Rich Paulsy is a Coward

Now, don't blame the messenger.

I sure as hell didn't put it up there, rip it off the side, convince it to run through town or take on a life of its own.

Let's move back, shall we.

Cold morning. Rain sheeting the windshield, but the ignition is off now. Just the radio and the fan to keep the steam off the inside of the windows while I wait for my train.

Early? No - false alarm, that's just a freight that rides a parallel line with mine.

They can be noisy bastards - come and watch the platform and see how many people have their hands over their ears as the screech of metal on metal gives the second and final notice that the train is HERE, get ready, all aboard kids.

But when they keep moving, all good, just a thumble runder of wheels on steel, load shifting as one two ten 100 cars go past, metal snake making its way left to right past to present to future. Lot of writing on the side, me thinks as I watch the beast trundle by.

And THAT's when the strange shite starts. Rich Paulsy is a coward. Straight and narrow script, stick letters, and as it moves from my present to the future (to my left, in front of me, to my right). And out of the periphery of my vision -(you know the space where ghosts and intuition tease you and flirt with each other) I see movement. Careful now so as not to derail the happenings - no pun intended. Peripheral vision happenings are very cat like - you know, the little feline coming down the hall, you approach with clippers and intent, and if that intent is borne of your headlight vision preceding you, the cat will pick up on it and take off. Same with the peripheral vision - if the happenings in that space even suspect you are about to focus full attention front and center on them, well, they just return to form and the shows over.

So I'm careful. Mood supports my intention, grace I guess, you can't control these things - sometimes it either works or it doesn't - but out of the side of my vision I can see the words start to peel off the side of the train - like one of those kids tattoos coming off of its backing and now its completely off, fluttering like a leaf towards than away from me and now

I can't help it, I've got to have me a look-see. And what I see is the words wrapping themselves into a running form - not exactly human, but close to, and running. Full out sprint now and I've been made. Rich Paulsy is a Coward makes eye contact with me (it's two 'i's lighting up and tracking me like a laser pointer) then disconnect and it runs as fast and as hard as it can into a building and

fuka

It's now up there. Same script, different location.

Train hasn't stopped moving throughout this whole event, I squint to see the container car it came from and it looks like the writing is gone there...

But this is one of those things that lives in the spaces, that can only be acknowledged by grace or luck (maybe luck IS just grace) and doesn't need to be quantified or verified - I just KNOW.

But, as if to underscore it, there's another performance. And another.

Letters are flying off of the train now, Heisenberg's graffiti cleaning service front and center and now they don't seem to give a rats ass if I watch or not.

It's a strange dance now, kids. The alphabet is out in front of me in a tornado whirl, a carnival merry go round of fantastic proportions, words forming and dissolving, a linguistic trinity creating sustaining and destroying (but never really destroyed, just back in the soup) and the colours are there, and the Sounds. The sounds of the mechanics of creation, a deep hum that is marching band and solitary voice and terrible thunder and falsetto cry of a bird on the wind all threaded together in a fantastic cacophony that finally

Explodes

And the letters with it. They DO know they've been made. By me and a couple of others with the i's to see. They explode and cascade down in the city, splattering against building sides and sidewalks and bins and cars.

I close my eyes to hold the vision and the bright burning after image is collapsing on itself into a single three lettered word that ties the city together north to south east to west

aum.