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back Fragments of Madness and Joy by Paul Garner, Peter Wilson Number of episodes: 10 Words of previous episode revealed to each author: all of story Written between 14 May 2003 and 22 Aug 2004 Sure, I sometimes felt happy, but it was drug-happy, a superficial sickly bliss. It wasn't really the whole me, just me in segments. The drugs warmed up this part and it forgot that the rest was freezing. My soul got all frostbitten. My conversations with rock stars continue. Last night it was Bono at an airport. He was very friendly. Strange though, he had a weird looking baby carrier on his back. It slung the baby out from his back like a side-car. The baby wasn't too normal looking either, it was small-headed with unusually adult looking elfin features. The steamer of progress is a broken trawler. The friendship unspoken is always there. Five hours on the road, just enough to clean you, of the depressions and illusions, the smoke creeping underskin. Feeling the road, aching the pier, concrete names and nicotine cares. ------------Notes to self---------------- Observe inter-person dynamics Celebrate every life Witness every person Comfort self by self Love is not hysterics nor passive Aggressive dramatics. ---------------------------------------------- The Students Trees on the street children playing on the road without footpath children playing with wonder fish market explorations in my Masan good mood the people are friendly and here. There is no greater success than the creation of life. This is obvious unless you distort life and make mind / thoughts / control the keys and locks, the you-I success, this is inversion of life into hungry consumptive dead energy. Story idea - from large random data a pattern / themes start to form. Light lime green hospital colour, dialated pupils, don't despair. Tomorrow they'll be headaches enough to render, but tonight The night is. - we'll be here for a while, we'll be going a while later - today i have crazy eyes three hours sleep espresso crazy eyes break on through to the other side the stress bubbled up in one corner where the skin has dried so tired crazy eyes my tooth is jagged run rabbit run i cut my tongue down to size crazy eyes Woke up this morning, feeling like a nervous breakdown in slow motion. Maybe it's just the rain, maybe it's just the rain. Woke up this morning, fell asleep again. Walking down the same old path, for the five hundredth time. The paving stones had sad faces, laid out line after line. Some trick of the water soaking through their pores. Made me think of George Orwell, a boot stamping on the human face forever. My mind was grey and heavy, like the sky and the weather. I gave interviews in my head. How could I have the blues? My life is easy, but it ain't no use. I've been depressed and out the other side. But nothing too bad. Yet still, there's a little something broken inside... you know, the part that's never satisfied. When you can never quite get close enough to someone to squeeze aside the loneliness. The part that knows none of us are ever free, unless you find a way to redefine it. Working nine to five, ignoring the fact that it's not real life. The part that says contentment is just stupidity. Ooh I haven't felt like this for a while. But it's always there waiting to break free, when your dreams are constrained by money, time. Possibility. Wanting to break free, and see everything. It's a one-shot life and such a waste to be bored. Such a disappointment. And the thing is I'm happy. It's all relativity. The part that gets ignored, stored away. The little thing that's broken, that you're searching for a way to mend. It's all a search. Searching, searching. The music is a search. Improvisation, searching for the note, the blue-est note. That little broken thing pushing you on, trying to get mended or just forgotten. Yeah life is easy, just got to act it out and stay distracted. Damn right I've got the blues. Haven't you? Synaesthesia: Hendrix wrote at least two songs equating colours with emotions. Just the acid? Oh my mind is so mixed up Going round and round Must there be all these colours? Without names, without sound My heart burns with feeling But my mind is cold and reeling Is this love baby Or just a confusion? Love or Confucius? 2:3 Confucius said: "If you govern the people legalistically and control them by punishment, they will avoid crime, but have no personal sense of shame. If you govern them by means of virtue and control them with propriety, they will gain their own sense of shame, and thus correct themselves." I was thinking on this today, coincidentally. On the way to work. Primarily the first part, I mean, who needs shame eh? Society sets its rules and its punishments for breaking them. So if you can get away with it there's nothing inherently wrong with that is there? You have played the game. Whether what you do is right or wrong has nothing to do with the rules. 2:4 Confucius said: "At fifteen my heart was set on learning; at thirty I stood firm; at forty I had no more doubts; at fifty I knew the mandate of heaven; at sixty my ear was obedient; at seventy I could follow my heart's desire without transgressing the norm." In fact, I was dead. Hip hip hooray. No more desires, no more transgressions. Now, I've gone and made myself bitter. Bitter like a Mercedes-Benz. So sleek, expensive and inhuman. Go make your own fucking car, with your own two hands. Out of bits of wood. Then you'll have earnt your carelessness. Your right to go speeding down the highway as if everything was okay. And so conflicted lately. Is this love baby, or just a... confusion? Anger! He smiles, towering in Shiny metallic purple armour Queen Jealousy, envy, waits behind him Her fiery green gown sneers at the grassy ground Blue are the life-giving waters Taken for granted, they quietly understand Once-happy turqoise armies lay opposite, ready But wonder why the fight is on My red is so confident he flashes Trophies of war, and ribbons of euphoria Orange is young and full of daring But very unsteady for the first go round My yellow in this case is not so mellow In fact I'm trying to say, it's frightened like me And all of these emotions of mine keep holding me from Giving my life to a rainbow like you. I can't help it. The Hendrix is part of my make up, ingrained in the neurons. 'Show me the boy of nine and I will show you the man.' But this was my favourite music from half that age. And I feel it now, I feel it so strong. And I wonder what I'm doing, can see the shape of what's happening... always moving on forward, always moving on, cutting ties with the past except those few that hang on. Moving on and cutting ties and yet always searching, trying to get back to it, the familiar comforts, the music that first moved me. Look, here I am in England. It's so transparent. Meaningless too. Such a small part of the truth. The song continues: But they're all Bold as love Yeah and I'm Bold as love... And there's joy everywhere. Joy is in all the strange and simple things, the things that make you wonder and let go. I was walking to work the other day. It was a lovely sunny day, spring, the merry month of May. There were big snowdrifts along the slip-road, beside the overpass. They still hadn't melted by the afternoon. Enchanting snowdrifts of broken polystyrene. Beside the bus stop, though, a rubbish bin had melted overnight. Turned into a little flat green smudge. A giant sneeze. A van drove past. On the side it said: J.R. Abernathy Butchers Meating your needs There was wonder in that too. Wonder, that anyone could have ever adopted such a terrible pun as their company slogan. Everything's possible. I feel like I am a step back from my-self. The separation can’t be good, but perhaps it’s necessary for some good to come, perhaps it’s needed, before it can come. The theme from the Godfather plays in my head via a Korean flute; it is late afternoon and the air is still. The body is a bridge. We found bodies floating in the swimming pool this morning. They call this a five star hotel? The reception is full of gore and bleeding Iraqis. Justice came home with the chickens. The slot machines are full of severed fingers. Visage I had a stroke a week ago, things are still a little hazy or perhaps clear, one mans blindness is another’s sight. Opinion saturates perception, but truth, which is, barely nicks the surface of the stone. I was in a subway, a bright young thing had just given birth to war. A cankerous smoke was wafting and coiling around people’s throats, those who didn’t sleep now would be deformed later. One such unfortunate chap hobbled and leaped by, her husband shaded his wife’s eyes. He was ambitious. Like everyone else he fitted in. Around here they seemed to have an incestuous family click thing going, full of dreams of Utopia and World domination, Uber alles. Cups of semen and sweat were passed round, I took one, the disease was mine, I swore it, bottoms up. I was starting to believe my grandfathers uncle was right, as so proclaimed and so on, but it was my own colour, a tainted vinaigrette just the same. Observations, a bookish looking couple sat laughing at their goonish reflections on the floor, it looked like the ground from my position. The girls had their bags and the boys were full of beer and vomit, everything was well cared for. The popular myths were selling well, my face drooped slightly on the right (my right) side. People pick up phones, hoping they will answer. Learn to smile And live a little Open up to love And give a little. Cyber attacks my Paroxetine Every day individuals suffer damage from cyber attacks. Paroxetine inhibits the reuptake of cyber (also known as thought and memory) vulnerabilities. This drug is used in the treatment of faults in software and memory, panic attacks, social phobia, or premature ejaculation. - thought is a computer soul – If you can’t see the flowers through the acrid smoke then do not stop taking this medication without consulting your doctor. “Who would want to break into my Serotonin?” you may ask. Intruders, hackers, attackers or crackers may not care about your identity. Often they want to gain control of your Serotonin so they can use it to launch attacks on other computer systems. Your memory is not safe! Even if you have a computer connected to the internet only to play the latest games or to send e-mail to friends and family, your computer may be a target. “The problem is that the capacity of a standard hard drive is many times the size of your computer's memory size, meaning it is possible to load so many programs that the computer memory can no longer hold them. When that happens, your computer's virtual memory kicks in, and that's bad.” - Paroxetine can help! CLASS: Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor. ( SSRI ) Generic name: Paroxetine Hydrochloride. Type: Antidepressant. Strengths: Capsules: 20mg, 30mg. Dosages: Actual dosage must be determined by a physician (MS Windows accredited). Injection: 20 MB to 30 MB 4 times daily. Oral: Start: 20mg in morning. Increases: 10mg daily. Maximum: 50mg in 24 hours. Normal dosage: For Depression: If under 18 years of age, DO NOT USE! 18 to 256 MB, 20mg in morning. Over 60 years of age, Lower dosage increased cautiously. ( Never above 40mg daily) For OCD: If under 18 years of age, DO NOT USE! 18 to 60 years of age, 40mg to 50mg in daily. Over 60 years of age, Lower dosage increased cautiously. ( Never above 40mg daily) For Panic: If under 256 MB, DO NOT USE! 18 to 60 years of age, 10mg to 20mg daily. Over 60 years of age, Lower dosage increased cautiously. ( Never above 40mg daily) Problems with: E-mail: Must lower dosage ( 10mg to 40mg daily ), as needed with careful monitoring. The latest games: Must lower dosage ( 10mg to 40mg daily ), as needed with careful monitoring. Test: Before taking: RAM level. While taking: Cholesterol level every six months. Take With: With or with out food. Full Benefits In: In four to six weeks. Missed Dose(s): If within one hour take, if over an hour skip and then continue on your normal schedule. Never Take a Double Dose! If Stop Taking: Do not stop without consulting your physician and never abruptly. Overdose symptoms include: Drowsiness, or vomiting. Warnings The habit-forming potential is none. If stopped abruptly withdrawal syndromes have been reported with his medicine, in the form of crashing, network damage, data loss, sweating or tremors. Do not take this drug if you are pregnant, try some non-drug alternatives. Do not take this drug if planning to become pregnant. Do not take if you are breast-feeding. Do not drink alcohol when taking this drug. Do not give this drug to children under eighteen. If over sixty only use drug in small doses and with close monitoring of it's side effects. . Stop taking and see physician NOW: Seizures. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Forty thousand more In the economic evolution Cruelty is a blood transfusion, Red to green and copper coin. From some piggy banks roll dead minds, Sausage-rolls so unkind, At childrens birthday parties The kids, they stuff 'em down. People are preservative In the jelly-snack of language, Sulphur-dioxide after-tastes As hollow and poisonous as the rest. “It’s the food Carmel, it’s the food that’s making you sick.” In the image pulverizer, seeming appalling acts A man got killed by memory, his wife gets a golden axe. - The I.V. is running from the T.V. – We are bobbing for sandwiches in the lake. What was is created in Joy remains in Joy. In us is Joy for we bursting to celebrate it, recognize it, It is free to be Joy. Oh, don’t you cry, Don’t you weep, Daddy’s got a new gun, Security. Death comes fast, And easy for some, What’s wrong with killing anyway? Let’s burn down the sun. It’s all preservation, Of the living-dead. Some end up with the tremors, Shaking, sprinkling, bags of skin. Like a flickering light, Never quite on or off. The blind man feigns sight So he can shoot his guns, ‘till his arms fall off. “Tonight, we go out flag burning.” It’s alright, it’s O.K. We shot the assassin, We killed his wife. Justice was served, Right was done. Memory’s never so dangerous As when it holds a gun. In the evening, When civilization sleeps, We’re still hostages, Under lock and key. Blame your blues on someone else Bring your down on someone else That feeling of control makes you necessary Hierarchy reality, you’re necessary. Find your place by putting down, Bury love in the ground, Contrast you by putting down. I have nothing much to say today, the recital is over. The tanks I found are nearly dry. So many findings and no time to pull them together, precipitating words and throwing them off the roof. I sat on the bus. There was a sweet yeasty smell in the air, almost like someone had a fresh loaf of bread. "Baa," said a voice behind me. I realised the smell was coming from the old drunk, as if he himself were fermenting. "Baa," he said again, not an accidental sound, he was mimicking a sheep. At the bus stop near where I work there are footsteps in the road. They meander for a way then stop abruptly in front of the drain cover, as if someone had drunkenly stumbled through the setting concrete and fallen in. "Baa," came a sound from the drain. I had heard stories. A truck full of livestock had once overturned on the M4 and they never recovered all the animals. Some people said there were sheep living down there, in the sewers. Said they'd grown unnaturally ferocious, the lost sheep. Desperate due to hunger, eating rats, scraps, anything that came their way. There were stories of motorists who'd broken down, stopped on the hard shoulder, walked off to call the AA on the nearest motorway emergency phone, and never come back. I shivered, though in truth the evening wasn't all that cold, sun just beginning to set. "Baa." Goddamnit. Was I just hearing things? I turned my back on the drain. The off-license in front beckoned me like a siren. What the hell. I bought a packet of salt & vinegar and a hip flask of Claymore. Scoffed the crisps, their sourness sucking the juices from behind my jawbones. Took a swig of whisky. It burned, I shuddered, then everything was okay. Somewhere in the Arctic, an Eskimo was fishing through a hole in the ice. He got bored eventually and went home to his wife. My bus pulled up, came and went. I looked back at the drain. Wandered over. My feet would have made an complementary set of tracks but the concrete was still hard, would be for a long time. A swathe of artificial sedimentary rock. I wondered what future paleontologists would make of it, what stories they'd concoct to link the wealth of artifacts in this brief strata together. I was standing right over the drain when I heard another "Baa." It was loud, right beneath my feet. The sudden noise startled me. Like a fool I jerked with fright, as if an electromagnetic pulse had coursed through my nerves rebooting the system. I dropped the bottle of Claymore. With a dull plastic thud it hit the grating of the drain and slipped through. Damn, I thought. "Thank you God!" came a voice from below. Then, "Aghhh," a satisfied exhalation. "Thank you merciful God," chuckling. Then an echo, sounding far away, "Baa. Baa!" "Oh no, Jesus, no," said the voice, gruff, weary, resigned to its fear. "Baa. Baa!" The bleating was louder now. I heard splashing and scuffling. What the hell? The next bus was coming. I listened carefully for more sounds but the traffic was loud and the drain was quiet. I got on and rode home, thinking. What a waste of a bottle of whisky. Still, there was a quarter of that Sambuca left in the cupboard, if I could stomach something so sweet. "Baa," I murmured to myself quietly. The other passengers looked away. What matters? How you see yourself, or how you actually are? Educating role pattern following, but not teaching people how to see patterns encourages powerlessness and stagnancy. The emperor’s hands Are latex bound. His fingers point destruction, Command explosive clouds. Under his power, His will ordained Lie scattered remains Of love and hunger, Some deserved to kill, Some right to die. The emperor’s idol, Is a distant visage. Hope has a rival, And peace a mirage. We fill our hearts with stone, Monoliths of justice, Of right and wrong. Conceit marrows our bones, And corrupts our blood. For from the emperor’s eye Is contempt and distrust. Love and honor are steel from The factory, cages for dead birds. Some are right to die. It’s true, no-one can teach you how to radiate, But you can learn to just the same. You may be a fish, stuck in a tank on a rainy day, But when she smiles, you’re a brown bird in a sunshine dust bath, Dancing with joy anew, her smiling eyes become your instinctive grace. She walked along up – face alight – with no horizon The fish without scales, the others digging the jet-steam, catching a ride, I’d never seen a fish playing like that before. People are joy Your happiness your wealth Recalling nothing Your heart is in the world. Fear - Let it go, let it go. It takes some time to put things right. The sun will rest tonight. Oscillating chambers of memory, Are trying to lead ahead, But there’s no passing lane. Robotic car crash thought victims Exploding will in paper minds. Politic is always a state of power / control relation with another person / other people. Otherwise is just thinking, it is just philosophy. Whenever, wherever there are teachers, adherents, so there is desire, power and control. Put two jigsaw puzzles together as one. Consciousness is god-awareness, but it is distorted in and by thought. Competition is everywhere, but we have awareness. Awareness is compassion and it frees us from competing with ourselves. Thought – memory – desire, this reestablishes competition / conflict in inner life and therefore in outer life. (both coexist and interrelate so much that they are really indivisible, except when though becomes and secures itself as a psychological (world) center.) Our own cage and our own torture chamber. The Trap If you have had children, raised them and done, exhausted almost the energies of youth, built and fostered your addiction to control, ambition remains. So you go on to control and raise unreal things, – see politics or other groups – join a committee, form an opinion and there you foster your distortions and reinforce your illusions using memory and thought. Then enforce your way on others. There is no way. You try to secure a position (both inside and out) for yourself – power, prestige, in business or other social manipulation / exploitation. Of course this will always be the subjugation, the control and power over others, no matter what you think or say. You are what you do. Create insecurity in others, the wave of distortion infects and goes on. Somehow, you will reach the top of a creation pyramid, money is your marker, energy should be used wisely as an indicator of success, ooooohhhh, all that moneeeeeyyyyyyy! Thus life is inverted, dead gods and idols crowd the scene, steadily death consumes before bodily death which is not destruction like the decades of inversion, but a mere transition. The shares and delusions, passed on, past on. On a train to Masan, dreams and memories stream and sink and rise, diffuse and concentrate, ideas of flowers, of naked rice-paddy, green fields a millions germinate and flower, the past and the future giving birth to the present. New and beautiful of it’s own, free and still. Understand Backwards tree All many heads Flittering like leaves Twigs to branches Back to trunk. There’s only one trunk, Then the ground And you can’t see the roots. I’d like to write the film script for Maze of Death. Talking with Jimi Hendrix: he was reading over one of his lyric sheets and was quite emotional. He said it made him sad. We talked about the blues scene in New Zealand and he said he’d seen some great players… Still packaged dress-shirts are hanging from the trees. The dream dissolved into another old college friends murder Korean messages spray paint. Strange meals. We replayed the murder and changed it to suicide, like characters in a film. I’m keeping out the weeds With a mulch of charity Inviting the sunshine in Opening the windows of my glasshouse O’ brown river, silty water Rippling dream of green harrow and sun Still bird standing In a valley of flowers If someone offers you their hand Then shake it (full of love) Compassion is a friend A revolution without end-goal The rhythms of the wind Caress my steely skin Melt me down My rusty tears The colour of skin. Last night I had a time machine dream. We went to a Bob Dylan concert circa 1979 and his religious conversion, but he looked more like he did around the time of the Nashville Skyline album. He came out and laid his hands on our heads, he was talking a wander through the audience before the show, like a evangelical minister. He said something cheesy. He had a full gospel choir, the music was weird, we weren’t sure whether we dug it or not. Apparently there was a clash concert coming up, we wanted to rock and were ruing that we didn’t go to that instead. “It’s O.K.” I thought, “we have a time machine,” otherwise how else did we get here. The dream dissolved into another old college friends… Which is / I which is / who is I / being that which is / no divisions / all is / who is / everything / not a mind thought nor account of perception / that which perceives is that which is / I every – world / together. Sin trains superficiality, it is habitualized if religion is superficial and structured is becomes politic. Be in love, relax, to be in love is simply to be, and to be is to radiate. Sin is lack of sleep, sin is obsessional thinking. Forgiveness is now, and judgment is a means to an end. There are no ends. Awareness is wonder, simultaneous happenings, all is’s and isness. Dying to thought, letting thoughts die, not trying to secure it as and by memory is awareness. Awareness lets joy come into be-ing / being, actuality and your actuality, your being. Both are indivisible anyway. Awareness is total love, total joy. In joy there are no opposites or contradictions as in thought. Memory is used as a proof, as a priori proof for / of and by thought and it’s false role as center of self. Imagination is a road out. Got a smile like an Eskimo Made up like a ghetto queen Why do you figit so? Everybody helloing The whole car A radiation bath A microwave sink. But with love as your eyes, There is joy outside your bones. Snatches of Conversation at a Bar. “The rugby team’s invited you over to have a drink with them.” “That’s how we do it back home.” “The youngest man needs the most experience so he goes and does the work…” “It really hurts, they leave while I’m in the toilet.” “There are a lot of pretty girls over there…” The cigarette smoke tussles with the ceiling fan. The Kiwi loudmouth with a tender heart. It’s all Iraq to me, It’ll be Iraq for me. You’re my ground, in a swirling mysterious world adrift. The world of broken off ice – I forgot the word – Iceberg, there it is. I broken off thoughts broken off if breaking mind is your biggest. The great mistake is ambition. Instead of becoming yourself, you try to become an image. You lose self and get further and further away from being. (actuality) But still – “I’ll be a …” “I worked to become…” If you are afraid, isn’t it useful to understand why? Protecting the I, the center of the center (false center) of mind results in fear and competition, safe distortions – there’s safety in numbers, in groups, in sameness, in respectability. But this is respecting images from your own image position, reflections adjudging paintings. Fear is nothing but our very being, because it is thought and that is what we see (falsely) as being. I is thought and the I-center needs to be secured. Fear is internalized and doesn’t have a real referral in actuality, it is one and the same as ‘the I’ and therefore thought perpetuates distortion and creates fear. I wants security from fear, from change and so seeks to be static, by using memory. But I cannot be everlasting by memory, there is the trap, at the start of consciousness, of self-awareness. Life can be art when anew each day. The art of living is living art. The possibilities for interpretation, night time, day time, beat appreciation. Inexplicably connected and ever creating. Coming into joy is to be, to is. The best stories are incomplete, they leave room for the reader, (viewer) but not just in an interpretative sense. The reader is more like a co-enzyme or a catalyst, a vital part like the keystone in a bridge or a forth wall. Otherwise it is fake, it tastes fake, it smacks of falseness, it remains just a clever untruth. The best stories are always true and are real collaboration between the imagination, the experience and the spirit of the people involved. Let every answer be love! The haemorrhaging sky Liqufies the benetted earth I put on the grey beard Making presents of the dust Only mad heros Can hear to call the tune Above dark skies like sheet-metal Indifferent to us Below. Teddy walked down to the canal. That bitch. That spoilt bitch. The thought had lost almost all trace of prickly malice, had worn smooth with overuse, a reflex. He took another sip from his can of Special Brew. There was nothing special about it except the elevated alcohol content, not enough flavour in the beer itself to mask the chemical taste. It was cheap. Far off in the distance, occluded by a pair of shoddy tower blocks he could see the London Eye. The giant ferris wheel attempted to make the city into a fairground attraction. Nobody's going to win me today, he thought, sullenly. A train went past, the rattle and fumes of a diesel engine. Diesel. Fossil fuel, who thinks about the fossils? For a moment Teddy projected his fate into the future. No, not his fate, merely the fate of his constituent parts, his molecules and atoms. First death, then decomposition, followed by much later by mineralisation, and then...? Pollution. Just a meagre smudge of soot, a puff of greenhouse gas, a dribble of toxic benzene derivatives. There it was then, he thought, even in death there could be no dignity. It wasn't the first can of the morning. He'd started before breakfast, then skipped breakfast. Just as soon as the off-license had opened. The smiling muslim man behind the counter hadn't batted an eyelid at his purchase, nor had he offered any pleasantries. The water sat limp and flat in its canal. It looked thicker perhaps than it really was, an opaque blue-grey greenish brown un-colour. There was a raft of weed and crisp packets snagged against the opposite bank. Teddy walked down to the edge and looked at his reflection, looking for signs of life. The reflection's beady eyes met his own but the place it stared back from was barely real, phasing in and out from behind a plastic membrane. It stared down out of the sky, up at him. Teddy smoothed out a patch of matted fur on his belly. Once snowy white it was now a dirty grey, and the orange on his back was looking more like the bricks of the railway bridge. If only... He took another swig from the can. Nearly empty. It was hard to focus on his reflection. It was hard to focus on anything, as one image dissociated into a blur of two. Feeling himself swaying backwards, he put a foot forward, overcompensated, swung pendulously, took a couple of woozy steps, eventually steadying himself again. He was standing in the water. The coolness surpised him... it felt, not cold, but simply like the absence of heat. A negation. The water was dirty, but this coolness... it was pure. Teddy stood for a while like that. The breeze ruffled his fur a little. So full of energy was the air, all its chaotic restless movement came from its heat. It was corrupt. The air was corrupt, he was corrupt. Everything around him was corrupt. Except the cool water, devoid of heat it alone was pure. Teddy reached his foot out a little further. The canal had steep sides. Teddy stepped out. His foot didn't find the bottom. He tipped forward off the other foot, let himself slip into the water. Lying face down he felt almost submerged, almost completely enveloped in the soothing coolness. It didn't sting, but he wished he could close his eyes. He felt the corrupt warmth slowly, slowly ebbing out of him as the cool bath of the canal conducted it away, never seeming to grow warmer itself. It was an absolute, a vacuum, untouchable. He let go of the beer can and was dimly aware that it floated beside him in the still water, until all the spurious impurities of thought had been conducted away into the vacuum too. Teddy lay like that for an hour. He did not try to ponder or assess his state of mind at all. He simply let all thoughts, all energy, dissipate out into the purity of the void until he had achieved something of the contentment of a rock. Night fell. Dawn broke. Neither affected him in his peace now. Trains passed by. Two days later one of these trains passed by and I looked out from its window and saw him there. With his mildew fur and the can still floating by his side. Be like the wind All fine and mellow Working too hard Seeing the sights A mouth of lips and A sea of oil Get caught up in The tangle, perhaps it is Time to understand and Not to run against the wind But let it fill your sails All fine and mellow Get angry with the wheels and You just turn into them. She walks into the room Like a field of flowers Seen through a glass eye The world seems to pick a fight Now or pay later Drive a stake through injustice and insecurity The tanks are warm The bombs are cared for, alright, undercovers Sunday, Sunday, is for Repentance and Reminding You are cold cold cold And the world is on fire. Blue eyes, brown eyes, Celebrate the dead stars There's a stillness in moving And a woman says "Hae'ch" Bak bak baggie flat'op W. C. Strange dreams, same dull conversation What you read is the way you see Every culture is sterilized By centrifuge, spinning, faster, faster, turn. Blue eyes, brown eyes Eyes on shopping bags Duty isn't free, It's just left unsaid. Do what you do, what you know, what you do. Blue skies beyond the venetian bars. The crass workings of meaningless progress. It was a long time since I'd driven my SUV. My Porsche SUV. It would sit there on the drive, shiny, black, bulbous, amoebic. With chrome trim. At first it had seemed to be mocking me, as I rode into town each morning on my daughter's bicycle. My eleven year old daughter's pink bicycle. But familiarity breeds contempt. Is that right? Is that how the phrase goes? It seems a bit harsh. Familiarity breeds indifference, perhaps. It had been getting like that with Janet, for a while before the crash. Before she invited her Pilates instructor to move in with us. Now I'm anything but indifferent. Life at home crackles with undercurrents of sexual tension and domestic competition. Undercurrents and sometimes sparks. I actually quite like the guy. Which makes things all the more interesting. He's an asylum success story, even made the local news, doing well for himself in his foster homeland. I'm not working of course, but I know all the wild fruit trees in each of the parks in the city. I'll happily cycle four miles across town to pick blackberries from up by the reservoir when they're in season. Everyone strips the apples in Central Park as soon as they're ripe, but not many people know about the trees behind the electric sub-station in our neighbourhood. I only go there at night. Our daughter, Stephanie, she's away at college of course. She seems so serious sometimes, but I think she's happy. I must confess I occasionally have doubts that she even misses us. I couldn't tell Janet that though. Anyway, on balance I think the Intensive Learning Programme is a good thing. For all our sakes. I found a window this morning. A complete, intact window, with a powder-coated aluminium frame and everything. Just leaned up against the back wall of that ornamental fireplace showroom on Bridge Street. I was dumbstruck. I hid it, of course, carefully - ever so carefully - under some old cardboard boxes and autumn leaves. That's why I'm going back now, under cover of darkness. In the Porsche. It's like an alien world, the cockpit of my SUV, after all this time. Or, no... like a childhood memory, a summer holiday so vividly remembered that, when you visit there again later in life, the place itself doesn't seem real, it shimmers uncertainly above the dream. I know exactly what to do and yet a part of me is watching bewildered as I turn the key, put the transmission in gear. God knows what the neighbours must think. To hell with them! I'm a time traveller. An astronaut. A top-secret test-pilot, hand-picked to fly this captured UFO. The leather is soft, yet firm. I'd had to siphon some fuel out of Roger's Camaro first of course. He lives about eight houses down. The guy had let slip he keeps the tank full, a couple of weeks ago, over canasta, round at Dee Dee and Jason's. Actually he seemed kind of proud about it. I, of course, filed that away for future reference. You have to be methodical. Never know what's going to be important or when. I can't think why I bought this vehicle. I mean, I can remember the reasons. I could recite them, more or less. But I can't remember what it felt like to generate those reasons, to hold them in my head and use them as instruments for processing a decision. I'm glad I have it now though. It's three a.m. There's no traffic on Bridge Street, of course. I pull round the back of the fireplace showroom. I'm pleased to see that nothing has been disturbed. Even the leaves are as I left them. I lift up the sheets of corrugated cardboard packaging and there is my window. Pristine, perfect. I find myself glancing around nervously, in case anyone has seen us together. I'm fumbling with the electronic key fob, trying to find the button which pops the trunk. With a beep-click the lock releases, then there's a soft hiss of hydraulic pressure as I ease it open. Gingerly I lift my window into the back and lay her down there. I curse myself for forgetting to bring sheets or something else to wrap her in. I set the Porsche's air-suspension on its softest setting for the drive back and we crawl along timorously the whole way, as if on egg-shell tyres. Hoping nothing will harm my precious cargo. There are no lights on in any of the houses on my street. I'm glad. Parking, I take care to stop in exactly the same spot on the driveway I'd left from. I open the gate to our back garden. It squeaks a little, but it'll often squeak in the wind anyway. I beep-click the trunk and ease my prize out into the moonlight. A pale, limpid reflection passes across her surface that catches my breath and holds it for a moment. Our back garden is a private place. We have tall cedar-slat fencing all the way around and mature trees standing guard; dark cypress and towering Douglas firs. The garden is big, so big I got lost in it once. It was a couple of days before Janet found me, bedraggled and dirty. "What have you been doing?" was all she asked, but I could see the concern in her eyes. It's so good to know she cares for me. Anyway, I know that here my window will be safe from prying eyes and jealous hands. I bring her out of the trunk, down the path by the side of the house, and out into the middle of the lawn. For some reason I have the first few words of the President's recent speech echoing through my head. "If we are to steer through this current crisis..." Just that, nothing more, although I broadly remember the rest of it of course. Tenderly, I place my window down on the dew-damp grass. For a moment, staring at her, I feel as if she might be all that I have left. Would that be so bad? I have a feeling in my heart, like when the streetlights glow pink at dusk instead of their usual midnight yellow. But I don't know what it means. Eventually, tired, I let myself back into the house. I mix myself a bloody mary in the kitchen. Janet wanders down the stairs, hesitantly, bleary eyed. "Oh, it's you," she says. I take a sip through the straw. The vodka is all at the bottom, my stomach turns momentarily. I give it a quick stir. Another sip. Too much tabasco, my eyes water. Jimmy always said there was an art to it. "What were you doing?" she asks. "I have a surprise for you," I reply. She smiles then. "More figs?" "Even better," I grin. "In that case..." she says, taking my hand and leading me upstairs. I acquiesce and as we ascend I find I have a clear notion it will be sunny tomorrow. Over time I have come to trust my intuition, though it strikes so rarely. Yet this is a curious premonition, if hardly a remarkable one, living as we do in California. Janet and I tiptoe quietly past Abdul's room, though I will make a point of leaving loudly in the morning. She hasn't asked me what my surprise is, I note, and for that I am grateful. Wordlessly she disrobes, a fragile and luminous beauty. I struggle with my own robe as my elbows get tangled in all the coloured ribbons I'd tied to it. I smile apologetically and she giggles. We make love quickly then just lie pressed together, shivering a little in the lamplight. I marvel at the delicate transparency of her skin underneath my fingers. I think it's what I love most about her. Where did the end go? It was good, I think - I really tried to express my thankfulness and joy. My amazement of life. Ah well, with passing away comes coming growth. I watched the two trash collectors amble past. They didn't have much to pick up. The beach was pretty clean, a few bits of paper, a rusty old can. I felt like I was anywhere, everywhere - California, Malaysia, or on the North Shore. It was a feeling I often get, everything's so familiar, but more than that, not just connected, but somehow the same. I guess you could say that I was the unifying factor - a la self - but this wasn't an ego trip, in fact in moments like that, ego sinks away. I can't describe it, separate it as a notion, dead of the ever-living-present of being-here-now. It was that time, place and all the features of separation were as flimsy as the weakest conceptions of the human mind. Sometimes when I fly to distant lands I suspect it's all been faked. The set is rearranged, make-up applied, characters modified, reorganised or reintroduced. "She's just like K. back in..." It's enough to fool most people. Yet I realise that these thoughts sound like the ramblings of what has been defined and case-studied as a definition of one or other mental illness. Yet that doesn't make the reality of the feelings any less real. You can call it what you want. I have dreams of future scenes and people. So where am I? And when? Walking down the beach, stabbing litter for a living. The air warm, but not stifling, a drop of rain on my cheek. The sun remained as a sun shower comenced, so common in New Zealand in the spring time. So light I didn't bother to move. I lay down on the sand and closed my eyes. The sea hiss drowning me. I woke from a doze three years ago on Mission grass and saw now, my future, past by and by present. I drove back to the dorm and tried to read a book on classroom management. My eyes saw the words, but I couldn't read them, superficial, like bricks of hollow lies. I was out of phase, post-time shift. I lay down and put a Liszt cd on. Perhaps if I could just return to the vision I'd had on the beach. Standing by the window, the clouds looked just like yesterday's sky. Perhaps they were. I sat at my desk and began to write. There seemed to be an undue amount of fluff beneath the bed. Had I not vacuumed recently? Once there was no more carpet left I lay down. I was about to close the cupboard door when the CD finished. Suddenly Liszt-less, my leg began to twitch. It was a crazy beat but I kept it to myself. Perhaps if someone had come in when I wasn't looking? I took a sip of coffee. Why had I allowed my nails to grow so long? They repelled me, or rather, I them. I put them as far away from me as I could reach, but soon began tapping a nervous rhythm on the desk. There was an easy solution of course: I knew where the scissors were. But I'm not the sort of man who, when faced with a cliff, feels the curious urge to jump off, just because he can. Actually, I'm the sort of man who, when faced with a cliff, feels inclined to start picking away at the edge. I'm not sure what difference it makes either way, there's still a cliff, still an edge. Perhaps I was losing my edge? I picked up the book again. Outside the surf was breaking. Once broken it would lie, limp, on the sand and then scuttle furtively away. I wiped away the lesson plan I had been scribbling on the window, in variously coloured transparency inks, in order that I might take a better look. A car drove past and the phone rang, with a degree of simultaneity that suggested the two events were linked. "Hello?" No one spoke at the other end of the line, there was just a soft wash of rhythmic static. ssshhhhhhPSSSsss. ssshhhhhhPSSSsss. From my bed I could no longer see out the window. I put the CD on again, via remote control, lamenting that I'd left the coffee mug on the desk. I couldn't sleep, nor did I have any particular desire to. The book also lay on the desk. It occurred to me that if I could only will the coffee mug to spill its contents onto the book, things would be very different in future. Part of the reason I could not sleep, or rest satisfactorily, was that I was not comfortable. I plumped and re-plumped the pillow. I turned the pillow upside-down, and in doing so I found the seashell that had been the source of my discomfort. I had been foolish to put it there, in such an awkward place, and equally foolish to forget about it. It was small but perfectly formed, as they say. Bleached white by the action of the ocean. A cockle? A chalky little dish with a finely grooved surface, like half a hollow tooth. From the bathroom I could hear my next-door neighbour's television set. The scissors were in the cabinet but I no longer felt such an urgent need to use them. Besides, it was more important that I return to my studies. It's one thing to be inadequate, but quite another to be unprepared. The hot coffee scalded my lips. The third movement was a somewhat cool one however. I wrote some notes on the window and dabbed at my tender mouth with a tissue. I liked to write on the window as it gave the effect of an overhead projector, helped to put me in the right frame of mind. I stretched. I kicked off my slippers and my feet were surprised by the bare floor. In an instant I progressed from aimlessness to uncertainty. I put the scissors away in my desk drawer and swept the remains of the textbook away into the plastic wastebasket I had bought, with remarkable foresight, just a few days ago. As the afternoon grew thin I noticed a distinct chill in the air. I had a sweater in the cupboard of course. Instead of retrieving it, I went again to the window. The wooden floorboards reminded me of another place, another time. That was another house though, and there was no sand beneath these floorboards. Still, I felt like I was finally making some sort of progress. I could smell fresh coffee brewing in the kitchen. That was definitely a positive sign. The sand would be more difficult however. back © All work herein copyright the stated authors. |
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