Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl

This is the last page from a chapter called, "Your mother was a lizard," where he attacks (Elijah style) evolution and Nietzsche. This excerpt can stand alone but the full value of the book will come when you buy it!

From the book:

"I stand, ripening in the sun, on a street corner by a coffee shop. The world spins on, undisturbed in its route. Summer has come with the loveliness of a mother. Heat, not warmth, now pours onto my face, aging me, taking me closer to death. Let it. I am here to live my story, to love my story. I will not fail to savor any gift out of a desire for self-preservation. Self-preservation is not a great virtue in this story.

I have this world, and everything in it has me, poor trade though it is. I have a barbecue. I will use it tonight. Over my shoulder a girl approaches, pushing a wheelchair. A man sits in it, twisted, drool dried on chapped lips beneath the tangles of an untrimmed moustache. Nietzsche's voice is hard to understand. 'The Christian concept of a god (Nietzsche says) as the patron of the sick, the god as a spinner of cobwebs, the god as a spirit--is one of the most corrupt concepts that has ever been set up in the world: it probably touches the low-water mark in the ebbing evolution of the god-type.'

I want to ruffle his hair. I want to take the poor Lutheran boy's head in my hands and kiss his creased forehead. It is all I can do. I cannot set a bone, let alone a soul.

He moves on, preaching unbelief to an empty street.

And I move on, with the sun on my face. Clouds are growing in the west, glorious clouds piled up with rowdy care and sparked with electric life. I fill my lungs with the world, with this life, with this gift beyond containing. There is only one thing I can say. Thank you. And I must say it with my life. Through my life. To the end of my life.

And after."