[Image: Found this gizmo (sorry — out of stock!) at a retail site called “iFancee.” The caption there: Useless Box Kit – Useless Machine Leave Me Alone Box Kill Time Tricky, which seems to have pretty much covered the bases. Inside the box was a battery-powered motorized mechanism; when you flipped the switch labeled “Push,” a small acrylic “hand” emerged from under the box lid and flipped the switch back to the Off position. If so inclined, you can also view an animated GIF of the box — in the “gleaming acrylic” edition — in action.]
From whiskey river:
I am, by calling, a dealer in words; and words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. Not only do words infect, ergotise, narcotise, and paralyse, but they enter into and colour the minutest cells of the brain, very much as madder mixed with a stag’s food at the Zoo colours the growth of the animal’s antlers. Moreover, in the case of the human animal, that acquired tint, or taint, is transmissible. May I give you an instance? There is a legend which has been transmitted to us from the remotest ages. It has entered into many brains and coloured not a few creeds. It is this: Once upon a time, or rather, at the very birth of Time, when the Gods were so new that they had no names, and Man was still damp from the clay of the pit whence he had been digged, Man claimed that he, too, was in some sort a deity. The Gods were as just in those days as they are now. They weighed his evidence and decided that Man’s claim was good—that he was, in effect, a divinity, and, as such, entitled to be freed from the trammels of mere brute instinct, and to enjoy the consequence of his own acts. But the Gods sell everything at a price. Having conceded Man’s claim, the legend goes that they came by stealth and stole away this godhead, with intent to hide it where Man should never find it again. But that was none so easy. If they hid it anywhere on Earth, the Gods foresaw that Man, the inveterate hunter—the father, you might say, of all hunters—would leave no stone unturned nor wave unplumbed till he had recovered it. If they concealed it among themselves, they feared that Man might in the end batter his way up even to the skies. And, while they were all thus at a stand, the wisest of the Gods, who afterwards became the God Brahm, said, “I know. Give it to me!” And he closed his hand upon the tiny unstable light of Man’s stolen godhead, and when that great Hand opened again, the light was gone. “All is well,” said Brahm. “I have hidden it where Man will never dream of looking for it. I have hidden it inside Man himself.” “Yes, but whereabouts inside Man have you hidden it?” all the other Gods asked. “Ah,” said Brahm, “that is my secret, and always will be; unless and until Man discovers it for himself.
(Rudyard Kipling [source])
…and:
Moon Fishing
When the moon was full they came to the water,
some with pitchforks, some with rakes,
some with sieves and ladles,
and one with a silver cup.And they fished till a traveler passed them and said,
“Fools,
to catch the moon you must let your women
spread their hair on the water—
even the wily moon will leap to that bobbing
net of shimmering threads,
gasp and flop till its silver scales
lie black and still at your feet.”And they fished with the hair of their women
till a traveler passed them and said,
“Fools,
do you think the moon is caught lightly,
with glitter and silk threads?
You must cut out your hearts and bait your hooks
with those dark animals;
what matter you lose your hearts to reel in your dream?”And they fished with their tight, hot hearts
till a traveler passed them and said,
“Fools,
what good is the moon to a heartless man?
Put back your hearts and get on your knees
and drink as you never have,
until your throats are coated with silver
and your voices ring like bells.”And they fished with their lips and tongues
until the water was gone
and the moon had slipped away
in the soft, bottomless mud.
(Lisel Mueller [source])
Not from whiskey river:
Now it happened one day in May 1917, in the turmoil of the Great War, three children came upon a vaporous figure in the woods. She was dressed simply. She had the melancholy expression of a girl who fears losing her childhood to new responsibilities. She looked as if she wanted to burst out of the red roses tangled in thorns around her hair and feet.
However, she was not at all afraid of the children, and reached out to them, eager to speak, to warn, to promise. She was like an older sister who had fled the family, then returned just to see her little siblings, to let them know she would never forget them and what would happen to each of them in the future.
She said she was in despair about the adult world, its cruelty to others, its violence to animals and its greed, and now she only trusted children under eight.
The children were scared. She also talked about war, because they were just coming through one of the worst of them. They told her they liked her but trembled.
She said she understood their fear and told them to prepare for a miracle she would perform just for them. It would happen at 6 a.m. on October 13, closer to their beach so that the priests and people could come to witness it. Then she became the colors that surrounded her, then the blue of the sky, and disappeared.
The children ran home breathlessly and gathered hundreds of people, including schoolteachers, atheists, fishermen, cooks, etc., and led them to the beach at daybreak on October 13 as instructed.
The miracle came not as that teenage girl but as the sun at 6 a.m. It rose over the ridge of the sea in purple, nasturtium yellow, bold strokes of red and mauve. The sun wobbled. Then it rolled free of itself, turned into a silver disk that shot toward the beach like a flying missile. People screamed, fled, fell, scrambled, crawled, prayed, and screamed again.
But the children and a few stalwart skeptics stayed where they were and were thereby privileged to see a second sun explode from the one left behind, and yank back the speeding silver missile, like a dog on a leash.
The silver sun dropped to sea level and began its ascent again, obedient to the golden sun in the sky.
Two suns then traveled peacefully together toward noon, like a dog and its master.
What did it mean? One Benedictine monk held his ground to take account of the phenomenon, announcing, after, that the miracle was not the event itself, but that it came on time, as prophesied by the mysterious female. This was the only meaning and the only miracle that he was aware of, and it was good enough for him.
(Fanny Howe [source])
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