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ON THE NO ROAD there is no knowing what is known on other roads. On the no road no rivers overflow yet they flood the road.

The no road is where you meet the buddha and you dismiss him. Not because you dislike the buddha but because you must kill the no! of the no road to bring back the "thing." The "no-thing" is in the past. The no road reveals that you cannot stop the thing you can only be the thing.

It is the no road you follow until it crests a hill and dwindles into infinity. There are those telephone poles in diminishing perspective. The true masters of fate. I have seen owls, falcons, eagles, even, alighting on the circular flat tops of telephone poles on the no road. They know what it is to be on the no road.

On the no road we watch, we don't imagine, we observe, we don't predict, we grip the wheel, we don't turn in any definite direction, we help ourselves to the ever after, which we will not be around to experience in the flesh after ever.

The after ever is another topic all together. . . . Will there be other everafters or just this one here, in this particular moment that seems to last for eternity.

I decided not to kill the buddha. I shall diss him only and let him continue on the no road. Is he a model to follow?

The buddha is best buddies with the "Who Cares?" The all-is-nothing school of noticing each moment that there is no place to get to on the no road which is the road we are all on every minute we are here.

How about compassion? I know. I know. It can become a weakness. Still it's the only thing that ultimately satisfies on the no road. Having a feeling about how someone else is feeling feels good somehow on the no road after all we have all been through.

What is it we are here to do or not do? I don't know. Nurses know, but they don't take care of themselves.

I feel (not think) that any time I can make someone less unhappy that might be the right thing to do. But then, occasionally, we have to hurt people to get them to pay attention. These are questions that have puzzled the masters of wisdom from time's beginning.

Was there a beginning of human time? It is always Tuesday on the no road but the year is unknown. . . . We seem to be stuck in a rut that the rest of nature has gassed its way out of, pedal to the metal.

More things to be revived in the mind. What do you say today, this minute, second, nano, b.c. that's all we've got. Talk to me. Tell me your story. The no road calls and calms. Yet hungry ghosts, diminishing returns, and hucksters roast the most from the no road.

Even the famous are at risk, especially, on the no road. Multi-billionaires rarely will be given clearance to cross that next rise.

When the moth dies on the windowsill when the psychiatrist calls to say that you are now okay because you asked the question "who cares?" when the physical therapist says you can't go home because you aren't strong enough yet when your father says he is disappointed in you, then dies, you know you are on the no road and will remain there the rest of your life.

The no road pulls you out of your habits, takes you to the flat empty with very small details you only notice when you take a second or third look after many hours or years on the no road or many trips on the same road there and back.

Here we are now. On the no road in life. It is the only road, it turns out. When there is a turn in the road, oh boy, do you notice it . . . event horizon to the max.

On the no road you are the last person you know who is alive. On the no road you are the last person alive who is sane. On the no road you can't remember the name of the game being played. On the no road you are on stage but you say lines from a different play. On the no road you are so debilitated you can't say your own name.

The no road is bumpy, the no road is smooth with soft shoulders: hence dangerous. The no road has no warning signs, no traffic lights, it simply goes on and on into the distance. Gas stations explode from the heat of the sun but only when you are not looking. The strong will be killed and the strong will be saved. A nightclub lists "Bop The Atom Drombs" for Saturday. One man at the quickstop was extremely charming in a short bald way. He asked and answered questions and really wanted to know things. He wasn't going to become a CEO but he was a human being with energy.

There are men and women on the no road, most of whom you might have known and sometimes craved or dreaded or both or neither, but fortunately they never seem to notice you on the no road. You might sing, "I woke up this morning on the right side of the wrong bed / I leveraged the Mother of God Church to consolidate my head."

Another question is when, exactly, did the buddha die-if he/she did indeed die as we think. Well, we know when christ died and mohammed but the buddha died some time previous to what we call recorded history. I didn't kill him of course you must know that by now but the question remains is there an exact moment when the buddha died or is he still alive in some form, perhaps on the no road?

If you can answer that question, you are not on the no road.

The human thing is over. We know it. We've known it for some time. Bacteria, Viruses, Worms, Fungi, Molds, and Mushrooms know much more about moving forward on the no road but we have this rear view mirror thing going. To survive, history and memory unfold before us as we travel the no road.

At times on the no road you will be buried alive before you die. Other times you will be raised from the dead with no explanation. On the no road you will never know why you find yourself on the no road. Always stop at noon for any kind of construction on the no road. Everyday there are the ones who go away and the ones who stay on the no road.

You will make good use of time, revel in the times, forget the time, pass the time, pass away in time, on the no road. Be loose with time but never waste it or abuse it or lose time: lost time is occasionally regained on the no road but only with extreme patience or suffering.

Why, for example, does Swiss cheese have holes and no other cheeses have holes except cheeses on the no road. They say there are holes throughout the universe the very same size.

On the no road your way of acting will be different from the world's way. Avoid dead ends unless you find yourself in one. The no road allows conflicting parts of awareness to picnic together: the one wants to stomp away in a rage the other asks, over and over, what can I do for you?

Truckers on the no road assist the brothers in chicago grow in numbers ever remodeling their properties and continuing their lives in tranquility never reacting in anger or rehearsing grudges. Bind yourself to no faith on the no road. There are no friends and no enemies on the no road. No body knows who or what they are on the no road.

Abandoned wagons, trailers, and tents will be witnessed on the no road. Don't think about them. Nobody knows those on the no road. There is nothing new or old on the no road. Consequently there are no diseases only complications impossible to define. There are no shadows or imperfections on the no road (except for the occasional squashed broom and dead raccoon).

The no road stretches without a scar except for the recent repair by vulcan and his crew, which shows signs of strain from flames, sticky tar, steam, and patched seams and the help of a two-ton steel roller. The exact flatness of the road cannot be measured by any ordinary tool as it is only as flat as any infinite number you can claim in your gene pool.

Accidents are waiting to happen on the no road. No speed limits allowed on the no road. "WARNING: Reduced Speed Ahead" refers only to your future but is not a directive. You will see images of trucks turning over and boulders falling from on high and one curious sign that says "No Services Next Twenty-Five Miles." What kind of services? Miles measure the earth but three hours of miles can seem exactly like seventeen hundred depending on your state of mind and what state you are actually in on the no road.

On the no road the words "We" "Our" and "Us" mean that any change in ownership is possible with full survivorship rights excluding (but not limited to) any assignation or pledge of devotion offered as collateral for a lifetime of consent to travel together on the no road.

On the no road you each agree that without prior notice one or both of you will be killed but will live alone or together for an unspecified time before that eventuality. Vultures circle the no road, peacocks imagine themselves to be doctors, bats play darts at night, rodent road kill polishes the road with its hemoglobin and gliserides. Tarantulas dance in mass awkward backward motion slow as snow on the no road.

How to know when you are done with the no road? You won't know. Desperate women wander scrappy yards with babies in their arms kicking fallen apples off the walk. Virgins serve cappuccinos from home-built drive-up windows before being carted off to college to become widows conserving frozen food for unloved individuals.

You notice that your future can be predicted in the twisted bend of one particular potato chip of the "classic" variety. It recapitulates the way time/space curves according to science fiction comics and astrophysics textbooks from the former century.

On the no road what you believe is never true. On the no road what you do has nothing to do with what you know. For example, they will run you off the road if you cannot say "Topeka Topeka Topeka" five times in a row.

On the no road no amount of no is enough. There is a yes that blossoms, a maybe from frustrations, like the red light at the bottom of a hill just before the impossible climb, and each enthusiasm is curbed by the grave of major disturbances such as a truck-trailer overturned flattening a family car and leaving shards of glass and wrenching pain for two and a half hours of ten miles inching along with people who were not involved but only happened to be on the road, feeling burns to their skin. The no road no calms then.

Those on the no road go their own way. No no road is ever the same for everybody or any one at any time. On the no road it's the end of the road all the time yet the no road holds no bars breaks no promises casts no spells, offers no solutions only minute movements on the road. There is no progress on the no road: You are always moving but the motion doesn't get you anywhere except where you are. One's father and mother never existed which explains a lot about who you are not now.

On the no road you have already died. No one remembers you, no one expects anything from you, so you can do whatever you want with pride.

On the no road you have no children, sisters, fathers, pastors, or brethren, but children have you and you have no way to reach them.

You try to have a bit of good fun: one day you stop to pet the alligators and the next day you watch a flying saucer land in a field of cut wheat, then you notice all the cows cower beneath that fallen tree and next time you see them the tree has brazenly fallen facing the storm bunched up over the peak in full green. The cows are nowhere to be seen. Sand on the road, snow drifts, and a concrete haze of noon burns a lake mirage where the center lines merge at the focus of the no road.

I don't know what to tell you to expect on the no road. No rules apply to define the names and numbers of any one on the no road.

Proceed without undue caution. With sincere but lapsed attention. You are on the no road.

On the no road we claim to care about civilians but we kill them if necessary. On the no road we try to end the war by ending it faster but it doesn't happen. There is always a war on the no road. Why? We don't know. When we are on the no road and the war seems to be abating for a moment we hoinley what we know to the new on the no road, if we are lucky.

On the know road, when the sun isn't shining we try to improve or pursue a new path: A square with sides in length the center of which is the center of a quarter section window we can't see. The surface is invisible. All rules and regulations apply. Operators may use cretaceous-age formations, showing good cause, in accordance with existing spacing order declarations.

When the sun shines we deal with time. Time comes from the sun. The sun is our measure more than the moon because the moon changes in ways we can't explain. It turns out to be something like eighteen-year cycles as it pendulums.

Consider looking for a 6-month or 13-year lockup for humanity until we get better returns.

Don't let your man go alone on the no road. On the no road you can't unpack because you never know when you will have to go back again. There is no memory of destruction on the no road: all bombs suction toward our only home. This one.

First pass of land on the no name deal columns rows of white stone. Departed from the no road. In wars. In industry. In inibriation. The opera cancels rock road to buffalo thunder resort and casino no turn for cities of gold. Outside espanola palm and tarot ohkay and key the no road.

It is difficult to think clearly with so much perspective before, then hard to speak the truth in such distances. Two horses at the bar eating oats.

Can't we just put ourselves in mini-storage until our culture goes away or maybe comes around better later.

On the no road clouds so low rain goes up not down.

Rock-doc-and-tool-stop spews thrombosis growing on the no road.

All roads cross at the crossroads of the no road. This is important to remember. It's a fir tree for sure but an unusual fir, that one right there.

You are in prison on the no road, imprisoned you have no visitors, you may have visitors but those visitors might imprison you too. Wouldn't you like to know yourself on the no road? Maybe not.

Dead cow ribs showing no good driving on the wrong side of the no road. Mile 101 marks the exact spot you are now at this instant on the no road.

When there is a fire on the no road your eyelashes will not burn off because you have used a state-of-the-art mascara. But your skin might bleed.

Just for the record, I am willing to kill the buddha I mean if it has to be for the future of humanity or for my own salvation or to save my own beloved or if no one else is willing to do it and I am starving. The no road is long.

If the buddha dies from natural causes maybe he ate too many macdonald's hamburgers, maybe he died from the fact that the human race is so insane that we should be jettisoned to some other part of space/time/mater, whatever.

On the no road lightning strikes itself, over and over. It hits you or not you, but you get well and die a normal death no matter what. Lightning crosses the sky finally just when you were sure there would never be another drop of water. And then the rain comes, so sweet deep and pure. Each drop the size of a swimming pool in the desert outside los angeles.

By now your or my or anyones own passivity has reached a point to realize this is the first time and the last time, every time. Everyone will need to do everything absolutely right from now on. Zeus betrayed us. Jesus too.

The no road never ends-it just begins again and again.

On the no road, the doctor who put you there releases you but warns that you will be coming back. The cycle has to be repeated in reverse and then you will go home again. Maybe. When you see that the transport personnel who brought you there the first time are the same ones who after weeks months years take you back to be released to a place you never imagined, you know the cycle has been completed. You are home on the no road.

The no road tolerates divergence, disobedience, and order. Though order is sometimes a problem on the no road.

Small white goats forage along the sides of the road.

THE NO ROAD © 2007 Melody Sumner Carnahan / Burning Books

photo: Michael Sumner