Teaser for Flirting with Misadventures, Escapades of an Exotic Life

 

Teaser passages from

Flirting with Misadventures (Escapades of an Exotic Life)

pages 78 – 79 (middle of chapter 4)

As the outer rim of the sun deigned to caress with a kiss the majestic top of the purple headed mountains receding in the horizon behind, as if at a flip of a toggle switch, a foreboding calm enveloped the entire Creation, reminiscent of the Rhyme sang by the Ancient Mariner of Coleridgean fame. We had to deploy oar and paddle to reach our destination. No sooner had we dropped anchor, than materialized a rapidly thickening ominous dark clouds, threateningly pregnant with mischief, imbued with the purplish hue of dark molasses by the lingering relics of the setting sun, to engulf the seaward eastern hemisphere with the unbridled fatalism of the Omar Khayyam quatrain:

LXXII


And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,

Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,

Lift not your hands to It for help—for It

As impotently moves as you or I.

When the retiring Helios completed its surrender to the bowels of night, the sea which theretofore was as smooth as a cold vat of oil in a frigid Siberian kitchen began to stir with increasing hints of bubbles bursting out to the surface. It seemed the bowels of the sea were threatening to froth away to an impending boil. Forthwith, total darkness reigned supreme. The only remaining source of light came from the silver sheen ever fleetingly flashed by the persistently and boldly growing sneer of the awakening depths. The not too gentle breeze soon brought with it a wolfish howl heralding the gloom of oncoming doom.

{from the Author's Foreword & introduction [reproduced in part on the back cover]}

The material represents a due diligence attempt to chronicle, via a series of seemingly random and incidental episodes narrated in the first-person, the evolutionary journey of my consciousness from the edge of the wilds of Mindanao* (Philippines) to the rough and tumble of the streets of Manhattan (New York City), with all the tedious yet not the least thrilling detours in-between. Random in the sense that I had to single out and focus on specific and discrete pivotal decision points which ushered in a definitely recognizable qualitative change in my perception of my unique attributes as an individual, on leaving such decision bifurcations.

. . .

In a broader context the three parts of the book represent three distinct non-sequential evolutionary phases of my consciousness. The Narratives represent the aspirational age of ambition, when the drive to transcend . . . reigned supreme. The Poetry I deem to represent the seemingly unquenchable deliberative age of simultaneous inspiration, enlightenment, and illusion. It was at this stage that you pushed the envelope of the imagination in quest for a reason to go on, to latch on to a sustainable justification for being.

The Essays represent the age of rational resignation, or better yet, resigned rationalization, when you give in to the impulsive reflex to explain away the developments which you know affect your physical and spiritual well-being but they unfold far beyond your sphere of influence. You are effectively out of the arena. Your mission is no longer to do or die but simply to reason why, as an inconsequential observer of, to paraphrase Robert F. Kennedy, both the "things that are" then ask why, and the "things that are not" then ask why not?


The cover art work submitted to the publisher (FwMC47 below):

and

About the Cover: Conceptually designed by the author, the cover is a collage photo-shopped by Louis Marek Tobar, based on a photograph of an original reproduction (bestpriceart.com) of the Satire of the Debauched Revelers, oil on wood painting by
Jheronymusvan Aken (Hieronymus
Bosch) [Musee du Louvre, Paris, (c.1490-1500)] and a photograph reproduction, furnished by the artist herself, of an original oil-on-canvass portrait of the author by Ziba Bastani (1971).  It depicts the recognized transcendental nature whereby any consciousness is aware of itself, while being simultaneously oblivious of both the gravity and the dire implications, respecting its well-being, uniquely imposed by ambient circumstances.

Copyright © 2011 by Constancio Sulapas Asumen

First Edition – August 2011

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