BY ALEX BEZAITIS
Peregrinate
The hand jerks in it’s fixed pattern over and over again. Reputedly, it is never to slow down, staying constant forever, surpassing all existence, for it is in fact our heathen dictator. Forever we may try to beat it, conquer it, dethrone the master that keeps us beating onward through our limited window of opportunity, but it keeps us under it’s callous rule. There is no way to beat it, no way to bend it, despite how long our jingoistic scientists may battle it. But at the moment, to the next moment, and moments proceeding lost to the past, time beats forever forward. Relentlessly.
The clock’s hand however seems to be circumnavigating at an irregular pattern. Each beat pounds and sends a shockwave through the room. The vibrations pass slowly through me and after it passes my ear drums still quiver from the jolt of such a shock. Now, time is slow, painfully slow, and inside I breed a morbid hatred towards this gift of extra living.
Boredom. Bored of the cubicle, it’s walls I have battled for years now to keep my sanity and to keep my individuality, but now I have been swallowed up. Working for an eight-and-a-half-by-four-inch envelope, pushing eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch papers, staring blankly in front of a 15-inch screen. Paper cuts and tears you, while piling onto your shoulders, one more sheet ever time the hand moves. The computer buzz is even worse than the clock, for it does not just deafen you, it’s sound reaches you at the core. It drills into your chest and broods as an impish jackal tearing apart at your soul. At least I will have stable money. At least I won’t be looked down upon. At least I will have a tombstone. A big tombstone. One to be proud of. Forty-eight-by-thirty-five-inches.
****. Blow me a somber kiss and close the shades for morning sun scorches my pale skin. I have done so much as to lock myself away now it is your turn to toss the key, or at least shut the blinds. Do not tease me with the thought of leaving, to venturing into the world of uncertainty that breathes outside the chasm surrounded by a fortress for containment.
Never have I questioned my choices, my decisions, that shaped the life I have wrought. But that was before the gloaming began. The sun has slipped away with such a magnificent dash behind my back as I have naïvely spent my days watching the clock in a stupor, wondering how I was able to manipulate the flow of time; now twilight is imminent, the gloaming has started, and I am not ready. Every day the same procession unfolds before me, computer screens, papers, stale coffee, packaged dinners, nothing personal. With this impersonality I am willingly allowing the sun to fall. If it were not for her then I would not be in this pathetic state of paralysis. She and her wild self, completely unrestrained, completely spontaneous, completely genius, completely alive, taught me. Knowledge, imperative as it may be, can put a damper on one’s outlook on life, but it is completely necessary. She taught me everything I need to know. I now know love, I now know romanticism, I now know a life outside my small, small introverted reality, and it kills me to stay inside. And now that death has taken her starlit beauty from me, I cannot share these feelings it has taken me so long to find with her. But I can still see her; a small little pleasure of mine I like to indulge in every time things begin to get rough and I long to see her face, I have found a way around death to see my long-lost love.
In this winters aggravation I ease myself the trouble of seeing this world, as I have done so many a time in the security of my box, rocking back into the comfort of my company issued chair and let my unconscious mind wander. Swarms of thoughts blend together forming complex webs of thought all blending into one single event that the mind can focus on. I am out on a small rowboat in the middle of the ocean, there is no land in sight. The rowboat is fairly sturdy, company issue, covered by clocks ticking at an extremely decelerated rate. The sun is slipping away and the sky is caving inward. I cannot stop the hurdling of stars and soon they will crush me. If I stay on the boat I will be crushed, if I jump into the ocean I will drown.
My head drops and I accept my defeat, there is nothing I can do, all is hopeless. I don’t even have her here to comfort me and guide me. Until a finger, soft and warm careens across the side of my neck, and then pulls my head upward. I know it is her, her face is so radiant with light that it is not visible, but just by the touch, just by her presence, I know it is her. Without words I rise and look into the glowing ball of light, hoping for just one kiss before I slip away into my doom. But while leaning over, she presses her hand to my chest and keeps her distance.
“Peregrinate”, is all she whispers, and I wake suddenly from my dream.
Dumbfounded I look around: I’m still in my cubical, the clock is still ticking, the computer screen is still emitting a low buzz. What was that she said? Peregrinate. A word I have never heard before, alien to my vocabulary. Is it a word or was it just a silly dream I dreamt with made-up worlds and made-up words. No, it is only a fluke, probably misheard, probably had some sort of brain spasm, which resulted in her spewing some sort of nonsense as I woke from my rest. After all, it was just a dream.
I go back to the computer and stare blankly at the screen, the clocks are still ticking, I’m inside my closed vessel, and the outside world poses an endless amount of possibilities, a world unknown and I am too timid to wet my feet.
Quickly I jump onto the internet and punch in the word on a dictionary website. Anticipation overcomes me and the clock’s hands begin to move faster. Sweat beads down my forehead and I bite nervously on a standard number two pencil, company complimentary. My state of emergency is suppressed and I am overcome with a wave of emotions that cannot be projected. It is just a simple understanding. Face completely sober, I fall back into the chair to see her one last time.
I am back in my boat, the sky is still falling, the clocks are still ticking, and the sun is still moving further and further by the moment. This does not bother me though, because I know this will not be the end of me. She is still here, and I look at her with a certain understanding, like we once looked at each other to let the other know that we loved them. Just a mere facial expression presenting love and understanding. She comes back to me once again and we turn facing the side of the boat, shoulder to shoulder and grasp each other’s hand. I grasp hers hard for I am afraid, but she squeezes back: there is nothing to be afraid of.
Together we plummet, far down into the ocean, into the abyss. Now everything is unsure of and hard to make out. But down here I feel alive; I am once again whole. The world of endless potential has just allowed me through her front door, and now I can swim against the current, and which ever way I see fit.
The hand jerks in it’s fixed pattern over and over again. Reputedly, it is never to slow down, staying constant forever, surpassing all existence, for it is in fact our heathen dictator. Forever we may try to beat it, conquer it, dethrone the master that keeps us beating onward through our limited window of opportunity, but it keeps us under it’s callous rule. There is no way to beat it, no way to bend it, despite how long our jingoistic scientists may battle it. But at the moment, to the next moment, and moments proceeding lost to the past, time beats forever forward. Relentlessly.
The clock’s hand however seems to be circumnavigating at an irregular pattern. Each beat pounds and sends a shockwave through the room. The vibrations pass slowly through me and after it passes my ear drums still quiver from the jolt of such a shock. Now, time is slow, painfully slow, and inside I breed a morbid hatred towards this gift of extra living.
Boredom. Bored of the cubicle, it’s walls I have battled for years now to keep my sanity and to keep my individuality, but now I have been swallowed up. Working for an eight-and-a-half-by-four-inch envelope, pushing eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch papers, staring blankly in front of a 15-inch screen. Paper cuts and tears you, while piling onto your shoulders, one more sheet ever time the hand moves. The computer buzz is even worse than the clock, for it does not just deafen you, it’s sound reaches you at the core. It drills into your chest and broods as an impish jackal tearing apart at your soul. At least I will have stable money. At least I won’t be looked down upon. At least I will have a tombstone. A big tombstone. One to be proud of. Forty-eight-by-thirty-five-inches.
****. Blow me a somber kiss and close the shades for morning sun scorches my pale skin. I have done so much as to lock myself away now it is your turn to toss the key, or at least shut the blinds. Do not tease me with the thought of leaving, to venturing into the world of uncertainty that breathes outside the chasm surrounded by a fortress for containment.
Never have I questioned my choices, my decisions, that shaped the life I have wrought. But that was before the gloaming began. The sun has slipped away with such a magnificent dash behind my back as I have naïvely spent my days watching the clock in a stupor, wondering how I was able to manipulate the flow of time; now twilight is imminent, the gloaming has started, and I am not ready. Every day the same procession unfolds before me, computer screens, papers, stale coffee, packaged dinners, nothing personal. With this impersonality I am willingly allowing the sun to fall. If it were not for her then I would not be in this pathetic state of paralysis. She and her wild self, completely unrestrained, completely spontaneous, completely genius, completely alive, taught me. Knowledge, imperative as it may be, can put a damper on one’s outlook on life, but it is completely necessary. She taught me everything I need to know. I now know love, I now know romanticism, I now know a life outside my small, small introverted reality, and it kills me to stay inside. And now that death has taken her starlit beauty from me, I cannot share these feelings it has taken me so long to find with her. But I can still see her; a small little pleasure of mine I like to indulge in every time things begin to get rough and I long to see her face, I have found a way around death to see my long-lost love.
In this winters aggravation I ease myself the trouble of seeing this world, as I have done so many a time in the security of my box, rocking back into the comfort of my company issued chair and let my unconscious mind wander. Swarms of thoughts blend together forming complex webs of thought all blending into one single event that the mind can focus on. I am out on a small rowboat in the middle of the ocean, there is no land in sight. The rowboat is fairly sturdy, company issue, covered by clocks ticking at an extremely decelerated rate. The sun is slipping away and the sky is caving inward. I cannot stop the hurdling of stars and soon they will crush me. If I stay on the boat I will be crushed, if I jump into the ocean I will drown.
My head drops and I accept my defeat, there is nothing I can do, all is hopeless. I don’t even have her here to comfort me and guide me. Until a finger, soft and warm careens across the side of my neck, and then pulls my head upward. I know it is her, her face is so radiant with light that it is not visible, but just by the touch, just by her presence, I know it is her. Without words I rise and look into the glowing ball of light, hoping for just one kiss before I slip away into my doom. But while leaning over, she presses her hand to my chest and keeps her distance.
“Peregrinate”, is all she whispers, and I wake suddenly from my dream.
Dumbfounded I look around: I’m still in my cubical, the clock is still ticking, the computer screen is still emitting a low buzz. What was that she said? Peregrinate. A word I have never heard before, alien to my vocabulary. Is it a word or was it just a silly dream I dreamt with made-up worlds and made-up words. No, it is only a fluke, probably misheard, probably had some sort of brain spasm, which resulted in her spewing some sort of nonsense as I woke from my rest. After all, it was just a dream.
I go back to the computer and stare blankly at the screen, the clocks are still ticking, I’m inside my closed vessel, and the outside world poses an endless amount of possibilities, a world unknown and I am too timid to wet my feet.
Quickly I jump onto the internet and punch in the word on a dictionary website. Anticipation overcomes me and the clock’s hands begin to move faster. Sweat beads down my forehead and I bite nervously on a standard number two pencil, company complimentary. My state of emergency is suppressed and I am overcome with a wave of emotions that cannot be projected. It is just a simple understanding. Face completely sober, I fall back into the chair to see her one last time.
I am back in my boat, the sky is still falling, the clocks are still ticking, and the sun is still moving further and further by the moment. This does not bother me though, because I know this will not be the end of me. She is still here, and I look at her with a certain understanding, like we once looked at each other to let the other know that we loved them. Just a mere facial expression presenting love and understanding. She comes back to me once again and we turn facing the side of the boat, shoulder to shoulder and grasp each other’s hand. I grasp hers hard for I am afraid, but she squeezes back: there is nothing to be afraid of.
Together we plummet, far down into the ocean, into the abyss. Now everything is unsure of and hard to make out. But down here I feel alive; I am once again whole. The world of endless potential has just allowed me through her front door, and now I can swim against the current, and which ever way I see fit.