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July 25, 2002 a singularity I keep in my quiver of friends a Vedic astrologer who has tried to teach me something of her art.  In the process, she has schooled me in astronomy and, one night, we drove to a field in the country where she gave me a pop quiz. "What's the name of that constellation?" she asked.  She pointed in the general direction of M 15, one of the brightest globular clusters in the sky. "I haven't the foggiest notion."  Her holistic insect repellent wasn't working, and I was being eaten alive. "Well, look at the configuration of the primary stars and tell me what it looks like to you."  She's an expert in Transcendental Meditation.  It would take more than bugs to distract her. "What is this stuff?" I screeched.  "Mosquito PCP?" "Just tell me what you see." "The Denise Richards-Charlie Sheen nuptials?" "No, dear.  It's Pegasus.  See how it resembles a horse? "Oh, yeah!  A horse!"  The citronella-crazed mosquitoes bit hard.  I could hear my sentences ending with exclamation marks. "Now look toward the Southern horizon.  Do you see Aquarius?  Can you see the man pouring water from a jar?" I couldn't see shit.  I was weak from blood loss and a squadron of Jedi-gnats had mistaken my left eyeball for The Death Star.  The Force was with someone else. "Sure, sure," I replied. "I definitely see a guy with a water jar.  What else could it be?"  I imagined my teacher, wearing nothing but center-cut pork chops, running across the moonlit pasture, chased by a pack of feral dogs. I failed to identify even one constellation in what turned out to be a thinly-disguised, celestial Rorschach test.  As I think back on it, there is time for which I cannot account.  Perhaps I fainted.  Or perhaps I collapsed to a singularity, a victim of infinite density.

©  2002 by the beastmaster