Neptunes Net

By Gary Koz Mraz

It’s 3:30 in the morning as I thunder out of the Port of Long Beach. It’s completely drained. Boats are ripping apart the slips and the sound of sirens and warning horns fill the air. Explosions from transformers light up the night sky like fireworks as whole sections of the harbor goes dark. As I connect to the 710 freeway north I see the Queen Mary; she’s on her side and burning. The entire ocean has receded for as far as the eye can see. Only one event can cause this and its inevitable aftermath. Twisting the throttle I head north. I’ve got an army brat and a tabby cat on the back seat of my Harley and our destination is Angeles Crest Highway. The blood moon’s eerie glow provides a tangerine blanket of light and at 100mph, we’re making good time. Suddenly, I get lit up by a California Highway Patrol car. Yeah right, I open her up now and clock 115 miles per hour. After a few minutes, he backs off and disappears into the darkness. He knows; which means all the emergency services have been alerted that the largest wall of water in recorded history may be about to hit 5 million people in Los Angeles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gary Koz Mraz
• Release date: Oct 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463355695

Gary Koz Mraz

Gary "Koz" Mraz, an author and renowned moto-photo journalist writes for prominent travel and lifestyle magazines. He has published numerous travel books and the Adventures of Zac King thriller series. Koz travels the world on two wheels -- from China's great wall to the Himalayan Mountains, to Europe and the back roads of America. His travel adventures feature interesting people and unique destinations in entertaining prose. Raised by a Wiccan Priestess, who published a magazine called "Occult Americana," and a father who owned a nightclub called "The Zombie Club," Koz was surrounded by beatniks and hippy chicks psychedelics at 13, motorcycles and metaphysics at 14. Since then, travel and adventure have become his mantra.

Book preview

NEPTUNE’S NET

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Last Night of the Earth Poems

Chapter 2: Sea of Dreams

Chapter 3: Hell or High Water

Chapter 4: Neptune’s Net

Chapter 5: Reality Shift

Chapter 6: Sea Change

Chapter 1-The Last Night of the Earth Poems

Why do I torture myself sitting here at Charles Bukowski’s grave reading The Last Night of the Earth Poems?

In the bottom of the hour lurks

the famous gone quite stupid

churches with peeling white paint

lovers who chose hyenas

schoolgirls giggling at atrophy

the suicide oceans of night.

Excerpt from in the bottom, Charles Bukowski

Time Magazine called Bukowski a laureate of American lowlife. A poet/documentarian of the social, cultural, and economic woes of his L.A. home, Charles captured the ordinary lives of poor Americans, writing about alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over sixty books. My kinda guy.

Swilling Pabst Blue Ribbon (his favorite beer), I believe some cosmic osmosis or divine inspiration will soak deep into every cell of my body… like this Pabst Blue Ribbon. I sit and stare at this lump of graveyard dirt. Just like a scene from the movie Night of the Living Dead, Charles Bukowski claws his way up from the grave and, as a shabby rotted zombie, grabs a Pabst, sits down and says,

What the fuck are you doing, asshole? Don’t waste your time here. Some of the most creative periods of my life were the stupid ass jobs I had. They had meaning, real meaning man, you just don’t get it.  Just speak the truth man, at all cost, and remember it’s the simple shit that’s important."

I ponder, do I spend more time creating the appearance of doing a good job than actually doing a good job, and a shocking realization overcomes me. I’ve been concentrating more on creating the illusion of quality performance than achieving it in ALL my jobs; that’s why I’ve had so many different occupations! Then, the bomb drops. It wasn’t only in my career, but in ALL my relationships, that my sole goal was to create again the appearance of happiness by taking the path of least resistance and setting up circumstantial evidence of contentment, and that’s why my all my ex-wives got up and just left. They saw right through me. And In Fact, everything I have ever done in my entire life, music, writing, and art is wholly based on this premise of maintaining the facade of the act without any real true understanding or meaningful outcome, and now at this final stage of the game in my life, it was all a lie… Everything I have said and done is irrelevant.

I also realize I had been smoking some seriously strong pot and my ego has just been hijacked, falling into the pit of full-blown paranoia… Ok,