|
|
...not as in "overcome with inner passions." Exactly the reverse. Spent, like charred coals, the last sparks long since expired. This has been coming on for days, now. Defying the black hole... denying the abyss... refuting the repetitive. But it manifested, nonetheless. The first clue was on Monday... in exactly the same place, the midpoint between here and there, MINIs in abundance. Traveling in the opposite direction. The path, the conditions, the mood, the pulses from the car stereo... identical to the week before. It clung to memory, the inevitability. But Hope, by the method that it was designed, passed it by as mere coincidence. That was wrong. In fact, "wrong" fairly describes the means and the end. God damn these mood swings. The sound of doors closing. Locks clicking fastened. Blinds drawn. Stones grinding into place in an unseen wall. Still moving, determinedly... thinking that the act of moving forward would impart force against destiny. Wholesale changes in the ways and means closed familiar avenues, cut down cold the channels of communication, complicated the everyday with ignorant progress. Cruel lessons learned for awakening in a good mood. Dreams, plentiful but unremembered... ushering in the numbness of a new day. Page after page of relentless despair and destiny, chased with the ineffective acceleration of black coffee and cigarettes... adding weight to gravity. Clouds build above the grey, humid ceiling. Opening the door to another twelve hours, the first words spoken were, "you probably want to go back where you came from." Buzzards surround the workspace, searching for a fresh victim... losing their heads and blaming it on me. Then, murmurs of panic... eyes glued on red-and-yellow radar screens, noses pressed to the windows for flying debris as the skies turned green-and-black. Eager anticipation for the worst... the violent end of all things, as if it were on television. Resigned to fate, if fate was dictated... alone. Crisis delayed... the winds subside... the tide recedes. Saving grace coming from skillful hands with knife and rice and nori and flesh... a gentle, almost whispered touch of hand to back. At least my tongue, my gut, my skin... remember. |
|
|
