Prologue

Zafu. Needless costumes, Chuang Tzu peculiarities, om cornered and cushioned various variables incapable of entering the equation’s sum identity exchanged for space. A swift Russian doll arrangement obviated stuffing creativity claustrophobic into a plastic wheeled stasis cage. -A light fare- Smiled. -You don’t need anything to realize you don’t need anything. All else is a blessing- Looked about the room and out the door.

Departure from possessions tucked asleep at home in Mukwonago, WI lighted peripatetic heels engaging egalitarian the Amtrak platform just shy of 8:30 a.m.

Here, soft toed Amtrak train Hiawatha arrives to impose it’s strange perspective upon the landscape via frame flow within.

-May I join your journey awhile? I’m fond of all things Tenacity in Silver, and you’re just the ticket.- self ushered.

<<yes, stay long, Fellow!>> Hiawatha scans hospitably.

I board, enchanted, reminding myself that, “todas las espadas son Durendal.” As the steel wheels whisper amongst themselves discussing the human oddities aboard, those living organized avoided interactions simulating the lobotomized. Through the framed flows, whole constellations of thought are passing. This reel can be transparent and yet distort whatever light passes through, and the shape of the real can do peculiar things to passer-through’s.

An hour arrives and they sheep out of Hiawatha’s hull exposing themselves to the unnatural atmosphere about the chicago skyline unguarded against the loud city veining.

Time: 10 a.m., destination: noon. Two hours to bleed before the visa application appointment. -Specialty coffee, how I will miss thee, how I dote on thee!- entrance to Intelligentsia at Randolph street. Few know, few care. The arrival of late September brings packed anticipation facing 10 months of horrendous coffee. Luck offered this pre-adventure ritual, which I passed with the first soul to be recorded in Huckleberry’s Stillhouse Whiskey Tasting Journal. 

• Date: Aug. 15th, 2013
• Whiskey name: Name Unknown Google Employee
• Occasion: a stop for coffee at Intelligentsia while waiting for my Visa appointment at Chicago’s Consulado General de Espana
• Nose: Sitting down next to him at the pour over bar, a conversation was not expected. Unsure of the local customs, I wasn’t going to press for verification.
• Taste: When I took out my Borges poetry book to amuse Time, he started up conversation which passed from Borges, to Neruda’s poem addressing about his fatally ill daughter, and then to Google and omniscience
• Finish: joyful, friendly, light
• Notes: An unexpected friendly encounter can not only happen to you, but can also be your initiative as many people won’t push to open an interaction but aren’t necessarily opposed to one.

Whiskey parting, pastry, and pour over beyond several poems brings destination Noon nearby and around the corner below an exposition of unhoused mirrors stacked elegantly upon each other babel high.

-Consulado General de Espana?- upon greeting.

<<15th floor, room 1500>>

The following painless two minute interview explained the darkness-void bespeckled-less ultra-vanilla nothing-nowhere practicality of room 1500.

<<Student Visa?>> via black framed browns over red plaid shirt behind bank teller glass. <<Can I have your documents?>>

-Yep, just gimme a sec.- hands awkwardly gesture, retrieves seals and apostilles.

Instantaneously, <<You’ve done this before, haven’t you? Everything here is perfect. Here are the documents you’ll need back to get the NIE from the police. Have fun in Spain!>> in surprisingly genuine happiness. Murakami’s proverb, “La realidad puede no ser la verdad, y la verdad puede ser no real” permeates this anomalous bureaucracy office.

Elated from the consulate’s efficiency, I likewise speed Hiawatha home which provides a family gathering ending many extended preparation anticipations, and dates a flight to a book bounded by the limits of two sizable eras within the Adventures of Huckleberry Grimm.