I was going through a box of stuff I’ve been meaning to go through. There amongst the pelican feathers and the old to-do lists was a pile of floppy disks.
I happen to have my USB floppy drive right here on the desk, so I hook it up and slip in the disk labelled ‘Some Writing.’
Back when I made that disk, ‘some writing’ was what I thought was the best of the stories and essays I’d written up to that point. Modification dates on the files are from 1993 and 1995. I guess I didn’t write anything in 1994.
Nine items. One of them is called ‘kooks’ and is a URL to a web page that doesn’t exist any more. So eight.
I think my favorite is ‘After The Shipwreck,’ just because I remember enjoying the writing of it.
So after the shipwreck, he just sat around and pretended.
Wasn’t much else to do, after all, except pick bananas and swim in the lagoon. Occasionally he’d trap some bird or catch a fish, but for the most part he survived on fruit and rain water.
His water collector and his lean-to were the only man-made things on the island, and even those were only man-assembled from parts nature had made. Later on, much into the future, he would eventually build an actual hut, to protect him from the occasional storm that swept through. But as of yet, he still lived in a lean-to he had scraped together just after the shipwreck.
So. He’d eat and swim and lay about and pretend.
He’d pretend that there were other people there with him. Other people from a race that didn’t ever need to eat and that never got sick. They came to the island in a space ship and could leave any time, but they stayed because they enjoyed being there and talking to him. He was, after all, a fascinating conversationalist. [..]
There’s one called ‘Dance’…
Then I saw her emerge from the blackness, backlit by the moon, which was hovering over the shoulder of the mountain.
She wasn’t breathtakingly beautiful, it was more the way she moved. She didn’t see me; she was oblivious to my presence. It seemed she was oblivious to everything. In her hand she held something, a horn, or maybe a conch shell of some sort, which she pressed to her ear.
Her movements were like the finest ballet, although that doesn’t do it justice. I saw ballet once in the city; ballet is rehearsed and choreographed. Her movement was inspired, natural, spontaneous. There was no music, though I could begin to feel her guiding rythms, there in the meadow. All was silent but for her feet daintily touching the ground, and my baited shallow breath. I sat, unmoving, unable to really understand the situation. I had thought I would be alone on this mountaintop…
See a pattern? 
It’s kind of embarassing, actually, but at the same time it’s like looking at pictures from when you were a little kid, seeing what you thought was important then.
My mom was very supportive of the stories. She said they were good, even if maybe they weren’t that good. I think she tried not to let the themes of lonliness and alienation worry her too much.
Here’s a poem from 1995:
DreamTime
There’s a show on TV called
Hometime
Where an attractive rich white couple
Mid 30s
Add a deck to their house
Or, put in their own landscaping
Or, install a septic tank
Or, re-wire the house so they’ll
Have enough juice for the
57 inch television
And the Jacuzzi they’ll be installing
Next week
So I’m wondering,
Do the Austrailian natives believe
That when you are dreaming
That your dreams are actually being built
By a pair of yuppies
Who want to feel as though
They’ve ‘accomplished something?’
After all, quite often my dreams
Have that affected profundity
That is actually quite hilarious
If you know where to look
And the yuppies that build my dreams
Have a sense of that absurdity
Like when they put puns in
Or when they make me dream of driving
The most expensive car in the universe
Only its a go-cart
On a track
Like at an amusement park
The kind that you can’t really steer
But you have to make payments on
For the rest of your entire life
