So - you want to hear a story. You’ve guessed by now that I have a lot of stories, I’m just chock-fucking-full of stories and always happy to share. Misery loves company, and everyone loves a good story, not to mention a good story-teller, and all that. It’s a load of shit, as far as I’m concerned. Half of my stories are lies, anyone told you that yet?
But. You want a story. Fine. You want a story about Blood and the City, yeah? To help you understand what goes on here. Fine - I’ll give you a story, and I’ll even tell the truth and nothing but the truth. So help me and all the false Gods.
***
Once upon a time, I dated a boy. A straight-up boy, if you can believe it. He wasn’t a tranny, or a trans-human (I have a weakness for cat ears and sharp canines), or a set of twins with identical boy/girl faces, or any variations on the weirdness that I am accustomed to. I was trying something different, for fuck’s sake; something different being something normal, except that’s not exactly what I got. I was going for respectable, because I thought it was time I grew up a bit, and growing up means being boring, if I understand the concept correctly.
You would know, wouldn’t you? You’re doing the opposite here. You wandered into my little world of depravity looking for a way out of normal, right?
You’re doing a fine job of it, so keep listening.
This boy that I was dating – and when I say dating, I mean the whole deal, dinner and movies and fucking on a proper bed afterwards – worked in one of the tall shiny buildings in the heart of the City. Don’t ask me what he did in his tall shiny building. I would assume it had something to do with money, the making and trading of dollar bills. He didn’t talk about it, and I never asked. I’m a bit too rough trade for finance.
This boy – on the outside, he was all fancy suits and money clips (real fucking money clips, can you believe it?) and an apartment way up in the sky – but on the inside, he was something else.
Something else entirely.
The place he took me, well, I won’t lie – I got off on it. He took me to a place I’d only ever heard of, and would never have gone to otherwise. He took me to Hell.
Or at least a pretty close fucking approximation. We’re talking depravity of the lowest sort. We drove for hours in his little silver car, until we came to a line of buildings, and chain-link fences, and beyond that, darkness. The barking of dogs the only thing I could hear. The barking of dogs may have been the only sound left in the universe. We were on the Edge – at the Borderlands.
I’m not scared of much, but I’d never been to the Borderlands before, and I had never wanted to. That place was for the kind of depraved freaks that I fucked now and then – don’t get me wrong, I like to touch the Edge – but I never wanted to take the scenic tour, you know?
But this guy, he was normal, and he was willing to get closer than I’d ever been. I couldn’t argue with that.
We got out of the car. I stayed by my side, and didn’t quite shut my door, but he walked towards the building. He tapped sharply on the door - one two three times – and the dogs stopped barking. Just like that. I couldn’t see the dogs, and they had stopped barking, but I could hear them panting.
Then the kids came out.
I mean, these kids are for real. They live in the sewers and the old warehouses of the City, right on the edge of the City where everything goes black and no one is really sure what’s beyond it. They live in factories gone to rust and rats and the awful stench of desperation. These kids have gone feral. It makes sense, since they’re living on the edge of the City; who knows what’s past the borders, or what they’ve touched out there. Jesus christ – maybe what they’ve brought back from the edge.
Twenty of them, at least, creeping out of the sagging doorway of a warehouse. Real skinny, like Holocaust-skinny, barely clothed, these kids moved like predator and prey, as if they weren’t sure which side they were on. Horror-movie stuff.
I still couldn’t see the dogs, but they were whining now.
My boy walked towards them a bit too purposefully, if you ask me – it seemed that some deference was called for, given the situation and our complete lack of weaponry, unless you counted my heels. Which I didn’t. But he walked up to one of the kids like it was fucking nothing, whispered in his ear, and that was it. The kid made some complicated gesture I could barely see, growled a noise in the back of his throat, and the whole merry gang of them crept back inside.
I couldn’t hear the dogs panting anymore. They didn’t start barking again either. The world was all black and quiet.
The boy turned around and smiled deliciously (have I mentioned his lips yet, how they curled at the edges just so when he smiled?). I shut the car door, breaking the quiet at the Edge of the City, and followed him towards the door, into the dark.
We came out hours - or maybe days – later. The sun hurt my eyes.
But this story is not about what happened in the Warehouse, and in the sewers, and at the very Edge of the City that first night, or even the many nights after. If you need a fucking visual though, to help you along – well, just look.
You see the scars, right there, on my back? The first one, the one on my shoulder, I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be. I think it’s in the shape of a paw, though the most fucked-up paw I’ve ever had the distinct lack of pleasure to see. I mean, paws as I know them have four padded toes and another pad in the middle, but this one…You can see it, so you know I mean. Fucked up. I don’t remember much of how it got there – I think it took awhile to cut into me, I’m sure there was lots of blood and terrible pain and I am certain I would have screamed – but I don’t remember much else.
The others, though, I remember them pretty clearly. They came after the first night. There is a symbol in the middle of my back, like a triangle with a cross in it, except the cross is upside down, and I remember how that felt going in. That one was a brand, and I remember begging the creeping little Holocaust children to make it hotter.
The yellow eye on my hip, that one I did myself. One of the children drew it, but I cut the skin with a razorblade afterwards to make it really stand out. I don’t know where they found the ink.
The boy that I was dating, he and I had some identical pictures on us.
But that is not the story I am telling. The story I am telling you is about my last visit to the Edge.
By this time, the boy and I were barely even dating. I mean, we were fucking regularly (on a proper bed, of course), and we still went out for dinner and watched movies, but we didn’t talk, not anymore. I think I had already forgotten his name by then. Which was fine. The daytime was all foreplay anyway, it was all leading up to the delicious climax of the Warehouse and the Edge. The Edge – where I never once looked the feral children in the eyes, I didn’t speak their language, and I never even saw their dogs until that last visit.
We drove there, in his silver car, to the Edge, as always. My body was thrumming with excitement, as always. My pussy was fairly twitching already. As always. We got out of his car. At this point, I didn’t even hesitate – I got out, slammed the door shut, and strode forward. Impatient. As always. He got out, whispered in the child’s ear (a different child every time, I thought, although I could never be sure), and I followed him inside. As always.
I see the look on your face. How badly you want to go inside the Warehouse too, so you can feel everything I felt. I can scar you, if you want. I could even take you there, if that’s what you think you want.
Idiot.
You’re so sure you want to hear this story. So fucking sure that you know where it’s going, and what you’re willing to hear. Fine. Fuck it. Let’s get on with it, shall we?
We walked through the door, and the smell hit me, as it always did, meaty and thick. I breathed it in – I loved the smell in there – but this time, it was different. The children and the Edge and the Warehouse always smelled to me like possibility, like hot steamy life bubbling up from the City’s veins. Delicious, usually.
But this night – I don’t know, it was like in that stinking warren of empty rooms and sewers something very wrong was waiting. Like something waiting for the wrong kind of possibility. My body was still shaking, though, and electric currents were going up and down my arms, as they always did when I went there. I was ready for the spill of blood – the hot shame of it – and I was looking into the shadows wondering what the children wanted from me tonight - until I realized it wasn’t me they wanted, not this time.
While I was breathing in the rank air and shivering in the electricity of my body, they had chained him up, in the middle of the room.
Fuck this. Now I’m drifting into poetry land. ‘The hot shame of it?’ ‘Shivering in the electricity of my body?’ Don’t ever expect poetry from me, not again. The hot shame of it indeed.
He was chained to the fucking ceiling, if you can believe it. Like, his arms were raised above him, in cuffs attached to chains attached to something – a meat hook, maybe, or some piece of machinery. I couldn’t see that far up. He was dangling, kind of, and he reminded me of a puppet, and I couldn’t help but laugh. His head was hanging, and for a second I thought he was dead, but when I laughed he jerked his head up, sharply, and laughed with me. He smiled that delicious smile and whispered something to me that I couldn’t quite hear.
No. I promised to tell the truth. I’m pretty sure he said ‘Enjoy the show’.
I couldn’t see the children anymore. I could hear them whispering in their low husky language, but I couldn’t see them. There were a lot of shadows in the room.
I could see the dogs, though, for the first time. Three of them, the three largest dogs I’ve ever seen. I don’t know – I’m not even convinced they were dogs. They padded to the middle of the room, and I could hear them, clearly. They were speaking in the same guttural language as the children as they moved – and they moved like predators, no question.
They crouched low, and they started with his legs. There it was, the thing I was waiting for – there was the hot spill of blood. I may have even gotten some on me. It’s a weird sound, the sound of bones crunching. And as they tore at the boy – my delicious boy - the skinny children and the dog-things seemed to laugh. If what I heard could be described as laughter.
I’m pretty sure my delicious, normal boy was laughing too. At least until the dogs were done with him.
***
That’s it. Not much of a conclusion, I know. I got out of there pretty fast after that; I didn’t know how much of an appetite the dogs had worked up, and I didn’t want to stick around to find out. I took the silver car with me, I’m not afraid to admit it. He wouldn’t need it anymore. And I’m not afraid to admit that I took what I could from his apartment in the sky, including enough money to keep me in drugs and booze and sex for as long as I needed them.
Fuck you. I figure he owed me that much.
I see the look on your face. I hope you’ve learned your fucking lesson - don’t go slumming unless you’re prepared to fall headfirst into the goddamn gutter. Don’t go to the Edge unless you want to hear the dogs fucking howl at midnight. There are things out there that only some of us were meant to see.
The. Fucking. End.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
The Lost Ecclesiastes
But it will be.
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:”
They had broken the rules. They had taken the most sacred of laws and shattered it, in one fell swoop. One dangerous and unforgivable motion had divided the oceans and moved the moon. It had siphoned mediocrity from the rain of consistency. They had, in their blatant and impotent arrogance moved selfishly into the depths of depravity. Against the current of every river that had carried them. Their hunger had bested them. Their thirst had drowned them.
And now, so would he.
What once was grey was black and white again.
The blood rolled down his legs and on to his ankles. He could feel the burning of the wounds – 6 brutal teeth marks each. 3 beasts of indistinguishable rapture. An unconventional pain. This damage would not heal. This infected blood does not clot. These injuries were meant to tear at the memory, and bite down to the soul. The darkest of demons leave scars on the inside, not the outside. Blood dripped to the floor with his every step.
His torn jeans scraped against the lesions where they had tried to hold him down. His hands balled tightly; he could still remember their flesh on his fingertips as he struggled to force them away. But he could only keep them at bay. His face was contorted, its disposition determined and intent. His shirt was undamaged and un-smudged – the miracle of irony. It flowed briskly.
Memories came now, as he walked: memories of the unforgettable.
~~~
The wretched beasts had closed in. He ignored them – that was the law. They drew so close he could smell their breath. He would not be deterred, and he would not waiver. Their air was foul. They circled and saliva dripped from their mouths. He held his head high this time; though his fear reeked, he would not relent to them. Not this time. Not this time.
Then pain: searing, shocking, unforgettable pain. What was it? He looked down and saw them there, he watched one bite, he watched another tear. What was he to do? His worst fears bubbled up to meet him and pressed at his chest, pinning him down. Finally, his awe relented, but already they were upon him, feasting. Devouring him.
He fought. He screamed. He yearned for intervention.
It was not fair. It was not fair! This was not the law! Their hunger would be sated and he would be left for dead against his will. This was not his will. This was not right. No, no, no, it had to be his will. No, no,
NO!
They looked up; some trifling instinct had moved them. Had removed them. Blood draped over their teeth, but would not be swallowed. Their meal caught in their throats. They snarled and glared and nipped at one another. Then at once, they fled in great scorn; fallen from Satan’s grace. He collapsed.
~~~
He was running now. His stride was empowered by his past. Nevermore would it be hindered by fear or the beast’s bated breath. Their yelps would not save them from his wrath. Their warnings would not stay his hand. Now they were the damned. Where once kings sat grinning, the treasonous now looked for escape. They would not find it, not even in the very depths of Hell.
He was now a renegade, like they once were. Derelict of Heaven, never could he expect the Great Hand to deliver justice against a rabid Cerberus. Divine justice was saved for the devout, and there was a limited supply. But there was no limit to his supply. They had provided him with infinite capacity. Righteousness was the sharpest spear. There was no better weapon for a vigilante.
He would search every shadow of the night. He would move to trap them in their own feeding grounds – the farms of fatigue and failure. They would be offered no mercy. The best they could hope for was a moment’s hesitation. That was the only advantage their Mistake had earned them. His zeal would see him through; searching moral high ground and Lucifer’s low ground, for they had been known to wander both. They would know no reprieve, he knew new laws now.
When he found them, there would be murder. Swift and strange. Brutal and beautiful.
“A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,
A time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,
A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
A time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away,
A time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,
A time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”
Finally, it would be time for morning.
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:”
They had broken the rules. They had taken the most sacred of laws and shattered it, in one fell swoop. One dangerous and unforgivable motion had divided the oceans and moved the moon. It had siphoned mediocrity from the rain of consistency. They had, in their blatant and impotent arrogance moved selfishly into the depths of depravity. Against the current of every river that had carried them. Their hunger had bested them. Their thirst had drowned them.
And now, so would he.
What once was grey was black and white again.
The blood rolled down his legs and on to his ankles. He could feel the burning of the wounds – 6 brutal teeth marks each. 3 beasts of indistinguishable rapture. An unconventional pain. This damage would not heal. This infected blood does not clot. These injuries were meant to tear at the memory, and bite down to the soul. The darkest of demons leave scars on the inside, not the outside. Blood dripped to the floor with his every step.
His torn jeans scraped against the lesions where they had tried to hold him down. His hands balled tightly; he could still remember their flesh on his fingertips as he struggled to force them away. But he could only keep them at bay. His face was contorted, its disposition determined and intent. His shirt was undamaged and un-smudged – the miracle of irony. It flowed briskly.
Memories came now, as he walked: memories of the unforgettable.
~~~
The wretched beasts had closed in. He ignored them – that was the law. They drew so close he could smell their breath. He would not be deterred, and he would not waiver. Their air was foul. They circled and saliva dripped from their mouths. He held his head high this time; though his fear reeked, he would not relent to them. Not this time. Not this time.
Then pain: searing, shocking, unforgettable pain. What was it? He looked down and saw them there, he watched one bite, he watched another tear. What was he to do? His worst fears bubbled up to meet him and pressed at his chest, pinning him down. Finally, his awe relented, but already they were upon him, feasting. Devouring him.
He fought. He screamed. He yearned for intervention.
It was not fair. It was not fair! This was not the law! Their hunger would be sated and he would be left for dead against his will. This was not his will. This was not right. No, no, no, it had to be his will. No, no,
NO!
They looked up; some trifling instinct had moved them. Had removed them. Blood draped over their teeth, but would not be swallowed. Their meal caught in their throats. They snarled and glared and nipped at one another. Then at once, they fled in great scorn; fallen from Satan’s grace. He collapsed.
~~~
He was running now. His stride was empowered by his past. Nevermore would it be hindered by fear or the beast’s bated breath. Their yelps would not save them from his wrath. Their warnings would not stay his hand. Now they were the damned. Where once kings sat grinning, the treasonous now looked for escape. They would not find it, not even in the very depths of Hell.
He was now a renegade, like they once were. Derelict of Heaven, never could he expect the Great Hand to deliver justice against a rabid Cerberus. Divine justice was saved for the devout, and there was a limited supply. But there was no limit to his supply. They had provided him with infinite capacity. Righteousness was the sharpest spear. There was no better weapon for a vigilante.
He would search every shadow of the night. He would move to trap them in their own feeding grounds – the farms of fatigue and failure. They would be offered no mercy. The best they could hope for was a moment’s hesitation. That was the only advantage their Mistake had earned them. His zeal would see him through; searching moral high ground and Lucifer’s low ground, for they had been known to wander both. They would know no reprieve, he knew new laws now.
When he found them, there would be murder. Swift and strange. Brutal and beautiful.
“A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,
A time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,
A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
A time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away,
A time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,
A time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”
Finally, it would be time for morning.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Tonight, the Moon
Prologue
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
from ‘Lady Lazarus’, by Sylvia Plath
Content
Wake up.
Wake up.
Open your eyes.
Breath. It hurts, I know.
Something is wrong. This is wrong. The light is wrong. The room is wrong.
Look around.
White.
beep. beep. beep.
The heartbeat of heartless machines. Sleeping stirring murmuring. Sleepers. Movement outside, along the hallway.
(When I woke up I felt so foggy, I could barely see. I think. I don’t know. This part is hard to remember. I know that my arms were covered in blood. I know that they stung. My stomach hurt so much. My little sister came into my room, she was eleven years old. I held up the bottle and the razor blade, I didn’t say a word. I think I showed her my arm. I think. I don’t know. There was a bowl next to my bed. I didn’t remember putting it there. It was full of something thick, doughy, acrid. Vomit. I don’t remember the next part. I don’t remember getting there, I don’t remember the drive to the hospital. They stuck me with needles. My throat hurt, my stomach hurt, my muscles hurt, my liver hurt. The machines made me throw up for a day, for twenty-four hours. I remember that. I remember the vomit. I remember that, I think.)
You were never supposed to wake up.
You never should have opened your eyes.
The room is white.
The room is moaning.
Don’t move.
Don’t move.
Don’t move.
The dogs wait. The dogs pace. You can hear them in the hallway. The dogs grin.
You were never supposed to wake up.
(For a long time afterwards, I thought I was in hell. I’m not delusional, I’m not crazy, but I thought I was in hell. I thought I was being punished, and this was my punishment: three AM in a hospital bed, and the sound of the dogs in the hall. I thought that I would be there forever, and I very nearly was. Once you’ve experienced the hospital at three o’clock in the morning, you will never be the same. Once you’ve experienced the sounds of a hospital room in the darkness, it’s so easy to believe in hell. I thought I was in hell, for years afterwards. No one knows this.)
Close your eyes.
Sleep.
It’s not morning, not yet.
Epilogue (1995)
Sheet
The moon will be full of me tonight.
She will be bloated and round.
I will be flat.
A white sheet with black cut-outs for eyes.
They will fold me into a smooth square.
No wrinkles, no imperfections –
I will be plentiful no longer.
Tonight
Tangled in the light of the moon last night,
I tried.
I rolled ten small death-caps in my palm,
and ten more, and many after that.
Water evaporated, the chalk coating my throat.
Drip, drip, slide.
Empty thoughts drip into a dead nerve.
Hot and cold and spinning and red red everywhere
White
White, hands, a room of twisting room.
I am wretched, I am inside out,
Pulled and contorted in a room of mirrors.
But I am not silver. I am blue like a bruise,
I am collapsing.
In the empty white room I shake, I am awake.
The spark burns me. Black and pitted,
floating on a vein-wave, my arm is drunk.
Museum
This room is a museum.
We are tended to, carefully,
we are exhibits.
You can look, we say, but never ever touch.
We are vulgar mummies, cracked and peeling,
heart-empty.
The fish-eyed doctors swimming through
an antiseptic sea.
Don’t touch, we say. Please stay away.
Make-Believe
A new room, a new floor.
Here the faces are stone. The doctors are
scared. As they should be
Nurses hand out medicine,
delicious candy.
Voices, voices, shrill as the beak of a bird.
We all echo.
Twirling through the white noise of the cathedral,
the sounds of the past and memories white and vivid
chill me, to the white core of my bones.
I swerve like a frown though the thick
and I see at the foggy shore
myself, the ghost.
Frankenstein, holding the bloody scissors and
a brand-new head, is ready.
The End
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
from ‘Lady Lazarus’, by Sylvia Plath
Content
Wake up.
Wake up.
Open your eyes.
Breath. It hurts, I know.
Something is wrong. This is wrong. The light is wrong. The room is wrong.
Look around.
White.
beep. beep. beep.
The heartbeat of heartless machines. Sleeping stirring murmuring. Sleepers. Movement outside, along the hallway.
(When I woke up I felt so foggy, I could barely see. I think. I don’t know. This part is hard to remember. I know that my arms were covered in blood. I know that they stung. My stomach hurt so much. My little sister came into my room, she was eleven years old. I held up the bottle and the razor blade, I didn’t say a word. I think I showed her my arm. I think. I don’t know. There was a bowl next to my bed. I didn’t remember putting it there. It was full of something thick, doughy, acrid. Vomit. I don’t remember the next part. I don’t remember getting there, I don’t remember the drive to the hospital. They stuck me with needles. My throat hurt, my stomach hurt, my muscles hurt, my liver hurt. The machines made me throw up for a day, for twenty-four hours. I remember that. I remember the vomit. I remember that, I think.)
You were never supposed to wake up.
You never should have opened your eyes.
The room is white.
The room is moaning.
Don’t move.
Don’t move.
Don’t move.
The dogs wait. The dogs pace. You can hear them in the hallway. The dogs grin.
You were never supposed to wake up.
(For a long time afterwards, I thought I was in hell. I’m not delusional, I’m not crazy, but I thought I was in hell. I thought I was being punished, and this was my punishment: three AM in a hospital bed, and the sound of the dogs in the hall. I thought that I would be there forever, and I very nearly was. Once you’ve experienced the hospital at three o’clock in the morning, you will never be the same. Once you’ve experienced the sounds of a hospital room in the darkness, it’s so easy to believe in hell. I thought I was in hell, for years afterwards. No one knows this.)
Close your eyes.
Sleep.
It’s not morning, not yet.
Epilogue (1995)
Sheet
The moon will be full of me tonight.
She will be bloated and round.
I will be flat.
A white sheet with black cut-outs for eyes.
They will fold me into a smooth square.
No wrinkles, no imperfections –
I will be plentiful no longer.
Tonight
Tangled in the light of the moon last night,
I tried.
I rolled ten small death-caps in my palm,
and ten more, and many after that.
Water evaporated, the chalk coating my throat.
Drip, drip, slide.
Empty thoughts drip into a dead nerve.
Hot and cold and spinning and red red everywhere
White
White, hands, a room of twisting room.
I am wretched, I am inside out,
Pulled and contorted in a room of mirrors.
But I am not silver. I am blue like a bruise,
I am collapsing.
In the empty white room I shake, I am awake.
The spark burns me. Black and pitted,
floating on a vein-wave, my arm is drunk.
Museum
This room is a museum.
We are tended to, carefully,
we are exhibits.
You can look, we say, but never ever touch.
We are vulgar mummies, cracked and peeling,
heart-empty.
The fish-eyed doctors swimming through
an antiseptic sea.
Don’t touch, we say. Please stay away.
Make-Believe
A new room, a new floor.
Here the faces are stone. The doctors are
scared. As they should be
Nurses hand out medicine,
delicious candy.
Voices, voices, shrill as the beak of a bird.
We all echo.
Twirling through the white noise of the cathedral,
the sounds of the past and memories white and vivid
chill me, to the white core of my bones.
I swerve like a frown though the thick
and I see at the foggy shore
myself, the ghost.
Frankenstein, holding the bloody scissors and
a brand-new head, is ready.
The End
Friday, August 7, 2009
Free Speech
“Nothing will ever, ever, be the same.”
Eternal truths light up the sky like wild-fire. Subtle acceptance drifts downwards like ash, floats from its combustion of experience and happenstance, and rains as soot into the valleys of one way thinkers. Smog, a heavy haze, lingers; its recognition forced into every breath. It stings the eyes of the believers, who thank their lucky stars for their good understanding. It kills those who are too old or too young to take to its indoctrination.
But between quotation marks are no doors to eternality. From speech comes the blessed light of a different kind of knowledge: the temporary, the tangible, the real. Its syntax drives the alive, and resurrects the dead. Its very tone is application, not syllogism, and its inflection delivers direct promises about our lives here and now, not indirect insights about the way the world must be.
I have spoken to the Gods. I have told Them that I intended to change my world. They replied with a sardonic grin, changing my world for me. “Nothing will ever, ever, be the same.”
Nothing lingers in the empty space of hospital rooms at 3am in the morning. Your life ceases when you first entered the white walls. It doesn’t continue in a different form like they all said it would. It is in the quiet of the night where those illusions are so obviously laid to rest and the under-circulated, over-sanitized air staggers between you and the clock. 3:07am. There are no visitors at this hour. No one who knows you, to tell you about the world outside the gates. The call button hangs, a giant red herring tied to the bed. What salvation can it bring? No. This is an initiation. This is a cleanse. Who you are is here.
Freedom from distractions is not a torture that one forgets. It extends time excruciatingly in the moment like a physical pain, and it haunts in every moment afterwards, like an emotional one.
But this, the worst of tortures, is also the gateway to the best of bliss. For when one is finally released again, into the open air, they discover all else has burned away. All of the old obligations and ties have felt the heat of an impersonal time. And like all things exposed to such perfection, they did not survive. Worries have been whipped away by the wind.
The skies are clear, crisp and blue. Fresh and perfect. The valleys are cleared and manoeuvrable, finally empty of the jungle that once threatened to trip travellers and choke inhabitants. The sun does not glare or oppress: it invites rebuilding, and subtly offers no other choice. But, feeling the warmth of existence itself, no other is needed. No other is wanted. Who you are is finally clear. Who you are is here.
There is an emptiness this time as well. But it is a robust emptiness, full of opportunity and resource. All the old statues and broken structures offer blue-prints for a new life. All the old connections and histories can be buried or forgotten or polished or cherished. The lakes are not polluted, and the hills are not crowded. Yesterday’s paths lay bare, as examples and memories.
In silence, paradise is revealed. Nothing need ever be the same again.
That’s not a fact. That’s a statement. I’m telling you this. We are released to live again. Everything lingers in the empty space of recovering souls at 3am in the morning. It tastes sweet, and it feels new again. It sounds possible, and it looks exciting. It smells freeing.
I will build.
Eternal truths light up the sky like wild-fire. Subtle acceptance drifts downwards like ash, floats from its combustion of experience and happenstance, and rains as soot into the valleys of one way thinkers. Smog, a heavy haze, lingers; its recognition forced into every breath. It stings the eyes of the believers, who thank their lucky stars for their good understanding. It kills those who are too old or too young to take to its indoctrination.
But between quotation marks are no doors to eternality. From speech comes the blessed light of a different kind of knowledge: the temporary, the tangible, the real. Its syntax drives the alive, and resurrects the dead. Its very tone is application, not syllogism, and its inflection delivers direct promises about our lives here and now, not indirect insights about the way the world must be.
I have spoken to the Gods. I have told Them that I intended to change my world. They replied with a sardonic grin, changing my world for me. “Nothing will ever, ever, be the same.”
Nothing lingers in the empty space of hospital rooms at 3am in the morning. Your life ceases when you first entered the white walls. It doesn’t continue in a different form like they all said it would. It is in the quiet of the night where those illusions are so obviously laid to rest and the under-circulated, over-sanitized air staggers between you and the clock. 3:07am. There are no visitors at this hour. No one who knows you, to tell you about the world outside the gates. The call button hangs, a giant red herring tied to the bed. What salvation can it bring? No. This is an initiation. This is a cleanse. Who you are is here.
Freedom from distractions is not a torture that one forgets. It extends time excruciatingly in the moment like a physical pain, and it haunts in every moment afterwards, like an emotional one.
But this, the worst of tortures, is also the gateway to the best of bliss. For when one is finally released again, into the open air, they discover all else has burned away. All of the old obligations and ties have felt the heat of an impersonal time. And like all things exposed to such perfection, they did not survive. Worries have been whipped away by the wind.
The skies are clear, crisp and blue. Fresh and perfect. The valleys are cleared and manoeuvrable, finally empty of the jungle that once threatened to trip travellers and choke inhabitants. The sun does not glare or oppress: it invites rebuilding, and subtly offers no other choice. But, feeling the warmth of existence itself, no other is needed. No other is wanted. Who you are is finally clear. Who you are is here.
There is an emptiness this time as well. But it is a robust emptiness, full of opportunity and resource. All the old statues and broken structures offer blue-prints for a new life. All the old connections and histories can be buried or forgotten or polished or cherished. The lakes are not polluted, and the hills are not crowded. Yesterday’s paths lay bare, as examples and memories.
In silence, paradise is revealed. Nothing need ever be the same again.
That’s not a fact. That’s a statement. I’m telling you this. We are released to live again. Everything lingers in the empty space of recovering souls at 3am in the morning. It tastes sweet, and it feels new again. It sounds possible, and it looks exciting. It smells freeing.
I will build.
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