Checking in. And as far as I could see, organists, cellists, symphonies of carefully constructed arrangements. I question whether I stumbled in or quite simply fell over while picking up my glasses. It occurred, "let me retrace my steps". And it all started in reverse from here; legs snapping back with violent motions, thrust-wards back, hands still lain at sides. These questions inflating within me, and I simply gave up. Reasoning was never a good enough reason. So I must've fallen over, but then why am I not holding my glasses? "They're on your head, Dad", she would often tell me and sure enough! Around the corner and "Martha!", my goodness what was she doing here? Not a good look on her face. And not a good face to start with. "I was just looking around", and somehow there was truth in this, but it was more to the unawareness. Alien surroundings. Smooth marble, porcelain, glass hallways. The sounds rose. "Well waiting outside seems to be the only option left for us. You know you're always sneaking off?". She was right. I was always looking for something. When you are in a place that's familiar to you, you're always looking for that same something that makes you feel. That specific associated comfort. But I've never been here before, and I've found it right here! "Right in this room!". Hands shaking. I motion them. "It was all right here! Right here!" I swoop my arms. she turns away. "I'll be outside". hush. echo. I decide to venture into another hall.
Plenty of patrons shuffling through some abrupt intermissions. I try to determine the placement of water fountains in this barren place. It seems one could go right here where I was leaning against another separate portion. These thoughts came floating through, and my observation seemed to be in conflict between the memories I was reliving and the memories being created right before my eyes. I really did need a drink of water. I opted instead for the nearest exit, into the chill winds. There is no calmness here, even the weather speaks hostilities and a surface bitterness toward circumstances that lay within fingertip grasp. Martha. She's out here, don't need to pull my glasses down to find out. And in the solitary company that surrounds me, I can't help it, I just can't help myself. Nobody ever can help the feelings that bound them to the places that we dream about, and wake to find in our very towns that we live in, that's where they originate. Dreams spring from reality, and once and all of a sudden the lines blur and they cross over into streams of flowing images, thoughts, phrases, and laughter all congealing into a superfluous line. faucets. life faucets. this day is tap, running running running. I'm trying to catch it. "There you are", and I'm still standing in the same place. "Well we can go in, or leave?" Decisions that have no real standing. I turn around and head back into the cream walls with those red hues that pop the eyes. Fixing my lapels, adjusting, keeping things in order, control. We are seated, which defeats the purpose, and in thinking I'm lead around this circular domicile fantasy by careful planning hands, we sit next to each other, next to others, and those others. Awaiting.
Players come out all dressed in uniform, all saying the same things, shaking the same hands, twin guided parallels which still need clarity. My glasses still on my head, they get put away. Close my eyes.
Warm-up, tunings, dissonance, music. crowd chatter. music. shuffling feet. music. kids and infants crying out. Wails slicing dark night. music.
I've had enough. And I turn around. "They're looking at me". blank. completely blank. music. now for the next hour or so, the shadows start to dance all around me, and while I'm completely aware of their dance, I still take it upon myself to show them the right steps. the right moves of foot placement. of arm motion, of sways calculated. for joy should be measured, to dance should be instructional. there should be no sense of chaos as long as we're in a carefully constructed place, with such thought out designs, objects in which we rest and specifically cleaned for our perfection. Not "it's" perfection, but "our" perfection. and this is the evening. Lights begin rolling, sides begin shouldering, and all out flat performance. nothing but nodes.
Tilting with the swaying sash curtain calamitous uproars, and the conductor’s swift sharpened cursive. I keep picking up the calligraphy. She looks on. She, droll, drab, disenchanted, all of those words that sounds similar and mean similar. She’s all of them. Yet with a fist clench tight on rest, why does she do this all to me? She’s not doing anything, and she doesn’t need to be. SHOUTING. What kind of hold is this? I can’t seem to think about it for too long. And the shuffling in my seat. My legs can’t seem to find a good spot. What has she been doing to my body, my physical chemistry has changed so much, I can’t even recognize which enzymes are responsible for what, or what components lay within me or scattered across the front two aisles. Everything seemed to be changing far faster than I have ever expected. But expectations..,
It was said that the events leading up to a person’s death are supposed to be the most incredible serendipitous bright sunshine clouds, birds singing that there could possibly ever be suctioning itself into the most perfect day you could ever experience before…void. That was all hatched by those certain ones, the type that question those good things that happen to them, as if it never occurs. As if a miracle were just a little….bit……farther. We know better. I know more than I did even in one second, more than some can perceive in say, roughly “a half-hour”. I don’t know that for sure, but it’s the same explanation given for knowing more in a second. I take it all in. and here while I assemble this paragraph in my head, I still know that I am ‘here’, in this room. Not one detail can escape. Not one dancing shadow will be misled. Not if I’m here. But with her here. This will take on something else entirely. Endlessness on a chain. Infinity on a loop.
CALM
The chatter stops.
I continue…
The orchestra roars, lets out all sorts of cackling breathing vibrant swirl. It envelops the room. Envelopes me, her, her’s her and the other sir. An up one-way and back down again swirl. And I can think clearly. Finally, relief. I decide to really take it all in. Just sitting and letting it wash over. Filling every crack and hole that may reside from within. This really was worth coming for. I should’ve thanked her. I should’ve made everybody stop playing, and turn to one side whispering gratitudes in her ear. Instead I felt them rising up from inside of me, and I let them go with every balloon of thought, cutting the strings from my fingers. Can she feel the warmth from my body? Does she notice that I’m with her, in this cocoon of feel. To really begin to touch her and do nothing more. It was every energy I had. Stored. And she would come with her tiny pail to drain the last drop. I would give anything to place a hold in our structure, plug a hole on the design, turn a lamp over on the flawed intricates, and rip out the stuffing in polite niceties. I want to turn her over again and again, and never really get a good look, but to keep rotating, so that she stays forever interesting and fresh to me, A snow globe in the sand. A beach in the winter. She became all of these things. She became objects and the objects became her, and somewhere in the middle of all of this association, she was drawing up her own game, and playing me the same. Twin diamond unearthed on the surface. One buried face.
