two three and four
Chapter 2
H was emancipated at last. Not free from the fear of being arrested for what he was nor from the fear that tomorrow would not come. He walked to the main street of the city he lived in and he looked up at the streetlights that lit his way. He at last had the freedom to choose where wanted to go. To many days and nights he had spent in Lark's Park. He had been arrested thrice but not once convicted. He outmaneuvered, bribed, and ran from those who wanted to arrest his movement and body. He knew however that there is not worry about his mind. He kept his mind sharp and free from the worries of others. He was left handed and the movement from business to the land of dreams he inhabited during the night was graceful and flawless. Today he had made 300 dollars. Eighty percent of that goes to pay off the last of his debt. Then the ounce he was to pickup and the extra for him was of no worry to him. He had fought the urge to smoke what was his and he sold it all in one day. Never again would he see the suburban white males, single mothers, or the lawyers with miserable marriages. He knew why they escaped, understood why they escaped, but disagreed that that was the only way out of their life. If you want to escape your body go to sleep, if you want to escape your mind walk along the path to Lark's Park and in some of the ditches you will see what the world closes its eyes on. Clothes its eyes in shades so that the sun does not penetrate and nor does the site of the emaciated, scantily clad, bald bodies of the women and men who lost it all. What they lost is their dignity. The body cannot control everything and even the yogis in India and Tibet cannot withstand the urge to have. The urge for fake happiness and the nostalgia of that fake happiness after it wears off. You can fight it, but at some points you encounter a ditch. The very real ditch that the drug users fall into. He sold weed, but those who sold the hard drugs, heroin, ecstasy, cocaine, or crack often fell into the same ditch and the extra they got for themselves ran out to quickly. So they cut their product, and kept more themselves as they poisoned others lives, literally and metaphorically. Tapping into the chemicals in the brains of their clients and bending them, shaping them, heating them with a butane lighter until they remain shapeless. To drugged to be unhappy, to unhappy to be anything but drugged.
H took his mind of the harsh reality and turned onto the street away from the universities. Away from the knowledge that he fought to attain but was unable to. No matter what society says, that is white society about blacks whites asians indians and hispanics having equal opportunities there are too many children left behind. The discrepancy between the lower class and the ruling class. Its far too great. Yes. The ideal that the patriots fought for is nothing but a reverie. The same dream that never came true for Martin Luther King, identical. The taxes that the lower and upper lower class pay provide the elixir to a monster. The monster that watches, takes and takes and takes. Until you have nothing to take, then they take the clothes on your back, then they take the skin on your flesh and then they take your flesh until nothing but your bones and soul remain. When you have nothing what can you develop into something. With seventy years to live for most what can you do in the twenty years that you have to make a decision. Will you be them, or will you be you, will you be nothing to them or will you be nothing to you. Thats reality. You are either nothing with aids in africa, nothing in France with socialism, nothing in Russia with the army, nothing in school with perverts who roam the halls handing out yellow slips a lot like handcuffs, nothing in prison with the people driven to kill, rape, steal, because of the perversion and "human nature." Well human nature is so vast that best friends can become enemies because they are sick of you for a reason that is so obscure that you are left with nothing to do but sleep.
Sleep.
Fall fast asleep and let your dreams take you to other worlds were you mistake time for light and light for time.
H finally stopped thinking, he let his mind go blank and he just walked. Slowly, stubbornly, but ever so resolutely. His mothers home was only fifty meters away. It wasn't late enough for people to be asleep but it was late enough for people to know to keep away from him. Here people knew his name, his reputation and although they knew he was a pacifist they knew that he could knock you down if he had to. He didn't.
He reached the door to his building and he took out the copper key from his pocket. He only had one key as he could not drive. He held the key in his rough hands and opened the door. He thought about all the time he had walked through these very doors. The things that had happened around him and it all meant nothing to him. His new found freedom from his "occupation" put the past behind him. There was a great gap between his childhood and now. Now was the most important time for him. Now he could wake up the next morning and go where he had most wanted to go. The bookstore.
He stopped thinking about tomorrow and he walked up the sixteen flights of stairs to his mothers apartment. He walked down the hall to apartment 1624 and opened the door. Surprisingly it opened without a creak or squeak in its hinges. He entered, took out the key from the doorknob and put it onto a hook that was nearby. Next to it hung the keys of his mother. They were numerous, for all of the things his mother held dear to her heart. Her drawer, her car, the bookshelves that stood in her room, to the home he knew from infancy, and to at least seven other things that he did not care to know about. He took off his heavy overcoat and opened a closet that was next to a case of drawers nearby.
Those drawers contained his childhood, from the grades he received to pictures from his short childhood. He was forced to grow up too fast because of the death of his father at the age of thirteen. He knew what it was to work for his food, the clothes on his back and the place he lived. His mother spoke literary english so she was redundant in the fast paced, colloquial world of today.
He took a free hanger from its resting place and hung his over coat on it. He took off his gloves, hat, and put them into the outer pockets of his jacket. He reached into the inner pocket and took out his wallet. He counted two hundred and forty dollars and put the remaining sixty back into the wallet and into his pocket. He then exited the apartment and proceeded to the first floor. He knew where he was going and could do so if his eyes were closed. He went to the doorman and gave him the money. The doorman was the woman below the man. The doorman took the money and asked H if he could do him a favor. H shook his head and turned around. The doorman remained silent and resolute as death. He asked no more questions and understood all. Although his job was as illegal as warmth in winter his eyes were as wise and tough as wool. H walked back upstairs and re-entered his home. He smiled a smile of a man who was just told that his slate has been wiped clean. He walked eight feet down the hall and looked to his right. He greeted his mother and asked her how her day went. She replied and asked him if he would like some dinner. He nodded and turned round and went across the hall to the bathroom. He took a shower and exited. He did not feel the warmth or cold of the water. His mind was not in his body and his nerves did not sense what went on in the physical world.
What is our material existence pondered H. The reaction of people - ignoring the dream world is so simple. What be easier? Ignoring the subconscious or making an adventure of seeking the white whale. Anarchy of the mind in the world of dreams. H remembered a dream he had about crack addicts.
He sat in a well lit crack den. It was clear as day and H transported himself to that situation. The den- a square room. H sat on a couch next to a well dressed addict. The addicts face was unfamiliar but it was not grizzly or ugly as one would assume. The man, the beast, the addict took a hit from the pipe, offered it to H. H politely denied the offer. The somnambulist stood up and walked into oblivion. The freshly abandoned pipe sat on a dirty white carped that resembled the short, velvet like hair of a homeless person. The pipe sat and contorted itself, and a metamorphosis took place. What was once smooth clear glass now transformed into the screams and disembodied limbs of sixteen or more babies. The contortion took place within three seconds. It seemed to take an infinity to finally stop changing. What was the meaning of dream asked H of himself. Was it a call to consume? No if anything the continuation of the dream provided H with too many experimental drugs that were shoved down his throat by wild, basement chemists. He shook off the remnant of the dream and was transported back into his own finite breathing corpse. He no longer thought about the dream as he was abruptly reminded of his own hunger and the kindness of his mother.
"H"
My saviour - my Jesus Christ, my St. Valentine, my Benefactor. One can only think of dreams on an empty stomach. H put on a fresh set of clothes. A red threadbare t-shirt he was accustomed to wear at home and a pair of worn, formless black corduroy pants. He exited the bathroom with a familiar step and proceeded three feet down the hall to the kitchen. H entered the well furnished kitchen and sat down in his chair. The chair was built by H when he was sixteen years old. It was made from one piece of maple. There were no engravings on it of any sort. He had sat on this chair when he was mother told him of his fathers suicide. He shot himself through the head with a Kar-98 bolt action rifle. He was given an open coffin funeral and H still haunted himself with the images of his father laying. Faceless, stiff, with a hole the size of an apple in the back of his head. What was a quick and painless way to go for a man were the nightmares of a young man. The day his mother told him was the same day that he sold his first gram. He sold it to a boy at his school. He did not take anything for himself and he told himself it was the last time he would ever sell drugs. However he did not account for his mathematical mind. From that point on it was one hundred and fifty an ounce and a two gram extra for himself. He sold at eleven a gram which gave him enough for another two or twenty eight dollars closer to freedom... Freedom, does it exist?
There is no way it does. How can one throw away his of her family, friends, home, safe life only to be encompassed by playing a guitar on some street corner, collect cans from garbage pails or work for nothing in some fish processing plant?
H's mother finally broke the silence, the sound of plate touching the wooden table produced a little more than a ringing sound. On the plate was capellini, covered in a tomato sauce with onions, garlic, and bits of sausage. Nothing to fancy, taste every ingredient and you'll know it wants to be fresh, but it was better than what most people ate. Chinese take out every night. Poor diet. Its all in making cooking a habit. Also H figured that cooking while you're hungry leads you to the best food. H's favorite food was a national dish from Russia. Piroshki s kapystoy or pie with lettuce. It was a simple dish, impossible to mess up and sure to be eaten within a day of making it.
"How was your day"
"It was fine, I finally quit my job. I don't know what to do with myself. I'm going to leave"
H ate this first course slowly. After he finished his mother brought him a bowl of soup. It was cabbage soup, not his favorite but with the right bread it tasted lovely. He ate it with the vigor of a man who had just been released from prison. The bullion was hot and it burned as it went down his throat. He enjoyed the pain because he knew that the warmth he felt from his mother's food would not be given to him by anyone on the streets. Except perhaps for K, he seemed like a decent lad. Warmth is given to people by three things, love, friendship, and family, without the trinity you are left with fire. Vengeance. Vengeance is vulgar, it causes too much pain. Every war takes away love friendship and family. Every soldier with a heart returns home to find himself unable to react unless he is able to put up a wall. Brick mortar brick mortar brick until he faces a solid foundation to brace himself. Three things that one can brace oneself on are love, friendship and family. The wholly, holy trinity.
H finished the soup. H thanked his mother and went to the five feet down the hall to his room and sat down on his bed. It was six sizes to small for him, also known as a twin size bed. He had the bed since he was seven years old and he had to sleep diagonally on it to fit. His room was small and barely contained any proof of his existence. He had a small righting desk next to his bed. On it was a lamp, and an alarm clock. It wasn't analog and H loved the fact that he had to pay attention to the time. Every time he dreamed the clock turned analog and illegible it was a good way to recognize the differences between illusion and reality.
H turned on the lamp on his desk and took out a piece of paper from the drawer. He also took out a knife and a dull pencil. He pulled out a second drawer, a smaller one that contained a pack of cigarettes, a lighter and a full ash tray. He took out the ashtray and proceeded to sharpen the pencil. The shavings landing without a sound in the ashtray and he reminded himself to empty the ashtray when he was done writing. The blank piece of paper glared menacingly at him and he decided to choose his words carefully. Writing was an important deal for him and although most of the words he wrote simply flowed out of him like water from a spigot he took care to erase what he did not like or what was not true in his mind. Seldom did he write when he had no desire to but tonight was different. He did not want to write yet the words that he wrote had to come out of him. To explain what pertained to his future. His future was always unclear and murky much like the waters that flowed through the river that passed through the city. This was assuming it was spring when all the dirt that covered the ground in fall, was deteriorated in winter, was cleansed in spring. The river grew dirty but the rains that came in april and may made the summer all the cleaner, but the dust raised by cars and the smell of gasoline that pervaded the air year round did not disappear. This saddened H and made him want to browse through hunting magazines, read Walden and run away into the woods. The woods were no saviour however, city life, the air of gasoline, and the desire to destroy did not turn ephemeral as you got farther into the desert of the wilderness. H put away the piece of paper and the pencil and his decision to leave was once again detoured by his experiences with realities.
H took of his threadbare shirt, his worn gray pants and his puma's and put them under his bed. Another despicable feature of his room. His bed was on wheels and whenever he tossed and turned in his dreams they would screech and squeak like mice on acid. He stood up, quite cold as the heat was not turned on in his room, and shook the covers and his pillow to make them more comfortable. He got under the covers and lay on his back. Completely still, he concentrated on his breathing and thought about nothing. He lay there for twenty minutes and without a moments ado he lay on his side. His eyes still closed he faded into sleep, there was no specific moment, the voices in his head. The yells "H" and "Get up" were simply the awakening of his subconscious. The awakening of a force that did not comprehend waking life but simply observed it and stored without meaning, or perhaps with meaning what must be watched again and again. Sleep covered H and he drifted into the darkness of his mind behind his eyelids.
Hours later he woke up. He looked over at his clock and could not read it. He arose from his bed and put on his clothing, he took two steps towards his desk and flicked the switch on his light. It did not turn on, and he smiled. He dreamt, and the room faded into darkness and he came into his second consciousness in a field. The field was empty but gradually like sand creeping down into its second home people came into his peripheral vision and more and more people came. These people were nobodies to him yet they were there. Why? One person, a young woman in a green and gold dress came up to him. She asked him one question. "Where" H smiled and she faded away along with the rest of the people that were in the field, at last the field also faded and H appeared in the apartment of an old man who lived next door. The dog the old man had, a large mastiff bounded onto him and licked his face all over. H bellowed the laugh of a child that is to proud to cry when he trips in front of his friends. H patted the dog, laughed, patted, and laughed louder than before. He missed the dog, it was put to sleep because it knocked over the child of a rich industrialist. The old man was absolutely crushed and he died later that year. The apartment had become empty and dusty. Nobody wanted to live in that apartment anymore. H missed the old man as much as he missed the dog. The silence he encountered after his death was worse than any broken heart. The old man once told him of his former life, the life of a young man.
H always thought that there was a rift, a gap between old age and the early life. The old man always pleased H because he never wanted anything. H often encountered old folks that always wanted. It was funny because he always assumed that old age brings an end to materialism, but they always wanted to move faster, see more, eat better food and feel more. Why doesn't old age bring calm? Can't one look around oneself and see everything? If life is like a painting why must speed help one? Age old questions that won't be answered.
The memory of the old man and his mastiff pleased H. Just like the young woman they faded and H was shot along at speeds unknown to reality into yet another situation, meaningful or meaningless it mattered not.
"Welcome"
"Hello"
"You're young, naive and forgetful"
"I know, thats why I'm here. Perhaps I can learn some things"
"To assume that your mind can teach you anything is also very naive"
"Maybe I overlooked something"
"Look closely at what surrounds you and you will find your answers"
"Thank you"
H woke up slowly. It was early, not yet five o'clock. H put his head back onto his pillow and went back to sleep.
Chapter 3
"I know i am going to try, i know i am going to try, I know I am going to try" and D jumped. A dramatic life calls for drastic action. D was born on a full moon in an alley between a meeting place for intellectuals, the museum and a rendezvous for businessmen. The two weeks between his birth and his home presented a challenge for his benefactor and mother. They were one and the same. Only when D slept did he remember the moment of his birth, his first gasp at air was the beginning of a struggle to fly. His birthplace was two weeks away from his home and his mother, C walked all the way to the ocean to bring him home. The journey was arduous for his mother and worse for her than for him. She kept him on her breast as she walked, practically barefoot and naked except for a "Palto" a native Russian coat that was worn during winter months. The cold month of February was without snow but the wistful wind kept whispering death to D and his mother.
C trudged along, courageous and contemporary. Completely in the moment she pulled up the collar of her palto around her neck and checked to see if D was comfortably attached to her breast. Seldom he coughed and C had to find a spot to clap D on the back to help return his blissful breathing. The journey south was for the best she kept repeating to herself. Again and again she found herself lost in reverie. Remembering the past with a bitter sigh and a smile for the dysfunctional future she hoped to provide her newborn son. She met one person worth mention on the way south and she happily remembered this rendezvous.
For the first week that C walked with her son she did not see a living breathing soul that awake. She did not speak to anyone because her words would not be taken seriously. She saw sleeping people, driving to work, walking to school, children running into library's to hide from foes. She slept in those libraries all the while reading to her son. With each day she was closer from her past and closer to his future. She read the classics to him at night with light from the moon to guide her eyes across pages and the quiet air, aura of the library to guide her solemn voice to her sons young ears. She did not read the rhythmic stories of any of the pathetic writers of the time. The true literature she read every night until her boy was asleep and the words that penetrated his subconscious for an hour or two after his falling asleep provided hope. The stories of madness, redemption found in Dostoevsky and Tolstoy and the tragic stories of Hugo reminded C that her there is no hope. This juxtaposition of hope and hopelessness in between bookshelves every night confused the child at times. In his sleepy, perplexed gazes into his mothers eyes on some nights never ended with a smile. The child always drifted back to sleep after these moments and C went to sleep with a two tomes under her head for a pillow and her palto to cover her son and herself.
The nightmares C dreamed at night often awoke her with a start. On one night after the moon hid behind a cloud and her heavy eyelids without her consent closed her eyes she awoke standing in the middle of the river Thames. There was a stench like no other and she was surrounded by naked, rotting, dead men. These corpses snatched at the hem of her dress and began to pull her under. As much as she struggled the water struggled just as much to keep her above it and from drowning. Some force kept her alive but perhaps the horror that awaited below the water was more pleasing than the gazes of the men. There gaze was like that of Baal purely honest. The honesty they held all but reminded her of the "pearly gates" to heaven. At long last the demonic men pulled her under. She saw her last breaths escape in bubbles stopping at the surface of the river and resting there. As if reminding her that this was but a dream, a terrible dream. At last her eyes closed and she reawakened before him.
"Welcome, you are early. We don't take early arrivals we are afraid we have to send you back"
That night C awoke, took D into her arms who still slept the serene sleep of an infant. She walked to the emergency exit of the library and as she was unaccustomed to do she opened the door and exited into the frigid night. That was the night she met the only person worth knowing in her eyes. Her name was A and that night she almost killed D's mother. This would have extended his life. A was infertile and had always wanted a child and C's death would have provided the perfect excuse to take have one indirectly. However as in all situations there is a constant, in this case it was the coefficient of friction that stopped the fish tailing car A drove from slamming into the warm soft body of C. Although that is a lie, C had gained weight during her months of pregnancy, when steel crashes into flesh there is no situation in which the latter succeeds the former. After the car came to a standstill there was an opened door, the sound of metal slamming against metal and a enraged scream.
"Watch where you walk youngster"
The reply took a few minutes but as soon as our heroines heartbeat subsided there was no more waiting for a recounter.
"Yes, I will from now on"
"Where do you hail from young lady? Are you a vagabond?"
"I come from a city a weeks walk north of here. You did not ask why I am going but I will answer that so you do not ask later. I left the city H- because I had just given birth to the bundle I am carrying in my arms. I had to leave because my pimp would kill this child I had just given birth to as he had done so to the other two children I had given birth to. I am not a vagabond because a vagabond does not choose to be poor. I made a decision to leave that city, to have nothing except what I have on my back and what I have in my arms. Do not call me a coward because I escaped my job, call me a coward for planning to give my child to nature."
"What a story"
"I give you the right to laugh at me, except not at what I have experienced"
"I will give you that, I will also give you a ride to wherever you are going"
"Thank you"
C got into the vehicle and the pair A and C continued on to infinity. The journey to be washed up on a seashore was a seventh to completion. Maybe the three could lead themselves to subside. But they could not, both talked endlessly of the past. In there minds the past did not last. Every moment had already ended, each difficult part of life a tome. Filed away into the library of the willing self accusation. Magical. They continued on with an air of joint self renewal. The newfound mutually chaste couple survived on the generosity of A. She provided the young mother with enough warmth, shelter and clothing that any more wants would make her cross. Her own crucifix was no easier to bear, the young child, barely forty-one centimeters no easier to bear near her heart than any other just-born animals. Blind and unforgiving to a distance any greater than fifty centimeters. The young ones arm could not reach his mother and the world would go silent for the sound of a heartbeat reminds one of life.
And so they traveled a blind child, a prostitute, and her saviour.
Chapter 4
"hello"
good morning, good morning? is it morning is it this day, who knows. how long have I been asleep? was i asleep, i don't remember anything past yesterday. who's there? what happened? i found inspiration, i think i tried to fly. i flew, i flew! I experienced miraculous flight, i witnessed the ascension of jesus christ. i do no exist any longer, i never had proof i existed other than four other senses. however i don't remember touching anything, smelling the sweet aromas life can provide, the melody's of the chirping of birds, wonderful speech spectacular speech. i have no tasted nectar yet, i have been given yet another, another clean slate.
"open"
Vivid. For crying out loud, I see a desk. I see. The desk is round, what's round? Well its does not hurt as long as a I hit it horizontally. Perhaps if I was shorter I would hit my head on the bottom of the desk. Its heavy isn't it, the wood has been pressed, pressed, pressed layer upon layer upon layer. The wood is disgusting, it is warm like flesh yet life has gone out of it already. It stands, I have not experienced what standing is expect physically. In reality, I mean. . . Standing, It gives such a vantage point. Everything is so huge, it is a mountain, there is snow on this mountain it hasn't melted in years. For crying out loud, it gives me a reason to breathe. Those fateful seconds that I fly, when I hit the ground was it ground? was it water, what was it? I sank into a depth, into a cavern I descended and instead of witnessing darkness, the hanging stalactites, the stalagmites, the falling, water, water, flow stones they command my vision. They are stars in the darkest hole on earth, from the deepest ravine in the ocean heights I witness vision. I am completely conscious to this amazing amoeba. The simplicity of this flowing, sinking, expanding, breathing organism, for all of this vivid color, color. It is constant, yet it is nonexistent. Waves of light, refracting off of this desk, off of the wrappers of candies, they are drab yet they attract me. There is a canister of mints, eclipse, oh how ironic. There is no possible that there is an eclipse. There is all of this existence, this new sense. Oh lord, Christ my king, My lord and saviour. You gave me existence and I at last can see my face. How can I be so arrogant, so conceited to look myself in the eye, the reflection in the water may curse me like Narcissus.
You. Where do you come from?
From what I remember I come from the ocean. I remember the soft, grainy sand in my hair every morning. I only remember the last day. Im sorry.
Its okay. Continue.
Okay, I woke up because of the wind. It blew into my ears and whistled a tune. It didn't sound familiar, usually it is pleasant. It tickles my ear drums, it tickles the underside of my chin. I always loved the wind, after the wind woke me up I stood upright, I now realize that I did. I fell over onto my bottom, and I started to shake, shake shake all the sand out of hair. My hair was a magnet the sand was iron fillings. I shook and still none of it came out.
I found you in the ocean, you were belly down... I took you out and you were barely breathing. You were dead for 3 hours.
Dead? I didn't feel it. However behind this facade of ignorance was a lifetime... D could not let his interrogator know what he had seen behind the red satin curtain. When he woke up from his last fall he could not feel his own body. His breathing, heartbeat, thoughts were not his own but rather the past's. The past was resurrected and every single moment stood out.
His mother returned to him, A and C drove together down a dusty desert road, the hood was off and the single thing that kept them from the cold was the sun. It was winter, and the three compatriots had enough experience with the heat to stay cool, and the only one of them that had the slightest trouble coping was the infant D. He was clinging to his mother's breast, and had no idea what the warmth emanated from. Sadly his mother was also losing the rest of her sanity. She had not slept in six nights and was suffering from hallucinations that seemed like reality. She kept seeing the ghosts of former clients, picking up non-existent dull pennies with their tails turned to her.
He for the first time heard the laughs, greetings, goodbyes of birds. The only free creatures he had ever heard, touched, and lived with. In his helpless poverty only the kindness of birds let him for the first time experience love. The two loves of his life were a mother's warmth and a stranger's support.
A dream of vision came to him during those three long blind hours. In a motel there was a murder, yellow tape caught his arms like a cobwebs, and police swooped down likes birds of prey to ask him questions. "Who dun it" "Find who dun it" and a walk through rooms, doorless rooms, people fornicating without covers, a thief rummaging through empty rooms. Her as well, the woman with the baby, she was tall, she wore a red dress with flowers embroidered onto it, gray eyes like a dark winter sky that will spew snow and cover you in five seconds flat. Ogrell university...
All of these moments in life, the first vision, to many unbelievable, incomprehensible firsts.
"So what is the first thing you noticed when you came back alive kid?"
You old man, what's your story?
H was emancipated at last. Not free from the fear of being arrested for what he was nor from the fear that tomorrow would not come. He walked to the main street of the city he lived in and he looked up at the streetlights that lit his way. He at last had the freedom to choose where wanted to go. To many days and nights he had spent in Lark's Park. He had been arrested thrice but not once convicted. He outmaneuvered, bribed, and ran from those who wanted to arrest his movement and body. He knew however that there is not worry about his mind. He kept his mind sharp and free from the worries of others. He was left handed and the movement from business to the land of dreams he inhabited during the night was graceful and flawless. Today he had made 300 dollars. Eighty percent of that goes to pay off the last of his debt. Then the ounce he was to pickup and the extra for him was of no worry to him. He had fought the urge to smoke what was his and he sold it all in one day. Never again would he see the suburban white males, single mothers, or the lawyers with miserable marriages. He knew why they escaped, understood why they escaped, but disagreed that that was the only way out of their life. If you want to escape your body go to sleep, if you want to escape your mind walk along the path to Lark's Park and in some of the ditches you will see what the world closes its eyes on. Clothes its eyes in shades so that the sun does not penetrate and nor does the site of the emaciated, scantily clad, bald bodies of the women and men who lost it all. What they lost is their dignity. The body cannot control everything and even the yogis in India and Tibet cannot withstand the urge to have. The urge for fake happiness and the nostalgia of that fake happiness after it wears off. You can fight it, but at some points you encounter a ditch. The very real ditch that the drug users fall into. He sold weed, but those who sold the hard drugs, heroin, ecstasy, cocaine, or crack often fell into the same ditch and the extra they got for themselves ran out to quickly. So they cut their product, and kept more themselves as they poisoned others lives, literally and metaphorically. Tapping into the chemicals in the brains of their clients and bending them, shaping them, heating them with a butane lighter until they remain shapeless. To drugged to be unhappy, to unhappy to be anything but drugged.
H took his mind of the harsh reality and turned onto the street away from the universities. Away from the knowledge that he fought to attain but was unable to. No matter what society says, that is white society about blacks whites asians indians and hispanics having equal opportunities there are too many children left behind. The discrepancy between the lower class and the ruling class. Its far too great. Yes. The ideal that the patriots fought for is nothing but a reverie. The same dream that never came true for Martin Luther King, identical. The taxes that the lower and upper lower class pay provide the elixir to a monster. The monster that watches, takes and takes and takes. Until you have nothing to take, then they take the clothes on your back, then they take the skin on your flesh and then they take your flesh until nothing but your bones and soul remain. When you have nothing what can you develop into something. With seventy years to live for most what can you do in the twenty years that you have to make a decision. Will you be them, or will you be you, will you be nothing to them or will you be nothing to you. Thats reality. You are either nothing with aids in africa, nothing in France with socialism, nothing in Russia with the army, nothing in school with perverts who roam the halls handing out yellow slips a lot like handcuffs, nothing in prison with the people driven to kill, rape, steal, because of the perversion and "human nature." Well human nature is so vast that best friends can become enemies because they are sick of you for a reason that is so obscure that you are left with nothing to do but sleep.
Sleep.
Fall fast asleep and let your dreams take you to other worlds were you mistake time for light and light for time.
H finally stopped thinking, he let his mind go blank and he just walked. Slowly, stubbornly, but ever so resolutely. His mothers home was only fifty meters away. It wasn't late enough for people to be asleep but it was late enough for people to know to keep away from him. Here people knew his name, his reputation and although they knew he was a pacifist they knew that he could knock you down if he had to. He didn't.
He reached the door to his building and he took out the copper key from his pocket. He only had one key as he could not drive. He held the key in his rough hands and opened the door. He thought about all the time he had walked through these very doors. The things that had happened around him and it all meant nothing to him. His new found freedom from his "occupation" put the past behind him. There was a great gap between his childhood and now. Now was the most important time for him. Now he could wake up the next morning and go where he had most wanted to go. The bookstore.
He stopped thinking about tomorrow and he walked up the sixteen flights of stairs to his mothers apartment. He walked down the hall to apartment 1624 and opened the door. Surprisingly it opened without a creak or squeak in its hinges. He entered, took out the key from the doorknob and put it onto a hook that was nearby. Next to it hung the keys of his mother. They were numerous, for all of the things his mother held dear to her heart. Her drawer, her car, the bookshelves that stood in her room, to the home he knew from infancy, and to at least seven other things that he did not care to know about. He took off his heavy overcoat and opened a closet that was next to a case of drawers nearby.
Those drawers contained his childhood, from the grades he received to pictures from his short childhood. He was forced to grow up too fast because of the death of his father at the age of thirteen. He knew what it was to work for his food, the clothes on his back and the place he lived. His mother spoke literary english so she was redundant in the fast paced, colloquial world of today.
He took a free hanger from its resting place and hung his over coat on it. He took off his gloves, hat, and put them into the outer pockets of his jacket. He reached into the inner pocket and took out his wallet. He counted two hundred and forty dollars and put the remaining sixty back into the wallet and into his pocket. He then exited the apartment and proceeded to the first floor. He knew where he was going and could do so if his eyes were closed. He went to the doorman and gave him the money. The doorman was the woman below the man. The doorman took the money and asked H if he could do him a favor. H shook his head and turned around. The doorman remained silent and resolute as death. He asked no more questions and understood all. Although his job was as illegal as warmth in winter his eyes were as wise and tough as wool. H walked back upstairs and re-entered his home. He smiled a smile of a man who was just told that his slate has been wiped clean. He walked eight feet down the hall and looked to his right. He greeted his mother and asked her how her day went. She replied and asked him if he would like some dinner. He nodded and turned round and went across the hall to the bathroom. He took a shower and exited. He did not feel the warmth or cold of the water. His mind was not in his body and his nerves did not sense what went on in the physical world.
What is our material existence pondered H. The reaction of people - ignoring the dream world is so simple. What be easier? Ignoring the subconscious or making an adventure of seeking the white whale. Anarchy of the mind in the world of dreams. H remembered a dream he had about crack addicts.
He sat in a well lit crack den. It was clear as day and H transported himself to that situation. The den- a square room. H sat on a couch next to a well dressed addict. The addicts face was unfamiliar but it was not grizzly or ugly as one would assume. The man, the beast, the addict took a hit from the pipe, offered it to H. H politely denied the offer. The somnambulist stood up and walked into oblivion. The freshly abandoned pipe sat on a dirty white carped that resembled the short, velvet like hair of a homeless person. The pipe sat and contorted itself, and a metamorphosis took place. What was once smooth clear glass now transformed into the screams and disembodied limbs of sixteen or more babies. The contortion took place within three seconds. It seemed to take an infinity to finally stop changing. What was the meaning of dream asked H of himself. Was it a call to consume? No if anything the continuation of the dream provided H with too many experimental drugs that were shoved down his throat by wild, basement chemists. He shook off the remnant of the dream and was transported back into his own finite breathing corpse. He no longer thought about the dream as he was abruptly reminded of his own hunger and the kindness of his mother.
"H"
My saviour - my Jesus Christ, my St. Valentine, my Benefactor. One can only think of dreams on an empty stomach. H put on a fresh set of clothes. A red threadbare t-shirt he was accustomed to wear at home and a pair of worn, formless black corduroy pants. He exited the bathroom with a familiar step and proceeded three feet down the hall to the kitchen. H entered the well furnished kitchen and sat down in his chair. The chair was built by H when he was sixteen years old. It was made from one piece of maple. There were no engravings on it of any sort. He had sat on this chair when he was mother told him of his fathers suicide. He shot himself through the head with a Kar-98 bolt action rifle. He was given an open coffin funeral and H still haunted himself with the images of his father laying. Faceless, stiff, with a hole the size of an apple in the back of his head. What was a quick and painless way to go for a man were the nightmares of a young man. The day his mother told him was the same day that he sold his first gram. He sold it to a boy at his school. He did not take anything for himself and he told himself it was the last time he would ever sell drugs. However he did not account for his mathematical mind. From that point on it was one hundred and fifty an ounce and a two gram extra for himself. He sold at eleven a gram which gave him enough for another two or twenty eight dollars closer to freedom... Freedom, does it exist?
There is no way it does. How can one throw away his of her family, friends, home, safe life only to be encompassed by playing a guitar on some street corner, collect cans from garbage pails or work for nothing in some fish processing plant?
H's mother finally broke the silence, the sound of plate touching the wooden table produced a little more than a ringing sound. On the plate was capellini, covered in a tomato sauce with onions, garlic, and bits of sausage. Nothing to fancy, taste every ingredient and you'll know it wants to be fresh, but it was better than what most people ate. Chinese take out every night. Poor diet. Its all in making cooking a habit. Also H figured that cooking while you're hungry leads you to the best food. H's favorite food was a national dish from Russia. Piroshki s kapystoy or pie with lettuce. It was a simple dish, impossible to mess up and sure to be eaten within a day of making it.
"How was your day"
"It was fine, I finally quit my job. I don't know what to do with myself. I'm going to leave"
H ate this first course slowly. After he finished his mother brought him a bowl of soup. It was cabbage soup, not his favorite but with the right bread it tasted lovely. He ate it with the vigor of a man who had just been released from prison. The bullion was hot and it burned as it went down his throat. He enjoyed the pain because he knew that the warmth he felt from his mother's food would not be given to him by anyone on the streets. Except perhaps for K, he seemed like a decent lad. Warmth is given to people by three things, love, friendship, and family, without the trinity you are left with fire. Vengeance. Vengeance is vulgar, it causes too much pain. Every war takes away love friendship and family. Every soldier with a heart returns home to find himself unable to react unless he is able to put up a wall. Brick mortar brick mortar brick until he faces a solid foundation to brace himself. Three things that one can brace oneself on are love, friendship and family. The wholly, holy trinity.
H finished the soup. H thanked his mother and went to the five feet down the hall to his room and sat down on his bed. It was six sizes to small for him, also known as a twin size bed. He had the bed since he was seven years old and he had to sleep diagonally on it to fit. His room was small and barely contained any proof of his existence. He had a small righting desk next to his bed. On it was a lamp, and an alarm clock. It wasn't analog and H loved the fact that he had to pay attention to the time. Every time he dreamed the clock turned analog and illegible it was a good way to recognize the differences between illusion and reality.
H turned on the lamp on his desk and took out a piece of paper from the drawer. He also took out a knife and a dull pencil. He pulled out a second drawer, a smaller one that contained a pack of cigarettes, a lighter and a full ash tray. He took out the ashtray and proceeded to sharpen the pencil. The shavings landing without a sound in the ashtray and he reminded himself to empty the ashtray when he was done writing. The blank piece of paper glared menacingly at him and he decided to choose his words carefully. Writing was an important deal for him and although most of the words he wrote simply flowed out of him like water from a spigot he took care to erase what he did not like or what was not true in his mind. Seldom did he write when he had no desire to but tonight was different. He did not want to write yet the words that he wrote had to come out of him. To explain what pertained to his future. His future was always unclear and murky much like the waters that flowed through the river that passed through the city. This was assuming it was spring when all the dirt that covered the ground in fall, was deteriorated in winter, was cleansed in spring. The river grew dirty but the rains that came in april and may made the summer all the cleaner, but the dust raised by cars and the smell of gasoline that pervaded the air year round did not disappear. This saddened H and made him want to browse through hunting magazines, read Walden and run away into the woods. The woods were no saviour however, city life, the air of gasoline, and the desire to destroy did not turn ephemeral as you got farther into the desert of the wilderness. H put away the piece of paper and the pencil and his decision to leave was once again detoured by his experiences with realities.
H took of his threadbare shirt, his worn gray pants and his puma's and put them under his bed. Another despicable feature of his room. His bed was on wheels and whenever he tossed and turned in his dreams they would screech and squeak like mice on acid. He stood up, quite cold as the heat was not turned on in his room, and shook the covers and his pillow to make them more comfortable. He got under the covers and lay on his back. Completely still, he concentrated on his breathing and thought about nothing. He lay there for twenty minutes and without a moments ado he lay on his side. His eyes still closed he faded into sleep, there was no specific moment, the voices in his head. The yells "H" and "Get up" were simply the awakening of his subconscious. The awakening of a force that did not comprehend waking life but simply observed it and stored without meaning, or perhaps with meaning what must be watched again and again. Sleep covered H and he drifted into the darkness of his mind behind his eyelids.
Hours later he woke up. He looked over at his clock and could not read it. He arose from his bed and put on his clothing, he took two steps towards his desk and flicked the switch on his light. It did not turn on, and he smiled. He dreamt, and the room faded into darkness and he came into his second consciousness in a field. The field was empty but gradually like sand creeping down into its second home people came into his peripheral vision and more and more people came. These people were nobodies to him yet they were there. Why? One person, a young woman in a green and gold dress came up to him. She asked him one question. "Where" H smiled and she faded away along with the rest of the people that were in the field, at last the field also faded and H appeared in the apartment of an old man who lived next door. The dog the old man had, a large mastiff bounded onto him and licked his face all over. H bellowed the laugh of a child that is to proud to cry when he trips in front of his friends. H patted the dog, laughed, patted, and laughed louder than before. He missed the dog, it was put to sleep because it knocked over the child of a rich industrialist. The old man was absolutely crushed and he died later that year. The apartment had become empty and dusty. Nobody wanted to live in that apartment anymore. H missed the old man as much as he missed the dog. The silence he encountered after his death was worse than any broken heart. The old man once told him of his former life, the life of a young man.
H always thought that there was a rift, a gap between old age and the early life. The old man always pleased H because he never wanted anything. H often encountered old folks that always wanted. It was funny because he always assumed that old age brings an end to materialism, but they always wanted to move faster, see more, eat better food and feel more. Why doesn't old age bring calm? Can't one look around oneself and see everything? If life is like a painting why must speed help one? Age old questions that won't be answered.
The memory of the old man and his mastiff pleased H. Just like the young woman they faded and H was shot along at speeds unknown to reality into yet another situation, meaningful or meaningless it mattered not.
"Welcome"
"Hello"
"You're young, naive and forgetful"
"I know, thats why I'm here. Perhaps I can learn some things"
"To assume that your mind can teach you anything is also very naive"
"Maybe I overlooked something"
"Look closely at what surrounds you and you will find your answers"
"Thank you"
H woke up slowly. It was early, not yet five o'clock. H put his head back onto his pillow and went back to sleep.
Chapter 3
"I know i am going to try, i know i am going to try, I know I am going to try" and D jumped. A dramatic life calls for drastic action. D was born on a full moon in an alley between a meeting place for intellectuals, the museum and a rendezvous for businessmen. The two weeks between his birth and his home presented a challenge for his benefactor and mother. They were one and the same. Only when D slept did he remember the moment of his birth, his first gasp at air was the beginning of a struggle to fly. His birthplace was two weeks away from his home and his mother, C walked all the way to the ocean to bring him home. The journey was arduous for his mother and worse for her than for him. She kept him on her breast as she walked, practically barefoot and naked except for a "Palto" a native Russian coat that was worn during winter months. The cold month of February was without snow but the wistful wind kept whispering death to D and his mother.
C trudged along, courageous and contemporary. Completely in the moment she pulled up the collar of her palto around her neck and checked to see if D was comfortably attached to her breast. Seldom he coughed and C had to find a spot to clap D on the back to help return his blissful breathing. The journey south was for the best she kept repeating to herself. Again and again she found herself lost in reverie. Remembering the past with a bitter sigh and a smile for the dysfunctional future she hoped to provide her newborn son. She met one person worth mention on the way south and she happily remembered this rendezvous.
For the first week that C walked with her son she did not see a living breathing soul that awake. She did not speak to anyone because her words would not be taken seriously. She saw sleeping people, driving to work, walking to school, children running into library's to hide from foes. She slept in those libraries all the while reading to her son. With each day she was closer from her past and closer to his future. She read the classics to him at night with light from the moon to guide her eyes across pages and the quiet air, aura of the library to guide her solemn voice to her sons young ears. She did not read the rhythmic stories of any of the pathetic writers of the time. The true literature she read every night until her boy was asleep and the words that penetrated his subconscious for an hour or two after his falling asleep provided hope. The stories of madness, redemption found in Dostoevsky and Tolstoy and the tragic stories of Hugo reminded C that her there is no hope. This juxtaposition of hope and hopelessness in between bookshelves every night confused the child at times. In his sleepy, perplexed gazes into his mothers eyes on some nights never ended with a smile. The child always drifted back to sleep after these moments and C went to sleep with a two tomes under her head for a pillow and her palto to cover her son and herself.
The nightmares C dreamed at night often awoke her with a start. On one night after the moon hid behind a cloud and her heavy eyelids without her consent closed her eyes she awoke standing in the middle of the river Thames. There was a stench like no other and she was surrounded by naked, rotting, dead men. These corpses snatched at the hem of her dress and began to pull her under. As much as she struggled the water struggled just as much to keep her above it and from drowning. Some force kept her alive but perhaps the horror that awaited below the water was more pleasing than the gazes of the men. There gaze was like that of Baal purely honest. The honesty they held all but reminded her of the "pearly gates" to heaven. At long last the demonic men pulled her under. She saw her last breaths escape in bubbles stopping at the surface of the river and resting there. As if reminding her that this was but a dream, a terrible dream. At last her eyes closed and she reawakened before him.
"Welcome, you are early. We don't take early arrivals we are afraid we have to send you back"
That night C awoke, took D into her arms who still slept the serene sleep of an infant. She walked to the emergency exit of the library and as she was unaccustomed to do she opened the door and exited into the frigid night. That was the night she met the only person worth knowing in her eyes. Her name was A and that night she almost killed D's mother. This would have extended his life. A was infertile and had always wanted a child and C's death would have provided the perfect excuse to take have one indirectly. However as in all situations there is a constant, in this case it was the coefficient of friction that stopped the fish tailing car A drove from slamming into the warm soft body of C. Although that is a lie, C had gained weight during her months of pregnancy, when steel crashes into flesh there is no situation in which the latter succeeds the former. After the car came to a standstill there was an opened door, the sound of metal slamming against metal and a enraged scream.
"Watch where you walk youngster"
The reply took a few minutes but as soon as our heroines heartbeat subsided there was no more waiting for a recounter.
"Yes, I will from now on"
"Where do you hail from young lady? Are you a vagabond?"
"I come from a city a weeks walk north of here. You did not ask why I am going but I will answer that so you do not ask later. I left the city H- because I had just given birth to the bundle I am carrying in my arms. I had to leave because my pimp would kill this child I had just given birth to as he had done so to the other two children I had given birth to. I am not a vagabond because a vagabond does not choose to be poor. I made a decision to leave that city, to have nothing except what I have on my back and what I have in my arms. Do not call me a coward because I escaped my job, call me a coward for planning to give my child to nature."
"What a story"
"I give you the right to laugh at me, except not at what I have experienced"
"I will give you that, I will also give you a ride to wherever you are going"
"Thank you"
C got into the vehicle and the pair A and C continued on to infinity. The journey to be washed up on a seashore was a seventh to completion. Maybe the three could lead themselves to subside. But they could not, both talked endlessly of the past. In there minds the past did not last. Every moment had already ended, each difficult part of life a tome. Filed away into the library of the willing self accusation. Magical. They continued on with an air of joint self renewal. The newfound mutually chaste couple survived on the generosity of A. She provided the young mother with enough warmth, shelter and clothing that any more wants would make her cross. Her own crucifix was no easier to bear, the young child, barely forty-one centimeters no easier to bear near her heart than any other just-born animals. Blind and unforgiving to a distance any greater than fifty centimeters. The young ones arm could not reach his mother and the world would go silent for the sound of a heartbeat reminds one of life.
And so they traveled a blind child, a prostitute, and her saviour.
Chapter 4
"hello"
good morning, good morning? is it morning is it this day, who knows. how long have I been asleep? was i asleep, i don't remember anything past yesterday. who's there? what happened? i found inspiration, i think i tried to fly. i flew, i flew! I experienced miraculous flight, i witnessed the ascension of jesus christ. i do no exist any longer, i never had proof i existed other than four other senses. however i don't remember touching anything, smelling the sweet aromas life can provide, the melody's of the chirping of birds, wonderful speech spectacular speech. i have no tasted nectar yet, i have been given yet another, another clean slate.
"open"
Vivid. For crying out loud, I see a desk. I see. The desk is round, what's round? Well its does not hurt as long as a I hit it horizontally. Perhaps if I was shorter I would hit my head on the bottom of the desk. Its heavy isn't it, the wood has been pressed, pressed, pressed layer upon layer upon layer. The wood is disgusting, it is warm like flesh yet life has gone out of it already. It stands, I have not experienced what standing is expect physically. In reality, I mean. . . Standing, It gives such a vantage point. Everything is so huge, it is a mountain, there is snow on this mountain it hasn't melted in years. For crying out loud, it gives me a reason to breathe. Those fateful seconds that I fly, when I hit the ground was it ground? was it water, what was it? I sank into a depth, into a cavern I descended and instead of witnessing darkness, the hanging stalactites, the stalagmites, the falling, water, water, flow stones they command my vision. They are stars in the darkest hole on earth, from the deepest ravine in the ocean heights I witness vision. I am completely conscious to this amazing amoeba. The simplicity of this flowing, sinking, expanding, breathing organism, for all of this vivid color, color. It is constant, yet it is nonexistent. Waves of light, refracting off of this desk, off of the wrappers of candies, they are drab yet they attract me. There is a canister of mints, eclipse, oh how ironic. There is no possible that there is an eclipse. There is all of this existence, this new sense. Oh lord, Christ my king, My lord and saviour. You gave me existence and I at last can see my face. How can I be so arrogant, so conceited to look myself in the eye, the reflection in the water may curse me like Narcissus.
You. Where do you come from?
From what I remember I come from the ocean. I remember the soft, grainy sand in my hair every morning. I only remember the last day. Im sorry.
Its okay. Continue.
Okay, I woke up because of the wind. It blew into my ears and whistled a tune. It didn't sound familiar, usually it is pleasant. It tickles my ear drums, it tickles the underside of my chin. I always loved the wind, after the wind woke me up I stood upright, I now realize that I did. I fell over onto my bottom, and I started to shake, shake shake all the sand out of hair. My hair was a magnet the sand was iron fillings. I shook and still none of it came out.
I found you in the ocean, you were belly down... I took you out and you were barely breathing. You were dead for 3 hours.
Dead? I didn't feel it. However behind this facade of ignorance was a lifetime... D could not let his interrogator know what he had seen behind the red satin curtain. When he woke up from his last fall he could not feel his own body. His breathing, heartbeat, thoughts were not his own but rather the past's. The past was resurrected and every single moment stood out.
His mother returned to him, A and C drove together down a dusty desert road, the hood was off and the single thing that kept them from the cold was the sun. It was winter, and the three compatriots had enough experience with the heat to stay cool, and the only one of them that had the slightest trouble coping was the infant D. He was clinging to his mother's breast, and had no idea what the warmth emanated from. Sadly his mother was also losing the rest of her sanity. She had not slept in six nights and was suffering from hallucinations that seemed like reality. She kept seeing the ghosts of former clients, picking up non-existent dull pennies with their tails turned to her.
He for the first time heard the laughs, greetings, goodbyes of birds. The only free creatures he had ever heard, touched, and lived with. In his helpless poverty only the kindness of birds let him for the first time experience love. The two loves of his life were a mother's warmth and a stranger's support.
A dream of vision came to him during those three long blind hours. In a motel there was a murder, yellow tape caught his arms like a cobwebs, and police swooped down likes birds of prey to ask him questions. "Who dun it" "Find who dun it" and a walk through rooms, doorless rooms, people fornicating without covers, a thief rummaging through empty rooms. Her as well, the woman with the baby, she was tall, she wore a red dress with flowers embroidered onto it, gray eyes like a dark winter sky that will spew snow and cover you in five seconds flat. Ogrell university...
All of these moments in life, the first vision, to many unbelievable, incomprehensible firsts.
"So what is the first thing you noticed when you came back alive kid?"
You old man, what's your story?