Some of these stories were somewhere else but I've taken them off and put them here. Over the years I've done a lot of posts on many other writing sites, most of which have gone now, but I find that steemit is the best out of all of them and so I'm taking any articles and stories from these other sites and putting them here. Even though I have taken them off some of the other sites they still show up in searches for some reason even though you can't read the original post anymore. All views in my posts are my own of course, and though my philosophy may not be mainstream it's my own and I can live with it...

![city-35002_1280.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmbah2ZEr7aT1cQD265cQZJ1PXFas2cN7qWVUUMDK4UaxK/city-35002_1280.png)
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SOMETHING TO GIVE

One thing leads to another under the sun where the city is crazy with it all; but when night comes it is cooler and the dogs wake up from their heavy sleep in the heat to cherry pick their dreaming where they exist.

And in our cherry-picking dreams must we live where we die in our graves and be nothing more than shadows of all we can guess to be true?
The answer comes close to nature as a force of forgetting where we lay down where we fall to become one. Later, hand in hand we stroll under the moon and remember what is so easy to forget, that together we are inseparable.
The desert is our home where we come back to be, time after time to live with the beloved, to die every day to live and living we have something to give: sometimes in an acceptance of the moment, and sometimes as the perfect expression of love.

![great-wall-3022907_1280.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmd1JD5oCGsiAgcWq9VcPtbHDFaFPsRbRebFNvGvs6UV5P/great-wall-3022907_1280.jpg)
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MORE THAN A DOZEN YEARS

Every man Jack and woman Jill owns a piece of the mystery and though some piece it together brick by brick, others tear it down faster than it can be built.
So on the one hand there’s a lot of bricks stacked for the building, and on the other there’s a lot of rubble.
All those who live in the middle of this, depending on which way they’re looking, are either looking up or looking down, if they’re not looking over.
For more than a dozen years the old man on the hill kept his silence about it all until one day, with all the noise going on, he just had to speak up and say something about it. But try as he might no words would come out.  He’d been silent for too long, and anyway, there was too much of a din happening for him to be heard.
CQ on her wireless could have told him this, but he was wireless and so had to chill out on his own.
A thousand years in the other direction, as the balloon is blown, a ruckus was blowing up over a cautionary expedition that was making little progress on how to build the wall to keep the hordes out; so men in black coats were hired to draw up plans to make things go faster.
For more than a dozen years they drew their pay and drank a lot of beer and on Sundays they went to church to pray for inspiration.
When the times changed, as times do change, they became redundant and all to a man sighed in relief and went off to find other work more fitting of men who wore black coats.
God, high up on his cloud, who’d been formulating an inspired design for the wall, gave up on it when he saw he was no longer needed.
When ten thousand tons of bricks were delivered everyone was kept busy for another dozen years or so, and in this way life carried on.

![radio-146124_640.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmZyK5jbspeG8zyZutkbf1skhqvgZCeDBi1kDz59UP9Cnh/radio-146124_640.png)
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MISDIRECTION OF THE HYPERBOLE

Far below and in and out of the Upanishads of the big river, the teeth of the lips of misdirection were just warming up and causing concern among the masses of the righteous and faithful.
No amount of coffee could fix this and so Isis Media as herself in disguise was introduced into the belief that everything would turn out alright in the end.
This was news to the problematic that set up a hastily erected outpost to waylay any strangers that wanted in, in any way and for whatever reason.
The first casualties were a gang of handsome idiots who mistook all that was said for the truth of reality and became spoiled in the rush to fame.
Listening in on a high frequency from the bushes, Ali Akbar the Californian subversive grinned from ear to ear and dialled up the machine further to hear more but was disturbed by CQ the mermaid on her wireless out in the ocean deep:
“CQ calling, CQ calling... come in please.”

![vintage-1721918_640.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmZvba7m8o7ho6ExYvVRHJeWsWHrZvu7XYSwZttFuQesxU/vintage-1721918_640.jpg)
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CQ was an old hand at giving pause to the unwary and though far away, her wireless machine was most powerful and could reach into places others feared to tread.
Ali was on hold and waiting for inspiration or something and so was speechless in the inquiry from CQ, which is not always a bad thing for hyperbole can be overrated at times, most especially when one is hiding out in the bushes and spying on all that’s going on.
CQ eventually tuned to a different bandwidth and Ali went back to listening to the results of the misdirection. But the story had moved on from that and so Ali too tuned in to something different.
A racing coffin with the tendencies of an expiry date fell over backwards at this and decided to speak no more until resurrection day came when it would be lifted out into the light to be applauded for such patience in the face of all misdirection.

![pizza-329523_1280.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmahqpKauie2SFyw6pARGfsoiddgLJgWTy65DyDw4QLHZg/pizza-329523_1280.jpg)
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THE NEXT PIZZA HOUSE

We can’t say for sure when time began, or when it really ended for that matter. Maybe it was when we found each other under that full moon so long ago and our soul opened to you and let you in.
We are you as you are us.
The moment we lose your hand is when we are in separation, and when we find it again all is well; and we find there is no story but you unless we turn the wireless on.
The bones of an old song on the radio was whipping up support for the rebels in their cold coats and oversized boots from the bone-yard in the hot heat and sun of another windblown day, and mumbling:
“We would surrender if only they would let us,” but had to be satisfied with eight ounces of coffee for all their troubles. And as they blindly tumbled onwards, the wind in its wishful thinking told them secrets to keep them alive and to never give up until they were all home again.
“We are huge here where we meet in the high circles,” said the wind that blows forever.
A ballerina for those thoughts then that come so perfectly out of the blue to thrive in the endless stages of childhood; and let us hope the grave does not find us still standing before we fall into that pit to leave us animated as starched soldiers, moving here and there with every string that pulls us along lifeless corridors where the daily god of money has such sway.
In the next pizza house the double-dip boys came wearing their boxing gloves to teach us to pray harder for all we didn’t have that they told us we must have.
After we had enjoyed our pizza we scarpered over the wall of that little drama to escape and get away to later where we slept in our dreams.

![orange-juice-67556_1280.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmb3DntYpbpz4PXbNod9TgyJRtGKUwRyTcGVMWfxGp4Gad/orange-juice-67556_1280.jpg)
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ORANGE JUICE WITH NO SMILES

The morning brought orange juice with no smiles and the news that a dear friend had passed away to go on before us in her sleep which made us sad. So we remembered the good times we’d had together until we’d cried enough and then we carried on and knew she’d always be with us even though we’d never see her again.

Images from Pixabay