It Is The Season In Which It Is Suggested That We Act In A Jolly Manner

The brisk winter air descended upon Oak Bay like a blanket too big for a bed, spreading into the surrounding neighborhoods.  I was on the bus, heading for the Petersen Estate, unaware of the joyous evening I was about to experience, seated like a blanket draped lethargically over a credenza.  I was re-listening to ‘Skeletal Lamping’- one of my favorite albums, and holding an umbrella.  It was my Grandfather’s umbrella- but unfortunately, he left it at my house when he last visited.  I have been unable to return it since.

The bus coasted gracefully to a halt at the desired stop.  I waved, smiling to the bus driver.

“Thanks!” I shouted earnestly.  I stepped off the bus to the sidewalk, and walked the short distance up Cavendish to Garrett’s house.  The cold was determined to make my day worse, but it wasn’t going to prevail.  I was wearing my favourite black winter coat, a gray scarf, and my Sony headphones that doubled for earmuffs.  I was unshaven, as I am sometimes during long stretches of nothingness.  The only things missing were white gloves and the hat I still haven’t returned to Leo.

Upon my arrival, Garrett and I discussed our Diplomacy game for a while.  We then met up with Elliot, and had several rather engaging discussions on topics I have neglected to remember- needless to say, the topics were trivial.  At that point I was unaware of the festivities in and around Oak Bay Village.  Every year, the people gather to see the Christmas lights that adorned the multitude of ornate buildings, lining the streets in their winter clothing, sipping coffee and/or hard liquor.

Elliot remembered the event, so the three of us departed for the Village.  It’s a rather typical walk of ours, and took us very little time.  When we approached the village, the sun had left for another night, and with it the crowds.  But we did not relent!  For half an hour, we walked up and down the street, singing Christmas carols, and embarrassingly attempting, and subsequently failing unrehearsed harmonies.

It was a glorious evening, but as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end.

Just like this blog post, actually!

-Brian

It Has Come To My Attention That… (#2)

So, as you all know, last summer I spent time in Asia, participating in the Tibetan Monk Co-Op Program (offered by UBC).  Though I’ve talked about the trip before, I realized (during my yoga class) that I have neglected to tell anybody about my encounter with the Spirit Monk!

Now, I don’t think I need to explain who the Spirit Monk is, but for the few of you who haven’t heard of him, I’ll give you a little backstory.  Basically, the Spirit Monk is the oldest man on Earth- he’s been declared legally dead twice, but brought back to life by doctors.  That’s where his name comes from.  After his second brush with death, he decided to become more spiritual, and traveled to Tibet after giving away all of his worldly possessions.  It is said that an encounter with the Spirit Monk extends your life by a year.

He lived in a very small hut on the top of a very tall, steep hill, that looked down on a field of poppy-like flowers (I’m not sure what they were).  I climbed the rickety steps up the hill to his home, and knocked on his door.  He greeted me with a cup of tea, and sat me down, without saying a word, on the floor next to a knee-high wooden table.  It was then that he told me the story of the Whistling Walrus, which goes like this:

“In a time before time, in a land before land, there lived a family of badgers.  There was Father Badger, who was the sternest of them all.  There was Mother Badger, the most loving of them all;  There was Daughter Badger, the most innocent of them all.  There was Son Badger, the fastest of them all.  Lastly, there was Grandfather Badger, the wisest of them all.

One fateful morning, after taking his morning badger jog, Father Badger came home to an empty house.  That was odd- normally his family never left their badgery abode.  This was partially due to obedience, and partially due to shackles.

Father Badger searched the town up and down, left and right, forward and backward, inside and out, over and under, but he couldn’t find his family anywhere!  Around lunchtime, he gave up his search and went down to the village market, owned by kindly old Mr. Frog.  The two were good friends, and Father Badger thought Mr. Frog might have a clue as to his family’s whereabouts.

Unfortunately, Mr. Frog hadn’t seen the Badger family at all that day.  Father Badger wept, and ran away from the village to sulk in the hills.

When he arrived at the hills, he sat down on a log.  The Elm Tree next to him looked down in despair.

“Is something wrong, friend?” asked the Elm.

“Yes, I’m afraid so.  My family is nowhere to be seen!  I can’t find Mother Badger, Daughter Badger, Son Badger or Grandfather Badger anywhere!” cried Father Badger, sobbing as he wept.

“I might be able to help,” suggested the friendly tree, “I’m very tall, and I live on a mountain!  Perhaps if I look around, I’ll see them!  Describe to me what they look like.”

“They look like badgers,” said Father Badger, a glimmer of hope in his eye, “like me.”

The Elm tree looked and looked.  He asked the lake to help.  He asked the other trees to help.  He commissioned the bumblebees to search.  He commissioned the meadowlarks to search.  But, as hours passed, and all the forest animals came back, it became clear that the Badger family was never to be seen again.

Father Badger thanked his newfound friends for their help, and returned to the village.  When he got back, oh the surprise!  His family was there!  Next to the fire pit, that night, the family reunited while drinking hot cocoa.

The next year, Whisling Walrus came to the village and introduced the animals to paganism.”
And that was his story.  I just thought I’d share it with you all.

Goodnight, Earth!

Now You Know More! (#1)

People often come up to me, be it on the street, at a social gathering, or even cleaning up at the local oil spill.

“Brian,” they begin, “what’s the secret?”

To which I reply, “The secret?”

They clarify with, “Well, you know, you seem to have it pretty figured out.”

And it’s true- I do seem to have it pretty figured out.  The nicest cars.  A happy family.  A big house (though we do rent out the basement to a nice family of immigrants.  They make the BEST apple crumble.).

The thing is- my secret, you might say, is that it’s all a lie.  That’s right!  The car, the family, the house… I made it all up.  A long time ago I realized that people don’t have to ACTUALLY be happy- it’s enough to pretend you are.

But there’s more to it than that!  You see, this whole thing is wrapped up in another lie!  Apart from being untrue, the whole “What’s the secret?” exchange above is from a conversation between Herman Blume and Max Fischer in the movie Rushmore.

It’s all a lie!

I believe it was Jodie Foster, who graced us with the immortal words “To lie within a lie- that is to be human.”

I can’t even COUNT the number of lies in the above statement- it’s not that I’m a moron, or that I have a problem with numbers, it’s that I absolutely refuse to count up to anything that might add up to the number 3.  Call me superstitious- I’m just a cautious man.

Goodnight World,

-Brian

It Has Come To My Attention That (#1)

This is the first of what is to be a weekly installment.

It has come to my attention that there are people in the World who are illiterate.  Yes, it could even be you!  I don’t think I can stand for this injustice, which is why I’m beginning the world’s first “Brian’s Illiteracy Fund”.

The goal of the organization is to raise enough money to develop a machine that will allow me to forget how to read- only then will I truly be able to connect with the illiterate of the Earth.  Then, together, us illiterates will learn the alphabet, starting (as always!) with the letter ‘A’.

Speaking of the letter ‘A’ (which is a light green letter), it has also come to my attention that I have synesthesia.  Basically, I see letters and numbers as having inherent colours.  I will attempt to create a list of them at some point.

Well, goodnight World.  See you tomorrow, if you’re up for it!

-Brian

All The While The Jaded Crux

An Original Poem by Brian Thornley.

The iridescent bilateral polygons
Crumbled in the vivacious basin
As the peppermint moonbeams
Swayed in the pixelated archipelago
Congruent in their deceit
Marching ever forward
In a flurry of sentimentality
Unduly slipping out of tempo
And immoderately huddling for warmth
While the pitted stones blanched deliriously in silence
Arching their quixotic backs
While the caroling quasars
Captured in jars
Gravitated towards chauvinistic Tsars

And all the while the jaded Crux
Dangled furiously in the wilting rubble
Unconditionally aware of the glistening brambles
Yet stoically unsurpassed by the stilted salutations
And uncompromisable by the standards of the basin
Indirectly fueled by the grim situation

Quivering beneath, the unwaveringly bespectacled lark
Watched with triumph from the undying dark
As his elastic loyalty and cutting remark
Set ablaze the lacerated park

Alphonzo

This is a story I wrote about a man named Alphonzo, and his rise to fame.

Alphonzo Questershire McClementine (our protagonist and hero) was a world-famous Nobel prize-winning Astrobiologist. Mankind had not yet discovered intelligent life in the stars, but when they did, Alphonzo would be ready. Alphonzo had exactly 745 hairs on his body, and was currently in the midst of combing a field of them above his left ear.
The comb passed over slowly. The hand that carried and steadied the comb was pockmarked with small scars, the product of many years of misuse. Though some people compared combing to farming (and understandably so!), Alphonzo preferred to compare it to a dance- nay, a ballet.
Oh, how the dancers, content in their amusement, hypnotized the audience! Each (there were twenty-nine of them in total, due to the choreographer’s almost dangerous fascination with the number, which led to his eventual death) wore a dazzling pair of diamond slippers. Due to an error at the slipper factory, several of the shoes had an odd, as opposed to an even, number of diamonds on the toe. Though, because they were entranced by the movement of the artists, none of the audience seemed to notice.
The director, one Jeremy Kongsvinger, who was not world-famous but had received praise from two Baltimore-based newspapers, watched from the wings. He turned to the stage manager, excited.
“This is my favourite part,” he whispered.
Together they watched. The music! Oh, the music! Jeremy had seen the rehearsals, and had worked closely with the choreographer (before his aforementioned death) in choosing the perfect piece. None of that prepared him for this, however. This was something else.
Alphonzo regarded himself in the mirror. He regarded his complexion. He then regarded his teeth. Clean. That was good. He felt a pain in his abdomen- a sharp, buttery pain that seemed to undulate in rigid blasts. He ignored it though- it was probably nothing.
Perhaps it was something, though.
Alphonzo replaced his comb (a special handcrafted Puerto Rican comb with eighty teeth carved from a Yew tree) in his travel bag. He lifted a previously unmentioned, but entirely important pill bottle from the counter.
He observed the white remnants of the label he had scratched off in futility on that fateful evening.
No. No, he couldn’t think back to that evening. It was too painful.
As he put the bottle back down, he heard a familiar dripping noise from behind him. “I’ve heard that noise before”, he thought to himself. He turned to investigate. Sure enough, it was as he had suspected when he had first heard the noise, and had subsequently suspected when he had heard the noise again just now. The shower was leaky. Perhaps he could fix it himself, and save a little bit of his hard-earned money-
No, God dammit! He was an Astrobiologist, not a plumber. It would be best to hire an expert. He then looked down at his shoes, except there was something wrong. They were ballet shoes.
Panicking, he counted the diamonds with furious abandon- an odd number.
No! He looked up again, and saw the audience, respectfully waiting. It was time for his big solo.
The music flooded the stage. It flooded the whole house. Some Mozart concerto he hadn’t bothered to research. The stage manager and director watched intently from the side, fueling his desire to dance.
And dance he did.

THE END