Some thrings.
IT IS TIME FOR UN-EMO, NON-ABSTRACT (relatively) IDIOSYNCRATIC WORD COMBINATIONS!
I went walking this morning before dawn. I sat down on a grazzy curb with powerlines overhead and a cat ran across the street. I miaowed at him. He looked really startled and stopped across the street to stare at me. We stared at each other for an hour.
I ran into two black kittens and a fucking annoying mockingbird.
I had a dream, and when I woke up I remembered it and held my hand out, supposedly seeing feathers on my hand, but I can't say for sure, because I only remember that I was holding my hand out, flexing it, and saying, "Look at all my feathers."
I stood in the sunlight bending over the curve of the earth. There were storm clouds, tangerine-colored in the distance and cerulean overhead. The sun on the horizon was blocked by grey, and the opposite side of the sky was set on fire.
She and my other sister are taking care of a kitten named Rui.
I miss my sisters.
There was something else I wanted to write. What was it? Arghh.
My senses are getting steadily more acute. Perhaps it is because I have started using my cerebellum more. I have also been eating roses every day. I steal them from across the street.
They are delicious.
This cockroach came and antennaed my foot just now. Then it went away.
OH YES. The thing I wanted to write: This guy talked to me today. I am SURE he was not human. The proportions were all wrong, for one thing. Wow. I should have asked his name. Maybe he's a neighbor. I seem to see a lot of my neighbors.
My snake keeps leaning to the left.
----
Yesterday I went to work and read about Elphaba, and then was carried off to a freak show. I think the troupe would have been delighted to find Elphaba in the crowd. One of the musicians said I was a canary in a coal mine, or something like that. HEA (one of the performers) and I talked about the evils of separating siamese twins and magic potions given by imaginary friends to grow fingers. I listened to excellent banjo jamnations, and drew pictures, and gave one to HEA, and left the rest everywhere. Then I talked to complete nutcases, and one of them (Freya incarnate, so she claims) gave me a ride home. This morning my alarm clock was the crack addict named Big Joe knocking on his dealer's (my neighbor's) door and cursing loudly because there was no answer.
My house smells like ginger against nausea, I still smell like firey smoke, the sky is very very pretty. Some squirrel just fell noisily out of a tree, climbed back up and is staring at me right now.
So that's electric blue for me.
-----
The Snakelike One
January 6th, 2000
Subject: I'm a fan of flying Italian plumbers in red overalls.
Time: 3:05 am.
Mood: ....
Music: Bowser.
January 2nd, 2005
Time: 11:12 am.
Mood: tonta.
Jesus. It must be fucking wonderful to be the man that has his name taken in vain 2.3 billion times every day, 2,000 years after death. Why does Captain Archer have a hot vulcan sidekick? We can't all have one of those. Why am I talking like an idiot?
I saw mon again today-- the little kitty. She slashed my hand to ribbons. Theo told me that when she was little, he used to play rough with her, so scratching people's hands up is the way that she shows affection, kinda. It's so sweet. Grandmother: "¿Ella? ¡no tiene hueso sweet en su cuerpo! pequeño monstruo, ella es. pequeño monstruo."
In that house, I can't fathom what the past must've been like, but being in that house lets me imagine a little more clearly... Not that it's anything but imagination.
Lung says imagination is the only thing keeping us sane.
That house was the house in which my father lost his father. Theo grew up in that house. Adelina, Amna, and Dandelion died in that house, or nearby. Peacefully... without leaving too much of a ripple. Not like the kind of ripple a father of 5 children left.
God, I hope I never have children. Natural bonds are too powerful to handle, and we die so soon anyway.
Maybe I'll just move to Hawaii and marry Jada.
July 30th, 2005
Subject: Rodents...
Time: 11:47 pm.
Mood: mellow.
El otro dia iba yo como casi siempre.. con mi bici a toa lechee por la plaza de la iglesiaa y... chan chan... de repente va i se me cruza una rata gigaaaante en mi caminooo. La susodicha rata era del tamaño de un conejo lo menos, que cage que me entró, por poco la atropello con la bicicleta, pero la muy puta dio un salto y se metió por un hueco de una alcantarilla. Yo aun no se como se pudo meter por ese agujero tan pequeño. Que cosas tiene la vida.
July 31st, 2005
Subject: The Underwater Princess and the Monster in the Sky
Time: 12:12 am.
Mood: predatory.
Why is it that people view the world as upside-down? That they put emphasis on being on top, yet even deny their own nature enough to be afraid of heights? Sticky sunrays, like manta rays, like leaves raised to the sticky sun. I know, I'm being silly... but give an old man (a little girl) a chance to play.
So Jerusalem's dwelling needs to be cleaned again. My snake. Jerusalem's my snake... not that that couldn't have a double meaning. I get mad at people for calling her 'Jerry.' Jada calls her Johnny. The name John is incredibly funny.
Anyway, it's not that snakes aren't incredibly clean people, it's just that every once in a while it's nice to have the maid (me) make your place seem a little bigger by making it look a little newer than it was. I feel guilty about keeping her sometimes, but she's so beautiful. I'm the evil antagonist with a beautiful princess in my grasp.
Yessss.... I plan to make her my queeeeen......
I need a goatee.
A few days ago I thought about writing about sleeping on the bus. Tt was cold, and rainy... not cold and snowy. The river is dammed. Damned. The bus only costs a quarter here. As opposed to free subway or $2 in the previous city for an all-day pass on the giant metal shark called the Metro. Anyway, I know one route that goes almost to the city limits. So I got on. And I slept. Didn't bother worrying about getting back, I had quarters. Thing is, I remember dreaming some weird shit. Emerald fortresses in the sky, golems fighting for supremacy, arms coming off, masks coming off, falling off, jumping off. I could tell you the story, but it would sound even weirder. Who is you? Myself, really... she/he's all I'm writing for (who really knows what gender their soul is? If they even have one. A gender or a soul. Actually, since I'm wondering whether or not my 'soul' exists, it can't be the 'I' I'm writing for. So forget that. Forget aaAalllla' that.).
Except this. 'Cause I'm gonna lay out my dream as best as I can.
I'm a golem. I live on a tilting emerald plane in the sky. It's amazingly simple: A plane, maybe some spires or rock formations sticking out in the middle. A few pillars.
\\I'm interrupting this. I just watched Jada wave a pom-pom back and fourth. She's got this wild smooth shiny hair... And I am some kind of Magpie
oh my god
anyway.\\
Sooner or later (I've skipped a lot) I end up at the edge of my world. I'm going to detatch my arm so that it doesn't pull my enemy with me as I fall off into the unknown. Probably death or eternal falling. Maybe a 4-dimensional Möbius strip type deal and I'll drop down on the world I left (or where it once was) an uncountable time in the future. It was the honorable thing to do.
August 1st, 2005
Time: 3:41 pm.
I'm trying to find out the importance of everyday objects.
So Johnny was fed today. My little sister was over at the time. She named Johnny's food 'Amelia.' She built a maze for it out of plastic blocks, and put some cheese at the end. Amelia climbed over the walls and tried to escape. There are much worse ways to die, I know this for sure.
I think it's time to start my own business. I'll sell information to little children that their parents won't give them.
August 4th, 2005
Subject: Today is Thursday
Time: 4:34 pm.
Mood: sizzlin'.
Music: Matilda Wormwood.
And then, on! To the revolving pillar in the sky. Off! Off into the wild blue! Then speeding downward, barely missing the deadly spikes, just catching a pole and spinning around it. Then, the slide! Oh, if there ever was a slide that provided such a thrilling ride, then I do confide, I never have heard of such. At the end there is a splash! Into the ocean! A giant fish jumps before you... over, through beneath... it has a million teeth! Five hundred thousand in its mouth, and five hundred thousand in its skin. Dodge from deadly fin to deadly fin. Then...
Free.
Free in the utterly endless deeps,
where each secret that the ocean takes, it keeps--
down where the glassy water-goddess sleeps.
Slee caru caru zair--
It waits forever. Do you dare?
May 11th, 2007
Time: 12:39 am.
Did you know that I am the good friend of Murcielagita? I think the biggest difference between us might be that I'm a vegetarian and she isn't, though it isn't because I love animals. It's because I HATE VEGETABLES.
If you want to be my friend, I'll give you more idiosyncratic word combinations that are lying in wait in a secret online vault.
Time: 12:34 am.
Teethy skies...
Stars rise.
Kissing tigers.
Time: 12:27 am.
Ever had that feeling where... you know someone wants to kill you? And you know they will if they have the opportunity? And they have a good reason for wanting to kill you, but they don't really need one anyway, and it's only a good reason to them... to almost anyone else, the reason shouldn't exist.
May 15th, 2007
Subject: I wish I was queer so I could get chicks.
Time: 12:41 pm.
I'm very hungry, and it's making me nauseous (a word that comes from the sea... it is like a flying fish, and flew forth de yonder ranting endlessly about churning tides), and I had a very weird dream about drugs and wizards, and that's making me nauseous as well. There's a wonderful smell outside of a thousand trees that were breathing all night; now they're collecting old Sol's light.
There are stages in hunger that can come on very suddenly if you're not paying attention, and often times when one does not have enough to eat, one may awaken to the ridiculousness of human construction. We almost have to eat constantly in order to be in top condition, and yet we can go without food for weeks (albeit alongside crippling pain). The first stage is mild, when your stomach and/or esophagus starts to cramp. After a while it goes away as your body shuts down various systems and begins to operate on a lower level. As you get hungrier, you're able to think... less. This goes on for a while, usually with increasing degrees of intensity, until you're more than willing to eat something questionable (such as your shoes, sandpaper, or the fruit of the deadly night shade plant) to stop your stomach from eating you.
Last night, as I was in one of the first few stages, where you feel like sea water has somehow flooded your insides and is rocking back and fourth rather painfully, I began thinking about fear.
Although I have encountered fear on many occasions, it is not something I am able to carry with me. The closest I can come to an unconditional fear may be fear of madness.
No, not fear of insanity, exactly. Insanity is something viewed from the outside, describing a speculation of madness.
When I am no longer able to change, to remember, to progress, to be curious, to take in information... this is the fear of death, of pain, even though it involves neither.
September 26th, 2007
Subject: "Music is evil. It makes you feel things."
Time: 7:19 pm.
I could smell the ocean on the wind today.
Why did the gods feel threatened by a human civilization enough to destroy it?
My knees are scratched from meeting with my best friend, who is a cat, today.
I got a tiny, tiny piece of glass, no bigger than 8 or 9 grains of melted sand, out of my foot today. I put it on a withered seed and I put the seed on my windowsill, because I think there might be a lesson there. Or something.
Why does it have to be a fight to the death? I want a reasonable explanation.
I've decided I will have to stop listening only to Snake and listen to Doctor, too. He says I should... he says I should...
It will take courage.
------
"Have you ever read a book called Fight Club, by Chuck Palanhiuk?"
I might have, at that point. I'm not sure what I said. I remember him mentioning the rather brutal ending.
(" 'Whatever you want, Mr. Durden, sir.' And then it just ends.")
"Well," he said, "There was this one line in the book, a line that I remember clearly. It was, 'A moment is all you can ever expect from perfection.' " I looked at him in the red glow, but he continued to stare ahead and the red turned green.
"You know, I met Mr. Waldüpus once. He told me stories."
"Really? What stories did he tell you?"
"There was one about a shiny razor that hid in a brick wall and got all rusty, and another about a snowflake that flung itself off a mountaintop and was therefore one of the last to melt... I think there was a third one, too, but I don't remember what it was... Do you know where those stories came from?"
"Yes, actually-- they were written by a man named daVinci."
"Oh! I wondered. I thought maybe Mr. Waldüpus had made them up..."
"Did I ever tell you about the dream I had, about the angels?"
He had. I didn't say so, though, so that he would tell it again. Instead I said, "What was the dream about the angels?" I didn't lie, you see.
"Well, there were these two angels, a male and a female, and each of them had only one wing, so all they could do was fly in circles--"
"Where were they flying?" I interrupted. I had a picture in my head of an abandoned city-- was that from when he told me the dream before?
"Oh-- I don't remember. In the mountains, or something... it doesn't matter. Anyway, they were flying in circles, and neither of them noticed each other. They were only aware of themselves."
I was probably smiling, staring in attention. Like a doooofus.
"And when they finally noticed each other, the same thought occurred to them at the same time, and-- it was the female that initiated it. She reached out, and grabbed his hand, like this," and here he demonstrated with my hand and his, "Here, grab my wrist." I did so, and he grabbed mine, "Like this, and they started to flap their wings in unison, and they slowly rose from the ground..."
I thought about it, the picture in my head. "It wouldn't really work like that," I said. "Face to face? The wings would have to be side-by-side."
He looked away, grinning. "Oh, well, if you put it that way..." I laughed.
"The point is," he said, in earnest in that way he is, putting emphasis on his words while not outwardly demanding that you take them seriously, "The point is, alone, they were flightless. But, together, they could fly."
"Aw," I said, mockingly.
"It's not meant to be like a mushy metaphor..." he explained, as if it were very important that he make this clear. "It's about seeing the truth, that this makes sense, and it's better for them to have joined forces, or they never would have gone beyond flying in circles."
I wasn't looking at him. I was quiet for a while, thinking. "You know what it reminds me of?" I said. "Well, I had this teacher, from Kenya. Her name was Maragwa. It means 'Waterfall.' Anyway, she was beginning a class about something called... " I tried to remember the Swahili word Ujamaa, "I can't remember. But it was a word that meant 'family,' she said, and it applied to the concept of treating a community like a family. Helping one another, without feeling obligation or resentment, because that was just what you do... it just... made sense. It makes... sense." I was having trouble articulating my thoughts, and I still didn't look at him. I'm not sure I know what I was trying to say, but I know what I was trying to think.
He was quiet for a bit, and I concentrated on something else, feeling a little silly. Then he leaned back in apparent exasperation, sighing heavily, his head thrown back, his exposed neck thoroughly distracting. Like prey. "Yeah... yeah, that makes sense," he said. He sounded resigned.
I felt disappointment through my distraction, as if a major point had been missed. But I wasn't sure who had missed whose.
-----
On a hill in a meadow where there used to be a village.
And where no one has lived for years now is an arch made of stone.
It was there hundreds of years ago; maybe it's been there forever. Maybe God made it.
It's a magical place. The people of the village that used to be in that meadow certainly thought so; that was back when the village was just-carved out from the woods, and the shadow of the arch held it whole inside like protective arms, when the sun rose from behind it and shone through. And when you stood under the arch atop the hill, you could just barely distinguish the roofs of the huts from the trees that still stood all around.
That's why the villagers celebrated their weddings beneath the arch, so that the couple could feel like the most important people in the world, with nothing above them but the sky, and the archway so immense that they almost believed it held the sky up, like the rafters of their homes held up the ceilings. In a way, they felt small, like children, but also--looking down at houses that sheltered whole families, seeming no bigger than their fist--feeling like they had to take care of the whole world by themselves.
The couple in this story were standing under the arch themselves, to be wed just as the sun set, but as they made their vows something peculiar happened. The people later said that it must have been that there had not been a wedding before, at that particular time of day, at that time of year, but of course it could have been due to any number of factors. It could have been complete coincidence, if such a thing exists in our Universe.
It was true that it got cold quickly after dark, and the wedding party couldn't last long in that weather; but it had been a lovely crisp day, and the bride and groom looked fine in their wedding clothes, blue as the ocean and green as the pines (respectively).
Perhaps it was the couple themselves who caught the air; what human knows what be the thoughts of Celestial bodies? For it was the Sun and Moon, at that moment exactly parallel to each other in the sky, seen through the great arch of stone, who stopped in their paths entirely. The exact moment went unnoticed by the villagers of the Earth for some time; maybe even a full hour, before they noticed that the light hadn't changed; that the currents of the air and the lay of the shadows seemed subtly wrong.
Perhaps it was the particular attractiveness of the couple wed that day, though they were not very unusual, which for the first time properly drew the magnificent gaze of the sky-beings and caused their eyes to meet; maybe a magnetic attraction was forged between the frigid elements of the Moon and those roiling ones of the Sun, through the arch's restless intermediary stone.
Maybe those Universal bodies for the first time saw a world outside their own insular existence. For perhaps even they lead lone lives, despite the brightness
of the light ocean
that is the constant song of the ancient stars,
and planets, and moons.
Perhaps they saw death, even for their mighty selves, and were too terrified to budge an inch.
And move they didn't. Unsettled, the wedding party returned to the village in the twilight after hours of the same. When they awoke, who knew how long they had slept? It wasn't morning. There wasn't true daylight to be found, nor actual shadow. This continued for many days, and it seemed the world was chaos. The fishermen caught nothing; the tides never pulled the creatures of the ocean up through the lighted depths anymore, and they all retired through the cool shadows, to the very deeps where the earth itself warmed the water the sun no longer touched.
The forest was unsafe for the hunters on land; the predators of the night were about at all hours, and their prey often died of simple exhaustion when they couldn't risk sleeping for too long, and these remains were scavenged before any men, not hunting now but scouring in stormy, restless groups of twenty, could come across them.
The crops wouldn't grow; plants failed to absorb light to feed stems and sweeten fruit, and flowers refused to open in the half-light; not that they would have been pollinated anyway, for the pollen-lovers, the daylight birds and bees and butterflies and the night insects and the bats who followed the rest, all slept in the twilight; slept and slept, spinning long dreams while their bodies grew hungrier and hungrier with their minds trapped inside.
Sadly, the couple on whose wedding day such horror had befallen the world for which they had vowed to care all their lives, returned to the great arch on the hill a year, almost to the day, later, but who knew what the day was? And the chances were slight, anyway, but their first child seemed a month old now, kept alive on
mother's milk
fed with honey stores
and sprites
and dreams
Both the man and woman's parents were now dead, who had stood on this hill a timeless time ago with them; they and their child, probably, would also die, perhaps by the time another year-age had passed. And yet the Sun and Moon, trapped, as it seemed, under the sky-arch in the twilight, were still wonderful to behold.
And the cynyuges wanted their little son, however long he lived, to somehow be able to see that the dreary desperation of the only life he had known was soothed; that the lives of men on earth had not always been this way, though they may always be.
The couple brought with them flowers to plant, hoping that out from under all of the trees they would grow, protected by the arch from scavengers. They did not think it likely, however, and had symbolically brought the last example of each of their chosen species; the one remaining night-blooming cereus, with its stringy flower-bud hanging unopened, and the very last sunflower the village had in its gardens; the horny center of its failed attempt at a bud dangled from a wilted stem, which draped limp on the ground like a vine.
It was very romantic of them, I suppose, and they sat with their son for a while, shed some tears, and gazed at the astral bodies hovering all-too close to earth. Then they left.
Unnaturally, their flowers grew; the magic in the soil of that hill was a powerful fertilizer, but unnatural; the bush-flower and the stalk-flower grew together in vines, crawling over the sides of the arch, over an indeterminate period of time, no more than what we would count as a few days. When the first creeping root sank into a crevice of the stone of the arch and widened it imperceptibly, the sun and moon snapped back into their revolutions, for a wonder, and though the couple's blond-haired, dark-skinned son lived,
he left them
and ran
when he was old enough to run
and they never saw him outside their dreams, but who knows if he ever saw the arch again.
Slowly, the strange vines grew over the hill; they bloomed in the day and night, and pollinated the other's flowers until there were two-foot wide blooms, with a hard, inedible center and thousands of long, thin, draping yellow petals foaming from the stem; though they are slowly destroying the immense Terran arch, as you can see it still stands. So it's anybody's guess how long the end will be in coming; perhaps the Earth will destroy itself first. Maybe it will be there forever....maybe it's been there forever.
I went walking this morning before dawn. I sat down on a grazzy curb with powerlines overhead and a cat ran across the street. I miaowed at him. He looked really startled and stopped across the street to stare at me. We stared at each other for an hour.
I ran into two black kittens and a fucking annoying mockingbird.
I had a dream, and when I woke up I remembered it and held my hand out, supposedly seeing feathers on my hand, but I can't say for sure, because I only remember that I was holding my hand out, flexing it, and saying, "Look at all my feathers."
I stood in the sunlight bending over the curve of the earth. There were storm clouds, tangerine-colored in the distance and cerulean overhead. The sun on the horizon was blocked by grey, and the opposite side of the sky was set on fire.
She and my other sister are taking care of a kitten named Rui.
I miss my sisters.
There was something else I wanted to write. What was it? Arghh.
My senses are getting steadily more acute. Perhaps it is because I have started using my cerebellum more. I have also been eating roses every day. I steal them from across the street.
They are delicious.
This cockroach came and antennaed my foot just now. Then it went away.
OH YES. The thing I wanted to write: This guy talked to me today. I am SURE he was not human. The proportions were all wrong, for one thing. Wow. I should have asked his name. Maybe he's a neighbor. I seem to see a lot of my neighbors.
My snake keeps leaning to the left.
----
Yesterday I went to work and read about Elphaba, and then was carried off to a freak show. I think the troupe would have been delighted to find Elphaba in the crowd. One of the musicians said I was a canary in a coal mine, or something like that. HEA (one of the performers) and I talked about the evils of separating siamese twins and magic potions given by imaginary friends to grow fingers. I listened to excellent banjo jamnations, and drew pictures, and gave one to HEA, and left the rest everywhere. Then I talked to complete nutcases, and one of them (Freya incarnate, so she claims) gave me a ride home. This morning my alarm clock was the crack addict named Big Joe knocking on his dealer's (my neighbor's) door and cursing loudly because there was no answer.
My house smells like ginger against nausea, I still smell like firey smoke, the sky is very very pretty. Some squirrel just fell noisily out of a tree, climbed back up and is staring at me right now.
So that's electric blue for me.
-----
The Snakelike One
January 6th, 2000
Subject: I'm a fan of flying Italian plumbers in red overalls.
Time: 3:05 am.
Mood: ....
Music: Bowser.
January 2nd, 2005
Time: 11:12 am.
Mood: tonta.
Jesus. It must be fucking wonderful to be the man that has his name taken in vain 2.3 billion times every day, 2,000 years after death. Why does Captain Archer have a hot vulcan sidekick? We can't all have one of those. Why am I talking like an idiot?
I saw mon again today-- the little kitty. She slashed my hand to ribbons. Theo told me that when she was little, he used to play rough with her, so scratching people's hands up is the way that she shows affection, kinda. It's so sweet. Grandmother: "¿Ella? ¡no tiene hueso sweet en su cuerpo! pequeño monstruo, ella es. pequeño monstruo."
In that house, I can't fathom what the past must've been like, but being in that house lets me imagine a little more clearly... Not that it's anything but imagination.
Lung says imagination is the only thing keeping us sane.
That house was the house in which my father lost his father. Theo grew up in that house. Adelina, Amna, and Dandelion died in that house, or nearby. Peacefully... without leaving too much of a ripple. Not like the kind of ripple a father of 5 children left.
God, I hope I never have children. Natural bonds are too powerful to handle, and we die so soon anyway.
Maybe I'll just move to Hawaii and marry Jada.
July 30th, 2005
Subject: Rodents...
Time: 11:47 pm.
Mood: mellow.
El otro dia iba yo como casi siempre.. con mi bici a toa lechee por la plaza de la iglesiaa y... chan chan... de repente va i se me cruza una rata gigaaaante en mi caminooo. La susodicha rata era del tamaño de un conejo lo menos, que cage que me entró, por poco la atropello con la bicicleta, pero la muy puta dio un salto y se metió por un hueco de una alcantarilla. Yo aun no se como se pudo meter por ese agujero tan pequeño. Que cosas tiene la vida.
July 31st, 2005
Subject: The Underwater Princess and the Monster in the Sky
Time: 12:12 am.
Mood: predatory.
Why is it that people view the world as upside-down? That they put emphasis on being on top, yet even deny their own nature enough to be afraid of heights? Sticky sunrays, like manta rays, like leaves raised to the sticky sun. I know, I'm being silly... but give an old man (a little girl) a chance to play.
So Jerusalem's dwelling needs to be cleaned again. My snake. Jerusalem's my snake... not that that couldn't have a double meaning. I get mad at people for calling her 'Jerry.' Jada calls her Johnny. The name John is incredibly funny.
Anyway, it's not that snakes aren't incredibly clean people, it's just that every once in a while it's nice to have the maid (me) make your place seem a little bigger by making it look a little newer than it was. I feel guilty about keeping her sometimes, but she's so beautiful. I'm the evil antagonist with a beautiful princess in my grasp.
Yessss.... I plan to make her my queeeeen......
I need a goatee.
A few days ago I thought about writing about sleeping on the bus. Tt was cold, and rainy... not cold and snowy. The river is dammed. Damned. The bus only costs a quarter here. As opposed to free subway or $2 in the previous city for an all-day pass on the giant metal shark called the Metro. Anyway, I know one route that goes almost to the city limits. So I got on. And I slept. Didn't bother worrying about getting back, I had quarters. Thing is, I remember dreaming some weird shit. Emerald fortresses in the sky, golems fighting for supremacy, arms coming off, masks coming off, falling off, jumping off. I could tell you the story, but it would sound even weirder. Who is you? Myself, really... she/he's all I'm writing for (who really knows what gender their soul is? If they even have one. A gender or a soul. Actually, since I'm wondering whether or not my 'soul' exists, it can't be the 'I' I'm writing for. So forget that. Forget aaAalllla' that.).
Except this. 'Cause I'm gonna lay out my dream as best as I can.
I'm a golem. I live on a tilting emerald plane in the sky. It's amazingly simple: A plane, maybe some spires or rock formations sticking out in the middle. A few pillars.
\\I'm interrupting this. I just watched Jada wave a pom-pom back and fourth. She's got this wild smooth shiny hair... And I am some kind of Magpie
oh my god
anyway.\\
Sooner or later (I've skipped a lot) I end up at the edge of my world. I'm going to detatch my arm so that it doesn't pull my enemy with me as I fall off into the unknown. Probably death or eternal falling. Maybe a 4-dimensional Möbius strip type deal and I'll drop down on the world I left (or where it once was) an uncountable time in the future. It was the honorable thing to do.
August 1st, 2005
Time: 3:41 pm.
I'm trying to find out the importance of everyday objects.
So Johnny was fed today. My little sister was over at the time. She named Johnny's food 'Amelia.' She built a maze for it out of plastic blocks, and put some cheese at the end. Amelia climbed over the walls and tried to escape. There are much worse ways to die, I know this for sure.
I think it's time to start my own business. I'll sell information to little children that their parents won't give them.
August 4th, 2005
Subject: Today is Thursday
Time: 4:34 pm.
Mood: sizzlin'.
Music: Matilda Wormwood.
And then, on! To the revolving pillar in the sky. Off! Off into the wild blue! Then speeding downward, barely missing the deadly spikes, just catching a pole and spinning around it. Then, the slide! Oh, if there ever was a slide that provided such a thrilling ride, then I do confide, I never have heard of such. At the end there is a splash! Into the ocean! A giant fish jumps before you... over, through beneath... it has a million teeth! Five hundred thousand in its mouth, and five hundred thousand in its skin. Dodge from deadly fin to deadly fin. Then...
Free.
Free in the utterly endless deeps,
where each secret that the ocean takes, it keeps--
down where the glassy water-goddess sleeps.
Slee caru caru zair--
It waits forever. Do you dare?
May 11th, 2007
Time: 12:39 am.
Did you know that I am the good friend of Murcielagita? I think the biggest difference between us might be that I'm a vegetarian and she isn't, though it isn't because I love animals. It's because I HATE VEGETABLES.
If you want to be my friend, I'll give you more idiosyncratic word combinations that are lying in wait in a secret online vault.
Time: 12:34 am.
Teethy skies...
Stars rise.
Kissing tigers.
Time: 12:27 am.
Ever had that feeling where... you know someone wants to kill you? And you know they will if they have the opportunity? And they have a good reason for wanting to kill you, but they don't really need one anyway, and it's only a good reason to them... to almost anyone else, the reason shouldn't exist.
May 15th, 2007
Subject: I wish I was queer so I could get chicks.
Time: 12:41 pm.
I'm very hungry, and it's making me nauseous (a word that comes from the sea... it is like a flying fish, and flew forth de yonder ranting endlessly about churning tides), and I had a very weird dream about drugs and wizards, and that's making me nauseous as well. There's a wonderful smell outside of a thousand trees that were breathing all night; now they're collecting old Sol's light.
There are stages in hunger that can come on very suddenly if you're not paying attention, and often times when one does not have enough to eat, one may awaken to the ridiculousness of human construction. We almost have to eat constantly in order to be in top condition, and yet we can go without food for weeks (albeit alongside crippling pain). The first stage is mild, when your stomach and/or esophagus starts to cramp. After a while it goes away as your body shuts down various systems and begins to operate on a lower level. As you get hungrier, you're able to think... less. This goes on for a while, usually with increasing degrees of intensity, until you're more than willing to eat something questionable (such as your shoes, sandpaper, or the fruit of the deadly night shade plant) to stop your stomach from eating you.
Last night, as I was in one of the first few stages, where you feel like sea water has somehow flooded your insides and is rocking back and fourth rather painfully, I began thinking about fear.
Although I have encountered fear on many occasions, it is not something I am able to carry with me. The closest I can come to an unconditional fear may be fear of madness.
No, not fear of insanity, exactly. Insanity is something viewed from the outside, describing a speculation of madness.
When I am no longer able to change, to remember, to progress, to be curious, to take in information... this is the fear of death, of pain, even though it involves neither.
September 26th, 2007
Subject: "Music is evil. It makes you feel things."
Time: 7:19 pm.
I could smell the ocean on the wind today.
Why did the gods feel threatened by a human civilization enough to destroy it?
My knees are scratched from meeting with my best friend, who is a cat, today.
I got a tiny, tiny piece of glass, no bigger than 8 or 9 grains of melted sand, out of my foot today. I put it on a withered seed and I put the seed on my windowsill, because I think there might be a lesson there. Or something.
Why does it have to be a fight to the death? I want a reasonable explanation.
I've decided I will have to stop listening only to Snake and listen to Doctor, too. He says I should... he says I should...
It will take courage.
------
"Have you ever read a book called Fight Club, by Chuck Palanhiuk?"
I might have, at that point. I'm not sure what I said. I remember him mentioning the rather brutal ending.
(" 'Whatever you want, Mr. Durden, sir.' And then it just ends.")
"Well," he said, "There was this one line in the book, a line that I remember clearly. It was, 'A moment is all you can ever expect from perfection.' " I looked at him in the red glow, but he continued to stare ahead and the red turned green.
"You know, I met Mr. Waldüpus once. He told me stories."
"Really? What stories did he tell you?"
"There was one about a shiny razor that hid in a brick wall and got all rusty, and another about a snowflake that flung itself off a mountaintop and was therefore one of the last to melt... I think there was a third one, too, but I don't remember what it was... Do you know where those stories came from?"
"Yes, actually-- they were written by a man named daVinci."
"Oh! I wondered. I thought maybe Mr. Waldüpus had made them up..."
"Did I ever tell you about the dream I had, about the angels?"
He had. I didn't say so, though, so that he would tell it again. Instead I said, "What was the dream about the angels?" I didn't lie, you see.
"Well, there were these two angels, a male and a female, and each of them had only one wing, so all they could do was fly in circles--"
"Where were they flying?" I interrupted. I had a picture in my head of an abandoned city-- was that from when he told me the dream before?
"Oh-- I don't remember. In the mountains, or something... it doesn't matter. Anyway, they were flying in circles, and neither of them noticed each other. They were only aware of themselves."
I was probably smiling, staring in attention. Like a doooofus.
"And when they finally noticed each other, the same thought occurred to them at the same time, and-- it was the female that initiated it. She reached out, and grabbed his hand, like this," and here he demonstrated with my hand and his, "Here, grab my wrist." I did so, and he grabbed mine, "Like this, and they started to flap their wings in unison, and they slowly rose from the ground..."
I thought about it, the picture in my head. "It wouldn't really work like that," I said. "Face to face? The wings would have to be side-by-side."
He looked away, grinning. "Oh, well, if you put it that way..." I laughed.
"The point is," he said, in earnest in that way he is, putting emphasis on his words while not outwardly demanding that you take them seriously, "The point is, alone, they were flightless. But, together, they could fly."
"Aw," I said, mockingly.
"It's not meant to be like a mushy metaphor..." he explained, as if it were very important that he make this clear. "It's about seeing the truth, that this makes sense, and it's better for them to have joined forces, or they never would have gone beyond flying in circles."
I wasn't looking at him. I was quiet for a while, thinking. "You know what it reminds me of?" I said. "Well, I had this teacher, from Kenya. Her name was Maragwa. It means 'Waterfall.' Anyway, she was beginning a class about something called... " I tried to remember the Swahili word Ujamaa, "I can't remember. But it was a word that meant 'family,' she said, and it applied to the concept of treating a community like a family. Helping one another, without feeling obligation or resentment, because that was just what you do... it just... made sense. It makes... sense." I was having trouble articulating my thoughts, and I still didn't look at him. I'm not sure I know what I was trying to say, but I know what I was trying to think.
He was quiet for a bit, and I concentrated on something else, feeling a little silly. Then he leaned back in apparent exasperation, sighing heavily, his head thrown back, his exposed neck thoroughly distracting. Like prey. "Yeah... yeah, that makes sense," he said. He sounded resigned.
I felt disappointment through my distraction, as if a major point had been missed. But I wasn't sure who had missed whose.
-----
On a hill in a meadow where there used to be a village.
And where no one has lived for years now is an arch made of stone.
It was there hundreds of years ago; maybe it's been there forever. Maybe God made it.
It's a magical place. The people of the village that used to be in that meadow certainly thought so; that was back when the village was just-carved out from the woods, and the shadow of the arch held it whole inside like protective arms, when the sun rose from behind it and shone through. And when you stood under the arch atop the hill, you could just barely distinguish the roofs of the huts from the trees that still stood all around.
That's why the villagers celebrated their weddings beneath the arch, so that the couple could feel like the most important people in the world, with nothing above them but the sky, and the archway so immense that they almost believed it held the sky up, like the rafters of their homes held up the ceilings. In a way, they felt small, like children, but also--looking down at houses that sheltered whole families, seeming no bigger than their fist--feeling like they had to take care of the whole world by themselves.
The couple in this story were standing under the arch themselves, to be wed just as the sun set, but as they made their vows something peculiar happened. The people later said that it must have been that there had not been a wedding before, at that particular time of day, at that time of year, but of course it could have been due to any number of factors. It could have been complete coincidence, if such a thing exists in our Universe.
It was true that it got cold quickly after dark, and the wedding party couldn't last long in that weather; but it had been a lovely crisp day, and the bride and groom looked fine in their wedding clothes, blue as the ocean and green as the pines (respectively).
Perhaps it was the couple themselves who caught the air; what human knows what be the thoughts of Celestial bodies? For it was the Sun and Moon, at that moment exactly parallel to each other in the sky, seen through the great arch of stone, who stopped in their paths entirely. The exact moment went unnoticed by the villagers of the Earth for some time; maybe even a full hour, before they noticed that the light hadn't changed; that the currents of the air and the lay of the shadows seemed subtly wrong.
Perhaps it was the particular attractiveness of the couple wed that day, though they were not very unusual, which for the first time properly drew the magnificent gaze of the sky-beings and caused their eyes to meet; maybe a magnetic attraction was forged between the frigid elements of the Moon and those roiling ones of the Sun, through the arch's restless intermediary stone.
Maybe those Universal bodies for the first time saw a world outside their own insular existence. For perhaps even they lead lone lives, despite the brightness
of the light ocean
that is the constant song of the ancient stars,
and planets, and moons.
Perhaps they saw death, even for their mighty selves, and were too terrified to budge an inch.
And move they didn't. Unsettled, the wedding party returned to the village in the twilight after hours of the same. When they awoke, who knew how long they had slept? It wasn't morning. There wasn't true daylight to be found, nor actual shadow. This continued for many days, and it seemed the world was chaos. The fishermen caught nothing; the tides never pulled the creatures of the ocean up through the lighted depths anymore, and they all retired through the cool shadows, to the very deeps where the earth itself warmed the water the sun no longer touched.
The forest was unsafe for the hunters on land; the predators of the night were about at all hours, and their prey often died of simple exhaustion when they couldn't risk sleeping for too long, and these remains were scavenged before any men, not hunting now but scouring in stormy, restless groups of twenty, could come across them.
The crops wouldn't grow; plants failed to absorb light to feed stems and sweeten fruit, and flowers refused to open in the half-light; not that they would have been pollinated anyway, for the pollen-lovers, the daylight birds and bees and butterflies and the night insects and the bats who followed the rest, all slept in the twilight; slept and slept, spinning long dreams while their bodies grew hungrier and hungrier with their minds trapped inside.
Sadly, the couple on whose wedding day such horror had befallen the world for which they had vowed to care all their lives, returned to the great arch on the hill a year, almost to the day, later, but who knew what the day was? And the chances were slight, anyway, but their first child seemed a month old now, kept alive on
mother's milk
fed with honey stores
and sprites
and dreams
Both the man and woman's parents were now dead, who had stood on this hill a timeless time ago with them; they and their child, probably, would also die, perhaps by the time another year-age had passed. And yet the Sun and Moon, trapped, as it seemed, under the sky-arch in the twilight, were still wonderful to behold.
And the cynyuges wanted their little son, however long he lived, to somehow be able to see that the dreary desperation of the only life he had known was soothed; that the lives of men on earth had not always been this way, though they may always be.
The couple brought with them flowers to plant, hoping that out from under all of the trees they would grow, protected by the arch from scavengers. They did not think it likely, however, and had symbolically brought the last example of each of their chosen species; the one remaining night-blooming cereus, with its stringy flower-bud hanging unopened, and the very last sunflower the village had in its gardens; the horny center of its failed attempt at a bud dangled from a wilted stem, which draped limp on the ground like a vine.
It was very romantic of them, I suppose, and they sat with their son for a while, shed some tears, and gazed at the astral bodies hovering all-too close to earth. Then they left.
Unnaturally, their flowers grew; the magic in the soil of that hill was a powerful fertilizer, but unnatural; the bush-flower and the stalk-flower grew together in vines, crawling over the sides of the arch, over an indeterminate period of time, no more than what we would count as a few days. When the first creeping root sank into a crevice of the stone of the arch and widened it imperceptibly, the sun and moon snapped back into their revolutions, for a wonder, and though the couple's blond-haired, dark-skinned son lived,
he left them
and ran
when he was old enough to run
and they never saw him outside their dreams, but who knows if he ever saw the arch again.
Slowly, the strange vines grew over the hill; they bloomed in the day and night, and pollinated the other's flowers until there were two-foot wide blooms, with a hard, inedible center and thousands of long, thin, draping yellow petals foaming from the stem; though they are slowly destroying the immense Terran arch, as you can see it still stands. So it's anybody's guess how long the end will be in coming; perhaps the Earth will destroy itself first. Maybe it will be there forever....maybe it's been there forever.