A book coerced
In the dim, quiet muskiness of the cave, the settler raised his arms in self significance. "How do these pests keep pestering me?" he asked no one sitting with him, "Why is there foliage in the green drawer of my oblique memory? Facts and fiction! Lines and paste! It all adds up to an unequivolent mortar for this lying deceitful tower we call-" but some motion within the cave aborted his thinking. A slow silence required nothing but derision.
"Is it me or did the walls just fall around your so-called artifact life?" He waited. "Did it ever make you wonder how a created being such as yourself could spend so much time forgetting what you came here for?" Still no answer. "Are you alive or dead? Half or whole? One might smother the path to an overbearing, unrespected, overcushioned..." he ran out of breath and just then came a response-
"You know you're not willing to go from here."
"What?"
"I ate breakfast this morning, read the Wall Street Journal, put on my leather shoes, and headed eight miles north from my house. I wasn't expecting to find a cave or a frequent...well, you know the story, but my mind is made up."
"And that is?"
"That is that we can leave and cross the brook and be a lot happier when the sun rings."
"If you said that to me five minutes ago, I would have busted your lip, but now I'm willing to hear you out. Continue."
"I can't. You believe it's all here and it can't be. Look there's a row of flicking rocks over there, right? Well, if you could only hear the sound they make when you throw them; it's a din that's nothing like the real storm when it comes. I'm telling you, it's quite imaginary."
"Mm."
"And if you'd just stop to listen to the birds twirling, I mean up there, it's like a new dimension of forest and grief."
"If what you're saying is true then I have no right to argue, but if it's been so easy to depart, then why haven't the cars been hoisted up and requested?"
"There's no magic to it. Just simple drink and meat. It's like I would have told you, had you been here: There are lots of them, and time to get free from the burdens of health."
"I can see it, if I might, in the darkness of what you told me. I suppose I'm ready to await."
"Then let us retire. My sordid arms are waxing foolish."
"Is it me or did the walls just fall around your so-called artifact life?" He waited. "Did it ever make you wonder how a created being such as yourself could spend so much time forgetting what you came here for?" Still no answer. "Are you alive or dead? Half or whole? One might smother the path to an overbearing, unrespected, overcushioned..." he ran out of breath and just then came a response-
"You know you're not willing to go from here."
"What?"
"I ate breakfast this morning, read the Wall Street Journal, put on my leather shoes, and headed eight miles north from my house. I wasn't expecting to find a cave or a frequent...well, you know the story, but my mind is made up."
"And that is?"
"That is that we can leave and cross the brook and be a lot happier when the sun rings."
"If you said that to me five minutes ago, I would have busted your lip, but now I'm willing to hear you out. Continue."
"I can't. You believe it's all here and it can't be. Look there's a row of flicking rocks over there, right? Well, if you could only hear the sound they make when you throw them; it's a din that's nothing like the real storm when it comes. I'm telling you, it's quite imaginary."
"Mm."
"And if you'd just stop to listen to the birds twirling, I mean up there, it's like a new dimension of forest and grief."
"If what you're saying is true then I have no right to argue, but if it's been so easy to depart, then why haven't the cars been hoisted up and requested?"
"There's no magic to it. Just simple drink and meat. It's like I would have told you, had you been here: There are lots of them, and time to get free from the burdens of health."
"I can see it, if I might, in the darkness of what you told me. I suppose I'm ready to await."
"Then let us retire. My sordid arms are waxing foolish."
posted by Jason at 9:19 PM
0 Comments:
<< Home