Dear Friend,
Enclosed is the rose.
My, how many hands it has passed. How many roads it has been on. I like to imagine its journey.
Perhaps it graced an evening side table, next to an old book and a glass of wine. Perhaps it lost a single petal while bouncing on the dashboard of some car driving over the mountains. Maybe it was the last whole rose left after its bouquet became floating petals in a bath meant for two. What if its thorn pricked a delivery woman, rebuking her for being needlessly jealous. It might have even been the inspiration for a cartoon movie, catching the sight of some important producer. Imagine if it was discarded onto the street, by the contempt of failed reconciliation, only to be picked up by a little boy with a big crush.
I am certain it will travel well. But the truth is, I have no idea how it will be received. Windows are such unreliable truth givers, and mirrors only tell what we already know.
God I’m terrible at this. Forgive me.
There is snow on the ground, finally. It took long enough. And yet, you know, it seems like only yesterday that it was the summer. But I certainly can’t remember the heat – the evenings here are frigid, and they unexpectedly creep into my apartment whenever I’m not cooking. My place is small, but the baseboard heaters are pretty lacklustre. I guess that everything always seems pretty close, even when it feels far away. I like my little apartment though. It houses my thoughts well enough.
I barely remember my life anymore: The life that I had while in high school or in college. The life that I had while going to lectures and going to the campus bar. The life that I had in elementary school, giving girls I liked gold painted rocks. The life I had playing the trombone or walking the streets of a foreign country. The life I had being a boyfriend, or of the oldest brother of a family that hadn’t grown up yet. It all feels so far away, but it only seems like yesterday.
I wonder if this makes sense. Some people never have a break from the life they lead. They are just one beautiful, linear progression. Mine, however, feels like it’s filled with starts and stops.
But I’m still writing to you. There was a time when we hadn’t started, but there has not been a time when we stopped. And I’ll tell you a secret – I’m not writing because of the season. The season is an excuse, but not the reason.
I had a thought, the other day. A daydream. It was my funeral. (I know that’s a taboo subject to bring up in a holiday letter, but what the hell. I’m pretty taboo myself.) People from my life, people important to me, took the podium one at a time and talked about me. I didn’t hear what any of them said, except the first line. Each person started by calling me a different thing. “He was a student.” “He was an artist.” “He was a businessman.” “He was a satire.” “He was an idealist.” “He was a brother.” “He was a friend.” “He was a lover.”
In my daydream, the list went on. As many people as there were willing to talk about me, there were labels. I then went back in time a week or so, and watched as one of those very important people came up with the idea to talk about different facets of my life, and to discover the people relevant to my life that could speak to them. They called my siblings, and they called my parents. They looked through my cell phone and my emails – they knew I wouldn’t mind. It was important to find the right people who could speak from experience and knowledge of me.
I suppose it’s pure vanity to believe that I could be so multi-faceted and distinct from everyone else. But I’ve met enough people of distinction to believe that I could be one of them. Maybe “he was an egotistical maniac” can be added to the list. Heh.
I guess what I’m trying to say here is that you’re one of those people. You could stand up there and talk about me, because you know me. You’re important, in the only way that importance really matters. And I know that, with all my usual communications, it might not sound like it. I’m awful with gifts, and I seem to remember random and terribly useless things. And the only time I can’t seem to say the right thing is when I really, REALLY want to.
But it’s true. I really hope you know it.
Life’s a game. Actually, it’s a number of little games. And you pick the games you want to play, you learn their rules, and then you play to win. You and me, we haven’t always played the same games, and sometimes we’ve played some pretty silly, strange looking games. But they’re fun. We haven’t always bet big, and we haven’t always played risky. But we’ve played with our hearts. And we’re winners. By gods, we’re winners.
I love playing with you. I love it when you get passionate, and when you get real. I love when we’re playing the same game, and get to combine our efforts. And I love playing my own game knowing that you’re off playing yours. And, you must know by now, I love playing those games when we’re pitted against each other. Because then, there’s no loser.
I wonder how you are, tonight. I could talk to you until the dawn breaks, but the truth is, I’d rather hear you speak. You don’t tell me enough, you know. I suppose that’s the joy of a letter, it gets all the talking out of the way and allows us to anticipate the reply. I hope you are happy, and enjoying daydreams of your own.
New games are underfoot, and it’s an exciting time for all of us. I hope you bet big this time, because I probably will. We’ve both got more to bet with, we know the rules a lot better, and there’s nothing more exciting than playing. If you ever need another player, let me know. I’m ready to kick ass.
Sincerely,
- Me
(The envelope contained nothing else)
Friday, December 25, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Elephant Nocturne
When he sleeps, he dreams.
He doesn’t sleep often, though it pains him to remain awake so many hours a day. It is hard and painful work, lowering himself into his bed, which is not a bed at all, but instead a chair with a high back, and a long seat that accommodates his legs. It is an ingenuous thing, one of the many conveniences the doctor and his patrons have provided for him. He is grateful for these gifts, and he treasures every last one of them, down to the smallest teaspoon.
His neck aches, but it is a familiar pain, and he accepts it as a burden he must carry until he closes his eyes for the last time. He has a hot water bottle that he heats on his little stove while he makes his evening tea. The kettle whistles; he lifts it, slowly, and pours water into his teapot. Already the rich redolent smell of tea fills his small sitting room – a smell he will always associate with – oddly, he knows – the London Hospital, now his home. The smell almost brings a tear to his eye, although he has shared a cup of tea with so many grand ladies, now, that he has learned to keep these emotions inside. He may not be a man – he may be a hideous creature indeed – but he would never allow a lady to see him cry.
His mind strays. He blinks back the hot tears that threaten to spill.
His first examination by Doctor Treves began with the slow, deliberate brewing of tea. He did not think that grand men like the doctor brewed their own tea – but Doctor Treves did, and still does, in his study.
The rest of the boiling water goes into his hot water bottle. He wraps the bottle in a muffler given to him by her Majesty, the Princess of Wales; she is rumored to have knit it herself. Although he refuses to catalog his pain (his nature is not to be ghoulish or give in to the weakness that is self-pity) the parts of him that hurt the most - his neck, his right hip, and his, admittedly, monstrous right foot, require nightly applications of warmth.
The tea is done. He pours it into his favorite cup – bone china decorated with an elegant design of violets and posies. Though his memories of the Continent are fraught with anxiety, shudders, and the awful threats of violent men, this tea-set – which he purchased with his own money, before it was stolen from him and his life changed forever – is a reminder that he survived indignities unheard of by the decent society in which he now resides. He adds several teaspoons of sugar and a splash of milk. The tea goes on a table next to his chair.
When he settles into his bed-chair, he pulls a blanket across his legs and closes his eyes. With some maneuvering and only a little pain in his malformed hand, he lays the water bottle - wrapped in a green knitted muffler - across his neck.
The tea smells like comfort. He does not drink it; this is his nighttime ritual, the making of tea, the laying down of his tired body (though not, of course, his head), the application of heat to his strained limbs.
His eyelids are getting heavy. Though his window is closed, and it’s late, he can hear, or imagines he can hear, the noises of busy London life up the stairs, beyond Bedstead Square, and into Whitechapel, his home these last few months. He imagines he can hear the slow rambling footsteps of the Daughters of Joy who haunt the streets above (now safe, he is told, from Saucy Jack, who of late seems to have curtailed his reign of terror upon those unfortunate women); he imagines he can hear the clatter of horse hooves, the great beasts ferrying a coach of elegant ladies to an evening at the theatre; perhaps Mr Collins himself is walking up there, above him, gathering images for his next novel. The large grey tomcat that roams the hospital grounds stops at his window, and peers inside, with a flash of its yellow eyes. The cat scratches a bit at the window, then spies a small saucer of milk left at the bottom of the stairs. He cannot see the cat, but he imagines the way it leaps, graceful and feral as a lion.
The tea smells like home. His neck is warm. He wishes, faintly and with only the barest hint of longing, that he could lay his head down, just once, on a pillow. His eyelids are heavy.
When he sleeps, he dreams of elephants.
He saw one, once, in Belgium. The man for whom he worked – a man whose face and name he has, mercifully, forgotten – had traveled to India in search of the turbaned fakir, rumored to float on air and sleep on a bed of nails. The man came back with a caravan of wonders, the most wondrous of all an elephant with long curving tusks and sad eyes. He only saw the creature from a distance (though he judged its eyes sad), and it did not live long – but it was, truly, a wonder to behold. He never touched its skin, but he knew how it would feel – rough, and dry as a potato.
The tea smells like home. His neck is warm. The cat is fed. He wishes, faintly and with only the barest hint of longing, that he could lay his head down, just once, on a pillow. His eyelids are heavy.
In his dream, now, a herd of the great grey beasts are thundering across the savannah towards him. He has never seen the savannah, though he has read about it, in the travel books he so loves. In his dream it is exactly as he imagined it; a vast plain of brown grass, swaying like so many women rocking their children to sleep; leafless trees in the distance; and the elephants, ten or twelve of them, all galloping towards him. The sky is orange, and as the herd rumbles towards him, the sun sinks closer to the horizon. He stretches his neck and looks directly at the sun, a red ball round as a saucer, and warm as tea. He stands next to a shallow pool, and he waits for them – his herd, his family.
Joseph is sleeping, now; Joseph is dreaming.
He doesn’t sleep often, though it pains him to remain awake so many hours a day. It is hard and painful work, lowering himself into his bed, which is not a bed at all, but instead a chair with a high back, and a long seat that accommodates his legs. It is an ingenuous thing, one of the many conveniences the doctor and his patrons have provided for him. He is grateful for these gifts, and he treasures every last one of them, down to the smallest teaspoon.
His neck aches, but it is a familiar pain, and he accepts it as a burden he must carry until he closes his eyes for the last time. He has a hot water bottle that he heats on his little stove while he makes his evening tea. The kettle whistles; he lifts it, slowly, and pours water into his teapot. Already the rich redolent smell of tea fills his small sitting room – a smell he will always associate with – oddly, he knows – the London Hospital, now his home. The smell almost brings a tear to his eye, although he has shared a cup of tea with so many grand ladies, now, that he has learned to keep these emotions inside. He may not be a man – he may be a hideous creature indeed – but he would never allow a lady to see him cry.
His mind strays. He blinks back the hot tears that threaten to spill.
His first examination by Doctor Treves began with the slow, deliberate brewing of tea. He did not think that grand men like the doctor brewed their own tea – but Doctor Treves did, and still does, in his study.
The rest of the boiling water goes into his hot water bottle. He wraps the bottle in a muffler given to him by her Majesty, the Princess of Wales; she is rumored to have knit it herself. Although he refuses to catalog his pain (his nature is not to be ghoulish or give in to the weakness that is self-pity) the parts of him that hurt the most - his neck, his right hip, and his, admittedly, monstrous right foot, require nightly applications of warmth.
The tea is done. He pours it into his favorite cup – bone china decorated with an elegant design of violets and posies. Though his memories of the Continent are fraught with anxiety, shudders, and the awful threats of violent men, this tea-set – which he purchased with his own money, before it was stolen from him and his life changed forever – is a reminder that he survived indignities unheard of by the decent society in which he now resides. He adds several teaspoons of sugar and a splash of milk. The tea goes on a table next to his chair.
When he settles into his bed-chair, he pulls a blanket across his legs and closes his eyes. With some maneuvering and only a little pain in his malformed hand, he lays the water bottle - wrapped in a green knitted muffler - across his neck.
The tea smells like comfort. He does not drink it; this is his nighttime ritual, the making of tea, the laying down of his tired body (though not, of course, his head), the application of heat to his strained limbs.
His eyelids are getting heavy. Though his window is closed, and it’s late, he can hear, or imagines he can hear, the noises of busy London life up the stairs, beyond Bedstead Square, and into Whitechapel, his home these last few months. He imagines he can hear the slow rambling footsteps of the Daughters of Joy who haunt the streets above (now safe, he is told, from Saucy Jack, who of late seems to have curtailed his reign of terror upon those unfortunate women); he imagines he can hear the clatter of horse hooves, the great beasts ferrying a coach of elegant ladies to an evening at the theatre; perhaps Mr Collins himself is walking up there, above him, gathering images for his next novel. The large grey tomcat that roams the hospital grounds stops at his window, and peers inside, with a flash of its yellow eyes. The cat scratches a bit at the window, then spies a small saucer of milk left at the bottom of the stairs. He cannot see the cat, but he imagines the way it leaps, graceful and feral as a lion.
The tea smells like home. His neck is warm. He wishes, faintly and with only the barest hint of longing, that he could lay his head down, just once, on a pillow. His eyelids are heavy.
When he sleeps, he dreams of elephants.
He saw one, once, in Belgium. The man for whom he worked – a man whose face and name he has, mercifully, forgotten – had traveled to India in search of the turbaned fakir, rumored to float on air and sleep on a bed of nails. The man came back with a caravan of wonders, the most wondrous of all an elephant with long curving tusks and sad eyes. He only saw the creature from a distance (though he judged its eyes sad), and it did not live long – but it was, truly, a wonder to behold. He never touched its skin, but he knew how it would feel – rough, and dry as a potato.
The tea smells like home. His neck is warm. The cat is fed. He wishes, faintly and with only the barest hint of longing, that he could lay his head down, just once, on a pillow. His eyelids are heavy.
In his dream, now, a herd of the great grey beasts are thundering across the savannah towards him. He has never seen the savannah, though he has read about it, in the travel books he so loves. In his dream it is exactly as he imagined it; a vast plain of brown grass, swaying like so many women rocking their children to sleep; leafless trees in the distance; and the elephants, ten or twelve of them, all galloping towards him. The sky is orange, and as the herd rumbles towards him, the sun sinks closer to the horizon. He stretches his neck and looks directly at the sun, a red ball round as a saucer, and warm as tea. He stands next to a shallow pool, and he waits for them – his herd, his family.
Joseph is sleeping, now; Joseph is dreaming.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Unwritten Hours
It’s 2:36am. The night is deep. The kind of depth that is defined by absence. With a careful lift of the proper switch, an incandescent bulb buzzes quietly to life, outlining the silence of the hour. But the light is too soft to awaken any of the shadows below. It hangs lazily from the roof; an oasis, fading into the unending darkness that surrounds it.
Somewhere, a cat crunches loudly; single bites of manufactured food from its dish. The sound echoes.
The haven is a kitchen table and three chairs. They are wooden: hard and cold. Harbouring no malcontent, their disposition is merely the victim of their midnight fate. Abandoned.
There is a window of double paned glass above the second chair. The air beside it is especially chill. In the distance, street lights diligently pretend for purpose. Red. Green. Red. Green. There are no cars. The road disappears behind another building, untraveled. In hours forward or back, there would be traffic lined obediently to their mechanical authority. It was a particularly busy street, in hours that were not this one. Red. Green.
The sound stops. The cat is fed, or bored with eating, and is gone again.
Silence. A corporeal sanctity. The fridge does not hum. The furnace does not turn on. Even the pipes are hesitant to ferry water to its rightful place.
Tired, a cup of tea is contemplated. Then decided on. The tap fills the kettle with the familiar hollow sound. It reminds of home. Placed on the burner, it makes a garish noise. That too, is comforting. Something in the design of heat, that makes things come alive so. The waiting is a pleasant ritual.
It is lifted a moment after it boils, and a moment before it whistles. The familiar hum of ready water is replaced by a filling teapot. A filled teapot. A nondescript sigh. The neon time on the microwave is noted. It will take eleven minutes to brew, but only five to drink.
The cup is selected carefully. The cupboard opens with a slight click as it detaches from the magnet designed to keep it in its place. Inside, on the floor below, each glass had its place. Transparent to the end, the short had all been lined with the short and the tall with the tall. The mugs instead clamoured for distinction. The ones picked last had been shunned to the back, their strange size or shape making them denizens with the dust. The most popular bore their labels proudly in the front: first to be dirtied, last to be put away. Hidden in modesty was the right one. Lifted with care, it receives only a handle bump from a jealous label on its way out.
The fridge is pretending again. The light is on when opened, brave and bold. But it does not dare to enter the room. The milk is removed without a fight. It never resists being emptied. It never thinks to lament being full.
A spoon stirs certainly. Its edges never leave the sides of the cup, scraping a slow chant as fluids mix. With a single tap on the edge, the project is politely proclaimed.
An absent stare accompanies the full cup at the table. Quiet thoughts are absorbed and the tea gently warms fingertips. The cat is presumed asleep.
Somewhere, a cat crunches loudly; single bites of manufactured food from its dish. The sound echoes.
The haven is a kitchen table and three chairs. They are wooden: hard and cold. Harbouring no malcontent, their disposition is merely the victim of their midnight fate. Abandoned.
There is a window of double paned glass above the second chair. The air beside it is especially chill. In the distance, street lights diligently pretend for purpose. Red. Green. Red. Green. There are no cars. The road disappears behind another building, untraveled. In hours forward or back, there would be traffic lined obediently to their mechanical authority. It was a particularly busy street, in hours that were not this one. Red. Green.
The sound stops. The cat is fed, or bored with eating, and is gone again.
Silence. A corporeal sanctity. The fridge does not hum. The furnace does not turn on. Even the pipes are hesitant to ferry water to its rightful place.
Tired, a cup of tea is contemplated. Then decided on. The tap fills the kettle with the familiar hollow sound. It reminds of home. Placed on the burner, it makes a garish noise. That too, is comforting. Something in the design of heat, that makes things come alive so. The waiting is a pleasant ritual.
It is lifted a moment after it boils, and a moment before it whistles. The familiar hum of ready water is replaced by a filling teapot. A filled teapot. A nondescript sigh. The neon time on the microwave is noted. It will take eleven minutes to brew, but only five to drink.
The cup is selected carefully. The cupboard opens with a slight click as it detaches from the magnet designed to keep it in its place. Inside, on the floor below, each glass had its place. Transparent to the end, the short had all been lined with the short and the tall with the tall. The mugs instead clamoured for distinction. The ones picked last had been shunned to the back, their strange size or shape making them denizens with the dust. The most popular bore their labels proudly in the front: first to be dirtied, last to be put away. Hidden in modesty was the right one. Lifted with care, it receives only a handle bump from a jealous label on its way out.
The fridge is pretending again. The light is on when opened, brave and bold. But it does not dare to enter the room. The milk is removed without a fight. It never resists being emptied. It never thinks to lament being full.
A spoon stirs certainly. Its edges never leave the sides of the cup, scraping a slow chant as fluids mix. With a single tap on the edge, the project is politely proclaimed.
An absent stare accompanies the full cup at the table. Quiet thoughts are absorbed and the tea gently warms fingertips. The cat is presumed asleep.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Control
I can do anything I want to you.
Listen.
Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a girl. Her parents weren’t the King and Queen; she wasn’t royalty, not even distantly; she wasn’t a princess. She slept on lumpy mattresses, but they weren’t lumpy from magic vegetables, peas and beans and such, as was the tendency of the day; these mattresses were simply old and well-used. So, the girl slept on straw mattresses, and wore hand-sewn clothes, and played with the dolls her mother made when she wasn’t tending to the livestock, all those dirty cows and sheep and pigs. Most fairy tales tellers leave this part out, but I’m not scared to tell you: there was a lot of shit that needed cleaning up back then. ‘Once upon a time’ was neither a pretty nor a clean time.
You wouldn’t believe the mess ogres leave behind.
The girl had big green eyes and long brown hair, and she wore a blue ribbon in her hair, and dresses her mother made for her when she wasn’t shoveling shit or picking carcasses clean. The girl lived in a one-room cottage with her parents; she swept clean the dirt-packed floor daily. She was loved very much, in their coarse way, by her parents, and she looked forward to a life of cooking and cleaning and animal husbandry. From time to time she picked the pretty blue flowers that grew in the fields, and sold them at a crossroads a stone’s throw from the cottage.
This is the way of fairy tales; things change, and little girls must suffer before their happily ever after. Little girls must suffer a holocaust of burns and a riot of scars before The End. It can’t be helped; it’s the way of the story.
So, the girl was happy, in her way, selling her flowers and cleaning her floor; watching her parents toil, shoveling shit, and repelling the occasional ogre.
Until the arrival of a man. You wouldn’t believe the messes men leave behind.
I hold you in the palm of my hand. My tongue finds all the secret parts of you. I can do anything I want to you. I can change the story whenever I want.
It’s a dream now.
Listen.
In the dream I am walking through the house. It’s my house, and it’s also not my house. It’s a collection of rooms from many different houses; the narrow hallway of a trailer, prefab walls and linoleum floors; a vast dining room, ten feet ceiling and a shiny oak table; rooms that remind me of my grandparent’s house, rooms that soundlessly and without warning stretch and morph to become other rooms, rooms and walls I’ve never seen before. There are hiding places and nooks, secret stairways and dark hidden hallways, and I am walking the length of the house, moving from room to room, going up stairs and back down sloping hallways.
This is my house. This is my dream, and I am walking through all the rooms and wings and floors of my house, down down down into the basement where the monster is. The monster is one of these things (though he’s probably all of them): a ghost, a murderer, a man who was murdered, a man who killed himself, a man I killed, the Minotaur, a harpie with a broken wing, Orpheus, and a small girl holding a blue flower. The monster paces paces paces as I climb down down down, to the basement under the ground ground ground.
The basement is cold and the air is copper; a fine mist of blood hangs in the air, turns the dust motes red where the light shines down. The monster paces; the monster is a little girl and her eyes are a green flash in the dark. The monster breathes next to me; the monster is the man I killed, in a different dream, a triumphant dream. The monster licks me roughly, horribly; the monster is the man who killed me.
I don’t have to tell you the whole story, or even the true story. When it’s my words the story is mine, and the story ends however and whenever I choose it.
I can do whatever I want to you. In my story I can destroy you, but only if I want to.
My story is imagery.
Listen.
A little girl stands in a doorway, her arms crossed over her chest. Protection. She is wearing her favorite green dress, her Only For Very Special-Days dress; light green and lacy, tiny flowers worked into the fabric, delicately. It is her best dress. When she wears it, she is a princess. Today, she is told, is Extra-Special. Today she has been given a Very Special Task, a task only a princess can perform.
A man sits on the edge of an unmade bed, his head in his hands.
A little girl sits at the end of a driveway. She has her head in her hands; her palms are bloody and gravel-raw, her corduroy pants are ripped at the knees. Her bike is sprawled in the grass, wheels all akimbo. A German Shepherd is padding down the driveways towards her. Cars pass by, slowly.
A man sits on the edge of a messy bed. His hand moves, only slightly. There is a heaviness to it. Click.
A little girl leaves her bedroom, a thoughtful look on her face. Last night she lay in bed, clutching Pumpkinhead, a bizarre knitted doll that she loves fiercely. She loves the scratchy orange doll even more than she loves her dog Lady. Last night she lay in bed with Pumpkinhead tucked neatly beside her, and dreamed she saw teenage girl sitting on the edge of her bed, her head in her hands. Something about the girl was haunting and familiar. The teenage girl shifted, and one of her arms dropped; it fell to rest awkwardly on her lap. The smell of blood, the smell of scraped palms, the smell of knees meeting concrete, an entire arm gone raw; something thin, shiny, delicate fell from the dream-girl’s other hand. The dream wasn’t a nightmare, not exactly. The girl wakes up clutching Pumpkinhead, and she carries him around all day, from room to room.
We end the way the fairy tale begins; once upon a time. After that the story is all mine. I’m not telling. This is me in control.
Listen.
Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a girl. Her parents weren’t the King and Queen; she wasn’t royalty, not even distantly; she wasn’t a princess. She slept on lumpy mattresses, but they weren’t lumpy from magic vegetables, peas and beans and such, as was the tendency of the day; these mattresses were simply old and well-used. So, the girl slept on straw mattresses, and wore hand-sewn clothes, and played with the dolls her mother made when she wasn’t tending to the livestock, all those dirty cows and sheep and pigs. Most fairy tales tellers leave this part out, but I’m not scared to tell you: there was a lot of shit that needed cleaning up back then. ‘Once upon a time’ was neither a pretty nor a clean time.
You wouldn’t believe the mess ogres leave behind.
The girl had big green eyes and long brown hair, and she wore a blue ribbon in her hair, and dresses her mother made for her when she wasn’t shoveling shit or picking carcasses clean. The girl lived in a one-room cottage with her parents; she swept clean the dirt-packed floor daily. She was loved very much, in their coarse way, by her parents, and she looked forward to a life of cooking and cleaning and animal husbandry. From time to time she picked the pretty blue flowers that grew in the fields, and sold them at a crossroads a stone’s throw from the cottage.
This is the way of fairy tales; things change, and little girls must suffer before their happily ever after. Little girls must suffer a holocaust of burns and a riot of scars before The End. It can’t be helped; it’s the way of the story.
So, the girl was happy, in her way, selling her flowers and cleaning her floor; watching her parents toil, shoveling shit, and repelling the occasional ogre.
Until the arrival of a man. You wouldn’t believe the messes men leave behind.
I hold you in the palm of my hand. My tongue finds all the secret parts of you. I can do anything I want to you. I can change the story whenever I want.
It’s a dream now.
Listen.
In the dream I am walking through the house. It’s my house, and it’s also not my house. It’s a collection of rooms from many different houses; the narrow hallway of a trailer, prefab walls and linoleum floors; a vast dining room, ten feet ceiling and a shiny oak table; rooms that remind me of my grandparent’s house, rooms that soundlessly and without warning stretch and morph to become other rooms, rooms and walls I’ve never seen before. There are hiding places and nooks, secret stairways and dark hidden hallways, and I am walking the length of the house, moving from room to room, going up stairs and back down sloping hallways.
This is my house. This is my dream, and I am walking through all the rooms and wings and floors of my house, down down down into the basement where the monster is. The monster is one of these things (though he’s probably all of them): a ghost, a murderer, a man who was murdered, a man who killed himself, a man I killed, the Minotaur, a harpie with a broken wing, Orpheus, and a small girl holding a blue flower. The monster paces paces paces as I climb down down down, to the basement under the ground ground ground.
The basement is cold and the air is copper; a fine mist of blood hangs in the air, turns the dust motes red where the light shines down. The monster paces; the monster is a little girl and her eyes are a green flash in the dark. The monster breathes next to me; the monster is the man I killed, in a different dream, a triumphant dream. The monster licks me roughly, horribly; the monster is the man who killed me.
I don’t have to tell you the whole story, or even the true story. When it’s my words the story is mine, and the story ends however and whenever I choose it.
I can do whatever I want to you. In my story I can destroy you, but only if I want to.
My story is imagery.
Listen.
A little girl stands in a doorway, her arms crossed over her chest. Protection. She is wearing her favorite green dress, her Only For Very Special-Days dress; light green and lacy, tiny flowers worked into the fabric, delicately. It is her best dress. When she wears it, she is a princess. Today, she is told, is Extra-Special. Today she has been given a Very Special Task, a task only a princess can perform.
A man sits on the edge of an unmade bed, his head in his hands.
A little girl sits at the end of a driveway. She has her head in her hands; her palms are bloody and gravel-raw, her corduroy pants are ripped at the knees. Her bike is sprawled in the grass, wheels all akimbo. A German Shepherd is padding down the driveways towards her. Cars pass by, slowly.
A man sits on the edge of a messy bed. His hand moves, only slightly. There is a heaviness to it. Click.
A little girl leaves her bedroom, a thoughtful look on her face. Last night she lay in bed, clutching Pumpkinhead, a bizarre knitted doll that she loves fiercely. She loves the scratchy orange doll even more than she loves her dog Lady. Last night she lay in bed with Pumpkinhead tucked neatly beside her, and dreamed she saw teenage girl sitting on the edge of her bed, her head in her hands. Something about the girl was haunting and familiar. The teenage girl shifted, and one of her arms dropped; it fell to rest awkwardly on her lap. The smell of blood, the smell of scraped palms, the smell of knees meeting concrete, an entire arm gone raw; something thin, shiny, delicate fell from the dream-girl’s other hand. The dream wasn’t a nightmare, not exactly. The girl wakes up clutching Pumpkinhead, and she carries him around all day, from room to room.
We end the way the fairy tale begins; once upon a time. After that the story is all mine. I’m not telling. This is me in control.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Be Still, My Beating Heart
The tragic truth was, they got it all wrong.
It’s not “all you need is love,” and it never was. People need a lot more than love. They need to eat and drink. They need shelter when it’s cold, and shade when it’s hot. They need adequate immune systems and properly working biological systems.
But, that’s not what they got wrong. The sentence was what was wrong. Somehow, through centuries of progress, evolution, ambition, creativity, whimsy, and absolutely divine hope the wisdom of the world had been mixed up. The message had gotten a bit confused. Convoluted. The universe of man and woman had played a game of telephone with it; each generation whispering into the ears of the next what it had heard. And each time, something was added, or tweaked, or removed. And so, by the time it was whispered by those infamous insects, love was turned on its head.
It was way too far gone.
~ ~ ~
When magic was first discovered, people mistook it for MSG. They claimed it wasn’t real or natural. They thought it was an overcoat, something draped over reality to make it seem better (or worse) than it actually was. It took what was and pretended it into something else. And, rest assured, that “something else” was powerful and elegant and full of the things that would certainly become legend. But people were always sure that it would be over one day, and that magic would disappear as merely a fantasy. A fairy tale.
As magic became more closely monitored, people began to attribute their daily misfortunes to it. And so, people who came in contact with magic started complaining of headaches, and mild nausea. Complaints of irritability and irrationality popped up wherever there was an exposure to magic. People now kept their eyes open at all times. They examined every one of their realities to make sure they were pure.
Anti-magic policies started showing up at workplaces and in public arenas. The army officially frowned upon the use of magic, but made use of its qualities to ensure the loyalty of their soldiers. Pharmaceutical companies started producing drugs to assist the bereaved – victims of magic abuse. Spiritualists and naturopaths provided alternative treatments. Psychological studies were funded by the government to analyze the long term effects of magic on subjects from different backgrounds. Historians and archaeologists joined hands in an attempt to catalogue how and when magic was first found and utilized.
As time went on, parts of magic were isolated, and understood. Different academics and scholars found names and categories, and drew some reliable correlations. Modern science began to recognize that magic was far more complicated than originally thought. Even though it had been commonly understood under one label for as long as people could remember, it was actually a series of complex phenomena that overlapped over time. Advocates for a simpler understanding gave rise to alternate theories. World epidemics heightened awareness of the thing, and conferences were called while political movements rallied. Eventually, everyone either claimed they understood it or didn’t care about it. Everyone had built up an immunity to it – even the extremists who still claimed to embrace it.
~ ~ ~
Finally free from magic, this world didn’t do so well. It seemed as though, just as they had overcome it completely, other ills started popping up. Depression, rage, rebellion, confusion, hopelessness, meaninglessness. The world was a far more dangerous, difficult place than they had realized. Having spent all of their time minimalizing magic, these other epidemics ran rampant.
“What were we to do?” their governments and their scientists said. “We only have so many resources, and so much time. Magic was clearly the worst of all the ills.” And it was true, they did have pills for headaches now. A new press release confirmed the growing confidence of society’s dominance:
“We do not know why we are in such a sorry state of affairs now, but there was a time when we were plagued by magic. While it sounds like a buzz word and a fairy tale now, there was a time when it was a real force in our lives. Thanks to our continual efforts and diligence as a people, we are no longer plagued by it. It is now only a minor inconvenience that our doctors can medicate for and our counsellors understand. Given time, we are certain that things like depression, confusion, and hopelessness will all be similarly contained.”
As years went by, the world got worse. They finally found a way to manage depression, but meaninglessness increased. They finally found a way to manage hopelessness, but not without raising the levels of blind fundamentalism. The world was not content the way it was.
Why was it built this way? Why did the universe throw one ill after another after another. No matter how technical the hospitals, people kept dying. No matter how skilled the workers, buildings still broke down. No matter how much money families had, they still hated each other. No matter what intentions lay between friends, disputes always arose.
Most said the world had grown cold to them. That they were abandoned, or that they were forsaken, or that they were otherwise doomed to live their lives conquering a disease or malcontent that was worse than the last. What else could it be? That seemed to be all existence had been for as long as they could remember.
~ ~ ~
There was a boy who held an ancient treasure. He had gotten it in his travels, and had tucked it safely away in his bedroom. A small cylindrical bottle with a tough-to-twist-off cap. Inside, he imagined, was the last remaining real Magic left in the world.
He wouldn’t let his parents or friends know that he had it. They would laugh at him and tell him that there was no such thing as magic. That was just an old bottle of pills, they’d say. So he hid it.
Sure, privately, deep down he must have known that they couldn’t be magic. Magic was not found in bottles. But he knew what they made him feel like. Taking one of those pills made his heart flutter. It made it beat strangely, and erratically. It made him light-headed. And something of that felt strangely familiar. Normal.
And such a feeling could only be magic, he mused. Nothing else in the world compared.
~ ~ ~
“You all need love”
It’s not “all you need is love,” and it never was. People need a lot more than love. They need to eat and drink. They need shelter when it’s cold, and shade when it’s hot. They need adequate immune systems and properly working biological systems.
But, that’s not what they got wrong. The sentence was what was wrong. Somehow, through centuries of progress, evolution, ambition, creativity, whimsy, and absolutely divine hope the wisdom of the world had been mixed up. The message had gotten a bit confused. Convoluted. The universe of man and woman had played a game of telephone with it; each generation whispering into the ears of the next what it had heard. And each time, something was added, or tweaked, or removed. And so, by the time it was whispered by those infamous insects, love was turned on its head.
It was way too far gone.
~ ~ ~
When magic was first discovered, people mistook it for MSG. They claimed it wasn’t real or natural. They thought it was an overcoat, something draped over reality to make it seem better (or worse) than it actually was. It took what was and pretended it into something else. And, rest assured, that “something else” was powerful and elegant and full of the things that would certainly become legend. But people were always sure that it would be over one day, and that magic would disappear as merely a fantasy. A fairy tale.
As magic became more closely monitored, people began to attribute their daily misfortunes to it. And so, people who came in contact with magic started complaining of headaches, and mild nausea. Complaints of irritability and irrationality popped up wherever there was an exposure to magic. People now kept their eyes open at all times. They examined every one of their realities to make sure they were pure.
Anti-magic policies started showing up at workplaces and in public arenas. The army officially frowned upon the use of magic, but made use of its qualities to ensure the loyalty of their soldiers. Pharmaceutical companies started producing drugs to assist the bereaved – victims of magic abuse. Spiritualists and naturopaths provided alternative treatments. Psychological studies were funded by the government to analyze the long term effects of magic on subjects from different backgrounds. Historians and archaeologists joined hands in an attempt to catalogue how and when magic was first found and utilized.
As time went on, parts of magic were isolated, and understood. Different academics and scholars found names and categories, and drew some reliable correlations. Modern science began to recognize that magic was far more complicated than originally thought. Even though it had been commonly understood under one label for as long as people could remember, it was actually a series of complex phenomena that overlapped over time. Advocates for a simpler understanding gave rise to alternate theories. World epidemics heightened awareness of the thing, and conferences were called while political movements rallied. Eventually, everyone either claimed they understood it or didn’t care about it. Everyone had built up an immunity to it – even the extremists who still claimed to embrace it.
~ ~ ~
Finally free from magic, this world didn’t do so well. It seemed as though, just as they had overcome it completely, other ills started popping up. Depression, rage, rebellion, confusion, hopelessness, meaninglessness. The world was a far more dangerous, difficult place than they had realized. Having spent all of their time minimalizing magic, these other epidemics ran rampant.
“What were we to do?” their governments and their scientists said. “We only have so many resources, and so much time. Magic was clearly the worst of all the ills.” And it was true, they did have pills for headaches now. A new press release confirmed the growing confidence of society’s dominance:
“We do not know why we are in such a sorry state of affairs now, but there was a time when we were plagued by magic. While it sounds like a buzz word and a fairy tale now, there was a time when it was a real force in our lives. Thanks to our continual efforts and diligence as a people, we are no longer plagued by it. It is now only a minor inconvenience that our doctors can medicate for and our counsellors understand. Given time, we are certain that things like depression, confusion, and hopelessness will all be similarly contained.”
As years went by, the world got worse. They finally found a way to manage depression, but meaninglessness increased. They finally found a way to manage hopelessness, but not without raising the levels of blind fundamentalism. The world was not content the way it was.
Why was it built this way? Why did the universe throw one ill after another after another. No matter how technical the hospitals, people kept dying. No matter how skilled the workers, buildings still broke down. No matter how much money families had, they still hated each other. No matter what intentions lay between friends, disputes always arose.
Most said the world had grown cold to them. That they were abandoned, or that they were forsaken, or that they were otherwise doomed to live their lives conquering a disease or malcontent that was worse than the last. What else could it be? That seemed to be all existence had been for as long as they could remember.
~ ~ ~
There was a boy who held an ancient treasure. He had gotten it in his travels, and had tucked it safely away in his bedroom. A small cylindrical bottle with a tough-to-twist-off cap. Inside, he imagined, was the last remaining real Magic left in the world.
He wouldn’t let his parents or friends know that he had it. They would laugh at him and tell him that there was no such thing as magic. That was just an old bottle of pills, they’d say. So he hid it.
Sure, privately, deep down he must have known that they couldn’t be magic. Magic was not found in bottles. But he knew what they made him feel like. Taking one of those pills made his heart flutter. It made it beat strangely, and erratically. It made him light-headed. And something of that felt strangely familiar. Normal.
And such a feeling could only be magic, he mused. Nothing else in the world compared.
~ ~ ~
“You all need love”
Friday, November 20, 2009
Three More Ways of Looking at Love/Unfinished
You said, ‘I love you’. Why is it that the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear? ‘I love you’ is always a quotation. You did not say it first and neither did I, yet when you say it and when I say it we speak like savages who have found three words and worship them. I did worship them but now I am alone on a rock strewn out of my own body.
from Written on the Body, by Jeanette Winterson
I wish I could write about it. Sometimes I fear I have never really felt it, although this cannot be true. I have been warmed by this thing called love, I’ve been burned by this thing called love.
I’ve written about it, obliquely. I’ve circled it, and I’ve hinted at it, and I’ve called it possession, I’ve called it desperation, but I’ve never named it.
Every song that’s ever been written has been written about it. Every book that’s ever been written has been written about it. Every movie that’s ever been made has been made about it. Everything you’ll ever do will be done because of it.
I’m circling it again. I’m edging ever closer, though, ever closer to the edge, to the dizzy heights, the cliffs of love.
Jeffrey Dahmer loved his boys. He loved them so much he tried to keep them with him forever. I’ve tried to keep love forever. I’ve tried to bottle it, but love sours fast.
Love soars, love is vast.
Love is a vampire, drunk on your blood...love is the killer you thought was your friend.
from ‘The Beast’ by Concrete Blonde
It’s better than ice-cream, it’s better than an orgasm, it’s better than Christmas and kittens and sleeping in. It’s all of these things and none of these things and it’s more than the sum of anything, it’s everything. It’s walking in the rain and crying and being unable to tell the difference between tears and rain. It’s listening to your favorite song twelve times in a row. It’s memorizing a poem and reciting it to yourself quietly while the world around you collapses. It is not words, it is not sound, it is not taste or touch or smell. It is waking up to sunlight on your face. It is sunlight. Love soars, love is vast.
Jerome was sliding and climbing on top of me and it felt like it had the night before, like a crushing weight. So do boys and men announce their intentions. They cover you like a sarcophagus lid. And call it love.
from Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
I have loved him for eight years. He hurt me; I hurt him. We played the game that lovers play. We worked hard to destroy each other. We did it well. I didn’t speak to him for years. I thought about him every day for years. I hated him; I loved him. Even while I hated him I loved him. Even while I loved him I hated him. I wanted him to suffer. I wanted desperately to see him suffer. I enjoyed my suffering.
This is an old story. You’ve read this story before. You’ve lived this story before. This is my story; this is his story; this is your story. This is our story. This is the only story that’s ever been written.
When I was young, I thought that love would save me. I thought that if only I loved and was loved in return, I would be happy. And now I have loved, and been loved in return, and I have been happy. I have also been sad, scared, hurt, bewildered, amazed, scarred, bewitched, and I’ve soared. I’ve reached the staggering heights of physical and emotional delirium. I have lived every adjective. I have tasted the word ‘love’ on the air, and I have spelled out ‘love’ with my fingers in the sand. I suppose I was saved by love, then. I suppose it is everything I hoped it would be.
This is me circling it, again. Why can’t I write about love? Fuck all this poetry. Love is not poetry, or it’s not all poetry. Love is storyline and dialogue and specifics, too.
Try again.
I have loved him since I was twenty-one. When I was twenty-one we met in a strange place, at the top of the world. The sun never stopped shining, or it never shone. The days were endless in light, endless in darkness. A fairy tale beginning. I would like to avoid poetics, but the place where we met is too perfect – too unbelievable - to describe any other way.
A place of extremes. The coldest cold you have ever felt, and the fattest sun you have ever seen. Liquor and cigarettes and money, and the longest nights. Long nights waiting for the sun to set (and it never does), or waiting for the sun to rise (and it never does). You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to fall in love to the tune of a vanished sunset, to the song of a sky that goes on forever.
This is not what I meant to write.
Try again.
Despite everything, despite the ways we have destroyed each other, we remain together, somehow. A couple, of sorts. A couple of misfits, a couple of freaks, a couple of outcasts. Despite the fact that he makes me angrier than anyone I’ve ever met. Despite the fact that he disappoints me and has always disappointed me and will continue to disappoint me. Despite the fact that I did my best to destroy him. Despite the fact that I cannot be around him. Despite all this, I still love him. He still loves me. Two people who will never be happy together can still love, despite the impossibility of it. This is love. This is what soars, this is the vast impossible sky of love.
That is what I meant to say.
Love soars, love is vast.
***
A caveat:
I cheated this week. I read ‘Beloved’ last Friday, and it was poignant and sad and full of ideas and imagery; writing a ‘reply’ should have been easy. I started something, and I even figured out how it fit, snugly and succinctly, next to ‘Beloved’. I wrote 519 words, and then I…stopped. Those 519 words are jostling against each other, restless as tiny nervous birds, in a file on my desktop. The file has a name; the words have a purpose; there is a story there, somewhere. Somewhen.
I’ve not found it yet, so this week you got an old piece, 'Three More Ways of Looking at Love'. It was written many months ago, and although it was not directly inspired by ‘Beloved’, it was written in an attempt to write about love the way Zach writes about love; clearly, sincerely, and unequivocally.
***
Fuck it. This is an experiment, right?
Here.
Read it.
Unfinished, or In Through the Red Door
Yeah, there are a few clubs here, in the City. The usual mix, I guess; lots of filthy dives like this place; an exclusive trans-bar that’s almost im-fuckin-possible to get into, believe me; a rain-blow dance club for the queer kids – you know, the kids looking for cheap sex and even cheaper drugs; a couple of your classier S&M joints, where everyone wears Carnival masks and drooping feathers; and the Red Door.
Well, to be precise, the Red Door used to be here. Now, it’s no longer. I mean, the building is still standing, and the sign is still there, but that’s it. No more lights. No more music, unless the clanging of bones against bones against splintered table legs counts as music.
It was the place to be, the Red Door. Everyone went there, and I mean everyone. Kids from every scene imaginable (even the Vampire kids, who are way too fucking elitist to ever mix with City scum), every kind of trans-creature, even City men in suits and slicked-back hair.
I guess the big twist, and the reason we all went there, is that the Red Door was all about love. Yeah, the front door was red, but if you looked closely you’d see that it was actually a hundred different shades of red, made up of interlocking hearts, some of them the ‘O’ in love, some of them just perfect little hearts, like the ones you make when you’re a kid: fold a piece of paper in half, draw a wing, and cut. The walls inside were painted red too, and we used permanent markers to write on them. Management allowed one love story each; other than that, there weren’t really any rules. I guess there was a whole city’s-worth of love stories written on the walls.
I mean, it’s no fucking wonder the place went insane.
Can I remember what I wrote? Jesus. I actually wrote a lot of things on those walls, to be honest. I don’t remember them all. They were probably mostly long strings of drunken expletives, anyway. I mean, that’s what I do. You’ve figured that out by now, I bet.
I think it was around the time when I first met Fresia that I wrote something coherent. I don’t know. Ask her if she remembers.
Personally, I remember a lot of stupid fucking poems.
Have I ever been in love? Wrong question. Moving the fuck on.
It was a nice place, the Red Door. Not like this place, just another goddamn dive in a city full of goddamn dives. The drinks were good and strong. They had names like ‘The Beatrice’ and ‘Temporary Madness’ and ‘Ophelia’s Cunt’ (yeah, that was my favorite). No black lights to pick out the lint and semen on your dress; they wouldn’t have worked with the red walls. Just dim lamps on each table, and a few rippling spotlights on the dance floor.
I actually remember the song that was playing that night:
I can't forget I am the sole architect
I built the shadows here
I built the growl in the voice I fear
Hey pretty, don't you wanna take a ride with me
through my world
from Written on the Body, by Jeanette Winterson
I wish I could write about it. Sometimes I fear I have never really felt it, although this cannot be true. I have been warmed by this thing called love, I’ve been burned by this thing called love.
I’ve written about it, obliquely. I’ve circled it, and I’ve hinted at it, and I’ve called it possession, I’ve called it desperation, but I’ve never named it.
Every song that’s ever been written has been written about it. Every book that’s ever been written has been written about it. Every movie that’s ever been made has been made about it. Everything you’ll ever do will be done because of it.
I’m circling it again. I’m edging ever closer, though, ever closer to the edge, to the dizzy heights, the cliffs of love.
Jeffrey Dahmer loved his boys. He loved them so much he tried to keep them with him forever. I’ve tried to keep love forever. I’ve tried to bottle it, but love sours fast.
Love soars, love is vast.
Love is a vampire, drunk on your blood...love is the killer you thought was your friend.
from ‘The Beast’ by Concrete Blonde
It’s better than ice-cream, it’s better than an orgasm, it’s better than Christmas and kittens and sleeping in. It’s all of these things and none of these things and it’s more than the sum of anything, it’s everything. It’s walking in the rain and crying and being unable to tell the difference between tears and rain. It’s listening to your favorite song twelve times in a row. It’s memorizing a poem and reciting it to yourself quietly while the world around you collapses. It is not words, it is not sound, it is not taste or touch or smell. It is waking up to sunlight on your face. It is sunlight. Love soars, love is vast.
Jerome was sliding and climbing on top of me and it felt like it had the night before, like a crushing weight. So do boys and men announce their intentions. They cover you like a sarcophagus lid. And call it love.
from Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
I have loved him for eight years. He hurt me; I hurt him. We played the game that lovers play. We worked hard to destroy each other. We did it well. I didn’t speak to him for years. I thought about him every day for years. I hated him; I loved him. Even while I hated him I loved him. Even while I loved him I hated him. I wanted him to suffer. I wanted desperately to see him suffer. I enjoyed my suffering.
This is an old story. You’ve read this story before. You’ve lived this story before. This is my story; this is his story; this is your story. This is our story. This is the only story that’s ever been written.
When I was young, I thought that love would save me. I thought that if only I loved and was loved in return, I would be happy. And now I have loved, and been loved in return, and I have been happy. I have also been sad, scared, hurt, bewildered, amazed, scarred, bewitched, and I’ve soared. I’ve reached the staggering heights of physical and emotional delirium. I have lived every adjective. I have tasted the word ‘love’ on the air, and I have spelled out ‘love’ with my fingers in the sand. I suppose I was saved by love, then. I suppose it is everything I hoped it would be.
This is me circling it, again. Why can’t I write about love? Fuck all this poetry. Love is not poetry, or it’s not all poetry. Love is storyline and dialogue and specifics, too.
Try again.
I have loved him since I was twenty-one. When I was twenty-one we met in a strange place, at the top of the world. The sun never stopped shining, or it never shone. The days were endless in light, endless in darkness. A fairy tale beginning. I would like to avoid poetics, but the place where we met is too perfect – too unbelievable - to describe any other way.
A place of extremes. The coldest cold you have ever felt, and the fattest sun you have ever seen. Liquor and cigarettes and money, and the longest nights. Long nights waiting for the sun to set (and it never does), or waiting for the sun to rise (and it never does). You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to fall in love to the tune of a vanished sunset, to the song of a sky that goes on forever.
This is not what I meant to write.
Try again.
Despite everything, despite the ways we have destroyed each other, we remain together, somehow. A couple, of sorts. A couple of misfits, a couple of freaks, a couple of outcasts. Despite the fact that he makes me angrier than anyone I’ve ever met. Despite the fact that he disappoints me and has always disappointed me and will continue to disappoint me. Despite the fact that I did my best to destroy him. Despite the fact that I cannot be around him. Despite all this, I still love him. He still loves me. Two people who will never be happy together can still love, despite the impossibility of it. This is love. This is what soars, this is the vast impossible sky of love.
That is what I meant to say.
Love soars, love is vast.
***
A caveat:
I cheated this week. I read ‘Beloved’ last Friday, and it was poignant and sad and full of ideas and imagery; writing a ‘reply’ should have been easy. I started something, and I even figured out how it fit, snugly and succinctly, next to ‘Beloved’. I wrote 519 words, and then I…stopped. Those 519 words are jostling against each other, restless as tiny nervous birds, in a file on my desktop. The file has a name; the words have a purpose; there is a story there, somewhere. Somewhen.
I’ve not found it yet, so this week you got an old piece, 'Three More Ways of Looking at Love'. It was written many months ago, and although it was not directly inspired by ‘Beloved’, it was written in an attempt to write about love the way Zach writes about love; clearly, sincerely, and unequivocally.
***
Fuck it. This is an experiment, right?
Here.
Read it.
Unfinished, or In Through the Red Door
Yeah, there are a few clubs here, in the City. The usual mix, I guess; lots of filthy dives like this place; an exclusive trans-bar that’s almost im-fuckin-possible to get into, believe me; a rain-blow dance club for the queer kids – you know, the kids looking for cheap sex and even cheaper drugs; a couple of your classier S&M joints, where everyone wears Carnival masks and drooping feathers; and the Red Door.
Well, to be precise, the Red Door used to be here. Now, it’s no longer. I mean, the building is still standing, and the sign is still there, but that’s it. No more lights. No more music, unless the clanging of bones against bones against splintered table legs counts as music.
It was the place to be, the Red Door. Everyone went there, and I mean everyone. Kids from every scene imaginable (even the Vampire kids, who are way too fucking elitist to ever mix with City scum), every kind of trans-creature, even City men in suits and slicked-back hair.
I guess the big twist, and the reason we all went there, is that the Red Door was all about love. Yeah, the front door was red, but if you looked closely you’d see that it was actually a hundred different shades of red, made up of interlocking hearts, some of them the ‘O’ in love, some of them just perfect little hearts, like the ones you make when you’re a kid: fold a piece of paper in half, draw a wing, and cut. The walls inside were painted red too, and we used permanent markers to write on them. Management allowed one love story each; other than that, there weren’t really any rules. I guess there was a whole city’s-worth of love stories written on the walls.
I mean, it’s no fucking wonder the place went insane.
Can I remember what I wrote? Jesus. I actually wrote a lot of things on those walls, to be honest. I don’t remember them all. They were probably mostly long strings of drunken expletives, anyway. I mean, that’s what I do. You’ve figured that out by now, I bet.
I think it was around the time when I first met Fresia that I wrote something coherent. I don’t know. Ask her if she remembers.
Personally, I remember a lot of stupid fucking poems.
Have I ever been in love? Wrong question. Moving the fuck on.
It was a nice place, the Red Door. Not like this place, just another goddamn dive in a city full of goddamn dives. The drinks were good and strong. They had names like ‘The Beatrice’ and ‘Temporary Madness’ and ‘Ophelia’s Cunt’ (yeah, that was my favorite). No black lights to pick out the lint and semen on your dress; they wouldn’t have worked with the red walls. Just dim lamps on each table, and a few rippling spotlights on the dance floor.
I actually remember the song that was playing that night:
I can't forget I am the sole architect
I built the shadows here
I built the growl in the voice I fear
Hey pretty, don't you wanna take a ride with me
through my world
Friday, November 13, 2009
Beloved
“So tell me about this girl who stole your heart”
Received: 1:32pm, 06-Nov-09
“Merely a combination of sweet slumber and mental inspiration. A dream. Don’t worry – my heart is kept safe under lock and key.”
Sent: 10:46am, 07-Nov-09
A shoebox, actually. One of those black ones with the pull off lids. A size 7 men’s. It’s a sturdy thing. Solid and unassuming. There is a layer of dust on top that leaves fingerprints when grabbed from the top shelf of the closet. There is a slight suction and a soundless pop when the lid is pulled from the box.
Inside, there is a bag. It fills the whole box, and has torn holes from where sharp edges have pierced it. It’s one of those no-name plastic bags that you get when you buy something not quite worth a proper bag at a drugstore. It was grabbed randomly, in a moment when resolve overpowered emotion but knew it didn’t have long. The bag handles are crimped and tied neatly in a knot.
This is not a movie. This is not a contrivance. This is real life. This is a true story.
The bag handles are carefully undone. They are not to be torn or cut. Inside that bag, there are scraps from a very old and sacred script – even the most annoying knot is to be treated with dignity and respect. The sides are carefully propped open, and there is a hesitation.
There they are.
02 January 2006.
Zachary Webster:
This is my grad picture, picked especially for you. I hope you like it. To be more serious though – I love you. Sharing my life w/ you for these 2 years has been wonderful. All my love – B
A highschool grad photo. The edges crumpled and creased: the result of it being found in a drawer somewhere after a joke about exchanging wallet-sized high school photos. They actually met in university.
July 7th, 2005
My dearest of darlings, my heart of hearts, my dilliest of pickles, my Zachary how are you?
A hand-written letter. There were a lot of those in here. They spent their summers apart. This one was on lined paper, her cursive writing carefully outlining how her life was going.
...Either way, my love, let me part with you by reaffirming my love for you. I love you, Zachary, I love you! I want to jump up & tell & shout it into the wind so that the whole world might know at least a small amount of joy that I feel when I say those sweet, simple words:
I love you.
- B
PS – I Love You was never imaginary to them. It was never an unrealized fiction. It was found. He lived it. There was nothing finer, or more pure. She wrote it in blue and black and green inks. In scrawls and sparkles. He wrote it in silly love poetry. The laughable kind.
The very bestest thing to happen,
Was the day you came a tappin'
When you knocked at my front door,
And gave me love ('cause I was poor)
Now you're the bestest on my street,
The prettiest girl I ever did meet.
And now I'm richer than them all,
'cause you gave a dragon's haul!
The bestest years you gave to me,
You didn't need to, no-siree!
I would've settled for a penny an' a pat,
But instead with love you made me fat!
You made me the bestest ever rug-bug
Ya made my life SUPER snug!
I can't believe it, no way I can!
You're my Very Bestest, B!
They were 19 and 20. Then 20 and 21. But he couldn’t help but be a child in his whimsy. To them, everything felt silly. And silly felt okay. And everything began with
(Undated)
My Love,
...
You are a dream... my dream. I would rather be with no one else in the world. Your company keeps life interesting; your thoughts and words put everything into perspective. You are my best friend, my dream come true.
With all of my heart, your B
All of his heart was kept there. He was nothing, if not true to his word. It’s not that he longed after her now. This was not a shrine to her. The box, and the bag, and the fragments were about love. About them, and who he had been. It was a memory of who he was capable of being.
There was a blank page that she had filled with many “I love you”s written in different languages and colours. Love. They lived there. He spoke it. He went to work and classes with it. He typed email after email about it. And he, true to a lover’s stereotype, wrote lengthy poetry about it.
...And to frame such magnificence that it may be shared,
Into a single word for every care,
Seems almost unfair.
That there can be no better way to say,
All the things that our journey together brings into play,
(And all that it will, come what may)
Than with that word: Love.
Yet still there is more that I would declare,
My happiness.
Ways in which I would compare,
All the moments you’ve made in me.
So that you could taste the picture with my fingertips,
What we have that dazzles me.
Frazzles me.
And if you ask me to speak of this,
I would happily whisper all the writing that is here,
Into the tender blessings of your ear.
And a thousand other thoughts could ensue
Until naught but awe would be my hue,
Over, just how much, B,
I Love You.
There were other items beyond letters, to be found in the box. A silver wrist chain, with his name and his pet name engraved on it. She called him Binx. He called her Smiles. She always wrote out “smiles” on MSN whenever he said something that she liked. He always smiled seeing it there, typed out. She was his Smiles and Sunshine.
There was a wooden spoon and a small framed picture, too. Memories. But the most important of objects was a large book. An album of pictures and little paragraphs that she had put together to commemorate their first year together. There were photos of her, of the two of them, of their friends: stories of their first kiss, their first meeting, and all sorts of small happenstances. It was a collective history that conjured the feelings of the memories it contained. The last remaining relic that was whole.
(Undated)
Zachary –
You have been much in my thoughts these past days. ... Love, you see, is not governed by certain rules that we create for it & ourselves. Love is as free flowing as the sea, as big as the sky & as beautiful as the eyes of an angel. How lucky we are to have this, to be able to experience it, regardless if we say it all the time or mean it exactly the same way every time we utter the phrase.
I shall love you continuously for the rest of my life. It won’t necessarily be for the same reason as today, but it will always be there: I promise.
With that I remain faithfully yours –
- B
The love story had a tragic ending. She wasn't faithful. After a couple of years, the terrible plague of betrayals and deceit descended. Along with anger, they tore at the words and feelings of the partnership, hacking the meanings asunder. The world showed no mercy, and shredded every moment it could find. Very little survived. In the end, the heart was deeply wounded. He was devastated.
In the lingering aftermath, any bits and pieces that had survived – the letters and pictures, poems and promises – were picked gingerly up and placed far away from anything that might again do them harm. Placed into an unassuming black shoebox, all the world was locked out.
And locked in, was the memory of how well a man can love, and be loved.
Spiralling,
Softly
Down.
To rest with all grace and ease,
lightly.
Found in lovers' lips and grips,
Heart and mind and fingertips.
Found in comfort, found in care,
All their thoughts linger
there.
Laughing, crying, lust's desire,
Cold as ice or hot as fire,
No matter what the thoughts would say,
Black as night or clear as day,
The den of lovers' holds them all.
Each
and
every
One.
Old, and new.
Small and tall.
And in every moment of their blissful stay,
They hear what called them on their way:
"I love you."
Received: 1:32pm, 06-Nov-09
“Merely a combination of sweet slumber and mental inspiration. A dream. Don’t worry – my heart is kept safe under lock and key.”
Sent: 10:46am, 07-Nov-09
A shoebox, actually. One of those black ones with the pull off lids. A size 7 men’s. It’s a sturdy thing. Solid and unassuming. There is a layer of dust on top that leaves fingerprints when grabbed from the top shelf of the closet. There is a slight suction and a soundless pop when the lid is pulled from the box.
Inside, there is a bag. It fills the whole box, and has torn holes from where sharp edges have pierced it. It’s one of those no-name plastic bags that you get when you buy something not quite worth a proper bag at a drugstore. It was grabbed randomly, in a moment when resolve overpowered emotion but knew it didn’t have long. The bag handles are crimped and tied neatly in a knot.
This is not a movie. This is not a contrivance. This is real life. This is a true story.
The bag handles are carefully undone. They are not to be torn or cut. Inside that bag, there are scraps from a very old and sacred script – even the most annoying knot is to be treated with dignity and respect. The sides are carefully propped open, and there is a hesitation.
There they are.
02 January 2006.
Zachary Webster:
This is my grad picture, picked especially for you. I hope you like it. To be more serious though – I love you. Sharing my life w/ you for these 2 years has been wonderful. All my love – B
A highschool grad photo. The edges crumpled and creased: the result of it being found in a drawer somewhere after a joke about exchanging wallet-sized high school photos. They actually met in university.
July 7th, 2005
My dearest of darlings, my heart of hearts, my dilliest of pickles, my Zachary how are you?
A hand-written letter. There were a lot of those in here. They spent their summers apart. This one was on lined paper, her cursive writing carefully outlining how her life was going.
...Either way, my love, let me part with you by reaffirming my love for you. I love you, Zachary, I love you! I want to jump up & tell & shout it into the wind so that the whole world might know at least a small amount of joy that I feel when I say those sweet, simple words:
I love you.
- B
PS – I Love You was never imaginary to them. It was never an unrealized fiction. It was found. He lived it. There was nothing finer, or more pure. She wrote it in blue and black and green inks. In scrawls and sparkles. He wrote it in silly love poetry. The laughable kind.
The very bestest thing to happen,
Was the day you came a tappin'
When you knocked at my front door,
And gave me love ('cause I was poor)
Now you're the bestest on my street,
The prettiest girl I ever did meet.
And now I'm richer than them all,
'cause you gave a dragon's haul!
The bestest years you gave to me,
You didn't need to, no-siree!
I would've settled for a penny an' a pat,
But instead with love you made me fat!
You made me the bestest ever rug-bug
Ya made my life SUPER snug!
I can't believe it, no way I can!
You're my Very Bestest, B!
They were 19 and 20. Then 20 and 21. But he couldn’t help but be a child in his whimsy. To them, everything felt silly. And silly felt okay. And everything began with
(Undated)
My Love,
...
You are a dream... my dream. I would rather be with no one else in the world. Your company keeps life interesting; your thoughts and words put everything into perspective. You are my best friend, my dream come true.
With all of my heart, your B
All of his heart was kept there. He was nothing, if not true to his word. It’s not that he longed after her now. This was not a shrine to her. The box, and the bag, and the fragments were about love. About them, and who he had been. It was a memory of who he was capable of being.
There was a blank page that she had filled with many “I love you”s written in different languages and colours. Love. They lived there. He spoke it. He went to work and classes with it. He typed email after email about it. And he, true to a lover’s stereotype, wrote lengthy poetry about it.
...And to frame such magnificence that it may be shared,
Into a single word for every care,
Seems almost unfair.
That there can be no better way to say,
All the things that our journey together brings into play,
(And all that it will, come what may)
Than with that word: Love.
Yet still there is more that I would declare,
My happiness.
Ways in which I would compare,
All the moments you’ve made in me.
So that you could taste the picture with my fingertips,
What we have that dazzles me.
Frazzles me.
And if you ask me to speak of this,
I would happily whisper all the writing that is here,
Into the tender blessings of your ear.
And a thousand other thoughts could ensue
Until naught but awe would be my hue,
Over, just how much, B,
I Love You.
There were other items beyond letters, to be found in the box. A silver wrist chain, with his name and his pet name engraved on it. She called him Binx. He called her Smiles. She always wrote out “smiles” on MSN whenever he said something that she liked. He always smiled seeing it there, typed out. She was his Smiles and Sunshine.
There was a wooden spoon and a small framed picture, too. Memories. But the most important of objects was a large book. An album of pictures and little paragraphs that she had put together to commemorate their first year together. There were photos of her, of the two of them, of their friends: stories of their first kiss, their first meeting, and all sorts of small happenstances. It was a collective history that conjured the feelings of the memories it contained. The last remaining relic that was whole.
(Undated)
Zachary –
You have been much in my thoughts these past days. ... Love, you see, is not governed by certain rules that we create for it & ourselves. Love is as free flowing as the sea, as big as the sky & as beautiful as the eyes of an angel. How lucky we are to have this, to be able to experience it, regardless if we say it all the time or mean it exactly the same way every time we utter the phrase.
I shall love you continuously for the rest of my life. It won’t necessarily be for the same reason as today, but it will always be there: I promise.
With that I remain faithfully yours –
- B
The love story had a tragic ending. She wasn't faithful. After a couple of years, the terrible plague of betrayals and deceit descended. Along with anger, they tore at the words and feelings of the partnership, hacking the meanings asunder. The world showed no mercy, and shredded every moment it could find. Very little survived. In the end, the heart was deeply wounded. He was devastated.
In the lingering aftermath, any bits and pieces that had survived – the letters and pictures, poems and promises – were picked gingerly up and placed far away from anything that might again do them harm. Placed into an unassuming black shoebox, all the world was locked out.
And locked in, was the memory of how well a man can love, and be loved.
Spiralling,
Softly
Down.
To rest with all grace and ease,
lightly.
Found in lovers' lips and grips,
Heart and mind and fingertips.
Found in comfort, found in care,
All their thoughts linger
there.
Laughing, crying, lust's desire,
Cold as ice or hot as fire,
No matter what the thoughts would say,
Black as night or clear as day,
The den of lovers' holds them all.
Each
and
every
One.
Old, and new.
Small and tall.
And in every moment of their blissful stay,
They hear what called them on their way:
"I love you."
Friday, November 6, 2009
Scraps
Fragment 1 – Beginnings, False Starts
When Fresia was a child she never looked in the mirror. Children are endlessly fascinated by themselves, their bodies; every excretion, every lump, every surface of skin is examined, prodded, touched, with scientific scrutiny.
Not Fresia. Fresia saw her reflection when she was five, saw how fundamentally wrong she was, and didn’t look again for ten years.
She couldn’t define it at the time, of course. She didn’t know the words yet. But she recognized the feeling in her stomach. Now she would call it ‘revulsion’. Back then it was just the feeling she got when her mother made her eat green beans. Or how she felt the time she found a dead cat, roiling with maggots, the flesh of its tiny pink nose half-gone.
Hideous. Nasty. Sick. Ugly. Horrid.
Over the years, Fresia learned a lot of words. She has no shortage of words to describe herself.
The word she would choose now is, simply, ‘finally’.
Fragment 2 – A Conversation, A Gambit
Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?
Not you, my child. Dear god, the gall!
What’s wrong with me mirror, am I so awful to see?
My child, strange creature, you are a monster to me.
Mother mirror, I’m lost, I don’t know who I am.
Daughter, you’re nothing but reflection; you’re for the slaughter, little lamb.
Fragment 3 – Chrysalis
The headaches are the worst part. When she started taking the pills she knew there would be side effects; she signed a thick sheaf of papers to prove she was prepared. It’s change she was after, for sure, and she knew there would be consequences. She was removing parts of herself, adding new parts, sucking up hormones like a thick grey milkshake, stripping herself down to essentials and re-building from scratch.
Still, though, she wasn’t prepared for the headaches. Everything else makes sense, and she relishes it, the pain of it. But her head has always been right. What’s inside her head has never been the problem.
Fragment 4 –parts and flaws, An alphabetical, but by no means comprehensive, list of
ass, flat and inconsequential; back, acne’d and hairy; clitoris, unresponsive; dick, shriveled, turtle-like, a vile insect; feet, flat, peeling, like spatulas slapping against the ground; glands, swollen, leaking, milk-heavy, plump and female; heart, thundering and smacking against ribs; intestines, knotted and sinuous as snakes; joints, crackling like popcorn; knees, too big, too raw; larynx, shaved painfully, and shaped ironically like a vagina; mandible, weak; pituitary gland, put in backwards and upside down; testicles, deformities
Fragment 5 – How Fresia and Lilith Met
This happened a few years ago. I was on a boy kick at the time, especially the kind that I could actually kick, if you know what I mean. I was real angry back then, so my tastes ran toward the S&M boys, the kind wearing dog collars, with scars on their backs and slave names tattooed on their necks. Personally, it’s not my thing – but if you like being led around like an animal, that’s cool, I’ll oblige. Especially when I’m in a bad fucking mood.
As long as everything is consensual, you understand. I’m not interested in rape. I’m only interested in games. And I’ll take power wherever I can get it.
Anyway, I was into pretty little boys at the time, and it takes a lot to make me want a woman. I don’t mind pussy, but it’s got to be special – I’ll use and abuse a slave, but I will only let a true goddess really fuck me. I’ve found that true goddesses are in short supply, at least in this world.
I led my boy – some whimpering slave whose name (slave or otherwise) I have forgotten – into a club called The Red Door, which at the time was shiny and new. Now it’s a bloody splintered mess. The Red Door, in-fuckin-deed. ‘Abandon all hope’, and all that.
Anyway. That’s a story for another fucking time.
I let his lead go slack so the boy could get me a drink, and I took stock of the place. The usual scene kids: trans-humans like me (a pretty good assortment, actually; I saw cats and jackals and lambs, even a dragon or two), a few medical marvels that the City doctors must have let out of their cages for the evening, stunned normals slumming it, Gothic Ghosts flitting from table to table, stealing cigarettes and sips of drinks: the usual.
Ah, but then, there she was.
And she was.
Even though things are long over with us, I still get wet when I think about it, that first look. She stood a head above everyone else, and her own magnificent head was set at a weird angle, looking down at all the kids around her. Her hair was a crazy neon shade of pink back then, and she was wearing a silky dress that clung to her and showed off every curve and dip and carefully plotted map of skin. Her breasts were so full they hung like peaches on a branch.
In other words, totally fuckable. I mean, this girl would make a poet out of anyone, even me. Especially me.
And I forgot to mention the horns. See, this girl was a trans like me, and she had a set of huge curly horns growing out each side of her head. She had colored them blue and sprinkled them with glitter. She fucking shone. She shone like a goddamn goddess that night. The boy came back with my drink, but I shoved him off. When I see something I want I always get it.
Of course I ditched the Worm and went home with her. Slave boys are a dime a fucking dozen around here; goddesses not so much.
I have no interest in giving you the details of our first night together. Suffice it to fucking say, I found out what it’s like to fuck a goddess, and I found out the meaning of the horns, and I found out that the two aren’t mutually exclusive.
And that’s all I will say about that.
Fragment 6 – The Dreaming
She is sitting at her work table and sewing a dress. The pattern is laid out before her; she smooths the soft silk flat, and admires the rainbow pools of light that shimmer in it. Her mind wanders, and she’s on a high hill now, sitting under a tree with purple leaves. Fat wondrous fruit drip down its branches. She pulls a downy pink fruit off the tree, and bites into it. The juice drips down her arm, and she’s back at her work table, sewing a dress. The pattern is laid out before her; she smooths the soft skin of the dress flat, and admires the way the blood bubbles out from beneath it. She threads her needle with a slippery blue vein and stitches arm to torso, leg to hip, elbow to forearm. A drop of blood trickles down her arm, and she licks up the juice. It may be the sweetest fruit she’s ever tasted. She knots a vein tight, and smooths out her new dress. It’s coming along nicely.
Fragment 7 – This is the Picture
Picture this. Listen to this:
A white room. A white light. The white sheets. Faces swathed in white. Eyes peering brightly out.
beep beep beep
Sharp things, all in a silver row. Sharp angles, all the world at a tilt. Sharp eyes, boring down.
beep beep beep
There are dresses that will never fit. There is fabric that must be trimmed. There are scraps that must be snipped.
beep beep beep
Count down from ten. The needle goes in. The needle dips and skims.
beep beep beep
Wake up. Now, it’s finally time to wake up.
When Fresia was a child she never looked in the mirror. Children are endlessly fascinated by themselves, their bodies; every excretion, every lump, every surface of skin is examined, prodded, touched, with scientific scrutiny.
Not Fresia. Fresia saw her reflection when she was five, saw how fundamentally wrong she was, and didn’t look again for ten years.
She couldn’t define it at the time, of course. She didn’t know the words yet. But she recognized the feeling in her stomach. Now she would call it ‘revulsion’. Back then it was just the feeling she got when her mother made her eat green beans. Or how she felt the time she found a dead cat, roiling with maggots, the flesh of its tiny pink nose half-gone.
Hideous. Nasty. Sick. Ugly. Horrid.
Over the years, Fresia learned a lot of words. She has no shortage of words to describe herself.
The word she would choose now is, simply, ‘finally’.
Fragment 2 – A Conversation, A Gambit
Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?
Not you, my child. Dear god, the gall!
What’s wrong with me mirror, am I so awful to see?
My child, strange creature, you are a monster to me.
Mother mirror, I’m lost, I don’t know who I am.
Daughter, you’re nothing but reflection; you’re for the slaughter, little lamb.
Fragment 3 – Chrysalis
The headaches are the worst part. When she started taking the pills she knew there would be side effects; she signed a thick sheaf of papers to prove she was prepared. It’s change she was after, for sure, and she knew there would be consequences. She was removing parts of herself, adding new parts, sucking up hormones like a thick grey milkshake, stripping herself down to essentials and re-building from scratch.
Still, though, she wasn’t prepared for the headaches. Everything else makes sense, and she relishes it, the pain of it. But her head has always been right. What’s inside her head has never been the problem.
Fragment 4 –parts and flaws, An alphabetical, but by no means comprehensive, list of
ass, flat and inconsequential; back, acne’d and hairy; clitoris, unresponsive; dick, shriveled, turtle-like, a vile insect; feet, flat, peeling, like spatulas slapping against the ground; glands, swollen, leaking, milk-heavy, plump and female; heart, thundering and smacking against ribs; intestines, knotted and sinuous as snakes; joints, crackling like popcorn; knees, too big, too raw; larynx, shaved painfully, and shaped ironically like a vagina; mandible, weak; pituitary gland, put in backwards and upside down; testicles, deformities
Fragment 5 – How Fresia and Lilith Met
This happened a few years ago. I was on a boy kick at the time, especially the kind that I could actually kick, if you know what I mean. I was real angry back then, so my tastes ran toward the S&M boys, the kind wearing dog collars, with scars on their backs and slave names tattooed on their necks. Personally, it’s not my thing – but if you like being led around like an animal, that’s cool, I’ll oblige. Especially when I’m in a bad fucking mood.
As long as everything is consensual, you understand. I’m not interested in rape. I’m only interested in games. And I’ll take power wherever I can get it.
Anyway, I was into pretty little boys at the time, and it takes a lot to make me want a woman. I don’t mind pussy, but it’s got to be special – I’ll use and abuse a slave, but I will only let a true goddess really fuck me. I’ve found that true goddesses are in short supply, at least in this world.
I led my boy – some whimpering slave whose name (slave or otherwise) I have forgotten – into a club called The Red Door, which at the time was shiny and new. Now it’s a bloody splintered mess. The Red Door, in-fuckin-deed. ‘Abandon all hope’, and all that.
Anyway. That’s a story for another fucking time.
I let his lead go slack so the boy could get me a drink, and I took stock of the place. The usual scene kids: trans-humans like me (a pretty good assortment, actually; I saw cats and jackals and lambs, even a dragon or two), a few medical marvels that the City doctors must have let out of their cages for the evening, stunned normals slumming it, Gothic Ghosts flitting from table to table, stealing cigarettes and sips of drinks: the usual.
Ah, but then, there she was.
And she was.
Even though things are long over with us, I still get wet when I think about it, that first look. She stood a head above everyone else, and her own magnificent head was set at a weird angle, looking down at all the kids around her. Her hair was a crazy neon shade of pink back then, and she was wearing a silky dress that clung to her and showed off every curve and dip and carefully plotted map of skin. Her breasts were so full they hung like peaches on a branch.
In other words, totally fuckable. I mean, this girl would make a poet out of anyone, even me. Especially me.
And I forgot to mention the horns. See, this girl was a trans like me, and she had a set of huge curly horns growing out each side of her head. She had colored them blue and sprinkled them with glitter. She fucking shone. She shone like a goddamn goddess that night. The boy came back with my drink, but I shoved him off. When I see something I want I always get it.
Of course I ditched the Worm and went home with her. Slave boys are a dime a fucking dozen around here; goddesses not so much.
I have no interest in giving you the details of our first night together. Suffice it to fucking say, I found out what it’s like to fuck a goddess, and I found out the meaning of the horns, and I found out that the two aren’t mutually exclusive.
And that’s all I will say about that.
Fragment 6 – The Dreaming
She is sitting at her work table and sewing a dress. The pattern is laid out before her; she smooths the soft silk flat, and admires the rainbow pools of light that shimmer in it. Her mind wanders, and she’s on a high hill now, sitting under a tree with purple leaves. Fat wondrous fruit drip down its branches. She pulls a downy pink fruit off the tree, and bites into it. The juice drips down her arm, and she’s back at her work table, sewing a dress. The pattern is laid out before her; she smooths the soft skin of the dress flat, and admires the way the blood bubbles out from beneath it. She threads her needle with a slippery blue vein and stitches arm to torso, leg to hip, elbow to forearm. A drop of blood trickles down her arm, and she licks up the juice. It may be the sweetest fruit she’s ever tasted. She knots a vein tight, and smooths out her new dress. It’s coming along nicely.
Fragment 7 – This is the Picture
Picture this. Listen to this:
A white room. A white light. The white sheets. Faces swathed in white. Eyes peering brightly out.
beep beep beep
Sharp things, all in a silver row. Sharp angles, all the world at a tilt. Sharp eyes, boring down.
beep beep beep
There are dresses that will never fit. There is fabric that must be trimmed. There are scraps that must be snipped.
beep beep beep
Count down from ten. The needle goes in. The needle dips and skims.
beep beep beep
Wake up. Now, it’s finally time to wake up.
Friday, October 30, 2009
With a Capital B
Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls! Friends, workers, soldiers and sluts: welcome and bear with me. Bare it all with me, will you? I will promise you the same, but only if you promise to play the game.
Words were meant to be read.
There is no real fiction. Everything came from someone’s mind, and it is no less real than any other lie. So take your time. Really taste every rhythm and every rhyme, because somewhere, buried deep down and right in front is a part of the real me. Every letter that I compose cannot help but be a doorway to who I am. An invitation that I hope you’ll accept. Because this is me.
But when you’re done, read this to someone else. That's the game.
Because there really is nothing quite like Being.
Whisper, shout, and let your soul out. Make it yours. It can be to your roommate, your lover, your co-worker, your mother, or your brother. A stranger, even. It can be in person on the couch, or perhaps over the phone. Over coffee or candles. But copy and pasting just won’t do: it has to be you. They’ll probably think it’s corny to start with. You probably will too. But be brave, and don’t hide; try to look them in the eye.
And don’t worry, I won’t make you say “slut”. If you want, you can start right here...
...Because this is me.
I am a leader, I utter every syllable with the utmost precision. I deliver each and every line.
I am a slave, bound to provide in monotone. Meaning is carried but never meant.
I am a vampire, suggestive and sublime. Every word is a seduction.
I am a ghost, strange and surreal. Nothing to touch, nothing to feel.
I am a woman, wearing a mask. I speak with a wayward glance and the softest touch.
I am a man, building a work. I’ll tell you how it is.
I am. I am.
Let us be gods. Let us cast aside our self-centered shyness. There is no need for it here. Our lives can produce and take both pleasure and pain. Our hearts can devote and pollute, grow cold and flame. Our hope invents heavens, our fears invent hells. So let us throw away foolish notions of impotency. To the abyss with fate and chance! Everything is only as we are. We are not only as everything is. We can change the world with a single word.
What is yours?
What is mine?
Let me tell you a secret.
I have loved. I mean really loved. That’s it. That’s the secret. I’ve said “I love you.” I meant it too. Clichés mattered to me. I gave myself away. I have longed to control time so that I could pause a moment forever. When I love, I feel real.
I also adore lust. Wild, raw, make you laugh, clothes on the floor, zest for life, lust. Can’t help it. Sometimes I deny it, sometimes I don’t. But privately, I think it’s fantastic. Please don’t tell anyone. It’s kind of embarrassing.
There’s more. I’ve also hated. I have loathed, secretly, other human beings. You may have thought so, and I’ve almost certainly given it away at some point. But I doubt you know the depths of what I’ve felt. Blind. Fucking. Rage.
I’ve suffered. I’ve lain awake far longer than I should have, when everyone else in the world was sleeping. You know? That quiet time when there are others around and they actually are all sleeping and the whole place is eerily silent. I’ve been utterly alone and wished that it would just end.
There was also this one time when I saw something and thought of someone else I knew. Maybe they felt alone too.
I’ve cried.
I’ve laughed too. Laughed so hard that my side actually hurt. No one smiles like I smile. People notice my laugh.
I have longed and hoped and dreamt and moped. I’ve given up and given in and given out. I don’t want to say I’m amazing, but I am.
My word is the heaven above and the earth below. My word moves mountains, and it cradles that little bit of fluff that sometimes floats in the wind. So let us create something from nothing. I mean it. Today. Right now. Every single moment is an opportunity for us to take our life into our own hands. Every passing whim is ours to breathe life into. Every thought is a currency to be spent, saved, wasted or invested as is our want. Not one word is worthless.
Our inventions are floundering. People wonder how we got here. They create excuses and examples. They wait for opportunity and weave complicated designs from simple patterns. They search outside and reject their insides. We have forgotten where power came from. We have given up our voice in exchange for opinions.
But this is nothing other than meaning. This is everything.
There are no laws. There is no corporate mandate. There is no such thing as dating or marriage. There are no rules of etiquette or absolute values for preference. There is no democracy, no religion, no equality. No conspiracy, agenda or master plan. There is no upper, middle, or lower class. No one has and no one has-not. There is no ownership. There is nothing normal, and nothing strange. These are distractions. These are our substitutes. Creations fallen from grace.
There is only you and me. When you really read what I write, and when you really hear what I say, then we are. And then we can do anything.
We can save the world with three magical words. We can destroy it with consuming, consoling anger. We can forsake it for a play-date, or we can silently yearn for it with all our hearts. Because when you do, you do it to me. And that’s it. When I do, I do it to you. And that is all.
We can make a comedy of existence, and just be outrageously goofy. We can be thoughtful or cute or diligent or serious or removed or ambitious or sexy. We can walk with truth and devoted care for others, or we can wrap ourselves in a design of our own making. Because it’s just us in the beginning and just us in the end. You and I. Alpha and Omega.
We are humanity.
This is me.
Words were meant to be read.
There is no real fiction. Everything came from someone’s mind, and it is no less real than any other lie. So take your time. Really taste every rhythm and every rhyme, because somewhere, buried deep down and right in front is a part of the real me. Every letter that I compose cannot help but be a doorway to who I am. An invitation that I hope you’ll accept. Because this is me.
But when you’re done, read this to someone else. That's the game.
Because there really is nothing quite like Being.
Whisper, shout, and let your soul out. Make it yours. It can be to your roommate, your lover, your co-worker, your mother, or your brother. A stranger, even. It can be in person on the couch, or perhaps over the phone. Over coffee or candles. But copy and pasting just won’t do: it has to be you. They’ll probably think it’s corny to start with. You probably will too. But be brave, and don’t hide; try to look them in the eye.
And don’t worry, I won’t make you say “slut”. If you want, you can start right here...
...Because this is me.
I am a leader, I utter every syllable with the utmost precision. I deliver each and every line.
I am a slave, bound to provide in monotone. Meaning is carried but never meant.
I am a vampire, suggestive and sublime. Every word is a seduction.
I am a ghost, strange and surreal. Nothing to touch, nothing to feel.
I am a woman, wearing a mask. I speak with a wayward glance and the softest touch.
I am a man, building a work. I’ll tell you how it is.
I am. I am.
Let us be gods. Let us cast aside our self-centered shyness. There is no need for it here. Our lives can produce and take both pleasure and pain. Our hearts can devote and pollute, grow cold and flame. Our hope invents heavens, our fears invent hells. So let us throw away foolish notions of impotency. To the abyss with fate and chance! Everything is only as we are. We are not only as everything is. We can change the world with a single word.
What is yours?
What is mine?
Let me tell you a secret.
I have loved. I mean really loved. That’s it. That’s the secret. I’ve said “I love you.” I meant it too. Clichés mattered to me. I gave myself away. I have longed to control time so that I could pause a moment forever. When I love, I feel real.
I also adore lust. Wild, raw, make you laugh, clothes on the floor, zest for life, lust. Can’t help it. Sometimes I deny it, sometimes I don’t. But privately, I think it’s fantastic. Please don’t tell anyone. It’s kind of embarrassing.
There’s more. I’ve also hated. I have loathed, secretly, other human beings. You may have thought so, and I’ve almost certainly given it away at some point. But I doubt you know the depths of what I’ve felt. Blind. Fucking. Rage.
I’ve suffered. I’ve lain awake far longer than I should have, when everyone else in the world was sleeping. You know? That quiet time when there are others around and they actually are all sleeping and the whole place is eerily silent. I’ve been utterly alone and wished that it would just end.
There was also this one time when I saw something and thought of someone else I knew. Maybe they felt alone too.
I’ve cried.
I’ve laughed too. Laughed so hard that my side actually hurt. No one smiles like I smile. People notice my laugh.
I have longed and hoped and dreamt and moped. I’ve given up and given in and given out. I don’t want to say I’m amazing, but I am.
My word is the heaven above and the earth below. My word moves mountains, and it cradles that little bit of fluff that sometimes floats in the wind. So let us create something from nothing. I mean it. Today. Right now. Every single moment is an opportunity for us to take our life into our own hands. Every passing whim is ours to breathe life into. Every thought is a currency to be spent, saved, wasted or invested as is our want. Not one word is worthless.
Our inventions are floundering. People wonder how we got here. They create excuses and examples. They wait for opportunity and weave complicated designs from simple patterns. They search outside and reject their insides. We have forgotten where power came from. We have given up our voice in exchange for opinions.
But this is nothing other than meaning. This is everything.
There are no laws. There is no corporate mandate. There is no such thing as dating or marriage. There are no rules of etiquette or absolute values for preference. There is no democracy, no religion, no equality. No conspiracy, agenda or master plan. There is no upper, middle, or lower class. No one has and no one has-not. There is no ownership. There is nothing normal, and nothing strange. These are distractions. These are our substitutes. Creations fallen from grace.
There is only you and me. When you really read what I write, and when you really hear what I say, then we are. And then we can do anything.
We can save the world with three magical words. We can destroy it with consuming, consoling anger. We can forsake it for a play-date, or we can silently yearn for it with all our hearts. Because when you do, you do it to me. And that’s it. When I do, I do it to you. And that is all.
We can make a comedy of existence, and just be outrageously goofy. We can be thoughtful or cute or diligent or serious or removed or ambitious or sexy. We can walk with truth and devoted care for others, or we can wrap ourselves in a design of our own making. Because it’s just us in the beginning and just us in the end. You and I. Alpha and Omega.
We are humanity.
This is me.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Divination
Oh shit. You mean I can't hide behind pretty words anymore?
I still could, I suppose. The post that you're reading right now could be about the City, and Lilith, and mythology, and the grotesque, with a bit of The Wasteland thrown in for good measure - but it would seem disingenuous after Zach's post.
I have a feeling there will be no magic to this post. I feel deflated – I read ‘The Mirror and the Image’, and I thought, that’s really cool, maybe I’ll try something like that, and I wrote the fist line - Oh shit. You mean I can't hide behind pretty words anymore? – and that was it. I couldn’t think of anything else. I have no story this week. Nothing pretty, nothing grotesque.
Usually an image comes to me, born from Zach’s post, and then another image, and a line after that; soon I start writing, and there they are, the words and words and words, unfurling like a bright red ribbon behind me, like a fever dream, like the smoke from a cigarette swirling seductively, all around me. Soon enough, I hear a song or an entire album that seems to fit the mood, listen to that on repeat while I write, until it’s done and the words have all found me. I often do research – read up on church design or the Furies, find the lyrics and poetry I might want to reference, search Google for a picture of whatever it is I’m struggling to describe. I read it over a second and third time to make sure I’ve said what I wanted to say, that all the images and allusions are in place - not to mention the commas and apostrophes.
I love the process, and I love how it affects me – it’s like a drug. I feel alive and I feel like I’m full to bursting with colors – a starburst of light. I lose my sense of self to it; I am made of words and the words are made of me, and I drink from the deep cool well of the collective unconscious. I am pure light when I write, and when the words find me I am beautiful. When I’m writing and the words are all that’s left of me, I have access to all of human history; I drink from the well and I drink the blood of oracles.
I can’t do drugs anymore, so it’s nice that I’ve found a cheap substitute. Plus I can function afterwards, and there aren’t any nasty side affects.
There are a couple of lines in ‘The Mirror and the Image’ that I loved:
I wish I could convey to the readers the incredible transparency in that last paragraph. I actually could feel myself floating as I wrote it, much like I always do when I’m talking to you.
He’s talking about God, but he could just as easily be talking about the Process. Could be they’re one and the same, actually.
I stopped believing in God about a year ago. I read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and it solidified a lot of things I had been struggling with, and it just…clicked, I guess. All the puzzle pieces snapped together, and that was it. I saw the picture clearly; I saw the world; I saw the truth. I was done with God. It felt amazing. Still does. I was free. Still am.
I think I’ll be cheap and quote here from a piece I wrote back then, called ‘Dear God (A Monologue)’:
Dear god, I think I may be an atheist. I think I may be ready to take a huge leap into the unknown. Into a place where there is no celestial guidance, only the wonders of nature and science and measurable facts. There is still love and transcendence and meaning, mind you. But you're not there, and the heavenly choir is silenced, and most of human history is mistaken in its belief, but it doesn't matter. Because truth – and facing the truth that you will never be found – is beauty, and beauty is truth, and that is all.
The last line of the piece is ‘Good-bye’.
I thought that last word – that sad, final ringing of the bell – would stay with me always, and haunt me at night. But it hasn’t. That’s the thing, that’s what makes me smile and that’s what tells me I that I found the truth – it doesn’t hurt at all.
When I stopped believing in God, I stopped talking to Him. I knew that if I vacillated, and spoke to him, privately, then it would be like I was holding onto a shameful secret, and I would never know truth. So I let go of him – and now I think it’s time to stop capitalizing him, and start capitalizing Truth – completely. I haven’t spoken to god since then, not even in my weakest moments, not even those times when life has hurt so badly I thought I wouldn’t make it through the night. What I have done, though, is write.
There’s a lovely symmetry to it, don’t you think? I stopped talking to my imaginary friend, and started talking to the world. I found the Process, which is transcendent – and not unlike the experience mystics describe when they’ve met god. Which, incidentally, is not unlike the way I felt the first time I smoked pot. I have the Process, which I think is the most honest of all these experiences. It’s a kind of birth, and it’s painful and joyous and exhausting in equal measures. It’s bloody and long and splits the soul open, but the end result – a few words on the computer screen, a bit of telepathy from me to you, whoever you may be – is a beautiful mystery, a sublime experience, a truly mystical thing.
I seek pleasure. I seek the nerves under your skin.
The narrow archway; the layers; the scroll of ancient lettuce.
We worship the flaw, the belly, the belly,
the mole on the belly of an exquisite whore.
He spared the child and spoiled the rod.
I have not sold myself to God.
from ‘Babelogue’, by Patti Smith
I still could, I suppose. The post that you're reading right now could be about the City, and Lilith, and mythology, and the grotesque, with a bit of The Wasteland thrown in for good measure - but it would seem disingenuous after Zach's post.
I have a feeling there will be no magic to this post. I feel deflated – I read ‘The Mirror and the Image’, and I thought, that’s really cool, maybe I’ll try something like that, and I wrote the fist line - Oh shit. You mean I can't hide behind pretty words anymore? – and that was it. I couldn’t think of anything else. I have no story this week. Nothing pretty, nothing grotesque.
Usually an image comes to me, born from Zach’s post, and then another image, and a line after that; soon I start writing, and there they are, the words and words and words, unfurling like a bright red ribbon behind me, like a fever dream, like the smoke from a cigarette swirling seductively, all around me. Soon enough, I hear a song or an entire album that seems to fit the mood, listen to that on repeat while I write, until it’s done and the words have all found me. I often do research – read up on church design or the Furies, find the lyrics and poetry I might want to reference, search Google for a picture of whatever it is I’m struggling to describe. I read it over a second and third time to make sure I’ve said what I wanted to say, that all the images and allusions are in place - not to mention the commas and apostrophes.
I love the process, and I love how it affects me – it’s like a drug. I feel alive and I feel like I’m full to bursting with colors – a starburst of light. I lose my sense of self to it; I am made of words and the words are made of me, and I drink from the deep cool well of the collective unconscious. I am pure light when I write, and when the words find me I am beautiful. When I’m writing and the words are all that’s left of me, I have access to all of human history; I drink from the well and I drink the blood of oracles.
I can’t do drugs anymore, so it’s nice that I’ve found a cheap substitute. Plus I can function afterwards, and there aren’t any nasty side affects.
There are a couple of lines in ‘The Mirror and the Image’ that I loved:
I wish I could convey to the readers the incredible transparency in that last paragraph. I actually could feel myself floating as I wrote it, much like I always do when I’m talking to you.
He’s talking about God, but he could just as easily be talking about the Process. Could be they’re one and the same, actually.
I stopped believing in God about a year ago. I read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and it solidified a lot of things I had been struggling with, and it just…clicked, I guess. All the puzzle pieces snapped together, and that was it. I saw the picture clearly; I saw the world; I saw the truth. I was done with God. It felt amazing. Still does. I was free. Still am.
I think I’ll be cheap and quote here from a piece I wrote back then, called ‘Dear God (A Monologue)’:
Dear god, I think I may be an atheist. I think I may be ready to take a huge leap into the unknown. Into a place where there is no celestial guidance, only the wonders of nature and science and measurable facts. There is still love and transcendence and meaning, mind you. But you're not there, and the heavenly choir is silenced, and most of human history is mistaken in its belief, but it doesn't matter. Because truth – and facing the truth that you will never be found – is beauty, and beauty is truth, and that is all.
The last line of the piece is ‘Good-bye’.
I thought that last word – that sad, final ringing of the bell – would stay with me always, and haunt me at night. But it hasn’t. That’s the thing, that’s what makes me smile and that’s what tells me I that I found the truth – it doesn’t hurt at all.
When I stopped believing in God, I stopped talking to Him. I knew that if I vacillated, and spoke to him, privately, then it would be like I was holding onto a shameful secret, and I would never know truth. So I let go of him – and now I think it’s time to stop capitalizing him, and start capitalizing Truth – completely. I haven’t spoken to god since then, not even in my weakest moments, not even those times when life has hurt so badly I thought I wouldn’t make it through the night. What I have done, though, is write.
There’s a lovely symmetry to it, don’t you think? I stopped talking to my imaginary friend, and started talking to the world. I found the Process, which is transcendent – and not unlike the experience mystics describe when they’ve met god. Which, incidentally, is not unlike the way I felt the first time I smoked pot. I have the Process, which I think is the most honest of all these experiences. It’s a kind of birth, and it’s painful and joyous and exhausting in equal measures. It’s bloody and long and splits the soul open, but the end result – a few words on the computer screen, a bit of telepathy from me to you, whoever you may be – is a beautiful mystery, a sublime experience, a truly mystical thing.
I seek pleasure. I seek the nerves under your skin.
The narrow archway; the layers; the scroll of ancient lettuce.
We worship the flaw, the belly, the belly,
the mole on the belly of an exquisite whore.
He spared the child and spoiled the rod.
I have not sold myself to God.
from ‘Babelogue’, by Patti Smith
Friday, October 16, 2009
The Mirror and the Image
Well. Here we are again.
It’s Zach, by the way. I know, obviously, that you would know that. By definition, really. But it’s necessary this time. Not for you. For everyone else. You see, as you also know, I’m doing this thing with Leah – a blog project. We’re supposed to alternate posts each week, and be inspired by the post prior. Last Friday she wrote a post about a guy in a long black coat, who kind of reminds me of me – the me on the inside. Anyways, in this post, the man goes into a church, in a story about his struggle with God and Truth and all that other mother-jazz, as Franky would say. It got me thinking, about you.
I haven’t spoken with you in quite some time. It’s been a while. Pride got in the way, for one. Heh. Yeah, the irony doesn’t escape me. It just makes me smile.
It’s because, of course, I don’t really believe you exist. I’m an atheist... or at least, I really like the label. I like it when people take one look at me and say “oh yeah, he’s a hardcore atheist.” I like to be the approachable one with the strong arguments for atheism. And what’s more, I have them. I believe them. Sooooooo that kind of makes me feel like I’m betraying myself when I talk to you. Silly, I know. But still. We’re only human, right?
Let’s get into it, shall we? I’ve heard it said by believers that it doesn’t make sense to talk to something or someone that you claim you don’t believe in. I mean, if I honestly didn’t believe you existed, then how can I talk to you? And if I reply with “well, I don’t think I’m talking to the Christian God as philosophically defined, but I am talking to something, some kind of entity” then they still win. I’m still lying about being an atheist.
Heh. What games we play. Don’t you ever get bored of them?
Of course, if I honestly don’t believe there’s anything, then I’m psychotic – talking to imaginary beings. It would make as much sense to talk to Deadrious, or Tekkorin, or Meynovich, or any other D&D character.
But I was thinking about it in the shower, as you know I often do, and I think I really do prefer the latter. You’re a part of me. You are that strange event horizon between the world as it is and the world as I perceive it to be, personified. Is that the right word? Event horizon? I think Locke had a name for it to, in his epistemological theories.
It’s strange, writing to you instead of just talking out loud like I always do. Like proper “prayer”. It’s different.
Anyways. Made in your image. You’re made in mine. It works both ways, which works. Of course, it must. I always talk with Cody about the “completeness” of a picture that Christianity paints, when given its proper dues. It’s beautiful really. And if I’m to assert a worldview of atheism that’s rational, my picture must be just as complete, if not moreso. Of course, it is – because all of the completeness that Christianity has, atheism piggy-backs off of. Like I also always say, disbelieving in the objective existence of You doesn’t mean sweeping all of Christianity, or more properly, all of faith, under the rug. It means that there is a better, alternate explanation for all of it, including the incredible human spirit and devotion and sacrifice and love that’s involved. I’ve gotta say – an atheist’s portrait of you is pretty fucking amazing.
When we’re not being pig-headed and arrogant, of course.
If Micheal Buble can write a new hit song, in which he’s talking to a girl he hasn’t met yet, I think I can talk to you and share it with others. He’s making millions off of his imaginary girlfriend – his personified object of devotion. A written post of a prayer to God – a personified world – isn’t that much worse.
It’s just struck me. It’s the realness. It’s the realness of it that’s scary. See, when I imagine writing a speech to the world, it’s once removed from me. But when I’m talking to God, written or otherwise, objectively existent or subjectively personified, it’s talking to the most intimate parts of me. I’m naked here. I’m, as Leah might put it, radically honest with myself. I can’t say “my friend” here, like I do with all of my other writing. What I mean is, I can let my writing reveal parts of me. I can write intimate thoughts, fears, passions. But I don’t name names. It’s a writing device that I enjoy. But when I’m talking to that ethereal existence – God - I’m talking to (and with) that intimate part of me. And there are no writing devices there. There are only names. There is no Fear, capital ‘f’. There is just fear of not finding a job. There is no Sorrow that is some abstract feeling, dolled up with pretty words. There is simply the sorrow of wanting to be held by a woman. There is just me.
It’s just comfy. There’s really no more to it than that. I’m an atheist. I don’t believe that you actually exist. But it’s comforting to talk to you. That’s it. That’s enough.
I wish I could convey to the readers the incredible transparency in that last paragraph. I actually could feel myself floating as I wrote it, much like I always do when I’m talking to you.
Remember that night on Kate’s balcony a few years ago? I wrote about it the other day. I’ll never forget it. I remember how wide Katherine’s eyes grew when we read a passage from the bible about your greatness and then the thunder outside practically shook the house. Man, did it ever rain that night. Do you remember my concern those days? Of course you do. I was so passionate. So driven to get my own mind under control. And I was really upset that I couldn’t cry. That’s what I was thinking when I went out to the balcony. As it began to rain, I felt like it was unfair that I couldn’t cry, and yet the whole fucking world was crying. But then it kind of felt like you were crying for me. Those tears were kind of for me and by me at the same time. I don’t know. Point is, I don’t forget that moment.
That’s what we do, right? You and I? We reminisce, and we dance.
Of course, you and I dance like partners in crime. Real dancing I do with the Muse, and She’s a she. A woman is much better at those sorts of things. Plus, I like chasing girls. I don’t give a shit about men, really. The three of us make quite the holy trinity. Hell hath no fury, right?
We all need a little fury in our lives.
I need a little fury in my life. A little kick. That’s why I turn to wind and rain more than sunrises and sunsets, I suppose. People often point to sunsets and say “that’s why I believe in God.” I always find it a little quaint. I see what they’re getting at, but it’s a little far off the mark. You’ve got to look in people’s eyes to really see where and why you exist. I hate looking at myself in the mirror. Still do.
I won’t lie to you. I’d like to talk about how I’m going to roll up my sleeves, and how you and I are going to team up and do some real damage in the future. I’d love to talk to you like I write, full of hope and ambition. But I can’t promise that, so I can’t say that. Realistically, you’ve always been the one with the road map, not me.
We’re a pretty unique team, you and I. I hope you know where we’re going.
Weather’s been great lately. Thanks.
I’ll talk to you later.
Dear Lord,
So far today I've done all right. I haven't gossiped, I haven't lost my temper, I haven't been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or very indulgent. I'm very grateful for that. But in a few minutes, Lord, I'm going to get out of bed, and from then on, I'm going to need a lot more help.
Amen.
- Morning prayer I saw at my friend’s house.
It’s Zach, by the way. I know, obviously, that you would know that. By definition, really. But it’s necessary this time. Not for you. For everyone else. You see, as you also know, I’m doing this thing with Leah – a blog project. We’re supposed to alternate posts each week, and be inspired by the post prior. Last Friday she wrote a post about a guy in a long black coat, who kind of reminds me of me – the me on the inside. Anyways, in this post, the man goes into a church, in a story about his struggle with God and Truth and all that other mother-jazz, as Franky would say. It got me thinking, about you.
I haven’t spoken with you in quite some time. It’s been a while. Pride got in the way, for one. Heh. Yeah, the irony doesn’t escape me. It just makes me smile.
It’s because, of course, I don’t really believe you exist. I’m an atheist... or at least, I really like the label. I like it when people take one look at me and say “oh yeah, he’s a hardcore atheist.” I like to be the approachable one with the strong arguments for atheism. And what’s more, I have them. I believe them. Sooooooo that kind of makes me feel like I’m betraying myself when I talk to you. Silly, I know. But still. We’re only human, right?
Let’s get into it, shall we? I’ve heard it said by believers that it doesn’t make sense to talk to something or someone that you claim you don’t believe in. I mean, if I honestly didn’t believe you existed, then how can I talk to you? And if I reply with “well, I don’t think I’m talking to the Christian God as philosophically defined, but I am talking to something, some kind of entity” then they still win. I’m still lying about being an atheist.
Heh. What games we play. Don’t you ever get bored of them?
Of course, if I honestly don’t believe there’s anything, then I’m psychotic – talking to imaginary beings. It would make as much sense to talk to Deadrious, or Tekkorin, or Meynovich, or any other D&D character.
But I was thinking about it in the shower, as you know I often do, and I think I really do prefer the latter. You’re a part of me. You are that strange event horizon between the world as it is and the world as I perceive it to be, personified. Is that the right word? Event horizon? I think Locke had a name for it to, in his epistemological theories.
It’s strange, writing to you instead of just talking out loud like I always do. Like proper “prayer”. It’s different.
Anyways. Made in your image. You’re made in mine. It works both ways, which works. Of course, it must. I always talk with Cody about the “completeness” of a picture that Christianity paints, when given its proper dues. It’s beautiful really. And if I’m to assert a worldview of atheism that’s rational, my picture must be just as complete, if not moreso. Of course, it is – because all of the completeness that Christianity has, atheism piggy-backs off of. Like I also always say, disbelieving in the objective existence of You doesn’t mean sweeping all of Christianity, or more properly, all of faith, under the rug. It means that there is a better, alternate explanation for all of it, including the incredible human spirit and devotion and sacrifice and love that’s involved. I’ve gotta say – an atheist’s portrait of you is pretty fucking amazing.
When we’re not being pig-headed and arrogant, of course.
If Micheal Buble can write a new hit song, in which he’s talking to a girl he hasn’t met yet, I think I can talk to you and share it with others. He’s making millions off of his imaginary girlfriend – his personified object of devotion. A written post of a prayer to God – a personified world – isn’t that much worse.
It’s just struck me. It’s the realness. It’s the realness of it that’s scary. See, when I imagine writing a speech to the world, it’s once removed from me. But when I’m talking to God, written or otherwise, objectively existent or subjectively personified, it’s talking to the most intimate parts of me. I’m naked here. I’m, as Leah might put it, radically honest with myself. I can’t say “my friend” here, like I do with all of my other writing. What I mean is, I can let my writing reveal parts of me. I can write intimate thoughts, fears, passions. But I don’t name names. It’s a writing device that I enjoy. But when I’m talking to that ethereal existence – God - I’m talking to (and with) that intimate part of me. And there are no writing devices there. There are only names. There is no Fear, capital ‘f’. There is just fear of not finding a job. There is no Sorrow that is some abstract feeling, dolled up with pretty words. There is simply the sorrow of wanting to be held by a woman. There is just me.
It’s just comfy. There’s really no more to it than that. I’m an atheist. I don’t believe that you actually exist. But it’s comforting to talk to you. That’s it. That’s enough.
I wish I could convey to the readers the incredible transparency in that last paragraph. I actually could feel myself floating as I wrote it, much like I always do when I’m talking to you.
Remember that night on Kate’s balcony a few years ago? I wrote about it the other day. I’ll never forget it. I remember how wide Katherine’s eyes grew when we read a passage from the bible about your greatness and then the thunder outside practically shook the house. Man, did it ever rain that night. Do you remember my concern those days? Of course you do. I was so passionate. So driven to get my own mind under control. And I was really upset that I couldn’t cry. That’s what I was thinking when I went out to the balcony. As it began to rain, I felt like it was unfair that I couldn’t cry, and yet the whole fucking world was crying. But then it kind of felt like you were crying for me. Those tears were kind of for me and by me at the same time. I don’t know. Point is, I don’t forget that moment.
That’s what we do, right? You and I? We reminisce, and we dance.
Of course, you and I dance like partners in crime. Real dancing I do with the Muse, and She’s a she. A woman is much better at those sorts of things. Plus, I like chasing girls. I don’t give a shit about men, really. The three of us make quite the holy trinity. Hell hath no fury, right?
We all need a little fury in our lives.
I need a little fury in my life. A little kick. That’s why I turn to wind and rain more than sunrises and sunsets, I suppose. People often point to sunsets and say “that’s why I believe in God.” I always find it a little quaint. I see what they’re getting at, but it’s a little far off the mark. You’ve got to look in people’s eyes to really see where and why you exist. I hate looking at myself in the mirror. Still do.
I won’t lie to you. I’d like to talk about how I’m going to roll up my sleeves, and how you and I are going to team up and do some real damage in the future. I’d love to talk to you like I write, full of hope and ambition. But I can’t promise that, so I can’t say that. Realistically, you’ve always been the one with the road map, not me.
We’re a pretty unique team, you and I. I hope you know where we’re going.
Weather’s been great lately. Thanks.
I’ll talk to you later.
Dear Lord,
So far today I've done all right. I haven't gossiped, I haven't lost my temper, I haven't been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or very indulgent. I'm very grateful for that. But in a few minutes, Lord, I'm going to get out of bed, and from then on, I'm going to need a lot more help.
Amen.
- Morning prayer I saw at my friend’s house.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
The Man in the Long Black Coat
Part One
There is a church on the Borderlands, before the Edge, before the rustling black where the City ends and the Unknown begins. Unless you have a very good reason (and there are few Very Good Reasons), it is advised that you do not visit this church. Only the very foolish - and less often, the very brave – have even considered making the pilgrimage.
The Man in the Long Black Coat walks towards the church. His coat is dusty. Smoke coils, serpentine, from the cigarette in his mouth. His feet are bare. He leaves bloody tracks in the rocks and dirt; he steps on the small bones of birds and things that have never been birds as we know it, as he walks the path to the church.
The chirping of crickets. Rustling in the trees. Yellow eyes, steady, still, watching him.
He sees none of this. Only the church.
It is a small building, simple and grey, made of stone. Two windows in the front, more along the sides. The front door is wooden, painted red, and decorated with a symbol the Man knows all too well: a triangle with an upside-down cross inside it. The symbol appears to have been burnt into the wood. The faint smell of smoke and charcoal.
The Man in the Long Black Coat does not pause at the door, nor does he knock. He turns the heavy handle and walks inside. Bloody footprints on the steps, on the threshold, and now along the aisle he walks.
A line of pews on either side of him, dark wood and a rough stone floor. Narrow windows lining each wall, so dusty no light shines in; no matter. At the end of the aisle, a pulpit, raised slightly on a block of crumbling stone, and a simple wooden lectern. Again, the symbol, this time carved into the lectern (one imagines a primitive knife in a shaky, determined hand), this time red, as if the wood itself bled as it was cut.
There are other things carved into the dais, stranger things, things with yellow eyes and black fur, bristling backs and claws curving out of misshapen paws.
The Man expected all this.
At the pulpit now, he grips the lectern and shakes it, hard.
Where are you?
He doesn’t speak; his thoughts are the sound of birds rising and taking flight. The rustle of dry feathers against the air.
Show yourself. I know you’re here.
Yellow eyes, looking through the narrow windows.
You did this to me.
A low growl. Something that might be laughter. Something that is most definitely a warning.
Part Two
There is a park in the North end of the City, called, with smirking irony by its creators, Edenwood. Here the trees are tall. Here the trees are, in fact, fantastic. Purple, pink, blue; heart and diamond-shaped flowers, and succulent fuchsia fruit that bursts at the slightest touch. The wind tastes like cherry blossoms, and the flowers sing lullabies.
Alice, in her desperate attempts to escape Mr Dodgson, could not have imagined a sweeter place.
You would do well to avoid this place.
Only the very foolish - and less often, the very brave – have made the pilgrimage.
There is a pool in the middle of Edenwood, where the mer-people live. The Man in the Long Black Coat approaches the pool, picking his way across the soft grass. The footprints he leaves behind soon turn to red glass, and twinkle in the sun. A hundred ruby slippers in his wake.
The Man’s head hums as he approaches the pool. There could be a hive of bees in his head, the backs of his eyes sting so.
At the edge of the pool, a ladder leads down into the algae-depths.
Nice touch.
The man smiles, and the bees drip their honey down the back of his throat.
The skin of the water is thick, oily – marvelous rainbows swirling. Every shade of green you can imagine, and a few you can’t. Nothing breaks the surface, but the man thinks he sees something down there - a fin, maybe, a tentacle or two?
I must speak to you.
His mouth does not move, but the bees press against his lips, blindly searching for a way out.
I know you can fix this. I know you can take this away.
A bee finds its way out his left ear, nibbling at his cochlea as it leaves.
This won’t work. You cannot scare me. I’ve seen enough. I know too much.
The bees laugh, in the chittering ways of bees. They sting the backs of his eyes, and his eyes drip yellow tears. They escape out his nose, now, and their tiny feet leave tiny cuts and he bleeds tiny drops of stinging nectar.
The water is still. Not even the incessant whirl of bees disturbs it.
You cannot scare me. I know too much.
Part Three
Eventually, you will find yourself in the very heart of the City, at a building that reaches to the sky, and, quite possibly, much further. The name of the building does not concern us, although it can be found easily in other documents, if one cares to look. The beating, swelling, bloody heart of the City.
The Man has travelled long and hard to get here. He has left a thousand bloody footprints and cigarettes butts in his wake. His coat is dusty, still. The hungry, cat-sized ravens that line the Borderlands considered following him, for a time, but thought better of it. Best to let him be, they said, in the secret language of ravens.
You’re fucking right you better let me be, the man had replied.
The ravens bristled, and ducked their shiny black heads.
It takes a lot to startle a raven.
Now the Man has arrived where we are, at the building in the heart of the City. He takes a last deep drag, and grinds his cigarette out with the heel of his bloody foot. The revolving doors open for him; they spin him into the lobby. He enters the elevator, and presses a series of buttons that we will not record here.
He leaves the elevator, and steps onto a floor lined in black and white tiles. Though, if he looks closely, the tiles change color and shape quite magnificently. Yes, it’s a trick - but a lovely one nonetheless. There doesn’t seem to be any blood left for his feet to shed. The tiles remain clean and colorful, and he walks to the door that he knows to be the right one, although the hallway is lined with doors.
He is a foolish man, and a brave one at that.
He opens the dor, and is greeted by a small girl, blond and pony-tailed, wearing a blue and white gingham dress. She smiles up at him with gap-toothed anticipation.
‘He’s here!’ she shouts back into the room, and opens the door for him. ‘We’ve been waiting for you!’ she explains. ‘We’ve been waiting a long time for you.’
‘Hush, child’, a warm voice says from inside. ‘Let him in first. Let him speak.’
The Man walks into the room.
Three chairs arranged around a red-brick fireplace, the fire lit and casting shadows on the walls. Strange shadow-play; shifting figures like dogs crouching, pouncing, loping. A porcelain cat on the mantel, its tail flicking stiffly left to right, a picture of a family in an ornate gold frame, their faces dissolving and re-forming, melting and hardening. A clock; instead of numbers, tiny figures twisted into twelve obscene positions.
The first chair is empty. The Man assumes that it belongs to the little girl, now wearing a ringmaster’s suit, waving a small baton, and tugging at the sleeve of his coat.
‘You look sad. Got the tombstone blues, do you?’ she asks, giggling.
The Man is not distracted.
A woman sits in the second chair. Her brown hair is streaked with silver, and her hands are liver-spotted, but her eyes are bright. She holds a rotting, green-skinned baby in her arms and is stroking its bald head. Pieces of skin come off where she touches it, and she pats them back into place. She smiles at him, warmly.
The girl is tugging at his sleeve, still. ‘Look what I can do!’ she says, and when he looks down her hair has turned into hundreds of thin green snakes, snapping their tongues at him and waving sinuously.
‘Pay her no mind’, the woman in the third chair says, turning her head towards him. She is almost a twin to the baby in the second woman’s arms, only someone has taken a knife to her eyes, and in their place are only criss-crossed scars, a once-pink puckering gone grey with age.
Take this away from me.
‘You know we can’t do that, my dear’ the second woman says sweetly. Her thumb sinks into the baby’s eye.
‘That’s not how it works at all!’ the little girl says. ‘You went to a bad place and now you’re a bad man!’ she sing-songs. She has turned into a small ocelot, now; she jumps onto the Man’s shoulders and nips at his ears with her sharp little teeth.
I can’t do it. I can’t. The things I’ve seen. The things I know.
‘It’s nothing really, dear. It’s nothing that will destroy you, not if you don’t let it,’ says the third woman. Shadows from the fire scuttle across her skin.
You can’t take it away.
‘No, we can’t.’ And now the three voices are melting into one, first second and third, young not-young and old, maid mother and crone, one single voice swirling around the room and into his head. ‘This is your story, lovely one. You have to keep telling it. And now you have to go. You don’t belong here.’
I have to go.
Part Four
We all hate the Truth. We are bad at it. We do it all wrong.
The dogs know the Truth of God; the mer-people know the Truth of Love; the Ladies know the Truth of Stories. The Man in the Long Black Coat knows all this, and more.
Too much, but not enough.
‘Preacher was a talkin', there's a sermon he gave, He said every man's conscience is vile and depraved, You cannot depend on it to be your guide When it's you who must keep it satisfied.’
from ‘The Man in the Long Black Coat’, Bob Dylan
There is a church on the Borderlands, before the Edge, before the rustling black where the City ends and the Unknown begins. Unless you have a very good reason (and there are few Very Good Reasons), it is advised that you do not visit this church. Only the very foolish - and less often, the very brave – have even considered making the pilgrimage.
The Man in the Long Black Coat walks towards the church. His coat is dusty. Smoke coils, serpentine, from the cigarette in his mouth. His feet are bare. He leaves bloody tracks in the rocks and dirt; he steps on the small bones of birds and things that have never been birds as we know it, as he walks the path to the church.
The chirping of crickets. Rustling in the trees. Yellow eyes, steady, still, watching him.
He sees none of this. Only the church.
It is a small building, simple and grey, made of stone. Two windows in the front, more along the sides. The front door is wooden, painted red, and decorated with a symbol the Man knows all too well: a triangle with an upside-down cross inside it. The symbol appears to have been burnt into the wood. The faint smell of smoke and charcoal.
The Man in the Long Black Coat does not pause at the door, nor does he knock. He turns the heavy handle and walks inside. Bloody footprints on the steps, on the threshold, and now along the aisle he walks.
A line of pews on either side of him, dark wood and a rough stone floor. Narrow windows lining each wall, so dusty no light shines in; no matter. At the end of the aisle, a pulpit, raised slightly on a block of crumbling stone, and a simple wooden lectern. Again, the symbol, this time carved into the lectern (one imagines a primitive knife in a shaky, determined hand), this time red, as if the wood itself bled as it was cut.
There are other things carved into the dais, stranger things, things with yellow eyes and black fur, bristling backs and claws curving out of misshapen paws.
The Man expected all this.
At the pulpit now, he grips the lectern and shakes it, hard.
Where are you?
He doesn’t speak; his thoughts are the sound of birds rising and taking flight. The rustle of dry feathers against the air.
Show yourself. I know you’re here.
Yellow eyes, looking through the narrow windows.
You did this to me.
A low growl. Something that might be laughter. Something that is most definitely a warning.
Part Two
There is a park in the North end of the City, called, with smirking irony by its creators, Edenwood. Here the trees are tall. Here the trees are, in fact, fantastic. Purple, pink, blue; heart and diamond-shaped flowers, and succulent fuchsia fruit that bursts at the slightest touch. The wind tastes like cherry blossoms, and the flowers sing lullabies.
Alice, in her desperate attempts to escape Mr Dodgson, could not have imagined a sweeter place.
You would do well to avoid this place.
Only the very foolish - and less often, the very brave – have made the pilgrimage.
There is a pool in the middle of Edenwood, where the mer-people live. The Man in the Long Black Coat approaches the pool, picking his way across the soft grass. The footprints he leaves behind soon turn to red glass, and twinkle in the sun. A hundred ruby slippers in his wake.
The Man’s head hums as he approaches the pool. There could be a hive of bees in his head, the backs of his eyes sting so.
At the edge of the pool, a ladder leads down into the algae-depths.
Nice touch.
The man smiles, and the bees drip their honey down the back of his throat.
The skin of the water is thick, oily – marvelous rainbows swirling. Every shade of green you can imagine, and a few you can’t. Nothing breaks the surface, but the man thinks he sees something down there - a fin, maybe, a tentacle or two?
I must speak to you.
His mouth does not move, but the bees press against his lips, blindly searching for a way out.
I know you can fix this. I know you can take this away.
A bee finds its way out his left ear, nibbling at his cochlea as it leaves.
This won’t work. You cannot scare me. I’ve seen enough. I know too much.
The bees laugh, in the chittering ways of bees. They sting the backs of his eyes, and his eyes drip yellow tears. They escape out his nose, now, and their tiny feet leave tiny cuts and he bleeds tiny drops of stinging nectar.
The water is still. Not even the incessant whirl of bees disturbs it.
You cannot scare me. I know too much.
Part Three
Eventually, you will find yourself in the very heart of the City, at a building that reaches to the sky, and, quite possibly, much further. The name of the building does not concern us, although it can be found easily in other documents, if one cares to look. The beating, swelling, bloody heart of the City.
The Man has travelled long and hard to get here. He has left a thousand bloody footprints and cigarettes butts in his wake. His coat is dusty, still. The hungry, cat-sized ravens that line the Borderlands considered following him, for a time, but thought better of it. Best to let him be, they said, in the secret language of ravens.
You’re fucking right you better let me be, the man had replied.
The ravens bristled, and ducked their shiny black heads.
It takes a lot to startle a raven.
Now the Man has arrived where we are, at the building in the heart of the City. He takes a last deep drag, and grinds his cigarette out with the heel of his bloody foot. The revolving doors open for him; they spin him into the lobby. He enters the elevator, and presses a series of buttons that we will not record here.
He leaves the elevator, and steps onto a floor lined in black and white tiles. Though, if he looks closely, the tiles change color and shape quite magnificently. Yes, it’s a trick - but a lovely one nonetheless. There doesn’t seem to be any blood left for his feet to shed. The tiles remain clean and colorful, and he walks to the door that he knows to be the right one, although the hallway is lined with doors.
He is a foolish man, and a brave one at that.
He opens the dor, and is greeted by a small girl, blond and pony-tailed, wearing a blue and white gingham dress. She smiles up at him with gap-toothed anticipation.
‘He’s here!’ she shouts back into the room, and opens the door for him. ‘We’ve been waiting for you!’ she explains. ‘We’ve been waiting a long time for you.’
‘Hush, child’, a warm voice says from inside. ‘Let him in first. Let him speak.’
The Man walks into the room.
Three chairs arranged around a red-brick fireplace, the fire lit and casting shadows on the walls. Strange shadow-play; shifting figures like dogs crouching, pouncing, loping. A porcelain cat on the mantel, its tail flicking stiffly left to right, a picture of a family in an ornate gold frame, their faces dissolving and re-forming, melting and hardening. A clock; instead of numbers, tiny figures twisted into twelve obscene positions.
The first chair is empty. The Man assumes that it belongs to the little girl, now wearing a ringmaster’s suit, waving a small baton, and tugging at the sleeve of his coat.
‘You look sad. Got the tombstone blues, do you?’ she asks, giggling.
The Man is not distracted.
A woman sits in the second chair. Her brown hair is streaked with silver, and her hands are liver-spotted, but her eyes are bright. She holds a rotting, green-skinned baby in her arms and is stroking its bald head. Pieces of skin come off where she touches it, and she pats them back into place. She smiles at him, warmly.
The girl is tugging at his sleeve, still. ‘Look what I can do!’ she says, and when he looks down her hair has turned into hundreds of thin green snakes, snapping their tongues at him and waving sinuously.
‘Pay her no mind’, the woman in the third chair says, turning her head towards him. She is almost a twin to the baby in the second woman’s arms, only someone has taken a knife to her eyes, and in their place are only criss-crossed scars, a once-pink puckering gone grey with age.
Take this away from me.
‘You know we can’t do that, my dear’ the second woman says sweetly. Her thumb sinks into the baby’s eye.
‘That’s not how it works at all!’ the little girl says. ‘You went to a bad place and now you’re a bad man!’ she sing-songs. She has turned into a small ocelot, now; she jumps onto the Man’s shoulders and nips at his ears with her sharp little teeth.
I can’t do it. I can’t. The things I’ve seen. The things I know.
‘It’s nothing really, dear. It’s nothing that will destroy you, not if you don’t let it,’ says the third woman. Shadows from the fire scuttle across her skin.
You can’t take it away.
‘No, we can’t.’ And now the three voices are melting into one, first second and third, young not-young and old, maid mother and crone, one single voice swirling around the room and into his head. ‘This is your story, lovely one. You have to keep telling it. And now you have to go. You don’t belong here.’
I have to go.
Part Four
We all hate the Truth. We are bad at it. We do it all wrong.
The dogs know the Truth of God; the mer-people know the Truth of Love; the Ladies know the Truth of Stories. The Man in the Long Black Coat knows all this, and more.
Too much, but not enough.
‘Preacher was a talkin', there's a sermon he gave, He said every man's conscience is vile and depraved, You cannot depend on it to be your guide When it's you who must keep it satisfied.’
from ‘The Man in the Long Black Coat’, Bob Dylan
Friday, October 2, 2009
Nightmares
There was a ferocious and malicious laughter inside him. It was, in truth, impotent.
There were tears, deep and large. The rain envied them, for they never fell. They stayed exactly where they were.
He mourned the found more than the lost. His knees were raw with worship.
There was Love towards the empty. An eternal embrace for the wind. With arms wide.
He hated the prophets. Hated them.
The will to power was broken. The meek had inherited the earth. The world stood paralyzed in revelation.
Everyone had that fake wisdom inside them. They shared with zeal to make it real.
Sticks and stones would break bones. Words would never wound. Silence bulldozed eternity.
Touches were forgotten. Forgotten touches were remembered.
Cold fusion was impossible. A pipe dream warmed thousands. Millions were disappointed.
The train was late. Again.
A series of hopes and smiles grew in the garden. For them, there was a season. They made for great bouquets.
Connections were left to the competent. Qualifications were minimal.
Leading onward was the mission. One foot in front of the other. Focus was the eyesight of the blind.
His job never noticed. They never cared.
The dark clouds withered. Their flesh called for carnivores. There was never a shortage.
His life was illusion. The magician’s hat was empty.
A sentence for every sin. A chuckle for every memory. The devil doesn’t mind his own mockery.
There should have been more. Beauty was the promise of old loves.
If only there were meaning.
I don’t know why it rained that day. I don’t know a lot of things, really. I have always had faith that the world would continue on as it always had. It would provide with what it needed to provide, would take what it would need to take, and when it was done, would cease being personified. But that rain was well timed.
There was thunder and lightning too. The house shook and my friends were wide eyed. I spent my time on the balcony. No one joined me. I was alone. God was my greatest conquest. And the sheets of liquid sparkled in the darkness.
If I was to drown, I would want it to be in the rain. The clamour of unequivocal nature muting the lunacy of your world. I would want to be blinded from your surroundings, and be numbed to your touch. A man should drown standing up, in a lake that touches the sky. He should be able to laugh at his own irony and feel his knees buckle.
My irony is vast. My hypocrisy is self-evident. It is by far enough to drown in. You hear me now, so trust me as you always have. You will never be close to me. No one ever will.
I’m a liar. A cheat. And I don’t give a shit. I don’t actually care about you. I never have and I never will. The words I gave you? They weren’t real. Facsimiles of dreams that I heard once. Nothing more. Listen to that carefully in your mind: Nothing more.
I have perfected the ability to look you in the eye and tell you your truth. I can tell you that your hair is nice. I can tell you why. I can say, in the most realistic of tones, “You are a credit to humanity and a downright decent human being, and I can prove it.” I imagine a compliment like a knife. All I have to do is strike the heart, and the rest will bleed out to the open air. I can make you feel like you fucking matter.
It’s a joke, really. You are nothing more than a fantastic one-liner in my life.
The Truth stood ready. Forever was it beyond the grasp of man.
Battles called the weary to rejoice. The dull is only paradise between fights. The sisters were right.
He pushes and he screams. He always dares to dream.
A thousand flashlights dim the dawn. The sun light’s up shades of grey. It’s always brighter with the blinds down.
He lived in empty clichés and full coffee shops. One day at a time.
Maps unravel with red arrows and white letters. Legends are clear. “You are here.”
The funeral was nice. He wore black.
Principle of Non-Contradiction. A law of logic. Emotion scoffs.
The mirror dripped. It was made with liquid judgement.
A girl once found fancy through the looking glass. A convenient fantasy. It was broken before it began.
A thousand moments would save his life. A thousand lifetimes could not save the moment.
Comedy and Tragedy entertain the masses. Ugly men deliver perfect lines. Shakespeare played a better Jesus.
Today was not one green light. His teachers lied.
Melodies sweeten the air. Artifice makes nature’s new perfume. The birds cannot compete.
He always went alone. It was never enough.
Starving children still laugh. Carefree adults still worry. Liars still love.
He had perfect potential. He preserved it.
Time is a measurement of change. For everything there is an ebb and flow. Immortality is to suffer indefinitely.
Nothing moved him like the thought of relief. It felt like nothing.
Death without significance.
There were tears, deep and large. The rain envied them, for they never fell. They stayed exactly where they were.
He mourned the found more than the lost. His knees were raw with worship.
There was Love towards the empty. An eternal embrace for the wind. With arms wide.
He hated the prophets. Hated them.
The will to power was broken. The meek had inherited the earth. The world stood paralyzed in revelation.
Everyone had that fake wisdom inside them. They shared with zeal to make it real.
Sticks and stones would break bones. Words would never wound. Silence bulldozed eternity.
Touches were forgotten. Forgotten touches were remembered.
Cold fusion was impossible. A pipe dream warmed thousands. Millions were disappointed.
The train was late. Again.
A series of hopes and smiles grew in the garden. For them, there was a season. They made for great bouquets.
Connections were left to the competent. Qualifications were minimal.
Leading onward was the mission. One foot in front of the other. Focus was the eyesight of the blind.
His job never noticed. They never cared.
The dark clouds withered. Their flesh called for carnivores. There was never a shortage.
His life was illusion. The magician’s hat was empty.
A sentence for every sin. A chuckle for every memory. The devil doesn’t mind his own mockery.
There should have been more. Beauty was the promise of old loves.
If only there were meaning.
I don’t know why it rained that day. I don’t know a lot of things, really. I have always had faith that the world would continue on as it always had. It would provide with what it needed to provide, would take what it would need to take, and when it was done, would cease being personified. But that rain was well timed.
There was thunder and lightning too. The house shook and my friends were wide eyed. I spent my time on the balcony. No one joined me. I was alone. God was my greatest conquest. And the sheets of liquid sparkled in the darkness.
If I was to drown, I would want it to be in the rain. The clamour of unequivocal nature muting the lunacy of your world. I would want to be blinded from your surroundings, and be numbed to your touch. A man should drown standing up, in a lake that touches the sky. He should be able to laugh at his own irony and feel his knees buckle.
My irony is vast. My hypocrisy is self-evident. It is by far enough to drown in. You hear me now, so trust me as you always have. You will never be close to me. No one ever will.
I’m a liar. A cheat. And I don’t give a shit. I don’t actually care about you. I never have and I never will. The words I gave you? They weren’t real. Facsimiles of dreams that I heard once. Nothing more. Listen to that carefully in your mind: Nothing more.
I have perfected the ability to look you in the eye and tell you your truth. I can tell you that your hair is nice. I can tell you why. I can say, in the most realistic of tones, “You are a credit to humanity and a downright decent human being, and I can prove it.” I imagine a compliment like a knife. All I have to do is strike the heart, and the rest will bleed out to the open air. I can make you feel like you fucking matter.
It’s a joke, really. You are nothing more than a fantastic one-liner in my life.
The Truth stood ready. Forever was it beyond the grasp of man.
Battles called the weary to rejoice. The dull is only paradise between fights. The sisters were right.
He pushes and he screams. He always dares to dream.
A thousand flashlights dim the dawn. The sun light’s up shades of grey. It’s always brighter with the blinds down.
He lived in empty clichés and full coffee shops. One day at a time.
Maps unravel with red arrows and white letters. Legends are clear. “You are here.”
The funeral was nice. He wore black.
Principle of Non-Contradiction. A law of logic. Emotion scoffs.
The mirror dripped. It was made with liquid judgement.
A girl once found fancy through the looking glass. A convenient fantasy. It was broken before it began.
A thousand moments would save his life. A thousand lifetimes could not save the moment.
Comedy and Tragedy entertain the masses. Ugly men deliver perfect lines. Shakespeare played a better Jesus.
Today was not one green light. His teachers lied.
Melodies sweeten the air. Artifice makes nature’s new perfume. The birds cannot compete.
He always went alone. It was never enough.
Starving children still laugh. Carefree adults still worry. Liars still love.
He had perfect potential. He preserved it.
Time is a measurement of change. For everything there is an ebb and flow. Immortality is to suffer indefinitely.
Nothing moved him like the thought of relief. It felt like nothing.
Death without significance.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Cityscape
1.
If you were to walk the streets of the City, take a left here, a right there, and turn down a dark alley (the alley stinking of garbage, strewn with strange bones; if you happen to glimpse the quick flash of yellow eyes, don’t be alarmed; keep walking, but keep your pace brisk), you would soon come to a door painted red, propped open with a milk crate, a door from which you would smell the heady scent of jasmine incense, and hear the voice of a girl. She is telling a story.
There once was a dirt road in a soft, grassy meadow, she says. It stretched down the polite hills of tall grass, all the way to the base of the mountain in the distance…
This again, a boy says. The unmistakable sound of cigarette smoke being pulled into lungs, and let out again with a small cough. You’ve told this story a thousand times, let’s hear something different, the boy complains.
Shut up, for fuck’s sake. A new speaker; this time, a girl with a voice sharp as the edge of a knife. Let her tell it, Gabe, she says.
There, though you could not see it from the best sitting spots, it ran parallel to the stream for a while, the first girl continues. She has a soft voice, pink like cotton-candy, although there is a deepness to it when she mouths the letter ‘o’. It is quite lovely, the way she speaks, like she’s singing.
Then it began to climb the mountain, she says. She interrupts herself to giggle. We’re getting to the good part, she says. You know, the part with the children and the tree and, oh, first the seed, and the colors and everything. Do you guys think the children represent anything? she asks. I think they probably mean, um, maybe that it’s important to hold onto your youth, or…let’s see, maybe it’s the Garden and the children are the First and…something, I’m not sure. But I really do love this story, especially the part with the leaves changing color. I would love a tree with purple leaves, I would…
Fresia, the sharp-edged voice warns, though it’s softer now. Tell the story, ok?
Ok.
You could see that from anywhere in the meadow below: the road took on a gradual incline and meandered up the mountainside, making turns anytime the climb was too great, the cotton-candy voice says. Then, with a little humble triumph, it traveled over the top, and the little trail went off into eternity….
2.
There is a place they call the Borderlands. It is not advised that you walk there alone, or at night. Nightmares abound. Have you ever wondered what happens to nightmares when you wake up? Of course not. No sensible person would. It is not for us to consider.
Here is where you will find the Black Dogs. Here is where you will find the tall tree and the rope. Here is where you will find the men with the missing eyes, and the scars for mouths. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here; for here, there be dragons.
3.
Here is a story.
There is a boy ambling along the sidewalk. He holds a cigarette in his right hand, tosses a crumpled empty pack into the gutter with his left. Although he ambles, his movements are graceful and dangerous; the movements of a predator. From out the back of his jeans, the swishing of a white tail.
A man passes the boy on the sidewalk. The briefest pause. The man is wearing a shiny black suit, and his hair is white, slicked back like it’s been licked. A few more steps, and the man turns. The boy stops. The two face each other on the sidewalk, and their pose is the timeless dance of predator and prey, killer and victim. The boy flicks his cigarette, grinds it out with the heel of his boot.
If you look closely – and you will have time to look closely, as the boy and man are not moving – you will see that they have the same eyes, uncannily green like peacock feathers, and the same sharp cheekbones like warpaint across their faces.
The boy pulls back the hood of his sweater, and rubs his soft cat ears with both hands. A look of distaste crosses the man face.
Who are you? the boy asks.
The man says nothing. His green eyes move left to right, following the swish of the boy’s white tail.
You’re not me, the boy says.
I’m not, the man says.
What are you? the man asks. He spits out the words like they are bitter. The look of distaste again.
The boy says nothing. He looks at the man’s black briefcase, shiny as a beetle.
I think I’m dreaming, the man says.
You’re not, the boy answers. His ears swivel like satellites now, listening.
4.
There are some nightmares you don’t wake up from. These nightmares are called life. This is the City.
5.
If you were to look up, you would see a building reaching to the sky, so high up its silver nose hits the clouds, and, one assumes, continues for miles more. Men have given this building a name, but it does not concern us. Only a privileged few are even allowed to enter the revolving front doors. You will know you’re not invited if the doors simply turn and turn, never spitting you out onto the marble-floored and into the gleaming lobby.
There is a room in this building, hidden somewhere in the Escher hallways and Mobius folds of it, a room you will find on no blueprint, a room that is rarely spoken of by the inhabitants of the building. If they do speak of it – they do so haltingly, in the softest of whispers.
The Ladies have excellent hearing for their advanced age.
If you were to find this room, you would recognize it immediately. You have glimpsed it at the edge of every nightmare. You have smelled it in every hospital. And you’ve met the Ladies, many times.
The Ladies have many names, but they acknowledge none of them. The Ladies are fond of props, so the room is scattered with cauldrons, balls of string, fake beards. They tell stories, and every story begins like this:
Once upon on a time…
Each story is judged for its complexity, its use of metaphor and simile, its ability to move the listener. The Ladies make each other cry, and so this is deemed a successful story. Beware: the Ladies love soap operas; the Ladies love irony.
Listen closely. The Ladies are telling your story.
6.
The tree had grown again, and he could not see her, the cotton-candy voiced girl is saying. She was gone, the girl says, and there is an upward movement to her voice in the sound of the ‘g’, like a fish caught on a hook. She heaves a shaky breath, and the room is silent.
Tell another one, the sharp-voiced girl says. Tell us a story.
6.
You are here. This is the City.
If you were to walk the streets of the City, take a left here, a right there, and turn down a dark alley (the alley stinking of garbage, strewn with strange bones; if you happen to glimpse the quick flash of yellow eyes, don’t be alarmed; keep walking, but keep your pace brisk), you would soon come to a door painted red, propped open with a milk crate, a door from which you would smell the heady scent of jasmine incense, and hear the voice of a girl. She is telling a story.
There once was a dirt road in a soft, grassy meadow, she says. It stretched down the polite hills of tall grass, all the way to the base of the mountain in the distance…
This again, a boy says. The unmistakable sound of cigarette smoke being pulled into lungs, and let out again with a small cough. You’ve told this story a thousand times, let’s hear something different, the boy complains.
Shut up, for fuck’s sake. A new speaker; this time, a girl with a voice sharp as the edge of a knife. Let her tell it, Gabe, she says.
There, though you could not see it from the best sitting spots, it ran parallel to the stream for a while, the first girl continues. She has a soft voice, pink like cotton-candy, although there is a deepness to it when she mouths the letter ‘o’. It is quite lovely, the way she speaks, like she’s singing.
Then it began to climb the mountain, she says. She interrupts herself to giggle. We’re getting to the good part, she says. You know, the part with the children and the tree and, oh, first the seed, and the colors and everything. Do you guys think the children represent anything? she asks. I think they probably mean, um, maybe that it’s important to hold onto your youth, or…let’s see, maybe it’s the Garden and the children are the First and…something, I’m not sure. But I really do love this story, especially the part with the leaves changing color. I would love a tree with purple leaves, I would…
Fresia, the sharp-edged voice warns, though it’s softer now. Tell the story, ok?
Ok.
You could see that from anywhere in the meadow below: the road took on a gradual incline and meandered up the mountainside, making turns anytime the climb was too great, the cotton-candy voice says. Then, with a little humble triumph, it traveled over the top, and the little trail went off into eternity….
2.
There is a place they call the Borderlands. It is not advised that you walk there alone, or at night. Nightmares abound. Have you ever wondered what happens to nightmares when you wake up? Of course not. No sensible person would. It is not for us to consider.
Here is where you will find the Black Dogs. Here is where you will find the tall tree and the rope. Here is where you will find the men with the missing eyes, and the scars for mouths. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here; for here, there be dragons.
3.
Here is a story.
There is a boy ambling along the sidewalk. He holds a cigarette in his right hand, tosses a crumpled empty pack into the gutter with his left. Although he ambles, his movements are graceful and dangerous; the movements of a predator. From out the back of his jeans, the swishing of a white tail.
A man passes the boy on the sidewalk. The briefest pause. The man is wearing a shiny black suit, and his hair is white, slicked back like it’s been licked. A few more steps, and the man turns. The boy stops. The two face each other on the sidewalk, and their pose is the timeless dance of predator and prey, killer and victim. The boy flicks his cigarette, grinds it out with the heel of his boot.
If you look closely – and you will have time to look closely, as the boy and man are not moving – you will see that they have the same eyes, uncannily green like peacock feathers, and the same sharp cheekbones like warpaint across their faces.
The boy pulls back the hood of his sweater, and rubs his soft cat ears with both hands. A look of distaste crosses the man face.
Who are you? the boy asks.
The man says nothing. His green eyes move left to right, following the swish of the boy’s white tail.
You’re not me, the boy says.
I’m not, the man says.
What are you? the man asks. He spits out the words like they are bitter. The look of distaste again.
The boy says nothing. He looks at the man’s black briefcase, shiny as a beetle.
I think I’m dreaming, the man says.
You’re not, the boy answers. His ears swivel like satellites now, listening.
4.
There are some nightmares you don’t wake up from. These nightmares are called life. This is the City.
5.
If you were to look up, you would see a building reaching to the sky, so high up its silver nose hits the clouds, and, one assumes, continues for miles more. Men have given this building a name, but it does not concern us. Only a privileged few are even allowed to enter the revolving front doors. You will know you’re not invited if the doors simply turn and turn, never spitting you out onto the marble-floored and into the gleaming lobby.
There is a room in this building, hidden somewhere in the Escher hallways and Mobius folds of it, a room you will find on no blueprint, a room that is rarely spoken of by the inhabitants of the building. If they do speak of it – they do so haltingly, in the softest of whispers.
The Ladies have excellent hearing for their advanced age.
If you were to find this room, you would recognize it immediately. You have glimpsed it at the edge of every nightmare. You have smelled it in every hospital. And you’ve met the Ladies, many times.
The Ladies have many names, but they acknowledge none of them. The Ladies are fond of props, so the room is scattered with cauldrons, balls of string, fake beards. They tell stories, and every story begins like this:
Once upon on a time…
Each story is judged for its complexity, its use of metaphor and simile, its ability to move the listener. The Ladies make each other cry, and so this is deemed a successful story. Beware: the Ladies love soap operas; the Ladies love irony.
Listen closely. The Ladies are telling your story.
6.
The tree had grown again, and he could not see her, the cotton-candy voiced girl is saying. She was gone, the girl says, and there is an upward movement to her voice in the sound of the ‘g’, like a fish caught on a hook. She heaves a shaky breath, and the room is silent.
Tell another one, the sharp-voiced girl says. Tell us a story.
6.
You are here. This is the City.
Friday, September 18, 2009
The Children
There once was a dirt road in a soft, grassy meadow. It stretched down the polite hills of tall grass, all the way to the base of the mountain in the distance. There, though you could not see it from the best sitting spots, it ran parallel to the stream for a while. Then it began to climb the mountain. You could see that from anywhere in the meadow below: the road took on a gradual incline and meandered up the mountainside, making turns anytime the climb was too great. Then, with a little humble triumph, it traveled over the top, and the little trail went off into eternity.
There were 3 good sitting spots in the meadow. But the best one of all was the one that overlooked the road on both sides of its journey. After it came up from the stream, and cut between the 3rd and 2nd best sitting spots in the meadow, it gave a soft turn to the left. And then, after a brief stretch, it disappeared into the forest; a place less traveled. There was a small hill, an antelope’s gallop from where the road turned to the left, which was perfect. The grass was always green there; soft, tall and lush. You could watch the road climb down from the mountain, or watch it disappear into the unknown. It was there that the sunrises looked the best.
Two children had discovered this sitting spot one day. Every day they came out to play in the meadow. They ran and giggled and often tripped. The boy found snakes and the girl braided grass, and they both sat in their spot when they were tired. Napping never felt so beautiful.
One day the boy woke up before the girl. And instead of a snake, he found a seed.
~~~
We are the children borne of a yesterday that never existed. And while the fathers of tomorrow call and clamour for the abortion that never happened, the smell of our carcasses pollutes their skyline. What sweet treasure is this, where devils run scared of their own handiwork? Cruel temptation. And how the sacred must reply in kind, silenced by echoes. The Becoming mute their own pleas for pity. And I am left with cigarette smoke. There is no more comfortable lie.
Bodies of long dead homeless decorated the streets below. Old abandoned buildings crammed next to one another for warmth in the chill of emptiness. The windows were all boarded up, illustrated with the graffiti of a former time. Garbage drifted in the early morning breeze. Noise was not heard, but its absence was felt. It was not the night that had sapped these slums of all their savagery; they had always been this way. In the distance, the buildings began to stretch like trees and movement started.
And so the silver spires rise to deceive the skies.
Jacob looked on from the overpass above. He stood as if to preside over the absence below. His long, black hair fell to the collar of his trench-coat. His frame was the very foundation of a man. His feet were naked and bloody. A cigarette hung between his lips.
A vehicle approached. This was an event. Cars did not travel on this bridge. It was long abandoned; the same excommunication of the slums had encouraged the barren roads. Nothing travelled on this road anymore. Jacob himself would not take this exodus.
The vehicle stopped. Someone got out. It was her.
“You really are insane, Jacob, you know that? The fucking Borderlands – I find you taking a morning stroll in the fucking Borderlands? Just once I wish you would make some kind of sense, ya know? Like normal people?”
Jacob shrugged, barely acknowledging his acquaintance. We all become sons to our own children.
“Faaaaaaaaaaaaack. See? This is what I mean. You can’t even talk like other people. You always gotta do the mind-thing. Tele-apathy or whatever.” She walked forward, animatedly tapping her head to emphasize her point. It was little use, however. Jacob had his back turned and continued to lean on the overpass railing. “What the hell are you doing here, anyways?”
Spiritus Mundi
~~~
“Where should we plant it – where should we plant it?” the girl asked excitedly. She had just woken up and was skipping around with glee after hearing about the seed. The grass braids in her hair bounced playfully. “I think we should plant it here, by the road. Because then people going by can enjoy it!” She smiled a big toothy smile, and her eyes were bright and cheerful.
The boy had just rolled down the hill, and was covered in grass and soil. His face was painted with dirt. He pretended to look very seriously at the area that the girl had suggested, but in truth he was just as excited as she was. “Hmm,” he said. “There aren’t too many snakes here. And we can carry water from the stream.”
“And when the sun comes over the mountains it will shower the plant in gold,” the girl said, grinning as big as her face would let her. “The sunlight always lands right here,” she said, accenting her point with a twirl. Her voice sounded like innocence.
So that’s what they did. They planted the seed a few feet from the bend in the dirt road. He dug a hole with his hands and dropped in the seed and she made sure that the lump was properly tended. Then they ran all the way down to the stream and ran all the way back up with water in their clasped hands. Not much was left after it had spilled and leaked from between their fingers, but it was enough make the soil wet. And there was plenty of laughter left over.
~~~
It started to rain. A light sprinkle fell from the thick clouds above. “What? What the hell does Spiritus Mundi mean? Now you’re not even speaking English!”
Dawns were meant to be missed. Dusks meant to be revered. It is the very spirit of the world.
“Well, listen, Jay. I don’t give a shit about dawns or dusks or the world. But I do care about spirits - do you know what they say about this place?”
This is our world, turned to stone.
“No... they say that strange spirits once lived here. Barbaric invisible things, and now they’re homeless. They’ll take revenge on anything that lingers here!” She grabbed his arm and turned him towards her. “We gotta get-“
The scars always made her flinch. “We gotta get out of here. You know, go back into the city limits.”
His eyes were two different colours – one red and the other didn’t matter. And the scars littered his face, though long since healed. He tossed his cigarette.
The fleshy fingers of fantasy wrap around reality. Their empty shells protect a growth that’s never tasted life. A death in a cage is an execution of soul. A sour rot of condemnation. Where is your conviction? Can you not hear beyond your echo? Do not stay dead there, dear child.
She drew back. “What? What are you talking about. Oh God... They don’t have you, do they? They do. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Jacob, snap out of it. We’ve got to go. Get in the car,” she marched across the empty street hurriedly. The rain was really coming down now. He stood there and opened his hands to the weather.
“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST GET IN THE CAR!!” Her frustration burst.
The daughter of Lucifer laughs God’s tears. She scampers around her own creation. Hell would keep her out, but her ambitions are angelic. She would build wings for man in exchange for a cage. And they would build it, and never walk again.
Your Borderlands long for love. The sunlight always lands right here.
His coat was soaked.
~~~
The seed grew into a sapling, and that sapling grew into a tree. The girl was right. The location was perfect, and the dawn always struck first light on the ground where they had planted it. It grew fast and strong as a result. Its trunk was firm and before they thought it possible, its branches were reaching for the sky. In the spring the tree bloomed wonderful bright colours – wild pink and purple buds.
Passer-bys often enjoyed the shade and stopped for a while. They would eat lunch and then pack up and head into the forest. It was the perfect break for people who had just climbed over the mountain. The two children looked after the tree. When a bird made a nest, the boy always found worms for it. When visitors had left their garbage, the girl always picked it up. And in the afternoons, they would both sit in their sitting spot and call down to the tree.
“Hey tree! Can you grow orange leaves?”
“Of course it can grow orange leaves. But you have to wait until next season, silly.” They giggled and laughed.
“Hey tree! Can you reach the stars?
“Maybe it can!”
The tree never answered them, of course, but if it could have, it would have told them that it reached for the stars every day. It could turn orange, but it really preferred purple in the spring. And it would have told them that they picked a very good spot, and that it was looking forward to spending its life with them. It would have told them that it longed to be with them, and it was terrified for the day when they might move on, as all of the travellers did.
Over time, the tree began to worry more. And though the children laughed and climbed and showed no signs of age, the tree began to grow frightened that they would one day lose their love of it. It did not want to be alone. So, every time they suggested a different colour, it would change colours the very next season. And every time they were too tired to walk up their little hill, it gave them the best, thickest shade it could muster. And every time they asked it about the heavens, it grew more determined to pluck the stars from the sky. Whatever they wanted or wondered, it would give them.
And one day, it grew so tall and thick and bright, that it blocked out the sun. It blocked out the view of the mountain, and the view of the forest. And then the best sitting spot in the meadow saw no more sunrises. All the children could see was their tree.
“This is boring,” the boy complained. “The shade has made the grass wilt. And I’m cold.”
“No!” The girl ran down to the tree trunk and gave it a big hug. “We can’t leave it! It’s our baby!”
“Please? It’s boring. It’s just a lot of work. Ya can’t climb it, it’s too big! And I can’t see it, ‘cause it’s too dark! And it takes up so much room, you can’t even plant anything else!” The boy was pouting now. This wasn’t any fun.
“Fine! YOU leave,” she said, with her hands on her hips. “But I’m staying. We gotta protect it!”
“WHY? It doesn’t need protecting! Look how huge it is!! COME ON. Let’s GOOOOOO.” The boy stomped in a circle.
“No. You just don’t understand.”
“FINE!” The boy stamped away. When he reached the boarder of the forest he looked back. The tree had grown again, and he could not see her. She was gone.
~~~
“Jacob, I’m leaving.” She had to shout against the rain. She jumped inside her vehicle and slammed the door shut. Her wet fingers fumbled with the keys.
What affections do your fake forests feign?
He was at her window. She locked the door. “Please work, please work, please work.” It started. The windshield wipers started along with the engine. “Fucker can take care of himself.” Her foot pressed down on the metal pedal and the car moved forward against the rain.
All the world a spirit without a shell.
She didn’t look back.
There were 3 good sitting spots in the meadow. But the best one of all was the one that overlooked the road on both sides of its journey. After it came up from the stream, and cut between the 3rd and 2nd best sitting spots in the meadow, it gave a soft turn to the left. And then, after a brief stretch, it disappeared into the forest; a place less traveled. There was a small hill, an antelope’s gallop from where the road turned to the left, which was perfect. The grass was always green there; soft, tall and lush. You could watch the road climb down from the mountain, or watch it disappear into the unknown. It was there that the sunrises looked the best.
Two children had discovered this sitting spot one day. Every day they came out to play in the meadow. They ran and giggled and often tripped. The boy found snakes and the girl braided grass, and they both sat in their spot when they were tired. Napping never felt so beautiful.
One day the boy woke up before the girl. And instead of a snake, he found a seed.
~~~
We are the children borne of a yesterday that never existed. And while the fathers of tomorrow call and clamour for the abortion that never happened, the smell of our carcasses pollutes their skyline. What sweet treasure is this, where devils run scared of their own handiwork? Cruel temptation. And how the sacred must reply in kind, silenced by echoes. The Becoming mute their own pleas for pity. And I am left with cigarette smoke. There is no more comfortable lie.
Bodies of long dead homeless decorated the streets below. Old abandoned buildings crammed next to one another for warmth in the chill of emptiness. The windows were all boarded up, illustrated with the graffiti of a former time. Garbage drifted in the early morning breeze. Noise was not heard, but its absence was felt. It was not the night that had sapped these slums of all their savagery; they had always been this way. In the distance, the buildings began to stretch like trees and movement started.
And so the silver spires rise to deceive the skies.
Jacob looked on from the overpass above. He stood as if to preside over the absence below. His long, black hair fell to the collar of his trench-coat. His frame was the very foundation of a man. His feet were naked and bloody. A cigarette hung between his lips.
A vehicle approached. This was an event. Cars did not travel on this bridge. It was long abandoned; the same excommunication of the slums had encouraged the barren roads. Nothing travelled on this road anymore. Jacob himself would not take this exodus.
The vehicle stopped. Someone got out. It was her.
“You really are insane, Jacob, you know that? The fucking Borderlands – I find you taking a morning stroll in the fucking Borderlands? Just once I wish you would make some kind of sense, ya know? Like normal people?”
Jacob shrugged, barely acknowledging his acquaintance. We all become sons to our own children.
“Faaaaaaaaaaaaack. See? This is what I mean. You can’t even talk like other people. You always gotta do the mind-thing. Tele-apathy or whatever.” She walked forward, animatedly tapping her head to emphasize her point. It was little use, however. Jacob had his back turned and continued to lean on the overpass railing. “What the hell are you doing here, anyways?”
Spiritus Mundi
~~~
“Where should we plant it – where should we plant it?” the girl asked excitedly. She had just woken up and was skipping around with glee after hearing about the seed. The grass braids in her hair bounced playfully. “I think we should plant it here, by the road. Because then people going by can enjoy it!” She smiled a big toothy smile, and her eyes were bright and cheerful.
The boy had just rolled down the hill, and was covered in grass and soil. His face was painted with dirt. He pretended to look very seriously at the area that the girl had suggested, but in truth he was just as excited as she was. “Hmm,” he said. “There aren’t too many snakes here. And we can carry water from the stream.”
“And when the sun comes over the mountains it will shower the plant in gold,” the girl said, grinning as big as her face would let her. “The sunlight always lands right here,” she said, accenting her point with a twirl. Her voice sounded like innocence.
So that’s what they did. They planted the seed a few feet from the bend in the dirt road. He dug a hole with his hands and dropped in the seed and she made sure that the lump was properly tended. Then they ran all the way down to the stream and ran all the way back up with water in their clasped hands. Not much was left after it had spilled and leaked from between their fingers, but it was enough make the soil wet. And there was plenty of laughter left over.
~~~
It started to rain. A light sprinkle fell from the thick clouds above. “What? What the hell does Spiritus Mundi mean? Now you’re not even speaking English!”
Dawns were meant to be missed. Dusks meant to be revered. It is the very spirit of the world.
“Well, listen, Jay. I don’t give a shit about dawns or dusks or the world. But I do care about spirits - do you know what they say about this place?”
This is our world, turned to stone.
“No... they say that strange spirits once lived here. Barbaric invisible things, and now they’re homeless. They’ll take revenge on anything that lingers here!” She grabbed his arm and turned him towards her. “We gotta get-“
The scars always made her flinch. “We gotta get out of here. You know, go back into the city limits.”
His eyes were two different colours – one red and the other didn’t matter. And the scars littered his face, though long since healed. He tossed his cigarette.
The fleshy fingers of fantasy wrap around reality. Their empty shells protect a growth that’s never tasted life. A death in a cage is an execution of soul. A sour rot of condemnation. Where is your conviction? Can you not hear beyond your echo? Do not stay dead there, dear child.
She drew back. “What? What are you talking about. Oh God... They don’t have you, do they? They do. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Jacob, snap out of it. We’ve got to go. Get in the car,” she marched across the empty street hurriedly. The rain was really coming down now. He stood there and opened his hands to the weather.
“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST GET IN THE CAR!!” Her frustration burst.
The daughter of Lucifer laughs God’s tears. She scampers around her own creation. Hell would keep her out, but her ambitions are angelic. She would build wings for man in exchange for a cage. And they would build it, and never walk again.
Your Borderlands long for love. The sunlight always lands right here.
His coat was soaked.
~~~
The seed grew into a sapling, and that sapling grew into a tree. The girl was right. The location was perfect, and the dawn always struck first light on the ground where they had planted it. It grew fast and strong as a result. Its trunk was firm and before they thought it possible, its branches were reaching for the sky. In the spring the tree bloomed wonderful bright colours – wild pink and purple buds.
Passer-bys often enjoyed the shade and stopped for a while. They would eat lunch and then pack up and head into the forest. It was the perfect break for people who had just climbed over the mountain. The two children looked after the tree. When a bird made a nest, the boy always found worms for it. When visitors had left their garbage, the girl always picked it up. And in the afternoons, they would both sit in their sitting spot and call down to the tree.
“Hey tree! Can you grow orange leaves?”
“Of course it can grow orange leaves. But you have to wait until next season, silly.” They giggled and laughed.
“Hey tree! Can you reach the stars?
“Maybe it can!”
The tree never answered them, of course, but if it could have, it would have told them that it reached for the stars every day. It could turn orange, but it really preferred purple in the spring. And it would have told them that they picked a very good spot, and that it was looking forward to spending its life with them. It would have told them that it longed to be with them, and it was terrified for the day when they might move on, as all of the travellers did.
Over time, the tree began to worry more. And though the children laughed and climbed and showed no signs of age, the tree began to grow frightened that they would one day lose their love of it. It did not want to be alone. So, every time they suggested a different colour, it would change colours the very next season. And every time they were too tired to walk up their little hill, it gave them the best, thickest shade it could muster. And every time they asked it about the heavens, it grew more determined to pluck the stars from the sky. Whatever they wanted or wondered, it would give them.
And one day, it grew so tall and thick and bright, that it blocked out the sun. It blocked out the view of the mountain, and the view of the forest. And then the best sitting spot in the meadow saw no more sunrises. All the children could see was their tree.
“This is boring,” the boy complained. “The shade has made the grass wilt. And I’m cold.”
“No!” The girl ran down to the tree trunk and gave it a big hug. “We can’t leave it! It’s our baby!”
“Please? It’s boring. It’s just a lot of work. Ya can’t climb it, it’s too big! And I can’t see it, ‘cause it’s too dark! And it takes up so much room, you can’t even plant anything else!” The boy was pouting now. This wasn’t any fun.
“Fine! YOU leave,” she said, with her hands on her hips. “But I’m staying. We gotta protect it!”
“WHY? It doesn’t need protecting! Look how huge it is!! COME ON. Let’s GOOOOOO.” The boy stomped in a circle.
“No. You just don’t understand.”
“FINE!” The boy stamped away. When he reached the boarder of the forest he looked back. The tree had grown again, and he could not see her. She was gone.
~~~
“Jacob, I’m leaving.” She had to shout against the rain. She jumped inside her vehicle and slammed the door shut. Her wet fingers fumbled with the keys.
What affections do your fake forests feign?
He was at her window. She locked the door. “Please work, please work, please work.” It started. The windshield wipers started along with the engine. “Fucker can take care of himself.” Her foot pressed down on the metal pedal and the car moved forward against the rain.
All the world a spirit without a shell.
She didn’t look back.
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