Distraction.
WOULD YOU...
Press inquiries that only you and the ghost would know the answers to?
Is there a limit to common knowledge, to that knowledge which is attainable through conversations, songs, and writings?
A limit to detail that outside observers will retain?
Is there truly anything that only you and the ghost can know, some small detail that you both will remember, something that no one else can attest to as truth or untruth, as fact or fiction?
And how does one test the ceiling of said limitations whilst retaining conversation with aforementioned ghost?
Isn't it proven, time and again, throughout history, that something too good to be true inevitably is, that nothing comes without cost (material, tangible, or otherwise), and that wishes really don't come true?
And do you invite the ghost inside, and embrace it, and love it anyway, or follow the ghost to where ever it resides, dedicating everything, sacrificing everything - just to prove that there's something more in the world, the universe, besides the various (and mundane) processes of the life cycle?
I suppose that there is no right answer, and that one must simply walk to the edge of the world, and peer off into the blackness and darkness of forever, and take a step - quite possibly, or better yet, most likely, to fall and to perish. But there is still the chance, no matter how infinitesimal, that one will do anything but plunge into the depths and lose life, and if such a thing exists, the soul; that one will fly, or metamorphose, or begin again, and that all of the theories and hypotheses and previously set examples will be proven wrong...
Or maybe it's better stated that there must be the chance that one will simply not fall...
Door.
0-a
She was always one for testing the limits of what she'd been told, you know. Pushing the envelope or crossing the line, but not anything in a daring or romanticized way, if that's the kind of thing that you're thinking. Always with an inclination more towards social self-destruction, financial ruin, or bodily harm, a blind eye turned towards caution and prudence, always riding the proverbial razor's edge one fraction of an ounce of pressure away from rending the artery hopelessly and irrevocably useless for the sustenance of life. That's not a complete sentence, is it? I don't care.
0-b
For example, she's got this scar on her hand, these interlocking curves that form all these perfect 75 cent circles, like the rings of a tree, kind of, and they're from when she was just a kid and she had to touch the glowing orange eye of knowledge on the stove top because she didn't believe mom or pop when they told her that it was HOT, that it would BURN, and that burns always HURT. She's also the type that never cries, at least as far as I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of her, you know, so I doubt that even then she reacted in a way that revealed weakness... a real tough-girl type, you've met someone like her before, I'm sure.
1
Mom and Pop, before they moved on, they told the story a little differently than she does, of course. I guess all parents have them, these stories of a loveable but stupid and disobedient little kid2, screaming at the top of its lungs as it runs through the house with an extended finger or hand or arm, lamenting the gods for placing such curiosity in their thirsty little heads, all the while with tears and snot flowing freely from all available facial orifices, blind faith in motion that usually concludes with a more dramatic meeting of said child with a previously unnoticed and also quite inconsiderately placed chair, door, or wall.
2
Well, that's just how she is, you know? So I was kind of surprised when she started listening to everyone's advice one day on matters of the heart served in conjunction with a waste pile of really bad ideas, and even more surprised when she totally flaked out on this guy that she was really into, and I was really, REALLY surprised when she stopped answering the phone when he called because he was, after all, potential for a REALLY REALLY bad mindfuck. Really. And that's probably why he was perfect for her, and also the reason she'd let him get away, with her new resolution to follow instead of lead and to let everyone else make her decisions for her.
Time passes like a dream. We reach for the sky, we seem surprised when our hands return, empty. But what of all the breath that we've just captured and let slip between our fingers? How many lives have shared that air?
3
I'm learning to be more like the other lemmings, she tells me. I'm learning to be safe and predictable and boring and mundane and encapsulated, because that's a million times easier than the kind of thing that scars your hand, or worse, your heart, for life, and it's the kind of loss I'm willing to take and the kind of medicine that I'm learning to swallow without gagging. this conversation evolves as I smoke an emerald green Cloversmoke, an American cigarette the color of money, so fancy and fashionable, in an unkempt roadside cafe near Toulouse, France.
4
At least I didn't fuck him, she sighs as she says this, and she looks kind of regretful and sad, and I put my hand onto hers. Is it any wonder that the words for Heart and Hurt are so similar?
every moment is an open door
Doubt.
Because it spreads throughout your life.
Because it consumes you, in the end; in the end, malignant versions of yourself have destroyed far too much to allow for sustained survival.
Because you become terminally ill with it. Upon analysis, you find that the core is hollow. That the life is a shell.
The body is a vessel, and when the vessel is broken, there is nothing.
A big, awfully blank
NOTHING.
The conversion of cells, the mutation, proving evolution on a cellular level.
The wirings of the brain much like that of the television (have you ever seen it when you turn the power off?), residual electricity surges and points in the center, a bright beacon of light through the tunnel.
Dream.
I open empty hands and smile, A broken dream.
Can you remember who you wanted to be when you grew up?
Drift.
Someday, when we are old and gray fools
when we're waiting to die,
what we've done, what we're thinking,
we'll wonder: was living worth the lies?
All of our heartaches, all of the scars
worn, bandaged, hidden - we are the weary war-torn.
For us: the darkness, forever.
We are like the lifeless stars.
The sun rises; we drift.
Drink.
Will the fever break?
I don't know
Should we take him to the hospital?
I'd rather not
What if it gets worse?
What if it gets better?
Earache.
We're in the car together and we're not quite lost, but we're far from found. The heater is turned up to 4, we're driving aimlessly along the coast waiting for the engine to warm up the air, we're talking in hushed tones and whispers and we're murmuring a stream of thought, half spoken and a quarter implied, and a quarter lost.
She's telling me a story of how she breaks into houses as a demonstration of her free will and I'm thinking that I've been here before, a long time ago. My ear canals ache. The wind on the beach in the springtime will cut right through you, a servant of the ocean, so cold, so dark and deep. I focus on the dotted lines, playing ping-pong with the car as if I'm drunk.
I feel sick to my stomach. She doesn't taste the same as she used to taste. I concentrate on the feeling of sand between my toes inside of my socks and I'm trying to count the grains and the fibers and the cigarette in my hand is about to fall on the floor. I'll search for it, blindly, find it by heat alone, smelling the smoldering carpet.
She's telling me a story of ghosts and gods and graveyards, and I'm laughing on the inside - but not a healthy laughter filled with joy or one of carelessness, instead: the laughter of the malignant, filled with irony and a taste like b
ile, or corrosion. I feel a growing sense of distrust in this woman as my earaches subside, but I reach for her hands anyway, and she takes mine into hers as if she were eager for the contact. I ask her to marry me, again, because it's all a part of this destructive chain of events we always pull from within ourselves, and I see no reason to change the script, no matter how much or how little the stage has been rearranged. Again, she declines, reminding me to keep my eyes on the road.
We're our own little symphony of fucked up reactions to each other.
I take aim for the ditch, the phone poles; I take aim for the tractor-trailer's headlights in the opposite lane. I take aim for anything substantial and immediately deadly, anything to bounce out of the scratch in the record, anything to release the pause button of this same endless cut-scene.
I change my mind, steady the wheel, and I drive on.
WHY SHOULD I QUESTION THIS
"It's so loud in here sometimes. Sometimes Nothing is all that you can hear."
Echo.
It all starts with the extended eye contact. Then, next thing you know, they're pouring you another glass out of the second, no, the third bottle of wine, and they're dragging you into the bathroom, and stripping you down, and they're throwing you in the shower and scrubbing you with expensive soaps and pads with hard to pronounce French names.
Have you been sick before? Are you sick now?
How many times have you done this?
So the shower ends, they believe that they've made you clean again, they believe that they've washed the stench of living off of you, they believe that you don't still reek of all of the alcohol you've imbibed. They believe, so they move to kiss you, but it's blurry now, the lights are so bright, and if it happens, you can't remember.
If anything has changed, you've failed to notice, because, after all, this is the vessel that you reside in and these are the battle scars to prove that you've lived. That you've loved, that you've lied, that you've bent hearts and have had yours bruised. That it all fades into memory, and to a point that you can't remember a name with the face, or a situation with a date, or what their feet looked like.
Then, one day, you're waking up, the sun is in your eyes, you take note that it's always going to be that way, be it bathroom lights or stadium lights or some life-giving star that you've taken for granted; you'll always have the glare blinding you, the tears to blur your vision, the drowsiness of sleep resting upon those lids. That day is the day that it all suddenly matters; for you've planted no garden, no flowers, you've written no novel. You've stockpiled so little for the winter, and much less for posterity, it's already growing late in the day.
You can still smell the alcohol in your hangover, it's there, written on your eyelids and inside the echoes in your memory - you can taste it in your throat; it's telling you that no matter what you did, you can't be right, that no matter how you've changed, you haven't changed enough. That you never will.
But today is a new day! The songs will be played again (perhaps, with courage), the stars, tonight, they will shine brighter than they have before, these things that are so like anchors to you - you will drag them painfully in, breaking the skin in the process, or you will unapologetically heave them overboard, leaving them behind, forever, lost into the abyss.
So I question: are you in? Or, even now, are you making an escape overboard?
Edge.
".gnissim yletelpmoc secalp emos ni dna ,detnemgarf dna derettacs dna delbmuj s'noitamrofni ehT .rehtie wonk t'nseod ehS ?ot emac ehs etunim eht taht yrt t'ndid ew kniht uoY Whfg yvxr jung V fnvq jura V gbyq lbh nobhg gur wvtfnj chmmyr, naq ubj ab bar pbhyq chg vg gbtrgure nal zber va nal fbeg bs ernfbanoyr nzbhag bs gvzr, fvapr gur oyrnpu unq snqrq gbb znal yvarf sebz gur vzntr."
Elevation.
How many dreams do we surpass when we fly?
Endless.
The possibilities are endless.
What would you like to experience?
A moment as someone else?
Eulogy.
WE WILL MISS YOU
WHEN YOU ARE GONE: VOLUME ONE
A TRIBUTE TO THOSE THINGS THAT WE ALL HAVE LOST IN OUR YEARS
AND THERE ARE STILL THOSE THINGS THAT WE HAVE YET TO LOSE
"Tänk om han inte är samarbetsvillig?" frågade jag honom. Jag ville inte släppa greppet om honom.
"Tro mig, han kommer att samarbeta med dig. Jag är säker på det" svarade han, med en ton av självsäkerhet i sin röst. ”Byggnaden är inte säker nog för mig längre. Någon kommer kontakta dig senare med mer information. Kan du vara så snäll och låta mig gå nu?”
Jag släppte honom och han borstade sin jacka genom att platta ut delarna av jackan som tidigare rynklats till av mitt hårda grepp.
"Din vän, Janine, va? Hon oroar sig säkert för dig nu" sade han och flinade mot mig med samma blicks om hade skrämt mig tidigare. Hur mycket vet de här människorna egentligen om m9itt liv? Varför gav de mig information i bitar när det verkade så enkelt för de att hitta och binda mig till henne?
"Du är mer än en undersökningsanalyst va?" frågade jag.