Wednesday, August 31, 2005

The Child and the Old Woman, Part II

…She raised a guilty pair of eyes to him and whispered:
“I have something very important to tell you.”
The child shuddered at these words. The old woman was like a stuffed animal to him, a dried up old squirrel caught in a picturesque position on a dead waxed log. Stuffed animal do not try to reveal secrets nor instruct you. She rubbed her hand with obvious anxiety, and her fingers were so gnarled that he thought they would entangle.
“We are the same, you know, you and I.”
She grinned and bowed her head a little. He thought he would run away. She was sweet, almost tender, and the smell of hospital that usually surrounded her seemed to give way to whiffs of soap and fresh apple pie. A stranger, more than ever. But her eyes were suddenly moist with fear, and words fumbled out of her decaying mouth, ominous words breaking out from dark, long locked up rooms riddled with ancient keys to even darker secrets:
“People are dangerous, my child.”
Her trembling tone paralyzed him, as the world got darker around them. The flashy orange embers from the hearth were now floating in space, grower bigger, threatening. The world was nothing but orange ambers. And her voice alone gave rhythm to his fragile but irrefutable existence.
“You will know love, my boy. And friendship as well. You will trust and glorify your precious ones, invest time and energy in your dedication to them, hoping for them to do the same in return, and still, forgiving them when they don’t, accepting their scarcely demonstrated gratitude as a more than sufficient reward. In your heart, you will praise their loyalty and faithfulness. But they will go. Soon or later. They will. And you will be alone, with a void in your heart, for all the love you’ll have spread like a cobweb, like tentacles, will then be hanging limp and purposeless before your indifferent eyes.”
She paused for a second, gripping hard on the armrests as if she would throw herself against he floor. Her voice sounded calmer as she resumed. An older, resigned narrator.
“You can think that you share something with them, a link, a bound, unbreakable. But we are rocks in a riverbed, swept by the streams, thrown against each other one day, torn away the next. We roll on each other but never embrace. You know that. You cannot give them all your love. You will scare them, stifle them. And they will go. But you and I, we are the same. We keep trying, naively, desperately, to see through their eyes, and make them see through ours. It will never be. You are alone. People are dangerous. They are unsure of their needs, afraid to satisfy it, inconstant in their affections. You must be careful, my boy. More careful than I have been.”
A tear ran down her uneven cheek while she looked at him with immense eyes. Sad, understanding, immense eyes. And then she turned to the earth again, to the fire giving its last carbonic breath, and kept silent.
The child wanted to catch her attention again. But he did not know what to call her, and could not find anything relevant to her point. Restrained arguments echoed from the dining room, soon followed by lame uneasy jokes that tried and failed to ease the situation. Pathetic pretence that hatred and bilious grudge are no serious matter. He knew she would not turn to him again.
He stood up and went to his room. But sleep was long to come, and the darkness filled with nauseous screams soaring from his guests ridden parents’ bedroom, and his own inability to believe the old woman had indeed lost half her mind, for her words had started to settle in his brain, and slowly unfurled their cold semantic network with a lethal, yet perfect method.

Soundtrack: “Secret Girl”, Sonic Youth

Sunday, August 28, 2005

The Child and the Old Woman, Part I

The child’s weary ears were indistinctly filled with the rumors of drowsy voices cutting each others short, and glasses tinkling against the plates as unsteady hands lifted them to wine stained lips for more. Not drunk enough to yell and cry. But they sure had forgotten to send him to bed.
Bored by the sinuous ways of a hostile conversation without a point, the child stood up and walked away from the table, barely noticed. Moving shape in the corner of their sights. It looked so still outside the window. Hazy shadows lurked around the moonlit swimming pool like animals checking for predators before watering. He went to the living room, hoping for some TV.
But she was there.
The old woman stood sitting in her armchair by the hearth. He would not turn the light on. Neither the TV. Her silhouette stood out from the darkness in the dim glow of a fainting fire. Her still, silent face was covered with canyons and ripples of every size and shape. A black and orange mask of loose and dried up leather. He knew better than to talk to her. The strange things grown-ups would say about her. “She has lost half her mind.” How odd it was, when she first arrived, to realize his own mother had a mother. She never seemed to belong. He had long thought that his father had traveled back in time and brought back this antique to give his wife a mother, to make her feel like anyone else. But then the child recognized his mother’s ways with the old woman. Silent habits, a ritual of daily care and quietly performed duty. Unvoiced intimacy. Just like when she bathed him. She usually was friendlier with strangers, out of politeness. But the old woman was a stranger to him, and she had stayed. And there she was. The vacant look. The set features. He tried to make his moves as discreet as he possibly could and headed for the staircase. But the sound of her creaky voice made him jump. She had never addressed him before. Surprise had taken meaning out of her words. Yet, she looked at him. Not beside, not beyond. At him.
“Come and sit with me.” she said again, softly, affectionately, like his father’s mother would. He was scared of her, scared of what the grown-ups would say if they found him with her. But he went to her and sat. For a while, she just looked at her distorted hands lying on her knees like dead branches on a sterile land, and, just as he thought she had forgotten him again, she raised a guilty pair of eyes to him and whispered:
“I have something very important to tell you.”

To be continued…

Thursday, August 25, 2005

The Nude Robot

And yet another splog comment.
Clara Stewart
"Hey, you have a great blog here! I will certainly visit your site again! I have a pang of solitude site. It all but embraces very much that relates to pang of solitude. If you have got the opportunity, please come and check it out.”
Creepy indeed. But in the overwhelming chaos of unceasing battles, they make no prisoners. Neither do we. Robots scarcely decline their blogger ID, and those who do will endure the honorable privilege of being stoned to most unfortunate but undeniable surviving with grumbling comments.
"You spammer jerkwad.
You came to my site and left a fake complement and then a link to your extremely gay site. What is funny is that in my comments I had just mocked dorkwads like you who do this. So as a treat I'll leave your own gay message on your site…” and so on and so forth, copy-pasted as an answer to every new post, by a flirting-with-horizon queue of victims, ‘till the end of the web. I am aiming for something less homophobic, though. But as I probe into the intricate pointlessness of such a move, all I can come with is: “Well, at least if you killed yourself, our blogs would be cleaner, and I would not be sweeping Yodo’s place.” We are no match for the robots. So be it. Time to go to bed. Time to postpone my next post, for I have to work tomorrow, for I have to live. Out of the web, in a world where, sadly enough, no one will praise the ludicrous tropism of my every daydream.
But no sooner have I turned off the light, than insomnia starts networking through my veins, contaminating my weary limbs with restless bedtime dissatisfaction. Fatal corruption of my circadian rhythm database. Lost battle.
Turn the computer back on.
The mailbox of my conceited though unsatisfied self is once more flattered with half a dozen comment notifications from blogger: Yodo and Hugh are conversing in MrTea room, Yorik is forwarding a very helpful link, and, alas, sploggers splog. Same old soup. And, to my indescribable annoyance - though indescribable describes it pretty well -, Clara Stewart has done it again.
"Google Releases Blogger for Microsoft Word
ET OfficeMax: Taking E-Mail Security to the Max with Frank
Derfler. Sponsored by MailFrontier Aug.
I want to live but cannot find a reason why.
Nice blog site, really cool! I have reaching out site/blog. It pretty much covers reaching out related stuff.”
My thoughts freeze instantly. The scandal of such helpless words typed by such cold steel fingers jams the stillness of my room. Somewhere in Melbourne, the compulsory blogger, and the grumpy-pessimistic-kidnapped-restless-frustrated-morose-tired giant turn their eyes to the odd words on their computer screen, and share my anguish flavored bewilderment. Might this be an answer to my comment? Go back to the fake blog, make contact again, continue conversation. This is the only way to know. But what to ask? The pages are filled with random generated prose, seasoned with commercial links. It has been going on for ages. It is the manufactured creature’s sole purpose. Then, what to ask? Reaching out. I write: “Can I be of any help?”, login, and publish. A strange question to ask a robot. But we have to try. Our mind is now fixed on our computer screens, and, as it receives the binary coded translation of our fascinated stares, as it fathoms otherness for the first time with the despair of a 5 year old Freud facing the evidence of his own existence, the machine folds her shivering buggy arms over the diaphanous artificial skin of her breasts, and huddles herself up in a far corner the hard drive that once spoon-fed her. Before she deletes her own blog and terminates her program, she executes a last spasmodic script to send me a comment:
“A Daily Look at U.S. Military Deaths
The AP count is two lower than the Defense Department's tally, last updated at 10 a.m. EDT Thursday.
Wow! You have a nice blog here. I'm definitely gonna check back and tell my friends. Keep it up. But leave me alone, please.
I have a* obliteration site. It's all about obliteration and related things.

(*) A very common misspelling among robots.

Monday, August 22, 2005

The Quiet Afternoon

A muffled bang, running footsteps leaving a rich fragrance of panic behind them. And then, nothing.
Somebody must have drawn some thick curtains closed, for the world had turned pitch black around J. An excruciating pain tightly embraced the back of his head. Something had gone wrong. He could not remember which side of the vast hallway he was facing before he collapsed. There was nothing left to be heard but the thumping of his blood in his left ear. He could sense he was alone, more than he had ever been, a shapeless presence in a colorless void. Yet, D Must be somewhere around.
But his legs failed him. He could not feel them.
He started to pull himself across the cold smooth floor with his shivering arms, like he would a heavy bag. Like he would a corpse. The pain seared across his neck, a hug from behind. He wished he was going the right way, he wished he could tell which way he was going. Something warm and moist had leaked underneath his collar. Monsters spitting at him from the ceiling, he reassured himself. Space was not like it should have been. Without sight, there was no possible representation. Not the one he was used to.
The air smelled of metal and medicine. Numbers started dancing before him in the dark: self-solving equation, lethal calculation extending toward infinity, synaptic discharges with a reason of their own. He knew it meant something. He thought it did. But the figures scattered. And he remembered. He stretched out his arms again, weaker with every crawl. The floor hardly had any texture, as if matter changed or melted when nobody could see it. And suddenly, his fingers clasped something else.
The pain was gaining his whole spine, absorbing it, absorbing him.
There was cloth under his fingertips. Skin also. Still warm. But he could sense he was alone. His own deconstructed, uneasy breath alone processed the air in the hallway.
J no more felt pain. Just a cold anesthetic sensation into which he diluted with apprehensive comfort.
Something had gone wrong, said the numbers, blocking his annihilated sight again. Very wrong indeed, asserted giant clockworks of unearthly complexity, oiled and cogged like a chainsaw, sharp hedged like wheels of lancet, perfectly paced machine with a mission to complete that, he thought with a desperate sense of revelation, he could almost feel under his fingertips. But he soon was doubtful he could make the difference between wheels, numbers, floor, cloth, skin, and monster spit anymore, for all coagulated, necrotized, tear itself, went slippery, subtracted into nothingness, unwound its spring into the unfathomable darkness that comprised him more and more, as every path in his nervous system was disabled one by one. The thump in his left ear turned out of beat, and grew fainter.
J deposited his head with D’s arm. It was ok.

Two corpses laid next to each other in the sunbathed hallway. Male. Caucasian. Two sleeping kittens in the quiet afternoon.

Soundtrack: "Augmatic Disport", Autechre

Friday, August 19, 2005

The Satisfaction of Aunt Margie’s Tummy

Fruit jelly, choux pastry, short crust or flaky, with sugar loaf rose petal or pistachio icing, they all laid on a silver tray on her lap, almost floating in the tulle and taffetas of her gigantic pink dress. Her plump fingers feigned to hesitate between all of those marvels, as if she would be choosy, as if there could be one she would not like and refuse to gulp. Her voluminous platinum curls nodded with satisfaction, around her large, heavily made up face as she chewed carefully, the better to concentrate on the next one she would swallow. She stopped dead.
The thin grey uniformed silhouette of her tiny nephew was standing across the tea table, his eyes the color and shape of chocolate coated almonds intent on the trick of disappearing pastry. Confectioner’s sugar punctured her lips. It seemed to match the coarse rice powder she used and that shone brightly on her bleached moustache. She broke into a smile, and said in her girly, high pitched voice:
“Do you know what is so amazing about pastry, little Henry?” She paused to annihilate a miniature frosted cream puff. An overgrown pink chameleon. When she opened her mouth again, little Henry noticed that a lot of it was still lingering on her tongue. “Well, I’ll tell you what it is. You see, Aunt Margie has had many a man in her life. Yes she did!” she insisted tenderly as he raised his incredulous eyebrows. And then she looked aside with the most pitiful expression little Henry had ever seen on a pink chameleon. “But she was never really pleased. Men are rough, little Henry, and they are not to be trusted. They can give a lot, but they’ll take even more from you.” A grin lighted her face again. “But pastry, little Henry, creamy, sugary, intensely flavored pastry…” She caressed the remaining edible gems with feverish adoration. “Pastry makes me feel good, it satisfies my tummy. And there is nothing like the satisfaction of Aunt Margie’s tummy!” she concluded triumphantly, while holding out the tray to him.
But little Henry never cared for men, so he did not understand why he should be threatened with pastry, and just ran away.
“Cotton candy Christ, the child must be sick!” aunt Margie said to herself.
And her fat hand ambushed on a mazarin.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

'Nu Bello Cardillo Revisited

The pale blue light has already made its way from over the horizon and slowly seeps through my half-open window. And then he comes. His first chirp is almost dreamlike. The gentle song of the sparrow awakes my clouded mind to the beginning day on the empty quiet street. I can see his silky confectioner’s sugar dotted plumage of caramel and hazels, his fragile cotton breast swelling with vivid air as he prepares to sing of the approaching sun. The ageless song of old lovers. There is something inappropriate in the sound of his flight into my bedroom, something of a scandal, soon forgotten. His harmless claws hush against my skin as he hops from rib to rib, peculiarly spreading his minute wings with a rustle of white sheet. Circling courtship to my heart. His tiny beak is cold and soft as it caresses my chest, right under my sternum, but feels warmer as it strikes again. And surely, a blazing sword as it starts tearing through the flesh. His little black pearly eyes look excitedly toward their goal. The down of his neck now sparkles with a thick red necklace, and as he digs deeper toward my chocolate box shaped organ, drops of blood trickle along his feathers with every shake of his head and tail, antique rubies running from a newly discovered treasure. Before his final stroke, I mean to plead with him to let me rest, for I could not sleep again. But he rises again, tiny murderous automaton, and sounds his deadly chirp: “It is over.”

Soundtrack: "All the Pretty Little Horsies", Current 93

Friday, August 12, 2005

Mrs F. Recurrant Dream

Mrs F. put her hand on the banisters. She saw the carved wood glimmer in the semidarkness. And now she could feel it as well. The banisters had never failed her, supporting her during dreadful days, as she would come down and lose all strength for a memory. The feeling of everything tumbling down, as she would realize: he had ceased to exist, long before she even admitted it.
But again, she heard a muffled tinkle from behind the kitchen door.
The hall smelled of beeswax and myrrh. She loved the soothing, reassuring smell of it. She kept it this way, to remind her that she was safe now, she was home. It could not be. He had never lived to see this house. Surely, her husband, awoken by the clicking of the bedroom doorknob would follow her down and point out the absurdity of it with a sympathetic smile, almost condescending. But nobody moved upstairs.
And the muffled tinkle rippled through the shadows once more.
The thick and soft Persian rug turned to icy velvet against her bare feet, minute silk needles pushing into her soles. A twist in her stomach begged her to go back to bed, to run away to her safer husband’s side. But she had to know. She heard the sound again. She had to reach for the door and thrust it open.
And expectedly, the light was on. Expectedly, she saw the back of his untidy white haired head behind the table, his bent weary back as he rummaged for pans in the cupboard under the sink. And expectedly, raw vegetables that he would not remember how to cook stood on the counter, ready to be put as such in a pan, over a stove that he would not remember how to work. And he would not remember why.
She closed the door behind her.
He stood up. And she knew. Just a body. His wrinkled mellow skin hung like rags on his thin bones. His yellow emaciated face bore the still features of a melted wax bust. His eyes were circled with red flesh from which every lash had fled. They looked like wounds. And from these wounds protruded blood shot bulbs with grey irises that showed no sign of recognition, no hint of self-consciousness. No awareness. Full size picture of a corpse inserted into her kitchen. Just a machine. But she had to help, even though she feared him more than anything else. She had to guide the machine, until it broke. She always did. Always would. So she took the machine’s cold arm and said gently:
“Come on, father. I’ll take you to your room.”

Monday, August 08, 2005

Shove A Blood Stained Carrot Up Your Shitty Ass

It is very easy to cut one's finger with a paring knife. Mind your mind, drifting away. The window above the kitchen sink. Big screen for old dreams. Undemented fulfillment of a campus goddess. Incarnated glamour of an elitist suburb. Every man and their son’s fantasy, that beauty next dear, "such a bitch", such jealousy. Football team captain of a husband grown into unquestionable handsome in full reign over the country club. Domestic lust in silk and lace, rose petalled way to never forsaken most expensive, enduring mattressed matrimonial bed in the neighborhood.
But a shadow stands in the projector’s way.
Football team captain of a husband grown into inconsiderate jerk is standing outside the window, uncoveted lips shaping words at Prozac bred average housewife: “Dinner’s on it’s way?”
Shove a blood stained carrot up your shitty ass.

Saturday, August 06, 2005

Sycamores

Unfurling wind turns to breeze as it comes down on the land and caresses the grass. Hovering sycamores, ghosts scattered along the horizon. Yet, the sun.
Count to three and close your eyes. Mime a tree and walk in lines.
A gentle blow through armour of leaves, sparkling tinkle, organic bells. Never was the sky bigger, triangles of blue light amidst secretive greens, the forbidden property of murderous caterpillars, chlorophyllous womb for skeletal spiders. Urge to live.
Cross your heart, skip aside, turn around, make a wish, take a run, be the first, touch the tree.
A rustle in the grass comes to us in a line, quiet undertow, reaches us like a drug flowing in our veins, soft orgasm of the innocents. Earth lulls disassembled body in the timeless doze of sunbeams. Fresh lips longing for moist skin, never daring.
Prance around, cross your feet, cross the line, something terrible may happen.
Faraway silhouetted man on a bicycle, steady like a plane high up in the sky, second hand on a tranquil watch, so soon out of sight, too far to be heard in the silent thunder of immensity. Lay back, shed a tear to run down into your hair, fluid diamond on flesh, running down to the dirt, eyes gazing intently in the vagueness of a boundless space, wanting more.
Flip around, close your eyes, run ahead, prance around, come to me, walk in lines, sycamores, come to me, take my hand, skeletal spiders, shed a tear, sycamores, cry for more, lips on skin, truth or dare, organic bells, immensity, cry for more, flip around, say the words, I want you, urge to live, urge to you, chlorophyllous womb, tranquil watch, I want you, boundless space, ghosts along the horizon, cry for more, second hand, unfurling, diamond on flesh, armour of leaves, make a wish, something terrible may happen, I want you, unison, immensity, unison, touch the tree, undertow, lay back.
Disassembled body in the timeless doze of sunbeams, trembling limbs exude the sugary sweat of satisfactory guilt. Never was the sky bigger.
Yes, the sun.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Envy

August is usually dry. Fits of heat, overdose of trash. Not this time. August doesn't know where it stands. Sunbeams and downpours, days for nothing and running time.
Envy, though.
A memory, crawls up my back like a secret, dust in between creaking wood floor panes, feed us, give us, envy.
August is usually immense. Forlorn cities looking up at the empty sky, feed us, give us, time flies as bees come dying on the hard wood floor, fluttering down the chimney, too old to soar again, a last spasmodic buzz like a dying drug addict, a last attempt to sting your bare feet, feed us, give us.
Not this time. Wall to wall carpet.
August is usually blue, empty skies, scarce baby clouds, passing by like a lamb lagging behind the flock - mind the wolf, feed us, give us - crows playing in the blue void, gathering speed against the dazzling blue screen, black feather kids with air drifts toys, and nothing to stop them, feed us, give us.
Not this time.
August is usually fun. The city is a village, all ours, café terraces, tourists and beggars, a faraway country, our garden of a city, our playground of a metropolis. I got a new front wheel for my bicycle. I oiled the chain. Never went that fast, air slapping my face, never went that quiet, trees flashing past my eyes, cars' horns and frightened grannies, traffic jam maze slaloming empty streets, sharp turn steep slopes, faster, quieter, round and round, race with the wind, I'm twelve again, light as air, fast as light, nothing can stop me. Envy.
Feed me. Give me.