do not submit unless it truly your time to submit and you feel invincible, for it is nearly impossible to get something accepted right now because we have more than enough stuff all ready to post
WHITEWASH
BY JENNY BITNER

The Army of resistance is knocking at your door. You want to answer, but it’s hard to get up from your chair. You want to go and get a cup of tea to drink while you sit here, but all you can really do is sit here. 

Miles away, a small girl runs after a balloon. You remember the film the red balloon that showed a child chasing a balloon. You hated that film. Adults like the film and thought it was for children. It drove you crazy. Let him catch it and be done. Let something happen.
Children like things to happen.

You are over that. Now you would be happy if nothing ever happened. You think about re-watching the red balloon, or was it blue?  Miles away, a woman and a man have a dinner of microwave pasta and green beans. The old man is sad because he is losing his sight. Some day you will get so slow that you can do nothing. Already it seems to be happening. 

White could cover everything. That is a spiritual idea. White could cover everything and that would be the end. This is how you think about painting. If you painted, you would like to just paint everything white. The idea of whitewash holds a lot of fascination for you. You read an article about making whitewash. The key to whitewash is that it wears away at different rates in different areas making a nice, rustic look. 

Perhaps the whole world has been whitewashed and you are seeing things as they wear away. Over there you see a child. You see a man that you love. You see some flowers that you never saw before. You see that all of this can exist on one realm, but in the other realm everything is perfectly still.

“I’m tired, so tired. I don’t have any time to just be still.” That was what the man on the radio who was a human shield in Palestine was saying. “There is terrible news all the time and no time to relax.”

The picture keeps getting more and more white. That’s how it ends. That’s where the spiritual dimension comes in. Everything is exactly the same—corpses, jealous fights, flowers, children, murderers, balloons, traffic, high-rises, clouds, beautiful noses, but it keeps getting covered more and more with white strokes. The question for you is: is the white covering the world, or is the world wearing away and uncovering the white underneath? Nobody answers this question.

You’re losing your sight and you don’t move and this is the world—covered and uncovered—showing you pieces of itself. The white is on top of the world or under the world. It is in the sky that we climb to as we rise up. “Just go into the white light,” the spiritually earnest man tells the dying man and the dying man realizes there is only one place to go. 

But have you seen a gardenia? It is a beautiful creamy white color. It eats itself and its mouth is white after it has swallowed itself and when it is all gone the only thing that is left is the space where it had been before. To you it’s like white cake with white icing. When you eat cake like that, it’s really like eating nothing at all because white makes everything disappear and so you are swallowing nothingness covered with nothing. 

     [Forever after at http://eyeshot.net/bitner.html]

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ME MUERO DE AMOR POR TODO ABAJO

pboz #5 is now absolutely available - hobart #4 is still available - boom #1 is totally freaking available, too

david barringer's "terminally curious" - his "johnny red" - charles ullmann's strategies 4 modern living

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