1279 Lost Souls.

by

I don’t even know what to talk about. It’s just been too much going on for too long. Not stuff that makes for good stories though.

I keep having dreams on off days and not bothering to write them down. I do, however, remember part of one. I was backing out of the alley behind our old house and my truck stalled. An ols lady was rocketing down the street and swerved to miss me, but then ramped up into the neighbor’s yard. Her car smashed into the wall of the house. It was a pretty big mess but when I pulled her from the wreck she was essentially fine except she really needed a spoon. So I went into the house and there wasn’t one, then I went two houses over where they were having a garage sale and tried to buy one. They had no spoons. The guy looked like he was moving away and he told me I had better get going too before it was too late. Then I woke up. Maybe the dream was breaking down as I started to remember it which is why it made virtually no sense. All I know is that I was fully committed to finding that spoon.

I don’t know if they still make them, but when I was a kid there were these particular kind of pencil toppers I liked to chew up. They had them for ages then I stopped seeing them. It was this really silky kind of rubber, and it didn’t erase very well in spite of being portrayed as an eraser. They made them in lots of shapes, like Pac-Man, various space ships, robots, whatever. Every time I got one I would want to keep it because it was a cool something, but eventually it was just too much and I had to chew it up. The substance just felt so good to bite. It was so compellingly satisfying. I mean you wouldn’t want to eat it, but the feeling of biting off little bits… Do any of you know what I’m talking about? I thought of them randomly because my uncles had some above the door to the stair to their rooms when I was little. I had a flash of memory and recalled the little spaceships they had. I wonder what became of them…

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…they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.
-Banksy

The ancient Egyptians of the Dynastic Period believed your spirit lived as long as one person remembered you (so yeah, Tutankhamun still rocks, somewhere). I suppose Banksy is a philosopher for out time; he may have nailed it, here.

Be interesting if the opposite were true. If the moment no one can tie you to this life is the moment you can move on from an in between “lost” state.

Spoons are pretty useful and if they didn’t have any around there maybe that is why people wanted to move away?

Yup, I had those erasers but I resisted biting them most of the time. And since they were useless as erasers I soon stopped buying them. Be funny if they had a Slimer from Ghostbusters one. Just thinking about someone compulsively eating/chewing him up seems appropriate.

Erasers?
Not to plug this company, but for pencil-top erasers of many kinds, , and odd, little toys, try: http://www.orientaltrading [dot] com.

I think the many types of toys + erasers there would make Walt Disney do a spit-take. Wow.

I really like today’s comic. I’ve seen some tombstones where the writing has faded + is non-existent. Yeah, I’s really sad to see.

“Like tears in the rain. ” when you study history one of the most frustrating aspects of it is you will very rarely have an exact record of what has happened in a point in time. You would think with the digital age it would be easier but all it takes is a hard drive crash or a file format change and years of data can be lost.

“I don’t like dreaming because you always have to do stuff in the dreams, sleep is supposed to be restful, like I’ll fall asleep then suddenly I have to build a go-kart with my ex-landlord”. – Mitch Hedberg

Six or seven years ago, I photographed an old (late 18th – early 19th Century) burial ground not too far from where I live. The photos are here, if you must. There were actually many stones as Jo describes in today’s strip. I wish I’d captured more of them; perhaps the spirits of those interred below might live on a bit longer, if only in out thoughts.

Few years ago we hiked up to Doc Holliday’s ‘supposed’ grave. He was not allowed to be buried in the city graveyard, Big Nose Kate put him in the pauper’s site with Blacks and Asians and the poor. It was sad to so many 6″ square stones that had the names weathered away. Even sadder were the ones that only had names like ‘Baby Girl Jones’ or similar ‘Baby Boy’.
(Historians believe that Doc may actually still be in someone’s backyard in town as there was snow and ice and Paupers hill was impassable at the time of death).

Both spooky, sad, and intriguing all at once. Very interesting side plot.

Also, that hat is enormous, in a good way. I actually quite like both of their hats in this scene.

I had a dream last night where I was a giant. I was part of a team trying to take down this obsidian guy, I didn’t get a good look at him, given that I was (to the best of my math on waking) about 1700 feet tall. But I tried to punch the little guy and my fist stopped dead when it hit him.

Fortunately I was just there to occupy the bad guy while the schmot guys figured out how to take him down.

A while back, I went to Russia to visit some family graves. The family was from there, and those that stayed in the late 1890s were killed in the Russian Revolution. There are graves of my ancestors, stretching back hundreds of years, and even with the headstones that have been worn smooth, I feel a type of kinship. I never knew them, nor did anybody in living memory, but there’s an unspoken connection. They lived, they died, they handed the world down to their kids, so on down the line, until it got to me. There’s also a sense of pressure, and you have to wonder if they’re watching you now, a crowd of people you’ve never met, judging your every move by the standards set by your forebears.

Or, it’s just a pretty graveyard, quiet and calm, if you don’t read too far into it.

I don’t get it.
I am not important or special, and the only thing I hope to do with my life worth mentioning is to raise my kids to be better people than I am, with the hope that they in turn will do the same for their kids. My great grand children do not need to know my name for me to have an impact on their lives.
If I manage to go through my life without making the world significantly worse, then I’m calling that good enough.
I want my only legacy to be the butterfly-effect ripple of everyone else’s reactions to my existence. This ripple will last as long as humans exist, because we are all connected in one way or another. Like when Kevin Bacon accepts a role in a new movie, a butterfly in China dies. There is a connection there, even if we don’t see it.
I don’t need people to know my name, and I do not understand that need when it is exhibited by others. I suspect it may be a manifestation of a person’s fear of death, which I also do not understand.

@sanguineOcelot
But I do like living across the street from a graveyard. It is a VERY quite neighborhood.

That’s really what’s at the heart of it all isn’t it? At what point does veneration become worship? How important is it for you to be remembered? How important is it for you to remember others? Are you preparing every day to go to a place you can’t be sure exists, or making the place you leave better than when you found it? As far as the comic goes this will show you a lot about both of these characters, and maybe something about people you know, or even yourself.

Yeah, even though I don’t identify with the concept, I’m still very interested in how they respond to it. I’ve always been a firm believer in character development through action, not explanation. Nicely done.

Well, in China, if your ancestors are forgotten, they fade from Heaven.

Or some crap like that. To be forgotten is to lose access to paradise, I guess.

I agree, but I must insist that Kevin Bacon retire. If it saves even one Chinese Butterfly, it will be worth his sacrifice.

Hey Crave, That dream…

…Do you fear not having what you need in order to rectify a sudden oncoming calamity for someone else? And do you fear not being able to provide help in time to be effective for those you care for?

…Just my thoughts. Car crashes usually speak to some calamity, houses to one’s life or identity, and you were attempting to help this person find an item in order to help them. you were unsuccessful, but determined to continue. The car smashing into the house reflects a

Perhaps it reflects how much you care for and are committed to “the teen” and wish to help her in finding out who she is as a person, as well as assist her in navigating the issues that assault or challenge her sense of self. I say that since the “house” in the dream wasn’t yours, but it might have been someone you care about.

Hope it helps. None of my business, mind you, and I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m prying.

I meant to say the car smashing into the house reflects a problem assaulting the heart, identity or roots of a person. (I need to learn to proofread.)

At any rate, hope things go well for you.

To be honest I don’t find this sad, well the fact that there supposedly might have been an accident in which a whole family died is, but that their bonds still are visible long after their names disappeared is kinda beautiful in that melancholic way.
We all WILL fade into obscurity, and that is just how things are.

Well, unless you’re selling really shitty copper, then the grudges of people will echo through millenia, damn Ea-Nasir!

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