Much
Ado About Giant SalamandersThey could be seen, black silhouette figures against a dying sky — red splattered tapestry backdrop endless infinity above the shadowed golf course. They were two small specks on the horizon, hardly differentiated, holding hands. Their strides mixed rhythmically; occasionally their hips collided and one would laugh easily. They came with colors and intricate patterns of paisley and tie-dye — a mix that clashed yet ultimately fell together despite its intended complexity. Their hair blew, scattering about in the changing wind, and they looked through each other's eyes. At nothing in particular. But their movement was purposeful and directed, and the town lay before them, ready to be flattened, waiting.
Maybe they could turn away, go away, disappear into the distance from whence they came, but no one who saw them doubted that they were coming and that they would come soon and not leave until they had done what they had come to do. They came recklessly but unwavering, laughing and at ease with their goal. It would be soon, this fulfillment, and it would be good. Strangers, they were eyed sideways and from behind curtains by the townsfolk, whispered about behind cupped hands, quietly passed by on the streets. The people noticed, knew that they were out of place odd, that they weren't just tourists passing through...
Once I dreamt that I was a tree. I grew tall, so very tall. My branches grew twisted but strong, and I basked in the sun, became drunk in the rain. I was content, breathing, never believing that it could be otherwise. You were a man, a small fragile man, muscular perhaps, with a heart in all its longing capability, loving and wanting to be loved. But you were not happy; you knew too much about the ways of the world to be happy. Walking in the forest where I stood, you sat beneath me daily, taking solace at my feet. You would sit there, knees drawn up and arms wrapped tightly around them. You lay your head there, curled up with your big thoughts, and the spirits of ideas came to you and made you open your eyes and peer over those knees and into the distance. Through all the clutter and decay of the forest, you saw a perfect order and felt calm, and peace was there. But the intrusion of a memory of the world outside the forest or your bad dreams would send your head crashing down upon your knees, eyes shut tight, tears in your heart.
One day, you stood up from your sitting and looked up into my open spread limbs, and you had an idea. Returning, you held an ax and you cut at me, carrying me bit by bit to your little clearing in the forest. And you used my body to build a house for your new wife. And you made love inside of me and gave away your secrets, sold yourself to this woman. And the woman gave of herself to you, and you held each other by the fire made from my burning limbs. And though I sheltered and protected you, you forgot me. You were still not happy. And when the woman left you, you left that clearing never to return. If only I could have been left to grow, I would have become huge and old and wise, and my peace would have given you peace. Eternally. But you were a man, and you were, despite all your strength and striving, small and frightened. Yet I loved you without knowing why...
The people come in out of the rain, folding umbrellas and shaking off the cold, wiping the fog out of their eyes. They filed to their respective pews and faced the altar, talking in hushed voices and nodding knowingly half-listening at one another. A priest appeared above them, and the music of the organ burrowed into their ears. They clutched their Bibles as, wide-eyed, they listened to the priestly man telling stories. They learned lessons, applied religion to their everyday lives, put things in contexts, and believed. The preaching man, arms raised and voice booming, spoke and sang, got the people praying, smiled and glowed as though drunk. After a while, his sentences began to flow together, and the people concentrated on the undulating sound, ignoring the words and their meaning. We are good; we are virtuous; God loves us, and we will all go to Heaven if we continue attending church regularly; this wise man, he will lead us to Green Pastures, the Promised Land...perfect as perfect can be. Amen.
They walked quickly together up the flagstone path, through the wrought iron gate, past pointed spires slicing into the thick midnight air, and the twisty trees growing out of the lawn. Trying the door, they found it locked. He began to kick at it, and by some miracle, it swung open heavily on its squeaking hinges. He led the girl by the hand across the threshold, her coat flowing in a black stream behind her. They raced up the aisle, shrieking and playing with the echo, laughing and being absorbed by the intensity of the moment's sentiment. They were in!
He sat down on the altar, knocking vases of flowers onto the floor in harsh smashes. She came to him, and he took her by the waist and lifted her up to him, and they began to kiss. They undressed each other and began to fuck like mad on the altar for the next half hour. On their way out, he left a silver coin in the collection box, and then they left quietly, hand in hand, shutting Heaven's gates securely behind them...
So this is paradise, thought the man, as he strolled through his gardens. Well-kept and decoratively arranged so that each flower that bloomed was given a special chance to proclaim itself as uniquely perfect and beautiful. A picture of glorious sun-drenched innocence: faces uplifted to receive love and care from the world around them, smiling with roots firmly planted in the reality of the moist earth. You are so lovely, thought the man of each and every one.
His shoes clicked evenly on the stones of the path, and his walking stick swung forward and back as he gazed about him. Nearly overcome by the colors, bright and distinct, fighting for attention, screaming, "I am the most beautiful;" he agreed with each one, an odd smile curling about his face. A fountain bubbled softly nearby, and its clear water reflected statues of nymphs, perfect as perfect can be. And the man knew then, this is my patch on earth; this is my happiness. I could need nothing else but to walk at my leisure about this place for all my remaining days...
They came that night with crooked staffs, broken and carved from the little wood nearby. Knives in pockets and nails on their boots, they chatted about poetry and art and politics and disagreed agreeably. He turned to kiss her lightly on the cheek if she became unreasonable, and she purred. They stood at the edge of the garden, separated from it by the well-trimmed privet hedge. With a quick glance into each other's eyes, brightly reflected in the moonlight, they clambered through the bushes, staves upraised, bursting into frenzied energy dance.
Breaking apart, they began to ruin the garden, cutting with their knives at fleshy stems and ripping through soft velvet petals. Steely silver blades flashed under the stars. Their sticks came into contact with statues and stalks, wrecking paths by digging boots into turf and overturning well-placed stones. Trampling flat the flowers where once they grew so fine. They were silent in their dark intensity, and they lay it all to waste.
When they were done, she collapsed, weary from her labor, in the center of the garden and stared emptily at the vast sky, absently working out the patterns in the stars. He leaned against his stick and shut his eyes; when he opened them, she stood by his side, and squeezed his hand. And then they left through a hole in the hedge, disappearing down the lane...
I am sitting on my bed, staring at a blank wall. White and empty. Alone but not lonely. I am thinking, my biggest thought, how thoughtless is thought. How thoughtful is not-thought. How good it could be not to think at all. Simply Be. The uninterrupted texture of my room allows my concentration to be focused. A slight variation in the smoothness of the background arrests my attention, and I am up from my bed immediately, staring at it from all angles until it disappears into flatness, and I can't see it anymore even if I try quite hard.
Returning to the bed, I finger the wool of the blanket, feeling the oil in tiny droplets melt and mix with the sweat on my palm. Looking around, I note the names of various objects there and say them half-aloud until their meaning disappears into the sound. This always makes me smile. Drawing a pocket mirror (from my pocket), I hold it to my face, focusing on my eye. I enter the greenness and funnel through the blackness of the pupil sensing the depth there. Can I read my own thoughts here? I ask the eye staring back into the I. The answer doesn't immediately present itself in language or sound, and I reject the question without hope of a truthful response. Endless dark tunnel. My eye, its reflection, and my mind. The image in the mirror begins to blur and separate until the fog surrounds this dark central focus of the room. I stay there for a while until it too disappears into a refracted confusion of grayness. I blink several times. The white walls stare back. There is nothing here but emptiness and void — a very solid void, it seems, I think — a void that can be kicked and destroyed and maybe you could escape from it then...
The man walked down the frozen path thinking of winter coming up quick. His belly was full of porridge and English breakfast tea, and his cheeks were pink with the bite in the air. He looked into the distance at the empty fields. White frost-tipped grass bent over as the wind had blown it in the night. The early morning sun glowed on the horizon gold against the cold deep blue. Looking back towards the farmhouse on the hill, he saw his wife standing on the doorstep waving and smiling, her hair blowing about in the breeze. She turned then and disappeared into the warm darkness of the house to do the washing up. The man smiled to himself and thanked providence for his wonderful wife and for his full belly and thick wool sweater.
Then his mind turned to the day's work at hand. He must turn the cows out and muck out the barn. He looked forward to the feeling of accomplishment upon returning for his dinner. And the time for relaxed daily reflection. Tugging on the heavy door of the barn, he eventually got it open and slipped into the sweet smell of straw and manure. Good healthy smells of well-fed animals. The cows noted his arrival with several large shits and then shifted about while he moved down past the pens checking on them. It was the same every day. The security he had worked for all his life really was his own at long last. Contented, he picked up his stick leaning against the wall and herded the cows out to pasture. They went willingly and began to nibble at the frozen grass, eyes rooted to the ground, fattening. All of this is just perfect as perfect can be...
They came, shivering down the lane, looking for warmth and shelter from the brooding storm. It would surely snow tonight. The cold went deep into their bones and chilled their hearts. Breathing was dry and unsatisfying. He squeezed her hand once in an attempt to thaw his own. I need you, he thought, and began running; she hesitated, spine chilled, and then ran after him, not able to keep up. Wait, wait, please slow down, you foolish boy. He paused and looked back to see her panting behind him and ran again, his legs uncoordinated with the cold. She felt a cramp and stopped, clutching her belly. She could have been hungry if she let herself believe it. She shouted at him to wait, and he stopped, sitting in the center of the road until she caught up. He avoided seeing her look of pain and stood up, staggering, she thought, due to alcohol. I need you so much now more than ever. I am lonely. What can you do to make this go away? Pain digging into her stomach. She put her arm around him, but he cringed and brushed it off. Help me, silently.
They saw the house on the hill almost at the same moment and thought of the barn, imagined warm animals — steaming warm animal breath. Wedging themselves through the door, they collapsed separately on heaps of straw. Where are you? In the dark, I cannot find you. I am feeling lost. He got up and fumbled, tripping through the darkness. What are you doing? He found a heavy shovel in a corner and a cow at the end of the row. She listened as he brought the shovel down on the head solidly, hard. The scream of the cow broke icy through the night. Piercing, foreign. What did you say? She felt her stomach knot tightly, and she doubled over in pain, hearing continuous hard, hollow thumps of contact between the shovel and the head. There was a heavy sound as the cow finally fell to the ground soft, cushioned by its own fat. She heard a clatter of bones, a skeleton falling piece by piece to an attic floor, irreparably separated. The screaming had ended in a long, drawn-out sigh. She heard him whisper harshly in the dark, "I love you."
She rested in the nest of straw and waited. For hours, it seemed. Unable to wait for him any longer, she leapt up, madly crashing through the darkness to where the cow lay, and tried to see him. He sat there, eyes shut, back exposed, vulnerable. She took out her knife and knelt down, began to stab the dead cow repeatedly until she was covered in its thick blood, hands thawing in its warmth. She was sobbing uncontrollably, stabbing repeatedly, senselessly, endlessly, until exhausted. She threw herself, blood-covered, into his lap, and he patted her hair absentmindedly. Eventually, they rose and walked slowly outside into the falling whiteness of the snow...
Once I dreamt that I was sitting on the white sands of a beach, the sun beating down, burning my scalp through my hair, which was melting down my face and back. I held a clam shell you had found for me, with a broken and sharp piece on it. I began to clean under my fingernails with it, but you would not smile. You thought this purpose was meaningless, too benign. I traced a circle around myself and wouldn't let you into it. This is my place here. Do not invade. I wanted you to sit behind me so that I couldn't see you, could remember what it was like to be alone and longing for you before I met you. But then you stared into my back until I had to look round lest you made me explode from the burning. When I saw the look on your face, I cringed inside. Your eyes always got you inside me, no protective circle could keep you out. The sun mixed with your eyes and melted my heart.
I allowed myself to do what you wanted me to do, scraping at the flesh of my arm with the sharp edge of your gift-shell. My arm went white and then red; then bits of dead skin flaked off. You told me to try harder but said it might not work for me. Because I was a girl. And who were you, after all, to tell me what to do? Since you had got into my circle, or because I had let you into my heart, your words became the law of my self, and I obeyed you. I tried so hard that I was soon crying. The shell eventually drew blood and from then on, it was relatively easy. I was bleeding and my blood was filling up the circle, darkening the sand. And you came and sat facing me playing with white sand slipping through your fingers. I became weak from the loss of blood and the heat and brightness of the sun. You shimmered before me; I could just make you out, you looking into my eyes smiling, "do you like it?" And I heard myself say, "yes"...
In the railway station, the old women sat lined up like corpses for judgment day, hiding their gazes in shopping bags and purses. Some looked off at a chosen spot on the distant brick wall, reading the same advertising poster over and over until they could not think what it could possibly have to say to them, yet feeling somehow compelled to stare at it, lest they sense that "something" that had always been missing. They wished just one brick on that distant wall would suddenly change color or move. Anything to break up the monotony of endless brick patterns, edges dividing, half displaced individuals, never congruently connecting.
The old men stood, leaning on canes, newspapers tucked neatly under arms; long dark coats and lowered hat brims carefully placed. Once they would have surveyed the line of seated women, looking for something, but now their backs were turned away in indifference. Everyone had grown old as they waited for death, which having been invited early, urged itself to sink claws into throats just a little. Man, you cannot help me live when I am dying. Woman, you cannot make me smile or love me when I am lying in my own self-pity and detriment. And we are both too proud to admit that we could ever really need each other. We realize the futility, and we accept our lonely isolation, it has grown comfortable with time. Has it?
A train then came thundering noisily down the rails, drowning out the sound of the silent station. It interrupted the women's staring at the opposite wall and ruffled the men's papers. They shifted uneasily in their poses, getting into a different uncomfortable. This was no one's train, yet it stopped. The people inside stared straight ahead, fearful of making contact with the people on the platform, lest they (a perfect stranger no less) make me feel, affect me, influence my next move, take me off this track I'm on. No-one gets off...