Spring—

      Try to imagine ten million men—big, ugly men—naked, bright red and blistering from sun exposure, swimming thousands of miles across a tropical sea simply to ejaculate on some rocks and then swim back, thousands of miles, to the archipelago from which they came, to bury themselves under sand, and then to wait, in a semiconscious state, only to do it all over again the following year. Now imagine doing this every year for the entire span of your life. That’s my reality, and I don’t care for it.
      This year I pushed my head up through the sand to discover, as usual, I was the first to rise. Hopefully it will be days before others emerge, but I’ll take all the time that luck affords me, to comb the beaches, searching for all those strange, little clues that wash ashore, hinting at a world beyond sand and coconuts and sun blisters.
      Through the tiny scraps that have crossed the sea to collect at the tide line on my beach, I’ve glimpsed the larger human realm, but only in the faintest sense. I understand so little of what I find, yet I know with certainty that I want to take part in it. I want to eat discount spaghetti dinners. I want to go on a ghost tour. I want to employ a doctor so that I can ask him if Lipitor is right for me. I want to fire a gun, and play the slots, and see Jersey Boys on Broadway. I want to get an abortion, I think; the pamphlet detailing the procedure was too sun-faded for me to glean the particulars, but the coupon inside is good through the end of the year.
      Then the others begin to rise, disturbing my quiet desperation, all of them pudgy and balding, with hair on their backs and bad posture and body odor. I offer greetings to those faces I recognized—I thirst for conversation—but they only grunt and push me aside. And then, without even taking time to clean the sand from their mouth and eyes, they begin searching for coconuts and conch shells, seaweed and crabs. They’ll eat most anything but for sand. And when the bulk of them have risen from their burrows, driven by an instinct to expel semen onto the ground at very specific and distant locations, they enter the waves and begin to swim. And, of course, I follow, but why I could not tell you.
      With little incident we swim for weeks until we reach those distant shores, arriving mostly in the same numbers from when we set out, minus those who have drowned, either because sickness or age has weakened them, or, for some unfortunate few, they became tangled in flotsam and died. And once returned to the spots from where we first emerged, from where our wretched lives began, it immediately becomes clear that we have not returned for nostalgic reasons, rather, instead, only to stand in large, humiliating circles of naked middle-aged men with neglected physiques masturbating onto patches of mud and rock, patches of mud and rock presumably visited earlier by the women of our kind, though I have never seen them and can only trust that they exist.
      And once this obscene biological urge has been subdued, it’s back into the water. And, of course, I follow. But why? Is life truly so fleeting and insignificant, directed only by the unalterable tendencies of the instinctual mind beyond conscious reasoning?
      I stood in the surf as others pushed past me to enter the water. From the strength of the outgoing tide, so unlike the modest tidal patterns surrounding the scattered islands to which we are driven to return, I know I stand on the shoreline of a continent. Walking along the coast would likely lead to the larger human realm, for certain it must.
      So I remain, watching, despairing quietly, as the last of my kind disappear on the thin line where the sea meets the sky. 

Fall—

      Regarding the larger human realm, I do not care for it. The discount spaghetti dinners are alright, when made available to me, but the rest of it can go. This world does not accept me, and my company is little tolerated in all but the most permissible community spaces where barring my entry would prove awkward or impossible. They have encountered my kind before, these other humans, these inhabitants of the endless suburban sprawl. I know nothing of the details of these encounters; I only know that wherever I travel, hostility is waiting for me. They call me The Jizzer, or Jizzer, or sometimes just Jizz. Without knowing the exact meaning or origins of this epithet, from the way it is spoken, I know that it is intended as a derogatory, or somehow an expression of their low opinion of me, an opinion formed entirely without knowledge of my character, and all whom I encounter are always careful to leave me no opening that I should influence their opinions otherwise.

     There’s nothing here for me. My frustration has grown to anger.
     I feel myself stuck between two worlds, equally wretched but by different measure. From where I came, I dare not return—and could not return if I so desired as Lipitor has destroyed my health. And in the here and now, I cannot stay, as unwelcome as I am. And yet I do stay, though every day, little by little, I find myself becoming more in manner like the man that inspires the sensibilities reflected back at me through all those eyes steeped in fear and disgust.
     I hate this world.
     It is beyond my nature to direct harm at the living—I repulse at the thought that my actions should cause physical or emotional suffering in another—but I find myself entertaining thoughts of vandalism and arson, perhaps larceny as well, and fraud. Fraud most of all. Fraud appeals to me, specifically identity theft for purposes of wire fraud. And why not when I am wrongly accused each day of trespass and defacement simply for seeking shelter outside the path of public right-of-way?
     So as my isolation grows, they file their taxes. As my ill will rises, they plan their trips to Walt Disney World Resort. As my compassion goes numb, they wash their sport utility vehicles. And as they eat their ravioli lasagna dinners, and their lemon herbed salmon dinners, I imagine, what if theirs became mine? What if I drove their vehicles, and took their trips, and stole their tax returns, and ate their dinners? And if through some circumstance I was without assurance that I would remain unseen while acquiring through theft or fraud what is theirs, I would opt instead to ejaculate on it, or in it, depending on the it in question, and then retreat to the hillsides overlooking their homes and watch as they enjoy their ravioli lasagna dinners, to give but one example.
     If this were so I do believe I would have found my niche within this world, and these sad times I’ve come to know would be much less sad going forward, perhaps even, filled with moments of perverted joy; for certain I can say much less time would be spent in quiet desperation.