I don't love anymore.
I don't mourn anymore. I dont care. You have taken my care and feeling and drowned it on your high
mountaintop. My deep swamp river high and dry in your frigid mile-high ranges.
And now for Something Completely Different.
And because you, dear reader, are diligent you get a secret surprise-- the last chapter
of my book! But really, don't let me spoil it for you. Really, just hit your "back" button.
Go ahead. I dare you.
March 9, 2006. Godhead
All I really remember is the river of mud. Deep, dark and brown, it gushed
forth with a tenacity longed for by most of the people I’d
ever met, whether they or I’d realized it before. It was only
a deep river of mud, but the stories it told were far too many and vast
for anyone or thing to ever account for it.
I sat at the water’s edge. It was, is dark, and the lights from
Algiers shine upon its surface. I was depressed, as I often am,
and although I’m usually with others and feel their lack
tonight I felt only satisfied, if for nothing else to that of their
absence.
I saw something floating on the swift
waves of the Mississippi. I stood for a second, wrapping my skirts
about me. It seemed to be of twigs, but it floated strangely. A raft
built of twigs, and of feathers and hair… but no. A voudou
dolly?
It was a girl. Seventeen, perhaps. Her hair
was spread like Ophelia behind her and I was stopped only by the
feeling that there was something sticky on my hands. I smelled rubbing
alcohol and metal and am puzzled by the black pool surrounding my head.
Am I in the river or is she?
No--I remember—it was she who was insensitive. Young, stupid,
callous. It was dumb, was she, vapid and cool to my knowing of her
death. She did not believe, laughed at my cards and me when I laid the
Hanged Man down in front of her. I was honest, told her of her
impending certain death and still, when I knelt at her final hour with
the bottle bloody at her death, still seemed impervious to the certain
callousness which she imparted to all that knew her. Or seemed to.
My smug smile no one saw as I had carefully placed the bottle down in the
never placid waters of the river which consume all but our fears. Fears
of being caught? Never. Only the placidity of my own
nightmares did I seek in my taking a life not my own.
All I saw were the silencing of my own night-visions which came in
increasing waves upon doing nothing in my own shallow life to alleviate
the doom which seemed certain for us all. And then, with no real
warning that which the newspapers bring, was the death beyond; perhaps
that which I’ve wanted to drown within myself would come of
its own accord. I brought the rituals, within my own small yet sturdy
domain, to bring all convenience and shallowness down.
But what did I bring upon myself in the interim? What loss?
I know not now what to feel: the loss of my own or that of others,
drowned by the ineptitude of others or the stupidity of my own lack.
Was I really to be completely swept by others’ promises or
could I really stand by my own side, unaided? Would someone come rescue
me or did I need nothing, inside, only to drown in my own sorrows?
Nothing to answer but time. Time, or this dead body confronting me. I
felt guilty, almost, in feeling nothing. What was this one body
compared to the thousands whose lives it represented? Did I do one good
deed only to be shattered by myself calling to Kali?
I left her body, shimmering and lapping on the shores like my memories of
things that never mattered.
She never mattered. And perhaps, neither did any of this.
So I drown myself. In alcohol, and in my own stupid sorrows, and now in the river. It
takes all, and I feel nothing.
This is my last message. I leave no other goodbye. I hate and love you all.
|