manniac
dharma explorer
Posts: 619
(4/20/04 8:12 pm)
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That place between sleep and nonsleep
A phone is ringing in the dead of night.
Somewhere.
A vacant ground floor office. A metal desk with an open three ring binder on top. Words scrawled in senseless order. A sentence left unfinished. Blinds drawn shut, still letting in slivers of light from the lonely street lamps. A dingy bedroom. Empty bottles lying on the floor. A torn paperback on the nightstand, beside a stained copper ashtray. Echoes drift into nothingness as they enter the expanse of a giant parking lot in the middle of nowhere. Neon signs burning endlessly, offering directions to no one.
There's no place left. To get yourself utterly lost. To be miraculously found.
The moon is just a paper cutout. Scribbled in with a yellow crayon. Looming precariously overhead like a sickle, fastened by wooden clothes pins, leaving one to wonder how long it can hang there...before breaking free and slicing through space. The stars? Just a bunch of projected lights. Blinking on and off in random succession -- Morse code messages to disinterested parties. The power lines are long strings of useless wire. The smoke rising in the distance smells real enough, but it could be the food in the oven, or the burning desire that simmers in the hearts of young lovers.
How many rings before you bring it to an end?
Roll it all over. Again. Foggy terrain. Ghostly appearances. A place you've been many times, transformed into something you've never seen before. Scorched. Smoldering. A cross stands between two torn spires -- reaching into distorted heights, each at odd and distinctly unnatural angles.
Turn and run. To the shore. Tripping on the unsettled ground. Looking up to find yourself in the middle of a fishing village. A young girl is sitting on a swing set, holding a bouquet of withered flowers. A horde of insects are battling at her feet, feasting on a decaying piece of candy. She stares into your face and gestures for you to sit on the swing beside her. An old man laughs but you can not tell where he might be. The laughter mingles in with the fog as you walk toward the girl. She has been crying, but her smile is lovely. You want to reassure her that you aren't as bad as she must believe. But no words escape your lips. And as you sit you become dizzy and lose your balance, grasping at the suspended chains to keep yourself from falling. You get yourself hopelessly tangled and seek the girl's attention for assistance. But she is gone. The now-dead flowers leaving a trail you cannot follow...the laughter turned stale.
A hazy figure stands on the edge of your perception. Signaling abruptly with a severed arm, seeming to indicate that it is high time you got moving on.
A bell is sounding on a hill. Perhaps an announcement to all the children out roaming wild, casting their giant monster-like shadows on the falling landscape. Recess is over and it's time to get back to class. Or maybe it's sounding the joyous culmination of a church ceremony. The scent of her perfume still on your ragged thrift shop overcoat. Fingering the holes in the pockets, wishing it were as simple as all that -- lost invitations, misplaced identities, forgotten locations. But you have chosen your calculated distance. Standing in the hole you dug with such careless ferocity. Spinning in defiance to the gravity of the situation.
The phone is still ringing.
Everything is moving in circles. Coming back to its point of origin, exhausted and much worse for the wear. Dirty fingernails are scratching the aging surface. Digging through the accumulated debris. Wary of anything that might be surviving beneath. Testing the waters and tossing lines to break the serene facade...looking for any signs of nourishment in the long forgotten reaches of your humanity. Sending kind-hearted wishes that float on the choppy current. Letting the whirlpool take care of the sinking feeling you've been carrying far too long.
One moment you've got the world on a string. The next you're sweeping the gutters for the slightest evidence of self worth...for any ounce of common decency. What ever made you think it would be otherwise? I hope it was nothing I said.
Ring, ring away...ring through the night, ring into the day.
All is still
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