Aiming for Orion

The Unemployed are a plague. They are unclean and contagious. Teeth, rotted from indiscriminate cannibalism of friends and neighbors. Clothing, rended and hanging off sallow limbs. Lacking intelligible speech, they resort to grunts and gurgles. And the blood... there's blood everywhere they go.

Oh, wait... never mind... I was thinking of the Undead! No one wants to date them either. Both species are undesirable. Silly me. Sorry for the confusion.

Here's a better way to start:

Let's assume for a moment - just for fun - that my life has trajectory. Let's pretend that I am rising above my recent past and moving forward at a significant slope, like a Calatrava curve that never seems to lose its tether to the ground.

Let's assume that I'm finally angry - about being treated that way, about always being sorry, about the truth and sickness behind secrets - so that I fly through this trajectory with a fire at my back, shedding light and incinerating the details behind me.

Let's assume my whole body is gasping. Ashen debris slicks the water and clouds the air around me. Every breath I take is weighed down by a mixture of particles and air. As clean air nourishes my lungs, jagged particles scar them and force me to breathe deeper and sharper.

Let's assume that from the very start, my legs and arms are flailing. But as I gorge on oxygen, I feed the fire behind me and find the strength to telescope a fist overhead. I lock on Orion, the wayward hero and raging hunter, and stop pinwheeling across the sky. Let's assume I can fly. Like Christopher Reeve or Ultraman. No cape. No silver suit with a huge zipper up the back. Just me, aiming for Orion.

The truth is, I don't know where I am going. I only know that I am going up.


P.S. Does anyone else have proof that Vin Diesel is a big ol' queer? I've been seeing stories that he wants to (1) remake Guys and Dolls and (2) star in the movie version of the Silver Surfer, who I think is one of the few Marvel comic nerd universe citizens with Major Homo tendencies.