He finally understood what was happening. For hours, he had sat, her sleeping with her head in his lap, the once proud inferno of that night’s bonfire reduced before them into pulsating coals, and wondered at the great sadness and release that had washed over him in waves, tearing at his soul. The sky, at times, would open, great tongues of blue stickiness washing the land, licking at the fringes of his consciousness, a sea of young, pale faces stretching out behind him, just out of reach of the fire.
Some nights earlier, he had awoken with a start, to find a young boy sporting a riotous plume of black carbonfiber strands as hair, too-short, gnarled legs kicking gently in the air atop a stack of blankets at the foot of the bed, and he had called to him. What was he doing here? he had asked, why had he come? and would he not just saying something?
The boy had stopped kicking, and a line of fear had drawn itself jaggedly through his befuddled mind, as the black plume stopped its slight swaying to the rhythm of the boyish action, and he felt a ancient, cold energy flow toward him, the small figure directing his attention, if not his eyes, at him in the dark. Better to turn on the light, he thought, find out what the little bastard wants. Without taking his eyes off the figure, he flipped the switch.
Nothing. A motorcycle crash jacket mostly covering a battered black helmet, both skewing righteously, bearing great potential and endless stories of their own, to the right off of the pile of blankets.
At first, hearing the soft squeals of longing wafting into his subconscious, he had started to protest, but stopped, and watched as she had thrown into the bonfire a small, brown bedside table, and shuddered as the wood of the piece released its pent up mourning.
Visions of an old woman slowly fading away toward death, years and immense Time settling onto his emotional plane, had drifted across his inner vision, filling him with a melancholy sorrow that stretched to his very toes. The small, brown bedside table had soaked up and was now releasing, with a final great wave, strong impressions of the last days of Her life, pain beyond morphine’s sweet embrace, telomers frayed, the agony of cells collapsing while others multiplied her organs into each other, an end he instantly knew he would find himself one day, someday, any day, tomorrow or in fifty years.
The bedside wood had burned brightly, far brighter than anything around it, and the air had roared as it was sucked into the fire, a vortex of flame that stretched high, yearning, it seemed, to lick the low, pregnant cumulus clouds sitting above the valley. When the flame subsided, not long thereafter, his Virginia girl had immediately fallen asleep, almost pitching forward into the flames, if not for his caring hand which had pulled her back into his lap.
He wept, great wracking sobs of joy and sorrow, at the loss of a stranger, at the knowledge that he would love Her forever.
americanifesto.com | updated Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday
26 August 2005
16 August 2005
Our friend, who talks to wood
Unlike the rest, our friend could actually talk to wood. Not with words, and maybe Talking is a bit too strong of a term, but he could certainly communicate with the stuff. If a chair had a weak rear leg, on the right side, he would know to warn the obese woman about to sit down to favor the front and left, and he made a point to mention the weakness to one of her companions, should there be any.
Of course, the wood making up that chair would put off a cool aura, and only be able to tell him, with feeble pulsing, vaguely where it was weaker, or perhaps which grain still held the essence of the sun from a magnificent summer of growth. In the forest, alone, he would teeter on the very edge of madness, bombarded by the inexorable stubbornness and constant slow wailing of the various trees.
Firs tended to be a bit dull, as they never really changed their leaves, and put out hard spiky cones. But seasonal trees, like the chestnut, were a delight. They put off such phenomenal waves of euphoria at the first sign of thaw, rubbing against each other in the wind, sometimes putting forth tender green tendrils simply to taste the warming air, recurring frost be damned.
Now, our friend, he thought his whole life that everyone else could feel the odd doorjamb, or knew why he smiled at the quiet, confused story of a boyhood pencil. He actually never spoke about it, never mentioned it to anyone just as people don’t normally talk about the joys and intricacies of Breathing, until he was close to twenty, and fell in love with a girl one summer in Virginia, who loved to hurl whole pallets into midnight bonfires under obscured twinkling stars.
Of course, the wood making up that chair would put off a cool aura, and only be able to tell him, with feeble pulsing, vaguely where it was weaker, or perhaps which grain still held the essence of the sun from a magnificent summer of growth. In the forest, alone, he would teeter on the very edge of madness, bombarded by the inexorable stubbornness and constant slow wailing of the various trees.
Firs tended to be a bit dull, as they never really changed their leaves, and put out hard spiky cones. But seasonal trees, like the chestnut, were a delight. They put off such phenomenal waves of euphoria at the first sign of thaw, rubbing against each other in the wind, sometimes putting forth tender green tendrils simply to taste the warming air, recurring frost be damned.
Now, our friend, he thought his whole life that everyone else could feel the odd doorjamb, or knew why he smiled at the quiet, confused story of a boyhood pencil. He actually never spoke about it, never mentioned it to anyone just as people don’t normally talk about the joys and intricacies of Breathing, until he was close to twenty, and fell in love with a girl one summer in Virginia, who loved to hurl whole pallets into midnight bonfires under obscured twinkling stars.
04 August 2005
A peace disrupted; aftermath of violation; consequences
Wearily, the man trudged up a long, low hill leading up to a small hamlet. Stopping halfway to rummage in his leather bag for a bit of jerky, he turned to admire the stark beauty of the valley in which he stood, and, chewing slowly as he turned all the way around, found the view to be pleasing in all directions. Especially the view up toward the collection of squat houses of various sizes he had first called home nearly one year earlier.
No one would be home, he knew, as fall had arrived, and brought with him not only a flurry of activity from the village’s otherwise complacent farmers, but festivals in every village to honor the new crop, celebrate the changing of the seasons, or ward off the coming evils of winter.
Entering the village from the eastern path by which he had climbed the low hill, he felt ill at ease, but unsure why. Shrugging it off as negative energy left over from his hard day at work, he rounded the corner of the last grass-thatched house before reaching the cottage he shared with a friend. He could see directly into the dim room, and marked with slight alarm that the door to one of the houses’ two room, that which he occupied, was standing open.
He could see people inside, and decided to surprise Them, lest they get the jump on him! Carefully he rushed inside, swinging wide to the left once inside to clear the short wooden table, and jumped into his room, letting loose a cry of playful chiding.
At once, he knew that his foreboding lay not in the day’s residual hardships. Her face was screwed up in fear, pain, frustration. She barely had the will to sit upright on his bed, and sobs wracked her body as tears slid into her wide-open mouth.
“She was raped.” There. Matter of fact, no bullshit, soft cold words spoken in a tongue she could not understand. He heard the steel in his friend’s voice, and felt a fist of the same alloy close around his own heart. Seeing her supported in his friends' arms, knowing she was now safe with him, the man failed even to ask her if the same was in fact true. Impulses to punish and fix threw the much smaller, but far more significant, thoughts of compassion up against a wall, grinning wickedly at their brief success, poisoning reason and love with their savagery.
Two paths presented themselves. First, find the sorry fuck who did the sorry deed and rip his lungs out. Second, inform the constable and have things settled officially. Barely had his heart been enveloped, hardly had the two paths been spun up out of their logical docks, and said aloud, than she began to wail, and speak.
“NO! I told you I didn’t want anyone to know! You told him? And we are Not going to the police! I can’t believe you told him! How could you tell him? I don’t want anyone to know! I just want to forget about the whole thing. Why can’t we just forget about it?”
Over, and over. Dozens of times she accused him of telling me, of wanting to go to the police, to call the constable, but mostly for telling me. At least that’s what stuck out most in his poisoned and confused mind, and he darted past them back out into the living area, sitting down heavily on a musty couch, motes aroused by the vortex churning a scant beam of sunlight which came in from a gap in the thatch work that would have to be patched before the winter.
Then, she was screaming. Screaming at his friend, standing with him in his room, becoming hysteric at the sheer audacity of the fact that her man had told his friend about what had happened.
They had been together almost two years. During that time, she and the man had spoken many times, laughed and cried, become friends, sharing words and intimacies. They were friends, of a sort, and he had tried not to hold a thing from her. The disgust in her voice, and its’ eardrum-overloading volume, brought him out of the seat with a start, guiding his hand as it slammed the door to his room, closing in the familiarity of Own space, shielding him from the tantrum of fear and loathing outside.
The constable was notified, and expressed confidence, when he arrived, that the perpetrator would be caught, no matter that he had left the country. Evidence was collected, and the mechanisms of the second, official path were set in motion. The perp would hopefully wallow in some dank cell, receiving occasionally a personal taste of what he had done to another.
Wearily, the man trudged up a long, low hill leading up to a small hamlet. He was eager to see his friend, for a synopsis of the previous day’s events, and to see how the girl was recovering. During the day, while performing his various, laborious tasks, the man had understood that the girl could have very easily been put out by his cold-heartedness, by his slamming of doors, and lack of pure concern for Her at the moment he had heard the news. Very easily, she could have let her fear and rage follow the path of least resistence.
In his mind, he saw three pictures, one of himself (handsome devil) one of his friend (nearly as handsome devil), and the perpetrator (whose face had been burned into her memory to lurk there forever, and who would hopefully be the closest thing she would ever again have to associate with an actual devil).
First, he erased the picture of his friend, who always encouraged her, was faithful to her, and had been actively supportive, patient and loving in the initial aftermath of the horrid event.
Second, he mentally erased the picture of the perp, who had not only violated her, but left the country immediately thereafter, who represented everything wrong and poor about those entrusted with a single X and one shriveled Y chromosome. Who wants to think about their tormentor? Does the four-eyed, YuGiOh! loving poor kid from the corner, who walks to school, let his mind rest on the upcoming theft of his meager lunch money by the cowardly, fronting little shit who just got dropped off in a Chrysler? No! He may flittingly pick at the concept, his fear lapping like the Pacific, but ultimately, he would cross that bridge when the time came.
The girl would never have to see the man again, but would also never be able to fully abandon her fear, fully recover, at least not for a while.
Third, he let the picture of himself pulse a soft white, incandescence caressing the borders of a playfully scowling self-portrait. That was the man to hate! That was the man who had moved so quickly to answer pain and violence with more of the same. He had been told what had happened, a terrible thing! He had heard with his own ears what had happened. Would his perception of her perhaps forever change? Would he discount her because of the fate that had befallen her? Would he mock her? Would he spread nasty rumors about her to the world? Would he even perhaps take pleasure in it? So many opportunities, so many chinks in his armor in which to bury the hatchet of her fear.
His friend, waiting for his return by the wooden table under the thatched roof, confirmed to him his day’s inklings. In his terse, forward manner, he confirmed that the girl had stated she never wanted to see him again, and that she was immeasurably upset with him.
Having figured that much out already, he paused briefly, to mourn the loss of her as a friend, shifting the breadth of knowledge that made up Her to him, to join the small stack of profiles of the disenchanted. Sometimes you get blamed for shit you didn’t even do. Can’t cry about it, at least he didn’t.
Remain positive, he thought, learn to enjoy losing.
No one would be home, he knew, as fall had arrived, and brought with him not only a flurry of activity from the village’s otherwise complacent farmers, but festivals in every village to honor the new crop, celebrate the changing of the seasons, or ward off the coming evils of winter.
Entering the village from the eastern path by which he had climbed the low hill, he felt ill at ease, but unsure why. Shrugging it off as negative energy left over from his hard day at work, he rounded the corner of the last grass-thatched house before reaching the cottage he shared with a friend. He could see directly into the dim room, and marked with slight alarm that the door to one of the houses’ two room, that which he occupied, was standing open.
He could see people inside, and decided to surprise Them, lest they get the jump on him! Carefully he rushed inside, swinging wide to the left once inside to clear the short wooden table, and jumped into his room, letting loose a cry of playful chiding.
At once, he knew that his foreboding lay not in the day’s residual hardships. Her face was screwed up in fear, pain, frustration. She barely had the will to sit upright on his bed, and sobs wracked her body as tears slid into her wide-open mouth.
“She was raped.” There. Matter of fact, no bullshit, soft cold words spoken in a tongue she could not understand. He heard the steel in his friend’s voice, and felt a fist of the same alloy close around his own heart. Seeing her supported in his friends' arms, knowing she was now safe with him, the man failed even to ask her if the same was in fact true. Impulses to punish and fix threw the much smaller, but far more significant, thoughts of compassion up against a wall, grinning wickedly at their brief success, poisoning reason and love with their savagery.
Two paths presented themselves. First, find the sorry fuck who did the sorry deed and rip his lungs out. Second, inform the constable and have things settled officially. Barely had his heart been enveloped, hardly had the two paths been spun up out of their logical docks, and said aloud, than she began to wail, and speak.
“NO! I told you I didn’t want anyone to know! You told him? And we are Not going to the police! I can’t believe you told him! How could you tell him? I don’t want anyone to know! I just want to forget about the whole thing. Why can’t we just forget about it?”
Over, and over. Dozens of times she accused him of telling me, of wanting to go to the police, to call the constable, but mostly for telling me. At least that’s what stuck out most in his poisoned and confused mind, and he darted past them back out into the living area, sitting down heavily on a musty couch, motes aroused by the vortex churning a scant beam of sunlight which came in from a gap in the thatch work that would have to be patched before the winter.
Then, she was screaming. Screaming at his friend, standing with him in his room, becoming hysteric at the sheer audacity of the fact that her man had told his friend about what had happened.
They had been together almost two years. During that time, she and the man had spoken many times, laughed and cried, become friends, sharing words and intimacies. They were friends, of a sort, and he had tried not to hold a thing from her. The disgust in her voice, and its’ eardrum-overloading volume, brought him out of the seat with a start, guiding his hand as it slammed the door to his room, closing in the familiarity of Own space, shielding him from the tantrum of fear and loathing outside.
The constable was notified, and expressed confidence, when he arrived, that the perpetrator would be caught, no matter that he had left the country. Evidence was collected, and the mechanisms of the second, official path were set in motion. The perp would hopefully wallow in some dank cell, receiving occasionally a personal taste of what he had done to another.
Wearily, the man trudged up a long, low hill leading up to a small hamlet. He was eager to see his friend, for a synopsis of the previous day’s events, and to see how the girl was recovering. During the day, while performing his various, laborious tasks, the man had understood that the girl could have very easily been put out by his cold-heartedness, by his slamming of doors, and lack of pure concern for Her at the moment he had heard the news. Very easily, she could have let her fear and rage follow the path of least resistence.
In his mind, he saw three pictures, one of himself (handsome devil) one of his friend (nearly as handsome devil), and the perpetrator (whose face had been burned into her memory to lurk there forever, and who would hopefully be the closest thing she would ever again have to associate with an actual devil).
First, he erased the picture of his friend, who always encouraged her, was faithful to her, and had been actively supportive, patient and loving in the initial aftermath of the horrid event.
Second, he mentally erased the picture of the perp, who had not only violated her, but left the country immediately thereafter, who represented everything wrong and poor about those entrusted with a single X and one shriveled Y chromosome. Who wants to think about their tormentor? Does the four-eyed, YuGiOh! loving poor kid from the corner, who walks to school, let his mind rest on the upcoming theft of his meager lunch money by the cowardly, fronting little shit who just got dropped off in a Chrysler? No! He may flittingly pick at the concept, his fear lapping like the Pacific, but ultimately, he would cross that bridge when the time came.
The girl would never have to see the man again, but would also never be able to fully abandon her fear, fully recover, at least not for a while.
Third, he let the picture of himself pulse a soft white, incandescence caressing the borders of a playfully scowling self-portrait. That was the man to hate! That was the man who had moved so quickly to answer pain and violence with more of the same. He had been told what had happened, a terrible thing! He had heard with his own ears what had happened. Would his perception of her perhaps forever change? Would he discount her because of the fate that had befallen her? Would he mock her? Would he spread nasty rumors about her to the world? Would he even perhaps take pleasure in it? So many opportunities, so many chinks in his armor in which to bury the hatchet of her fear.
His friend, waiting for his return by the wooden table under the thatched roof, confirmed to him his day’s inklings. In his terse, forward manner, he confirmed that the girl had stated she never wanted to see him again, and that she was immeasurably upset with him.
Having figured that much out already, he paused briefly, to mourn the loss of her as a friend, shifting the breadth of knowledge that made up Her to him, to join the small stack of profiles of the disenchanted. Sometimes you get blamed for shit you didn’t even do. Can’t cry about it, at least he didn’t.
Remain positive, he thought, learn to enjoy losing.
An das Gefährt
Sleek, the flanks, sunlight glinting off of a sturdy frame.
Dauntless, in the face of unrelenting trajectory,
Exact, in the face of deadly consequence.
Not once, brave friend, stout Bucephalus, have you failed me.
No. It is I, neglectful, abusive, pushing ever forward,
Who have blindly brought ruin to your intricate workings.
Steel, rubber and plastic meld with flesh, skin, and bone.
Without one set, the other is still, immobile.
Without the other set, the one is still, immobilized.
Carry me, friend, a few steps further.
Fly with me through the hurtling voids, into the inter-pack repose.
Sing with me, rejoice at the prospect of return and awakening.
Dauntless, in the face of unrelenting trajectory,
Exact, in the face of deadly consequence.
Not once, brave friend, stout Bucephalus, have you failed me.
No. It is I, neglectful, abusive, pushing ever forward,
Who have blindly brought ruin to your intricate workings.
Steel, rubber and plastic meld with flesh, skin, and bone.
Without one set, the other is still, immobile.
Without the other set, the one is still, immobilized.
Carry me, friend, a few steps further.
Fly with me through the hurtling voids, into the inter-pack repose.
Sing with me, rejoice at the prospect of return and awakening.
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