The Edge

Further paths veer to the left. 

Motion starts to blur on the horizon. 

The random patterns left on the ice do not trace the arc of the absent skaters. 

I avoid reading the greats for several reasons. When I read Ulysses I started thinking in Joyce’s staggered and syncopated prose. I heard Daedalus in my head and wondered when the fellas were going to round the corner and see me. I fixated on when we were going to drink and speak in that frenzied way we had. I was anxious for the deep meaning I would feel in their company. The world slipped away. I grew dizzy in anticipation. Now, I reach for enough difference in style to maintain a plain thought of my own. These days, I take reading slowly, whether Joyce or others, moving in pages instead of chapters, to maintain the innocence of my tongue and to describe the world as myself. 

What are you working on these days? 
You know, another book. 
Yeah? What kind. 
Fiction, like always. 
Like the last one? 
Yes, it follows one of the characters of the last book, actually. 
Which one? 
Upton Rose. 
Oh, I don’t think I remember that one. 
It was the historical part, in South America. 
Yeah, I think… 
The man who fought in the war and then left it. The rich kid. 
I’ll have to look back. It was just… I just found the book a bit boring. I’m sorry. It was hard to get into. 
Oh, yeah, probably. It probably was. 
It was good, only a little hard to read. There was something… 

The hope for more than random thoughts is a necessary religion. Halving the great particles, creating deific technology, fighting for resources that have yet to be named, these are valid pursuits. They exist in time, memory, and narrative. But sitting down and following randomness to order isn’t so ordained, yet here we are. 

The sounding key, the front door, the passing car, workday habits, hunger in the afternoon, washing up after dinner, the cabinet vitamins, shoes on the floor, a stranger’s look, bricks on the sidewalk, broken fingernail, home for runaways, middle east policy, newspaper delivery, morning movement, caffeine, too much caffeine, debt for education, the faded idea, youth in picture frames, children of many friends… 

I feel there should be something about neurobiology here. There should be details about the brain, a scientific quote to explain what I am trying to say. “The brain is a random machine. The senses are selective in what they receive. The world we know is one one-hundredth of the actual world. The brain is ready to act, ready to know, it never really sleeps and when it seemingly does, there are actions it takes while we, the dreamer, think we are resting. Dreams are experience in another way. Their randomness reflects the manner in which we learn the world, without a filter.”

Sense by sense by sense by sense, the mind overwhelmed into submission, and the resulting fragments aligned for the sake of the fragile driver. The resulting chaos aligned for the sake of our capable gods. 

The ankle vein, the capital spire, the long road home, the caustic cruise, the missile flittering, the penal gland, the touchdown, the casual embrace, the day of honor, the welcome smile, the one true thing, the meaning of it all, the last sunset, the dance to start the dance, the wondrous feeling felt, the best drink, the place you belong, the statue in the square, the memorial to those fallen…

Hard to read why? 
Some other time, perhaps, I’ll tell you. 
Ok. It’s time to put on music and start the back and forth. 
Writing? Tell me what this requires. 
A soft spot in the center of the mind. 
Yes? 
A spot. Softness. A center. The calm touch of coolness, not cold. An adequate volume to set the pace and the mood. 
Comfort? 
Only if it works. I’d rather, I think, notice little sights, smaller sounds, let them consume me. 
Oh. 
Like the smell of honey crisp apples ripening in the cabinet. A sweet tang in the wood. A smell that mixes decay with desire. The apples begging to be eaten, their seeds needing to be spread.
I see.
Invest the apple with agency, turn the fruit into character. The figuration works well, allows for a jumping off point. What would that be? The omnipresence of higher forces. 
Is it a force? Does it need to be a force? 
A force or a tangible tie between things with different natures. Between the apple and myself. The pungent stickiness still lingering in my nose from simply opening the cabinet and pulling out a sachet of green tea.

However it starts or stands, there is a magic to the lyricism. A spell to the randomness. 

I fall into it. I stare it down. I seek it. 

I hear: 

Hold your breath fair child, the wind is blowing and the dust is high. Put your nose plugs in and dive, hold your breath fair child. 

I believe the end of time will come with terms and sequences. I think it will come in paces and steps. I hope the stories written at the dawn of writing explain the end of times with metaphor, but also replicable reality. I expect the bang and lift of the ground and new patterns to emerge, as it is said in the books. Yet, what if Ezekiel is wrong? What if John was a starving, raving prisoner, not a saint, not a prophet. He looked out the window of his cell and saw ravages. This was his end, the end of all he knew. But we, farther afield, what do we see? What do we know? In the end the wheel will remain suspended. The symbols will rot into one another. The dragon with seven heads will surrender to the debit card. The edge of the earth has been revealed. The earth is round. The edge is a half step away from us at all times. 

The ticket stub, the coffee grounds, fruit peels, vegetable skins, burnt out tires along the road, shoes found in the gutter, newspaper stands closed for the night, skylines, shaggy dogs on leashes, seventeen faces in a row, free novels on the side of the road, a pair of pants on an iron fence, a 1987 Chevrolet for sale, the creatures on another block, ceramic insulators, the electric lines hum…

Hold your breath fair child…

I happen to love the manner in which I panic. First it starts as a slow build. The fire bursts into my blood and the first impulse is to ignore it, stay calm, suppress it. Then it grows uncontrollable. Wires tangle, energy buzzes, the pace of things picks up and explodes. Lights grow brighter. Sounds become more accentuated. I am also lost, as my senses blur. Panic lays its hand on me and there is nothing to do but look around and wonder, why is this happening? I strive for solutions and boundaries, and finding none, collapse into an endless pool. 

Ah, the feeling that there is so much more. 
Exactly. 
And so. 
I opened the cabinet. 
Inspired by what? 
Inspired by the need to have more tea. I drained my glass. Taking it to the sink, I noticed there was an old tea bag still in the bottom of the cup. I had mixed flavors, the Irish Breakfast from before with the green tea brewed next. Opening the cabinet, I saw the apples for onlyan instant. The red, round shapes sitting next to a sweet potato. I reached for the box of green tea, removed the last bag, and turned, slightly, to put the box in the recycling. The draft of my face moving through the air sucked the scent from the cabinet into my nose. The forest opened, the honeysuckle bloom, the aplomb of spring contained in the fragrant fruit. It was only then that I looked at the apples. It was only then I felt the pull to consume, tugged, animal-like, to devour them, as if under their spell. I was appalled by their strength. 
But you refrained? 
I was afraid. I was afraid of their power. It was small, certainly, but for a moment I lost control, the smallest of moments. Having something else take power over you is more frightening than knowing that something is more powerful. I was surprised something so small, a fruit I had purchased at the green grocer on a frigid winter night, could kindle this power, the essence of another season. Under this essence I swooned. 
This is what is needed. This is what I wanted to say, about the other book. 
I see. 
The starting point. The subject. The theme. A martyr in the garden. A man on Golgotha. A tower rising from the desert ground. The curious event told in a matter of fact way. They each start. As the music sounds. As the notes take on different ways of being, as the fatigue of the day overtakes you. These elements make creation happen. Even if that creation is short-lived. 
Today I have shown up, I have witnessed, and I have given or succumb to another power. 
There is no difference. The greater power is now. That is what is needed. That is what was missing. 

The edge is a half step away from us at all times. 

The edge is coming ever closer. Right up to the caverns and early man. Here are the men we seek in pictures. There are the women we need by name. 

Sometime in the great morning, there is a patience waiting to be tapped. Until that time the slow creeping panic, my panther, my friend, is in charge. 

Then the failure stalks prey like an albatross. I slink below the green folds of the pasture, pretend I am hidden when the great bird swoops down from above and screams me into being a moment before I am extinguished. 

Greatness in the fading second.