cityofangels418

A leaf flew solo from the top of a grandfather oak. Gyrating, revolving, it fell frivolously, but at times seemed to hang motionless in the air. It changed as it fell, Graying like the night sky edging towards the moon, and piece by piece began to come apart in the November wind. Steel grey, it rotated and disintegrated, until one final turn and the autumn comet disappeared from view. The little boy watching the leaf''s path as it fell and as it became invisible, wondered if it had come apart in the wind or if it simply had been melted into oblivion.

Ramón Orinero Suárez became the oldest living man in the world on October 18th, 1979, through a series of coincidences and mishaps so elaborate and misleading, circling and united, that if listed here they would fill this page and the next twelve without spaces or punctuation.  Upon being notified of his status, he requested in Uqmunda, the indigenous language of southern Paraguay, the best translator one could find, and a scribe, to take down a dictation of his life's adventures.  The 3 volume, 1200 page biography was published in 1981, post-mortem, and though it was received with fantastic reviews, sold just 514 copies.  Its tragic downfall

The first time I killed a man I was 10 years old.  In the small town where I lived until my 15th birthday only lived 140 people, I knew my neighbor, who knew his neighbor; everyone knew everyone. My friend and I, as well as a little boy from my neighborhood, were all sitting on a fallen tree on the outskirts of the town.  A victim of the storm the night before, the tree had fallen across the only path that led into town.  As we were sitting, a stranger (a gypsy maybe, I never asked) came walking down the path wearing elegant, foreign clothes and a large multicolored sack which he carried over his shoulder from the end of a large stick.  I i

                Maxwell Lebowitz emerged from the bomb shelter to view his new backyard.  Charred sticks emerging from the ground were the remains of his house, a dusty prairie his property.  Red dust blew against his face; the wind carried away a piece of his house.  As he wandered amongst the rubble at the site of Impact Mile Zero, he could only help remember the prophecy that had driven him to the dirt, the prediction which saved his life. The countryside of the Midwestern States, still devastated from the Second Dust Bowl, was in ruins.  Maxwell highly doubted the summer crop would grow at all.  Exhausted by the dry heat, and the dust i