Short Happy Stories

Volume 2 is now available! The book contains 50 stories. Order here, or inquire at a bookstore.

Mysterious Cats

Cats move among the ruins. In and out of late afternoon shadows; on and off stones. Though no pattern has been discerned, the cats’ movements seem deeply deliberate. As though they have a specific reason for moving the specific ways they’re moving. A specific reason that has guided them for unknown centuries…

Clearly these cats are in no hurry to do anything else—and neither am I.

But… why do I find them so fascinating? They’re just walking around.

But… that really isn’t how it feels. Their silent steps—paws on crumbling stones and dirt—actually seem inevitable. And if their silent steps are inevitable, something must make them inevitable. These mysterious cats must be connected with… must be a pure expression of… the underlying and overlying mystery?

The mystery of everything.

From the base of a column that no longer supports anything, one cat walks in a straight line through the column’s long, long shadow, stops upon entering the sun, and sits. Perched atop the shadow column.

That now-still cat is—as the other cats continue their silent steps—sacrificed by the sun to the shadow column.

Colors intensify.

Colors diminish.

Stars arrive.

How long have I been standing here—accomplishing nothing—just looking at cats? What a strange waste of time.

However… I didn’t have anything planned for today… so… What better thing should I have been doing?

Turning my back on the cats and the ruins, I walk up the road, to the café. Inside, pleasantries are, as usual, exchanged; and then, outside, as I wait for my drink at my preferred table, I imagine the café workers saying mean things about me.

They can’t know—because none of them has asked—why I’m still here, in their country; but I just sense that their pleasantness toward me is fake, that they don’t really like foreigners and are certainly sick of me, the guy who…

Suddenly I access a truly disturbing possibility: my existence hardly registers with the café workers, so they don’t even consider saying mean things about me. For Olympia and the others, my whole existence is nothing more than an insignificant little chore that is, upon completion, immediately forgotten.

“Your precious time!” roars the gruffly buoyant middle-aged man who just stepped outside with shoulders thrown back and a hand holding a drink; a few of the other tables are occupied, and I wonder whom he’s talking to. I think he’s the owner. The scattered tables make sure the line his movement draws is not straight, and I wonder where he’s going.

He places the drink on my table and says, to me, “How do you use your precious time?”

“Well,” I say—and stop, wonder what to tell him. How much information to provide. He crosses his arms. I probably shouldn’t tell him much. “Just now I was looking at those ruins down the road. The one with all the cats.”

“Ah yes,” he says. “The ruins with the cats. Very mysterious, those cats.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“They know something, those cats.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“How should I know? I am not a cat.”

“Right.” I don’t say anything else because I don’t know what to say. Probably he doesn’t really want to talk with me anyway. Probably he’ll be grateful for this current silence, take this opportunity to take his leave, go back inside and talk with people he actually likes.

But, instead of going away, he turns his head and looks, with a thoughtful expression, across the old, old road—and continues: “People these days think that if they know how to get by, they don’t need to know anything else. People these days… People these days are always complaining about people these days. Have you noticed this?” With a sudden smile he turns back to me. “So you see, I am no different. But so many of these people… these nowadays people… They don’t seem to want to study the world. It’s enough for them to know that there is much science that describes much. They don’t care about understanding it for themselves. But of course they know, with certainty total, there is no God. You are a fool if you believe in God! That is what many nowadays people are saying. That is not what I am saying. What I am saying is… How can you know there’s no God when you don’t even know what the cats are thinking?”

I want to say something insightful. “This world is very… mysterious. It’s… interesting.” Feeling embarrassed, I try to think of a more intelligent—

“You will come to my very special birthday party,” he says. “The very special birthday party is two days after today. Two days hence. I will become forty-nine years old on that day.”

Something about “very special” makes me slightly uneasy. Because… how will the birthday party be very special? Forty-nine doesn’t seem like a very special age, so something else must make the birthday party very special. But… what?

“Thank you,” I say, “but I don’t want to impose.”

“No impose. Impossible to impose if I invite you. And I invited you. You heard it. It just happened.”

Maybe… Well, I just spent however long I spent watching cats do nothing… so… Maybe spending more of my free time with other humans would be good. Maybe… Maybe I have been a bit lonely here, so far from my old life. And maybe this man sensed that loneliness, and is trying to be nice. Which is… very special.

Maybe Olympia will be at the party! It seems reasonable to assume that at least a few of the café workers will be there. Or… will nobody I recognize be there? Will it be a very strange party, in a strange place with strange people? Will I be attacked?

The party could be bad, or good, or boring. Delightfully or horrendously life-changing.

I remain unable to see the future. And that makes everything… kind of exciting.

“I’ll bring a bottle of wine.”

“Good.”

An Interpretation of Eyes

Her eyes are not focused on physical reality.

Her eyes are neither eyes of despair nor eyes of delight.

Nor are her eyes eyes of acceptance.

Something about her eyes… They almost seem, somehow, to have exited time. Or… something.

They really make you wonder.

Maybe she always believed that a powerful sequence of external and internal forces could push her to a particular point—at which she would simply collapse. And it would be a profound collapse, after which no exertion could even be imagined.

But maybe just one minute ago she reached what she’d feared would be the point of collapse—and didn’t collapse. To her true astonishment, even though external and internal forces pushed her and pushed her and pushed her, she’s still standing. Somewhere beyond frustration…

My tentative conclusion: her eyes—which still seem to have no awareness of my existence—are a combination of exhaustion and stunned satisfaction.

“Hello,” I say. This is the second time I’ve said that.

Just like last time, she doesn’t react.

I want to accomplish at least two things today, so I can’t keep standing here like an idiot.

So I say—maybe, unfortunately, a bit too loudly—“Hello!”

Her eyes change: they connect with my eyes. Maybe nothing else exists.

“I’m so sorry!” she says. “Part of me knew you were there, but another part of me…” She smiles. “So. What would you like?”

Standing there, separated by a few feet and uncountable unknowns, I admire this girl because she has clearly overcome… something.

“A large coffee,” I say. “To go.”

Universe Fantasy

A red car on a black road in a red desert speeds toward a blue town on green land next to a blue sea, on which a white boat carries hopeful passengers infected with the white death, which will deliver bright lives to darkness; unless death won’t be dark but bright; we can’t yet know due to limited sight.

Looking up in the night, space sprawls, dark, so dark, vastness emphasized by infinitesimal brightnesses too big for anyone to reasonably imagine… and you wonder… whatever you wonder.

And eventually, once again, the night ends.

And somehow, for now, there is, in the exact center of absolutely everything, that red car speeding on the black road in the red desert. As anyone who has been there knows, the red desert can easily seem endless and timeless. Purely overwhelming. Like it’s chanting, in deep silence, at the speed of ages, “Compared to me, you are nothing.”

A blink of an eye divided by eternity.

But somehow, right now, between that red car’s windows, mystery human consciousness fuses with the smooth grandeur of Frank Sinatra’s voice—and the entire bright-dark-bright-dark universe feels oddly conquerable.

Thank you, Frank, for the fantasy.

Perspective

Three lines of lightning divide the strange wet sky. Rain falls at a significant slant. Wind tries to sweep the jungle away—so nothing will remain except a shiny desolate surface—but the jungle seems to say “I don’t want to go away.”

A long striped tail curves among wind-slanted plants.

The long striped tail adds danger and thrill to the jungle—because the long striped tail leads to a big tiger with pointy white teeth.

In this exact moment no part of the body touches the ground: the tiger has leapt.

The high point has already been reached: the descent is underway.

Is the tiger’s leap the result of thunder-delivered terror?

Or is the tiger actually disregarding the encompassing storm? Trying to pounce onto a creature concealed by wind-slanted plants?

Though you can see the tiger’s right eye, it’s difficult to interpret.

Maybe it’s an eye of fear.

Maybe it’s an eye of wild excitement.

Maybe it’s an eye of some other emotion.

The only thing that can be said about it with certainty: it’s the eye of a tiger.

Actually, that isn’t true: the eye isn’t an eye at all: the eye is paint. Paint put onto a canvas by Henri Rousseau in 1891.

In 1891 Henri Rousseau was still working where he’d been working for twenty years: in a toll office on an edge of Paris.

When asked about his jungle paintings, he would sometimes describe his own experiences in a jungle, back when he was a soldier in Mexico.

The almost certain truth: he never took a single breath outside of France.

But he certainly visited Paris’s Jardin des Plantes, where he would walk among intoxicating exotic plants—feeling like he was moving through a dream—and examine exotic taxidermied animals.

When he would sketch one of those dead marvelous beasts, he was maybe filled with more awe—a sense of the wondrous possibilities of the world—than someone who has actually seen those beasts in their natural habitats. Seeing something where it belongs can so easily feel… underwhelming. Oh yes, you may think upon seeing the most remarkable thing, that is that; of course it’s right there; I see it and I get it. Is there anything more interesting around here?

But if you don’t see the beast in its natural habitat… If, instead, you only see a relocated isolated version… What astonishing work your imagination will do!

You can suddenly have—despite your absence of direct experience—your own sturdy perspective.

That’s imagination regarding the unknown. There’s also imagination regarding the known. Imagination you can use to see everyday things as though you’ve never seen them before.

Year after year after year, while sitting in the toll office with an easily dull view of the toll gate and some unexotic trees and a factory, Rousseau maybe refused to succumb to boredom—and, over time, muscularized his imagination. To the point, maybe, of looking at that spectacular bizarre view of the toll gate and some unexotic trees and a factory and wondering how anyone could possibly consider it dull.

Probably not too far away—well, actually, in another of Rousseau’s paintings—four moustache men are at play. In an open space between trees. Under a sky that is mostly blue. In the distance are some grey clouds.

The moustache men are wearing silly striped outfits. Two have light blue and light grey stripes. Two have orange and yellow stripes.

There is absolutely nothing serious about these moustache men, playing whatever silly game they’re playing, clearly enjoying themselves.

One moustache man has his hands in the air—just above his head—and he is about to catch or just threw the ball—now and forever suspended in the air—and he is looking at you. Like he’s wondering, not without hope, Will you play?

Another moustache man looks like he’s punching the air or grabbing the shirt of the just-described moustache man. Though it’s hard to tell exactly what he’s doing, it’s easy to tell he’s committed to what he apparently views as his purpose in the game.

Another moustache man prances with pupils turned in the ball’s direction and hands that could be ready to receive the ball—but his whole demeanor suggests that he would be just as happy to not receive the ball. Because prancing around is fun enough.

The farthest-back moustache man is not in the middle of a particular motion—but he does seem to be, like the first moustache man, looking at you. Curious about what you’ll choose to do. His own plan, if he has one, is a mystery.

The trees to the right and to the left don’t look rooted—as though some Being brought them from Elsewhere and simply set them down; and, somehow, they remain unfallen.

While the players and the bordering trees are painted with a similar degree of detail, the ground is simply a gradient: light brown to very dark brown. An odd effect of the gradient: the four moustache men almost seem to float.

All of this is quite peculiar. Unrooted-but-balanced trees. Floating moustache men. And, of course, us. Peculiarly suspended in Existence. Wherever you will ever be, there will never be nothing. And, right now, wherever you happen to be, look at all of the things all around! Isn’t this amazing?

Maybe we ought to learn from those moustache men, playing their silly game in their silly striped outfits. They look like they’re having so much fun! Maybe that—fun!—should be our approach. To life. Why not? Maybe life isn’t a game—but who the hell knows what it actually is?

What we do know: unlike the lone tiger in the rough jungle, we do not have to exert near-constant effort on basic survival. So… why are we so often so serious?

And… when considering the size of a life within seemingly infinite space… within eternity… how does seriousness help?

Well… maybe being serious is a way to trick yourself into believing that you actually matter.

Many painters and critics of Rousseau’s time were very serious. They seriously trained at Academies. They seriously talked and talked and talked about what Art should be like. They looked at Rousseau’s paintings and laughed with condescension.

Snidely they commented on how self-taught Rousseau—who only really started painting when he was about forty years old—didn’t follow rules of perspective or proportion, resulting in unusual relationships between things.

Snidely they commented on how his paintings seemed childlike.

How many of them used even a single moment to wonder if everything he was doing was actually intentional?

Immediately discounting Rousseau was easy, because they—those oh-so-serious painters and critics—understood that methods had been developed to render the world with precision, the way it objectively is; and Rousseau obviously wasn’t using those methods.

But if the world can only be perceived by individual creatures, how can it be objectively anything? And, for all we know, if there weren’t any perceivers of the world, there would be no world. In any case, each person must perceive at least somewhat differently than every other person; so to paint by using an established system—a system you did not create yourself—is ridiculous. Or, at the very least, lazy.

Rousseau says, in my imagination, An artist should express his own particular perspective as purely as possible, without using anyone else’s tricks.

Or… maybe my thinking is completely wrong.

Maybe Rousseau never painted his genuine perspective.

Maybe, instead, he labored and labored and labored to paint the way he wanted to perceive.

Maybe he believed that painting a more pleasant perspective would teach him how to live a more pleasant perspective—and the world would, effectively, transform into a better place.

But of course I don’t actually know how Rousseau was thinking.

What I do know: after he retired from the toll office, he almost never had enough money—his pension was small and his paintings didn’t sell well—so he would go out into the streets and play his violin.

And, even though his paintings didn’t sell well, he kept painting. Until death. And, while there were some people, including Pablo Picasso, who loved his paintings, many people kept laughing with condescension; snide comments kept reaching his ears. Until death.

And now I’m standing in a wonderful museum in Paris, looking at his painting of a ship at sea in a storm.

The ship is big.

The waves are also big.

The ship can’t hide from the waves—because if you’re in a storm in the middle of a sea, you’re in a storm in the middle of a sea.

Through a sky of greys, rain falls at a significant slant. Falls onto the ship and the sea and two proud French flags and three smokestacks releasing dark grey smoke. The dark grey smoke is proof that the ship is still trying to move its own way—refusing to let the big waves control what happens.

The most peculiar thing about this storm scene: though the conditions are very rough, Rousseau has managed—partly by using some bright colors, partly by doing something I can’t figure out—to achieve pure jauntiness.

Yes: this storm scene is almost unbelievably uplifting.

Rousseau has demonstrated, once again, that you can paint any subject any way you want to paint it.

You can’t stop a storm from being a storm—but you can choose how you look at the storm.

You can be grateful that you’re able to experience any storm at all; and, with airy amazement and a smile, keep moving along.

Angels

The Ongoing Tower ascends from mud to cloud.

Each story was built by a different generation.

Stones are lodged in the mud.

Glass divides a cloud.

The Ongoing Tower would not exist without countless inspirations.

Have hints been whispered by angels?

Lacking Vision, a naked bird endures yet another unsoftened winter on a naked branch.

Meanwhile we—somehow—do not lack Vision.

We house tremendous quantities of bees, so you can put a spoonful of honey into a cup of hot tea.

We cut down trees and melt metals and kill animals to make instruments, so we can dance.

And I arrange words in very specific ways, hoping to make a fortune.

Feel free to contact me at [email protected].