I

Am I really pessimistic, indifferent in my writings? So the Publishers say. I thought I was a realist, although for myself I suppose I'm a misanthropist, meaning: a loner, recluse, cynic malcontent with the world, but Pessimist? I do not get it. Well I guess I will live with it, and be unpolished for a while, the Man of Woe, that is me. The telegram said, they liked the draft, but I needed to take all the gloom out of it. That is like saying your mother passed away, and at the funeral, you're not allowed to give her deep sympathy, or allowed to say out loud her name, or in this case for me to print the gloom of the world at hand. The Will of the world is dead! Life is a despair, the only victory in life is war. And the victim is never wrong because if you tell him so, you're one dead duck, along with the many.

The last publisher out of forty, said I only saw misery and unrest in the world. Somehow life left scars and deep reservoirs, but I made them too deep. He said I said 'Life was meaningless,' I did not say that, I'll have to write him back, tell him, I said, 'The world lived as if life was meaningless,' no I said, I think I said, 'nothingness,' that 'the world took on the spell of no certain faith, an old religion of nihilism is taking place, that life has gone out of the soul.

After reading his comments it bother me, 'when I had young eyes like the publisher, for he's only 27-years old, and I'm 68-years old, he sees the world with young eyes, he can not see beyond the dimness of today, us older ones no longer can. I know he mocks me as a dimwit, living in the past, but it is the present I am talking about in the book, and future: the ruin, man has caused the world, is not that the roof is falling in. I'd like to call him up and talk to him. Maybe go see him, or have him see me, convince him the world needs my book, it is like a gospel, near near, a gospel of doom! I know Mr. Christon Durant, laughs at me, and if I call him he'll say "Mr. Solomon Salem, I had a busy morning in my office, I'm in a good humor, m too tired to fight, we're not going to publish your rot. "

The previous publisher, for him it was regrettable, he agreed- "… but people do not think the way I think," to his mind anyhow. Did he take a survey? No! Did he read 'The Epic of Gilgamesh,' or Achebe, or 'The Trial,' or 'The Castle,' or 'Sentimental Education' or Virgil, or 'Hamlet' or 'Moby-Dick' or 'Metamorphoses': no, no, no, but they all have gloominess to them. How about Faust or Voltaire? No, no, no, again gloominess. For him there is no calamity at the tip of the horizon, no nuclear clock three minutes to midnight, he lives blind in a foxhole.

When I got home last night I noticed a pile of bills on my floor, the mailman's too lazy to put them in the mailbox, instead of the door slot, that's for when I'm on a trip, and I have not taken one for six years. This mailman's a new one, he's older than I, or looks older, with his wrinkles on his face swaying like masts in the offing.

By the time I reached the restaurant, 'The Chef' off Payne Avenue and West Seventh Street, my little apartment, two rooms on York Street not far off, just a little walk, no so much an unusual place, more on the order of a greasy-spoon place, with heavy waitresses with loose aprons and bulging pouches, where white haired men eat, and hopefuls with no sympathetic view on life go. I was still feeling badly about the previous turndown of my MS, but Christion Durant was on my brain now. Yet, oddly enough, so much like they both are. I thought everyone had a view on the chaos going on in the world, did not Aristotle say, "We are all political animals," and did not Pope Francis quote that quote to Mr. Donald Trump relating the wall he wanted to narrow the gap between the overflow of Mexicans sneaking into the United States. I guess my view on it was what Confucius said: "For a wise man should know what he knows and what he does not know."

I like them both, but I wonder if Confucius should have changed his maxim to: "A wise man should know what he knows, and not pretend to know what he does not know."

"The Regular," I told the fat waitress, with heavy-duty varicose-veins, it's a crying shame, her insurance policy here does not pay for them to be taken care of, and evidently they do not. Just then a man came in who lives in the bottom apartment of my four-plex building. He's 93-years old, he said he sold furs in his younger days.

"Hello," he said, waves; I give him a wave back.

Mr. Christion Durant, should know evil is not blind, only hope and those like Russia, and Putin, and al-Assad in Syria, and the Islamic State, and North Korea's head honcho, China likewise, they are all brooding over owning more of the earth.

To know them you got to know their fathers and mothers, because they get their temper from their father, and their good sense and intellect from the mother. The world lives in half-truths, like dreaming, if they put it all together, they've got a heart attack. But what is stronger than the temper or the good sense or intellect? That is what my book is about, 'The Will'. Why the world is falling apart. Why people put-up with living an unbearable life, a burdensome life. That's why I live by myself, short-tempered and all, and live a challenging-like life, it takes guts to do that. Not mouth-guts, like the politicians, but gut-guts, it takes a strong Will.

I still do not know if I should call him. I did not know until recently my book produced such a bad impression on him of me.

I have two sons and two daughters, seldom seen, all out of wedlock, one of the daughters has what I have, that is above 'Will' not so much intelligence perhaps, but the covers that all up! Her husband just died, and she's survived it quit well. She is not in touch with the pretense of the world. She's not gloomy, and cynical, or suspicious. Or obsessed with fears, and evils, or fancies.

It is an effort thinking all these things out, the old man, the fur man, looking my way, smiling. Hair loose, flying to and fro, he sets under a fan, to cool his ordinary body, and life, and he laughs happily as if he told himself a joke. I'd bet he'd agree with my book to be.

I sleep with a gun under by bed, and I hate noise, it is unbearable, but those with less mental capacity, they can end noise it does not torture them, for intellectuals, it does, the knocking, hammering of neighbors, loud music, that base thumping, all torment.

I remember once my boy, one of the twins asked me on if I had any friends? Not one single friend. A lot of acquaintances, but I did not call them friends. Between him and them, resides infinity. And I'm immune to political protest and nationalistic fevers. What is so outrageous, so absurd, and so egotistic of this? I can sleep well, I know my prayers are heard by God.

I shall name my manuscript, 'The Dark Side of the Riddle,' because there is a double riddle in the book, perhaps triple. And what is a riddle but a puzzle if not a question, and mystery, a challenge for the world to find.

II

It was a struggle waking up this Saturday morning, full of sweat and bad odor; I looked out the window, and saw some joggers, and the breakfast sign on at 'The Chef` café, up the street. I wanted to get into the shower, and not be bothered with breakfast. I wanted to call Christion Durant, tell him I got a name for the manuscript. I had to get up out of bed slowly, my head always hurts if it is too fast, I wanted a cigarette, but I had quite for 32-years, it seemed like the bitter taste would wake me better, but that was out of the question. I went and got into the shower, I do a lot of thinking in the shower sometimes.
I realized the MS attracted little attention for Christian, and his publishing house, but in my last of several letters I let him know he should publish it for humanitarian reasons. And he wrote me back, "Use it for waste paper." But I knew he did not mean it. Oh, he also said, remember, "If a demon looks like a demon inside your book (somewhat … quoting Confucius, I believe, misquoting him …), then it is a demon, but somehow you expect an angel of God to come out of it, I think either the demon or the angel needs help, and you have to iron that part out! The book is hollow, and on a collision course. "

The only thing I could tell him, and I'm not going to, but if I did I say: 'Like it or not a man must be humanistic in general, and I can not take your comments serious, perhaps I 'm too alien for contemporaries, knowing what I wrote, is what mankind has turned down in place of chaos, for he knows at large, man knows at large-even if only in the unconscious, he is the fox being hunted. And who are the hunters? '

I picked up a letter the mailman left on the floor. It read from Mr. Durant, "You are deaf to your audience, because you can not see no one applauding, can you, yet you persist in us publishing your rot? Tell me what is in your book to applaud?"

How can he talk like that to me! Here is an editor who wrote at one time and could not sell, so he took a job editing books to judge them for his publisher. A judge with less applause than me. The poorest of the players! The only thing his job does is raise his ego, and rejecting my MS, was a short cut to his compensation for his absence of fame.

In other words, Christion knows my MS reads like the Torah, a doomsday Torah, but all thinking people must find seclusion, and for that reason I can not go knocking on his door. But I'll stop giving lectures at the University, I can survive on the revenue of my mother left me, she left me quite an investment in apartments.

III

There are a few areas, dark areas I never cared to expose. And a few days after Durant's last letter, I've decreed that this phase of my life, at this old age, it was time to; of course that is why I wrote the book, but Durant I doubt read it. Nonetheless as time goes by, it must be written or talked about and he is the last one I want to send my MS to. I can feel his aversion, and it has no substance, his resistance is pride. I was seriously conscious of this before, before this morning, I must have thought it in my head last night, vague as I remember. I will rename my book "The World's Dark Soul". A new name for an old book. I do not want to leave home today, I want to write him a letter, or talk to him. But I do not like eating in, too many cockroaches, rats and mice, flies and spiders, mosquitos. I'm no house clear that's for sure. Where is the Argentine wine?

I guess I'll go to the bar, the "Do Drop Inn," it's a ways away, but I can take a bus.

Fill the glass up please!

"Why," asked the waitress, "every time you come here you order a glass of wine, and leave one glass empty?

"A good question, not sure if you are too noisy or not, but I'll tell you way! I'm going to fill that second glass up, whenever I come here, and not hear anyone complain about world events, and war , and the shape of girls, and gambling, and drugs, and guns, and drinking too much, and expect a change to occur by not facing the issues, they are complaining about. your face, now you answer me why? "

"It was not a grin, I've read a few of your articles in the news, and on the internet, a few in magazines, and you're a real thinker?"

"Really! So you do not think I have a dark soul, that I'm eccentric, write with peculiarities."

"I did not say that, but what you write is always interesting."

"Does that mean, pretentious jargon?"

"What does that mean?"

"Conceited nonsense!"

"Oh now, you write in riddles!"

Just then the postman came in.

"Mr. Salam, I have your mail, take it here and you'll save me the climb up your stairs."

And he handed me a letter from the publisher, Mr. Durant, as Susie poured me my third glass of wine.

"Good or bad news," asked Susie.

"My book just got accepted for publication!"

"You should call and thank your publisher!" said Susie.

"I have nothing to say to him, verbally. Although I will be writing him soon enough soon, anyhow."

IV

When I got home, it was quite late, and the phone was ringing. I answered it, it was Mr. Durant on the other end.

"Mr. Salam, I have now read your whole book complete, cover to cover as they say, and I want to know what the riddle is, the so called Chinese puzzle, its terminology seems to have blurred that area up for me. assume you got my letter. "

"Well, it's about time you read it, and I suppose I can try to put it in a nutshell for you, if you can take my conception of the world, with a black frankness?"

"Shoot, I mean go ahead, I'm not that closed mind." Replied Durant.

"It's only a 125-pages, but no time can be more favorable than now in which God sees the world in a shamefully misused way, and indeed may look the other way as he did at 9 / ll. Leaders worldwide, only wish to further their own motives over the masses, the political arena is a bullring. There is nobody to oppose them, but God Himself. These present-day leaders indeed wish to live it up, with power and greed and have special rules for them, and for us, obedient to their rules however they make them up, and they make them up at any unused moment. That truth will come quietly and modestly to the surface only to have a short lived life. Truth is no longer nobler than recognition, favoritism; they should go hand in hand. And truth today is what the people want it to be, not what it is. "

"Well, what is the riddle," asked Mr. Durant.

"I must answer with hypocritical humility, and first I'll give you an example, then the maxim, if you do not mine. not waterproofing your library, which should be a must. Should it not? (Durant did not answer, as if waiting for the punch line) I'll answer it for you, you would not. be a dumb head, or drumhead for someone to beat there drum sticks on. Now for the second part, 'Out of darkness comes light,' evidently you did not see that. In our world today of over seven-billion, we all speak not as if the other guy or gal does not exist, we act as we are separated from our one united human race, as being the only one that counts in the human race. God hates indifference. "

Ask the publisher "What does this light say about all of this?"

"To accept the external world as real, and do not put your fear foot forward. Attack materialism, and nihilism. through the mind. There is a door, there is God, and there is a key, and he has it in his palm, it is to the entrance of the external world. is much like the crust of the mind, there is much underneath it.

"Are you aware, the 'Will' is stronger than the guide, if you are its master?"

"Now what does that mean," asked Durant, "I read something on that in the book!"

"It means just what it means, that if the world can not find a reason to stop the chaos, it is obvious they have found reasons and enough reasons, because they want it. This is the sum of my riddle, and of course the end, being the 'Will' or third part of the riddle, to do what has to be done, the world does not have the Will. "

"You did not answer your answer complete?" exclaimed the publisher, "We'll publish your book, but to be frank I think the stupidest men in the world get their foxy words to have multi meanings, and our board thought your book held some value, because of that."

"Let me explain, once and for all Mr. Durant: Character resides in the 'Will,' not intellect, and this 'Will,' has eight wings: ambition, demand, determination, resolve, motivation, backbone, longing, hope against hope (God), and this is what the world lacks, Will! "

V

Said Durant, "I did like your last chapter in the book, may I read it to you?"

"If you must," I told him, although I wrote it, and knew what it said, but how can you refuse or argue with the man who just said, 'I'll publish the darn book!' as if he was unwilling, and the Board of Directors made him do so.

"Okay," said Mr. Durant, "last chapter: 'War, Effect and Will' goes on to say, '… there is a power within us, in all living things, and this power rises in every living thing: plants, planets, animals, men , the solar system, the galaxy, the universe. It is the Will, at work, its determination to survive, the instinct to carry on, and that demands balance, geometry, without it the universe and man would produce only chaos, and have ended long ago. So God constructed one and all to be guided by this, or meet its end; that is to say, if it is entirely without this.

'Will and intellect, put together, says, the elephant will not cross the weak bridge; it foresees the effect. The world today is the elephant without Will or intellect, it is crossing the bridge, at its own peril. Without regard for anyone or anything. The Will, is not there. Perhaps I can say, there is only the intellect at work, it maybe so, that man sees the fall but knows he will be dead by the time its impact hits him. So why not allow it, dead is dead to him; out of sight, out of mind. So he allows the fall by apathetic reasoning.

'The Will, is of course, the power to live, want to live, the man above, knows he has lived his maximum, of life, so indifference sets in, he only cares how dear life is to him, not all living things . So in silence he bides his time.

'Culture to him has less value than an ounce of copper or zinc. Even the living toads found in limestone share in the eternal enemy called death. And do not mistreat their environment, they understand reproduction.
'The Will, is independent of knowledge. In a way it works blindly. For a person with a strong will, it is life sustaining. A low background means nothing to him or her. He or she will make it. All the organs inside this person will follow the Will. And forgo knowledge, he knows the Will is the principle form which all living things proceed; s / he knows because they know. They may not know why the moon circles the earth and the earth circles the sun, and the nine planets in their orbit, circle the solar system, and that the universe moves as does, and the galaxy's, inside the universe, move, and what a supernova is, or the forces of gravity at the edges of a black hole have to pull those old suns into their breadbasket, but will tell them, they do not have to know. God balanced it all out for them.

'Chaos, the unbalanced world among man, causes war. If man is not at peace with his neighbor, it is a cause for war, and the end of peace. In the 21st Century war means the end of our species; we will be sent back to the Stone Age, by duped politicians. We have seen recently in 100-years: WWI, 8-million people died. WWII, 80-million people died. Three wars in Israel. Two wars in Iraq. Two wars in Asia, the Koreas, and Vietnam, 3-million lives taken (the war I was in), and war in Afghanistan, and the war in Libya, and now in Syria, that has taken in four years, and 250,000 lives . At any given time, per near 25% of the world is at war. Russia has had three wars in the last decade; and Africa is becoming a war zone. Russia has even hinted they'd use nuclear arms if need be with Ukraine. North Korea boasts of the H-bomb, and says it can target America, South Korea, and Japan. Iran has a working nuclear plant, convincing Obama it is for peaceful reasons when they have the 5th largest oil reserves in the world, who he thinks he's kidding, when we all know they have sworn to eradicate Israel with it, as has Hamas, who leads the Palestinians.

'The impulse for war among some nations is as strong as the impulse to have sex. We've allowed certain individuals-like leaves on an evil tree-to grow wild, unaccountable to the world order, Obama being the worse of the guardians of the world, since America is the so called watchdog. This permission, will castrate the world, if we do not cut down the tree of evil, or at least, deaden those harmful leaves, before it ends our species. "'

# 5087 / 2-21 & 22-2016 / Copyright © 2/2016 by Dennis L. Siluk, Dr. Hc