Upside Down Kris

  Animal Compassion It wasn't the man with the gaping mouth and bulging eyes that drew me in. No, it was the dog shouting, trying to save him. He had the courage the size of a  St. Bernard bursting out of a compact, ivory Benji. You could see that the Benji look-alike was a sweet boy. His owner and his owner's friend bent down often to pet him and convince him that everything was o.k. But he knew that everything was not o.k. There was a man being pulled on a leash, his body and face writhing. The dog, too, was on a leash–albeit held by a loving hand. Maybe he would have run into the scene if he was free–barking at the aggressor, perhaps even biting him. But his owner kept him close, a calming hand on his head or back. But Benji was no fool. He felt the pain of the man being treated like an overworked mule. That's what the amazing thing was: he was trying to stop someone else's pain.  Anyone who says animals are not sentient beings has never truly observed them. Animals ...

Insiders and Outsiders He looked up after fumbling through a bag and smiled as he handed her a cigarette. Nothing remarkable, you might say. It was the smile that got me   - a nd the purple glasses-neither of which I had seen him wearing before.  She was disheveled–her hair frizzing around her head and crowding her back, badly in need of a kneading of her knots. He seemed better kempt than she was, his locks shiningly clean like they usually were. Maybe it was their bodies that showed their "sameness"-her belly protruding from under her fuchsia t-shirt in an untucked fashion, his swollen ankles sticking out from the borders of his too-short pants.  Maybe they also shared colors. I had seen him in pinks and violets, although usually more pastel than his friend's shirt. But still, something was connecting them, hence the grin that I had never seen him direct at anyone, not even the child who had stopped to say hello one day. Maybe they were both beggars or druggies. They se...

The Edge of the Sea Looking out at the outline of the sea in the dark, you could swear that the edge of the world is visible.  An inkiness sops up the sea, coloring it night and confusing it with the sky. The end of the world is clear–a white break in the opaque–and is so near, as near as it could possibly be. You could be sure of it, swear that you know where the margin is if you didn't know the truth of day...that once, nearly a year ago, you broke through the breaking point. You swam into it, fearing your breath or your legs wouldn't last until you truly tested the limits. But there you were–being helped onto the rocks by the hand of an elderly man who had reached the border between sky and land out of curiosity. And in trepidation you stepped onto the slipperiness to see the end. But what you saw was the beginning: the launch pad of another sea. The water lept from the rocks and pushed off into the vastness, vast itself. And it made you wonder: where did the source of the s...