And there’s usually not much of anything going on.
The people are pushed and pulled around town, around freeways, through airports based on stories they’ve either concocted themselves or others have concocted for them.
Conspiracies of confabulation.
And their movement pleases something or someone.
Who or what that could be remains a mystery.
Does plumbing enjoy water flowing through it?
Or is an empty pipe just as fun as a gushing one?
Does nature enjoy what it does?
And what are the pipes and flows of nature?
The pushing forth of flowers.
The unfolding of leaves.
The certainty of wind and the pulse of waves across water.
Fluids in the trees passing elixirs of earth up and down.
Killings for food.
Drownings for the sake of nothing.
Armies of ants marching along trails with chunks of sawed leaves.
Bees taking powdery grains from one flower to another then back to a hive – to be processed and regurgitated into sweet syrup.
Trees appearing to quiver. Birds appearing to startle.
But none of it fearing.
Only the human telling tales of good and evil.
Only the human fearing things made in the mind.
And loving the drama of that.
A triggering and a replication of some primal hormone flow.
A forcing of the animal to re-experience the real problems it might have faced in a distant time.
Running from predator.
Slowly starving due to misplacement in geography.
Cursing a flood spawned by some imaginary god.
But mostly watching and fearing nothing – that old animal.
Mostly boredom and exploration and fascination.
Mostly dreaming something from nothing.
So, back into the cars.
Strap the measurement devices to the wrist.
Challenge the phone with a strong voice.
Fill up the calendar and compare the progress with the hated and the envied.
Pump your life through the plumbing of someone else’s structure.
And come out on the other side, bewildered and exhausted,
wondering why you taught yourself so many strange things.
Sitting with a view, wondering where it all went, what it all meant.