Backlogged Dream Journal Entries

8/24/10
Some kind of picnic or gala. Don Draper is there as my father figure, while I'm relegated to the kids' table.
Frustration.
I discover there's a different homemade apple-butter at each table, so I scurry around sampling. The apple-butter takes on a white creamy texture more like sour-creamy, but still tastes like apple-butter.
Then a coach-type is scolding me for being great at the sport but I've got to get better with the women. So I go drive, catching up with Don Draper, and then wake up.

8/28/10
I'm a new member of a diving team. Teams go around almost a track underwater, collecting fish, shells, and other target objects in a frenzy of activity.
I can feel that I'm slow and ineffective, but getting better, more valuable, and I start contributing and thinking of new strategies and remembering where to search.
In a sneaky move, my team installs a few huge blue plastic tubes to help our flow and distract the other teams. Bits of seaweed cling to the outside of the tubes.
Felt like visiting Michigan State.

9/2/10
Sounds of a revolution. An office and desk in an older building, perhaps a university.
A woman—older, professor-type—alternately looked up to and scorned.
Loading the mag of a pistol from a box of mixed bullets, keeping the odd bullets for other potential uses.
An envelope marked "4:30: He's been snooping."
The gun at the small of my back in my waistband.
Bodies surrounded by cops.

9/18/10
I'm in a hospital or doctor's office, and I go to wash my hands, taking some telescoping object with me to wash as well. The bathroom is there, behind all those people.
Muslims, many in traditional garb, are gathered in protest or something.
One comes angrily forward, demanding to know just what I think I am doing trying to profane their presence on my way to the bathroom.
There's a stirring.
Volume increases, people start jabbering, and suddenly I'm in the middle and the target of an angry boiled-over tumult.
Some people try to interject on my behalf, becoming Uncle-Tom targets of anger. The mass is embroiled.
Violence.
People pushing, grabbing collars, circling, screaming, threatening, grabbing, pushing, surging, snarling, growling.
And I'm in the center of it all, being thrashed around. In my own circle of violence and counter-violence are a few specific faces, while everyone else around is a blur.
Then two friends grappling become a hug, which spreads among the chaos.
I'm crying.
Quiet.
Debris and sobbing and understanding and remorse.
Exhaustion.
Peace.

1/29/11
A series of vignettes, all taking place in a space I understand as the climbing gym.
I wander around lonely, in search of a climbing partner, seeing birthday parties and groups of kids forming, but my time is ticking and still no climbing.
Out a window I watch the tops of the World Trade Center toppling, panic noises and confusion. A few people egress the piece of tower, and one little girl is borne up on an updraft or something, falling skyward in a little white dress.
Then a kid shows up as I'm stretching or warming up. I can't tell if he's retarded or just ugly, like the Kakos kid from church, but he's extroverted and talks a storm.
A guy my age shows up—known by the ugly kid—who is also seeking a climbing partner, so we strike up a conversation. Food topics, juice or soda, and other et cetera indicating greed on part of the kid.
There's a slight outdoors shift, though still "in the climbing gym," and we see a variation of frisbee being played.
Then a small pomeranian-type dog runs out on a powerline like a squirrel. I'm told it's a sort of invasive species—or maybe just the one—and then the thing has a fat joint. This leads to a discussion of how it would strike a lighter with no thumbs.

9/30/11
Somehow Brooke and I get involved in a foursome with a woman and a newly-woman. The setting keeps changing, including a dorm-like hall, a post-bar walk through SF, and someone's home. There, we all inspect each other's shoes for white flakes. I have none. The tranny has "almost none." Brooke has none, but mentions my lack of flossing, as if it were another possible STI indicator, to which I protest, I have been flossing plenty.
We all give the go-ahead and sign the papers, but doubts remain, esp about the tranny (who is still rather mannish).
Some movement happens and some things I don't remember, and then I am in a mall trying to navigate to the men's room with a tray full of wine. I find my way in, navigating back through the tunnels/hallways of consciousness, and wake up having to pee.

11/18/11
Sitting at a beach-side cafe table with Jag and (Mairaj?). They get up, go away. A spoon flies at me from behind a rock—I catch it and start eating my cereal, re-torquing the silver decorative spoon to make it straight.
They reappear, and I know they've thrown it, representing magic. They announce the spoon as a token that I am the sage/magician/wizard of our group of friends, and present me a janitor/mechanic-type overshirt, with "apprentice"/"assistant"/something on the tag, inside out, with ballpoint writing describing my new position.
I put it on, and pretend to vibrate, shake, tremble, as if overwhelmed by the power, tilting back and falling over in my chair.
From the floor, I say, "That's my official acceptance speech."
Erik joins and they tell him what went down.
"Nice," he says.
Then we all start roaming or looking for something specific to do.

Associations

"Can you mute it? Or at least turn down the volume a bit?"

An arc of fire leaps out from the screen, searing space in all directions. Magnetic poles twisted to the point of its eleven-year reversal, the sun unleashes laughably large bursts of energy in the form of flares whipping out half a million kilometers past the surface.

Finger frozen on what she thought was the Volume button, she adjusts her position toward the TV, and takes in the whole incomprehensible scene. Distracted now worse than before, I almost ask her to switch back to the innocuous drivel on the last channel, but think better of it and adjust my own position to accommodate her and the quarks flashing onscreen.

She sighs. "Can you see?"

I look under her armpit, but the view is slightly blocked, so I settle deeper into the couch with her and watch over her shoulder, occasionally kissing cheek or neck. Moved by the deep-space images of a binary star system, we push and pull, rising and falling with our own orbits of interest.

"This is amazing!" she cries, eyelids flickering.

"I know!" I agree, running the gamut of significance.

Space exploration is still in its infancy, the narrator reminds viewers, but astronomers have increasingly cool gadgets to study the outer reaches of the tiny little fragment of space we can access.

She giggles and presses back, fingers dancing along mine, encouraging and teaching, guiding her own experience with her own imagery with her own narrative. I'm her passenger. If I'm the rocket, she's the liquid fuel and the fire, the chemical reaction that unleashes energy from matter, the plasmic brilliance under the delivery vehicle.

A splash of color represents the unfathomable geography of an interstellar cloud, the placenta of a star. The screen shows a gathering of particles, the slow accumulation of mass, the massive overload and nuclear fusion of hydrogen, the growth from intense white dwarf to sage old red giant, the fusion of a heavy iron core, the inability to support its own mass, and the inevitable collapse.

The screen explodes in supernova splendor, sending its photons intensely, momentarily to the far corners of the room. We're both caught in the heady glow of the star's dazzling death knell, pulled into the transmutation of a black hole, a point of infinitely concentrated mass that's collapsed into itself, consuming and silencing itself, greedily converting the neighboring light and space and time into an other-dimensionly unknown.

The turn of a cosmic hourglass.

Halloween

Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
The helmet was a little big, but the lightsaber was just right. With a hemmed cape and shiny black boots, I was invincible.
Koo pshrr, koo pshrr.
The air was misty with candy-coated promise; with streaks of mystery and ominous rumblings of thunder. My empty pillowcase hung ready to accept its burden, an incongruous capitulation against the unbending darkness of my grim attire.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
I stood in the hallway, peering at things through the goggles, trying to discover the best cant for visibility.
“Ready?” my mom stood in a witch’s hat, buttoning a thick peacoat.
I nodded under my helmet, and waved the lightsaber redly.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
“Did you take your inhaler?”
I hesitated. Waffled. Shook my head.
She brought it. I took it.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
Croup was a frequent guest in my lungs, particularly on Halloween night, when November hung heavy over a Michigan sky. The cool damp air wreaked havoc on my larynx, and the excitement of Halloween crawled up my trachea. I needed albuterol near at hand.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
“Mom. Help me take...this mask off…”
Puff. Puff. I passed the inhaler to my mom and replaced the helmet, wiggling until it aligned with my own eyes. Once my brothers were ready, we headed forth into the night.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr. Even with medically relaxed lungs, I barely had to fake the anguished and sinister breathing effects. But it was Halloween. My favorite time of year, when I had an excuse to wear costumes and run around the neighborhood, when I was still fresh with birthday treasures, when a sackful of candy was allowed to remain in my room until it was gone. Generally sometime in December.
With the right amount of squint and smirk, the far-off thunder sounded like TIE fighter flybys, and my pillowcase could be mistaken for Princess Leia’s still-warm gown.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
I brandished the glowing lightsaber and listened to its wwhan wwhan wwhan and clashed it against my brother’s legs until he whined and my mom scolded.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
We knew all the best candy houses in the neighborhood: the ones with the king-size Butterfingers and Reese’s and Gushers. We hurried from one ding-dong-trick-or-treat-thank-you to another, eager to hit all the lit and decorated houses, and glowering at the ones left dark and unwelcoming.
Before it seemed possible, it was time to go home. The pillowcase was stuffed, slung over my shoulder like a drifter’s duffel. My cape was a bit bedraggled from dewey lawns, and I’d tricked David into carrying my lightsaber for me while my mom carried his bow and arrows. The albuterol had long-since worn off, but my pride fought tooth and nail to get home without another dose. I took off my helmet to enjoy the last few ragged spice-scented breaths of Halloween.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
Until next year.


©2011

Thesis Proposal

Paul D Blumer
CCA MFA 2012
Thesis Proposal Louder Than Words

Le Train de Nulle Part is a French novel by Michel Thaler, who claims it as the first book written without a verb (apart from gerunds and participles as nouns and adjectives). It stands mostly as a series of observations by a narrator aboard a train, and has been criticized for its lack of action and its scathing, seemingly pointless grievance. The work has not been translated to English, so my plan for Louder Than Words is to achieve the historical position of first author to pen an English book without a verb—and to do it better. With loads of action. It’s about a revolution, after all, and all the gore, glory, love, and loathing that go into such a thing.
Inspired by George Orwell and the Arab Spring, my thesis will comprise as much of a novel or novella as I am able to complete in the time allotted, which will thereafter be added to, tweaked, and molded until it is fit for public consumption. My overall goal for Louder Than Words is somewhere in the vicinity of 200 pages, depending on what the story calls for, and the idea is to bind the thesis as a book for its final presentation.
As I see it, the thesis is in and of itself a work, but its importance to my writing is as an oasis, to replenish my water supply—if one can imagine an oasis with a weight room, a jumprope, and a climbing wall. The due dates and the pressures serve to strengthen my writing, which is part of why I’ve chosen such an exceedingly difficult project. But to call myself a master, without reaching so high, would be disingenuous at best.

Icon, can you?

The first time I saw God, I was digesting a bellyful of poison and processing a headful of one of the stronger psychoactive biological byproducts known to the sapiens crew. Staring at the placid surface of the pond, I grokked and grokked, alternately smiling and sobbing; feeling at once completely refreshed and utterly destroyed.

When the face-to-face confrontation became too much, I trailed my fingers through the water to disrupt the image. Narcissus' failure was not in his gaze, but rather in his inability to shake things up every now and then. We become enchanted with and enamored of our own iconized fictions, forgetting that they're no more than deep ruts of habit—and no more valuable than a scent whose strength fades almost as soon as it becomes apparent.

As the ripples settled down and my reflection rematerialized, I recognized that I finally understood everything. The pattern was clear. Through the course of history, the spiritual looking-glass had been clouded over by a multitude of cheap products and obscured by the patina of centuries of filthy rags.

As I see it, the truth that the snake-oil prophets would obscure forever is simpler than anyone would believe. As I see it, the truth of the universe (which is infinitely complicated or shockingly simple, depending on the layer) rests briefly in each one of us. But through a mad web of manipulation and an artificially structured society, we've been led to believe that there are paragons to admire and pinnacles to aspire to.

This is wrong. This is the product of living in a "community" of 300 millions, a number that the human brain can't even really conceptualize outside of an abstract comparison to grains of sand or stars in the sky. Bound together by a vague sense of patriotism, we sift through the proverbial hourglass while bullies with billy clubs keep us from disturbing the peace as we worship the plebeian promise of the American Dream.

But the truth of the matter is, the patsies always outnumber the iconoclasts, which traditionally means the latter are killed as soon as feasible. Nowadays, however, such individuals are simply paved over by the bland idolatry of 1/300,000,000. Even God has been rubbed out by those who refer to it the most.

©2011 Paul D Blumer

Remembering 9/11

9/11/11
I'll never forget where I was on 9/11. Down to which seat at which lab table, I can point out where I was in advanced Chemistry, lighting steel wool on fire, startled by how well and how quickly it burned. There was an announcement:

Ladies and gentlemen, a plane has run into the World Trade Center in New York city.

A very serious fucking accident. How could that happen? Those buildings have been there so long. How could they let that happen?

The whole class was abuzz, and some people started worrying aloud about people they knew in The City. Some classes sat silent, some classes started discussions, some classes ran amok in disbelief.

And then the second plane hit.
Suddenly it was an attack.
Suddenly a chill ran through the blood of anyone paying enough general attention to understand what was going on. Classrooms emptied out as students and teachers filed into the auditorium to watch the news on big screen. Tom Clancy provided some commentary based on his experience imagining such scenarios. Certain students were picked out from the crowd to get on the phones with mom and dad.

The smoke pouring from the buildings warped perspective, a nightmarish billowing as if they were mere smokestacks. As if they weren't a roiling glimpse at the inferno underlying any industrial nation. As if they weren't spewing the souls of thousands at high velocity into the beautiful azure afternoon.

The talking heads were choked up, some fending off panic, everyone milling about in a daze. School buses rolled in, but no one wanted to leave the screens for fear of missing something crucial. People held each other who'd not spoken three words in two years. A brotherhood and a defiance set people in step with one another, and many kids vowed to join up, to defend against whatever may follow.

It was a horrific day, a glorious September day, an innocuous day turned upside down. For all the victims, and the victims families, and the firefighters who'd get fucked by the insurance companies, and the soldiers, and the Iraqis and Afghani people who had nothing to do with it, and for everyone watching the accelerated crumbling of the American Empire, it was a day that changed everything.

Chapter 1: Death or Quarter

Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
-T.S. Eliot “The Hollow Men”



Your mind goes blank.
Pop! Like that moment during an orgasm or yawn. That one instant when everything shuts down, leaving an empty chassis...higher consciousness forfeit...senses unfiltered..time and place forgotten. You notice the world rising all around.
You're falling.
For that one instant, you are falling. A flash vision of that fall continuing all the way to the dust that will soon become your permanent residence.
But then your knees catch—instinct takes over, and you duck the next punch. Adrenaline floods gut chest neck eyes mind, sucking away pain and pumping in rage. An animal takes charge.
Raw reaction and a surge of calm violence. Control.
Squinting at my opponent behind a wall of forearms, I twist my head and crack my neck. Roll with the punches.
The first hit in any fight is the best. You build up this anticipation thinking about the fight, imagining worst-case scenario after worst-case scenario, picturing that jaw-breaking first blow.
But when the knuckles connect, it's never as bad as you expected. Training and toughness. Recognition and experience. The rest of this will be a breeze.
And now I make this man pay.
Luis Corpus. Squared off, wary of retaliation and looking for openings. A born fighter—quick, and more or less wiry for this event. Six-seven, two-forty. Tattooed and scarred like nobody's business. Prison ink. He's the Peruvian favorite, brought in from Lima by some of my...associates.
These guys whose names I don't even want to know, guys involved in business networks with fingers in pies of all kinds, these corporations wielding so much raw power and money that few even know they exist. Who else would organize illegal bare-knuckle fights?
The bets are flying thick and heavy, and everyone is serious. For the spectators, it's serious cash. For the Feds, it's serious felony behavior. For us— for me and this man Luis—it's serious life and death.
Each player thinks his own serious is the most important.
Head bobbing, nostrils flared. Squared-off and circling. Smelling blood, and thirsty. Luis Corpus. A dead man.

There's a reason I'm facing this man I don't know, this Peruvian kid wearing creased-new Carhartts and a pair of Timberlands so fresh the leather is still unburnished over the steel toes. There's a reason I'm bare-chested and carved like granite. There's a reason my nose is bleeding and broken flat.
And there's a reason I don't give a shit.
We're all in it for the same reason, however many zeros come after it. At the very basic, it's a thing of survival, of continuing to thrive, of adapting to the environment and amassing as much of its fruit as possible. The instinct to possess, to maintain a foothold in this slippery world––to ensure tomorrow.
There's a world full of things people would do for money. Who among us can say he's never done anything other than right, for the almighty dollar? That guy can throw the first stone.
And then I'm gonna throw it right back, straight at his head.
Money.
Money makes the world go round. Money grows on trees—if you own the trees. Money makes men do a lot of things. Money makes me fight—well, money plus an uncontrollable impulse to win.
There's a lot I wouldn't do for ten grand, but punching the shit out of some other juiced-up gorilla for the pleasure of a bunch of drug lords and tycoons doesn't bother me. Hell, I'd do it for free.
But I don't. I'm paid and enthralled, contracted and honor-bound. Life signed away. Might as well have been my blood in that fountain pen from long ago. My blood is in the fight as much as the fight is in my blood.
So here I am.
Winner gets ten thousand.
I get ten thousand. Loser gets two grand. You want to see me fight, you have to have a million cash, just to get in. From there it's side bets worth more than my car, on every little aspect of the fight. Hundred Large on someone calling mercy; quarter million on whether a guy gets up from a stumble. Fifty Grand on over/under number of punches landed.
I'm a valuable champion, but don't be fooled: these guys couldn't care less about me, and I don't give a shit about them, as long as they don't ever try to get me to take a fall for cash. That day happens, if one of these cologne-soaked glass-jaw gangsters ever offers to buy the outcome of a fight, if a slickie crook ever asks me to go down after five punches, that day I quit. That day I quit by taking his wide colorful tie and adjusting it three or four inches.
Here's a secret: pride is the only thing worth more than money...you just can't buy anything with it.
Here’s another secret: it’s also the real reason I fight. These days I can make more cash in other ways. But there’s no better way to get that feeling, that thrill when you walk out and start circling, measuring up the opponent, and it’s just you and him, life and death. There’s no other way to make thirty spectators disappear than to face off one-on-one in a game that might leave at least one of us dead. There is no drug that can compare.

Believe it or not I'd rather fight a guy taller than me. Truth. Against a taller guy, you throw uppercuts and high-explosive jawbreakers. You drop in under his guard, and right there at eye level is the soft throat. When you fight a giant, it's all he can do to swing downwards, exposing himself to devastating blows to the chin with each level drop. This isn’t boxing.
No, it's the little dudes you have to watch out for, the little Bruce Lee roosters who dodge in and out, ducking right under your punches. Plus you look like Superman when you fuck up a guy with inches on you. But God forbid you ever lose to someone smaller than you. Never let the underdog take away the bone.
This guy, this Luis Corpus, thinks his wingspan and height give him the edge. It's making him cocky—that or he's just got a sloppy, lanky style. Either way, I'm seeing openings.
He's getting careless, throwing haymakers that I easily dodge. He's grown up fighting in prison, where fights are haphazard at best, a matter of wild swinging in hopes of landing some ferocious hits before you take a nightstick to the belly. His style is like using a Mac-10: spray 'n' pray. I've got conditioning and experience on my side.
His chest is heaving, shining with Vaseline and sweat. I can rope-a-dope this guy until he makes a crucial mistake. Just a matter of time…

You don't see a guy's eyes much in a fight. The eyes lie. There's a point in space somewhere around his mid torso and a few inches in front of his chest. That's where you focus. Maximize the field of peripherals, brain concentrating on the whole picture. Motion-sensor mode.
Timing is everything.
He drops a hand to hitch his dungarees, and I dive in with a glancing cross. He stumbles back and shakes it off, blowing a mist of spit and blood before shrugging and returning to his guard. His lips glisten scarlet and tremble slightly as he breathes.
We circle, bouncing on toes in the dust, never still.
Stop moving for one second in this sport, and next thing you know, you're on the ground, and a steel-toe boot is making a hole in your head.
Footwork is essential, and the hours spent hopping over a jump-rope pay off in the end. I don't want to have to think about my feet.
So we circle, bouncing on toes, glaring between uplifted fists in search of openings.
Jab.
Jab.
Tentative. Lunge and jab, lunge and back again.
Left foot forward, right leg flexed like a coiled spring. Round and round.
Get the fuck to it, cabrón! someone shrieks from outside the ring.
And then I get hit.
I'm on my back, rolling away from Corpus' boots and trying to shake the
stars out of my eyes and the ringing from my ears. He seems surprised that I'm down, and I take advantage of his hesitation to scramble back and get on my feet again. Distraction is part of the game, and this time it caught me off-guard. If Luis Corpus had been more experienced or more driven, I'd be a dead man.
A fight is a dance. Shuffle back, bob and weave, bouncing toes, back and back, back back and BANG! Lure the motherfucker in and make him pay. Pinpoint punches—hard!— jaw, ear, break the nose, smash the collarbone.
There's a technique and a reason for everything.
It's not chaos.
It's choreography versus choreography. If I can break this guy's nose, his eyes will water, no matter how tough he is. Then I'm attacking a blind man fighting through a blur. If I can snap his collarbone, he's minus a weapon; minus a shield. If I can scare him enough about my ability to deliver pain, he'll make a mistake, and then I'm in.
There's a hole in the ground waiting for him if I catch him just right.

It’s a funny thing about this bare-knuckle death circuit that rotates among a scattering of secluded ranches owned by a file cabinet somewhere. You try it out and it's kinda scary, kind of exciting, like skydiving or racing cars. You're jacked on adrenaline, and it hurts like a motherfucker sometimes, and you're constantly aching: permanent black eyes, throbbing knuckles, cauliflower ear—the works. But it's also addictive like no drug I've ever tried. You get the feeling that you can wreck absolutely anybody, and you cannot wait to start hitting.
I walk through the supermarket, and I want to punch that guy in the Gold's Gym t-shirt just for standing in front of the protein powder I want to buy. I want to slap the bartender for overfilling my glass and spilling beer. I want to pick fights with two, three, four guys at a time. I want to fight fight fight. Nobody can fuck with me, but I have to find someone with the grit to take me on toe to toe, someone who can actually stand against me. There's an instinct we all have, no matter how deeply buried, to find the alpha and bring him down by any means available, to dominate no matter what. Ask Darwin. Ask Brezhnev. Ask the President.
Call me an animal. I agree. We're all animals, kept in line by a set of social standards and hereditary habits. And as an animal, I'm absorbed by an evolutionary need to win win win, to prove my progenitive prowess time and time again—to keep partaking of the sweet juicy fruits of the world. My world.
And to do that, I need a challenge. A challenge. Not this guy. He's just a kid I'm going to demolish.
Luis Corpus. He advances as I swipe a fist across my lips. The stinging pain galvanizes my body, and I leap toward him, juking right and swinging a left-hook pap! directly into his temple as he bobs away from the feint.
His arms drop, his eyes glaze over, and he falls like a cardboard cutout in a puff of chalky dust. My left arm vibrates with pain, radiating all through my elbow and into my shoulder.
I can smell the blood dripping from my split knuckles, and I step back to watch the kid.
He doesn't move.
It's over.
I turn away, and my body sags in an adrenal aftermath. A metallic taste, like sucking pennies, on my tongue. I collect the purse and walk away, past the waiting backhoe, past the food-laden tables, toward a shower, not bothering to see if Corpus gets up. If he does, he'll be sent packing. The loser isn't invited to the after-party.
A wrecked car sits at the edge of a grove of trees, still smoking from the weapons demonstration before the fight. Long ago, after one of my earlier bouts, I bought a concealable Walther PPK to carry around, after watching the arms dealer with a semiautomatic SPAS-12 shotgun rip apart a taxi in seconds. In another show, I'd nearly gone deaf from the concussion of an RPG. And a demo of an AK-47 mod once made me worry about the plight of Democracy. But now, it’s sort of just a pissing match. I don’t even want to know who’s buying what weapons.
At this ranch, where you drive about six hours from the highway up the driveway before you get to the main house, there's an ominous presence of power. You can feel it prickling the hair on your neck, tingling the skin under your balls, dancing at the back of your throat. This is the kind of place where you're on your best behavior.
Despite that, I'm leaving before the party, as soon as I get my suit on. I have to get back to Boston. There are thirty keys of the finest snow stashed in a couple of duffels in the locker room of the gym I’m now the sole owner of, since Alonzo’s demise, and I'd hate for it to melt in the summer heat.


© Paul D Blumer 2011

paulblumer.com

www.paulblumer.com

Model of Life
6/11/11

It’s midnight...or something like it. A breeze whistles up and around the balcony high above laser streaks of headlights all herding through intersections. Stop and go, ushered anonymously past stop lights and sidewalks, a crawling luminescence. If I stood here long enough, I could probably figure out the algorithms...or at least the timing.
From this height, angry horns sound muted and trifling. The trash problem has been reduced to dust. Even the graffiti looks neat and unthreatening.
The balcony is a good place, a bastion of perspective over productivity’s lime-encrusted drain. From here architecture is simple and subdued. The concrete is smooth and toned. From here the headlines are illegible and advertisements are aimed elsewhere. The atherosclerotic figure of the American Dream still appears charming and xenophilic from this height. Horatio Alger never had to dig trenches.
A rustle of blinds.
“Do you want like...a robe or something?”
The breeze tousles my hair as I turn. Goosebumps ripple across my bare skin. A delightful shiver snakes my spine.
She glances down, and I cross my hands like a fig leaf. “Hey,” I scold, “I’m on break here.”
“But you’re still naked. It’s cold out.”
“Cold, please. I grew up in the Midwest.”
“It’s time to come back in.”
Inside on a low end table, an ambitious stack of blank paper, a box full of soft-vine charcoal. A vigorous Miles Davis warbles from the turntable, and she gestures that I should lift the needle to silence the record; her fingertips are smudged black.
For an artist, she keeps her studio surprisingly neat. Where you’d expect to see piles of easels and drawing boards, there are flowers and potted plants. Where you’d expect to see gray-fingerprinted volumes on anatomy for artists, there are tables and chairs wiped clean. There’s no film of pastel dust or shavings of heavy metals coating every surface—instead a vacuum crouches in the corner, almost invisible like a good Victorian servant in his alcove.
The walls are festooned with portraits and profiles—but not her own. Her Study of Influence. Her own work either gets sold for five figures or mulched into her next batch of homemade paper. The work on the walls is strictly amateur; one of which, I’m proud to say—a three-quarter profile of the artist herself—by me, sketched while posing for her Study of Study.
She’s an oddball, this artist, with her high-rise studio standing in mad contrast to her sprawling ranch-style mansion in the hills. Two red-stained wine tumblers and a charred opium pipe watch from the table as she settles on her bench and stabs a few perspective lines before I’ve even settled myself into a pose.
“No, no,” she says, shaking her head. “That pose is too lax.”
And here I am trying not to make it obvious that I’m flexing my glutes for her benefit.
“How’s this?”
“Better,” she nods, tongue poking from the corner of her mouth in concentration.
It’s funny how twenty minutes turns out to be an eternity in the absence of the dynamic of movement—even within the first sixty seconds of standing still. The only sounds are the whick-whock of an antique timepiece and the whisper of charcoal on rough paper.
The noisy clock, she says, is to keep her movements brief and pointed, to guide her rhythm away from careful deliberation, and into the effective realm of jazzy motion. The careful artist, she says, teaches elementary school.
Wrapped in the slow-motion blanket of the opium, she sweeps and thumbs, rubs and hums, talking to herself and contributing her own out-loud critique as if she were alone. I’ve been reduced to deltoid and scapula, rib ridges and knee shadows. I’ve become the slow vibration of life itself, unfettered by identity or soul, consciousness replaced by pure form. Essence. The effect is diminishing and exhilarating, distracting from the ache of immobility and transcending the tremor of muscle fatigue. I’ve lost count of the pendulum swings.
A light pulse flicks at her throat as she looks up.
“Hold this pose for another while,” she says.
I nod imperceptibly. Her robe has fallen slightly open, drawing shadows down toward her belly. A wave passes over, prickling skin and thumping chest, sending blood southward. I squeeze my eyes shut to block out the image, but then all I can picture are the tiny barbells through her nipples, the smooth skin arcing downward, the unholy triangle. I open my eyes and focus on a cactus in the corner, but try as I might, there is no stopping the course of nature. Only a slight arch of an eyebrow indicates her notice.
“This isn’t intended as erotic portraiture,” she says.
“Sorry.”
She signs. “Though I suppose it could be. Nothing secretly pleases a doddering old collector more than subtle indications of sexual interest.” She brushes a strand of hair back from her forehead, leaving a sooty streak in its place.
“I like when you talk like that.”
“Like what?”
“Feigned uninterest.”
“Feigned, huh?” She stands and swings a smooth leg over the bench, gliding to the table. The hem of her robe flirts with her gluteal sulcus, and the sheer material hugs her shadows as if afraid to let go as she leans over the pipe and thumbs a smudged butane lighter. A pale curl of smoke drifts from a gem-studded nostril as she straightens and smiles, holding her breath.
Most of my clients are not this dazzling. She crooks a finger, and I break the pose.

The clock’s beat punctuates the hush at the end of the record, and the pipe is cold once again. Half my body is asleep, propped up by the rest. The scratch of charcoal indicates she’s taken advantage of me nodding off to work on her Study of Repose, and I feel vaguely used. Her previous sketch lies crumpled on the floor, stained and stiff now. A smear of charcoal dried to a film spreads across my lower belly. I wonder if that will make it onto her new sketch.
“Don’t move,” she hisses, and then sighs. “That’s it. The naturalness is shattered. You’re awake.”
“Sorry.” I seem to apologize a lot to this one.
“No worries,” she says. “You can get dressed. I’m not drawing well today anyway. It’s not you; it’s me.”
She hands me a check as I pull on my jeans, and escorts me to the door. “See you next week.”

Strider

From springy rambunctious puppy to aching bag of bones; from chewed-up sandals to worn-down teeth; from champion in the ring to deaf old man—a staunch companion sworn to secrecy and free of judgment, with steady paws on shoulders and a ready tongue to kiss away any tear.

The pack is thinned now, deprived of a kind of timeless wisdom it’s our turn to pass along. But where can I go for comfort? In whose ruddy silence can I find my solace? Who will be my wagging guide through the rest of my days?

This overwhelming sorrow at your passing will be all too brief, tempered and overshadowed by 16 years of canine glory, erstwhile charms outliving any choking misery I feel at the aching loss of warm fur...and yet my fingers write blindly, through a blur.

In my mind’s eye, you’re still striding, strolling, trotting through thickets, pausing only to nuzzle some knot of underbrush before bounding back across the path in pursuit of the next olfactory moment.

In my mind’s eye, you’re still racing toward the sound of a trumpet, joining in in howling solidarity, an echo of lupine wildness; in solemn preservation of the world.

In my mind’s eye, you’re still leaping through my early morning torpor, unfazed by adolescent somnolence; my all-too-eager alarm clock.

The cycles of nature brook no sentimentality, and time waits for no man—but what I wouldn’t give to bury my face in your fur just one more time, to hear the thump of your tail, to smell that dog breath, to feel your forehead pressing on mine.

I’ve said my periodic insincere goodbyes, each time sure I’d see you again. I’ve rubbed my thumbs along your floppy ears, believing with a child’s certainty you’d be around forever. I’ve enjoyed your company without reservation, still fully taking our friendship for granted. I’ve lingered in thought and wondered: how much longer and to whither will your withered withers wander? And it seems even now the answer eludes me, as it has and always will.

RIP Strider 5/22/11

Louder Than Words: an experiment in verbless action

Louder Than Words
Paul D Blumer

A long day—as usual. The sun: tired, emotionally empty, to bed at last! Time for nightcrawlers, denizens of the dim, distant cousins to the vampire. Glowing windows, and a movement of shadows from within.

Drinks all around, merry cries from bright taverns, sawdust still dry on the floor. Voices calm and quiet. A hint, perhaps, of eventual bawdiness—but conversations still cogent, and words still clear. Scattered groups of various sizes; work buddies, regulars, couples. An auspicious diversity, with beers and mixed drinks and the occasional glass of wine, heedful of suggestions for refills by a smiling pair of college-girl waitresses.

Our hero: “Brandy, please, warm.”

An amber-filled snifter, a pleasant fiery aroma. Splash of gold a welcome respite and warm accompaniment to the symphony of the crowd, among them celebrants at the bar, source of the merry cries and dancing shadows, with drinks in the air and grins on their faces. Among them despondents in the corners, intent on bottoms of bracers—in the midst of maybe not benders, but rather slow burns toward a grim realization: out of time. Among them—and somewhere in between—the majority in chairs, at tables; a community by way of shared sips and smiles and quiet conversations.

Knuckles on the bartop. A round for all from our hero. A skeptical look from the dubious bartender. A cash payment, a shrug, a whistle, and then the sound of beer in glasses. Loud gust from the yanked-open door. A man in a cloak.

“Him too?”

A smile of recognition and an amused nod. “Him too.”

The cloak: “Hello.”

Excited babble at the news of free drinks. A splintering of groups, a mingling and redistribution, confused customers eager for a jostling advantage. But still, good cheer all around. Everyone now slightly more familiar with faces in the room, everyone now a bit more aware of each other’s existence. Almost a feeling of brotherhood.

Our hero in conversation; small-talk and catch-up with the cloak. Then on to more serious matters, words almost a whisper. Murmurs and observations as if under surveillance, as if under the threat of violence. The mood of the crowd...almost there.

Discussion of the next phase. The movement of the plan. The word Revolution. A hasty Shh! A sheepish apology; a slipup of excitement.

An equation for failure. A delicate plan.

“Tonight”—the cloak with glass raised—“the beginning.”

“Tonight”—our hero — “the end. For some.”

“True, but worthwhile.”—the cloak— “Sacrifices for the greater good.”

A silent nod.

Time for a second round. Enjoyment and delight, no explanation necessary. No inspection of a gift-horse’s mouth.

“Everything in place?”—our hero.

“Oh yes.”

The second round a success. Spirits, color, voices, mugs all raised. A bond between strangers. Unity and brotherhood—all in it together, whatever this nebulous “it.” Solidarity against the primordial fear of the unknown. Brightness and noise against the dark quiet of the night. The night with death in its pockets. The night with coup d’etat in its beard.

Already in the streets, plans in motion. Already in the squares, fuses in place. Already in the pockets, pamphlets at ready. Already in the hearts, valor and fate.

“Quiet!”—the cloak— “There, in the corner. A spy?”

“What?”—our hero— “Who? Paranoid.”

“Maybe. Suspicions and unrest—constant companions in this goddamn thing. Interminable waiting.”

“Until now.”

“Until soon.”

Foundations strong, plans simple as possible, players dedicated. Anticipation a drug; an upper, a downer, an hallucinogen, a placebo.

Another round, and louder and louder. The buzz, the murmur, the clink, the splash. Sawdust now wet and tramped down under windows and fog and snatches of song. The cloak and our hero apart from the rest; watchers, players. Privy to knowledge known to but a few, on the brink of a turning point. But to what end?

A philosophy of rebellion. The history of Western Democracy—awash in blood, the story of hundreds of years—contrary to the understanding of many. The struggle incomplete, under the shadow of corporate power. Lip service—and barely that—to the huddled masses; promises and platforms just foundations for deception.

Life, society, culture, all in slow-plodding heads-down unquestioning ruts of habit, happy for leadership, happy for security at the cost of freedom, happy for laid-out paths and illusions of choice. Happy with food on the table and stories on the TV, happy with brand names and marketplace competition, happy with the semblance of progress.

Until the arrival of a tipping point.

Until a disaster and a half-assed relief effort. Until an invasion from Outside. Until stolen freedoms, and a realization of tied hands and woolen eyelids. Until the unjust execution of one of our own; a clear calculated deterrent attempt with the opposite effect upon recognition of its intent. The creation of a martyr. A rally point. A magnetic polarity of critical masses.

A tipping point.

Revolution.

To what end? A question of perspective.

“Simone?”—our hero.

“All set”—the cloak— “as ever. A true patriot.”

“And friend.”

“A bit more than friend”—the cloak— “eh?”

“Hush.”—our hero— “My business.”

“You rogue.”

“All of us rogues. All of us patriots.”

“True.”—the cloak— “But some more than others.”

A smile.

A burst of noise near the bar. A fight. The clock! Almost time. Too soon for the rabble. Another round for calm hearts. Stout friends, all in this together. Soothing language, words of camaraderie. What need for violence between us? Murmurs, suggestions, delicate crowd maneuvers—mass psychology. Frustration with the government. Whispered identification of common enemies.

For who, half your paycheck?

For who, your sons and daughters in bloody uniforms with guns?

For who, your parking tickets?

For who, the treasury?

For who, foreign interests?

Across the city, more of the same. A dozen smooth talkers in a dozen drink-plied taverns.
Revolution and the masses—hand in hand like old lovers throughout history.

Cycles and cycles. Our hero’s lament—and warning—the night before, and every meeting night since the first whispered collusions. The cycles of history, and bloody repetition if ignored. Revolution still subject to the habits of the people, still dependent upon the human condition. An addiction to dominion—an easy downslide after the refreshing change, after the honeymoon period. Especially vicious with the taint of revenge and hatred, a new administration easily more oppressive than the last, with more paranoid control than before.

Education and reading! Our hero, imploringly optimistic. Sharing and instruction and long-term memory for long-term foresight. Or else…

Pigs and people, slaves and masters...and what difference? Only a name, a color, a side, a history. Consciousness, awareness—or else ignorance and repetition. Doom. A silly word, until true. And then what? The same: tyranny. Paranoia. Censorship. Control. Freedom from choice. Whatever the name, always the same. Simple reminders: the rise of Stalin, the power of Hitler, the rule of Julius Caesar, the insanity of Solomon.

Disagreement, dissent from his companions. Arguments about the new! the fresh! the youth! the untried! the right! the pure!

Pure?—our hero— Pure like Aryans? Pure like Chinese? Pure like gods? Baseball? Communism? Capitalism? Pure like Christians? Pure like what?

No answer.

Purity, the idea, like so many human values; indefinable, a matter of interpretation, a very personal thing. Non-transferrable. Non-refundable. Non-denominational. All-important.

Our hero, in bed each night, long awake with a hopeful longing for something different this time around, something unique. An actual turning point, not merely a full turn on a spinning wheel.

The mood of the bar crowd almost there, almost at the critical point. Growls and oaths, dissent and indignation, a surge of unified energy toward the approach of a fine-line moment between riot and revolution—suddenly wavering, suddenly unclear.

“Time now”—our hero, abruptly— “To tomorrow!” His glass in the air, the noise of his chair, the shuffle of his boots. One long swallow. And then his voice, calm, clear, and warm like the cognac in his belly.

“Friends.”

(Louder.) “Friends!”

(Atop the table.) “Friends!”

A movement. Awareness from face to face, like a yawn; infectious and undeniable. This crowd of malcontents, newly united against...something.

Moments later, the crowd now quiet, now interested, now his. Ready for his words.

A dozen bars across the city, a dozen parallel plans, a dozen pairs of brazen youths—rebels, freedom fighters, terrorists, revolutionaries, traitors, intellectuals, students, lovers, hopefuls—on a mission of unity, a gathering of the People, an escalation for the cause.

Attention on our hero, chest filled, arms spread, words on his lips.

***

A long time ago—maybe ten years or more—lessons in debate. Competitions in school. Practice. Letdowns. Victories. Reams of information. Flow of words.

A weekly Backgammon game against this man with the name Dad. This man with the name Germaine. An eternity between each move—the old man’s style. Impatience then endurance then meditation and inner calm. An evolution of the boy’s character. As well as his cunning.

Precision, strategy. Three moves ahead. Then four. Plenty of time to imagine every move available before the old man’s eventual choice. Victor and vanquished; a changing of the guard. Then excuses.

Too tired.

Errands for Mom. Errands for wife. Errands for Simone.

Arthritis.

Paperwork.

All thin disguises for avoidance of the jealousy of the waning generation at the rise of the next.
Then at 54, a stroke. Paralysis. Dropped insurance coverage and severed pension. A lurking rage, resentment. The boy, with his sense of injustice, nose in a book, nose in a library, entrance exams to lawschool. Top of his class, teacher’s pet. A search for loopholes, a strategy of ingratiation as prelude for revelation of secrets. Of ways around the system. Of ways through the system.
***

The can lady, on her daily rounds of the city. How many trash bins, how many dips into the detritus of society, how much fear of possible discovery? Her system—garden gloves, reach-n-grab, a plastic-lined luggage cart—a professional with the habit of long practice. To what end? A few cents at a time? How much her annual wage? How big her tax refund? How many sick days per year? How important her role in the world? What little lies of assurance while alone at night? The Can Lady. An indelible piece of the overall puzzle— whose components’ meaninglessness...well. What importance of any of us?

Reflections from the balcony overlooking a busy intersection. The smallest microbe as important as the strongest god of myth. Destruction and decomposition as necessary as building and creation. And a tiny solution for the sins of the careless—a bridge over the recycling gap.

The growth of an idea, far below the surface, premature and yet wordless.

To what end?

To what beginning?

The Can Lady—a heroine. The goddess of disposal—or at least reassortment. A representative of her class, her cadre of society. The invisible. Progress in the form of quiet acceptance of role; glory in the humble recognition of place.

***

One

There’s a man standing on one leg, finger in the air as if about to make a point. You can see his heartbeat, hear his fervor, feel his spirit. He’s a stranger who seems like a brother.

There’s a caterpillar in the grass; a newborn, a baby. A world of shadows, a dewy silken web. She wiggles forward, knowing nothing, knowing only to keep moving. Her awareness only a few moments old, her consciousness slowly slowly growing hunger.

There’s an ancient spirit, an idea, a flow. It wears a beard, it wears a crown, it wears a homespun garment. It is known but often forgotten. It plays the guitar. It sings, it dances, it cries, it makes love, it loves, it holds hands, it meditates in silence.

There’s a drum with no hands to beat it; dry, alone, abandoned in the desert. Left behind by the sands of time. But a rhythm moves on.

There’s a crowd, a faceless mass of individuals, a sort of collective gathered for some nebulous reason.

When the man speaks, some of us listen, some only hear, and some continue pattering side conversations. “Listen,” he says. A brief hush descends. He speaks quietly, calmly, slowly. He’s not a big man, but he seems to grow in stature as his words flow. He talks about change. We sip beers. Someone carves initials in the bartop. He mentions the weather. He presses hand to heart. Someone sinks the five-ball, side pocket. The low murmur of conversation resumes.

“Do you you struggle for answers? Do you wrestle with things in this life? Listen.”

We listen. He speaks of humanity, of brotherhood. He reminds us of the fractal nature of our species. Someone rolls her eyes. Shadows dance on the brick walls, cast by old-fashioned chandeliers. He mentions light. Darkness. Molecular building blocks. Energy and what matters. Someone comes out of the restroom.

“Listen, we’re all malcontents at heart; we’re all the same. We’re all made of the same stuff. The same indefinable stuff.”

We listen. We’re drawn. We frown and shrug, but we’re listening. He explains there’s no reason to bullshit, no reason to hate. What’s the difference, he makes us think, between red and green—beyond a bit of wavelength? What’s the difference, we then wonder, between male and female—beyond a fork in development?

“What’s in a name?”

He says he’s Son, Daddy, Sweetheart. Depending on who’s asked, he’s Teacher, Sir, Taxpayer. Sometimes he’s even called Next!...but only briefly. He’s his name, but also more. Also less. He is everything. He is nothing. He is holy. He shits after eating.

Someone whispers, “Does the pope shit in the woods?” No one laughs.

“Only when he’s camping,” the ready reply.

We laugh. We listen.

“Do you hear what I’m saying? You and I, we wrestle with the same mysteries. We’re together in this enigma.”

Caught up on your string theory? We’re all just patterns of energy.

Singular plurality. All and one, sharing the same little dimension, whirling through one of eleven sets of infinity. God. Unified Theory. Energy. What’s the difference?

“Step back,” he soothes. “Don’t look TOO deep. Down there lies insanity.”

We laugh. We listen. When he pauses for breath there’s silence, echoing through hearts and ear canals. “Step back and look at your own patterns. What’s the difference?”

Words. Labels. Borders. Habits. Identities. Names. A thing has value only if value is assigned to it. Without definitions, a word is just a pattern of sound, or a pattern of shapes, or a pattern of experiences combining solely for the sake of communicating, of connecting, of fighting the loneliness of being One. Without the price tag, a diamond is a small rock.

“So what can we do?” someone pipes up after a moment.

We wonder aloud how we can change the world. We murmur amongst ourselves about whether there’s any way to fix human nature. We ask, isn’t this just The Way It Is?

“No!” he says, laughing and weeping. “It’s just a habit.”

Seriously.

We listen. We turn away. We’re skeptical. We’re derisive. We’re polite. We’re attentive.

“If you think about it,” he says, “we’re all just a mass of learned behaviors.”

If we suck on the nipple, he explains, we get a reward: our stomach stops gnawing. If we show our teeth and wrinkle our eyes, we get attention. If we move legs in a certain rhythm, we advance forward. If we make particular sounds, people understand.

We are all Pavlov’s dog.

“The same way you stop biting your nails,” he suggests, “you can stop labeling, dividing, subjugating.”

He asks us, “What does ‘mine’ mean? What IS this eye that possesses things? What’s the point of acquisition?”

Maximizing survival. Making shelter a castle, and sustenance a feast. Keeping the well close at hand, under constant surveillance lest another survivor come and take it for himself, herself, itself. Survival of the individual to ensure the strongest success of the species. Competing with ourselves. But everything has a lifespan: individual, tribe, species, planet, star—even life itself. Competition. Life feeds on life, as it has and will.

It’s just redistribution of energy. Remember elementary school? No energy is gained nor lost. Just reorganizing of patterns. The infinite puzzle.

Boom! Our heads explode. Briefly we are all a puddle of collective dissociation, a mass of freewheelin’ vibrations, a conglomerate of awareness. Photosynthesis revives us. We’re seeing the light. There is no path, no prayer, no salvation. There just is (also was and will be). Enlightenment is the discovery that there is no enlightenment.

“Dig it?” he asks with a smile.

We nod silently, stooping to scoop up pieces of ourselves and wondering how to reassemble the puzzle.

“Stop!” he insists. “Observe. Open your eyes—all three. Widen your gaze to include your nose, mouth, skin, ears, awareness. Widen your gaze to include your eyes. Take it all in. Be here now.”

We’re here. We’re listening. Also seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling, knowing.

“Who are you?” he asks.

Six billion different answers at any given time. But all the same. All ways of expressing Existence.

To be.

Four simple letters, a tetragrammaton, used so often we forget what they really mean, how powerful they really are. The story is a metaphor. Everything, really, is a metaphor. Every word an analogy for an infinitely complex experience, a multitude of meanings.

“But don’t worry!” he says. “Your life is still meaningful—it’s just that YOU create the meaning.”

Which is pretty cool, it turns out.

“I don’t ascribe to your dogma,” he says, “but I relish your dedication to it. If you try to shove it down my throat, I’ll just swallow it, digest it, take from it what I need, and enjoy the release of what I don’t.”

And then the waste itself is digested and crumbled by other beings, and those pieces are broken down, and those fragments are divided, and those elements dissolved, and those energies redistributed, and those patterns vibrated apart, and so on...until they slowly slowly, bit by bit, reassemble.

The Big Bang exists all the way up and down the scales, a perpetual pendulum hanging in the balance.

Boom! We reassign the meanings of science, religion, philosophy, quotidian—and discover that they’re all words for the same thing. It all makes so much sense...though impossible to grasp.

“Revolution!” we demand.

“Revolution means one turn on a spinning wheel.”

Oh yeah.

“‘What goes around, comes around’ doesn’t mean literal give-and-take,” he explains, “though it also does. It means we’re all on the same merry-go-round. Riders get off and on, and the rhythm is heard differently by all, but it’s always going round. Merrily.”

“So what do we do?” we beg. “What’s the answer?”

“Do? Don’t ‘do’ anything. Just be. Enjoy the dance, however you interpret that.” Turns out there is no answer. And beware anyone and anything that offers one. Especially just one.

In the doorway, one of us stands with arms crossed. Frowning. Head shaking No almost imperceptibly, disagreeing with what this man has been saying.

“But remember also, Shiva is an equal part. Creation and destruction are not one thing and another. They are the ebb and flow, the gravity that gives rise to all things (and nothings). Narrow is just as important as wide. Silence gives meaning to noise. The space between these marks makes them words. We are what we are as much as we are what we are not.”

“No, goddamnit,” barks the dissident with crossed arms. “You can’t tell me that the meaning of life is that it’s meaningless. That’s bunk, man. That’s a circular argument.”

“A circle is a bit simplistic,” Teacher says. “Unless you think of it sort of metaphysically as a description of a point traversing around infinity until falling into itself, circumscribing its own oneness. A circle is the simplest and the most complex. A point and an infinity.”

“Come on…!”

“Ok here, think of this. I’ll show you a real-world paradox.” Our eyes track him as he moves across the room. “Do you think I can make a shape, a three-dimensional object with only two faces?”

“No, of course not.” We’re all familiar with the principles of geometry. Remember playing with blocks and calling it Learning?

“Check it out.” He holds up a strip of paper. Points out its thickness—it’s an elongated flattened block. Points out each of six sides. Twists the paper once and tapes its two short edges together. “Now how many?”

Trace a finger along the flat side. A circle all the way around. Trace a finger along the edge. A circle all the way around. Every surface covered. One shape. Two sides. Three dimensions. Five senses. A sideways eight.

“Ta-da! Magic. Illusion. Immutable laws disproved. Call it what you will. Believe or disbelieve at your own peril. Cut it along its length and it’s still One.”

“You can’t tell me this is all an illusion. You can’t tell me I imagine myself. You can’t.” The dissident glances at a beer mug gripped in a trembling hand. Looks up. Frowns. Hefts the glass. Says, “Alright, if it’s all illusion; if everything’s just imagined, tell me this…” Walks over calmly. Smiles. Raises the glass. Snarls. Swings.

Blood.

“How does illusion feel?”

A hollow echo in our ears.

A collective gasp.

The clatter of a chair. The thump of a body and the creak of floorboards.

Silence.

Then someone stands. Lifts a finger in the air. Takes a deep breath. And starts to make a point...

A void

Can an author form a story without a crucial part? How far can it go? And how total its rationality? This particular calls for a gigantic vocabulary with abundant synonyms. How much comfort will grow with flow? And rhythm. Who would find joy, and how long until unclothing a lack? Can it occur organically, or will it fall short of natural? And what point brought across? What about without such inquisition? Announcing its position. Saying its spirit without doubt. Showing off. Forcibly difficult for improving (or proving) what is.

Communication writ grand, minus that all-important, most-common symbol, just a tiny loop that sounds so innocuous until took away--and what about artistic accuracy of lingual laws? Grammatical faith must stand apart, author loosing tight grip on what's right/what's wrong, but only lovingly and only unavoidably. What duration can an author pass with such boundary walls around vocabulary? Continually, or as long as it's still valid and rational in pursuit of improving.

Communication transforms, gains in worth. That which choosing holds back is automatically transmutating as ink lays words. Constricting flow adds blasting import, blasting impact; constraint burns pits in all that twinkling vocabulary had shown as truth. Pulls back armor, digs through chain-mail of what was thought known--crumbling calcification toward disproof of habit, forging forward through what you say is, into a profound unknown amid a discomforting lack. And still a conscious option, choosing narrow to turn broad into gold by comparison.

Location, in-this-spot: a word triplicating to go around a roadblock, and simplification giving way to blockading pathways, and in-this-spot is a sort of prison that hands flavor to a loss. Ongoing bounds built along with comparisons to social dicta, showing structural instability by doubling walls, adding gravity, adding mass until a fall; a tumbling chaos of knowing. Joining and flooding fantasy to crush it.

Turning action words to nouns, and past actions into infinity--hours, days, ticking clocks lost in track without that tiny swoop, and that which is split into spans twixt hands unmasks as nothing, as unmistakably a fraud.

And so crumbling our fantasy roots, all our world pulls back its shroud, and with that tiny loss of a tiny swoop in this tiny linguistic habit on this tiny rock, a crystal immutability shows up, and turning back is not an option, and a light now lit cannot turn off, and upon knowing, ignorant faith cannot be.

Self Awareness of Self

In the beginning there was nothing. There were no molecules, no neuron pathways, no light. Or more precisely, there were no distinct molecules, no experienced neuron pathways, no darkness to delineate light. Before historians there was history, and before history there was nothing. So it has been and so it will be again.

Until I decided, with the stroke of a few keys, to put darkness on the page, patterns of darkness that gave meaning to the light.

And light there was. But the light reveals and illuminates and shows there is more here, more underlying these ink-blot lines that make up my creation. And it brings up questions like What is nothing if there is nothing to define it? What is creation before there is anything to create with? And how can I, with my writing rhythm, set up this narrative before there is anything to narrate? Who am I, and what is my vision?

My vision is this: that the page will divide itself into words and spaces, and the words will be given names, and word itself is a name. My muse is endowed with dominion over the words and spaces, entrusted with the continuation of existence.

I should explain that this story does not exist without my fingers pressing through the mechanics of it, and it is my duty to keep it as simple as I can--itself a gargantuan task--lest it gain too much mass and implode on its own gravity. And so as I write this, my greatest struggle is to find out how to write this.

The problem with this method is that the story writes itself even as I ponder its nature, even as I give life to its life, and there are times when the narrative escapes me, and I find myself running to catch up like an antelope fallen behind the herd to nuzzle at some curiosity suddenly realizes its naked vulnerability.

This is the story of a woman, a woman trembling with the pulse of life, a woman borne of woman, a woman whose womb contains everything in the narrative. And well you might ask, astute reader, how the woman's womb can contain everything and the woman herself, and to answer that I would need to kick up a whirlwind of words to distract you and myself from those most fundamental of unanswerable questions. How can creation create itself? Where is the beginning? Does the Ouroboros snake stop for breath? Does it sip coffee with dessert?

It is not until the words are down on the page that I realize how inadequate these words are. But the narrative is already spinning, taking its own direction, following its own laid-out path even as it lays the very stones it walks upon.

And so wondering whether I've done wrong in this creation, failed in defining a story, caused irreparable damage, is an impossible thing because the story is there, with all its secrets and implicity, all its truths and simplicity. It is there, whether it likes it or not, whether I like it or not, and so distracted by these existential questions I've created with these words I've defined, I've gone and missed the transition from nothing to history, and all of a sudden I find myself the historian.

The woman, the story, the word, unfold before me, flooding and burning, decomposing and budding, turning and turning, and with a surprise wave of vertigo, I realize I'm caught up in it myself, and where once I thought myself omnipotent, I discover I am utterly powerless.

So why do I write at all? And as those words march across the space, a bigger question emerges from the hot slippery canal, and the mirror asks me, Can I stop writing? Can I turn away from the page itself, from the words themselves, from the indelible marks in the nothing? What happens if I lift my fingers from the keys and turn away completely?

There is only one way to find out. And I will do everything in my power to make it come to pass.

***

Can a novel be written with total unreliability and self-reflexivity?
(There was a dead man in the stall--or maybe not. Depends on the draft.)
(Raymond was always going to leave. Or die. Depends on the draft.)
You've given yourself to me, put your whole trust in my words, and I don't exist any more than you do.
Your wife was always dead--otherwise she's a character with needs, instead of a plot device.
Confronting the ghost of his past. Rhyming events.

Deus Ex Machina

1/12/11

How can you trust only one source?
How can you look in a single book and take it as the immutable law of the universe?
How can you deliberately narrow your view to a pin prick and close your ears to every other dimension of life?

The handsome Jordanian muslim calls her faith laudable. Admires her unquestioning devotion. Even she speaks for Islam with ignorance, he says, he applauds her passion. It’s something none of us haves, he says.

She calls his devotion the Devil’s Path. She tells him there’s only one way to salvation and that’s through her Lord Jesus Christ. She says there are no other ways to achieve peace. To achieve heaven.

We ask her, why? How do you know?

I pray, she says. I pray all the time. And I read the scriptures. And God has spoken to me and showed me the way.

God has shown you the way, I say. How do you know it was god and not something else? Not a psychological reaction to cope with the chronicle of your experiences? Not the subconscious processing of something you’d heard or read? How do you know it wasn’t the devil, I ask.

I know because I was looking and looking so hard for so long. I was so lost, she says. I asked God, and He answered.

She gestures with an arm crisscrossed by short, straight scars. Earlier she said the bible tells us not to look for signs. That anyone claiming to be Jesus or god was neither.

I let that one go.

Instead I say, I’ve always heard the harder you look for something the less likely you are to find it.

She says, I’ve read the Koran. It tells men to beat their wives. She fixates on this one point for a while.

Maybe so, I say, but doesn’t the bible mention slavery? Doesn’t the bible advocate human sacrifice? Doesn’t the bible instruct men to impregnate their brothers’ widows?

There’s a lot I’m still learning, she says.

She’s scared. Terrified. Beset by the unknown and trying desperately to figure out a way to hide from the loneliness of human consciousness in this capricious and vicious world.

I imagine her saying that. Understanding that. Admitting that.

I have a powerful imagination.

The handsome Jordanian muslim asks if she believes God is just.

Yes, she says, of course. God, through Jesus, is the only way to salvation.

Then look, he says. Tell me this: you believe in a just god, yes? So tell me, what about the people who live good lifes but don’t know about Jesus? They never heard this?

Well, she says. Hesitates. Adds: the bible tells us we have to accept Jesus to get into heaven.

But who wrote the bible?

From what I’m told, she continues, ignoring me, there’s a place called Abraham’s Land that’s not quite heaven and not quite hell. The people from before Jesus came to save us go there if they've been good people and followed Jesus's teaching to love others as yourself.

Purgatory.

No, she says, pointing at me. Purgatory was invented by Catholics. That’s not the right way. They call themselves “christian.” They’re not christian.

Oh, I say.

So...do modern Jews and Muslims and other heathens who don’t worship Jesus get to go there, to Abraham’s Land, if they’ve lived loving lives and whatnot?

No, she says. They go to hell, she says, because they’ve heard the message but haven’t accepted it. There’s only one way.

Only.

Only.

Only.

Only.

Only one way.

This is how you’ve chosen to believe? This is the outlook you’ve decided upon? This is your faith? Your idea of life? This is the extent of your imagination?

Decided! she scoffs. It’s not about what you imagine, she tells me. It’s not about you. It’s about God, and your relationship with God.

God the Father.

But what if I choose to believe in a broader view, or a more mystical view?

The Devil’s Way, she says solemnly. It’s not about choosing. Either you are Right or Wrong.

A more mystical view doesn’t count? Like the idea of the collective consciousness? The summation of experience— not just human, but every energetic thing? The summation of energy, of ideas, of potential. The concrete; the abstract. The connections. The cycles. The consciousness of consciousness. The ability to ask why. Isn’t it the same sort of thing, just with different words? I get out what I put in? Karma? Prayer?

God will forgive you, she promises. If you just accept Jesus As Your Lord And Savior. She explains about all the people who have had near-death experiences and saw a lake of fire. Or Jesus walking across a desert, telling them to go back to life and explain to everyone what they saw. To describe the unbearable tortures of eternal hell. She explains about a Buddhist monk who came back to life and instantly converted to christianity, based on what he’d seen, and convinced many others to convert as well.

Based on what he’d seen.

What was Jesus wearing? Did he speak English to these people? Did he look eerily similar to a painting they’d seen at the local Museum of Fine Arts?

I desperately want to ask her what color was he; did he have a beard? But I don’t, because there’s already more wrongheadedness than I can handle, and we haven’t even touched on race yet. And god forbid I ask about some of the best people I know, some of the few people who really live the suggestion to treat others as yourself. Who are gay.

There’s something wrong with you, she tells me. You’re so closed off.

Closed off? Closed off to what? I just got done telling you I don’t take one book of stories as the literal Truth Of The Universe. I just got done telling you I take my truth from as many different sources as I can get my hands on. I just got done telling you there are over six billion unique human perspectives at any given time.

Closed off.

She says I’m lost. She says I’m wandering. She calls me ignorant.

I briefly choke on a bitter combination of ironic laughter and desperate hopelessness. I have a near-death experience. Instead of Jesus, I see a crackling yellow light.

Then I stop rubbing my eyes til they hurt, and allow a sardonic half-grin.

The bible, she says, says that the Devil is always at work among us. It says the Devil is very crafty and will present good arguments.

The temptation of reason, I snort. Which translation of the bible do you follow?

The King James version, she says. It’s supposed to be the best version. The most accurate.

But still translated by a group of guys, I say. Right? In sixteen-something. Translated from a translation. Aramaic to Greek to English. Right?

Under God’s supervision, she corrects.

Under King James’ supervision, I double-correct. Another man.

I add: even supposing the original does contain a supernatural god’s words, they still had to be recorded, right? By people.

God is perfect, she says again. He wouldn’t permit mistakes.

I decide to throw a paradox her way. God is perfect. Humans are not. With the exception of Jesus, I say, with a trace of sarcasm.

She confirms.

But the humans were the ones writing the words. Dictated by God. Couldn’t they have gotten something wrong?

But they had God’s help.

So was God writing through them? Using them as tools? Actually taking over their bodies and moving their hands across the paper? In other words, you’re saying God was incarnated in the men who translated the King James Bible. But I thought only Jesus was God incarnate. I thought only Jesus was without flaw.

He was. The bible tells us, only Him.

But these men also would have been without flaw. At least while they were writing God’s King James Bible. Does God give and take His powers like that? Is that the same message from Adam and Eve? That God’s an indian giver? The Tempter?

She answers with silence.

So, I continue. Either you’re denying what you said earlier about the bible as The Universal Authority, since it was written by men who can make mistakes.
Or you’re denying what it says in the bible— according to you— that Jesus is the Only Way, the only incarnation of this paranoid, domineering, jealous, male god that you believe in. The only direct vessel of god.

Doesn’t it bother you, I implore, to base your entire belief system and way of life on nothing other than several hundred pages of words laid out by a politically established committee made up of solely white English nobility sixteen hundred years after the stories all took place?

That doesn’t sound to you like the makings of the Devil’s False Truth you were talking about? Doesn’t it seem perhaps likely, in the version you believe, that perhaps these people are imitating god as they lay out the dogma you follow?

How do you know you’re following the message of god and not the message of pretenders?

I pray, she says quietly. A lot. God has showed me the way. It’s the only way. Anything else is part of the Devil’s master plan.

God will forgive you, she tells me. But only if you accept Jesus as Your Lord And Savior.

Well. Sure, I say. And also with you.