You said it was an omen when a cardinal crossed my path or when a groundhog paused to look when I spoke hello a word of greeting that every living thing knows and answers to and responds with a pause and a breathing mark like some scholar reading Greek with a diacritic signalling him to roughen his tone for his master ten thousand thousand generations since anybody even spoke like that or conspired to resurrect the greasy whispers of Jim Morrison or one's fellow inmates from the cave once having surfaced to the light.

Give us this Day is the online creative journal of Kurtis Kitagawa, PhD (Edinburgh), MPhil (Oxford), MA (Chicago), BA First Class Honours (Calgary), who, withal, considers himself a student of history. Check daily for freshly composed essays and offbeat creative writing inspired by a life spent in universities, government, and business. Job offers gratefully accepted. Alternative facts welcome, and will not be burned. Nor will their ashes be used as eye shadow!