Otherwise, I found life onboard ship boring as usual, so much so, that one day I was moved to paint what I was feeling after having been assigned to paint some pipes that ran up beside an exterior bulkhead along the starboard side of the hangar bay. Since these pipes had already been prepped, I [...]
As the ship steamed relentlessly southward at full speed ahead, the mood of the crew grew conspicuously more somber. Forced to let go of the frenzied and orgiastic pleasures of a Dionysian holiday in Japan, they unwillingly surrendered themselves to the more Apollonian way of life found onboard the ship. Totally incapable of seeing beyond [...]
As Fate would have Her way, I was not destined to enjoy any pleasure cruise, for She was bound and determined to stir up the waters of life, enough to keep me at odds with the Navy. Unable to circumvent my fate for very long, I began to see why She had earned the name [...]
It wasn’t until later on that morning that I saw the door inch open, ever so slightly. Having been ordered to report to the shipyard dispensary, I figured they (meaning the Navy) wanted to examine me, that is, my body, to see if I was physically fit to make a West Pac cruise after my [...]
I awoke the following morning only to find myself rushing around to get to my battle station on time when, after a leisurely breakfast, the call went out over the loudspeaker for all hands to report to general quarters for my first real taste of war games since coming onboard the ship. No sooner had [...]
With the fall of this dark knight, I was eventually rotated up topside to stand watch under a magnificent dome of stars. As the winds of time sped past me, I imagined myself standing on the earth many thousands of years ago, looking up into the same dome of stars. Suddenly, I realized the stars [...]
Declining to indulge in the true opiate of the masses, I drifted into a little pipe dream of my own. Confronted by the angelic aspect of my shadow, was I split down the middle as his sword came crashing down upon my head and cleaved me into two apparently identical clones of my original self. [...]
“Tell me,” I begged of my shadow, “why are you so much more transparent than any of the other images I’ve encountered thus far?” “As both gate ‘n’ gatekeeper to the vast and unexplored reaches of your own inner space, the void that separates the gates of heaven from the jaws of hell, I allow [...]
Drawn to this one saloon, I burst in upon an old, rundown and abandoned burlesque house with its seating arranged around the stage, like an indoor amphitheater. “Hello,” I yelled out rather sheepishly. “Is anyone here?” Having received no response, I spun around to leave and turned right smack dab into the pockmarked face of [...]
[Having succumbed to the sudden swell of a ringing sound in my ears, I immediately found my self standing outside my body, looking a bit like the Lilliputian who first discovered Gulliver's ponderous body lying shipwrecked on the isle of his Self. As I stood back to take in the full magnitude of my body, [...]
