I walked to the curtains and split them open with my finger. I couldn’t just stand there any longer between the mirror and the bed. One is compelled to do something. To take advantage of the things that don’t make sense: the yurt, I thought, Fra Keeler, waking up in the bedroom as though all of a sudden. And to attempt to make sense in regards to all of this is senseless. Rather one must attempt to make senselessness. “Because senselessness,” I whispered to myself, “is sense at its peak, sense when it can no longer bare itself.” A flock of birds emerged from the top branches of the trees. They flooded the sky; the horizon disappeared behind their black bodies. It is a life I am retracing, I thought, as I watched the birds form a disc with their miniature bodies and fly back and forth between the trees. Then I remembered his wrist, his hand moving toward me soft as a dove in the yurt, disappearing. Fra Keeler, I thought, “Fra Keeler,” I whispered, moving my wrist in circular patterns through the air.
4. Gathering of knowledge, I thought, is the only thing that makes the inevitability of one’s death worthwhile. So that I should get to the bottom of this. Fra Keeler, I thought, the yurt. I was standing in the kitchen now. I should trace every event back to its source, because everything has a source, even if the source is hidden, rather than exposed to broad air. Because at the same time that it has a source, every event has a destination. Every event lands in a place. Through time and space it lands and makes a home for itself. So that every event is constantly in motion. Until each event gathers enough consequence and with consequence a destination as well. Like a giant hot air balloon the event lands, heavy with destination, heavy with consequence, and makes a home for itself. Comes home to roost, I thought, and chuckled to myself. A half-hearted chuckle, because it is only a slight pause, a temporary landing, the event making a ramshackle of a home for itself. There is no ceasing of things. No. No once-and-for-all of anything. Just event after event: one event landing, another setting off.
So that one needs to gather knowledge. To trace every event back to its source, go through the source as one would go through a minefield, make a map of it. To say, “Aha, here is what this event will lead to once it has come home to roost!” Because folded within the entrails of each event is its own consequence, a source for a future event. An exact future event amid a thousand potential events, I thought, and laughed out loud to myself. Because at every point in time there are a thousand imminent events, just as there are a thousand potential deaths, waiting to roost as I have been roosting here—I looked around the kitchen—roosting to my heart’s content. The past, I thought, versus the present, versus that which is imminent. Because perhaps the possibility exists: the present a brief moment, a pause, one event coming home to roost before setting another into motion.
I shuffled through the recent events as one would shuffle through a deck of cards; at first slowly, then a little faster, until all the events flew past me, from one side of my mind to the other. So many events have gathered force, I thought, as I shuffled through them: the clipboard next to the receiver, the trees next to the yurt, the mailman handing me the package, the old lady down the street, the representative from Ancestry.com standing beneath the skylight, pointing at the phone. But I cannot think of the events now. I turned as though quickly away from my thoughts. I felt myself enter a rare pause: standing in the kitchen, broadening my shoulders, evaluating the events from a space of repose. A moment of respite, a rare pause: the space between events. I drew in a breath. Some events roosting while others are imminent, I thought. So that I should go for a walk. A walk in the canyon. If not now then when? A long pause, I thought, in total peacefulness I will take a walk.
I reached for a slice of bread. An honest slice of bread, I thought, before a walk, and after a walk as well. Then it was as though my brain returned like a loyal dog to its thoughts, because all of a sudden I found myself saying, good little ducklings, all in a row, a source here, a consequence there, event after event. I moved my hand through the air as though I were tapping little ducklings on their heads. Because bread—I thought, coming back to my moment of repose—an honest slice of bread and a walk in the canyon must be among the greatest of morning rituals! And if not now, then when? I poured myself a glass of milk and dipped my bread in it. “But what must I think about while I walk through the canyon?” I asked out loud, because I wanted to hear the question take form between myself and the bread, the bread and the walls, the wall and the garden and the trees at the far end. Certainly I could use the walk to my advantage. One must make decisions for oneself, to be active in one’s life process. Thinking is pure misery, a job assigned to the miserable and the wretched, to think each thought to its horrible and suffocating end. That is it, I thought, swallowing the moist bread. I stretched. I broadened my shoulders. The canyon awaits, now that I have had my morning bread. I must go to it, right at this moment before I am flooded with events that are now only imminent. The present, I thought, full of peacefulness, full of resolve. I grabbed my jacket and walked out the door and slammed it shut.
The entry to the canyon was at the far end of the street, behind some barren bushes, hardly any leaves on them. There was a soft wire fence around the perimeter of the canyon, and a narrow opening, a narrow slit in the fence. It looked as though someone had clipped the fence and pried it open. I pushed through the opening, walked gingerly down into the canyon. A few rocks kicked up from under my feet. It was a warm day; I hardly needed my jacket. The sun was nearly at its zenith. I felt like a new person. This is fabulous, I thought, this is just great! A walk in the canyon after a slice of bread. Before my walk a slice of bread, and after my walk a slice of bread as well. Because this is how one lives against one’s dying, I thought, and smiled kindly to myself. Clearly the sun is at its zenith, I thought, because every minute it was getting warmer. A flock of birds flew overhead. A few more rocks kicked up and I watched them roll down into the canyon. What a strange man, I thought, the realtor, for having warned me against the canyon. I remembered his eyebrows tensing, his unfriendly finger inching the papers across the desk. Poisonous finger, I thought, poisonous snake of a finger. Then I saw a hummingbird fly by, zapping its wings. This is life, I thought, this is peacefulness. I bent down to see if there were any snakes hidden under the bushes. I looked under one bush, but found nothing. Perhaps another bush, I thought, and kept on walking. I was nearly down into the canyon. Why haven’t I done this before? A walk in the canyon, the whole sky above me. A puffy, white cloud floated by, followed by a much narrower one. Very snakelike, the second cloud. I gained courage that there might be snakes in the canyon, so I looked under a second bush, but found nothing. Just a few rocks, a spider crawling over them. I turned around to see how far I had walked. I thought to myself, it will be a steep ascent, a good climb back up to the street. But regardless, I thought, this is good, a wonderful idea to take a walk in the canyon after having eaten a slice of bread in the morning. Soon I was whistling, because I was fresh out of thoughts. I skidded a few times on the descent and almost took a fall, and each time it broke my whistle, then I started it up again. Because that is how one postpones death, I thought. Or entertains oneself while neglecting the idea of one’s death, a harmless, peaceful whistle. I looked up a few times as I whistled. I scanned the sky from side to side, from one point of the horizon to another. Not the horizon exactly, but the points of the canyon—where the canyon reaches up and then dies out into the sky. The air was clear. Pure, white oxygen, and the sky was a broad, blue infinity above me. Nothing like it. Nothing like breathing in pure oxygen so early in the morning. Then I thought, I might get lost in the canyon. In the guts of the earth, wander until I’ve lost all sense of direction. It will be a new life. I had stopped whistling now. I was just ambling down the hill, very pleased with the day, very pleased with myself. Because surely, how one feels about the day is inseparable from how one feels about oneself, I thought, and stepped right off the hill and into the canyon.
I was on flat land now, all the way down i
n the canyon. Not a very deep canyon, or a very wide one, but a canyon nonetheless. But who am I to judge it? I felt as though I were dangling from a thread. The blood was pulsing in my legs; I was slightly out of breath. My mind was as vast and infinite as the sky above, as though the sky had doubled itself inside my head. We are what we see, surely, I thought, that must be the case. Because now that I see the sky, I thought, my mind is another sky alongside it. What a miserable wretch—a miserable wretch I had been, thinking endlessly, one thought after another, because thoughts, I remembered I had been thinking, bleed into each other. For a moment I grew sleepy. No, I thought, and took in a deep breath. Life is this vast, blue expanse above me. It is simple, I thought, life, and the whole time I have been missing out on its simplicity. A pang went through my chest. I looked around at the bushes, some close to the belt of the canyon, others farther back amid the shrubbery. A crow darted from the branch of one tree to the branch of another, then took off, stooped low, glided over a row of bushes, caught air, lifted itself up again. It circled above the canyon: one ring, then another—or is it an eagle I am seeing? I wondered. No, they are two separate birds. The eagle circling high above, majestic, while the crow, its minor counterpart, flies deep inside the canyon, darting from one tree to the next.
This is how one postpones one’s death, I thought, by walking. I spotted a cactus a few feet away. The stems were bowing down toward the ground. Not like a light bulb, I thought, this cactus, and I walked one full circle around it. It is a green mass of death, I thought. I stood there for a while, the cactus occupying the whole space of my brain, just as the sky had occupied it a moment earlier. I mused over the shape of the cactus until a chubby, toothless old lady formed in its place. She stared at the horizon. She said, “Take a good look, because this is me now, this is me as I am dying.” I felt a second pang go through my chest. I didn’t know if it was the cactus talking, or the old lady. Weren’t they one and the same, hadn’t they emerged from the same entity? Then, I thought, what rot, the things in one’s head. Because images just appear, an old lady out of nowhere, where the cactus had been. One minute, and then the next, and what is the use of these things?
Suddenly everything was at a standstill; I felt myself light, lifting. I was near a stream. I turned to look at the cactus, but the light was blinding. I sat down near the stream. The image of the cactus burned in my mind. I had caught sight of a blinding light when I had turned around to see it. I leaned back against a large rock. Emptiness, I thought, and the image burned to ashes in my brain. Not a cactus, nothing. Only the pure, black light after something has burned to the ground, to whatever surface had held it up in the first place. I grew heavy with sleep. I caught a glimpse of the sky, blue and vast above me.
Everything slowed down. There is a last time, I thought, for everything. I began to dream. In my dream, everything faded. A last moment, a last breath. The world closing down around the thing. A mouth closing around an object. The sky closing in on a body. Everything folds into darkness. People die, objects cease to exist, trees vanish. I felt my heart skip up to my throat in the space of my dream. I am choking, I thought. From my own heart, I am choking in my dream. My heart unleashing itself from its arteries, its plump, pink muscle rising through my chest, clogging my esophagus the way garbage clogs streams. I swallowed. I spun around in my dream with my arms extended like wings. I opened my mouth to the sky, I leaned my head back. Leap out! I said to my heart in the space of my dream. I am already dead, I thought, I am no longer dying. I made a few shapes with my mouth. Clouds rolled by. I grew cold in the shadow of my dream. I was lying down now, as though I had never been spinning. The ground was cold against my skin. I am in a steel coffin, I dreamed, the whole world is a coffin. I lay there, still as a block of ice. I could feel the dirt settling on my skin. I looked up. The sky was grim in sections, vibrant in others. Even in my coffin, I thought, even here I am haunted by her, because I could see her face spinning, her cheekbones—high as a horse’s—the acrid smell of her skin burning. And it started again, “You did this to me,” she said, and I said, “No, no I didn’t,” talking back to her in the space of my dream. Then I thought, what use is it? Now the sky was the color of a fire I had never seen. I am only a voice, I thought, a thread of words strung together the way particles line up to make a ray of light through the leaves of a tree. A thin voice stacking words together. “No, no I didn’t,” I said, gently now in the space of my dream. “Look,” she answered, pointing at her face in total defeat. And I thought, Yes: “Yes,” I said, because it was simple to see. Her eyes shifted from side to side as though they had come loose. I wondered, is there a person in there? Because it occurred to me that I could be speaking to a person who was dead. A non-person pointing at her face. “You did this to me,” she said, “look what you did.” Finally, I said, “Yes, it was me.” A string of tears rolled down her face, and I thought, water, it is only molecules lining up a certain way, only atoms, I thought, a ray of light here, a sentence there, all pointing at the same thing. Blame. We are here to blame each other, to point at one another with blame.
I came out of my dream. The sky was blue, though a little less light, a little less warmth to the vastness above me. My back was numb from leaning against the rock. There is nothing like the sound of water sliding over rocks. The light in the sky gave a shudder, clouds rolled in. It is cold, I thought, in a minute it will be raining. I grabbed my jacket. I put it on. I tucked my hands into my pockets, my elbows into my sides. I opened my mouth to take a deep breath, but my breath broke into pieces, it shuddered down my throat. I felt a slight sting at the base of my lungs. I thought, now I am walking. This is life, I thought, walking in a canyon, or on the street, under the sky, just walking under the open sky. In the shadow of the clouds I could see the colors of the canyon more clearly. The leaves in the brush were taut; there was no soft foliage. Just the tough, deep green of low leaves, bushes. I saw a rabbit dart across the path. It stopped halfway, frozen in place, mid-path. I could see the nervous ring of white around its eye. Terror, I thought, is a combined state. Because the rabbit was still as a rock, and yet I could see its body shivering, every half-second casting side-glances at me. All the confusion of motion, smoothed over with the stillness of death, I thought. Move! I wanted to say to the rabbit, because I couldn’t stand for it to be there staring at me. Leap! I wanted to say, and suddenly the dream closed in on me. The sky dropped down against my chest, and I thought, no, not while I am walking, not her face again, because walking in a canyon under an open sky is supposed to be life-affirming. The rabbit darted all the way across the path, to the other side of the canyon. I watched it hop under some bushes. I felt myself fold over, drift away. I could feel the blood boiling in my legs somewhere far beneath me.
Suddenly it occurred to me: wasn’t it her, the old lady down the street? My mother’s high cheekbones suddenly aligned themselves with the old lady’s hand. The two began to revolve around each other, two parts of a single element: the old lady down the street, she from my dream. Surely they are somehow connected. I leaned against a tree. I remembered the old lady’s hand shaking as she reached for the package through the darkened doorway. “Thank you,” she had said meekly to the mailman, when she had placed the package between her legs, pretending her lights were out, because how could her lights have been out when all the other neighbors’ lights were still on in their driveways? Then it came to me: it was the same size, the package, the same size as the package I had received from the mailman. My heart did an about-turn in my chest, like a small fish, my heart turned, head to tail in my chest. I could see clearly. I thought, how could I have not seen clearly before? The events, one after another, a whole constellation of events connecting. Her freckled hand shivering, her meek voice, it was hers—it came to me—the handwriting: a low squiggly line resembling rolling hills with a dark horse or two traversing them. I saw her hand move across the page, across the packages, it was her, I thought, the whole time, all this time, I though
t, and wasn’t it strange? The sky released a loud thunder, it started to rain. I dashed deeper into the side of the canyon, under a cluster of trees. A few drops rolled off the leaves. I was sweating. How? I thought again, and my breath bubbled upward, the wrong way around, breathing out when I should have been breathing in. I pulled my jacket over my head; I caught my breath. Clearly, I thought, there is a connection, and started running.
The canyon was beginning to give off a suffocating smell in the rain. The loose earth on the surface was turning to dust. I started to run faster. It was hard to see. I spotted the cactus some hundred yards away; it cut through my brain as though it were a blade. Wouldn’t it be funny, I thought, if I started to bleed from an image here in the middle of the canyon and the rain? I thought, perhaps if I saw the rabbit again I would laugh. If it crossed my path, dumb as a sausage. But the rabbit was nowhere to be seen. I stood for a moment, panting. The canyon was a reddish-brown haze in the rain. I thought to myself, I am lost, there is no emerging alive from this place. I was sure I was dying, the image of the old lady flashing in front of me, confusing itself with the image of my mother from my dream. And I wanted to laugh at myself, to slap my legs in the middle of the canyon, to roar with laughter. To be loose, I thought, to loosen my brain. I imagined a thousand threads spinning out of my brain. Tentacles, fingers drawn out, pointing to a thousand different things. And what would be a more proper response, I thought, than to let myself become unhinged? Because this is sheer madness, all along it’s been madness, events hiding when they should have been seen.
Fra Keeler Page 5
