comedy and tragedy masks

matches wasn't going to buy a bonsai cherry blossom tree, because they only flourish for like one month a year, and how silly would that be? but then he realized that these dark red trees (which he likes) happen to sit in precisely the same places that he remembers there being cherry blossoms four months ago. it gradually begins to dawn upon him that they are, in fact, the same trees.

the dog sitting in front of antimatter is large and black, a lab. he seems to be doing alright, though pining now and again for his 'master', who presumably resides somewhere behind m in coffee time's cavernous indoor seating section. the dog seems to be content, aside from having to inhale all the clove smoke coming from the teenagers over yonder (matches feels your pain, black lab). and every time m looks at this dog in particular, it snaps its head to meet his gaze, as if it were somehow attuned to his mind's prerogatives. it watched the girl in the green dress as well. but mostly this paragraph is to say, that this dog is a little downtrodden since its master, the constant which channels meaning and empowerment into said pooch's life, is tragically absent. the dog sits chained, waiting, waiting. he interacts with other people, minimally, because they happen across his way and pet him, or make noises, or what have you. but he is tethered to the person inside the cafe, and is dissatisfied in the absence.

mattress wonders, if he made a hasty and surreptitious exit with this dog in tow, if the owner would notice. would the dog be happy for the companionship, if he took it home and called it his own? would the dog become eventually as content with m as with the previous, or would it always feel that something was lacking, some intangible in the back of its mind? it looks expectantly at everyone who passes. it just wants comfort, companionship. probably food as well. let's assume the dog is not presently hungry.

m is technically in the market for a dog, since he has decided that he wants to get one whenever he moves out of the apartment he is currently in, and hey, maybe even before then. but this question has come up, of how one chooses a dog. is it like transformers, where the car salesman indicates that the car chooses the person, not the other way around? there are so many differences, so many separate personalities; anything living is not so malleable as we might think. companions intertwine with one another; they become something unified in some shared ghost-space between them. a flickering of understandings and impasses. his dog will determine also his personality, in an as-of-yet undetermined capacity. he imagines, though, that it could potentially be a large one. isn't that a tricky thing to just toss a dart at? he guesses that sometimes, in the moment, one must just trust to one's caprices....but he has always been a somewhat cautious thinker~

would any dog be just as likely to form as strong a bond with him as possible? certainly not. choosing a dog is almost like a whole 'nother relationship process. he guesses that it comes down to a question, of how one soul speaks to another. in some instances you simply must trust to that first impression, that incredibly-barriered and yet somehow also completely defenseless moment of 'hello'. how does one puzzle piece fit with another? can we feel the merging and mending of those ridges, somehow, instantaneously? or is that a lifelong process? do we somehow know, and then only later find out the how?

how much of life do we actually have control over, anyway?

apparat - 'you don't know me'