Echoes and Explorations

               I looked to the sky one fateful day and saw that God had not made us the center of the universe.  Our world spun around the opposite assumption. Try as I might, I could not convince the others of our error. They peered through my glass with stained eyes, seeing only what they wished. No longer possessed of Blessed Centrality, the Holy Order heard the pillars of their society lurch a creaking, groaning topple. Their supremacy over creation threatened, the Chosen deemed me subversive and locked me away in my study, far from the other Acolytes. If this was my punishment, however, it was ill-conceived. While I mourned the sacred sharing of Fellowship, I had all I needed in that lonely tower to keep the larger world within my grasp. A modest library of books gave me glimpses of other lives both lived and imagined. At night, I could step onto my balcony and improvise new melodies on the ocarina, now my only friend in the world. ...

             Out my rear window every night, I see comers and goers at the Moxy Hotel.  On Thursday nights, groups of West Campus sorority girls travel in packs, stamping the asphalt in endless fleets of white Air Force Ones.  The Moxy's in-house restaurant, Zombie Tacos, and the neighboring bar Hole in the Wall usually attract an array of university students and fresh graduates draped in stylish, current-day trends.  "Current" of course means vintage hand-me-downs, as any twentysomething Austinite will tell you either with uninhibited excitement or the calculated appearance of fashionable disinterest.  Boasting sexual prowess but somehow never seen with a date, muscled fraternity brothers roar through the night, ripping the air with the impressive noises their engines make when they fiddle the gear shift just right.  Making clever remarks about these road warriors are the snarky collegiate couples.  Playing stimulati...