Author Archive for abraxus

Art of pencil

Published by
abraxus
 in memory. 0 Comments

I missed this guy by a chance - he left a few minutes before I left. So all what I know is what my wife told me. I am always interested in peculiar charachters, so I was very intrigued by his life story, out of Kafka’s books. This is the outline - at least as how I heard it, whatever if it’s true or not, only he, Rudolf Scepka, knows. Sorry if I got it wrong, Rudolf.

Though he lives now in Chon Buri, Thailand, making living playing bowling and tutoring locals on how to score statistically impossible scores in it (a secret technique, of course :) ), and being a local bowling legend - unbeaten even once, originally he is from Austria and spent all his life before retirement - over than 30 years making pencils. So after he retired, he switched his focus from making pencils to using them. Continue reading ‘Art of pencil’

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Phobia, go away!

Published by
abraxus
 in void space. 0 Comments

OK, many people write here about their memories and dreams.
I would like to tap in subject of fears or phobias. Most of the phobias can’t be really traced. Some are probably imprinted in us. Let’s say, we don’t like snakes. I saw a snake first time when I was about 20, for instance, but remember, what when I was a kid, I always tried to sit in an armchair with legs up on the seat, as I was afraid what a snake would bite me from under. Even then I thought it can’t be possible what a snake would be on the 7th floor of our block of flats in a harsh winter, 20 Celsius below zero. But I couldn’t bring myself to put my feet down. I could spend a whole evening imagining scenarios of how a snake could sneak under my armchair.

Anyway, I suppose most of phobias are triggered by something in remote past, early childhood and long time forgotten memories. I can trace one my phobia though, as I can recall what happened to me.

I travelled to one remote city hitchhiking. I was very young, completely broke and wanted to see a girl I was in love with. To cut it short, she did not fancy me much and her boyfriend did even less. They lived in a massive hostel inhabited with hundreds students at that time. She had a kind heart, so instead of kicking me out I was fed and passed to a friend of hers who happened to live alone in a spacious room in that hostel. This friend of her was a girl of enormous size. She spoke in a deep low voice which could shake a glass and was torturing me all the way down along endless staircases and corridors with tales about her romantic adventures.
To be honest, my mind was occupied in that moment so I couldn’t remember what they were about even the next day, do not mention years later.

Eventually I found myself in her room. It was filled with hundreds of little objects. Everything was of dwarfs’ size. The girl obviously tried her best to fit in that space as many tiny objects as possible. Everything there was organized by a principle “the smaller is the better”. She had dolls’ furniture and cutlery, small carpets, miniature stereo and lots of stupid useless toy objects which she apparently was collecting.
It was too much… Simply beyond my capability to digest it. I left her place at once with a splitting headache.
That’s how I recognized that I have a psychological trauma about everything little.
Small things are just freaking me out; I don’t like dwarf pets, dogs and ponies either.

I wonder what I can do with it. Well, some people could say that phobias and fixations are the integral part of our individuality. Phobium ergo est. I’m scared, therefore I exist. Johnny Depp is afraid of clowns for instance. They are freaking him out, he said in his recent interview. I’ve met a girl while ago who confessed she is afraid of balloons. What’s wrong with clowns? What’s wrong with fucking balloons? Why do I have to feel uneasy surrounded by small objects? I tried to google my phobia, but couldn’t find even a specific name for it, so there was no way to find out how I can deal with it.
It’s not a serious problem though, just a little annoyance.
I have learnt anyway what one of the best ways to deal with phobias is to talk about them. That’s what this post is about actually, so you know.

abraxus

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Fate

Published by
abraxus
 in dream. 0 Comments

In my dream I was lost. It was a very pleasant feeling. I was in a place I have never been before. It looked like a forest, but I couldn’t see much because of mist. So I walked and walked and walked. The grass was soft, and I was barefoot. It was a very pleasant walk. After a while I could hear a song, reminding me a lullaby my grandmother used to sing. I thought she was there, and went in that direction. I came to a hut. There was no door, and I could see a fireplace inside and nearby it there was a very old woman. She didn’t see me or at least didn’t pay any attention. I came closer. She was blind. Sitting on a floor, she was humming her song while weaving a carpet. It was already very long and looked very strange. It didn’t have a shape. It rather reminded a cloud. If I looked at it, were wasn’t any partcicular design, but many complex ones. When I looked at it closer, I could see many different patterns, though it was difficult to follow them: I tried to do so few times and was lost each time. When I looked again, I couldn’t find that string again, or saw different things. There were many knits weaved in together, and each of the colored strings was telling a different story without the end or beginning. It was impossible to say there this carpet started. It looked more like a net, actually. She worked very fast, picking a loose end from here and there, pulling strings apart and binding them together again, adding a new one. I was staying there for a long time, watching her work and reading the carpet.

 In front of her were there laying many different strings, short and long ones of different colors. Suddenly she asked me: give me yours.

I said: I don’t have any. She answered: everybody has. Give me the one you like.

I picked one from the floor and gave it to her. She told me, pointing with her hand: your home is that way. And I left.

When I woke up, I thought about this dream and what it could mean. I knew it was a special one. I thought I have met Fate. The strings were that some people call lives, and some call dreams. But what was it about? I felt like I learnt a lot by reading those shapes and following strings, but when I tried to remember anything of it, there was nothing. Nil.

Abraxus

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Random spells and quotes

Published by
abraxus
 in memory. 0 Comments

 YESTERDAY IS HISTORY

TOMORROW IS MYSTERY

TODAY IS A GIFT

I put these words bold because they were written in huge golden letters on a signboard mounted on an apartment block, above it’s name on the entrance. It was a striking contrast with the rather deteriorating building, so I looked around for a picture of Jesus (what else could accompany these words and explain the reasons for putting them there?). There was none. So I penned them down on an envelope and went back home.

Here we go back months in time. My wife made a carton house for our son. As he grew, we added some things and made fine adjustments, such as a ramp and spare room for cat, and shelves for his toys, and windows from carton toilet paper rolls. It was painted few times other and fit with doors and secret places, at best times he could park inside his tricycle. As this house suffered a lot from all the sort of games played in and with it and from our cat’s claws sharpening exercises, we fixed it with tape and papermache, and painted over again. Cat and son loved this box, and often fought for it. When we moved house, we couldn’t take it with us: it was just to big, too worn out and too odd.

 So we dumped it in the street by the rubbish bins. No, nobody cried. But, I felt like an iceberg losing a big chunk of ice: it seemed like this box was with us forever, growing in size as our son and cat did. Before we departed for good, I wrote around it my goodbye,  some looped in circle, as a spell, words:

YESTERDAYISHISTORYTOMORROWISMYSTERYTODAYISAGIFT

After that I came back home, found and reread Mike’s memory “Garbage Can Zen”. I wanted to read more. So I headed to his blog and found there a quote from Chuang-Tzu: “The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing; it refuses nothing; it receives, but it does not keep.”

Cheers, Mike.

abraxus

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