On the 8th day

Short version of a world event

As far as I remember, the Lord rested on that day from the exertions of the previous seven. What he had created was tremendous. So it really was an occasion to celebrate. For example, with friends in a pizzeria, followed by more partying in a bar with beer and vodka, then a boisterous drunken walk in the moonlight, returning home in a cab. But it was all an illusion, because all these things had not yet been created in the seven days. There weren’t even any donkeys to ride home on, let alone roads or anything like a house. So at best they’d have to return to a cave. But even that was human imagination, because the Lord was in heaven. I’d forgotten all about that. And did he really have friends to celebrate with? Another good question.

– Niebla (© 2025)

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Mirrored World

I saw myself and my world in endless repetition in a mirror arrangement that formed a circle and was therefore infinite, just as I had known it since the beginning and found it reassuring, because endless is eternal. Where it began was unknown. Actually, this could not be known, because something that has no end can’t have a beginning, right? Recently, however, I was startled out of my endless tranquillity because I noticed a crack in one of the mirrors – perhaps it was number 4346787. After a while, it had grown larger, which also affected my reflection and that of my world, as it was now visible in all the subsequent mirrors. Several time units later, the crack had spread across the entire mirror, and a small crack was also visible on the next mirror in addition to the endless reflections of the crack. What now? Was eternity not eternal after all?

– Niebla (© 2025)

The German version can be read here.

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You must always see something good in everything and everyone

Two dialogs

I. Around 32 AD

Disciple: “Look at that dog – isn’t it ugly?”

Jesus: “But it’s got great teeth!”

II. 2025 AD

Disciple: “Look at this picture!”

Jesus: “Isn’t that Donald Trump?”

Disciple: “What positive thing could you say about him?”

Jesus: “Let me think. – That he’s got orange skin?”

– Niebla (© 2025)

Note
I remember having read the historical dialog between Jesus and a disciple a long time ago and reproduced it here to the best of my memory. However, I can’t recall the exact wording or where I came across it. The contemporary dialog is entirely fictitious.

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I felt lonely during the night

I felt lonely during the night, staring into endless space while my part of the earth was facing away from the sun

– Niebla (© 2024)

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The tree’s lament

I’m getting overgrown
by ivy and will die
by strangling

And there’s
absolutely nothing
I can do about it

– Niebla (© 2024)

Author’s note
This poem was inspired by the tree shown in the photo, which is in full bloom now despite it all.

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Big Data? Nothing new!

Way, way before Big Data, zillions of years before Tik-Tok there was the Akasha Chronicle to record everything. The first humanoid to get drunk on rotten fruit? It’s been recorded. Mudi jumping off a cliff to avoid getting killed by the drowning of Atlantis? It’s there in all photographic detail. Not that it saved him. Plato’s first gurgle as a baby? Recorded! Abraham taking Isaac up the hill to the altar? Recorded! Isaac holding a paternal grudge for ever? Recorded! First time ever someone got eaten by a crocodile in Australia? Recorded! Gautama’s eating habits before he settled for rice and dal? Recorded! Hittite love songs? Death rattle of the last tyrannosaurus? Cleopatra’s first wrinkle? That poor guy Moses killed? All recorded. You’re surprised that Amazon remembers your very first purchase two decades ago and keeps reminding you to stock up on similar products? Think again: the Chronicle keeps proposing the most amazing things from your past that you’re not aware of at all. Like giving you another chance with A. B., who was your wife, your grandpa, your cell mate, someone who loved you, someone who killed you, someone you herded goats with at different times – hundreds or thousands or millions of years ago. It all boils down to when you were one when it all began. The Chronicle knows. It even knows when Big Data was baptized, when it had its first hiccup, its first bout with mental illness.

– Sri Shantibindo (© 2024)

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Life is not a game of cards

The cards that life deals come at any time, and the number of cards in the deck is unknown.

– Niebla (© 2023)

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Providence

When the cat was yawning
and stretching himself
after a prolonged nap
this morning, I said to him,
“We’re kindred spirits,
you and I – neither of us
has a plan, and we both
leave it all up to providence.”

– Niebla (© 2023)

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One afflicted by self-doubt

“I have the feeling I’m in a preparation phase. But I’ve been in that phase for years – too long. And preparing for what? What is the solution, Swami?”
“You have to end this phase.”
“But –“
“And that’s the end of this session,” said Swami Vaporananda.

(Lore from the practice of Swami Vaporananda.)

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Octavio Paz

We are condemned to kill time: this is how we die, little by little.

– Octavio Paz

Source: Cuento de dos jardínes, in Octavio Paz, Ladera Este, 1969. English translation by Johannes Beilharz.

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