Ratmachines.com

Fiction

Drops

8

I will not play any longer. The time has passed. I know there are excuses available, studies to be made. That is all well and good – I accept the stories but want no part of them. That is my point. I can say nothing, and want only quiet – but that, like so much else, is a lie. I am overwhelmed by distractions, worries and the like, but know that these also are a part of life. I do not want the security that guarantees death, although sometimes it sounds like a good idea. There are other ways to go about the matter, some better than others. I know of only one: mine. That will have to do; one day I will walk up to an office in the sky and they will welcome me with open arms. Like a lost son, perhaps. I am not waiting for that day, however, merely noting the possibility. I cannot equal myself and so do not try. That I will leave for later days. Today I wander not knowing what I look for or why I walk, but notice I am happier nevertheless. Everyone, I begin to suspect, is lonely, but will not admit it, even to themselves.

I can do no work, nor do I want to. I see no reason to fill other's pockets but do not want to make a point of my complaint. It's just that I do not like to work, nothing more. Others claim the same but go to work happily, day after day. I have known many of these people, and have watched, curiously, their lives run out, not quite able to grasp the point – I suppose it is in there somewhere, but it eludes me. Many things elude me, of course. I struggle to find words for every thing that has slipped my grip but fail; knowing that friends are somewhere near is some consolation but a lie as well. The lies are comfortable today, however. They fit like old gloves, and let me slip through another day without violence. Not that this is my ultimate goal. It is more of an observation, nothing else. After the first rush I am exhausted; in the nights my energy is stolen by women who wake refreshed. Again, I do not complain but merely observe facts. In my stomach boil small cancers, and in my eyes ticks twitch. Each, as the saying goes, to his own.

It is not that there is nothing to say; quite the contrary, there is too much too say. Too much, in my opinion, to justify more wasted space, or time. There is so much to say that my pens run dry, my hands quiver, my eyes, my eyes – they are blind, of course. I am satisfied with my condition. Everyday is a rotation of flesh; everyday is nothing more than the day before. Listen to the wind for me – I have forgotten to see its face, it is only a memory. In the schools I tried to listen but it was no good, there was no one there. That was the most uncomfortable sensation: an absolute absence made echoes sound over the playgrounds filled with children far too old to be engaged in such play. I wanted to cry, then go on about my business but the scars were deep, and haunt me still.

I turned to music and the laughter of children but found only empty blue eyes and tears and accusations. And then a long drive home, followed by flights east. These were only steps, however, to be looked back on when finished, with confusion, perhaps. I look for characters to pad out the story, but know there will be none; the same will go for outlines and plots, although I speak in the first voice, and tell the last story – to be followed by many others, of course. I will squeeze in muscle bound gymnasts when the time is right, until then, however, there will be nothing. I enjoy the work of creating absolutely nothing, not a thing. Why, after all, would I want to fill the world with more things, when there already are so many? It is not more complicated than that, I want to assure you. I look for freedom remembering that only slaves do such things. And maybe the dead, wandering over fields of glass and broken stones. But the dead should stay dead; their problems do not interest me any longer. Meaning of course my problems have lost their appeal to me. I am not one of the dead, I am the one who plunges the knife into their hearts, rips out their entrails with my hands, and penetrates the cavities while boring the crowds to tears.

I know there will be objections; that is the point, of course. If there were no objections I would have to wonder if I was doing something wrong. So please object, if only for your own benefit. And watch as your body swells, beyond its limits if you care enough. You are the first and last as well, and should believe in more things than you do. First to go should be the doubt that binds our hands; that is the worst, and is followed by little else. Do not wallow in the lives of others, or concern yourself with matters you can do nothing about. There are no problems, only possible actions. Do not cheat yourself any longer into looking for solutions to fantasy versions of life at its worst. I can observe, comment, laugh, cry. These are all allowed, perhaps even encouraged. I am not a film maker, nor a documentary producer. These jobs were already filled by others when I applied. I work lines around my hands and convince others to go unhindered through the canyons that surround me with unvoiced doubts. I am astounded, of course, at how my smallest dreams seem fantastically large: it is as if I have been cheated at birth by someone or something. I spend years (and will continue to spend, I am sure) coming to terms with the first ground, thinking my thoughts mad if only because of the isolation.

Come into pits of gold, they said; follow our leaders into the promised land, others intoned; you are only your limits and your limits are yours alone, was the final call. I knew otherwise, although why I do not know. I wanted to settle, tried to settle, but had to go on. I follow and lead at once, but cannot believe in the existence of opposites except through great effort. Last and first as well are the same. Be direct, at least, shake hands like a man. Lie until your eyes bleed would be more honest, of course; lie until your lies are believed by yourself, then the world around you. The problem for me, of course, is that I don't like to lie. I find the practice dull, and uninspiring. It is better to go on as if it did not matter, no matter the cost. Plug your ears against the noise; give donations then turn for the coast – sell more, and better, for less, then wonder at the end of the day why all you do, or have energy for, is to sit down in front of the tv. I suspect the matter is quite simple: we are drained in every way, our blood is the fuel that drives the world to its own brink. And in our blood is the first and last, and in the first and last exhales a sad god. For the time to breath in passes with every day. There is nothing, then, as I noted. Only more of the same, then new versions piled end over end until the change is one of substance and not quantity. I cannot, and do not want to, explain the whys that drive this engine, but do not want to go on as if nothing were amiss. This is, after all, a fiction, and has some obligations to fulfill.

It is a question of words with no home. And also of hands that will not call for help no matter how bad things get. It is a question of endless complications that lead nowhere. I give nothing, the words are of nothing, the eyes themselves are filled with nothing. Nothing is the first and last, and is now held in the sacred urns above which incense smolders. There is no frost, no spring nor summer, nor winter to call our own. The stories are true as far as this at least. What there is, and never was, is a general decay. Although I speak in metaphors the metaphors are all true: the problem lies in the words themselves, which want us to believe they come from an alien landscape peopled with angels and wood nymphs. I look for quality, however, and know there is none in these withered idioms. I think too much, of course, which is my problem alone. I would like to stop but that would leave me with nothing, and put me on the same grounds as anyone else. That, of course, is not acceptable to me. My affects are mine alone, not to be shared or doled out at random intervals. I will flop over before listening to another word; give me the time and I will eventually run out of steam. Until then I would not mind having a taste of heaven. It is, after all, rightfully mine. Like everyone who came before me, I drank as much as I could tolerate before vomiting up everything. We are a nation of bulimics as well, if our drug abuse problems weren't enough. Coffee is a mainstay; small countries live and die by the nature of our demands. Taken straight, as cocaine, it burns our lungs and sears our flesh and leaves behind untold numbers of living dead.

I do not need to invent one word beyond the rim of my window. My reality is in my mind, and yours drifts off into its own spaces, which are of no interest to me. There is nothing after me, of course, nor before. I am the only thing, the matter which pauses to create itself in its own image. I am the machine that builds worlds, the war that ends all wars, the canyons and rivers and stars and suns and more, in numbers too large to ever grasp, and when added together, I find that there are always new numbers appearing with lightning speed, overwhelming my efforts. I am making a point so simple, so clear, that I know I will be accused of many crimes. I am the thing that sins, that prospers on the graves of others, that steals its flesh from locker rooms and then sends out for pizza and beer. I long for the nothing that my existence denies me, and in this way sigmund was right, but only by chance – an accident of language, nothing more (and how could it be more, after all?). To annul myself is the greatest good, to proclaim my identity with the divine the first act of a corpse. I am hindered by bad habits, of course, and unclear thoughts told repeatedly that such things cannot be thought. I am and I am not and I revel in the sun and want to fill my hands with ice-cold water. I am all that is and ever will be and ever was, and I am nothing: the cold between the moments, the frost over the fields. I am the cloud that bursts out of pregnant mushrooms and the daughter of destiny throwing her fate into open windows. Please say nothing then turn and leave with a worried look on your face; keep in your hands music offered in spring, turned over on your back take in the love that covers you with kisses.

The point is that it is not time for anything. That particular time was yesterday, the day before, then all of history, come and gone and then to be. Freeze your moments into time then scream out – I exist! – but do not be afraid to know you are wrong as well. Take both, one and one, then add more, two and three and four, until you have reached the very limit of your counting, then stand back, satisfied, knowing you are every number and word and dream as well, and nothing more. Then breath for a moment, find a quiet place that feels like home to you, sit and look at nothing and forget the rules for a moment, and know the watch on your wrist is only a tool, the hands nothing in themselves. Sip on good alcohols, smoke good grasses, eat until you burst. Seduce the moment into surrendering itself into your hands, make a world where the only thing that matters is the next bowl of gruel handed out by relief workers, where water is as rare as gold, and only half as pure. Sink your tongue into your favorite places, send the moans home for vacation earlier than expected. There is nothing and everything, moment for moment until there is....until there is no need to talk about what there is at all.

And that surely is enough. There is no need to go further; I walk along narrow railway lines in spring and look at the flowers that bloom in between the ties. Perhaps that then is enough as well. I can take nothing offered, as first principle. Second is mine, and will never be shared. Maybe later, of course. Perhaps everything is enough. As long as the words at least are true, that is not too much to ask for, although the idea is somewhat out of date today. My researches have stopped, I sit back and look for cheaply priced drink but know there will never be bargains here, if only because of my constitution. But I do not complain; in earlier times I watched iron wills fall before the merest breath, torn into shreds for no reason I could see. Except the most simple: there was neither iron nor will, and the days that were called hard were soft like an old mushroom. There was, then, only fantasy: the chance to make myself more through another, ever over and over again. I know when the words are false, at least, if nothing else.

In the beginning we are given certain powers, some of which we can come to understand, others which will always escape us. Such a point is not very complicated, but seems to fly in the face of conventional wisdom, which would prefer clean slates for its subjects. But slates are never clean, coming as they do always burdened with a past, torn and scratched, warped and faulted in a thousand different ways – barring a few notable exceptions, of course, whose existence only proves the general principle. My slate is faulted as well, naturally, but it is in the faults I relish a life unholy perhaps but still saintly in a strange way, which is not yet clear to me. Or maybe I only want to bring the saints that much closer to myself, to make them real, to remember they are only human too. Which is always the first step.

But I am not human, and have no wish to be. I do not want the first things, and leave behind offerings of greater lineages. I am, as you recall, nothing. And so of course I clearly cannot be human, which is, we are told repeatedly, something. Or maybe it isn't. That possibility has been raised, and is less vile than others I have heard. My words reach out for shelter but know there will be no hands to take them in; my eyes struggle to see new worlds but encounter only the old. All is too much and all is simplicity, made complicated by bad living. But there is no time to go on in this manner – the hourglass has run out, finally, much to my relief. There is time only for the essential, the fruit at the expense of the tree. Which makes the question but leaves branches unmade. Everything will collapse, sending showers of juice over the landscape.

I will look for passion, for love, for kisses in the night but will find only a cold reflection. That is not new, of course, simply an observation to set the scene. The promises I make are recognized before they leave my lips; the song is broken into pieces then shipped by air freight back to foreign shores. I wander looking for it but hear only echoes sighing in the wind. There is, I know, enough of each element left over from the beginning to start all over again; the model will be the same, the agencies different, is all. Taken as wholes the mixture of earth and water, fire and air, will pulse the same songs. The touch will know more, however, the hands will rove with certainty over fields of grain and sand. The eyes will dance, leaving the steps to themselves for a while. Every future burns out before its time, I have sent for candied apples in hopes of avoiding more hunger. My diet is bad, admittedly, and is getting worse. The thing I call love calls but has no name to give me in return – only fantasy and false promise.

Of course matters are a little sad, that is normal, and to be expected. Death is sad, and we have lost the ways of mourning, preferring to pretend the whole affair is simply an error of some sort, or, alternately, simply divine providence. I cannot understand why we cannot take death in hand and make at least a first try at dancing a waltz or two with it. Maybe the experience would not be so bad – maybe, in fact, it would be downright pleasant. But I do not want to say too much. Always in the night I call out for the past, and find skin cold to the touch instead. The warmth I cry out against is not there; the face of death looms but does not smile, nor does it weep, although it offers advice if I choose to listen. It is of course up to me, seeing that as far as death is concerned I can do whatever I please, it making no difference in the long run. Only I pray for life. And that is the odd thing. Like a hypochondriac I call for death and destruction but silently, when everyone has left the room, beg for salvation. That really is too much. As if god can wrap his hands around himself, giving love and blessings far and wide. Or as if there were some work I could do to hasten the process. As if I were outside of the story, somehow. The idea is really too ridiculous. I will laugh tomorrow, although today I am still too involved to see things so clearly.

And then, becoming restless, I will try to see the future, but will find only my thoughts, restless as well. Always the same, the ideas of one are the motions of the other, which is the unwinding of a third, which is the flow of a fourth, which is the hand of god, or of one of his agents. I can never know, because my words swim in their own waters; my thoughts are only words and pictures and sensations brought in ways mysterious but definitely real. The sands shift, making new patterns. To call the waters nothing or everything is irrelevant; what is at stake is the final frontier, and what lies beyond the final frontier is the first name, and the last word. Begging for scraps from this table is like asking to be let into a fancy dress ball wearing second hand clothes. And besides, I am too proud to beg, or even take what is offered freely. My world must be mine, in the end, in the beginning, and in every part in between.

I do not care if my words are outdated; what is at issue is the rate of return and decay. Although there are often offerings of money and even entire lives left at the altars of churches, I cannot become interested in such practices. There is no need for religion when there is everything right there in front of you, including you as well, naturally. The smoke in my eyes is a gift from the heavens, the last gasp of a tortured atmosphere is to be taken in gratefully with all the rest. There is no place for hatred when love is in question, nor for cowardice. To fight is the second hand of god, to kill the third. Fight the good fight, leave your body behind as dead and forgotten; love the battles, and the scars left behind. Love all, not only what you are told is good. Love the frost that kills the crop that could have saved an entire village, love the man who rapes your wife, love your hands as they wring the last bit of life out of his wretched corpse. Love revenge, vengeance, bitterness and regret, tears, sadness, broken loves and hearts, ecstasy and the last heaven left after the rest have been tossed to the side. A love that cannot do this is not a real love at all, nor is it the all. The all is all, simply put. We cannot pick and choose at our discretion. The all burns in the eyes of terrorists choosing their next target; it is in every action of dictators and public defenders alike. We, you, I, are the all as well, in part and in whole. I take my hand and send it up to the sky as offering, I spit and wish the best to each and every microbe. My sperm is an offering to the holy trinity; every waste is first life, then moves on to the next stage. I pretend then turn my head and cry softly, not knowing what to do next, but sure that there is something left for me somewhere.

The whole affair is so simply, really – any child could tell you, if you first explained the nature of the question, although of course he or she might think you slightly silly for asking in the first place. My passions are lips opened to suck in the eyes of god, my lips send shivers but will never lie. There is nothing beyond, no future outside of our world, no life outside of what is here in front of us. I would like to speak in fairy tales and parables but there is really no need, the end coming soon – tomorrow in fact. The end, that is, is quite close, and should be welcomed like a long lost friend. I treat it, of course, as I do all my friends: with distant reserve. I place the matter out of my hands, then reach for its heaving breasts, its body arched under mine in illusions of love. I send out for food, for beer, for wine, for anything that strikes my fancy, then am unable to pay the bill. So perhaps it is all too much to think about – that does not matter, however. Whether we think about it or not will not change anything in the least. The thinking is undulating around our heads, our hearts, our stomachs, and needs no permission to strike out on its own. Pushed to the extremes, the body will fall into pieces, perhaps gratefully. Left to itself, it will grow then stop. That much is obvious, and should not be questioned.

The lesser concerns are of no interest to me. My words make that painfully apparent, or at least I hope they do. Of course there are not really lesser or greater concerns, if one is consistent in one's thinking – all having precisely the same value, if I can talk about values at times like these. I have values, of course, although they are out of step with the values that surround me. I do not care about that, however. They are mine, that is what matters. I kill them but they refuse to die; I ignore them and they shape my life until I am forced to once again pay attention to them. That is simple enough.

To believe in values, of course, is like encouraging a madman to believe the world really is out to get him. Today we are told to find ourselves – the mad, of course, have found themselves. They carve the world out in their own image, and in the image of everything they have been told to believe. The mad are not such fools, except to believe what they have been taught, which makes them pretty much equal to any one else as far as being a fool is concerned. I am I and I am not I, after all. And I am nothing. They, of course, turn the whole affair on its head, proclaiming that not only are they something, but that the entire world is them. They then go beyond this simple recipe and state that they are nothing, and that all that they are pours in from the world, which is really only them in the first place.

The words of the mad are my words as well – only I, I maintain, really mean them. I want nothing, look for no solutions, suffer no unnecessary pains, want to escape from (or run to) nothing. There is an icy satisfaction in knowing the first and last will always begin and end in my hands. The character of doubt is the final character, and will be introduced later. For now I am sure of every word, and embrace every blatant contradiction as if it were the child I will most probably never have. The chicken scratching happily (?) in the courtyard will squeal with terror when the man on the horse reaches down to pluck its head off; in a battle of wits I would choose the boxer first, then leave the remains for business men of all stripes to squabble over. Please do not send for help; the manner of speaking is nothing, and should never be taken seriously. My shelter is the fiction these words bury themselves beneath; my laughter is the nature of all jokes never understood until much later, or never.

Condolences, however, might be in order. I know I have many faults, but cannot cure even one. That is how greedy I am; I will not surrender the blackest of fates so long as even one atom of it is mine. I want all there is: before, after, outside and in alike. I crave satisfaction of the basest desires but only in the purest ways. The altar of heaven is made on the stomach of love. The burials should proceed in an orderly fashion, then leave for home and beyond. Keep the light burning and ignore all callers, nothing being more important than the fire in your eyes. Things are really so simple, after all, it is just a little too easy to forget the first lessons you learned in life, and later it is of course too late, at least generally speaking. The first five years roll along and turn into the last seventy, accompanied always by the freedom to choose nothing. All is fantasy, all is illusion, all is absolutely true and needs nothing to fulfill its destiny. The words are all that change, and they only to satisfy our craving for accuracy. The science of today is not one of atoms and DNA's crawling about in their bowls of soup. That is old: every word true, every word a blatant lie. It is time to kill our fathers and mothers then dance over their graves until dawn comes around again. Life without death is after all nothing.

We have worshipped enough, now it is time to go on about our business. I call the first call, you make the second. After that there will be arrays of volunteers, each of which will maintain his or her steely eyed independence. Let the words torrent; the definitions will change with the winds so there is no need to worry there. The atoms I hold have no earthly nature; the spirals in my eyes twist in ways no camera or microscope will ever record. On my back I receive your blessings – if you cannot give more then be satisfied with the less you offer. The tabernacle is not of gold, silver, wood (hard or soft is of little consequence), nor will it fall into pieces of painted panels. It is not a question of more technology, once and for all. Technology is what it is, and should not demand as much attention as it receives. Life changes – that is the way, which was noted so many thousand years ago I cannot understand why people still cannot take note. The machine smiles or laughs with us, burning our eyes and calling out for more oil, or what have you, and the machine is us, and the eighth hand of god as well, if you prefer to look at things in that way. I need no drugs to say more, but will one day drown my last thought in a basket composed of good mushrooms and dandelion wine.

I occupy the extreme position and would have it no other way. To speak of strangers is odd somehow, as if I were offering potions stolen from the hands of an infant. There is no question of witchcraft or black magic; the first to come into my house is the one I welcome with open arms. I give more than I want to surrender but do not complain; it is after all the nature of things, giving and taking and the like. At peace for a moment is not the worst, only a slow poison. Alcohol is a poison too, but only in large doses. That is the thing we forget: poison is not bad necessarily – the danger lies in when, and in what quantity, it is consumed. I am looking for a homeopathy of the soul, and do not care if laughter is all I find. There is no cause for alarm, however – I am not one to praise any religion, no matter how tempting its hands might feel as they caress my cares away – and my life, of course. There was never anything else in question, but I forgot every time the words and stumbled across the streets and alleys dead drunk. My motions were those of a madman wanting death, but my hands reached always up to the sun – a symbol old but still with some life.

I do not find my thoughts unreasonable in the slightest; they will paint worlds for me in their off moments then go on about their business as if nothing had happened. The first, again, and in different form every time, is the simplest of things, and asks for nothing, cares for nothing, is never wrong and does not know the meaning of the word right. The specific is filled with danger and can blind one to the light of the stars, the moon full over our heads, the calm that finds a place in the heart of every breath. I do not want to hear a word – not a sound or dropped pin even. Absolute silence is called for; nothing less will do. There can be no distractions, no sirens calling out my name, no temptations scurrying across the floor like rats (and I love rats, understand). There is a time for these things, and each I welcome at that point, but until then I ask for moments to call my own. The worlds will fall around my head then leave gaping holes in the floor. Worlds, after all, are no small affair.

I accept reality with all of its faults, and applaud those who would change it, but ask at the same time if they cannot see that their change is not a part of things as well. Otherwise I hear only talk. I do not mean to become profound; I promise that this is only an illusion, a moment I flatter myself with thoughts of wisdom when there is of course only the fluttering wings of a gnat. Or the croaking of a frog, the glide of a tuna through the water, the death of another virus. One by one, then in greater and greater numbers the beasts gather around in circles and squares, looking on with great curiosity then going on with their lives, displaying the proper contempt for my words.

Although nothing is clear yet, I must remind you that there is never clarity. There is no reason why I should subject myself to conditions of extreme purity when the air itself is hardly fit to breath. But now my back breaks – the burden, I explain patiently to myself, knowing there is no one else to hear, or care, is too great. I am saved from making more of a fool of myself by my solitude, which I caress like a lover then slip out of at odd intervals – to breath, eat, and more, about which there will come a time to explain in detail. Of course things will not always be so easy; tomorrow, for instance, will be impossible, and will most probably mark my downfall. And that I wait with bated breath, as they might say if they ever listened. The sound will be soft, like a leaf hitting the forest floor. My body will slump slowly over, against the nearest object, then my mouth will part slightly, my eyes glaze over in near perfect imitation of senility, my tongue puff up until there is no more room left for me to speak. My hands alone will move, and will know everything which cannot be explained. That time is no time and is my time and is welcome and reviled and then left outside to be fought over like table scraps by alley cats. That time is all reason and no reason and the world that believes and does not believe and calls the pope a liar and a thief and a destroyer of all that is truly sacred: a hypocrite in the strongest sense, but unknowing, unfeeling – dead, in fact, to all that is alive, and alive to all that kills. Friend of the dark side your life was called many times before, in endless cycles your ways were prophesized, but no one would listen, and now it is too late, or so they say. I do not believe a word of it, however, and prefer the morning sun to land straight on my face. I can do no wrong, right, but do nothing instead, to avoid catastrophic illness. There is no time to be right, or wrong, after all. Those concerns are fine but wear thin after a time. I am thin, but do not mind flesh – in fact, I prefer it, given the choice.

There is more, of course, about which I will explain in great detail when the time, again, comes. That time is near, and is indicated by many signs, least of all my promises that point here and there then back at themselves, to guarantee the proper outcome. The frost is cool, and fills my lungs with crisp air. I do not speak in metaphors, again. The frost really is cool, and really does fill my lungs with crisp air. My intentions are equal to my words, and my words drift off to play with themselves when no one is watching. The forest is calm – I want to play as well but know there is work to be done. I am not one, as I explained, to relish work, but will do whatever is necessary to keep my position. Day to day is the risk we take when we take the risk of a life without daily death. And day to day is its own daily death, a poison like all others. There is something to be said for stoic calmness, and for the last breath that follows the hemlock into the depths of hell. The dark kingdom I want to know better; I know there is more than can be called evil in the confines of our sin. And that the good we embrace is death as sure as cyanide.

But now I forget, and say I know this, then that, then soon no one will believe a word I say. Which is a good starting point. I can be happy then – lifting my hands, moving my mouth, speaking no words, making no thoughts, no ideas or dreams or misshapen plans. I send the first foot forward, cut off the second, then hop along, the village fool, but I laugh best for all feed me with eyes filled with pity. My stomach, that is, remains full, and so my heart. My arms wring out tears, my sigh is your sigh, the pause that follows, like clockwork, marks out a space for itself, for the echoes as well, for all that I call near, and which promises me home at last. There is nothing more, this is all; there is no remainder, no sums or quotients over which to slave; the algebras that fill my head have no name as yet, and, once named, will be as dead as all history. My salvation is upon me, I have offered to the heavens goblets of gold, calves' blood by the bucketful, psalms and chants and endless variations of each and every name of god (only a few of which I know, and none intimately enough to call my own). I rest for I have slept enough – too much perhaps but that is my affair.

But first I must dream – dreams rich and full and pregnant with possibilities; the signs are all pointed in the right direction, left and right and up and down, all at once and never again. The condemned do dances on the floor to celebrate their immanent end, the free look on jealously. There are perhaps worse things to do, if so I want to know them, one by one. I will look on patiently, maybe a little too clinically at times, but I have made my excuses and intend to stand by them, no matter the price. Excuses, after all, are best when used to their utmost. Mine I savor the way other people sample the best wines: a smell, a small sip, swished around the mouth to let the palate breath in the flavor, then spit out, then begin again, and again, and again, until nothing I say is more than an abstract reason for the last apology, the last note sent home from my mother, who has not been near my house for many years. And I want nothing beyond this. I am satisfied with the simple things, as a first condition as well. That is simply how things are, that is, although maybe what strikes me as simple might seem out of sorts to someone else. That is the chance I take, I suppose.

And now I will talk about butterflies.

And then about subjects I am even less qualified to mention. After, of course, the music ends, the lights dim, the moans slow to a steady breathing, the mattress dries and the sheets flap in the wind. For it is not my choice; rather it is the will of man, and I am that man, but I make no claims, no false pretenses, no heavens or hells or particles cut in half over, and then over again. The atom reaches out like a child for its mother; the mother stretches across time and takes a hold; time bends and plays sad songs for quiet crowds; the tears melt into sand out of which flows the light and dark and frost and sun, ray after ray until nothing, and I mean nothing (really, this time) is left – no clouds, no drama to play out in left field, no river, no banks, no mother or father, no valley or fields or forests or meadows or grass or fog blowing across the hills. And what more could you possibly ask for, after all? I am no more greedy, or less, than the next person, but will make exceptions if exceptions can be made into rules. And rules can break, but the breaking is only the law, and the law does not change, nor has it ever. How, you might ask, do I know these things? That, I am glad to say, is very simple. I do not, and want nothing better than to leave matters exactly as they stand. The worst mistake is to change something that is good enough in hopes of making it better. Better always simply to make something better, realizing along the way that the good enough is a step to the better, and cannot itself be more. I am happy stepping in this way, although of course the process is frustrating.

There is no need to go on; I have said enough. With the stop I take my doubts; out the window they go, into the wind, seeds scattered elsewhere I know they will root but away, away, I cry. All motion stops as well, the heart no longer pumps red and full. I always reach this end, then go on, no longer sure who or what exactly it is I am. I like this question, I should add. It seems slightly odd to know who or what one is with absolute certainty; it is as if an atom under examination declared once and for all its exact nature to the scientists observing it. And who knows, after all – maybe one day the atoms really will speak out: I am, I am, will ring out the chorus from every part of everything. And inside the atoms too, the orbits and spheres will shout in steadily decreasing harmonies the same, until the first foundation has been reached – the thing so small it contains once and for all all that follows.

I look in the meantime for rest. Not, mind you, that I am tired. Far from it. Rest is the first call, work the second. The first cannot come without the second, the second without the first. Such is the order of things, disharmony and melody and off tempo rhythms shuffling about, embarrassed to say what they really mean, or maybe having nothing to say. I, however, will not dance, although I might sing a line or two. I will take each lie and put it firmly in its proper place, rewinding now and again when the mood strikes me. Take it all, put it down on tape for prosperity, record each and every move until there is nothing left to film. I can make nothing that is not already here, remember; my actions are prescribed by the most rigorous doctors, under orders from drug companies to sell the last banned shipments to their unsuspecting customers. I am not a client, a patient, a vender or dealer, however. I am only a long cycle of happy and sad days, beginning with birth and ending with death. Each of my moments is what I am, each element of matter is my foundation, each breath I take the concrete from which I am cast. There is time, and one day there will truly be nothing left to know, no struggle for words, no sadness to call as a long lost friend when all else seems to fail me.

But first the butterflies.

Their wings are gold, silver, the shades of the rainbow and everything in between. Their small legs move gingerly over surfaces of leaves; their wings, heavy as they are with precious metals, flap once or twice before the creatures take off, into the sun I know, into the heart of the universe. Afterwards, they hover lazily, waiting. The colors change – first yellows, then bronzes, then metallic greens and blues. The boys and girls laugh – there, then, go the butterflies – goes the shout that follows the insects as they vanish into the empty eyes of heaven.

Then there is rejoicing; the children dance over the fields where the butterflies sang. The worried looks given by unsure parents do little to calm the young ones. I too was young; the memory escapes me as I leave that body behind, piece by piece. There is no sadness, no feeling of loss. There is only a new breath, a new heart, new thoughts I struggle to master as I believed I had the old. In dark rooms I call out then hide my face. The words are new (although they might appear to be the same), the books unread, the thoughts unheard, unmoved; the day is never and has never been.

I can say little more about the butterflies. It is better to remain silent, to preserve the few rights we have. Say nothing, do nothing, be nothing. Offer no point of resistance, no target. Enact the wisdom of the ages and you will never die although you will leave behind all you think you love, all that holds you back from the holiest wedding: that of heaven and hell, with courtesans and riff raff rubbing shoulders, not caring for the moment about their roles or responsibilities, but knowing that later there will a price to pay. Promise nothing to no one for there will never be anyone to accept payment. The debts of our fathers are not ours and should not be honored – that as the first step towards regaining our lost honor. The last, at last, will come later, much later perhaps, or maybe in only a little while.