Purely Accidental Accretion
Slewed Around Intact
In Which Over-Coding is Assured by the Redundancy of Consciousness
News from the Antipodes

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Purely Accidental Accretion

He puts his head in through the driver’s side window, hopes to catch some
fragrance like that which is said to drive all human beings mad. A blend of
citrus and flesh. A concoction dreamed up by people who have degrees in
biology but have yet to make their education benefit the neighborhood. They
stand on the tops of chimneys, scan the horizon for something that looks as
if it had been sent from other planets. Sent with the impetus of its own
engines. Maybe this longing originates somewhere in the pituitary gland. It
starts out as an enzyme and quickly adds dimensions to itself through purely
accidental accretion. You find yourself in the elevator, for instance, when
you have no business on the floor above. Or below. When you should be
perfectly content to ply your wares at ground level. But there is something
about traveling in some manner other than the horizontal that makes us long
to experience the world, however briefly, as some other life form. An
amoeba, say. With its ability to switch directions at the slightest touch.
To surround and overwhelm its closest neighbor in a paroxysm that looks a
lot like love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slewed Around Intact

Human beings asphyxiate routinely. With the photographers gathered about
outside and the dominoes lying useless and unused on the patio table. But we
shouldn’t judge them for all that. Because when was the last time we
understood everything that came out of our own mouths? We knew going in that
the comments would be unpleasant and the hagfish covered in mucus. It is how
they protect themselves from the elements. As well as how they draw one
another together over vast distances. You can see the same thing taking
place in Sweden when the sun disappears behind a rocky ledge and people
scurry for the relative safety of the fjords. They understand that our
previous lives do not influence the current one. They don’t even appear in
our consciousness until right before it’s time to leave. And we are busy
packing suitcases. Saying goodbye to people who have shown up seemingly from
out of nowhere. Who accuse us of keeping them at an emotional distance for
no other reason than we are afraid of what they will tell others about the
organization of our cupboards. About how we stand for hours at a time in one
place, hoping to re-live the mystical experience we had in that very spot a
day or two earlier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Which Over-Coding is Assured by the Redundancy of Consciousness

Weren’t we promised something more elaborate than this? Weren’t we supposed
to have trouble distinguishing between what’s real and what is merely
possible? Knowledge creeps up on us like a carnivore, something enormous in
the shadows but poorly defined and at home more in the myths we tell about
it than the textbooks where we document its actual size and instincts. Its
desires that seem exactly the same as those of the lowly housecat. Or the
man up the street who dreams all night long about caterpillars. Imagine if
we could somehow get beyond this point, if we could dissolve all bonds by
taking advanced chemistry classes at the technical school. If we could find
a name for that overwhelming sense of burden and decay that settles on us
come morning when we discover there is nothing left in our pockets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

News from the Antipodes

The comparison is unfair because all comparison is unfair. It takes what you
know – where you’ve spent your youth and why you are no longer permitted to
set foot in that place – and turns it into something with a protective
covering over its appendages, something with a fondness for gauze. We look
for the past in the commentaries, hoping to overwhelm it with other people’s
words. Sometimes this is successful, as when the revolutions turn out to be
enormous canvases, and everyone has a portion to fill in with paint. With
figures signifying ideas. And figures signifying other figures until you
can’t tell, finally, if you will ever make it back to the courtroom where
you first laid eyes on the love of your life. Or maybe the love of a month
or two, which at the time seemed like an entire lifetime because the one you
had been given was best viewed through a lens. Perhaps there is a point at
which one realizes the failures that follow us around like seagulls are not
something fobbed off by the strange, mute architect of our surroundings, but
messages designed to baffle us precisely when we are about to unlock the
codes. And gain access to the rooms where they keep the Gainsboroughs and
those oatmeal concoctions we have been inordinately fond of since childhood.
When they made their appearance with little or no fanfare, the canaries in
their cages simply falling over and lying in place, the sound of car horns
outside replaced suddenly by a silence like that you might remember from the
womb. Because you spent so much time there.