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Yes, my friends, it’s time I came clean and admitted: I’ve been forced to make a Faustian bargain with the Dark Forces of Social Media.  I have a Twitter account. I put it off as long as I could, but when you are trying to promote something, as I am with my books, you sort of have to explore every avenue that you can.

Long-time readers must be wondering why I’ve been so gung-ho about this book business lately.  Well, it’s always been my dream to be a writer, and over the past year and a half, things have happened that made me realize it’s best not to put off trying stuff you always wanted to do–you never know what’s going to happen to you, so it’s best to take every opportunity.

Sorry, I know that sounds as corny as a Hallmark movie; but what can I say?  It’s actually true.

Twitter is, by the way, every bit as annoying to use as it is to read.  I am rather verbose, and Twitter does not lend itself to forming even complete sentences.  “Hey, look!  A thing!” is about all it can express.  So far, using it has done nothing to alter my original assessment of it.

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The statue spoke with a voice that echoed for centuries
As we stood in that dread cosmic citadel.
Surrounded by the dying celestial bodies,
It pronounced its sentence upon me.

Was it all predetermined? said I,

And was answered only by silence.
I gazed again into the eerie twilight of infinity.
For minutes verging on eons, we drifted
Into the quiet certainty of decay.

I spoke again, knowing the question at last:

Could I have changed it?

A bell chimed in the blackness.
The Statue Spoke,
and all that remained of Creation spoke with it:

Would you?

I looked at the darkness without
That was as Sol itself compared
To the darkness within.
I had known what it all meant
When I made my decisions.
I may have hoped otherwise–
But I had known.

No, I said finally.

All at once, the Fortress began to collapse,
And my Stony companion and I
Were left to the pitiless void.
And before the Universe and I felt each other snuffed out
That awful voice said to me:

Then it was you who predetermined it.

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I’m not sure how many people will get this, but here goes. So, I was riding the bus the other day, and the fellow who stepped on in front of me was a massive, mustachioed fellow, and I instantly thought “My God, he looks exactly like Ignatius J. Reilly!” He really did–I mean he was dressed better than the protagonist of John Kennedy Toole’s strange comic novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, but he had the look and manner to a “T”.

What makes this extra funny is that a bus ride figures prominently in Reilly’s backstory.  So not only did he look like Reilly, he was even in a situation like Reilly himself might be found in.

“A strange coincidence”, you say.  So I thought too.  But in itself, not the sort of thing worth posting about.  Odd, but not really that odd–there are lots of heavy-set, mustachioed guys in the world.

But then, dear readers, we reached the realm of the truly uncanny.

It was about a 20 minute ride, and I was standing directly behind the Reilly doppelganger.  During the 20 minutes, the bus stopped a few times, and two different passengers sat next to him.  He conversed with both of them; though I got the sense he didn’t know either of them.

With the first passenger, he talked about theology.  After that one left, he talked with the next one about geometry.

I swear I am not kidding. For those who haven’t read the book–and make no mistake, you have to read the book to truly understand this–Ignatius J. Reilly is always talking about how modern society needs “theology and geometry”.  It’s like a running joke in the book, mostly because it seems like such an odd combination.  And here was someone actually talking about these things.

I was waiting for the Twilight Zone music to start.  It was one of the most surreal experiences I’ve ever had.

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In this forest, each night seemeth haunted and dark;
The cold Autumn landscape relentlessly stark;
While the beasts of the night snarl and bark–
As in legends of Devils and Ghosts.

I can hear the melancholy wind as it moans,
Swirling around the trees and the stones,
Making the branches to rattle like bones,
As night birds cry out from their posts.

In the dying orange light of the fire
The shadows a-dancing begin to inspire
Shimmering shapes all dreadful and dire
Surrounding me here in my room.

I glance at the door, to be sure of the lock,
Another wind gust makes the cabin walls rock.
And I fancy I hear an inhuman voice talk
And whisper of pain and of doom.