as the subtle strains of the Johnson's toast jingle faded away, a long silence fell.

toast? he thought, at last. and in the depths of his mind something stirred, reawakened to consciousness after many a year.

toast, luscious toast, drew him upward like the light. the return to life, once so impossible, so meaningless, now effortless, a motion of pure clarity.

on this beautiful earth, there is yet one thing that i cannot leave behind. ye know it! tis Johnson's toastlets.

Even Eternity Waits For Johnson's

solitude o solitude
the riches of life - before me!
free at last from the "madding crowd"

an empty space
room to breathe

an empty empty space
room enough for anything
or nothing...

* * * * *

and now a word about toast!

tired of toasting, endless toasting? try Johnson's pre-toasted waferlets. all the richness and quality you expect from toast, with none of the hassle!

with Johnson's for breakfast, we're out the door in no time!

unexpected visitors dropping by at tea-time? no worries! bring out the Johnson's!

Johnson's, Johnson's, Johnson's
it's toast! toast! toast!

weary were we
before we knew

...

uphill and downhill
finding, not finding
waiting, time-filling
looking, not-looking

trying, not-trying

speaking, silence
thinking, not-thinking

time, passing, not-passing
wasting!
back, forward, forward, back
still looking

empty, not-empty

...

self, no-self,
heavy, heavy

life, death!
nothing, nothing

too big, too small
nothing, nothing

...

ruined, ruined
nothing
changes

find, the answer!
nothing
changes

something
missing

a vasty wasteland of despair

inefficiency. someone at home must have gone on vacation. you may find it hard to believe, but you could send me things that would make my job much easier!

for instance. a metabolic upgrade would be nice. the temperature controls don't work, and it has to eat all the time; it seems all day long to be stuffing itself with toast. otherwise it falls over.

likewise lacking in local currency, getting much harder to come by. please arrange for lottery winning or easy new job.

meanwhile i struggle; full of toast i lurch to the local shipping center to send out used musical items for very small amounts. someone out there is accumulating! why do these ants each need their own plastic disk and included literature to enjoy sonic entertainments? where is the central library?

(note also shipping costs for five men + lackeys, many tons of equipment, etc - the only thing more foolish than mailing out millions of disks is flying in the people that play on them. as so often something backwards here. do they actually like doing everything the wrong way around?)

as for me i continue to amuse myself with the planet's literature, still available in the older "paper" format. though this does create resource issues, some being handled. this era as you know is slowly moving towards self-sufficiency, or possibly self-destruction.

in the meantime i regale myself with lively depictions of the 19th and early 20th century. hard at times to believe these are the same creatures currrently spinning disks and watching screens, surrounded by machinery. despite being very busy they lack all purpose. this may eventually occur to them.

we came
down to earth
on a friday

drifting softly
through the atmosphere

then
by a bridge
we landed
rolling out across the stream

and in
the morning
stranded
waiting for a reservation
rolling out across the nation
rolling rolling
till the end of time!

and somewhere on the other side
a world of
business
calls its people home
and there they'd better stay

but up there in the
wanderings
rolling round the clouds
rolling rolling all around the world

and someday someday we will be
nothing else but this!