Anita's Child


      Anita's Child



Page 6




25.       I closed my eyes, folded my arms and rested against the back of my 
chair,  and tried to picture what I would write next.  The sound you hear playing 
in the background, if you haven't turned off the sounds,  is the same here, as I 
sit here pondering.   I was so close to ending  this story after I wrote the 
last passage, number 24.    I thought it would  be just perfect, since I started 
writing this on the birthday of my son Mario.   Why not end it to coincide with 
the death of my father.   
     I asked a good friend of mine, about my thoughts of ending this story, hoping 
to get some feedback, but there was none.   Just as I suspected.   It really 
doesn't make a bit of difference if I stop or continue.   That leaves me with 
an empty feeling of "why bother?"   Why do I live with the illusion that anyone 
really cares whether or not I continue.    OK, a couple of my friends appreciate 
what I'm doing,  but there is a chance that maybe the novelty of reading this 
exposition of my innermost feelings and thoughts, will wear off and life will 
continue galloping along without any need for my existentialist  uttering.
      What is the meaning of this life?   What is the importance of a few 
of us seekers, searching for the meaning of life?  What individual parts of 
life have more meaning than the rest of it?   Does life exists for life itself,  
never to be questioned,  or is it something we are labeling,  in order to 
begin the quest of understanding it?   
    Try this theory of mine, and see if it makes any sense.  I personally
feel it is as true as anything can be.  First let me explain a few things.
We all understand what rot is about.   I once read the story of an UFO  
abduction where the woman involved said she was given the message 
that an important  human problem  is how to cope with rottage.   Rot after 
all is one of the stages of life, which we commonly understand, takes place 
during the last phase of any particular biological life-form,  that part better 
known as death.   But if I turn this around, there is another way to see 
rottage as being the first stage of life as we know it.  Any large heavenly 
body in the universe, that cools off enough to allow steam to condense 
into water, will, I believe,  eventually after a time of gestation, help
the "planet" to rot into life.   Rottage happens and "life" springs 
into being.  This simply means that life can happen everywhere in this 
universe, not just here on one isolated planet.   The universe is teeming
with "life",  most likely in numerous amounts, with variations on  the 
same theme.   Of course there will be differences in the life-time-cycles
of all these rotting planets allowing "life" to happen.   Some of us have
seen and witnessed alien beings flying around in magical machines that 
certainly took many, many  thousands of years to develop.   Our turn will come 
now that we have seen that just about anything is possible.   As the saying
goes:   "The difficult can be done, the impossible takes time".  
    Since there are a few, if indeed a very small minority, who truly understand 
we aren't the only life-forms  in this universe,  life take on another 
meaning.   To understand that we are not alone in the universe, will certainly
remove our medieval understandings and free us from the shackles of thinking 
we are so unique, taking ourselves so bloody serious, to the point of fighting
over who has the right religion to praise life.    You certainly don't need
religion to explain what is happening throughout the universe.    Life happens,
and it is not the doing of any particular entity.    We have to get rid of all
our out-dated rotten ideas and see that rottage, in a new light, is the  driving 
force with the potential to create life everywhere in the universe.      
     Everywhere I turn, I read and see how billions of us are still living in the 
Dark Ages.    Some have already been to the moon and back, yet there are other 
nations on this planet that will never have the chance nor will they even 
have the desire to investigate other life-forms  beyond this dying planet. 
Never will they dream of touching  down on another planet, much less journey 
to other star systems.  Life is:   Bountiful, good, exciting, awe inspiring,
fascinating, wonderful, merciful, challenging, contesting, at times dangerous.
It is developing, improving, dying, going through changes, soon coming to a 
biological ending transforming into magical machines.   But most important of 
all, it is an eternal evolutionary process independent of  whether or not 
we survive on our planet.   We are not alone, we are not the only ones alive 
in the universe.   
     Take a walk, as I have done on many nights, and find a dark area where 
you can see the Milky Way with billions of stars.   Gaze deep and try to 
imagine all the billion galaxies, beyond our own.    Feel the immensity 
of it all, and be thrilled that you are aware of life happening everywhere.   
Beings like yourselves are certainly standing out there on their wandering 
planets.   And as far as the eye can see,  and beyond into infinity,  wherever 
it may be, there will be other beings,  staring back at you, thinking the same 
thoughts, sharing the same awe.

26.     Let me see if I can with reasoning present some kind of logic.
If I have a lot of clothes, I must have spent a lot time acquiring them.   Clothes
would be important to me.   If I have a lot of food, the same could be said 
about it too.   So if I have a lot of time, would I have spent a lot of time 
acquiring time?  Wouldn't  time be just as important to me as clothing and food?    
Time:   I've spent a lot of time,  most of my time, in fact all of my time, 
thinking about the time I have had, have and hope to have.   I've been saving 
time, spending it, wasting it, hoarding it, watching it, even trying to slow 
it down!   Time:   When is the best time to spend leisure time thinking 
about the time you can spend reading TIME, having the time of your life?   
Time is so much.   Without time,  matter and energy would  not have a leg to 
stand on.     This is getting a little complicated, and perhaps a bit boring 
for some of you, so I think it is about time I put an end to this talk about 
time.  
    I could try to stop talking about time, but it would be there the whole time
making sure that I get enough time to think things over.  There is no way to get 
around time, to do something without including time.   Without time the moon 
would not rise majestically.   Without time we could not experience the greatest
emotion, love.  No moon for lovers, no loving of an ascending  moon.  Without 
time,..matter wouldn't  matter,  it couldn't behave  energetically enough to 
function matter-of-factly, so nothing would matter at all.   As a matter of fact,
it is a timely thing, for the moment,  that the thing we can't put our finger on,
is  happening  all the time, allowing the things that truly matter to become a 
part of our reality, by giving us the tools and objects we use measuring all 
our movements and our moments.   The measure of life.
    I have  many clocks spread throughout my 3 room apartment, ticking along, 
ready to remind me what time it is and where I am in time and space.    Thank 
goodness for that.   I need to know where I stand,  relative to the cosmos.   
I need to know how long ago it was that I came into being.    What other events 
took place during that measured moment.    Who dropped what on whom,  what blaze 
ravaged which town, what devastating earthquake changed a section on the  face 
of the earth I inhabit, what celestial  eclipse took place during this time.   I 
want to understand that when I was 5 measured years,  W.W.II was just about to end.  
I like knowing  that it was the same summer I came out of an orphanage.   When I 
turned eight, they invented the transistor.  Knowing that, I can deduce how long 
it would be before I'd enjoy the fruits of the transitored dream machines, our 
computers.  It took a long 48 years before I could experience electronic magic 
at my service,  at the tip and tap of my fingers.   
    To abruptly change the subject, I would like to do something different.   I 
have been writing in real-time, in sequential time,  from the very beginning of my
story.   I'd like to dip into my past writings and insert two "Incidents", as I call 
them.   Some of you have already read them, but most of you haven't, I know, for 
I only shared these with a handful of friends on the Internet.  I'd like to have 
them here to help explain my nature:  How I responded when confronted with a 
situation from out of the blue.   Life is so good about that.   Without surprises,
good or bad, life would lose some of its' charm.  That's why I avoid fortune tellers.
Not because I don't believe in their gifts of soothsaying, but because I want
all my surprises, to remain truly surprises.   Life would be boring otherwise.
Take for example my first incident, which I remember as "The hitch-hike".   The
other incident took place on a late night "Greyhound bus ride".

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

        "The Hitch Hike"
One night in Los Angeles, I was heading back home to Santa Monica and it
was late.   The buses had stopped running, so I was forced to walk and try 
to hitch a ride.   I did manage to get a lift.  An elderly couple picked me 
up.  My guess was that they were past 50 years of age.   I was at the time 
about 25 or 26.   They were both quiet and I sensed somehow a bit of gloom.
My senses just picked it up.   I asked if there was something wrong, and to 
their surprise that I sensed something, they opened up and told me a sad story. 
     They were driving around that night, more or less drifting, like two lost 
souls in the night.    I don't remember who started to relate that they received 
a telegram, earlier in the day, informing them that their only child, their son, 
was killed in action in Viet Nam.   I was speechless.   I felt so sorry for them, 
and I still do to this day.   I doubt if they are still living today.   But if their 
souls are still drifting,  I'd sure like them to know that I haven't  forgotten 
the night when I sat in the back seat of their car and listened to their story.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

       "The Ride Back Home" 
I took a Greyhound Bus up to  Northern  California, thinking that I would 
like to take some pictures of the tall Redwood Forest; The giant Sequoias. 
I stayed a while to photograph some of the trees and surrounding area, being 
careful not to drift too far from the roads.   The first leg of this journey 
was Santa Monica to San Francisco.   When I was in Frisco, I bought a round
trip ticket to the Redwood area.   When I got back to San Francisco, I was 
hungry so I ate something in a restaurant.  After I finished eating I completely
forgot about the return ticket fee which I would need for the return to Santa 
Monica.   To my shock I saw that I only had enough for a ticket, just a little 
more than a third of the distance!    The bus was soon to depart and I had 
to make a decision quick.   I purchased a ticket to San Luis Obispo.   I get
on the bus.  When San Luis Obispo is the next stop, I'm glued to my seat, faking 
a sleep.  The bus driver does the count, counting heads as he walks up and down 
the isle.   He pauses a few seconds, as if in afterthought.   I'm watching the
scene through a squinting eye.  He returns to the driver's seat, and off we go.   
The next stop, the same procedure.  I'm still awake, nervous, feeling the horror 
of being discovered and being asked to leave the bus in the middle of the night.   
There must have been at least 5 more stops before reaching Santa Monica.    It 
was about 4 in the morning, the city was asleep, but I  was wide awake, so glad 
to "come home".   Such a relief that I didn't have to spend the night in some 
jail for loitering.  I thanked the bus driver as pleasantly as I could, but I don't 
think he realized that I was thanking him VERY much.   Such a moment in life when 
I feel so proud to be  a citizen of a country that believes in the term, "the 
exception to the rule".   I think the bus driver understood that someone was 
"free riding", and possibly  understood that it was a person desperate to get
somewhere.   
    The bus driver had the heart, and the wisdom, to help.  He probably understood 
that being stuck in "no-mans-land" in the middle of the night, is no fun at all.   
This is one of the many  reasons why I "give my art to the world".   I have so much 
to be grateful for.   So many have helped me, directly and indirectly,  that I feel 
honored to have the opportunity to show my thanks by giving back, the best that I 
can do.     




27.     Sometimes I wonder, what am I doing?   Why am I writing these words?  This 
business of opening up my heart, telling the story of my life, serves no real purpose.
The world and my private life has not improved since I started this endeavor.   My
son Mario, who more or less, promised to keep in touch with me, if I refrained from
contacting him, has conceded to the wishes of his mentally twisted and mean mother.
He is such a coward when it comes to doing what is right.   He is so afraid of his
mother, he doesn't dare go against her sick and selfish behavior.    He will soon be
22 and she still controls him with her demented hatred.   She has succeeded in poisoning
my biological rights to father my only offspring.    And the Fascist State of Sweden
stands behind her, not making any effort to undue the wrong she has done.    I am
drowning in my bitterness.
    Most of my friends, family and acquaintances are all enjoying their lives as 
parents.   I can't even dream of seeing my son getting married to a chosen sweetheart.
If he has any children, I rightfully should be crowned the grandfather of his children.
But no, that won't be happening.   Such eventual thrills have been locked away from
me by the ugly actions of one single human being.   That is a crime.   
   Before my words turn into verbal bile, I'd rather end this story.   I have nothing
more to say.  
   enough said,

Carl Toothman
February 29, 2000
Halmstad, Sweden
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