It started back in January (moon 7 on the 13 moon calendar: totem animal, monkey). Observing it to be too cold to play outside, and overwhelmed with another exciting installment of what cursing intellectuals refer to as a “university semester,” Jesse the Vessel (foggy-minded thesis factory) and Heather Bliss (psycho-linguistic psychotic multi-linguist) were simply chained to their humming, stuttering computers. The absolute horror.

The key-board soon proved to be a key-for-the-bored, however, as tribe.net became the hub for a frenzy of obscure, thoughtful (nay, evil and adorable) messages, sent between Ottawa and Calgary on an unseen electronic highway (no doubt closely monitored by some hidden government employee with an open, drooling mouth and part-heart left untrampled by the cold machinations of his Orwellian superiors).

Discussion topics between these two childish academics included broken hearts, the art of naked door-answering (in conjunction with religious salespeople, add a sprinkle of homosexual suggestion and watch the magic unfold), and the colour orange. ‘All organisms need watering to grow – that’s why we cry.’

After some initial hesitation, web cameras were in full effect, and as spring icicles fell – penetrating the thawing earth with their melting glassy tips – so too did these two hearts warm to one another. With dark eye circles (affection having beaten them into submission) and several million scholarly essays behind them, the two anticipated a real life interaction. How incredibly exciting! (you see that situation).
Inspired by his Taoist studies, Jesse sold his possessions and jumped in the TransCanada river, which carried him to Heather’s crystal apartment. Risk. Jittering stomachs.

Outside, pigeons had sex on looming balconies. Real eyes met. Real voices were heard; real nerves – exposed. Vulnerability, palms and bellies. Two actual humans, bare and honest before one another! Trips and arrivals. Births and deaths. After a week of horrific intensity, unprecedented intimacy, direct knowing, Invader Zim cartoon insanity, and sidewalk-chalk vandalism, the Universe erupted into another perfect stillness amidst the silly human story, recognizing its indivisible self in this shattered mirror of apparently different faces. The Vessel was filled with Bliss; the Bliss found a Vessel. Now, neither exists, and yet both remain.

Humans(!) know this: you are complete on your own, but there is no own-being. Let your lovers show you your glorious emptiness!! And look – something stands beside this story’s ephemeral union of a Jesse and a Heather. A sign that reads, “You there – the reader. Have you found the Life of this place?”

Feeling the dance, despite the falling curtains of our autumn century.
-Jesse the Vessel and Heather Bliss (turning back to the cartoons)......