one sure thing amidst this blanket of incertitude.
b.-
my body misses yours.
-g.
frankly, mr. shankly, i don’t think you write awful poetry.
[mr_shankly] what time is it?
[portapop] it’s 3am here. there?
[mr_shankly] ouch. what are you doing up? i love my bed too much to leave it alone for too long.
[portapop] oh i love my bed too. but i’ve been having a hard time putting myself to sleep lately.
[mr_shankly] any reason why?
[portapop] i’m not sure. it’s just that when i lie down and close my eyes, random thoughts endlessly race through my mind. one thought immediately after another.
[portapop] you know how in movie theaters, one moment, everything’s black, and the next moment it isn’t. the screen flickers to life with one sequence after another and you have no other choice but to watch everything because you’re there already. the screen too.
[portapop] it’s worse when you sleep. with guaranteed front-row seats, the images roll faster, and the story lines seem more real.
[portapop] flicker flicker flicker.
[portapop] anyway, how bout you? how are you today?
[mr_shankly] i know how that feels…
[mr_shankly] and i’m a bit sad these days. the kind of sad that goes with missing a person who has not even left yet, but will be doing so very soon.
[portapop] i see.. someone leaving.. and someone about to be left behind.
[mr_shankly] yeah. i have this friend going to Europe. i made up a story for her and she was the story.
[portapop] that’s sweet.
[mr_shankly] a lot of times, people don’t live up to the stories i make up. but she did.
[mr_shankly] it’s like i look around and i see tears in this picture i call life. and i can peak through and see another picture.
[portapop] another picture, a lovelier one that is her.
[mr_shankly] exactly.
[mr_shankly] every June i sleep for days on end.
[portapop] why only in June?
[mr_shankly] she always leaves on a June day.
[mr_shankly] and every March i start to miss her.
aww.
une femme enamouree?
i
get
what
i
want
then
i’m
not
sure
i
want
it
anymore
…
Why I want to be a Bokononist
So I said good-bye to government,
And I gave my reason:
That a really good religion
Is a form of treason.
The First Book
Warning from title page: Don’t be a fool! Close this book at once! It is nothing but foma! (Def. : Foma are “lies”; “harmless untruths”; “a useful and harmless sort of horseshit”)
Verse 5: Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.
The Fourteenth Book
[ A short book with a long title. ]
Title: What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?
Only verse: Nothing.
On history:
History! Read it and weep!
Of course it’s trash!
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.
On the end of the world:
Someday, someday, this crazy world will have to end,
And our God will take things back that He to us did lend.
And if, on that sad day, you want to scold our God,
Why just go ahead and scold Him. He’ll just smile and nod.
Bokonon’s Final Sentence
If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who.
