Three
youths (syn. inexperience, vigour, ant. wisdom, weakness) wander into the woods
(deep, dark, foreboding). On their backs are supplies (food, water, sleeping
bags, tent, knife) and in their hearts...
The
path is old and overgrown - once made of cobblestone, now naught but mud and
drowned stone and forest ferns, and they watch their steps like old men watch
the skies - looking ever for a coming storm. The trees too are old, and they
have watched much, the path built, then overgrown, travellers upon it (legion),
and other things besides, the creatures of the forest, deer and skunk and wolf
and squirrel and Something Else (here be dragons - arch, grand, but low, the
vole, death at last? ignoble).
Each
of the youths carries with them a trope (delineation, subversion, control - go
on go up go forth). The muscle, the brains, the ghost. The first fights because
all he knows is how to fight (or does he - images, subversion, designs on the
self). The second thinks because all he knows is how to think (but do we not
all know how to think, this existentialism’s fundamental crux, so does this not
render him empty, hollow?). And the third, the unknowable, the rogue equation,
the spectre of character might-have-beens, the ghost.
Moss
is born from mud and rain and time.
The
earth was once only mud and rain and time.
Men
were born from the earth.
Men
were born from moss.
And
yet Something Else persists.
Is
a mirror not a window? And can a window not, in the right light, become itself
a mirror? What does one truly see when one sees the self - and why does one
always encounter a vague niggle of the foreign when looking on one’s own visage
in old photographs?
The
youths tromp on, their boots now muddy, their breaths haggard (slightly),
occasional sips of water, stops for bites of food, onwards, upwards, forwards,
then the clearing, the great clearing, perfect circle, too perfect, as if the
trees, their tops now scrape the sky, were dispelled by fairies. Brook babbles
through it. Flowers grow up amidst it. Giant mushrooms ring it. Yet the trees
do not touch it. And most curious of all, the little haven, shelter, cabin,
cabin in midst of forest wide, and up from its snout curls a thin sliver of
smoke, and in its mirrors (windows?) can be seen a fire burning bright in a
hearth, and the three youths grow cautious, though its manner is naught but
welcoming (ant. foreboding).
Then
the door to the cabin creaks open, and in its frame stands a woman.
And
now we wait for always we wait but now we wait and here we pause and this is a
moment of transition.
And
the woman.
In
its frame stands the woman.
And
she is tall and her body is handsome and her hair is long and auburn (caught
somehow glowing by the mid-morning sun). Her dress is all of lilac and heather,
representing in its silken folds something of a world unknown to the three who
stand transfixed. And when she speaks her words flow with acrobatic
forcing-out, just what the doctor ordered, birthen form.
“You
three who stand before me - come not further, for the forest contains much, and
much is beyond you.”
“Much
- such as trees and fern and river and stone?” Asks the brain, his cadences
subconsciously following that of their guest.
“Yes,
these things, but also Something Else.”
“A
wind through the thistle, the atmospheric transfections of high up places?”
Asks the ghost, his voice soft approaching silence.
“And
these as well. But so too Something Else.”
“Bear
and wolf and snake and eagle?” Asks the muscle, landing a beat on each word
like a punk drummer.
“Always
Something Else, name unknown, though sight seen.”
“Seen
when? We see much without seeing.” The ghost mutters.
“Ah,
but this every morning you see and every night you see, and sometimes in the
clear of unpolluted lakes you see.”
“Speak
your meaning clear. Or speak not.” The muscle implores.
“What
are mirrors but windows inwards?”
“Come.
This is a waste of time.” The brain begins to walk down the path, and the
muscle begins to follow, but the ghost stays still, facing the guest.
“Why
should we fear that which we know?”
“You
may know the sight of it, and perhaps the sound of it. But do you know the
truth of it? I think not, though you, at least, may try, even as your friends
couch their ignorance of it in false protestations of self-worth.”
“Will
this Something Else kill us?”
“This
Something Else kills all. And it kills nothing. It is itself the very
embodiment of death. But so too is it the engine of life. For the sake of your
immortal soul, stray not further into these woods, test it not.”
And
yet these men are young still, and as young men do, they ignore advice given
well, so forwards they move, onwards, upwards, inwards, towards, some
concluding dark marker not yet in their sight, and yet on, always on, this the
price, the gift, the driver, the fuel of youth. And though these men are young,
if ever they should again pierce the edges of these woods, they shall not do it
as young men. Dark passage (onwards, upwards, inwards, towards) youth then...
and always ask what then, but youth then...
Deeper
still they press, and with each step the trees grow higher, and their leaves
and needles thicker, and onwards (footsteps gentle, footprints, leave only,
silent, if no one around to hear it, louder than... if a tree falls... do we
look inwards and see our brighter suns? Can we but pierce the needles, seek the
sky? Stars or blue or sun or black or but too far gone) and onwards.
They
walk and occasionally they speak to one another, and they speak in whispers,
fear of disturbing Something... Something... what had the woman in the clearing
said? But her words have been forgotten by the muscle, reclamation of power by
the fearful. And the brain has discarded them, unnecessary distractions from
the truth that the forest beseeches him to find. But the ghost, the ghost,
always the ghost the exception, disappears under lights of a stage, silenced by
an amplifier, and when the bombs fall... But the ghost, the woman’s words are
all he can reckon, in amidst the trees. And he walks silent for their
self-purported significance, and for reasons too complex for either of the
others to explain, his companions match his silence, for they know he knows
something they can never know.
(Once
the ghost paced halls and though all around him were bodies, he was alone, and
he was entrapped in a silence that screamed, guitar licks, drum flash, and then
he saw someone see him, and he looked down and he disappeared again.)
The
deeper their steps take them, and the darker the forest grows, and the lower
the sun sinks, the more each of them independently, silently (never dare to
speak it for a deep fear not to look the fool), realizes, not suspicions, but
realizes, that Something Else is in the woods with them, Something that
profoundly does not belong, Something so much not of their place, and each of
them alone feels the thing’s eyes on them, and sees furtive movements in the
trees surrounding, and smells something just ever so slightly off on the breeze, and each of them
knows Something is very, very wrong.
If
you ever take psychedelic drugs, one of the first warnings you hear is not to
look too long into mirrors.
In
horror films, mirrors are frequently a symbol of inner evil.
One
would think that the image of the self would not inspire such disenchantment.
But so it goes.
The
true self and the real self and the inner self and the outer self and the scars
and the pain and the self and the self and the self and what is the self but a
reflection of one’s face in a mirror?
And
the young men sit that night around a campfire, and overhead are stars, and
they roast hotdogs and marshmallows and they are the cliche but the cliche is
good so they are happy to be of it. And they talk and they laugh, and though in
another life these three would never dare greet each other with truth, in this
life they are the best of friends, because trope and cliche extend only so far,
and though they say much, very little is truly said for the deeper knowledge
each possesses about the others. And as their conversation seems to lull, the
brain suggests it is picked up again, a campfire tale, scary stories to tell in
the dark, old memories, book covers and skeletons and movie trailers late at
night and the imagery of death in its childhood inflection.
Then
the brain tells his story and the others laugh and the muscle feels a slight
chill up the back of his spine (eyes in the woods, between the trees, far off
glances, mystery of the darkness, it throws something deep into the haunches
and pulls). Then the muscle tells his story, and the other two look on with an
enforced hardness that belies a deeper unease (but where from - hark - the
forest has its own tales, and these tales tonight are spoken from the lips, of,
well, you know...). Then the other two looks to the ghost and he is short and
he wears black and his skin - its complexion is dark but still, somehow, he is
pale. And in their gaze, even as he knows them his friends, he shrinks.
But
he begins to speak, and he weaves a story and their blood runs cold. And as he
finishes his story, the two very distinctly see three sets of eyes watching him
from behind, and as he finishes his story he feels a palpable unease and he
sees their gazes stray from him. And he asks them what is wrong, and they can
only stare, and he turns, and he too sees the eyes.
And
then the ghost calls out, and the eyes vanish, and they hardly sleep that
night, though the figures do not immediately return.
And
then in the morning the sun pulling over the horizon, laying the shadows of the
trees out long, calls them awake. And they emerge together from the tent and
they see on a hill not so far away three young men watching them, but even as
they are but three young men, the watchers are...
Ships
and stars and far off horizons and shadows in the night and kisses on the cheek
with a giggle and mud on boots and eyes downcast and roses trampled and all are
what they are, but they are also, in the right circumstance, dawn overlook,
late night horror story, Something Else.
Have
you ever seen a baby see the face of her mother for the first time?
Over
the edge tripping long last, Lazarus.
One
of our three youths calls out to the figures (observational aside - the distant
youths stare with eyes unblinking and figures familiar).
Do
we look inwards in order truly to discover some deeper truth, or rather to
mould ourselves into some higher life-state? Or do we look inwards at all?
Instead, rather, we try to cast an image in a mirror with the glow of setting
suns and nightclub neons, office building halogen. Formation reformation
creation recreation.
The
distant figures do not speak when spoken to. The three youths try waving, and
each of them feels as if they are seeing within their own skin, as after deep
tissue damage incurred in a car crash (rending forth from bloodied lips of
steel - furious). Then the distant figures begin to come closer, and their
faces begin to resolve themselves, and our youths fear something deep and cold
passing through the woods, and the wind begins to scream (police sirens through
deep urban night, hyena, feral, fester and burn).
Look
unto hades, infernal inferno, magnificent magnanimous, hell hath no fury
like... untowards! Further now, down the path, ‘tween the trees, over the
brooks and through the meadows, onwards! And gaze again deep into the void, and
see a face that can be not besides God, father, son, the self-same remade self!
See
not the incredulity of youthful wonder, but the passing disinterest (deference)
of age eternal, these before our youths not themselves youths but instead
infinite, indefinite, age [undefined]! Creatures, there be dragons, though,
hark! In dragons find we not our better nature? And overhill down rushed,
dragoon towards some great revelation (syn. to reveal, uncloak, unmask, show
the truth of, ant. to conceal, to make once more secret, though secret never
again shall be, this specter of deeper self).
For
now the youths look true onto the face of their pursuers, and see not the face
of devil’s own, but instead the far more Familiar, refractions of a mirror,
dancing all fun house about the truth, syllogisms, false equations, truth’s
defenestration.
To understand
what now our heroes see, step back from this page, drink two bottles of
whiskey, slam your head in a fire door, then look in a mirror.
This task
completed, you understand the truth.
See in the
mirror: your face, familiar, and yet, Something Else, and, seen here, in this
State... are we not our own
devil’s playthings?
Then
abruptly the figures turn from the youths, and walk back into the woods, the
truth of them now known to all, and the Something Else hinted at by the woman
has now made itself realized in flesh and blood (or at least light scattered -
can such a thing really be possessed of flesh and blood?).
Is
downwards spiral towards love a form of suicide or masturbation? Why do we
surround ourselves with mirrors as all that lies about (dumbbells and makeup
and magazine beauty) proclaim so loudly (lungs open cliff side empty night)
that we cannot stand the true sight of ourselves? We lie to ourselves in the
mirror every morning and every evening we downcast our gaze when we pass
mirrors, in order that we may sleep as babes (Have you ever seen a baby
recognize its own face in the mirror?).
The
youths look to each other and they see faces, but, mirrors so near, the faces
before them they know are wrong, so they look now at the ground, count the pine
needles, newborn steam risen from fresh churned earth, dawn light half life,
dewdrops and raindrops and sunshine and soulshine and moonshine and death’s
last shine (last trip last shrine), count the pine needles.
Bite
the bight become as blight. Beauty is politik, beauty as politics.
And
then one of them speaks, identity unimportant, sentiment mutual, equal, judges
scales weighed out between lady blind, words spoken but un-closing statement,
rebuttal, return the jury, out! the youths from the forest flee, pack up only
the essentials then return (try) to sunny halls from which they came, suburban
streets, picket fences, smell of fresh cut lawn and home cooked meals and
mother’s perfume (lover’s perfume, blend together in memory and time, return
equal to the youths if some day they become old men, until the faces of mother
and lover are re-blended as one, tick of the clock, chromatic).
But
then one cannot move backwards in time, for all time is but a passage of motion
(forwards, back, it matters not), sun spins one direction, but, by reckoning of
our great scientific philosophers, all all at once, so only move forwards
(though speed, theoretically, round’ orbit of entry black hole, variable), so
forwards, not back, and as the youths try to flee the woods, only deeper in it
may they move (though it should be noted - some of the aforementioned
scientific philosophers posit a universe in whence, at the end of all time, time
will flow again the same as before, but now backwards, death till birth, and
then, and only then, may our youths, so the theory goes, escape the woods, and
only then can a man unknow his deeper self, once one has deigned to search long
the void, and gain again what all we search for - the innocence we knew as
babes).
Then
sun again sets (as mentioned before - forward motion is eternal, even as all at
once, the youths fates predetermined, predestined [it is foolish to disbelieve
in God when science itself predestines us all to death, for to disbelieve in
God, but to believe in death, is to recognize the inherent emptiness of
existence, and to thus disrupt the most basic underpinnings of our so-valued
existentialism] hint at some soon to be ceasing of motion, as spoken by every
campfire tale we’ve ever known) and the youths are forced by darkness’s fall to
cease forward motion (even as the earth’s natural orbit carries them faster
forwards), and bunker down for the night.
We
live all life at least twice - once at first, experiential, passage, the second
in nightly reflection on that which we have seen and heard and smelled and
tasted. And so the youths reflect and they find in their hearts that which
normally we find only at the bottom of deepest nightmares. And then their eyes
flutter shut and they find themselves at the bottom of deepest nightmares.
In
the morning they are watched again, and they try their best not to see the
watchers, for they know the watchers’ frames in perfect timeless detail (though
they not perfect recreations, but instead recreations seen in mind’s eye in
moments of deepest personal hatred, the figure of self presented on head
shrink’s couch - head shrink, to shrink the head, to reduce our pretensions at
existential in-looking, to bring us back down to size, to make again feral).
Up
they pack and head again for what they presume forrest’s edge (path of motion
instead as a circle, though not circuitous, when all roads lead to Rome, all
roads are born equal, though not men, inwards glance slight, eternal sunshine,
the happy idiot all we wish to be), and today the sun seems to be half-sunken
into sky, and instead of blue it is coloured slightly yellowed, portending soon
falling memories of time out of earlier youth.
Under this
sky they walk in silence, watchers all around, feared of truth in past spake
through opened lips, so now lips kept shut.
And though
we walk with death our constant companion, always we walk alone.
And though
we leave footprints with our steps, as we move on, nothing beside remains.
Onwards unto
the mouth of hell (the mind of babes?).
And then off
the path, away from his companion, the brain is drawn, and he knows not why he
wanders, into a stand of Aspens, trunks white, leaves fallen off for Autumnal
passage, into the stand, though he stands not, forwards instead, to some
distant calling-out, as a woman’s voice, a parent’s chiding, though the voice
is silent, now he knows exactly where to go, exactly which steps to take, even
as, in times now most distinctly passed, he knew not how to follow woman’s
voice, though she screamed out for him.
Once upon a
time a priest became lost in the woods in wintertime. As night fell, he grew
cold, and though he drew his frock around him, he worried in the night’s chill
air, he might freeze. All he carried on him was his bible, so, with a prayer,
he set it alight and burned it for warmth. When the sun arose in the morning,
he was reminded that he had been all night long surrounded by trees, and he had
burned his bible needlessly. That day, as he was crossing a frozen river on
what he thought was the path home, he fell through the ice and could not find
the surface again.
We are all
death’s children, and always we shall love death like a mother, and hate it
like a father.
Then the
brain, at Aspen stand’s deepest point, comes face to face with himself. And the
two stare at each other.
Into depths
of oblivion forment apocalyptic rage and love and animal in heat, seeking forth
from bloodied rags of Parisian lace and thimble full of whiskey. Believe in
love to believe forever in disbelief of catching onto own words at sight of...
heaven sent beautiful walls along distant shores, unattainable, untethered boat
rocking gentle surf by water’s edge, fishermen stare out to coming storm, as
priest collapses to his knees, light shines through stained glass and casts on
his face image of his savior, but for evening light’s diffractions, made with
two horns and a tail and the savior as the destroyer as the redeemer as the
remaker as the beginning of the end of the end.
And then a
figure of the brain, a mirror image but at once Something Else, rejoins the
youths, and they know instantly that Something is wrong, and yet they speak not
of it, both recognizing the impossibility of a return (final notice - time
flows only forwards, mistakes cannot be unmade).
Lives are
structured not like stage plays, but like love letters, drifting, fluttering,
wandering, hoping, and, at the end of it all, without meaning or purpose. Lives
lack acts and themes, possessed of, defined by, instead, staccato paragraphs,
chaos, disorderly.
We remade
each night as we sleep, our new selves, our new heart and soul, reborn with
rising sun. This is why we all look in mirrors every morning. We are all wild
horses in a thunderstorm. And yet, every so often, every once in awhile, every
glimmer between the clouds, something snaps to and...
The brain
walks behind his friends now, and within where once there were great plunging
valleys, soaring mountains, vicious canyons and swamps and rivers and ice flows
and roiling oceans, deserts in violent heat, now there lays just a valley,
green and clear and simple and beautiful. The brain smiles. The ghost turns to
him and notices him smiling and frowns.
Oscillating
olfactory ossifying obsolescence(self) digression abstraction - locker room
high school sweat (pores, towels, gym clothes, vomit) association demarcation
remake smile to frown to smile begin again - sibilant past haze of memories
cast through motion picture ticker tape revolutions of the dark night of the
soul - campfire shining out through the darkness, just around this next turn,
father waiting (anticipating, syncopating, boots clomping fresh fallen snow) -
present time fast forward (spin up VHS tape) fresh fallen snow the sky turns
its truth downwards now lets out thunderous silence, each flake heavy, echoing
about the trees, the mountains (youths find selves unexpectedly at altitude,
turned around, confused, lost, more ways than one, blatancy).
Each
snowflake lands like a leaf on the surface of a pond, and all three of our
youths stare about in wonderment (childlike, reductions of self, common theme
in this wood). A chill comes now to infect the air, blowing about in plumeing
spirals, mixed in amongst blooming platters the colour of dead skin left to rot
at pond bottoms, all on quixotic missions to cut through down and leather, and
though mission quixotic, still state change of targets, little puffs of smoke
from between lips, this hovering about like gnats by a lake in the summer time,
a slight pulling to of manmade materials about shoulders, subtle quiver,
tremble, of frames, eyes cast further down to earth (this too now disappearing,
glacial) to protect eyes from airy visitations.
Down to the
bone, people say about deep cold.
But this
cold is far deeper, maybe for the Something Else that still lurks (now just two
frames rather than three) in the surrounding woods, maybe for just a broader,
palpable unease, belonged to the forest itself. This cold cuts all the way
through bone, through heart and soul and mind and body and flesh and blood,
deep within inhuman existential state (change of).
Change up
stop gap train leaving from platform five blinkering signal fires on far off
peaks all aboard polar climbers cast in wooly dressing up now! Skywards but not
quite can’t touch the sky but for need to keep feet on ground, toes implanted
firmly in mud, airhead, teacher called him, head in the clouds, dreamer, begin
again, Absalom, Avalon! And here dreams go to die.
Forage forgo
forwards. Forget forbear forever. Foreshortened. Wolf cries out alone in the
forest, its pack lost, lone wolf a misnomer of sorts, but the youths still hear
it and their skin crawls further, and the sun has sunken totally from the sky,
though due to snow’s most peculiar refractive (redactive) properties, above
them is yet a certain brightness, though it colored piss-shade, and the air
just sinks colder with each (tick)(tick) of the clock (drawing closer now,
ghost carriage, we all know it’s coming for us eventually, but never think it’s
coming for us now).
Beneath a
great tree the youths hunker down, sheltered somewhat by needles spread above,
though their tent is still lain in snow a few inches thick.
Tonight, the
brain sleeps easy, and his dreams come simple. We all hope for greatness, but,
birth till death do us parting of the Red Seas reborn in hellfire, Hell’s
Kitchen (Manhattan), each of us born the self same, and yet we’re all left to
wonder...
King Henry,
will you do one thing for me? That’s to open my right side and find my... hush
little baby don’t say a word, momma’s gonna buy you a mocking... something
wicked this way... you shall be keeper of the grail... a horse, a horse, my
kingdom... now, say my name... nothing beside remains... king breaker, king
maker, king vouchsafer, we all look down on kings.
Once upon a
time, a wise man was found, hung by the neck in amongst his stacks of books and
trinkets from his many travels. Upon the note lain next to his body were these
words: “I have read politics, history, philosophy and literature. I have
studied all the sciences, and even those practices of science which are
indistinguishable from religion. I have travelled every corner of this earth. I
have, with the help of various herbs and chemicals, brought my mind to the very
frontier of human consciousness. However, in so doing, I have found that,
across it all, there is, quite simply, nothing there.” And thus his body lay
cold.
Upon waking,
gaze miraculous upon the new-sheened world, the tone of bandages laid out aside
battlefields, in preparation of rifle’s first crack (first blood, last blood,
all blood, white to red soon, but for now all lies in white and all lies in
peace, even as Something Else watches over all, battlefield and tent just the
same, young men about to be cast anew, forges of hell [burn ever bright]). Our
youths (tropes, perhaps, now different, not the brain, but...) prepare for
another day's march, ever more weary, sinking suspicion, realization, no
escape. At least, the muscle remarks, the snow has stopped falling. The ghost
just looks around at this and says:
“Has it?”
Then the muscle smiles upside-down, and the brain just smiles, not of mirth or
sarcastic recognition, but instead the smile of sunshine eternal.
They pack up
their supplies, and the ghost and the muscle look about anxiously, watchers of
the watchers, quis custodiet ipsos
custodes? Graecum est; non potest
legi.
On the night
before their trip, the three youths sat round a table, it decorated in bottles
and empty plates and half rolled papers filled with herbs, and the brain
reflected:
“The first
fight of a new ruler, who takes his office by force, is for the minds and souls
of his people, and the way to win this fight fastest is to remake the notion of
thought itself. So forgive me when I don’t trust this whole notion of
existentialism.”
“You need to
smoke less” the muscle replied.
“Fustri suntimen loriu legatr tabalu.”
“What does
that mean?”
“I don’t
know, I just made it up.”
Through
woods walk two youths and one man, each step leaving behind traces of journey,
snow heavy, each step a preponderance, a consideration, bastion footsteps of
others, switch marching order every fall of clump of snow from high up
branches, air quiet, breaths hanging about all loitering like, little crystals
of glass forming themselves in hair dancing sparse across the muscle’s cheeks,
a honeycomb, ice queen, electric.
On
walk, walk on, clomp clomp, slight howl between the trees (that sibilance
again), cracking of old growth pines, straining, trying to keep backs straight
against God’s wrath.
And
then, after the manner of his friend the day previous, the muscle strays from
their passage.
And
rather than a stand of aspens, he finds himself in the ruins of a town long
gone, church spire just sticking up out of the snow, leaning, Pisa, about it
second floors Potemkin, fronts built to impress, truth much squatter, the rest
buried now by snow and dirt and time. At the top of the church spire is written
“and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed”. The muscle reads this,
then he sees walk below it his perfect double (though not perfect - it seems,
somehow, beneath the double’s thick coat, that his shoulders are set thinner,
his arms are less ropey, his thighs are less defined), and the two look on one
another.
Schynedyde
as a synecdoche as a metonymy of...
A.The
loss of American innocence with the passage of the industrial age.
B.
The postmodern movement’s overuse of obscure references.
C.
The inherent humor of linguistic coincidence.
D.
The way in which a word applied wrong can rewrite one’s entire identity.
Answer:
that is not how this works. No answers, not here. We look in mirrors for
answers, and we walk through doorposts for new beginnings, but written on the
lintels of the doorpost... (A. whim. B. felicity C. caprice D. revenant
[Answer: A. {And on the shores of Walden Pond go to die a hundred generations
of young American navel gazers}]).
Beyond
mind’s eye, beyond corneal scream, beyond inner ear (drum popped), beyond adolescent
insecurity, beyond youthful fancy-flights, beyond twos (terrible), beyond first
nursery stay, beyond caesarean first act, does there lie anything but a void?
And if there is but a void before, may we really hope for more after? But then
our memories of this time before are thin to the point of non-existence - when
can we say consciousness really begins, as we remember not birth, remember
probably not twos (terrible), memories of of youthful fancy-flights thinnest
veneer, slightest reflection in pond’s surface, and if we can’t properly
remember yesteryear, how can we believe so strongly in our memories of
yesterday?
Fall
deep into mirror’s gaze, and then can we really believe what we see? Sight
second sight first sight fragile sight eyes ripped out sightless seeing is not
quite believing, lakes of fire, mandala walls, third eye cast between normal
two (this fact going unobserved until days after), shapes and colours known
only so far as you know they cannot exist in this world. But then do we see
another world? Or do we see simply our mind’s obfuscations? But then
obfuscations of what... upon closer examination, the very notion of subjective
consciousness, well, it was blazing, and yet... we find ourselves reliant upon
certain ideas, even as we know they cannot possibly be true, this the
fundamental crux of sanity, though sanity is in and of itself a fallacious
notion.
If
you came face to face with your lesser self, what would you possibly say?
Snow
falls heavy and slow, like time itself has been reduced to its most primal
urge, and so the snowfall starts anew around the muscle and his double, gentle
and quiet first, but picking up fast, till shortly all is held ensnared
(enraptured) prisoner and guard and keeper and brother. Tear stained cheek
corner, ripped bodice, smudged letter, thrown away roses, bastard children of
our could-have-been best-selves. Storm clouds flutter and bank in the sky,
their motion visible to naked eye, somber tidings grim tomorrows, or perhaps
not. Perhaps our best self may not need to be our gayest self? But this
question is an impossible theoretical. Unless, of course, one was to come in
contact with Something Else.
You
breathe in the night air and it is cool in your lungs and it keeps you sane,
even as your mind spirals. Pinwheels and windmills and fireworks on the Fourth
of July, transformations and trepidations and permutations. Love labours lost
for loss of love, wish now only for labour (something to labour on).
And
thus the muscle rejoins the brain and the ghost, but somehow his shoulders seem
thinner, and perhaps now our tropes are no longer so apt, the muscle no longer
so strong (but perhaps now free to think for himself) and the brain no longer
so smart (but perhaps no longer so trapped in himself). But the ghost still
wanders here among mortal men, he made immortal by inward gaze and
self-isolation. Mortality suggests ultimate death may come with body shut down,
but in the ghost the body never has been more than a vessel. And this is, it
would seem, his curse, trapped ever to this earth he has never felt a part of
by a soul stronger than body could ever be. The curse of all ghosts (how well
do you remember the face of your first lover? And their voice?).
Soar
above it all, high on, up in smoke, now two of our youths smile, and two of
them are no longer youths, and yet one remains. And one must wonder what will
happen upon his encounter with his perfect double - a man who is all soul and
no body.
But
then night falls and the sky grows dark and the snow has once more stopped and
the three youths camp and they speak hardly a word, for two of them seem no
longer to be of the holy trinity that began the journey, time deep set in the
past, hardlocked, immemorial, primordial, a break in the trees and a woman
between door posts (and what was written on her lintels?), and a start to the
trees, that which now seem to number now vaster than the stars in the sky
(these now peeking out for the first time in many day’s journey, and this far
from man’s nightlights, when stars peak, they explode miasmic pentangles of
light superstructures vast horizons, lines infinite, impossible, unknown and
unknowable and beautiful like sex in motion pictures, streamers made of dreams blown
out in every direction at once, a billion miles an hour, twinkling flash bulbs
in starlet eyes, Mulholland Drive blind curve shut down automobile engine
workbench, gasoline smell and tar stained hands, perpetual smile/five o’clock
shadow, forever living under God’s watchful eyes, Allah’s perpetual gaze,
Yahweh’s eternal judgment, all gods and none, invisible and omniscient, live
and love and never let die. [Live laugh love, die cry hate, all immortal, all
equal, weighed finally against Ma’at’s feather, 21 grams lost upon death, or so
it is said] forced full stop).
But
then morning rises and the sky grows light and the snow has already begun to
recede, and the three youths strike camp in near silence. Rorschach butterfly
reflections, night and day, morning and evening, sun cycles life cycles, birth,
death, rebirth, over and over and over and... and Buddhists and Hindus say it
is a cycle to break. Christians and Muslims say the cycle is broken in one turn
of the wheel. And this age’s deists say the cycle never breaks, not in body,
but that the mind is but spiced wine contained in a vessel spilled then
re-filled day after day.
Walk
out into snow melting impossibly fast, grown socked thick, springy like peat
(turn of the screw, the peat is dying, global heat wave, this is a problem for
reasons of scope immeasurable - our earth dies, but the earth grand scale
belongs to the deists). Today the sun is high overhead, skin sweats, and coats
are offcast.
The
pattern, logically established in its holy trinity of repeated permutations,
draws to its natural end. The ghost wanders from the path, and comes upon a
place of symbolic revenance (this one a dried out river bed, fish bones and
stones polished smooth by millennia of water gone now forever, same global
heat-up, perhaps, or perhaps not, the point being simply this is a place once
of life, now made only of death).
And
of course, in pattern’s final permutation, sun now overhead, snow miraculously
melted, the ghost and his double meet all Mexican stand-off, staring each other
down hard over sun-baked sand.
Palm
trees shining neon green over tar black roadway, LA summer sunshine, hot lights
of night clubs, so much beauty, lit up jewelish, ambrosia tones, air sweet like
rosé
wine, glimmering and flickering hard as sun glints about, looking for something
to light on harsh fire, burn it all down. Insanity is but a precondition for
immortality, martyr means witness, but witness to... higher power, look
inwards, cast outwards, broken, broken, fragmentations, simulacra of a better
self, breakdown, someone call the coroner, once more unto the... time is like a
rolling... downwards, ever downwards, fleeting glimpse, preponderance, better
half of, the evidence suggests, to be or not to... but not a choice, not
really. Gunmetal pressed hard into temple, choices. Tick a box, tick of the
clock, motor revs up, wake up, alarm scream, skywards now, look up and see,
what do you see, what is to see?
The last man
on earth, upon witnessing the birth of his first child to the last woman on
earth, and seeing it a daughter, makes himself a eunuch.
Lechery of
the highest... but maybe aspirations? What can we really hope for but...
forever now, all together now... begin again. Absolution for our sins,
proselytization for our existential spiral, bully for our hopes. Begin again.
The sun also... all horrorshow now, we of the cloth, before the cloth, redeem
yourself, avenge yourself, seek and you shall find yourself, barrel of a gun,
bathtub run warm, Roman senator, poetic endings, but no endings, cyclical,
crops, harvest, begin again.
Give me a
hero. Show me a hero and I’ll write... But give me a villain? Give me a villain
and I’ll write you a tale of happy endings. And give me a philosopher, and I’ll
write you one hell of a tale. Of shoes and ships and sealing wax and
cabbages... and kings again, it all comes back to the kings, sounds like a
street gang, sounds like an aspiration, sounds like a curse in blessing’s
cloth. Live in a time after kings, too complex for that now, can’t wear a crown
and call yourself beloved.
Rejoin the
crowd, become as yet again, a part of the herd.
But not this
time.
Not this
time.
This time.
Time.
Timeless.
A tale as
old as time (Play it, Sam).
And the
brain who is no longer the brain returns to his life, and he turns himself to
his papers, and finds himself lost. So he walks into a bar, and he sees a
woman, and he looks on her face, and he feels a great joy in his heart. And
then he speaks to her, and he says his name is Peter, and he is no longer the
brain, but that night he and the girl go home together and they make love.
And the
muscle who is no longer the muscle returns to his life, and when he seeks once
more to take the field, he finds his muscles fail him. But then he, as his life
goes by, and he gets a job and a house and a family, and he sees his brothers
in arms (once) minds destroyed, bodies broken, years of torture, nothing to
show for it, and then sees his little daughter look up and call him “Daddy”,
marvels at the charms of the forest.
And the
ghost. And the ghost and the ghost and the ghost. It is said that the forest
which once contained Something Else is haunted now by a ghost. A ghost of could
have beens, of pasts long dead, of loves and hates and inner lookings. Of
mirrors and doors and lintels and pop-quizzes and silence that screams and men
made of moss. Of kings, and probably too cabbages. Of herbs and the sun and
snow fell heavy. But this ghost is no mere ghost. And to look on its face is to
see what once was Enlightened, but can now only be said to be Feral. After all,
what is a soul without a body - when it loses its soul? What is it ever, but a
ghost.
