Zero is freezing. If water is 100 degrees Celsius to start, it must first become 99 then 98 then 97 then 96. Can anyone see the pattern yet? Cold water, the temperature of the refrigerator is approximately 10 degrees Celsius, must only move threw 10 degrees to become ice.

So why do university students, who are here for higher education, believe that hot water freezes faster then cold?’

‘But why do ice rinks use hot water?’

‘Can someone answer that? Are there any hockey players?’

‘Yes, sir. Hot water freezes smoother.’

‘Ah. Freezes smoother.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Why is that?’

‘It melts the bumps and smoothes our more.’

‘More than cheese, for example. My guess is that because it’s hot it takes longer to freeze, thus giving it a chance to smooth, or level out before it freezes.

We’ll take a ten minute break and when we come back we’ll see how many of you are willing to accept that maybe cold water freezes sooner than hot water.’

I don’t care to carry on with this story Franny. I’m afraid Mr Mann might be a nutter. I don’t trust him around young women. He may use his philosophy of beliefs to explain why it’s just as likely to sleep with him as another man and how it’s possible that there’s no real reason not to since he could wear a condom or just have oral sex or play with your tits and feel your bum.

It’s also not very nice of Mr. Mann to be playing with people’s little securities. Next he’ll be talking about religion and politics and destroying the whole fabric that keeps our civilisation from chaos. He’ll tempt his students to abandon all that they have learned and start his own cult.

Shall I tell you about my dream I had before Nevin phoned? I lay down at 18:00 with full intention to consider going to Karate at 19:30. I brought the clock in from the kitchen so I could keep an eye on the time. After 15 minutes, I looked at it. After 30 minutes and a few more times, just drifting in and out. The thought was in my mind that I might not go until tomorrow so at 19:10 or so when I looked at the clock, I didn’t react to standing up. Aufstehen in German. I meant to say get up. By the way, I think there are things about this city I like.

In my dream, I remember only little bits now. I remember the lady on the plane more. She was having trouble getting things in their proper place and sitting down fast enough. She was all frustrated and asked her husband, who I guessed to be dead, where he was when she needed him. To think she needed him to help her get seated seems a little sad but my guess is she needed him not to feel so dam alone. Sometimes nothing seems to work when you’re alone. It’s sad to think how alone many people are even next door to other people. My neighbour is dreadfully alone. I feel alone sometimes as well but knowing I have friends and a loving woman helps ease the pain.

I like being by myself quite a lot but that is not the same as being alone.

This side track actually supports my dream so bare with me. Goddam my arms are sore.
Dream. There was something about watching a hockey game. NHL even. Not possible over here. Especially since we haven’t a TV and I had to close up and have a war with someone but it was too late and I was too tired.

Somehow. I ended up in the house we lived in when we first moved to London, Ontario that is, Toby, oh, that’s where the hockey game was. Daphnie was flipping through the channels and hockey was on one of them. Wiebke and she were gone soon after so I lay on the coach and tried to rest. A father and son were looking across at a parking lot and talking in German about two VW bugs. They are more common in Germany, I think the father explained.

When I woke again there was a huge spider web with a large spider working at completing it. It was a large spider but didn’t have one of those large thoraxes that I find so troublesome, mostly for the potential slime that would result from it being squished.

The father and son were about to walk by, funny then should be in my living room, and I bid them to wait. I stumbled about to get the vacuum cleaner so I could such the spider in. Well in she went with her net. Part of her net. The net was like ballistic nylon and soon was too much for the vacuum cleaner. I could smell the motor was about to burn out. I quickly shut it off and took it out on the large porch in case the spider wanted to get out. Everything was so difficult and tedious and I had to move other furniture as well.

I couldn’t figure out where Wiebke was. It was Friday but she didn’t work Friday’s anymore and she likely hadn’t before but I had no idea where she was.

It was a strange feeling and the phone rang and woke me then. I think my subconscious may be having more trouble with Wiebke being gone than my conscious. My conscious I can distract and deceive. Maybe it’s harder to convince my subconscious that six months are not so long.

How can a little clock make such noise. I’m also going to unplug my fridge soon. We have a large walk in pantry that is very cold in winter. It may be close enough now.

Are you still with me here?


In this letter, unlike a real book, it’s always a question of what banality should we start out with. I don’t want to talk about my hormones but I thought guys were supposed to start relaxing at my age.

I jotted down a couple ideas for Uwe’s third song.
Pedofile in the Park

I’ve got an old Spencer hat to cover my thin hair.
I’ve got a pair of wool socks but not any underwear.
I’ve got a long black coat made out of leather.
I’ve got old black boots with tap holing them together.

They say I’m a chicken hawk because I like little boys.
But I like little girls too, I give them candy and toys.
They like my games, they aren’t afraid of me.
I’m their uncle Bob, won’t you let me be?

I will go something like that. ‘A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and furry, signifying nothing.’ By the way. I haven’t cut my hair except for a little trim for the wedding, (Paola, my favourite hair dresser was here) and now it hangs over my eyes.

I better hurry up and find something to rave about or I’ll start thinking about you and how come you don’t pop over for a little visit. I sometimes forget that, although I think of you quite often because I’ve started this letter and don’t know enough to stop, you likely think of me less than seldom. That’s fine. This isn’t a realistic idea that we should know each other.

Writing is a form of madness, or a vent for madness. Some people have distorted imaginations that interfere with their concept of reality. And so I’d rather be on welfare and write non sequitur dribble than face up to the fact that I’m only a half dozen away from 40 with nothing to show except for a healthy body, a troubled yet inquisitive mind and a few pairs of socks. And Wiebke, my beautiful loving wife, bought most of the nice ones.
Someone might ask the question, ‘If you’re married to a beautiful woman that loves you, why do you fantasise about a woman who, although very beautiful as well, hardly knows you and certainly has no time to love you?’

First answer that comes to mind is: ‘I don’t know.’ or it’s natural to want what you can’t have. Maybe there’s a certain comfort in a virtually, fictitious relationship.

I’m reminded of the young woman I often saw at the Boom Boom Room and sometimes on Queen St. or a large warehouse party. She reminded me a bit of Norma, which didn’t have much to do with my attraction to her. She appeared so warm hearted or something. True she is beautiful, but she seemed to have a certain magic or charm. She knew I liked her and tried the odd time to let me know she didn’t mind, but I never could talk to her.

And what’s the point? How about: It’s funny to be a human. And Eva. I wear your vest quite often and always am happy when I think of you and not just because you are beautiful, I like people who are not so pretty, though I think Bryan is very pretty, if you look at him a little longer. And he’s sweet, though he wears strong armour.

Beautiful and pretty are of course relative concepts that exist, most likely, only in the human consciousness. It’s only a way of categorising. A mist kafer is also very beautiful and it lives in shit. And so you see the writer struggling to justify his insatiable lust for young beautiful women and not fooling any attentive reader and only making a mess out of the last few pages. So all he can do now is humbly apologise, not for his condition, but his denial that he’s a slave to it. And without farther ado, he will stop this mode of thought.

The problem with biological warfare is mutation of the weapon, thus the limited control over it. And I want to point out to you rigid racist idiots that one definite advantage to allowing a few Auslanders into your country is that it makes a certain bond with that other country. Enough bonds around the world may preclude the use of biochemical or nuclear or laser total destruction of the little lonely planet Earth.

I read the other day that the number of stars in our milky way galaxy is quite a few and that the distances between stars is for us inconceivable. But what’s even more disturbing, especially if you’re still trying to defend the thesis that God exists and for us, is that the number of galaxies and the space between them is beyond the beyond of comprehension. The size of the universe is not at all possible to conceive.

And how does that matter, you may well ask? It matters big time when you try to put humans in perspective. Because if you do, they don’t appear. In relation to time and space, we aren’t noticeable even in just a galactic scale, forgetting the rest of the vast universe.
This might sound like a big leap, but I’m going to say that this discredits most everything we stand for. It discredits the worship of any god. It discredits the authority of the queen, any one, it discredits all. It has to be accepted that man’s meaning is no more than contrived arbitrary falsehoods and go nowhere beyond the fleeting present.

Did I mention that before? Some may say that the vastness of the universe just goes to show how mighty God is. And my answer would be, cold water freezes faster than hot water because that’s the way it is and saying otherwise in a complicated set of arguments is not going to change what is, only how you comprehend it.

Okay, one more question before going to Hela for ten eggs. They don’t do dozens of things and they don’t have donut stores. The question, after laying down and looking up at the trees for 10 minutes, comes to mind as it often does, what’s up with consciousness? Some scientist think it a recent thing, even recent enough that some civilisations may have come and went, possibly even Troy and those times, before consciousness took hold of our heads. To not stray from dear Darwin too much, we could hypothesise it has something to do with survival.

And since eating does as well, I’m going to drop the subject for now, leave the soccer field and go get some food.

Tomorrow I have a test. I don’t get marked but I am going to a Party with Patra, Andi, Timon, Ines and my rocking friend Ingrid. They don’t allow so much English speaking now that I’ve been here over a year.

I miss Wiebke most when I go to bed. Not because of sex but because it’s very comforting to have a friendly body by your side. Some would say that a cat or dog is a fair substitute. I had Petra’s cat on my lap this evening. It, she, likes men. Whenever I visit Petra, both the cats are glad to see me. Polsky was content to lay behind my head. I only sneezed 6 times in the three hours I was there. I must be building up immunity to whatever they have. I cut Petra’s hair tonight. She had so many spilt ends. It’s much better now. I enjoy cutting hair. I learned by watching and I’m pretty good. I cut Wiebke’s, Toby’s, Nevin’s and now Petra’s hair.

Isn’t that pretty?

Oh, well. Nothing out of my head tonight. Later, Franny.

_bunnie stop_



by Joanne B. Washington

read on. albatross_part_02



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