But I’m telling you, one cannot put faith in a God that creates a food chain. Okay, so think about it.  He tells us we are created in his image.  He gives us dominion over fish, insect, bird, beast.  Stewardship.  We are to be caretakers.  In turn, what do we do?  We are destructive creatures, driven by catastrophic, apocalyptic rages.  We are homo sapien lemmings.  We set out to vanquish all we see.  Vene, vidi, vici.  I came I saw I conquered.  Which is why, when the Rapture comes, God will forgive the intellectuals, the vegetarians, and the alcoholics.  Let me expound.  Pen?  Bartender, Linda!  Pen.  And another Guinness. 

            -  Intellectuals; no one who sought to create could ever be damned.  Jews will never burn in a fiery pit.  Intellectuals equals Jews equals Father.  My father was an honorable man, you know.
            - Vegetarians; they understand the sentience of other beings, and in turn, compassion.  Vegetarians equal Christ equals the Son.
            - Alcoholics; they are only out to hurt themselves.  I will not believe in a God who could damn the Irish to hell.  Alcoholics equal Irish equals Holy Ghost.   

            Anyway.

            Here is another thing: a God who creates a food chain – in such a volatile world – would also be the one to create a pretty girl.  Your hair is beautiful.  Sprigs of curls.  Curly, thick hair, the kind a man could get lost in.  Reminds me of a rosebush.  It’s a compliment!  An ode to your complexion.  Do you read any Emily Dickinson?  She is my favorite American poet.  I love her more than Leonard Cohen.  Why am I whispering?  It’s sacrilegious to say that in Canada.  Leonard Cohen is our Bard.  The walls have ears.  Anyway, it’s like that poem she wrote.  A woman has a fever.  Roses on both cheeks.  And then those two clocks ticked slowly into one.  You laugh.  I like when pretty girls laugh.  I am truncated by women.  Men are weaker than women.  Men are weak because of women.  It is our own deep secret, our own counter-conspiracy theory.  You do not understand the extent of your prowess.  You are young, yet.  Your hair.  Like Medusa.  You know the story?  I am a proprietor of myths.  Greek mythology is a particular fascination of mine.  Anyway.  Medusa was a Gorgon.  A Greek of gargantuan proportions.  Her powers were fathomless, ancient.  She was borne of elements.  She, in her own right, was a deity.  An anti-deity.  Too rebellious for her own good.

            The story goes that her hair – each strand a wily serpent – could kill a mortal with a poisonous bite.  Her unbroken stare could turn men into stone, frozen in their own awe and incapacities.  The demigod Perseus, who was sent to slay her, needed to look into his shield – use it as a mirror – to plan his fighting tactics, swordsmanship, see which exact spot he needed to stab to destroy this earthy being, a culmination of ages.  He cut off her head, you know.  To keep it as a trophy.  Her hair intact.

  
            It is assumed that she was hideous.  I, however, have my own theories.  I always have my own theories.  I tell you this: she was a beauty.  Her looks froze men as you freeze men, boys, cads, drunks, millionaires.  Medusa was too good for this world.  She knew too much.  Be careful about knowing too much.

            You laugh.  But you know.  You have that problem.  You have those eyes.  You have the face of a girl but the soul of an old man.  This is why people can talk to you.  People talk to you a lot, and you have the mind to listen.  I know already.  I can tell you things.  These things.  I know.

            
            Would you like to hear a secret?

            
            Now, this is not a normal, run-of-the-mill secret.  This is not two children sitting on a park bench whispering sweet innocence, nor high school sweethearts debasing themselves in a parked car, nor the silence of an unhappy marriage.  This is governmental.  This is top secret.  Confidential.  Lethal.  I have to whisper, because there are bugs all over the place.  You must promise not to tell.  You must promise your life away, because if I tell you this secret, you will be followed.  The phones are tapped.  The computers are bugged.  The walls have ears.  Do you understand this?  Will you take this burden upon your shoulders? 

            
            The United States government is responsible for the death of John Denver.  The U.S. killed John Denver.

            
            I wrote a manifesto.  I could not publish it under normal pretenses.  I needed to get the word out, spread the gospel.  I make earrings.  I do a lot of things.  So there was this set of locket earrings, square-shaped.  I crafted them with ambitious, prodigal purposes in mind.  Eighteen pairs in total, rimmed with gold wire.  Eighteen secrets bound with inlaid pearl and hinges as thin as a needle.  I wrote chapters of my work in tiny print, hunched over my work mat, awls and files and ballpoint pens and magnifying glasses spread before me.  I was Pygmalion, fashioning small monuments in honor of love. 

            I apologize.  I ramble sometimes.

            The manifesto.  The words were minute, almost breakable.  They were so fragile, writhing in a blank expanse of snow.  The epitome of micography.  I took these copies I made to Kinko’s, even though Kinko’s is obviously tapped.  Government agents.  I minimized the type; these chapters are only readable with the aid of a magnifying glass, a set of bifocals, and a secret code.  This is necessary for the protection of many persons, namely, those mentioned in this manifesto (although they are given aliases) and myself.  I placed these chapters inside the earrings.  I sold them.  Eighteen pairs to eighteen people.  And you know what I called them?  I called them hearings.  I told my customers, I told them each: you are now the pallbearer of legend.  You carry a history wherever you go, a testament to the best and worst of man.  Take care of these.  Take care. 

            And now: eighteen souls wander the earth with a fragment of mine.  Take another little piece of my heart, darling.  Hearings.

           Anyway.         

            John Denver.  You ask, why John Denver?  That is a very good question.  Appropriate.  I wondered myself, in the beginning.  The other atrocities make sense.  John Lennon.  Che Guevara.  Jim Morrison.  Amelia Earhart.  Marvin Gaye.  JFK.  MLK.  Other acronyms.  They were obvious targets.  These assorted martyrs started revolutions: 

            -sexual
            - political
            - hypothetical
            - familial

            The federal government knew what had to be done, and did so accordingly.   The question, however, still remains.

            Why John Denver?

            Linda!  Guinness!

            Oh, you must tell her not to cut me off.  Order me a stout, please.  Please.  And what is your name, darling?  Lovely.  Just lovely.  My name is Paddy.  No, no, it’s not.  It’s Daniel.  But wouldn’t you want to meet a man named Paddy in a pub such as this?  Very atmospheric.  But I digress.  I wholeheartedly believe that names are indicative of certain infallible characteristics.  For instance: my name is Daniel.  Daniel comes from the Hebrew name Dan-ee-ehl, which in turn translates to judge.  You see?  I am a judge.  I have been sent to judge the world.

            My, that’s wonderful.  Thick and full.  Drinking stout makes me feel the Irish blood in my veins.  Hot and syrupy.  Molasses.  And you!  You make me feel like a student again.  Or a T.A.  Or a professor.  I taught at the University of Toronto.  Guest lecturer in the Department of Philosophy.  I learned a lot as a taught.  I was friends with microbiologists, mostly, and a sparse few astrophysicists.  If philosophy has illuminated anything for me, it is this: co-relation.  We exist in a microcosm of ideas.  We are a concoction of symbiosis.  I mentioned before, in terms of the food-chain, that we are parasitic.  But we are also symbiotic.  The astrophysicists relate to the microbiologists, because space created us.  Something out of nothing.  And the philosophers relate to both, because we try to understand how we relate to it all. 

            But yes!  I’m sorry; I have a problem with going on and on.  John Denver.  John Denver John Denver.  I must tell you.  Time may be running out.  You never know, the walls have ears.  Agents may be swooping down on us as we speak, as I whisper sweetly in your ear.  S.W.A.T. teams may be gathering in formation, safety locks pulled back like a judgment from God.  And then there is you and me.  I shall impart what I know.

           Anyway.

           One would not initially think that a hokey folk-singer with a Dutch-boy haircut, bangs in a fringe, and a painless smile would be an aim of the corporate-run, war-mongering conglomerate of the U.S. Federal Government.  A boy born with the name of Deutschendorf, Jr.  Adorned with bell-bottoms so wide, they pleated.  Catchphrases of groovy, man!  If he was only taken for face-value, our protagonist John Denver would not be a prime target.

            However, things exist in layers, as we have already discussed.  Sort of.  Co-relation exists in layers.

            
            - Co-relation equals layers.

            Meaning, there is more to this than meets the eye.  Which I am sure you have already realized. 

            This happened in the Rockies of Colorado, peaked with clichés of their majesty.  Denver named himself after the urban locus of this particular state out of deep love and affection.  Colorado made his chest swell and his cheeks flush with fervor.  His lips would puff proudly, as if to kiss the air.  He was the Daniel Boone and Davey Crockett of this great state.  He had the spirit of a pioneer and a voice sweeter than a hollow bird call.  His second wife could testify to the day-long hikes and nature walks he took, to connect with nature.  Have I ever spoken to her?  No.  I have tried.  I have attempted to gather all conclusive evidence in existence.  The facts the government hasn’t already gotten to and destroyed in a trash compactor.  I have to fill in the missing spaces.  I conjecture: maybe he wrote songs in his head.  Maybe he composed long epics of love.  Maybe he achieved Nirvana.  Maybe he saw Archangel Gabriel.  You know, I have theories about Archangel Gabriel.  He’s a terrorist.  He says one thing to Jesus and another to Mohammed.  One must be wary of angels and other Godsends.

            But here is the story: our hero, John Denver, walks through the woods.  He is following deer tracks and avoiding various poisonous vegetation.  He is careful.  Denver traipses up the mountainside and thinks of world peace. 

  
            This is prime, virgin country, Aspen.  He’s walking away from those fenced-in places, those fenced-in fields.  A lot of things are fenced in, nowadays.  Man’s dominion over nature, government stuff again, always.  His next door neighbors are Hunter S. Thompson and G.B. Trudeau; he wrote those Doonesbury comics.  Some actually feature Denver; Hunter likes to shoot Johnny-boy off of his property with a sawed-off shotgun and a brain full of lysergic acid diethylamide, or theremin, or trimethoxyphenethylamine, clouding his eyes, affecting his aim.  But Denver takes these little jabs with a grain of salt and a wide-mouthed laugh, showing molars white like mountaintops.      

            He’s observing the foliage, a nice blend of deciduous pine-needle, evergreens (may I add, like the music he left behind?  Like anything any of us leave behind?  Is it evergreen?  Is this too overwrought for you?), and the wide-brimmed leaves of their coniferous cousins.  It is the apex of autumn.  These are leaves of explosive sunsets, my darling.  And even the little kick of slightly labored breathing – he is getting up in his years, the poor guy, little guy, not one of much machismo, he’s a Song’s Best Friend, for heaven’s sake, how manly can you be with that euphemism? – he makes it into something cheerful; it makes him a little apple of a guy.  And what is he thinking about?  And what is that tune he’s whistling?  Yes, John Denver is whistling.  Annie’s Song.  Maybe it’s indicative of the filmstrip of his thoughts, because we will never know exactly what he is thinking.  We can conjecture, theorize, pinpoint accurately, but:

            -We will never truly know.   

            
            And so maybe his thoughts are traveling back to his first wife, because my extensive research has indicated that this song was indeed written about her.  So maybe he is whistling the stanza: You fill up my senses, like a night in the forest, like a mountain in springtime.  Or maybe, more prophetically, more conducive to my insatiable want of a deep, transcendental connection, he’s whistling: ‘Cause I’m leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again…

            
            I would like that.  Circuitous.

           Anyway.

           He is walking, humming, whistling, on autopilot, and of course, in the faithful pattern of all things fateful, he trips.  On a rock.  A strangely hollow rock. 

            
            The earth is shaking, infuriated with injustice.  And then, holy of holies, it begins to open.  The soft underbedding of the forest, Douglas fir pine needles and loamy soil, cracks; it cuts deeper than a knife wound.  It slices through Precambrian, Paleozoic, metamorphic rock, mottled slate-colored.  It swings open like a Cave of Many Wonders, as wide as Denver’s gaping mouth.

            
            Yes, it is a secret entrance hidden beneath layers of sedimentary dirt and prehistoric stone.  The trap door reveals stairs slating downward into an underworld darkness.  And what does Denver do?  Ever-optimistic, ever hopeful John Denver?  Like a tale from the Brothers Grimm, our protagonist descends the stairwell, his Dutch-boy fringe disappearing below the surface of the Earth. 

            
            The air is wet and peaty.  Denver uses the walls to lead him down, down, grabbing onto gnarled roots and stuccoed rock.  He thinks of the few people who venture so darkly below, towards the center of the earth, and crawl back up again; spelunkers, gravediggers.  The metaphorical reincarnation they experience as they open their eyes in sunlight, above dinosaur bones and dirt fecund from the decomposed bodies of animal and man, above earthworms, readjusting pupils, irises that must contract because the majesty of everything, of cloud and sky and tree and ground, of nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen, of air, of mitosis, meiosis, of partition and repartition, of life and the unbearable, undeniable connectedness of everything, down to the atom that scientists have been able to split, grounding everything into a fine, floating dust.  Ask the astrophysicists, the microbiologists, the philosophers:

            
            - I know this much is true.     

            
            After a few hundred steps, there is a doorway of some sort of impenetrable metal, titanium alloy, perhaps, and suddenly the natural gives way to the artificial.  He enters a hall that reminds him of a Cold War bunker, held up with beams of reinforced steel and mortared with hydraulic cement.  The fluorescent light is giving him a headache, and Denver readjusts his coke-bottle glasses, still not quite sure if he is walking through a waking dream.  The staircase has ended; it’s all straight, narrow corridors from here.  Take me home, country roads; maybe he hums this, to still his heart from a potentially hot-blooded mistake. 

            
            And I must interrupt here to respond to your face.  The state of its disbelief.  And that we have limited time.  I must depart soon.  You can never stay in one place too long.  Agents will barrel in; they will refuse you your entitled phone call, they will dissuade you from power of attorney, they will drag you over the Canadian border and deem you an enemy of the state, they will mock your attempts at bargaining as they methodically erase your medical records and social security, they will tell you that you will be forgotten by your mother and children.  They will be your Third Reich, your Trujillato, your actualized Joseph Conrad novel.  And I am telling you, one cannot put faith in a God that creates a food chain. 

            Anyway.

            Denver is failing at rationalization.  He’s being outlandish, capitulating Russian spies and deranged hermits.  He thinks it’s odd that the only echoes are produced from his walking boots.  And he is thinking of turning, leaving his questions behind.  He is prepared not to question what he’s seen; seeing is believing, after all.  He passes through, a final door, and then:

            
            Here is the cerebrum of the operation.  Here is headquarters, here is brain central.  Though the place is empty, the machines are on, accenting the stillness with beeps! and boops!  It’s straight out of a James Bond movie, or a Lovecraft concoction.  The horror, the horror!  Maybe this is an enclave of nuclear weaponry?  Maps and screens portraying satellite imagery adorn the walls like portraits in an art gallery.  The fluorescent bulbs are getting to Denver and his temples are pulsing.  Is he having a migraine?  Or does he just want an excuse not to wonder what is going on?

            
            The coast is clear and he is at a loss for what to do otherwise, so John Denver starts to pace the chamber, admiring the rows and rows of buttons on the control decks, all in different colors and various degrees of shininess.  Looks, but doesn’t touch.  He peers at radar screens and satellite-rendered posters of images as if commenting on contrast and composition of a Gauguin dreamscape. 

            
            The largest screen in the room is as flat as a table top, laid out like a very large chess set.  The black radar is gridded with lines of bright green.  A line circumscribes the entirety of the map, on the lookout for any unassuming dots and ticks.  And there are many dots, meticulously labeled, unmoving.  Denver grasps that they are stars.  It’s strange that something so big, in a space so endless, can be contained within the four sides of a radar. 

            
            There is a spot larger than the rest, larger than Alpha Centauri or the sun of our solar system.  Denver bends over to identify it:

            
            Archangel Gabriel.

            
            See!  What did I tell you?  The Alien Terrorist.  Archangel Gabriel.  Sent to wreak discord, to cause unrest among brethren.  But also sent to remind us that we are undeniably together in all of this; that despite our differences, we have a common locus.

            
            - We are human, and yet we are human.

            
            Before Denver can internalize any of this, before he can figure out what to do from there, Denver is apprehended, grabbed from behind.  He feels a cool cloth over his mouth and nostrils, and breathes in an acrid chemical.  His struggle is brief.

            
            That is the end of that adventure.

            
            John Denver wakes up twelve hours later, at the border of his property, a few hours after nightfall.  Nine days later, he is dead.

            And you ask me, didn’t he die flying a private jet?  Yes.  On October 12^th, 1997, whilst flying soaring the Pacific Grove in California, on a Long-EZ aircraft that resembled an airborne egress.  Reports I found on the internet (using the library at the U of T, before I was officially absconded from the premises – see, it’s all a conspiracy, see?  Booted from a place of learning, for Chrissakes!)  stated that John Denver’s fuel gauge read “empty” after recovery efforts were initiated.  You have to wonder why Denver, a seasoned amateur pilot – excuse the oxymoron – would make so egregious a mistake.  Or not even attempt an emergency landing.  Airstrips are common as lizards in California.  So why?  Why John Denver? 

            
            It would have been easy for one to rig his N555JD so that even though the fuel tank seemed full, it was as empty as a canteen in Death Valley.  With the placement of certain magnets in the gauge, it would have been a simple procedure; the installation of a thimble-sized magnet in the gauge, replacing the small glass pane.  No more that a ten minute operation, if that.  The little needle, in this case, would waver perpetually towards the “full’ end of the fuel spectrum.

            
            It’s food for thought.

            
            And in my imagination – though some find me odd, some find me insane, some find me schizophrenic, Daniel the Schizo!, they say – although the plane is going down and John Denver can only minimally comprehend that this has something to do with his recent find, and that although he managed to rise from the ground like Orpheus from Hades, although he is facing his own death, he begins to sing.  Mother Nature’s Son.

            
            Listen to the pretty sound of music as she flies.

            
            And now, you must go.  You are now the pallbearer of legend.  You carry history wherever you go.  A testament to the best and worst of man.  Take care of these, take care.

            
            And remember, in any case, in any case, in any case, there is always life.