The daily commute

The boat ride home is fast becoming one of my favourite times of the day. The feeling of walking down from the hill and heaving my aching body onto the boat is cleansing. I love to sit hanging off the back and listen to the engines pulse and the wind hiss as we cut it for home. The boat is a remarkable thing, sleek and powerful with two large turbocharged engines providing forwards motion at an alarming rate. It has the same value as a small country and inhales fuel at a fantastic speed. None of us are ever likely to own anything as valuable or magnificent or needy but we take it for granted every day.

It is not the superb transport which makes me so appreciative of my daily commute, however. The trip has turned into a sublime time to unwind. It’s the longest possible time before I have to battle the steep terrain and its awkward quirks as we try to punch a ride-able trail into the thing. I can sit on the back of the boat, turn my music up loud, feel the wind in my face and take in a special part of a ruggedly beautiful country.

And it is remarkable country. The inlet is the perfect size. It’s huge but it doesn’t feel like it. In shape it is long and thin and bent slightly. The mountains loom above you on either side, thickly covered by Canadian rainforest at their lower reaches. Cedars, Douglas Firs and Hemlocks thickly coat the hillside. Some are many hundreds of years old and truly enormous. In many places the hills are almost sheer and there are waterfalls which begin suddenly and spill in thin wispy streams into the sea.  From up in the hills it is easy to mistake the inlet for a large lake. It’s just that flat and still all the time, and when the weather is good its surface hosts the most beautiful clear reflections of the surrounding hills.

By late afternoon the thick fog of the morning has usually cleared away. The air is crisp and cool. Strands of mist hang to the trees in streaky patches. It looks like the hillside is breathing from hundreds of openings on a cold day, but the steaming exhalation has sunk and settled tranquil over clumps of thick coniferous growth. Higher up there is snow on the peaks, draped over the mountaintops in thick sheets. Trees are painted white by the snow as they resolutely wait for the brief summer to come. Everything is white or grey or green. It should appear dull but somehow it manages to be exquisite. I like the days like this the best.

As I look around it is easy to see wildlife everywhere. There are seabirds, mostly. The seagulls sit on the water, unfazed by the raw call of the boat’s engines as it rips past. A strange small type of duck flocks together and flees in raggedy v’s as we near them.  Seals submerge or surface effortlessly, thriving in the cold salty water. Sometimes a bald eagle is visible, running some mysterious errand in the sky. Closer to the shore, large orange starfish can be seen blooming on the rocks in the shallows.

The job has a lot of downsides. But I guess jobs do. At least with this situation, all of the negatives wash away at times. Especially when the air is clear and the scent of the sea spray is strong. It is cause for happiness, at least temporary. It’s enough.

Mykol J. Hayverstock’s guide to true happiness.

Recently I read a misguided and sad attempt to promote happiness in others, a ‘how to’ type thing. It was just awful. The author was clearly an idiot. He didn’t get anything right. He promoted idiot ideas like enjoying the little things and having goals. Idiot! I laughed so hard I sprayed my keyboard with coffee from all of the air-holes in my face.

Here is how to be really happy. There is only one correct way and this is it. So settle in oxygen wasters, and learn some extreme wisdom from the master himself.

First of all, mouthbreathers, happiness comes from having things. Lots of things. Shiny things. Loud things. Expensive things. Big colorful things. Without having lots of things, there is no way you can ever be truly happy. It’s so obvious. It shows your excellence as a person. Possessions will allow you to be the person you have always wanted to be. Chase those items and you will never look back. Society encourages us to accumulate a lot of precious things at every opportunity and society is never wrong.

To acquire these things you will need lots of money. So to be happy you must have a well-paying job. Probably this means you will need to wear a suit every day and work in a big impressive office building. Come on you colostomy bags, this stuff is obvious. You know you’ve really done well when your job uses a lot of acronyms every day. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what they mean, no-one else does either. The important thing is that you make lots of friends at your work. Then you can talk to them about the acronyms that you don’t understand and they don’t either. Make sure you talk slightly down to them though, because they are competition on your way to the top – and more money. Remember, money makes you happy and also buys things which makes you happy, so you should be fair scrambling to get to the top.

Not only that, it gives you status, which is the third thing you need to be a happy and complete human being. This is better than your barely mammalian current state, trust me. Status means you can lord it up over people. Your power and popularity will fill you with a satisfying warm feeling. It isn’t undeserved smugness. It’s just how it feels when everyone knows of your unending excellence.

With status comes a lot of attention. So to best bask in that attention you need to possess the best Hollywood body you can. Turn that flab into firmness meatbag! Looking good will make you happier with yourself. If it’s too hard to get into proper shape the old school way (and let’s face it, it probably is) its okay. Remember that happy money you’ve been accumulating? The magic numbers in your bank account which leave you feeling tingly inside? Well they can be put to use to pay for fun surgeries which will take the bad stuff away from your body and insert fake bits which are more suitable for a real human being. What a treat!

By this stage you are no doubt pretty damn happy. But there is one more step. You need to find an Aphrodite to your Adonis (or vice versa. I’m new age and firmly believe that woman can be happy too. Equal rights and all that noise). Base this decision entirely on physical appearance. Personality is like the beams and stuff inside a house, where as appearance is like the wallpaper, stucco and ornamental fish pond. You can’t even see the beams and things so they can’t be important. You’d buy the house with the nice light fittings and expensive tiling wouldn’t you? So share your life with the human equivalent. Because happiness is looking good together in photos in front of famous things.

So it’s simple. Stuff. Money. Appearance. Status. Hottie. Those are the things you need for happiness, stuffed into a handy anagram, SMASH (remember this one). Apply these teachings to 

100 words

A foray into fiction with a 100 word story. It seems boredom is a strange beast.

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The street light flickers.

She’s a tight-body in a tight red dress, with her dark hair curled. She wears a shade too much make-up. It makes her look like a lady of ill repute- the desired effect.

A station wagon stops. The conversation's muted. Inside the wagon is darkness except for a glowing cigarette end. She shows a trace of pink tongue across pert red lips as she softly speaks. She gets in.

Next stop: an empty parking building. He’s hard already. She breathes on him gently. He doesn’t expect the thin knife-blade going into his throat. She moans, satisfied.