ON A CELL PHONE, THE ADDED FEATURES (PLATFORMS, SHORT STORIES, YEAR AHEAD, ETC.) CAN BE ACCESSED FROM THE TOP LEFT HAND CORNER (STACKED LINES). ALSO, THE ‘TRANSLATE’ & WORLD CLOCK WILL APPEAR AT THE BOTTOM.
在手機上，添加的功能（平臺，短篇小說，提前一年等） 可以從左上角訪問（堆疊線）。
*** All times / dates: Please remember that all time references (e.g., “dawn”) are PDT – Pacific DAYLIGHT Time zone. You can refer to the World Clock in the sidebar for more listings or Google ‘time zone converter’.
Email: suningem@gmail.com
Tim’s YouTube links: Unveiling Astrology
Unveiling Astrology Part 2)
START NOTHING: (ALL TIMES ARE PACIFIC DAYLIGHT):: Before 3:46 pm Sun., 2:54 am to 3:35 pm Tues., 3:27 pm Wed. to 5:07 pm Thurs., and 3:13 pm to 9:57 pm Sat.
PREAMBLE:
ALL SIGNS: Start no new projects, relationships nor big purchases before July 23 (3:58 pm PDT). Stick with the ongoing, or reprise past projects, connections.
***
I have just paid extortion funds of over $2400 to Blue Host, an organization that put their claws around this blog a couple of years ago and demands that I pay them $2400 a year or else they will just shut my blog down; this website will disappear.
I am rather fed up at paying extortionists such as Blue Host for a blog that I produce for free. So I have just paid these crooks over $2400 today, but I am shutting this Astralreflections site down in one year. So if there’s anything you want to keep, copy it in the next 12 months. I might even quit sooner.
***
I apologize for the very long Sun-sign messages this week. Jupiter has just gone into Leo, which is my chatterbox sign. I will try to keep the forecasts shorter in future. As Abe Lincoln or someone once said, it’s easier to write something long than something short.
WEEKLY FORECAST:
ARIES: March 21-April 19
The emphasis remains on your domestic situation, Aries. It’s a good time to rest, garden, vacation with the kids, repair, and contemplate. Don’t start new projects before Thursday night. The year ahead holds fantastic luck in romance, teaching kids, adventure, creative and speculative projects. You will ride a winning streak, especially on even-numbered months. You speak much more easily now to mid-August, but in a bigger sense now to 2032. Travel will fulfill your restlessness. Co-workers are pleasant now to early August; one might be willing to “join together.” (But probably not a good idea.) Early Sunday is for routine and talk. This mid-afternoon to Tuesday mid-afternoon (PDT) brings domestic concerns — easy ones Sunday, not so easy Monday (avoid practical ventures) and perfectly okay Tuesday. This afternoon to Thursday suppertime offers romance, creative urges, charming kids, and a winning streak — all beautifully lucky Tues. and Wed., but giving “empty results” Thurs. Still, this interval is a taste of what’s to come for 12 months. Tackle chores Thursday eve through Saturday. Eat, dress sensibly. Friday contains a few obstacles (and a bit of beauty) but Saturday flows smoothly.
TAURUS: April 20-May 20
This is your last full week of fulfillment, Taurus. Popularity, social fun, optimism, entertainment and some sensual flirting — these are sprinkled through your days. Remember, start no new relationships, major purchases nor projects before late day on July 23. Instead, stick with the old. Money will pour your way until August 11 — bank it; spending will disappoint. Two weeks ago you began a 12-month trend that will bless you in real estate, a home, children, security, furniture, renovations, and anything connected to Mother Nature (mining, agri, etc.). A streak of romance has just started, lasting to Aug. 6. Sunday early focuses on money, spending, and casual sex. This afternoon to Wed. afternoon highlights communications, paperwork and errands, reports, casual friends. Late Sunday through Monday afternoon holds practical, emotional and “disruptive” obstacles — but Tuesday straightens out, offers solutions. Be home, hug the family, garden, cook, rest, contemplate Tuesday afternoon to suppertime Thursday (PDT). Tuesday’s lucky, Wed.’s smooth, “do-able.” But Thursday’s a bit empty. Thursday eve through Saturday brings creative urges, romance, charming kids, beauty and pleasure. Friday needs diplomacy.
GEMINI: May 21-June 20
You’re still focused on money, possessions and ways of increasing both, Gemini. But remember, don’t start anything brand new before July 23. Mars in your sign until August 11 makes you more active, assertive and determined — and attractive to the opposite sex. (This works better for men than women.) Your home and family remain pleasant and affectionate through the first week of August. The great money run of the last 12 months tapers off now. For 12 months ahead, the lucky and probably expanding area for you will be communications, paperwork, and short travel (which threatens to become long distance, international travel!). Writers, travelers, lawyers, scholars and persuaders will have a banner 12 months ahead. You have lots of energy Sunday, but results will be less than you hope for. This afternoon to Tuesday afternoon focuses on money, possessions, and casual intimacy. But watch Sunday eve and Monday — unexpected incidents, self-delusion and practical obstacles exist. Late Tuesday afternoon to Thursday supper time highlights the very things that will be very lucky for you in the year ahead: messaging and communications, travel, and errands, and paperwork — writing, reporting, etc. All looks good, although around midnight Tuesday, there might be a whiff of alienation or a hint that someone is not going to do what is expected. Head for home, garden, repair, hug the kids, and contemplate your situation, which is rather dicey Friday, but filled with good things late Friday night and Saturday.
CANCER: June 21-July 22
You’re still at the top of your game, Cancer. Your energy is high, your charisma is working. Use this to promote and protect ongoing projects, or pluck something/someone from your past. Avoid sketchy venues and belligerent people until mid-August. For the next seven years, you might be hooked on investments, secrets, lifestyle changes and power plays. You have just started a 12 month year of great luck in money, especially in work, industrial, health, machinery and casual sex areas. Lie low, rest and contemplate Sunday daytime. Late this afternoon your energy rises and everyone starts to pay attention to you. This lasts until Tuesday afternoon. Be careful late Sunday and Monday — higher ups might fight your ideas, and love gets a small lightning bolt. Chase money, buy/sell, pay bills, hug a sometime lover Tuesday eve to suppertime Thursday. This is a great interval, and might contain hints of extra money sources over the months ahead. Paperwork, errands and communications fill Thursday eve through Saturday. Be cautious Friday daytime, when disputes might arise. Saturday is just fine. Both days, technology has a “message” — that high tech is a good place for you to invest — but wait until July 23 onward to act.
LEO: July 23-Aug. 22
Continue to rest, avoid crowds, contemplate and attend to neglected chores, Leo. In less than two weeks, you will be soaring on your own energy and optimistic plans. But for now watch, listen and think. Your money picture looks fine for almost the four weeks ahead. Despite your weariness, your social life seems to be gaining momentum, especially if you are involved in school, law, international travel, import/export, media or opinion/influencing. If you’re single, the next seven years will bring you at least two very good partnership prospects — and you will likely meet them in a social or academic setting. Sunday daytime is happy, social and optimistic — even though very little happens. Late this afternoon (PDT) to Tuesday afternoon intensifies everything this month is about: restriction, tiredness, and interacting with either government or head office. Monday needs a lot of care here, as potholes exist. And Tuesday pretty well brings nothing. Oh well. Your energy and pizzazz shoot skyward briefly Tuesday eve to Thursday supper time — and here at last your luck is strong and good. You are hopeful Leo – stay that way! Buy/sell, pay bills, hug a sometime lover and/or learn something by rote, Thursday supper time through Saturday. Thursday and Friday contain disruption and dispute, but Friday night and Saturday flow well, and could “introduce you” to a stunning, possible “mate.”
VIRGO: Aug. 23-Sept. 22
You’re still in a good place emotionally, Virgo. You are hopeful, friendly and social, popular and flirty. Thus, for 10 more days. During these same 10 days ahead, do not start anything brand new. Stick to the ongoing, or something plucked from your past. An old wish might come true. Bosses are impatient, temperamental, and both of you are facing major technological change. Your job/career might also change, in both operations and money. You might be invited to invest in your employer’s company, or to accept shares in lieu of parr payment. This possibility is strong for 4 or 5 more weeks, but remains very likely for 7 years. You might feel the pressure of responsibility Sunday daytime, but you can relax — nothing really happens. This afternoon to Tuesday afternoon emphasizes the social, optimistic, and flirty side, but it only succeeds late Monday night and pre-dawn Tuesday (PDT). Earlier, Monday presents obstacles, esp. to relationships and money or power. Late afternoon Tuesday brings a weariness that lasts to almost suppertime Thursday — a good interval to ask advice, to liaise w/gov’t or head office regarding unfinished (perhaps even forgotten) chores. Rest, nap, and examine your past. Your energy and charisma rebound Thursday eve through Saturday. Friday’s a bit tough — stay out of a boss’s or authorities’ sight line. Saturday’s lovely, successful. You can make a great impression (or discover a path to profit) with your efforts late Friday into early Sat. Excellent time to buy a computer with AI.
LIBRA: Sept. 23-Oct. 22
The emphasis remains on your career, worldly standing, ambitions, reputation and prestige relations, Libra — for 10 more days. Strictly avoid lawsuits before July 23. Also, until that date, avoid brand new starts — stick with the ongoing or projects/people/opportunities from the past. I won’t even discuss your love life, which is extremely favoured until 2023. Until April 2028, you will find much better relations with those younger or older than you, even by a generation, than with those your own age. Now to early 2038, you can find others puzzling, even deceptive, untrustworthy. One rule: the more of a hidden agenda you have, the more others will work to deceive you. If you date Handsome Joe so all your girlfriends will be envious, Joe is sure to disappoint you. Sunday daytime is mellow, thoughtful, gently loving, but without major result. This afternoon (about 4 pm PDT) a strong career-oriented period enters, until mid-afternoon Tuesday. Don’t get too ambitious, as obstacles rule Monday. This night and very early Tuesday open a door to success. Friends, flirting, optimistic ideas and entertainment fill Tuesday afternoon to Thursday afternoon. Now good luck accompanies you. Do anything important before Thursday. Lie low, rest and contemplate Thursday eve through Sat. Friday’s tough, Saturday’s smooth, easy. Despite your tiredness, a major step might occur in love or scholarship.
SCORPIO: Oct. 23-Nov. 21
Your mellow, wise, thoughtful, gently loving side remains dominant for 10 more days, Scorpio. This favours law, far travel, higher learning, media and life philosophy. You sit on a high moral perch now, but Mars and Uranus are stirring up deep urges, urges of investigation, spying, of sex and power, of things that skirt the edges of (or fall right into) immorality. If you stay honest, you could “trip” some cosmic wires that bring potentially huge rewards. A great few weeks of change. Friends remain encouraging, sweet. An old flame could return. Most important: the 12 months ahead favour your career and position in society in grandly fortunate ways. But remember, start nothing before July 23. Sunday daytime emphasizes sex, power, big finances, and temptations — but only the last one has any “power.” Sunday afternoon to Tuesday afternoon emphasizes everything in the first two sentences above — far travel, law, philosophy, etc. Unfortunately, not much is likely to succeed, as Monday is filled with “No’s” until late afternoon (PDT) then makes a couple of stable aspects, then “goes empty” Tuesday. But Tuesday afternoon to Thursday suppertime emphasizes your career and ambitions — now with good luck. Many Scorpios will be promoted in the next 12 months. Thursday eve through Saturday brings friends, popularity, flirting and light romance, optimism and general happiness. Friday daytime’s a bit rough, but late this night and Saturday, you glide to success, esp. where home or real estate meets investment of work or money.
SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22-Dec. 21
The accent remains on mysteries, secrets, investigation, big finances, sexual temptations and lifestyle changes, Sage — for ten more days. Relations with others are heating up until Aug. 11. This can spur angry episodes, but can also mean that you’re dealing with someone who is romantically attractive. This person is more assertive than you, which gives you a certain advantage in reception. Relationships will be unpredictable, fascinating, surprising, electric, friendly, talkative. Two very serious planets stand in your romance sector, and lucky Jupiter, your planet, spends the next 12 months in your sector of far travel, higher learning, wedding, other social rituals, love and profound ideas. So, with your romantic sector, your relationship area, and your wedding/love zone all occupied for the future, a love affair might not be long in coming. And this is a love affair with a potential lifetime duration. Sunday daytime is for relationships and exploring. This afternoon (4 pm PDT) to Tuesday afternoon brings this whole month to a peak in secrets, surgeries, investigation, finances and sex. Unfortunately, Monday’s rife with problems. Late this night and very early Tuesday you might find solutions and interesting messages. Tuesday late afternoon to Thursday suppertime focuses on far travel, publishing, law, higher learning — and gentle love. Be ambitious Thursday eve through Sat. Thurs./Fri. contain problems, but Friday night and Saturday offer success — you might be “notified” that someone is interested.
CAPRICORN: Dec. 22-Jan. 20
The accent remains on relationships, opportunities, opposition, public appearances, fresh horizons and relocation ideas, Cap. Remember, don’t start anything brand new, relationships or projects, before July 23. Your relations with
others are blessed by a mellow affection, and an ability to come to agreement. However, remember that those you deal with — including a spouse or business partner, are indecisive for most of July. Commitments might not be fulfilled. Your work is hard and heavy now, but also fascinating or at least very interesting. Work will provide you with very ample funds for the next seven years. Your home is filled with importance, and deserves a deep look. Stick to routine when doing chores Sunday. Relationships and opportunities pop up late this afternoon to Tuesday afternoon. Sunday eve is fine, but Monday is filled with obstacles and disruptions until the evening, when everything rights itself again. Life’s more secret side emerges Tuesday eve to suppertime Thursday. Big finances, sexual temptations, power plays, research and investigation, commitment and consequence fill this period. Be very slow to commit, although this is a benevolent period — a good time to find a health cure, or the right doctor. A mellow mood and intellectual curiosity come to you Thursday eve through Saturday — difficulties or wrong ideas Thursday into Friday supper time, but Friday night and Saturday deal you a winning hand, esp. in legal, learning, travel and love zones.
AQUARIUS: Jan. 21-Feb. 18
Ten more days of work, Aquarius. Remember, don’t start any new relationships, projects or major purchases before July 23. If you are single, the year ahead brings the best relationship and partnership opportunities in over a decade. For all Aquarians, this year ahead will be filled with opportunities, public appearances, relocation themes — and arguments, if you so choose. Already your work is being interrupted somewhat by creative and romantic urges — but keep at the work, it must be done. Romance (and creative involvements) have two phases: the first, lasting until August 11, is hot and heavy, and involves a lot of talk, messaging or travel. The second phase started a few months ago, and will last for almost 7 years. This phase is almost like Alice in Wonderland — it features sudden attractions, instant life mates in some cases, huge creative output, and a whole bunch of serendipity! Sunday daytime hints at all this, but doesn’t yield results. It’s a little early. Tackle chores — carefully — Sunday eve to late Tuesday afternoon. Monday holds some obstacles, especially if there are moving parts. (E.g., the wheels on a vacuum cleaner.) Relationships and opportunities flow your way Tuesday supper time to Thursday supper time — look carefully, Aquarius, because here lie hints of the great, lucky opportunities facing you until July 2027. Commitments and consequences, big finances, sexual temptations, lifestyle changes, medical decisions, secrets, and research — these fill Thursday suppertime through Saturday — bad until Friday suppertime, then excellent Friday night through Saturday, when you might see how your future unfolds.
PISCES: Feb. 19-March 20
Ten more days of sweet romance, good creative urges, speculative success, and a winning streak, Pisces. You might be dealing with an old flame (or promoting a past creative opus) — a trend that started at the end of June and goes until July 23. Your home might be a bit chaotic or dispute prone until August 11. If you can wait until after July 23, you could do some significant renovations. In any case, these weeks of “action in the home” are the start of, or at least a precursor of, the major changes that will occur in your home now to 2033. Someone is quite receptive to you now into August 8 — offering love and respect. If you don’t know who this is, you can find him or her by asking questions. The 12 months ahead will fill your plate with work. (And are a good time to buy machinery — after July 23). For the next 13 years, you will be more focussed on earning money than on anything else, including love. Spend Sunday daytime at home. Nothing important here. Late this afternoon to late afternoon Tuesday, your romantic and creative instincts swell — but without any good result through Monday afternoon. This night, things smooth out. Tackle chores late Tuesday afternoon to suppertime Thursday. Eat and dress sensibly. You will get a lot done, and if you’re unemployed, you might end that state. Relationships, opportunities and opposition, fresh horizons, maybe a public appearance — these fill Thursday eve through Saturday. Thursday/Friday have problems, but Friday night and Saturday run well, especially in matters that effect your home and your need for security.
THE END.
AFTERAMBLE
For the next 12 months, I would buy entertainment stocks, such as Electronic Arts, Disney, streaming services, films, and plays, and secondarily the industries that these entertainments support.
From August 2027 to the same month in 2028, I think agricultural stocks will rise. That includes adjacent industries, such as potash providers. However, be careful and make sure you know what is going to expand or rise. For example, if crop product crop production really expands, then prices will fall. But if there’s a drought, which this planet can also cause and expand, prices can sosr. Adjacent in Adjacent industries will not be quite as volatile.
***
If you watch plants, especially flower plants, you’ll see that they bend toward the sun all day long. So in the morning, they are bent towards the east, and by sunset, they have bent towards the west. But if you look carefully, you’ll see that the band of the stem towards the east in the morning is at least twice as deep as the bend towards the west at sunset.
This puzzled me for a long time. I could see that the stem had all night to slowly crawl back to face the east with its leaves and flowers. But that didn’t explain why the flower didn’t bend as far west in the sunset as it did east in the sunrise.
Then I realized that in the morning, the flower is empty of sun energy because it has used it all night in growing roots and doing other things. So in the east pointed morning, the flower might be, say, 20% retained sun energy and 80% empty. This emptiness will fill up very quickly – some grass and other plants will straighten from flat to 4 foot high in an hour – I have no way of measuring, but I just suspect that this empty flower will absorb sunlight at a rate of say 20 units per hour for the first hour or two. But by the time the flower has absorbed Centre sun energy for 12 hours on a summer’s day, it might only have 10 or 15% of receptive capacity left. Say 15% – that means 7 1/2% per hour absorption rate. So the plant adapt adapt to this reality by leaning more toward the sun in the morning, and although still toward it much less so in a final hours of day light. Whether this is intelligence or biology, I don’t know.
***
Israel had better be careful. In one recent report, the IDF claim to have killed 20+ terrorist and arrested many more, both in Gaza and in eastern Israel. These are not terrorist, they are more like waves, the first waves of invasion. Israel must struggle to maintain her dominance and freedom for the next six years. Even beyond that, the danger of defeat exist until 2042/43. In approximately 2032 – check this – Israel can be prone to make some major mistakes that benefit her enemies.
Not long ago, I said that Trump might’ve made a mistake with Iran. Perhaps he did not make a mistake for his own politics, but it was a bad decision for Israel, and in a larger sense, for the world. Trump should have wiped the entire Iranian power structure out wiped out its RGC. RGC, and distribute rifles to the population. By doing so, he would give the people a chance at democracy, but even more importantly, he would have cut off the head of the snake of worldwide terrorism. In the Middle East, the 3H a mass, has Bella and Hootie would diminish markedly in strength. Their new patron, replacing Iran, would be Russia. In linking with this nation, they would find that portrait Putin is in control.
***
I don’t believe in God. I do believe in spirit and divinity… Just a sec what does that word divinity mean? If it has anything to do with hierarchy, then I don’t believe in it either, except as a tool or stage of advancement.
I just find it rather absurd that we would say God is a his, a her or an it. All these are really reflecting, the belief that God is a human being or is a manifestation of anything on earth – so that includes all the It stuff also.
To think that God is even in any notable portion, human or human, like is a great conceit. God, so to speak, is much more than that. Just look at the Earth around you, look at the complexity and the unending interactions and the absolute beauty, days after days after days. Do you really think anything human could have created this beauty and complexity? Yes, we grow gardens, but that is nothing more than moving plants from one place to another, usually via seed. We also modified seeds and plants to create new varieties, but in doing so we still start with nature‘s own seed and complexity.
And if that isn’t complex enough, multiply it by the trillions and trillions of stars and galaxies out there, and their multiple planets.
So I can believe in God if the word is shorthand for infinite awareness, complexity, and movement, and for what we can only call the miracle surrounding us, the miracle of existence, and all this running on complex rails of karma, nature, creation – and advancement/improvement, for all we have seen of existence so far is that our lot and our understanding have grown. We have advanced, that much is indisputable.
***
Here’s another short story. This one you might recognize, as I had put it in a column about 2, 3 years ago.
HELLO MR. STRANGER
A story by Tim
PART ONE
I met her at the pub. She was small. I don’t know why they call women “petite” – it always makes me think of “miniature,” and I can never conceive of any woman as miniature. Even the smallest, with the slimmest waist, seems to me a pretty big bundle of flesh. But she was small, with short curly blonde hair, a pleasing face and deft hands.
She was laughing softly, talking with her friends, at three round pub tables put together. Her voice was musical; she had some sort of slavic accent, yet she was very blonde, with almost white eyebrows. But when I began chatting her up – my method was to go and kneel on the floor beside the chair of the one I wanted, one knee on the floor, and talk from there — at some point I said she looked like Marilyn Monroe, which she did, but when I said it, she burst into tears. I didn’t have a clue why. I asked her sign, and she said Gemini, and I asked, Where’s your twin, and maybe that’s when she cried. I was puzzled, but not perturbed. Perhaps it was the four beer I’d drunk. I apologized, I tried to cheer her up, and we left together.
I was twenty-something, it was the early ‘70’s. I sold hash in the pubs to support myself, just like my buddies. I wore zipper boots, jeans and a leather jacket, and had glossy brown curls, ringlets, down to my shoulder blades. We’d spend more nights than not in the pub, from three to ten of us. But, though I was accepted and we joked and chatted, I wasn’t really close to any of them, now that I contemplate it. Except Tony. He was a big Indian, like the guy in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” He had a big laugh, loved to call people “Fools,” and had “adopted” me a year or so earlier, when I was still working in a warehouse. But he’s not in this story.
The pretty blonde’s apartment was cool and moonlit. She didn’t turn on any lights. We shucked our clothes and slid into bed. We fitted together with unusual airiness. There was not a space between us, yet everything felt light, almost unattached. She had this unremarkable yet oddly perfect body, perfectly proportioned to mine, small breasts, and this oddly perfect air around her – nothing in her disturbed me, nothing in her speech or manner or movements, nothing in the whole bedroom nor in her aura. Nothing crude, no sharp elbows, nothing demanding, nothing awkward. It’s strange to have nothing clumsy. It was so smooth that I didn’t even notice it was. It’s like, you can slide down a tunnel that is full of bumps and bruises and sharp rocks, or you can slide down a tunnel that is absolutely smooth and you hardly know you’re in it.
After, as we lay in bed, she cried. It started softly, then built to a weeping, bigger than in the pub, but not sobbing; she didn’t make a sound. I asked her why she cried. She wouldn’t tell me. I thought that she was very lonely, and I had entered and broken the loneliness. I thought, how lonely it must be to live in an apartment by yourself, in the straight world, with short hair, probably with a job. Her loneliness, her grief, scared me, threatened to make me responsible. I liked her, but I didn’t even have to think — I escaped about 3 a.m.
I don’t think I even knew her name.
That was thirty-five, forty years ago.
About four months ago, I happened to pass the apartment building she’d brought me to that night. Well, I’ve passed it a thousand times, driving – it’s on a main route, right by the bay, on a drive that connects the Point Grey neighbourhood with downtown. But this winter I started taking the bus instead of my car. For no reason, really, except boredom, loneliness, convenience. On the bus, you look at everything. I happened to note that apartment building, then to remember her. As weeks passed I began to watch (then study) it more closely – the window of her bedroom, and her living room, both faced the street. It’s a square, three-story stucco building like a hundred others, carpeted stairs inside, an ersatz “classic” name written in gold leaf on the main door – let’s call it “The Balmoral.” A glass door with aluminum frame and a diagonal steel bar handle. It was actually a cheerful building, as they go: bright yellow awnings over the windows, cheerful flower beds.
My life has not been the greatest, nor the worst. At some point in the late 70’s I leased an empty warehouse and started renting parts of it to friends and dealers. Soon, I rented a second warehouse, kept it clean, and again split it up. And a third. Within a few years I had leases on eight warehouses, and in 1982 I bought one. After awhile I didn’t see my hippie/street friends anymore. My employees were my only real social life. Three years ago a big firm bought me out, and I haven’t worked since. I walk and bus and study at the library and sit in coffee shops with newspapers and play the stock market.
One day I decided to walk by the little blonde’s apartment from decades ago, rather than gaze on it from the bus window. I did so again, walking by. This time I stopped. Feeling odd but good, I walked up to the front door, then, after a moment, pulled on the bar handle. It was locked, of course. I studied the intercom buttons, two columns of ten, with little typed names; some blank. Casually, not wanting to peer, I glanced inside at the red carpeting and the typical flowery runner. I went away, down the cement walk to the sidewalk, then away. Yes, it was nostalgic, but it was something else, too. This whole “investigation” had wrapped me in a pleasantly numbing feeling that ended as soon as I hit the main sidewalk. Half an hour later, in a nearby coffee shop, I realized that walking up to the front door I had been in a mild trance.
I consider myself normal, but sometimes normal needs help. Or you’ve got to reassert your normal-ness. So I went home – I have a nice townhouse overlooking the bay, and at night the mountains sparkle with house lights – and decided to file this experience away as a nice piece of nostalgia. I did not even question whether she still lived there or not – who but a ghost would stay in such an apartment for over thirty years?
Perhaps it was just boredom. I have too little to do.
Two weeks later, now feeling a bit criminal, I got off the bus a block away and repeated my walk to the front door.
This time it was worse – or better. The trace-like feeling vanished, because now I knew I was acting oddly, and it was replaced by an uneasy, senseless fear. The flowers in the beds that ran on both sides of the cement walkways, and under the front windows, seemed starkly clear and – not so much beautiful as clear, absolutely clear. I saw every grain of dirt in the bed, every bit of water on the petals. I made myself approach the door, grasp the bar handle firmly with my right fist; then I turned in retreat.
Later, in the coffee shop, with a newspaper for disguise, I went over my strange little odyssey: not why — for some reason now and in future I would not ask why – but what. I was only interested – though still feeling strange about it, and sure I would abandon this odd little adventure soon, and revert to “normal” – I was only interested in the quiet glow that had lit in me. In my mind, I repeated that walk to the building’s front door a hundred times.
Like a drop of ink in a glass of water, that apartment building blossomed to colour my entire existence. I rode the bus by it constantly, sometimes three, four times a day.
I would catch the bus near my townhouse, and ride it one or two stops past the building, then dismount and sneak across the street to the bus stop going the other way, and repeat this again a few blocks later. at the other end of my ride. As I sat on the bus seat, staring, a confusion and profusion of emotions thrilled through me.
One night, I knew what I would do. The next morning, rejecting my jeans and jacket, I dressed in cashmere, expensive coat and slacks, the works. Quiet elegance, I like to think. My chest pounding, I grasped that diagonal door handle , pulled (it was locked) — and pressed the manager’s button.
The manager, my age, let me in without hesitation, and betrayed, in his posture, an eagerness to show me the suite.
“I’m only interested in one that faces the street. I hate looking out on the alley,” I said.
“No, this is street, no alley. Street.”
He led me down the hall and up stairs — when he stopped and shuffled his keys, I felt a moment of – comfort and fear. Deep comfort, as if I’d found my treasure; and fear because I knew I was in strange territory mentally. Because it was the suite. Her suite. The exact one, 204, I remembered the number. This coincidence surprised and convinced me that I was blessed by the gods, or supposed to do this. The door was white instead of brown.
I walked slowly through the door. This was it: I felt it: I had just said goodbye to my life. I wandered through the suite, which consisted of a hallway, hardwood floors faded and worn, closets, bare walls, living room, kitchenette, and bedroom. It was not the furniture-stuffed place I’d stumbled through in the dark that night, her light hand touching mine to guide me. (Who would guide me now?) The apartment was stark and empty, but there was also something I could not describe. In those bare walls was her story, her eternity. Seized with curiosity, I turned and asked, and I must have been abrupt or stood strangely, for he have me a quick appraising look,
“Who lived here before?”
“A tenant. What you think?”
“No, I mean – man? Woman?”
“A woman.”
“A blonde woman?”
“What you want here? You want to rent?”
“Rent?” As if it had never occurred to me, I stopped, hesitated. But the need was much stronger. “Yes. Yes. I’ll take it.”
He peered at me suspiciously. So much for my expensive outfit.
“You have furniture?”
“Yes. Yes.”
“You need damage deposit.”
“Yes. Yes.” I wasn’t looking at him now. I was searching for something, but I didn’t know what.
I knew I could not write the deposit check — my hands were shaking with excitement. I kept them shoved in my coat pockets.
As we left 204 and went to the manager’s apartment, I felt like a lion preying on something, This made the shakes subside. I was tensed and eager and willing to do anything to get in; and my hands were calm. I gave him the rent and deposit, and signed the forms.
He wouldn’t give me the keys until my check cashed. He really didn’t like me. I went back the next day, and he gave me the key. I climbed the stairs, opened the door and slunk inside, one part of my mind alert, hoping — nonsensically — that no one saw me. I shut the door quickly and stood in the entry hallway. I thought to myself, if I take one step forward I’m entering a trap. But I had already taken many, perhaps too many steps forward, renting this bare place. Slowly, I entered the empty, rectangular living room. I stood there a long time, blank, without a thought. I began to remember (or imagine, who can tell?) what the apartment had looked like, the furniture it had contained, and the mirrors and plants and the poster, and crockery. These memories came slowly, and were only vague, misty things at first. At the same time, the idea emerged that I could go out and search for the exact articles of furniture and crockery and planters that I was beginning to remember, and buy them and furnish this place, this altar – as memory dictated.
So I began. It took weeks – and to some degree the job was never done, for my memory was slow. Details came in dribs and drabs, sometimes only one small detail in a whole day; sometimes nothing. But I found, as I haunted used furniture and hardware stores, that seeing a few rows of clap-trap furniture, or an old brass planter in a Chinese grocery, would trigger memories of her apartment.
The first thing I bought was the bed. The mattress — a used one could harbour all sorts of threats, but a new one would have rocketed me out of my fantasy project. So I hired a mover to take my own mattress from the townhouse to the apartment. This gave me a warm, secure feeling.
I placed the bed exactly where it had been, against the east wall, with the bedroom window on the south, overlooking the traffic. And there had been a chair – and a small table? A night stand there under the window? My heart pounded with this step into madness, but then the madness took over and I was calmed. I fell asleep on the bare mattress.
The next night as I lay in bed, now flanked by a chipped, scratched nightstand and a plant in a brass pot, a massive regret stole over me. For the first time it struck me right in the face and chest: why did I leave that perfect little woman? I knew why, of course, but I mean in the other, more horrible sense: why did I abandon everything that might have made my life different, and full, rich and – I lay as if murdered, dumbstruck and motionless, as the full truth of what I’d done crawled over me like a giant ravenous insect, eating away every ounce of blindness, undisturbed blindness – that I had possessed.
Over the hours of that night, my choice became clear. I had entered this reconstruction almost like a game, something (admittedly a little queer) to amuse me in my retirement. But it was serious now: the enormity of what I had started surprised me. I could just abandon this charade, walk away, free and clean. Wind in my hair. But the trouble was, I couldn’t. Out there was emptiness; in here, weirdness. And I preferred the weirdness, at least for the moment…Perhaps every addict says, At least for the moment…
So it came to two choices. The first, to regret that I had thrown away the one perfect woman – the most perfect little person that I’d ever met, the only woman who had not, in some way, in some feature of her looks or her personality, grated upon my love of perfection – to embrace and even desire the insect of regret that had stung me; to regret that I had wasted an entire lifetime since abandoning her, and to now go away bitter with this, and, over my shrunken, empty life, to keep that regret within me like a curled parasite, but one that sustained me, like bitter food — but ultimately, to walk away.
Or, second choice, I could plunge further into the very thing that most sharpened my regret: furnishing “her” apartment. This way, I could lure the insect of regret back into its hive, distract myself from it by busily recreating the scene of my loss. I realized this was a gargantuan mistake, one that would only increase my regret, perhaps to madness – yet it was just this “deepening danger” of tightening the net of regret, drinking eagerly the sting of this poison, as though it was nectar, that made me pursue my course more determinedly… To escape the past, I had to steep myself in it, draw it around me like an insulating blanket.
So a month passed. The papers were full of this fellow whose head seems to radiate light. I thought, if I could do that, perhaps my memories would reconstruct, perhaps they could unfold and rise up like those children’s books that, when you open the page, a bunch of things stand up.
By not choosing to leave or stop this descent into regret, I chose. I slowly furnished the other rooms. The kitchen was the hardest, because I had only given it the briefest glance that night she’d invited me here, and had not even seen her plates, etc. Here, I had to guess what she would have possessed, from my feel, my absorption, of her personality. I was, after a month, more than halfway toward my goal of recreating her apartment – our apartment. Often in the days I would stand motionless in the living room, immersed in the — trance? memories? — that bathed me and often now hypnotized me. At night I would lie on my back, my chest pressured by 300 pounds of sadness. So I would roll on my side, to embrace 300 pounds of emptiness and dark joy.
There were good days, too. And excellent hours. By now I had crept more and more into her world — her shadow lay with me at night; her aura surrounded me in the day — not one of those psychic’s auras, but a feeling that she was, slightly, almost infinitesimally, around me — and close. Sometimes I tried to understand why she wept that first and only night we were together, but have never gotten beyond my first assumption, that she was lonely.
Sometimes, it is almost as though I’m becoming her, but at other times I seem to see her weeping face in the television, or dimly, on the walls. (Yes, I bought a used, black and white television, which I turn on desperately, yet with a numb slowness, when I can’t bear the hunger of the insect.) The walls are still bare, because I haven’t been able to remember what kind of paintings or posters she had on them. I supposed that part of the puzzle would come later, perhaps soon — for my slow eagerness to complete her apartment, her past, did not diminish.
***
I’ve been here two months now. Yesterday, as I returned from a fruitless search for some doily or multi-coloured tie-dye from the 1970’s, I walked down the hallway wearily, dispirited – and ran into a woman who was just leaving the suite next to mine.
“Hello, Mr. Stranger,” she said. Her eyes twinkled, dark, full and bright. She turned, flounced along the hall and down the stairs. I assumed middle European, Slavic. Short dark brunette hair, but with grey tinsel in the dark curls. Fifty, maybe, but with a petite, well-proportioned figure. (I hate that word petite, but in this case it applied even more than to the blonde. I guess she was a tiny bit smaller, certainly a bit thinner.)
The thing is, now, a week later, this woman from next door is in my apartment, and we are about to make love. She has a nice body with small breasts. Right now, we’re sitting on the couch, and my fingers are up her dress, and wet in her vagina, and she’s looking at me and I know that soon, afterwards, today or in ten weeks, she will look at me and ask where am I, who am I, why do I have that vacant look (which women hate, absolutely hate)…somehow I know this… perhaps she’ll even want to move in here. In one way I have no objection, for I’m very lonely, I’d like someone around, even in the midst of my regret… But will she be living here and I’ll be living one level above, or below, or beyond her grasp, living with the long-gone blonde…?
I’ve collapsed on her, my sperm still jetting in small after-drabs, her thighs around me, her warmth beneath me. I’ve done it; in the stark light of the living room I feel totally alone. I’ve already abandoned her; and I wonder how she will react to my inattention, my mind elsewhere… Suddenly, surprising me, she begins weeping softly, and strokes my face.
***
I don’t know. Not that I’m unhappy. For a few weeks, Sandra and I have made love. She’s a perfectly bodied, gentle woman. I haven’t told her about my townhouse. She works in the day, and returns at six. I make supper. I like to do small things for her. We chat easily, though not about my.…whatever I’m doing, my secret life, which has frayed and worn a bit… She’s easy to abide, and in bed we fit together with a kind of pleasant airiness. I wasn’t going to let her lie in my blonde woman’s bed, and she never asked to, but I changed my mind. It seemed – strangely appropriate, rather than perverse. Though I suppose it was perverse. But so far I have not felt forced to do anything by this woman next door, this Sandra. As a partner, she’s light as air.
It was as if I could take her into our (my and the blonde’s) bedroom as a wisp of smoke, or a fabric so light it would float on a breeze — so she, Sandra, was not making a heavy footprint, she was just floating, and could float beside the blonde and I… though sometimes it seemed the blonde was floating beside us, as Sandra’s loins met mine. What I’d feared would be a clash of realities had become a water ballet of co-coordinated swimming. Sometimes, scaring me, Sandra’s happy little body WAS the blonde girl’s from long ago. It was, disregarding my bias and memories, incredibly like the girl’s, in size, shape…even her face sometimes transformed as I watched, into the angelic one of the blonde. Then I shook my head, to dispel the looming, and return to “reality.”
I suspected Sandra had been lonely, perhaps for a long time, maybe that’s why she was slightly on the thin side. But she never spoke of it – loneliness. Thank god. Though middle-aged, she was buoyant in heart and body. In the mornings, she sprang out of bed with light, elastic limbs. In bed or in conversation there wasn’t a space between us, yet everything felt light, almost unattached. There was something hard to pinpoint.
I thought Sandra would soon, with a woman’s intuition, sense that I was living in a separate world – even worse, with the ghost woman. I spent portions of every day gazing out the window at the buses, the traffic, wondering if perhaps the blonde girl was in a car, driving by, or, very likely, in some new life, a life formed after thirty years – a mother? Career? What kind of dress, and stockings? How were her thighs? What understandings crouched in her eyes? Or was she in some insane asylum, driven by loneliness, chained in loneliness? Why else did she cry? Who would rescue her? I didn’t even know her name. Sometimes, as Sandra sits angled at the kitchen table, talking, I see the blonde girl’s face overlaying hers, or her face transforms into the blonde girl’s… at some point, I know, she has to rise in query and disbelief, in anger, and ask me where I am if not here with her? Who am I thinking of, if not her? Yet she did not once call me on it.
Last night, as we lay in bed, in the darkness, her large eyes wide and absorbent in the dim grey glow, she said, “I used to live in this apartment, you know.”
I said nothing, just watched her face. An odd thing, I thought.
“The super told me. He had a laugh about it. He said you asked if a blonde woman had lived here before you rented.”
Shock froze me. Was I being discovered, me and my strangeness?
“So?” I said.
“The joke is, I was blonde. I began to dye my hair brunette a few months ago. You must be psychic.”
“Months?”
“U-hum. Just before you moved in,” she said lightly, as if stating a mildly odd coincidence. “I’d been in this apartment for thirty or so years. I felt it was time for a change.” She said this with the lightest sadness and regret, as if remembering something far away. My chest went cold with surprise.
“So I dyed my hair and moved next door.” She smiled, warm and distant. “It must have worked, because now I have you!”
I stared, astonished. Could this be her, after all these years? Impossible, yet everything fit, even the light airiness when we embraced. Everything! It was her.
I lay down in her light arms. No sharp elbows, nothing that hinted of chains in the morning…In fact it was like lying down in space, as the universe seemed to widen around me. This was almost pleasant at first. Then I began to feel adrift, lost. As if I’d suddenly awoken on a rowboat in mid-Atlantic, facing madness if I couldn’t get to shore, and there was no shore. A vast, subtle panic crept into my chest… I rose to my elbows and stared at her. She stared back, as if knowing, a thousand expressions in her eyes, unmoved, huge.
“Do you really want me?” she said.
PART TWO
I’m in a bright, sunny apartment, filled with windows, on stilts right on the bay’s edge. Sometimes at night I can hear the lapping ocean beneath my porch, disturbing the pebbles with a deep sigh. The apartment is white in most rooms, even the floors are painted white, but for some reason in the living room, where I am now, the carpet is blue, a bright, electric, almost horrible blue. Otherwise, the walls are white.
There’s a pipe sticking up, about 3 feet high, in the middle of the living room floor. It’s painted white, with many layers, like you see on ferries and other iron, rust-prone boats. It’s hollow, metal, and as big around as a regular mason jar. You think you can put your hand down there, but if you did, you might never get it out again. Once I peered down there, I cannot remember when, I saw that the pipe’s bottom was filled with smooth, rounded pebbles. Curious, I poured water down the pipe; the colours in the pebbles sprang up.
One pebble, when wet, looked exactly like the face of Sandra. I say exactly, but I’m a bit short-sighted, so nothing’s certain. I have poured many cups down that pipe, perhaps 200 times in the past few months. I don’t know what madman put that pipe in the middle of the living room, but after my first misgivings I was glad it was there. Day after day I gazed on the large smooth stone that looked like her.
I worried that a large wave would wash the stone away, or disturb the pile. I drew up a plan. The apartment was on stilts; the land sloped fairly steeply toward the sea. The pebbles I saw through the pipe lay in that bed of gravel beneath the apartment. It should be easy to go down there and locate the Sandra stone, because it lay directly beneath the pipe. So the next morning, sunshine warm like love on my hand, I poured a cup of water down the pipe to make Sandra’s face obvious, then went out to clamber under the apartment to the pipe’s other end.
But I had not anticipated the steepness of the slope, nor how deep the pile of gravel was. So, a bit shakily, taking exaggerated steps, back bent so my nose was no higher then my navel, I advanced toward the pipe. Just as I reached to grab the pipe, to stop myself from sliding down to the water’s edge, the sloping wall of pebbles beneath me gave way, and skittered down to the ocean, some plonking into the green, rippled water.. I watched in horror, I tried to reach out and stem their descent, as a hundred pebbles beneath the pipe joined the festivities, and tumbled down. I caught five in my hand, and two balanced on my wrist. None were her. For a few hours I flung myself carefully over the stones between the pipe and the lapping ocean, calculating with my sight a widening pathway that the stone might have taken, and checking the stones there three or four layers deep. It was awkward and wasteful: the pebbles beneath my feet kept cascading down the slope.
It was hopeless. In following days I would sporadically go beneath the apartment again, to search for it, But I have not found it.