My throat burned the entire way there my lungs barreling inside my body gasping for air as I got there, I thought I was being followed, either by the suited man (had he merely marked me?, I kept asking myself) or the other suited man, who came as I was encoding the message regarding the first suited man and the body retrieved from my apartment. I had not, until this moment, had the occasion to think through the meeting with the second, though the meeting with the first had culled me down into a state of terror and frenzied wonder, so that my interaction with the latter man was whirled into a fever. Had "Hell" been left there as a lure? By the former for the latter? Or had the latter tried to keep me from here?
What he had said, exactly, I struggled to remember.
No, that's the problem. He hadn't said anything, I thought (though I was wrong), he just shoved through the door and did what he did hardly acknowledging my presence. But what presence, I must ask myself--though I could not have thought to think this then--was there to be seen? I was nothing at that moment--utterly nothing in a moment belonging only to him. He came through a door forced open, went to where I had hidden the thing, looked around, though I could not see what he was doing from where I was following, felt ill with his tortuous movements around the apartment, tried to grab him as he ran, but he ran out of the room before I could catch him. Smash him, I said to myself, grab his collar and slam him against the wall--break his face to stop his dash. But he was gone and rather than chase him I needed to know what he had done.
It looked unmoved, deader than dead, immovable even. I didn't bother trying but spent several minutes examining--the suit which would be exchanged, the pockets! Had I checked them closely enough? Would I have found the matchbook there first? As I was following its lead now, it was heavily in my mind. Almost there, I assured myself, not much longer, as I ran.
It had a look of freshness, as if recently become. The body, I mean, not the bar. The bar, when I finally got there--much later than I had assured myself--my lungs then like the smoldering pit of a kiln, was distracted by a commotion in the back. I walked in and nobody noticed me--not at first. I stepped along the long side of its L-shaped counter, there was shouting in back, and the few people hanging around out front were staring seriously in that direction, as if to hear more closely by staring in the direction of the tumult. The atmosphere was barren but hostile.
CO:--/TP:--
The city's hotly lit. Backward from here and now it seems it is always lit. Daytime, night, all the same so that when I found him, as I told before, I didn't know what to do--it looked the same--day and night--I had found, at least, his gun. I didn't need any stinking gun.
I needed answers. I needed organization--organizing, I mean. I meant, I needed an organizing of thinking toward the beginning of an end to this. But not there and not then, said the body. Even from the closet, where I'd put it to keep quiet, I could hear it, whispering beneath the suited stranger's words, "Are you or they using our or your genuine relations to manipulate us or you--or are you or they indeed the source of our or your relations, with which you or they have been manipulating us or you all along?"
He offered me a cigarette which I didn't hesitate to accept. Things were different now, you see. Different since I arrived. I had no reason to wedge a distance between myself and the suit-wearing man. No paranoia could best the better champions of fear that had been parading my mind for days--weeks--unquantifiable stretches of time--these are new to me though their novelty had yet to breathe life into utility.
So I stood there, waiting, cigarette heavily hanging from my lip.
"Whatever," I spoke quickly breaking through the smoky ribbons, "you've brought, you might as well out with it." I knew well as anybody that I had been followed, that I had been lost, and that being followed after I had been lost I was now followed with an intensification of effort comparable only to those following some mystic in the desert, who says little but is trailed word to word as from oasis to oasis; I put a most Bedouin face forward.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Where's the body?" Said the suited man. Turning from him I started, "You can't come here talking to me like--" but a clip, cut off, struck swiftly across the back of the neck and I went down.
It couldn't have been more than a moment I dazed; he was mid-sentence as I came to, "ucker and you're gonna skin a cat not that way and not today you get uhh" but I went out again. Down in the desert, there was the blind chief, leading his tribe by the taste of sand; too granular here, westward into the basin. Saltier, now over the transverse ridge. We went up, I thought I would collapse.
He was pulling the body from the closet. I whispered across the room, "I didn't think anyone had gotten so close."
"What?"
"You knew--you'd already known before you came near this place."
"Of course we've known--I'm the one that's been put up to handle this shit. You've done nothing since you've gotten here--everyday since we started watching, it's been this--endless messages, cheap code, and shit, shit, shit," as he pulled the corpse onto the couch.
He began undressing it, I grabbed his arm; but cut, again, across my face, the desert gusts and the taste of sand.
As I woke out of it, I made a face, dragging my lip toward my nose and my nose toward my brow, as if to squeeze the pain from the center of my face. He was gone, he had taken the body. I got up and, reaching to the couch, nearly tore the coat I suddenly realized I was wearing. His suit--he'd put his suit on me--he must have taken my clothes, I thought before I remembered that he had been undressing the corpse just before he knocked me. But he couldn't have worn the corpse's clothes--bloody as they were. Or--if he did, why would he?
Time to organize. He might have needed to conceal that the corpse was a corpse, to get it out of the building, he must have taken its clothes, put them on himself, found that his suit was too small for the corpse, put my clothes on it instead, and put his suit on me. Made sense, no, almost made sense. There was no reason for him to dress me. He could've left me naked. I wasn't going anywhere. Why did he take the trouble to dress me?
Organize, I said to myself. His suit on me--why? To mark me? If he wanted to mark me, it'd be because he wanted to take me out. He could've taken me out--right then and there. Was it then to follow me? It seems they're doing a fine job at that as it is. Or maybe, no, or perhaps there is another party--somebody else tracking him and to take the heat off himself he put me in his outfit, so I'd buy him time while his ghosts spooked me, thinking I was the sharkskin fellow.
Too much--and the suit was not ill-fitting. Could I wear it? Maybe there was something to be gained here, I thought to myself. The gun! I then remembered. I'd thrown it under the couch before stuffing the body into the closet. I reached under the seats for it--it was there. Things were coming together. I put it into the suit pocket.
Money, I would need cash if I was going to trail the suit-switcher. I had none, I checked his pockets, he had left me a bit. The rushing fool. I straightened the wads into a countable stack when something dropped from a clump--
"Hell," read the matchbook. An address was scrawled within a crown of flames on the inner cover. I lit a cigarette, finished counting the money and reread the address--I had, you see, by this time, learned about addresses--and had a beginning, at last.
I needed answers. I needed organization--organizing, I mean. I meant, I needed an organizing of thinking toward the beginning of an end to this. But not there and not then, said the body. Even from the closet, where I'd put it to keep quiet, I could hear it, whispering beneath the suited stranger's words, "Are you or they using our or your genuine relations to manipulate us or you--or are you or they indeed the source of our or your relations, with which you or they have been manipulating us or you all along?"
He offered me a cigarette which I didn't hesitate to accept. Things were different now, you see. Different since I arrived. I had no reason to wedge a distance between myself and the suit-wearing man. No paranoia could best the better champions of fear that had been parading my mind for days--weeks--unquantifiable stretches of time--these are new to me though their novelty had yet to breathe life into utility.
So I stood there, waiting, cigarette heavily hanging from my lip.
"Whatever," I spoke quickly breaking through the smoky ribbons, "you've brought, you might as well out with it." I knew well as anybody that I had been followed, that I had been lost, and that being followed after I had been lost I was now followed with an intensification of effort comparable only to those following some mystic in the desert, who says little but is trailed word to word as from oasis to oasis; I put a most Bedouin face forward.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Where's the body?" Said the suited man. Turning from him I started, "You can't come here talking to me like--" but a clip, cut off, struck swiftly across the back of the neck and I went down.
It couldn't have been more than a moment I dazed; he was mid-sentence as I came to, "ucker and you're gonna skin a cat not that way and not today you get uhh" but I went out again. Down in the desert, there was the blind chief, leading his tribe by the taste of sand; too granular here, westward into the basin. Saltier, now over the transverse ridge. We went up, I thought I would collapse.
He was pulling the body from the closet. I whispered across the room, "I didn't think anyone had gotten so close."
"What?"
"You knew--you'd already known before you came near this place."
"Of course we've known--I'm the one that's been put up to handle this shit. You've done nothing since you've gotten here--everyday since we started watching, it's been this--endless messages, cheap code, and shit, shit, shit," as he pulled the corpse onto the couch.
He began undressing it, I grabbed his arm; but cut, again, across my face, the desert gusts and the taste of sand.
As I woke out of it, I made a face, dragging my lip toward my nose and my nose toward my brow, as if to squeeze the pain from the center of my face. He was gone, he had taken the body. I got up and, reaching to the couch, nearly tore the coat I suddenly realized I was wearing. His suit--he'd put his suit on me--he must have taken my clothes, I thought before I remembered that he had been undressing the corpse just before he knocked me. But he couldn't have worn the corpse's clothes--bloody as they were. Or--if he did, why would he?
Time to organize. He might have needed to conceal that the corpse was a corpse, to get it out of the building, he must have taken its clothes, put them on himself, found that his suit was too small for the corpse, put my clothes on it instead, and put his suit on me. Made sense, no, almost made sense. There was no reason for him to dress me. He could've left me naked. I wasn't going anywhere. Why did he take the trouble to dress me?
Organize, I said to myself. His suit on me--why? To mark me? If he wanted to mark me, it'd be because he wanted to take me out. He could've taken me out--right then and there. Was it then to follow me? It seems they're doing a fine job at that as it is. Or maybe, no, or perhaps there is another party--somebody else tracking him and to take the heat off himself he put me in his outfit, so I'd buy him time while his ghosts spooked me, thinking I was the sharkskin fellow.
Too much--and the suit was not ill-fitting. Could I wear it? Maybe there was something to be gained here, I thought to myself. The gun! I then remembered. I'd thrown it under the couch before stuffing the body into the closet. I reached under the seats for it--it was there. Things were coming together. I put it into the suit pocket.
Money, I would need cash if I was going to trail the suit-switcher. I had none, I checked his pockets, he had left me a bit. The rushing fool. I straightened the wads into a countable stack when something dropped from a clump--
"Hell," read the matchbook. An address was scrawled within a crown of flames on the inner cover. I lit a cigarette, finished counting the money and reread the address--I had, you see, by this time, learned about addresses--and had a beginning, at last.
CO:--/TP:--
You came close--we nearly crossed each other--but I watched you just behind me and moved before you would approach, knowing you would be drawn by a token I left for you to follow, forgetting to look around yourself, where you would have seen me, trailing your trailing me.
I needed to know whether or not your motivations were material--or if, in fact, you were as involved as I am afraid you might be in the catastrophe unfolding before me--and, if so, before us. That is why I left an object of great value there, next to the seductive token. The token would draw you, I knew that, but needed to know if being so drawn, you would be tempted by a valuable thing. Would you take it, I asked myself. I watched you. I thought--indeed hoped!--that you would.
But you did not. You are unconcerned with the luxurious trifles of this place. You left the luxurious object there but took the token. I know now that you are following me--and have a better perception of what might be motivating you. You are driven by a desire to discover me. And you are thrilled that I am addressing you directly.
A hunt, of hunters for hunters, blurs all distinction between following and followed. I am afraid that you might be very near in your trailing--I am confident, however, that I have you in my sight.
We have stared each other in the eyes. One must always test one's audience.
I needed to know whether or not your motivations were material--or if, in fact, you were as involved as I am afraid you might be in the catastrophe unfolding before me--and, if so, before us. That is why I left an object of great value there, next to the seductive token. The token would draw you, I knew that, but needed to know if being so drawn, you would be tempted by a valuable thing. Would you take it, I asked myself. I watched you. I thought--indeed hoped!--that you would.
But you did not. You are unconcerned with the luxurious trifles of this place. You left the luxurious object there but took the token. I know now that you are following me--and have a better perception of what might be motivating you. You are driven by a desire to discover me. And you are thrilled that I am addressing you directly.
A hunt, of hunters for hunters, blurs all distinction between following and followed. I am afraid that you might be very near in your trailing--I am confident, however, that I have you in my sight.
We have stared each other in the eyes. One must always test one's audience.
CO:--/TP:--
You get better with time, though your body be heavier, there exist flows of levity, I have found, and you can walk again and talk normally and breathe.
But you get into murky waters. Clarity is lacking and everything looks as if through a dirty, unmoving pond. When I finally came to make another contact--after having spent much time trying to reduce my wake, having had to do this because it became obvious that I was being tracked--I noticed that there were elements in play which had not been active previously.
I knew that I would be watched, hunted even, and generated the necessary code to keep my movements from disturbing the scene in an overly observable way. But we can only do so much about these bodies--especially as received by me so suddenly. In a moment I found I was in a public place, speaking openly, turning conversation toward myself, and letting others follow me blindly.
That was when, I believe, I became a suspect in the killing. Before I tell what happened that made me believe that I am now a suspect, I will finally tell about the body that embroiled me in this affair.
He came bearing that bouquet blood blossoms into after it has sat stale for several hours. The air, mistress to the living lung, had left him and he laid there, pitiable but gross.
I checked his pockets for anything that might be useful--a token by which to identify him or to acquire provisions for myself. Nothing. I was inspecting the wounds, two across the chest when behind me, beyond the window, sirens screamed every nerve in my body to frozen attention. My hand was stuck, like a tongue to ice, to the body beneath me. But the screams faded as erstwhile they had risen--then passed.
I stared at the mouth, it looked as if it might speak. What would he say, I asked myself, of whence he came or how he got here. Who, I would then inquire, was he before this affair. Where, I would demand he tell me, was I supposed to take this blood-mottled, unidentifiable corpse. Ulla was inspecting his feet and the shoes around his feet.
I noticed, as she dug around beneath the shoe's tongue, that this man wasn't wearing any socks. It registered odd to me that a man in a suit wasn't wearing any socks--what man, I asked myself, wears no socks but takes the time to dress himself in a tripartite suit. And just then I saw, having looked more closely at the suit, that the tripartite outfit was horribly out of fashion.
Since I arrived, I came to understand how important fashion was. In fact, though I've not mentioned it here, it seemed as necessary to gain an understanding of fashion as it was to understand the code system in use. And, as I inspected the man's suit, the message was completely skewed.
The suit he wore--flat-front, trim-fit, with tapered legs--shone greenly into light, lavender wrinkles; but the sharkskin, as I've learned it is called, looked unresplendent in the dim apartment light, caked as it was in the dry burgundy of spilled blood.
I lifted the body at its haunch over my shoulder while Ulla tugged at one of the shoes dangling from a stiffened leg. The shoes, that's it, I thought to myself--the shoes were the only article unstained with blood--the man had been killed without shoes--or with other shoes on. In a haste whoever had done this had even neglected to put on a pair of socks. The suit, then, was it his own? Or another remnant of a transgarmentation accomplished with little caution? I saw then that it was indeed ill-fitting. But why?
Who would bother to squeeze into an over-small suit in anticipation of being killed or as a cover to a murder already done?
A knock on the door interrupted my queries--the body was taciturn about answering anyway. I carried it into a nearby closet, closed the closet door, walked back to the front door--another set of knocks--before I opened it slightly.
Another man in a suit--same trim, same style, but much better fitting--pushed his way into the apartment. As I am working out this message, however, there is another knock at the door--it might be the same man. Though the circumstances of our meeting made it highly unlikely that he would return. I will have to complete this message at another time, hopefully soon, assuming that whoever is knocking now is not the same man.
I must leave you in unintended anticipation.
But you get into murky waters. Clarity is lacking and everything looks as if through a dirty, unmoving pond. When I finally came to make another contact--after having spent much time trying to reduce my wake, having had to do this because it became obvious that I was being tracked--I noticed that there were elements in play which had not been active previously.
I knew that I would be watched, hunted even, and generated the necessary code to keep my movements from disturbing the scene in an overly observable way. But we can only do so much about these bodies--especially as received by me so suddenly. In a moment I found I was in a public place, speaking openly, turning conversation toward myself, and letting others follow me blindly.
That was when, I believe, I became a suspect in the killing. Before I tell what happened that made me believe that I am now a suspect, I will finally tell about the body that embroiled me in this affair.
He came bearing that bouquet blood blossoms into after it has sat stale for several hours. The air, mistress to the living lung, had left him and he laid there, pitiable but gross.
I checked his pockets for anything that might be useful--a token by which to identify him or to acquire provisions for myself. Nothing. I was inspecting the wounds, two across the chest when behind me, beyond the window, sirens screamed every nerve in my body to frozen attention. My hand was stuck, like a tongue to ice, to the body beneath me. But the screams faded as erstwhile they had risen--then passed.
I stared at the mouth, it looked as if it might speak. What would he say, I asked myself, of whence he came or how he got here. Who, I would then inquire, was he before this affair. Where, I would demand he tell me, was I supposed to take this blood-mottled, unidentifiable corpse. Ulla was inspecting his feet and the shoes around his feet.
I noticed, as she dug around beneath the shoe's tongue, that this man wasn't wearing any socks. It registered odd to me that a man in a suit wasn't wearing any socks--what man, I asked myself, wears no socks but takes the time to dress himself in a tripartite suit. And just then I saw, having looked more closely at the suit, that the tripartite outfit was horribly out of fashion.
Since I arrived, I came to understand how important fashion was. In fact, though I've not mentioned it here, it seemed as necessary to gain an understanding of fashion as it was to understand the code system in use. And, as I inspected the man's suit, the message was completely skewed.
The suit he wore--flat-front, trim-fit, with tapered legs--shone greenly into light, lavender wrinkles; but the sharkskin, as I've learned it is called, looked unresplendent in the dim apartment light, caked as it was in the dry burgundy of spilled blood.
I lifted the body at its haunch over my shoulder while Ulla tugged at one of the shoes dangling from a stiffened leg. The shoes, that's it, I thought to myself--the shoes were the only article unstained with blood--the man had been killed without shoes--or with other shoes on. In a haste whoever had done this had even neglected to put on a pair of socks. The suit, then, was it his own? Or another remnant of a transgarmentation accomplished with little caution? I saw then that it was indeed ill-fitting. But why?
Who would bother to squeeze into an over-small suit in anticipation of being killed or as a cover to a murder already done?
A knock on the door interrupted my queries--the body was taciturn about answering anyway. I carried it into a nearby closet, closed the closet door, walked back to the front door--another set of knocks--before I opened it slightly.
Another man in a suit--same trim, same style, but much better fitting--pushed his way into the apartment. As I am working out this message, however, there is another knock at the door--it might be the same man. Though the circumstances of our meeting made it highly unlikely that he would return. I will have to complete this message at another time, hopefully soon, assuming that whoever is knocking now is not the same man.
I must leave you in unintended anticipation.
CO:--/TP:--
Time agglutinates into the air like flour on waves of boiling water. It collects in the corners of rooms and rooms feel smaller. The air is clogged, the water is dimmed, and you turn the blinds but the slants of light only seem to further heat the room--now banded with shadows--so you close them again, or just turn and struggle to breathe in the striped heat. You step into another room, perhaps, but it is the same.
So you smoke, but to no benefit--its curls creep into the nooks and push each other backward toward your tightened throat. You need air, you say to yourself, and you step outside but it is now dark, alleys are illogical, and you can scarcely think of somewhere to go. But you go there anyway.
Alleys across streets crossing into each other, from reckless beginnings to indeterminable ends, you find a way between dumpsters and dirty trees, sticky ground like pitch and the dark sky collecting over your head. You are heading toward a point and, though you walk faster, you only accelerate the closure of the trapezoidal facets angling into that point. So you smoke again, but to no benefit.
The sky seems a giant coal for the roiling heat. And there is smoke all around you and you believe, perhaps, that you are growing but you are not, the trapezoid is merely closing in. You could run to another corner but the tetragon collapses into you on account of your motion, the next corner is more cramped, and you notice that the clumps of time are larger and stickier than before--so you try not to get near.
You smoke again, but now it hurts--there is so little space for that smoke to escape. So you sit still, and watch the collecting lumps and the closing in--the collapsing quadrangle and the limits to your exertion. Where, you ask yourself, did it begin? Was it always closing in? Do we begin so blind--so little sensible to our situation? Was sight--blasphemous joy though it were!--so gained over time?
I arrived here, as I have told you, through a collection of powers, anterior and posterior to my arriving. Those powers are, in other words, still collecting. You will notice that I have had to begin again many times. For this folly, I have set up many shapes around myself--all closing in, every one collapsing. The prismatoid, however, falls into itself differently than the quadrangle. The quadrangle is much less violent and even less rapid in its inwardity.
You will have noticed my errors as they occurred. One reached out to me but the code was confused. Confidence was expressed but displaced between persons--confidence of another in my security can do nothing for my security. I have little hope in the vigilance of such angels; or those who might watch me like a monkey in a zoo. I have repeated, like a beast with little code, what is necessary, the bare minimum even, but have been left to my wiles with every development.
Ulla helps, sometimes, but often can be so senseless.
So you smoke, but to no benefit--its curls creep into the nooks and push each other backward toward your tightened throat. You need air, you say to yourself, and you step outside but it is now dark, alleys are illogical, and you can scarcely think of somewhere to go. But you go there anyway.
Alleys across streets crossing into each other, from reckless beginnings to indeterminable ends, you find a way between dumpsters and dirty trees, sticky ground like pitch and the dark sky collecting over your head. You are heading toward a point and, though you walk faster, you only accelerate the closure of the trapezoidal facets angling into that point. So you smoke again, but to no benefit.
The sky seems a giant coal for the roiling heat. And there is smoke all around you and you believe, perhaps, that you are growing but you are not, the trapezoid is merely closing in. You could run to another corner but the tetragon collapses into you on account of your motion, the next corner is more cramped, and you notice that the clumps of time are larger and stickier than before--so you try not to get near.
You smoke again, but now it hurts--there is so little space for that smoke to escape. So you sit still, and watch the collecting lumps and the closing in--the collapsing quadrangle and the limits to your exertion. Where, you ask yourself, did it begin? Was it always closing in? Do we begin so blind--so little sensible to our situation? Was sight--blasphemous joy though it were!--so gained over time?
I arrived here, as I have told you, through a collection of powers, anterior and posterior to my arriving. Those powers are, in other words, still collecting. You will notice that I have had to begin again many times. For this folly, I have set up many shapes around myself--all closing in, every one collapsing. The prismatoid, however, falls into itself differently than the quadrangle. The quadrangle is much less violent and even less rapid in its inwardity.
You will have noticed my errors as they occurred. One reached out to me but the code was confused. Confidence was expressed but displaced between persons--confidence of another in my security can do nothing for my security. I have little hope in the vigilance of such angels; or those who might watch me like a monkey in a zoo. I have repeated, like a beast with little code, what is necessary, the bare minimum even, but have been left to my wiles with every development.
Ulla helps, sometimes, but often can be so senseless.
CO:--/TP:--
We had another visitor today. I arrived and found several important documents destroyed--torn to shreds and scattered throughout the apartment. Ulla was incomprehensible. I grabbed her to calm her but, as I did, I noticed a long splatter of blood streaked across the dresser. I let her go and dabbed my finger in it to verify that it was what I thought it might be. And smelling it I knew that it was unmistakeably blood--but it was not human blood! Its scent was smokier than human blood--and it even looked darker, almost lavender. Seeing me scrutinize the splatter, Ulla became more fearful.
I pushed her away as I began searching the apartment for any clues that might help me determine what had happened. I raced in and out of the rooms but saw nothing--no blood and no dead beast. Ulla was running out of rooms as fast as I ran in, watchful of my movements but avoiding them as best she could.
I pulled her toward me for a second to see if the blood had been hers, but she had no lesions and no stains on her--but I held on to her anyway. "What happened here?" I yelled to her--to no reply. "What happened in this apartment?"
She was bewildered and incomprehensible. I let her go.
I have now cleaned the apartment, searching it as I cleaned, but found that there was nothing. Although I feel as if that's not the issue. I feel--and perhaps Ulla would agree with me, if I could make her make some sense--that something is about to happen. Whatever it is, it has not happened. Something is forthcoming.
I pushed her away as I began searching the apartment for any clues that might help me determine what had happened. I raced in and out of the rooms but saw nothing--no blood and no dead beast. Ulla was running out of rooms as fast as I ran in, watchful of my movements but avoiding them as best she could.
I pulled her toward me for a second to see if the blood had been hers, but she had no lesions and no stains on her--but I held on to her anyway. "What happened here?" I yelled to her--to no reply. "What happened in this apartment?"
She was bewildered and incomprehensible. I let her go.
I have now cleaned the apartment, searching it as I cleaned, but found that there was nothing. Although I feel as if that's not the issue. I feel--and perhaps Ulla would agree with me, if I could make her make some sense--that something is about to happen. Whatever it is, it has not happened. Something is forthcoming.
CO:--/TP:--
I had everything wrong. It has been nearly a fortnight since I arrived and, in that time, I have managed to misunderstand most things as quickly and adeptly as I have been able to apply misunderstandings to practical, strategic use in maneuvering through this place. It may be true that we survive despite ourselves. But it is certainly true that I have only survived because of certain practices in which I claim no agency.
To begin, my terms were wrong. I have not arrived here any more than I left someplace else--although I most certainly was somewhere else before I was here. This place is instead a kind of reformulation of elsewhere--another place though the site was unchanged. My apartment, therefore, remained my apartment although the conditions which would have allowed a reckoning of that fact were non-existent. I have learned that I cannot rely on the continuous existence of things in creating a sense of place. Even more devastating was my instinct to feel belonging when I had only haphazardly built a sense of place.
To usefully talk of place we cannot talk of things but instead of powers. There were powers putting me in place which I could not have seen if I hadn't thought to look with the eye in the den of my eye. That eye, which I will call the den-eye, is situated in the ocular nerve and receives signal as it emits sign-sense. This sign-sense is mostly kept silent by the chattering mind, but enters in an alternate direction for the heart.
The silence, however, is crucial and we should talk about it more. The mind, always looking to gratify its efforts, imposes the probability of its system on everything it can get its eye (the non-den-eye) on. That eye, though blind, will say it sees. That eye, though blurred, will proclaim its clarity. That eye, though sharp, is often tangled in the mind's disarray.
This, when it has occurred, is when we have been silenced by our own mind.
The sight of the den-eye, however, does not go unseen. It is almost as if it redoubles in its rejection from the mind toward the heart, hitting a concentrated core with a complex energy. Sometimes it so forceful that it feels as if the heart might be depressed from its ordinary position, into the stomach or lower. The mere mention of the phenomenon is often enough to evoke its sensation, so common and ubiquitous is its presence.
But, like I said, to even begin to get my terms right I had to start seeing with the den-eye, receiving those imprints at their initial location--the mind.
I do not have here any thing that could be said to be me. This is to say that there is nothing here which is truly mine--which a stranger could see, smell, taste, touch, lick, eat, etc., and say, that is his. How then, could I have found the lineage of my building's location all the way to Max Links, progenitor-proprietor, if we can have no thing in our name?
It is because, I have found, representation is made of powers not of things. An image resonates in the mind as one identity or another, according many values along the way, until, like a cyclops in a cave, the giant stands bare against a kind of wall. We were, if you will permit it, in the cave without a name. And no amount of pronunciation would have gotten us any closer to identity--or place! Here, within the dark den of a dangerous, blood-thirsty giant! David, I have heard said, used a sling--but we do not believe in such things as things--so we must believe that David used a power of projection.
When I finally faced the single-eyed beast, it was not to strike him low, it was to know what kind of power could ripple through the den--could raise its hideous groan in response to my presence and, like the weakening waves pulling backward from the strand, respond to the sturdiness of an action; to say, "speak," and hear speech; to sit still and see movement everywhere and through everything.
There is, therefore, no such thing as "my arrival." If ever I arrived, it was in arriving, to which I am now assigning a temporal distance, "having arrived," while emitting and admitting that I am here, above the thing, the "having arrived;" atop like David on the beast.
For this reason, I have, for the moment, given up on the determining of coordinates or a time-point. The entire system of spaces and times will have to be reformulated to account for what has happened and is happening to me. But this is not to say that I have given up on receiving transmission from where I was--but rather that I have given up on wanting to get back. Not caring to trace the direction hitherto, I have need to know where I am. For now, at least, I have a mission to occupy my time. The body, which I found immediately after my last message, six days ago, has riven me from previous anxieties. This mystery, full of its own (albeit completely carnal) anxieties, has brought me to the edge of understanding where I am, and for what use.
But I will have to elaborate more on this at another time. I have reason to believe that I am now being read, although these readers are not here to help me--I have had no contact regarding previous messages. They are reading to collect information.
To begin, my terms were wrong. I have not arrived here any more than I left someplace else--although I most certainly was somewhere else before I was here. This place is instead a kind of reformulation of elsewhere--another place though the site was unchanged. My apartment, therefore, remained my apartment although the conditions which would have allowed a reckoning of that fact were non-existent. I have learned that I cannot rely on the continuous existence of things in creating a sense of place. Even more devastating was my instinct to feel belonging when I had only haphazardly built a sense of place.
To usefully talk of place we cannot talk of things but instead of powers. There were powers putting me in place which I could not have seen if I hadn't thought to look with the eye in the den of my eye. That eye, which I will call the den-eye, is situated in the ocular nerve and receives signal as it emits sign-sense. This sign-sense is mostly kept silent by the chattering mind, but enters in an alternate direction for the heart.
The silence, however, is crucial and we should talk about it more. The mind, always looking to gratify its efforts, imposes the probability of its system on everything it can get its eye (the non-den-eye) on. That eye, though blind, will say it sees. That eye, though blurred, will proclaim its clarity. That eye, though sharp, is often tangled in the mind's disarray.
This, when it has occurred, is when we have been silenced by our own mind.
The sight of the den-eye, however, does not go unseen. It is almost as if it redoubles in its rejection from the mind toward the heart, hitting a concentrated core with a complex energy. Sometimes it so forceful that it feels as if the heart might be depressed from its ordinary position, into the stomach or lower. The mere mention of the phenomenon is often enough to evoke its sensation, so common and ubiquitous is its presence.
But, like I said, to even begin to get my terms right I had to start seeing with the den-eye, receiving those imprints at their initial location--the mind.
I do not have here any thing that could be said to be me. This is to say that there is nothing here which is truly mine--which a stranger could see, smell, taste, touch, lick, eat, etc., and say, that is his. How then, could I have found the lineage of my building's location all the way to Max Links, progenitor-proprietor, if we can have no thing in our name?
It is because, I have found, representation is made of powers not of things. An image resonates in the mind as one identity or another, according many values along the way, until, like a cyclops in a cave, the giant stands bare against a kind of wall. We were, if you will permit it, in the cave without a name. And no amount of pronunciation would have gotten us any closer to identity--or place! Here, within the dark den of a dangerous, blood-thirsty giant! David, I have heard said, used a sling--but we do not believe in such things as things--so we must believe that David used a power of projection.
When I finally faced the single-eyed beast, it was not to strike him low, it was to know what kind of power could ripple through the den--could raise its hideous groan in response to my presence and, like the weakening waves pulling backward from the strand, respond to the sturdiness of an action; to say, "speak," and hear speech; to sit still and see movement everywhere and through everything.
There is, therefore, no such thing as "my arrival." If ever I arrived, it was in arriving, to which I am now assigning a temporal distance, "having arrived," while emitting and admitting that I am here, above the thing, the "having arrived;" atop like David on the beast.
For this reason, I have, for the moment, given up on the determining of coordinates or a time-point. The entire system of spaces and times will have to be reformulated to account for what has happened and is happening to me. But this is not to say that I have given up on receiving transmission from where I was--but rather that I have given up on wanting to get back. Not caring to trace the direction hitherto, I have need to know where I am. For now, at least, I have a mission to occupy my time. The body, which I found immediately after my last message, six days ago, has riven me from previous anxieties. This mystery, full of its own (albeit completely carnal) anxieties, has brought me to the edge of understanding where I am, and for what use.
But I will have to elaborate more on this at another time. I have reason to believe that I am now being read, although these readers are not here to help me--I have had no contact regarding previous messages. They are reading to collect information.
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