#316 - Return
What were you doing ten years ago?
Ten years ago--
(Ten years before what, though? Where are the checkpoints, the landmarks? How do you count years when everything slip-slides, when days do not come in order, when there are Summers in winter and Grey days in spring?)
February 2000 and he is (age may be calculated objectively, from one calendar point to another, from one record to another, so that August 8th 1985 is birth, is zero, and February 2000 is half-way through year) fourteen in the fields of endless sunflowers where Carla spins and spins. He is doing what he always does. He is ignoring the cajoling in his head and the silence around him, the heavy, hollow silence, and he is thinking of freedom.
This is the first time he is (subjectively, not objectively, requiring a calendar of bound points that will remain sequential, however twisted, however entangled with others, because he is here, he is here, he is) here.
And here, (for some value of) he is-- where? The worlds rise like a spiral, split like a tree. She is Jean is Maddie is Jean is real is fake is real again. Mother, lover, ghost. What is she? What is he? They are doubled so easily, so often. Still, he is here (for some value of) now.
And here, because he will come back to this moment often, to see how the worlds might have swayed and bent, here on the edges, watching himself become himself, watching her in her in here in him, until references become meaningless and-- who is he? Who is she? Is that one question or two.
How much of the past does he create?
Ten years ago and he is Mike, in Kansas; Maddie, a ghost; Nate, lost among the edges of the world; Nate, Shaman; Maddie, Queen; Mike, returning, again and again, a tide against an implacable shore. Ten years ago, and he is a Harvester, preparing to reap.
He is preparing to reap.
Ten years ago--
(Ten years before what, though? Where are the checkpoints, the landmarks? How do you count years when everything slip-slides, when days do not come in order, when there are Summers in winter and Grey days in spring?)
February 2000 and he is (age may be calculated objectively, from one calendar point to another, from one record to another, so that August 8th 1985 is birth, is zero, and February 2000 is half-way through year) fourteen in the fields of endless sunflowers where Carla spins and spins. He is doing what he always does. He is ignoring the cajoling in his head and the silence around him, the heavy, hollow silence, and he is thinking of freedom.
This is the first time he is (subjectively, not objectively, requiring a calendar of bound points that will remain sequential, however twisted, however entangled with others, because he is here, he is here, he is) here.
And here, (for some value of) he is-- where? The worlds rise like a spiral, split like a tree. She is Jean is Maddie is Jean is real is fake is real again. Mother, lover, ghost. What is she? What is he? They are doubled so easily, so often. Still, he is here (for some value of) now.
And here, because he will come back to this moment often, to see how the worlds might have swayed and bent, here on the edges, watching himself become himself, watching her in her in here in him, until references become meaningless and-- who is he? Who is she? Is that one question or two.
How much of the past does he create?
Ten years ago and he is Mike, in Kansas; Maddie, a ghost; Nate, lost among the edges of the world; Nate, Shaman; Maddie, Queen; Mike, returning, again and again, a tide against an implacable shore. Ten years ago, and he is a Harvester, preparing to reap.
He is preparing to reap.