Archive for April, 2008
The Shadow of Angels
Hmmm…where to begin..? They say context possesses the greatest illuminative property, and who am I to disagree with orthodoxy?
And no, that wasn’t sarcasm for a welcome change.
I remember the first day we met, which by now I’m sure you know is something quite special as my memory may not be the mightiest of my gifts. I walked into the first day of class late, because I believe in setting the tone early for the semester. I was half asleep, head hanging and feet shuffling. I saw an open seat by you and I figured why not?
Our professor had us fill out name plates. Seniors in college on the verge of the fabled real world, and I find myself writing “ELLIOTT G.” in large block letters with a colored marker. A victim of my era, I glanced your way to procure a name for a later facebook search. Needless to say I was interested, but when am I not? We both know this.
Class was a mixture of children’s games and spoon fed classroom rules. We would break them all. Well, mostly me…
I remember the first time I was able to talk with you. The well-placed questions to feel out your situation. It was not long until I discovered the bane of our chemically-ordained attraction: boyfriend, eight years and going. Welcome to frienddom, my friend. I told myself that I would be good, that I would respect this obviously powerful union. I was comfortable being your friend immediately, as we had so much in common. I let it all hang out: the good, the bad, and the ridiculously obnoxious. I had nothing to lose. I had friends, and if you didn’t like me, well, what was the damage?
And we became close. Really close. I confided in you the darkness which haunts me, the afflictions of my soul, and you provided not only an ear to listen, but heartfelt and honest advice, even criticism, which for whatever reason never offended me. You fell right into the circle of my life. My friends became yours, and slowly our burgeoning friendship grew into the things of life long camaraderie. It was all I could ask for.
The day you were engaged to be wed was a true shock to my system. I had longed for her, the dream of my youth and its appeal to every aspect of my fantastic persona. But the day you called me to report such wondrous news it did indeed sadden me. I replayed it all over in my head a thousand times. I thought back to the day I told you, as we left my apartment on some grand mission only the two of us could ever complete, that maybe, in another universe, we would be a good team. You smiled, a sad and quiet smile, and walked on ahead.
My heart, as unfocused as my mind, would bounce from the girl of my youth and our possibilities to the very possibility of you and I. It was a fleeting thought, as they usually are. But the weight of your impending marriage was a heavy load for me to carry. I remember scoffing at your engagement ring: insulting and condescending. “Gaudy,” I seemed to say with a jovial toss of my hand. I was aching, with the questions I am prone to ask myself in times of helplessness. It hurt, but we had always been friends, and even when I played with the idea, I immediately cast it into the bows of the “forever-no,” alongside my dreams of walking on the moon and flying with pigs.
I thought this was just another moment of self-doubt and regret. I’ve had them before, especially with women. The kind of failure I am far too familiar with. But I had done nothing. Nothing but be a good and honest friend and let the chips fall where they may. I had pledged to respect your relationship and I had, to my inquisitive heart’s dismay.
But the day you called me to tell me you two had amicably split, I was secretly elated. I had my demons to exorcise–the girl of Christmas past and fantastic futures I had envisioned a thousand times. But I was so secretly happy. I felt for the first time that maybe that other universe we had spoke of outside my apartment may someday exist.
And she came to visit me, the girl of my childhood, the girl who had been woven so delicately into my life. And every waking moment I compared her to you. The way she smiled at my jokes. The way she reacted to my casual touch. The way she mingled with my friends and cohorts. Everything had a standard and that standard was so clearly you. She spent a week with me; a long week without you. I remember sneaking messages to you. The most benign “how are you’s?” a man could write to the girl he was realizing he loved so dearly.
She left and I felt like a weight have been lifted off my shoulders. The shackles had been cut. I had been walking in the shadow of an angel and had never fully realized its wondrous light until now. You were right. You were right for me. And you were finally free.
And now you are mine. And I love you so much sometimes it hurts to think it took so long to end up together…
But I do not regret the long road we traveled to find one another. I find it necessary. We had to become friends, the best of friends, and flesh out the most revolting and most amazing aspects of one another to truly fall in love. You know me better than anyone; you know the full me. I let it all hang out, because I had nothing to lose at first. And you didn’t recoil, you accepted it all with open arms and gave me compassion and love in return for nothing. Now I can give you something, my love and my gift…the gift I wanted so badly to give.
I think it all happened for a reason. Eight year boyfriends and girls from a past life, all keeping us at bay and giving us an opportunity to find each other’s real value, preventing us from making mistakes that would shortchange an obviously good thing.
I’m not sorry about anything I’ve ever done, and you certainly aren’t. Even if you were, you wouldn’t have to be.
Together.
In context.
And I couldn’t be happier.
We Are The Few, Those Who Fight Further
Venom.
I used to spray venom.
I hated you. I hated your beliefs, your petty arguments, and your stupid feelings. You justified everything with an emotion. You rationalized the most irrational thoughts and behaviors with whatever whimsical fodder that the gray matter within your skull conjured at that moment. You annoyed me to no end.
You still exist. You work with me. You walk the streets. You walk around with a “Vote Hope” shirt or consider yourself a Born Again McCainiac. Sheep.
You are the American Voter.
You line up on television in your stiff collared shirt, sport coat, and American flag lapel. You spew a mindless ideology that does not see right or wrong, but right and left. You denigrate the “other side” whenever they have a good idea based simply on the letter next to their name.
You put bumper stickers on your car so everyone can see the brand upon your back…
“Hillary ‘08.”
“Change You Can Believe In.”
“100 more YEARS!”
I have lost my will to fight the tide. Take me now, in a wave of your stupidity, inundate and inculcate me with contempt and shortsightedness. I am ready. Arms spread and eyes squeezed tight. Wisp me away to a world of black and white, of simple bigotries…
Just promise to make it quick.
But the tide will never come, will it? And my venom will no longer afflict you. I have transcended you.
Because I am one of the few. I see the media for what it is…paid military “analysts” and liberal blow-hards spewing ideology and recycling sound bytes until my eyes and ears bleed from repeated assault on my intellect. I see you for who you are, an animal of man scraping by on whatever your barely sentient brain happens to absorb.
There are many of us. Out there. Spread amongst the rank and file cattle. We look like you, but within the silence of our thoughts we plot and plan. Should the revolution begin, we will be wearing masks of anonymity and throwing molotov cocktails at the stormtroopers. We will paint the walls of our cities in propaganda. We will stand together against the evils of men; men themselves. And should it come crashing down, should all hope vanish, we will fight further.
Until we either stamp out the great beast and its flock of sheep-skinned men, or until every last one of us is revealed to the world, as the Machine rips our veils off and the warmth of light graces the faces of the few.
We are the few, those who fight further.
Yes, the venom has been saved. But the hate lingers on. Fire the first shot, give me a sign, and we will show the world the meaning of liberty…
On the Purpose of Material Existence…
It’s late. I sit outside in the cool morning air, a cigarette warming my mouth and drying my eyes. The wind is wisping through the trees, creating a melody as the leaves snap and flutter. The chorus of our earth. I often sit and wonder what all of this means…
I find the question overwhelming, it sometimes feels irrational to even pose. How could I understand the world? I try to refine the question…to find a starting point that will somehow lead me to the answer, to the thread that once pulled will unravel the great mystery before my eyes. My mind races from the big bang, both cold and material and radiant and divine, and spin endlessly with the curling of the galaxies into their beautiful nebulous shapes. My thoughts bounce from particle to particle as they begin to coalesce and form planets. A blue dot appears before the mind’s eye, a blip on the cosmic scale, and I find myself home on the birth place of this humanity–Earth. I see the entirety of evolution, as simple organism grow into the beastly kings of our world. And man rises from the ashes of this genesis to anoint himself ruler, both benevolent and terrible.
I see it as God’s plan. I see no plan at all. I see the Messiah. And I see no one at all.
I reach for any vestige of beginning…
And right before I seem to find it, I see it all end. The universe is torn apart, ripped limb from limb by the very forces from which it was created. Beautiful clouds of life and marvel collapse upon themselves until what once was is reduced to seemingly nothing. But something still exists; it could almost be called a moment, for nothing that we know of this physical world could compare. It is the tiniest of objects, but within it every ounce of energy and the infinity of time lie dormant, until whether by cold automation or divine direction it explodes, unleashing the gift of life for a new chance, a new hope.
And it all begins again, in a big bang of rebirth.
Is this the first universe? The fifth? The billionth? Where do I fit into this cosmic scale of destruction and resurrection? My life, and the lives of all who have walked this gorgeous blue sphere, may be nothing more than a notch in the belt of miracles that this cycle so flippantly engenders.
As a boy I used to think how fantastic it was that every ancestor of mine met, for their tales of love and lust eventually led to my existence. But now, in search of the great answer, I cannot help but think how infinitesimal that is in comparison to the idea that this may be one of many universes and that, for years I could never count, had to go a certain way for our blue earth to sit upon the black of space for any of this to even have a chance. I find myself lost in the sea of this reality. I find myself completely alone, although the materials that comprise my body may have once been stars or life I couldn’t ever imagine.
Its all so finite. Yet feels so entirely infinite.
I look to God for comfort, for nothing here can quench this thirst for purpose. I believe He exists to facilitate that role. Without the idea of God, how can we possibly cope with the smallness of our lives? Or its utter pointlessness? When the answers allude me, when all rational thought is lost in the expanse of all-time, I find peace in one great power, that for delightful whim or wanton cruelty has created everything before me, everything in me, and everything my dust will become.
Can we escape the end? Not as individuals, but as a people, as species, borne into this particular universe..? Yes, I reach for a vestige of beginning, but all I see is the prospect of an end. Can we escape this fate? Can we escape God’s judgment? For when it is cast, there will be nothingness.
Nothing but that moment. When everything is possible again. When every dream is latent and consciousness is but a soft whisper resonating within the smallest of creations.
I have hope. I think that we will live forever in the forms and shapes of our future. I think within the 3.1 billion character DNA code within us all the past is written. A letter from the million worlds before us, sharing their triumphs and failures. Grand stories of their towers that reached the skies, and their eternal search for an answer. And if we are doomed, the next to inhabit a wayward planet of translucent blue will carry us within them, as we have carried so many that have come before within us.
If I should have one wish, it would be the write my own passage in the genetic structure of their lives. I would tell them to not be afraid, to live for every moment, to believe in a purpose to everything. I would give them the hope I feel for the eternity of the human race through them. And I would simply ask them to remember, if they ever could, this voice which on this night called out to them, to all, and in a sea of loneliness found peace in the way of things.
Call it God. Call it love. Call it whatever you like. We will live on. We will never die. If only for a moment…