~a short story~

by Jon Rappoport

June 15, 2015



Sometimes stories turn into other stories.

The writer sees an opening and makes the thing over. He thought it was going to run a few hundred pages, and then he carves it into six. All sorts of changes happen along the way.

Sometimes the “theme” is so tenuous he wants to knock the story down and shut doors and reduce the central idea. But on the other hand, he doesn’t. He takes a chance. He doesn’t care. He wants the strange thread to endure. He wants to make several very strange threads mix and cook. He wants to keep the sensations of happenings so they don’t boil down; they boil up.

He wants something that doesn’t have a name. Isn’t this is what he’s really after? Tearing down the divisions and boundaries that define space and time?

And once he does that, he invents a story he’s looking for. For now. Later, he’ll want another one. A different one. All bets are off.

There are gods battling in the sky. Not of the religious variety. The energies of these creatures seem to be alive beyond our own. But we can assume their energies as we walk the streets at night. We can take this reality on the ground and discard it, ignore it. We can fly.

He went all the way out, floating in an ocean of surveillance.

He thought:

Alive ? Dead? Dreaming?

He plunged into layers where avid machinery was spinning. He felt velvet hands and suctioned fingers slide along him, and he grew cold in the submarine depths.

What does the Design want with me?

He was suddenly in the cabin of a private jet. On the serving table, he saw a little statue of glass archangels, a China cup worn yellow, and a framed photo of Al Capone sitting on the toilet in his Palm Springs suite.

And then identity shattered into a thousand pieces. The lights of an enormous city loomed up underneath, pulling the fragments down into liquor stores, newspaper racks, dark alleys, hotel rooms.

A news screen stood out in the black sky. A local anchor, her eyes bright with contempt, relayed the story of a Dr. Ralph Bannion, who had just died falling from an escarpment above the Chicago Loop while attempting to set up a sniper’s nest and kill shoppers in the indoor-outdoor Langland Mall.

A boyish blonde field reporter, standing in front of a McDonald’s, was interviewing a witness, an old man who was sitting in a highly complex wheelchair and foaming at the mouth and spitting. The old man doubled over and a siren went off. A security guard appeared with a riot baton and sent a blue fork of electricity into his crotch, quieting him.

The news screen disappeared.

Identity was now a quiet snowstorm in a deserted wood, falling, falling, falling on the hard earth.

He was back in the cabin of the jet. Burnished lights set high in the cabin walls, yellow-brown.

A flight attendant entered with a vodka rocks.

She was six feet tall and blonde. That made her a target.

Wealthy and powerful men would seek her out.

Her body was sleek. He examined her left leg from wizardly articulated ankle to narrow thigh, through the slit of her sheath skirt. She strode in heels, one foot placed precisely in front of the other.

She set down the drink on the arm of his chair and looked at her watch.

“We can’t have sex now,” she said. “We’re east of the Rockies.”

“I didn’t realize they had a law,” he said.

“Two hours from now,” she said, “we can negotiate a price.”

“I’m an attorney,” he said.

She pulled a half-sheet out of her jacket pocket and handed it to him.

“Standard,” she said. “Read and sign.”

“…I am not attempting to elicit information pursuant to an investigation, case, or sentencing option…”

He signed.

“Just out of curiosity,” he said, “how many layers of protection do you have?”

“Well,” she said, “the LA Mayor has a local contract. He supplies private soldiers whenever I’m in the city.”

“Have they ever had to go on attack?”

“A Belivar prince once tried to have his men kidnap me en route from the airport to my hotel. Mercs burned them to the ground on Century Boulevard.”


“You’re John Q,” she said. “I know. I’m Carol.”

She held out her hand. He looked at her long fingers. Her nails were short. No polish. He shook her hand.

She sat down next to him.

“Defendant in a federal case,” she said. “Or possibly the prosecutor. It’s hard to tell which. The issue is immunity.”

“In return for what?”

“Precise intell on every citizen of planet Earth.”

Insane, he thought. Meaningless garble. But he also felt he had been waiting for this case.

“What do you want from me?” he said.

“Any documents pertaining to immunity.”

“Documents? You think they put that kind of thing in writing?”

He closed his eyes.

Now, Bobby Thoms came to him. The Swan, a bar in the Loop.

The place was jammed with lawyers eating breakfast and waiting for the shape-up in the parking lot. Minor cases were assigned by a clerk at the Farofax processing facility.

Q grabbed a stool at the end of the counter and ordered coffee. The bartender poured him a cup and set it down in front of him.

Bobby Thoms. Sitting next to him. In dark soiled clothes, as if he’d stripped them from a corpse in an alley. Pinched face, sunken cheeks. A lawyer’s barnacle, runner, go-between.

“John Q,” Bobby said. “I can get you in to see Judge Hirsch today. His appointment secretary’ll bump the city treasurer for you.”

Q reached into his pocket and pulled out a tight roll of bills. Bobby fielded it and slipped it into his pocket.

“What’s up?” Q said.

Bobby nodded. “There are national security implications in this case, John Q. Hell, universal implications if you really look at it. If the shit hits the fan, the whole syndicate…”

Q heard a grinding roar from a long way off.

“Sorry,” he said.

Bobby frowned. “Sorry?”

“Something’s coming.”


The roar accelerated. The bar slanted, curved, vaporized, leaving behind a dot of blood on a handkerchief.

From the white folds, a newsboy on a bike approached. He handed Q a folded paper and went on his way. Q sat down on the side of a road and looked at page one:

Announcement in the center of the page: “No quiet times for you, John Q. The unpredictable future is opening up. Grab it.”

Sal Mosca conducted his business in a warehouse in Evanston, a few blocks away from the Registrar-DHS complex.

In the center of the vast lobby was a single desk. Video cameras on the walls caught the action from a dozen angles. Familiar scents of dead rotting rats in the walls.

Q waited in line, and when his turn came, he handed the security guard a copy of his cert card wrapped in a hundred-dollar bill and said he had an appointment with Mr. Mosca.

The guard looked down at his pad, nodded, and handed him a red slip. Q stuck it to his jacket, walked over to the elevator bank, and waited.

A door opened. A tall slam in a dark suit stood against the back wall. He was holding a blade down at his side. The slam peeled off Q’s red slip.

They rode up to the 7th floor. The door opened, and two more guards in dark suits stood there. Q stepped out.

One of them frisked him. The other one backed away and watched.

They sandwiched him and walked him down a seashell curving carpeted hallway to a mesh gate. It slid open and they passed through into a small room. Mosca’s secretary, Jenny, sat behind a table.

“Hello, John Q” she said.


He knew her from the county courts, the early days. Cases adjudicated in offices, fines pieced off among the sharers. During the heavy shortages, lawyers took dinners as bribes. The joke was, a kid out of the U of Chicago defended his mother for an eight-pack of toilet paper.

Jenny made a fist and rapped her knuckles once on the table. Q took an envelope out of his inside jacket pocket and placed it in front of her. She picked it up, looked inside, counted the bills, and nodded.

The two security men grabbed his arms and guided him across the room to a door. One of them opened it and moved ahead, into Mosca’s office.

He followed. The other guard shut the door and stood in front of it.

The office was large with no windows. The walls were dull dented metal. The only pieces of furniture were a long white couch and two scarred wooden folding chairs. Bull’s-head Mosca, dressed in his tan suit, sat on the couch.

Mosca. Big chest, big belly, cheap shoes. Orchid cologne. Tired face, but tight skin. He’d been swaddled in the bullrushes of Lake Michigan. Dirty feet running on stones, foster homes, small-time collector of protection money, law school at night, muscled his way into city government as a private conduit for defense lawyers on major felonies.

Mosca frowned. “This case has tricks.”

“Immunity,” Q said.

“Good, John Q. Good.”

“Because,” Q said, “if it turns out the principal party has a deal to do everything he’s capable of doing, it torpedoes…everybody.”

Mosca nodded. “But do confirming documents exist?”

Then Mosca was standing next to Q. Mosca took his arm and walked him to the right, into a kitchen that hadn’t been there before. They exited from a side door and climbed a short flight of steps. Mosca opened another door on to the roof.

“The shed,” he said.

In the middle of the roof was a wooden structure.

The padlock was open and hanging from a chain. They stepped inside and Mosca turned on a light. Q shut the door. Tools were arranged on shelves. An open cabinet was stacked with brooms and shovels and an old shotgun. They sat down on two rickety chairs.

“There’s a new priest born every minute,” Mosca said. They have a special facility for hijacking and depersonalizing. That’s all this planet is. Depersonalized faith. That’s the Atlas holding up the world. And now he’s watching and spying, to make sure it stays intact.”

A canyon opened up. Another Earth, like this one. A glimpse and it shut down, closed its mouth.

Q stepped out of a car. Bobby, who was driving, also got out. He handed the keys to a parking robot and strolled off toward the American Airlines sports book. Q crossed the sidewalk and stopped in front of a cast-iron door. He rang the bell. He was standing under a video camera.

A voice said, “Name, please.”

Q held up his cert card.

“Weapons?” the voice said.


“Just a minute.”

They were running a body scan.

“What case does this pertain to?” the voice said.

“Conditions of immunity…”


“Here for a consult.”

The door buzzed. Q opened it and walked in.

He was in a pitch-black space.

As his eyes adjusted, the lights slowly rose to dim. He was inside a wire cage.

The same disembodied voice said, “Where did you attend law school?”

“University of Michigan.”

“Your thesis adviser’s name?”

“Professor Morris Gold.”

“And the title of the thesis?”

“Currents in Pre-Trial Hearings.”

The grid in front of Q clicked and moved from left to right. He stepped through.

A short man in a very expensive blue suit stood there. Morris Gold. His head was clean shaven and he wore a pair of sunglasses high on his forehead.

“They’re for the light,” Morris said. “I have a condition.” He stuck out a meaty paw and Q shook it.

Floor-to-ceiling windows. Two-ton oak desk sat in the center of the room. There were hunting prints and paintings of horses and cottages on cornflower-blue walls.

“John Q,” Morris said, “Are you thinking of filing a suit? You want to know the theoretical upper limit on immunity? Well, let’s start here. A question. A dream. A thought. A derivation. A decision. The constructed God-name and function are corporatized. I’ve worked cases where the issue was raised. The courts have always blurred distinctions, because that’s their job. You tell people they’re heroes or they’re committing heresy, depending on who’s doing PR and organization for you.”

“But what is immunity actually?” Q said.

“Listen,” Gold said. “You were a smart boy in law school. Too smart. Now you’re loitering. Get on with it. Your future.”

“It’s probably just a fetish on my part,” Q said. “A little tour of old friends and bastards.”

Morris laughed. “Sentimental journey, right? Did you know the configuration of the Surveillance State is an Atlas holding up the world? There are at least a billion documents hiding inside a bead of sweat on his forehead.”

“Then I guess I want to go up against him,” Q said.

“I supposed you would,” Morris said.

“What are my options? I can’t take him to court.”

A sheet of slow lightning swam up Q’s legs and infiltrated his spine. It narrowed. It nuzzled and burned, on the way up, each bone, sheath, nerve fiber.

As in a third-generation dutiful surrealist painting, the top of Morris’ skull fell off its brass hinge. It came away clean and out rolled a small creek of dusty tears.

Q was standing in a courtroom open to the sky.

And there was a giant standing before him.

Q was facing Atlas in the dock. Atlas’ head was barely visible, an imprint behind a cloudbank. He was radiating nothing.

Q was searching for his opening.

He was searching for words.

He was building words.

He was translating silent sounds into incomprehensible text.

Hoping that every syllable and fragment would break open a wound in cartilage and penetrate to capillaries, arteries, and organs.

Every case he’d ever tried had been a symptom, every verdict a palliative. This one was the kernel of the original dream.

If he woke in his office on Michigan Avenue and realized he was still handling cases in superior court, that he was alive on Earth, that he was late for an arraignment, that he was John Q, dancing on the end of a long string, defending some minor trafficker out of Mexico City…

Was there a silent depersonalized giant standing before him, watching the world, ensuring all human factors were in place? Was this the robot other planetary civilizations would see when they looked at Earth from space?

Was Q merely some mechanical dinosaur in a roadside rest stop?

Was something wound up to eat the universe?

Exit From the Matrix

Q hesitated on the impersonal God’s burning staircase, its rails like the manes of horses; the sound of flames was too great for conversation—“Have you ever met God, perhaps in his summer house in Zurich, did you know he rents a whole wall of safety deposit boxes at the Caisee d’Epargne?”

The pale blue ceiling of heaven had not yet caught on fire, although the six-pointed gold stars gleamed so brightly in it Q thought they would begin to fall out of the sky.

Now he was hovering above the Loop. Below him, clogs of soldiers fumbled with their weapons. Finally they lined up outside the Cafe Martin under the long canopy and a sergeant ordered Q to descend.

He rose higher, even with tenth-story office windows in the Grayford Building, where lawyers discuss divorces with women of the everlasting thigh.

As he hovered there, identity as one coalesced fine molecular structure evaporated. The birds of astral masks fell to the street and smashed. He seemed to have eyes all the way around my head.

He rose until he was in the clouds and saw the curvature of the Earth.

Now, he saw the face of Atlas. The blank face. He saw the impersonal eyes, as if they were an opening clue.

He gauged the whole face built into a pose of Roman nobility.

He hovered in front of the face.

He addressed Atlas:

“I’ve got many questions,” he said. “Answer as completely as you can. As completely as your programming will permit. Maybe we can go even further. I want all this on the record.”

Atlas inclined his head ever so slightly.

The accompanying sound, a creak, somehow reminded Q of a planet shifting in its orbit.

“Consider me your master,” Q said. “I’m here to run a check on your…space and time. The basis of your immunity.”

Jon Rappoport


20 comments on “Atlas

  1. From Québec says:

    Atlas this and Atlas that… the bible of the Elites.

    But, who’s fault is it?

    Atlas, the enduring god who lost the war, was condemned by Zeus, to stand forever holding up the heavens. Herakles told Atlas that he would replace him holding the Heavens, if he would go and steal the Hesperides golden apples of immortality. There we go again with… apples. The apples, roots of all evil.
    Are the Elites running short of imagination?

    But Herakles tricked him and Atlas had to take back his eternal heavy duty and he turned into stone. Some say: that he was metamorphosed into a mountain. Who knows?


    Well, consider that Atlas had the time to eat one of the apple, he would now be immortal. Is Immortality immunity? I guess it is.

    Consider also that he turned into stone. Do stones have immunity? I guess they do. Can’t bring a stone to court.

    If Atlas is now a mountain, the question is do mountains have immunity? I believe they must have it, since now corporations have immunity.

    So what does that leave us with? Not much. The short story who turned out to be a long story, asked many questions but offered no answer.

    It’s anyone’s guess!

    • Gökmen says:

      Story is like a painting. You can get lost looking at (or reading) It. Jon shows how to do It. Again and again.



      This is the twist, where Q gets killed.

      Then Q confronting the Atlas, “in a courtroom open to the sky”. He was back to source now.

      “He was searching for words.
      He was building words.
      He was translating silent sounds into incomprehensible text.”
      That is true power which he ignored whole lifetime.

      After spending a whole lifetime, being Q, he Is forced to remember. Who actually he is. Asks big questions, after losing his own space and time ‘immunity’ see?


      Too late Q..well, maybe next time around.

  2. From Québec says:

    WOW! You have just nailed it!

    If humans do not wake-up now to their incredibly huge power of imagination and creativity, they will lose everything.

    I read the article again, and with the insight of your comment, it all made sense. Jon writes so well and in such a special style, that it is hard for me sometimes to understand what he really means. Translation in French doesn’t help one bit, it just makes it more confusing. I guess translation sites need help.

    Thank you for your feedback. Now, all I have to do is remember that Jon writes paintings. It will make it so much easier to debunk…lol

    “Sometimes stories turn into other stories.”

    That should have been a clue, just like paintings do.

    • Gökmen says:

      Thank you, for another compliment. I did nothing, It’s the magician, Jon does all the work here. Sharing his tools. Like nucleus of an atom. He creates such gravity, so we can all gather around. And he doesn’t even break a sweat doing it. Teaching us how It all goes.

      I had a talent when I was a kid: I used to love painting. These school teachers, put my paintings on competitions. Then I hated It. I started destroying whatever I painted. Because I wasn’t painting to show someone. This probably was the biggest education on my life, contributed me to gain a sense of individuality at such young age.

      So I can sense, where there are these long sleeves, long texts, Its made to hide something. Like magicians, wearing a long sleeve so they can hide their trick inside.

      Because..well, I am a magician, I hid myself, all my life from myself. So I know.

      Jon Is many things, his work made me remember who I am at first place so..I know, thanks to him.

      I probably listened his interviews hundreds of times which available free on utube, I don’t have money to buy his books or works.

      and you know, don’t rush. I like the way Jon talks, It also helped me to remember a lot. He doesn’t rush. So, my personal and humble advice to you too, don’t rush. Stop thinking about bunch of humans, humanities, elites, stuff like that… Just take your own time, your own mind, your own self. Which is out there, a wind making that leaves dance. It’s all there, just sit and watch. It’s not so hard to do this BUT It’s very tricky, evading your conscious attention is tricky..

      My dad, we had conversations before he leave. He always tried to teach me one thing at last moments “If you know how to listen, that’s the should be able to listen, wholeheartedly.”

      So, listening Is not just being able to ‘listen’.. It has It’s own profession. No institution teaches you how to listen..they all pollute you..but Just listen, It done wonders for me.

      Who am I? Just a kid of a working man born In third world, Turkey. I couldn’t even saved him from big pharma. I had nothing. You say translations, french to this to that. You don’t need none of that. Things vibrate already.

      Just listen, and that meaning make yourself able to “truely” listen..

    • Michael Burns says:

      Ok … enough already
      …his head is big enough already.
      He’s writing his articles as poems now.
      Soon hell be writing about vaccines and the TPP on Iambic pentameter. Or frickin Haiku.

      “TPP AND TEN

      -michito burnsati

  3. From Québec says:

    I took a break from packing my stuff and followed your advice.
    I sat down comfortably, closed my eyes and listen to the 22 minute video.

    I realized something new. Music, is also just another way of painting.
    The things I’ve seen just listening to that piece of music with my eyes shot, were breathtaking. I’ve travelled into the Universe, seen galaxies, stars, moons, asteroids, clouds, mountains, oceans and other form of life unknown and undefined to humans. I felt the power of life and eternity, this never ending creative process in action. I felt freedom like never before.

    My mother played piano, and all my boyfriends when I was a teen, were musicians playing in music bands. I’ve always liked music, but I realize that I have never really listen to it till now. I liked the songs better, the lyrics got my attention, but not so much the music itself. Oh boy! How did I miss on something that powerful?

    Oh well, better late than never!

    Thanks Gökmen.

    • Gökmen says:

      my distant soul relative…you have also, nailed It.
      I too first started with observing. Watched this planet earth being built up from gas clouds, then watched pyramids being built and civilization after civilizations..
      After that I’ve created so many solar systems to this tune. So many planets. But In the end I concluded, none of them can even match with this planet which we all share together.

    • Gökmen says:

      yes, music is the highest representation of art. Before words, colors, shapes, vibration comes first. This tune is very special In that matter, for me anyway. I know It all, yet I keep coming back here. Coming back to the game..I guess we all come back, for some reason. We always come back.

      • From Québec says:



        It is indeed very special. I’ve been listening to it every day since you’ve posted it. It has a way of putting you in a sort of a Trance mode. The rhythm of that music, feels like the heartbeat of the Universe.

        Listening to it relaxes me and fills me with positive and powerful energy.
        All your worries and fear goes away. This beautiful Universe will never be destroyed by humans. It will be there forever and ever. And so are we.

      • Michael Burns says:

        It appears you have never seen a Matisse or a Goya or Picasso.
        I dare to say you have missed the delicacy of line on a Shiele . The subtly of line on a silver point by Michelangelo. Stood inside a cave in lascaux and witnessed the beginning.
        Now Neal had his moment in the sun. And Cortez the killer is favorite of mind. As an artist Neal isn’t even close.

        I contest. Profusely. Whereas most of us have some form of hearing loss, and dead zones in our hearing. The vibration of sound although it is a pleasure. Is inferior to what the eyes can see and will never lie.
        The ears are the playthings of a gossip. The eyes are the window to the soul.

  4. Michael Burns says:

    I had to think about what you wrote for a day or two. But yeah I get it, imagination, moving… that words are colors and shades and tints. It’s the same connection as a painter has with a painting, as a mind would have a pencil.
    Of course mind and pencil, leads to sketching and walking to a place to sketch. Out into the sunlight, and the air, and the trees and the grass, the stones under ones feet. Walking along slowly, looking.
    Down the lane and to the right a trail goes off into the forest, you follow the trail to the forest and enter it, and as the woods thicken the trail narrows and the dappled sunlight reverts to a constant shade. He stops and slips the pencil into his back pocket.
    Walking on a little further, he stops again.
    Stepping to the right into a clearing an old house with broken glass and a screen door hangs on a bent and rusted bottom hinge. Things scattered her and there. An overturned broken chair; bird shit everywhere.
    A noise catches the ear and the eye follows it around the side of the house. You follow the noise to a door at the basement wall.
    A slanted trap door at the wall is opened and inviting, upon entering the darkness it gives way to dull stench. Aged and still in the undisturbed place, the dirt floor hard packed from the decades of walking within the confined space. Deeper indentations hint at back and forth from the doorway to…what?… the darkness in the corner.
    Upon exploration the dirt floor sound gives way to a thunk, thunk thunk. Wood beneath the feet and another door cover in the corner, you search around and find a rope handle, you open the door on the floor and see a wooden ladder made of 2×4’s entering into the hole.
    Down it goes four rungs deep to damper spot and a blackness never seen in any other place. You enter it and go down the rungs.
    At the bottom you stop for few moments and adjust your eyes.
    A clumsy movement of a foot reveals to the curious an-old-kerosine-lamp.

    Fumbling around in his pockets he searches for a light. The heartbreak of the irony in knowing he had just quit smoking the day before. He slumps his ass onto the second rung from the bottom only to hear a click clack of something at the edge of the rung…something he hit, on a string…something plastic…a bic lighter. Alas, he felt his power return, he felt lucky.

    Two flicks and the bic sparked up into yellow flame. He could see a long tunnel heading of from where he sat. Raising the glass on the lamp he put the flicked bic to the wick on the lamp, it burst into flame and the smell of kerosene filled his nostrils, he lowered the glass and turned the wick up. The light flooded the tunnel and he could see for a long way down the tunnel. Placing the lamp in his right hand he moved on down the long tunnel.
    The air was old, old as sin, musty and damp and it clawed at him. But he trod on until after what seemed about twenty minutes he could feel a slight incline to his step, it became more and more oblique and steep at each passing step. A few hundred yards more and he was at the edge of water, the tunnel ahead was flooded. There was no passing. He waved the lamp out in front of him from left to right, the light caught something in the water, about twenty feet out into the dark water. He waved again with the lamp, and the glint, something shiny made of metal, chrome metal.
    He hunkered down back onto his heals, his arm high above him and back a bit holding the lamp so it cast its light straight ahead with no glare in his eyes. The glint was down about ten feet deep in the clear dark water. He stared at it and used the lamp to focus his stare. It was…it was a tin box. A square shiny tin box out away from him about twenty feet.
    He sat down on to the ground and placed the lamp beside him, he realized now that the ground was a black sand. He stared into the water his curiosity peaking with each glance. “What the hell was in that tin box” he thought, he reached over and touched the water is was cold, colder than witches heart. The thought of not knowing what was in the tin raised his heartbeat and frustration and confusion filled his mind.
    “It wasn’t that deep.” He thought “He was a strong swimmer and the water was not that cold…he could get it…he could swim under and get it the box.”
    In an instant he was quickly undressing, first his shoes his expensive patent leather Italian shoes he got in that trip to Rome three months ago.
    Next his socks and pants, pulling his AC-DC tee-shirt off and flung it on the ground, he took a deep breath and blew out, another breath in and then out. He walked to the edge of the water and then stepping in he felt the pang of the sever cold…a second later and he plunged. The shock hit him like a brick to his heart, it exploded into a rapid beat. The cold stabbing into ever muscle. He didn’t have long.
    He lost direction he became confused and fear drowned his courage like water to flame. He came to his sense and looked around in the water, Fiercely cold on his eyeballs he struggled to see…and there it was, as clear as day the lamplight flickering off its shiny top; a square tin hinged box, to his right about three feet away. A quick brest stroke and he was on it.
    Grabbing the box he plunged out of the water striding quickly to dry land. He gasped for air and violence shaking took his body as it tried to release the deathly cold. He grab the lamp and felt the heat from its flame.
    He quickly pulled his clothes back on and turn and grabbed the box. There was a small lock clasp on the front with a bent nail through the lock hole. He slid the nail out and flipped the clasp and slowly opened the lid. Sitting it on the ground in front of him he saw a folded plastic sandwich bag with an elastic around it, inside the tin box. He took of the elastic unfolded the bag, it was…a zip lock bag. Opening the bag he found a folded piece of newspaper. It was folded in four. He unfolded the paper and saw that it was a cut out crossword puzzle, from the Sunday edition of the Washington Post.
    The puzzle was large and all the clues were filled in except the last clue in the bottom right hand corner, 101 down: Holds the world on his shoulders. “Holds the world on his shoulders.” He looked at the puzzle and counted A, blank, blank…four blanks. A five letter word starting with A. He struggled to shake the cold from his mind. Pencil! He hd a pencil in his back pocket. He reached around to his back pocket in his fine Italian Hugo Boss slacks stabbing his hand in the right pocket he pulled out two pieces of a broken pencil. The shortest piece about one and half inches long it was the sharpen end, it was enough though to write the clue.
    A five letter word starting with A, “Holds the world on his shoulders.”….AH..AAAH….AHHHTlas. Atlas, yes Atlas holds the world on his shoulders. Grabbing the crossword he marked the last four letters, T_L_A_S. ATLAS, yes.
    He stood up and then grabbed the lamp. The light started to flicker he could see it struggle, glancing to the glass base he could see the fuel was nearly spent their wasn’t much time left. He wished he had brought the lighter dangling on the end of the string on the ladder. But he had quit smoking, and had stopped pocketing lighters that weren’t his.
    He turned to walk back up the tunnel only to see what looked like a handle on the wall of the tunnel.
    The flame on the lamp flickered and danced and gasped its last few seconds, it would dark. It would be pitch black. He looked again at the handle on the wall, reaching for it as the last light gasped from the lamp. Blackness swallowed him as he turn the handle. Silence.
    A roar turned into a gush and he heard a huge flushing sound saw a bright light were the water had been and a slowly opening door and the blinding white light of the daylight pouring in. He walked forward on the wet black sand out into the light and the warmth. He squinted his eyes and focused, he was standing on a black sand beach with the tide rushing up to his feet. He looked up to a yellow sun and felt it warmth on his cool face. He heard a gull squeal high above him.
    A breeze brushed by and he let go of the crossword in his hand. And the paper rose and it caught the wind and rose high over the surf. High and fastly moving out toward the sea. He strode along the water edge and threw the little piece of pencil into the surf.

  5. From Québec says:



  6. From Québec says:

    (Michael Burns)


    I’m not so sure about that, Michael.

    What you see in a dark room is not the same as you see in a room where the lights are on. But what you hear in a dark room is the same as what you hear in a room where the lights are on.

    Take a commercial ad for instance. If you only show the picture of what you want to sell, nobody will care about it. But, if you add a song, music or words, everybody will remember it.

    As far as “The eyes are the windows of the soul”, I believe it only means that the eyes reflect your inner spirituality, whether you are a good or bad person. It’s easy to see good or evil in someone’s eyes. It is even easier to debunk people speaking… the tone of their voices, the words they chose, their gestures, pauses, tics, etc.

    Sometimes, I watch the Alex Jones Show, and sometimes, I just listen to it. I’ve noticed that I retain more information just listening to it than watching it. Watching distracts your concentration.

    Roaring sounds coming from the Earth, tell you that something big is coming… an earthquake, a volcano eruption, a tsunami, etc. much more earlier that the eyes can see.

    Besides, Music can reach more people than a painting does. Music is everywhere. Plus, music has the power to draw pictures in your mind, it stimulates your imagination and creativity. Whereas when you are confronted with a beautiful painting, you are disarmed and in shock, sort of paralysed. in front of the masterpiece.

    And on top of that, I’ve also done a bit of research on the subject and I found out this:

    “Sound waves move through the air with astonishing speed. But what happens when they reach your ears? In fact, your ears are so fine-tuned they can process information 1,000 times faster than your eyes.

    • Gökmen says:

      Great analogy about ‘babies’. Only a woman could point that out so, thank you.

      what we call reality Is a dance. Atoms have electrons, dancing around them. Protons etc, all sub-atomic particles..also the solar system. They all dance. It’s a dance, and there Is music but we are not able to hear It and thats the good part. Because EVERYTHING is music, nothing solid would manifest If we could hear all and that Is boring.

      I think thats why we invented this game.

      I agree with Mike, we can’t hear most of It. But IT’s there. A dance, happening all together, so vivid, so true. Some of these talented musicians can translate what they can, but we all know It, cuz we made ourselves out of atoms. We made ourselves, like babies, as From Québec put it. We kept complicating ourselves and here we are now.

      As Alan Watts puts It: you are a whirlpool, you will be there for some time but like ocean waves, universe peoples and your wave will disappear after some time.

      Yes eyes are important but, the mind’s eye is more important: imagination. That sets you free from 5 senses and gets you beyond. Makes you ‘remember’ , sort of.

      like this piece

      • From Québec says:

        “I agree with Mike, we can’t hear most of It.” (Gökmen)

        Sure, but it is the same thing with eyes. We cannot see the Universe.

        We tend to take the human eye for a camera, but unfortunately, it is not the case. The human eye only sees one small portion in the center of our vision. The contours of the image appear fuzzy, and we all have a blind spot, as on the rear view mirrors of a car.

        Most birds and insects can see the ultra-violet and certain creatures can even see in the infra-red, but the human beings can only see what we call the visible light. Therefore, that reduces the vision of the world for men.


        Sure, it seems logic, but then again, do waves really exist? If not, how can they die?

        In my mind, waves are just an activity of the ocean, not really a thing of its own, not a substance by itself. The “disappearing wave” shall always live since it is the ocean itself calming down.

        I wish I could have better words to explain what I’m trying to say here.

  7. From Québec says:

    Post Scriptum:

    Sorry Michael, if I keep adding stuff here, my mind doesn’t seem to want to shut down…lol.

    They say babies in the womb hear sounds. But they don’t see yet. Poor babies, imagine the horror of the ultrasound check they do on them…it must be torture.

    When they are born, they communicate with sounds, like crying. Sing them a lullaby and they will quiet down.

    Wouldn’t that prove that hearing is the prime and most important sense we have? Newborn Babies have nearsighted vision, they do not see you coming, but they can hear you coming.

  8. wolfy says:

    I admit I like 1990s era old school techno for a reason.

  9. Michael Burns says:

    “But, if you add a song, music or words, everybody will remember it” -Q

    That’s not because they wish to remember it…jingles are specifically crafted, psychologically designed to cause you to remember. That’s a form of sound hypnosis, a form of brainwashing. Jingles are the advertiser abusing you. Abusing your appreciation of music.
    Most times those jingles are an annoyance to listen to…but you are caught with this dam jingle in your head. That is not music.
    When the Rolling Stones allowed windows to use the song “Start me up” to sell their new edition of the software, I lost interest in the Stones because of that. I don’t listen to them anymore.


    Have to disagree again, what you hear in a dark room is assisted by the imagination and sound can become more intense in the dark, emotions are more profound. Classical especially is much better in the dark. Music in the light is assisted by what you see in the room. Or out a window. Personally I prefer music in a dark room. An opera played in a dark room is wonderful.


    There is a lot of music about, whither we can call all of it music leaves much to debate. A lot of what is called music is noise.
    I would care to say that a painting leaves the greater impact.

    Is sound the most important, I don’t know. Everyone has a preference…you seem to like sound. I like visuals. A lot of people don’t see. They look but they don’t see. There’s a difference.
    I have heard the human defined as; Five galloping horses on a grand chariot, with a rider with no reins. The horses are the five senses, the chariot and no reins is the ego. The rider is the spirit of the man being dragged around life by five senses and an ego.

    • From Québec says:

      “…you seem to like sound. I like visuals.” Michael.

      Not really. I just think that sound in a way, is more powerful, only and because, it gives you creative visuals in your mind. So you get the better of the two arts. Pay for one, get the other free…lol. Get it?

      Whereas a stunning painting only stuns me, but no music appears in my mind. No free other art…hahaha!

      “Jingles are the advertiser abusing you. Abusing your appreciation of music.”

      I agree a 100% with you on that. Still, you have to admit, that it is the only way to get people’s attention. I guess we could call it: The advertizing art of a snake oil salesman.

      “Have to disagree again, what you hear in a dark room is assisted by the imagination and sound can become more intense in the dark, emotions are more profound.” (Michael)

      Well, you have just proven my point right there. Sound creates visuals in your mind, this is why I think sound is more powerful.
      I fully will agree with you that music with your eyes shut or in a dark room become more intense, and this is when creative visuals invades your mind.

      I enjoyed your paragraph with the 5 horses. Quite brilliant!

      Anyway, Michael, both of us are probably right, who knows? It might differ from one person to another… or from a woman or a man point of view.

      Always a pleasure to exchange ideas with you.

      • From Québec says:

        Post-Scriptum as usual:

        Somehow, I always find better words to explain myself, right after I’ve just posted my comment.

        When I listen to music which creates all sorts of visuals in my mind, it makes me want to go back to painting full time.

        But, when I look at a beautiful painting, I have no desire to go back and play the piano again.

        In fact, I hated piano when I was a teen, because my mother wouldn’t let me go out with my friends if I did not do my daily hour of practice session. Honestly, I didn’t care much about these piano lessons and practices. I would much prefer hanging around with my friends at the french fried’s joint.

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