Bathroom Monologue: Monologue composed while John grilled during a tornado warning. He worries himself, sometimes.

There is an audio edition of today's monologue. To listen either click the triangle on the left to begin streaming, or click this text to download the MP3.

Have you ever seen the emerald dawn rise across a sapphire sea, precious waves breaking upon ruby shores and bruised opal mountains? Does the azure sky not part, not for a sun, but a cloud shining brighter than any celestial bauble? No more? Then why did it when it did?

Sing to me, oh leaden muse, perform thine heavenly alchemy upon tin minds, and reveal wars waged between not men, but gems. See mastodons with golden wool, and silver-eyed chieftains sitting astride forces more valuable than life. For what is war fought? For why does the world spin? The answer, too expensive to know. Greed, what is greed? Admission that all this is wanting, so wanting that we want when we see not all that we already have.

They clash, crystal spitting lightning, great granite bodies breaking, cleaving and tumbling. Knights brave as steel and foolish as ore throw themselves, toss themselves, skip from ships across waters and land in piles. Even the diamonds die, going cold and coal beneath where we now stand. This silt? This sand? The corpses of courage, treasure lost to sea shells and high tide. To war, no more. They were living riches, and battle has spent them.