The Flammarion Syncope

by Garret Ford

  “Lead the way.” I said, looking around. “I’m lost.”

  She reached out, touched my hand, and pointed it to the stars.

  “Follow the stars home with me.” She said, leading the way.

  Our breath is visible.

  We are alive.

  The sun dies, and darkness rises in the hills above us.

  The trees are gnarled hands rising,

  The Evening starry sky.

  Far above the forest,

  The train-bridge towering casting the long shadow.

  The train rumbles in the dark above us.

  Light from a dead star.

  This moment is already gone,

  All moments are starlight,

  There is no present,

  Only future and past.

  Dried flowers from your ex.

  Time,

  A river, Life,

  Autumn leaves,

  Falling from the tree,

  Drift through the stream,

  Consciousness-

  The terminal end is reached.

  Photographs of your dead friends.

  “What a long strange trip we’ve walked together.” My counselor derailed my train of thought.

  “Yeah?” I said quietly.

  “When you started working with me, you wouldn't even look me in the eye when you talked about this stuff. It's been what-” She paused and flipped through the file. “Almost two years, of work.”

  “Time staggers on.” I said.

  “What I am saying is that you have come a long way, I mean this isn't easy work- I mean trauma work is never easy but you have stuck with it and that is something you can be proud of.” She said.

  “Yeah, thanks. I mean I've covered a lot haven't I-” I smiled.

  “You saw enough value in living to keep coming- be proud of yourself and hold your head high.” She smiled as she spoke.

  “At first, I thought I'd never relate to you, Married, all that stuff that I didn't have. But now, I don't know how I'd have gotten through my problems on my own without you. I've realized I was attached to my pain, I loved it and it let me live in a fantasy world- never confronting my loss. It gave me meaning. Work and suffering were the only things in my life. I've found love, for me- in this moment.” I said.

  “You don't hate yourself?” She asked.

  “Maybe in a minute or tomorrow, but it will pass again.” I said

  “I think that is a break through.” She said, impressed.

  I might not be happy in the next moment, but I was happy now. That meant I could be happy again, even if I wasn't tomorrow. I smiled. A small victory. The bad hand life had dealt me; how free I was once I cast aside the cards I kept holding and playing for sympathy, for attention, for identity. Getting paid and laid for self-flagellation. Mea culpa. Mea culpa.

  There was a silence, almost in reverence. I looked back at the file on her desk. Thick file, pregnant with two years’ worth of pain and suffering. All committed to paper and arduously documented. The losses, the sacrifices, the changes, the death, the joy, the life. I observe myself, observing myself.

  I sit down on the grass and the child gives me a drink of water. I splash some on my face and drink deep. Handing the hose back I lay down beside some of the split waters. I close my eyes and begin to drift off. I can hear singing.

  “Finally.” I think to myself.

  “Welcome home, pumpkin.” The voice echoes.

  “This set of paintings is the Ia-Tal-No-Nu; sixteen paintings, painted on 16x-16x canvases; four on each wall, one wall in each cardinal direction.” She said.

  I observe the set of four eerily similar forest paintings, I turn, view the next wall, and then the next. All close, but not identical.

  “All the hype for this?” I said. “I want my money back.”

  “The paintings are supposed to be viewed specially.” She said.

  “Like this then?” I said, closing my eyes.

  “The artist stated that this set of paintings is to replicate the experience of being lost in a forest. The only way to get out is to view the paintings in the correct sequence.” She said, pointing to the north top right painting. “This is the first one.”

  “I can get out.” I said, walking out of the gallery display, I turn, cross my arms, I stick my tongue out at her. “I’m out of the forest.”

  “But your mind is lost in the forest, isn’t it?” She said.

  I was still thinking about the puzzle painting. I came back inside the display and examined the painting tags closer.

  “They aren’t numbered though.” I said.

  “The artist showed four people, who showed four people, who showed four people who...” She said.

  “I get it. People showing people the way.” I said.

  “Want to be my fourth?” She said.

  “What is the catch?” I asked.

  “You have to show four people.” She said.

  “I’m bad at commitment.” I replied.

  “Have you even tried before?” She mocked me.

  “Yes.” I lied.

  “Bad liars should remain silent.” She laughed.

  “I’m not lying!” I lied.

  “Whatever you need to tell yourself.” She said.

  “I give up. Show me the way out of the forest.” I said.

  She stood beside me, held my hand.

  “Follow my gaze- the rest is silent.” She said.

  There we stood, hand in hand, in the ancient gallery, two souls, viewing the same objects in space, lost in time, and grasping blindly- possessing only fragile brief lives. She guides my gaze, and we finish as one. She nods to me, smiling. I smile back, the sun shines above the clouds.

  “You escaped the forest, choose your four wisely.” She said.

  There are around three hundred faces staring at me; they call this lecture hall the tower of Babel. All the students are scribbling notes down, quickly, quietly, hanging each syllable as if it held individual meaning that could fundamentally alter their life. It wouldn’t- the material is esoteric and baffling- you either got it or you didn’t. The best and brightest of the generation have examined it, gone mad and killed themselves with my line of work. The students gathered here, to listen to my pontification as if it was gospel; quantum physics is in vogue again.

  “The true test will be if we can use tachyons to send ourselves messages.” I said, posturing intelligently.

  I stopped and took a drink, expecting and hoping for a student to raise their question. The lecture hall was silent as a tomb.

  “The precipice that I spoke of earlier is the conception that as we progress further in the sciences, various connections in disparate topics will become apparent. Biology, psychology, physics, and even mysticism will become intertwined the precipice is whether humanity will flee into another dark age or embrace quintessence theory.” I said, stopping again for a drink of water.

  I see a hand raise slowly in the middle of the lecture hall.

  “Yes? You in the middle.” I said.

  “What is the Quintessence theory?” The timid student asked.

  “It was assigned reading for today. Next?” I said, assuredly.

  “But the lines aren’t straight.” A bold student asked. “All your extrapolation grids have bends.”

  “Euclidian geometry has value- but humanities childhood is ended. Stages of child development are tracked by art, so can humanities. Early cave drawings are a child’s pseudopods- quite charming- but without use- now humanity has entered a new age. The age of Aquarius, we are on the verge of great leaps forward…” I said.

  “What about freewill being an illusion, what was that about?” The student said.

  “Freewill, like time- is a convenient illusion to explain entropy, nothing else. When we observe time, we observe ourselves and make “choices” but what we are we are observing is energy flowing on another plane. Turtles all the way up and down, all that- energy from one form to another. Energy cannot be created or d
estroyed, and consciousness, a similar phenomenon, is never lost or created, but merely transmitted from one form to another. Last question?” I said, marveling at my own pontification.

  “But then, nothing matters, if it is all pre-destined?” He said.

  “No, you only know you are on a carousel. Love it.” I said.

  “No. What about God? What does this do to him?” He said.

  “The concept of divinity is unaffected by this theory. And mortal ideas of sex. No more questions thanks.” I said, turning off my the holo-projector.

  “God’s gift to man was freewill!” He said, turning red.

  “Yet it moves.” I said.

  “Then this is god’s will.” He drew a gun from his coat.

  A stampede of feet. As Moses, he parted the waves of flesh parted. He took great steps from one line of desks to the next his gun trained on me. I froze. Screaming is a chorus now as the orchestra of hell awakens. He turned and fired into the crowd.

  BANG! CAH-CHUNK! BANG! CAH-CHUNK!

  “This is how it ends then.” I think.

  “Recant!” He said.

  “More weight!” I laughed with bravery or insanity.

  “Recant!” He said, menacing me with his gun.

  I look into his eyes, I see nothing but malice, and fear?

  “You hate me for speaking the truth.” I said, brazen.

  “I hate you for spewing lies!” He shouted and spat.

  BANG! CAH-CHUNK! BANG!

  Thunder and pain, buckshot shattered my leg in half, a match stick broken under thumb, I fall backward. Blood pours freely.

  BANG! CAH-CHUNK! BANG!

  Not with a whisper, thunder and pain, the orchestra of hell has a bellowing brass; everything is fading into white mist. My stomach exploded into a mess of my last meal and crimson carnage splattered against the lecture floor. I dragged myself away, a wounded animal, wanting to die alone.

  “There you lie, now, die.” He said raising the gun to my face.

  “...” I stare down the barrel.

  I feebly raise my hand, closed my eyes for the last time.

  “This is how it ends.” I think to myself. “That was probably my final thought.”

  He pulls the trigger, it clicks empty.

  “Fuck.” He stops, and walks away. “Sorry, three more left, have fun bleeding out godless fucker.”

  Rise and fall,

  The white mist gave way to blackness,

  I could still feel the carpet and as death encroached.

  I pull myself up. I feel the wall.

  I feel the wall?

  I dab my bullet wound for blood

  I wrote out the equation that began it all,

  Gödel guide my hand?

  No prayer- not now. Not when I had done so much on my own.

  Never did solve it. Haunted me,

  Until now, Until the end.

  I knew what I was writing. Muscle memory now.

  Weakness.

  That damned equation,

  Unsolved, The cursed couplet?

  Even death may die?All my achievements,

  Ended with a shotgun blast.

  Cold dust on my skin. Limp on the abattoir floor.

  This, the last of my work, of all my work, will any of it survive.

  The luddite’s lunacy?

  Eureka.

  I can solve it! I know it.

  Simple in hindsight.

  If I only I could reach through the darkness.

  I only need to write a final line.

  The mighty line.Is this the face that sunk a thousand ships?

  I can finish the equation. My unifying theory.

  I can-

  No.

  No strength. Limp, weak…

  Too weak- to make even one sentence?

  But,I had only one thing left to do.

  “This is isn’t fair.”

  Farewell, my body.

  Is this what it is like to die?

  “Life ain’t fair pumpkin.”

  A voice called out in the darkness.

  “Who’s there?” I said.

  Silence.

  “Death ain’t neither though.” The voice continued.

  All is as it must be.

  Chapter 19.

  “God is the breath between our prayers.”

  Chad H. North

  Three orderlies are holding me down as I thrash. I had always heard “you won't take me kicking and screaming” as an expression-I literally was. Struggle. Fight. Cling to life. Scream. I beg for mercy. I try to wriggle free- they do this for a living. I can't put up much of a fight anyways, Weak, emaciated, junkie. The nurses have a disapproving look in their eyes. I feel a tinge of embarrassment as they pull down my pants. I screamed in tongues to the empty hospital walls, greenish gray- dead flesh. I can hear the orderlies chuckling. I feel the sharp pain of a needle being jammed into my tender ass. The room spins, the poison- sweet anodyne takes me away.

  “Go eat shit fuckers…” I mumbled delirious.

  Another Tuesday in the ward for them; the worst day of my life. They don't answer. Why would they? I don't even warrant a response. A chicken squawking in a slaughter house. The room spins and fades away to black.

  The next few weeks blur together, instants of being awake and then being dosed with some sweet oblivious antidote by a frowning nurse, fits of tugging at restraints, waking up inside a large metallic tube while tied to a slab, then darkness.

  Finally, my wit returned, but I was handcuffed to the gurney still. They gave me foul tasting pills instead of injecting me, which was nice. Eventually they stopped, and the chemical straight jacket went away. I wonder why they stopped drugging me, maybe they decided enough was enough. I stare out the window and try to get up, I can't even get up because of the restraints. It was death. I died there, what now walks is my corpse.

  They broke me. Why? An exercise in recursion, Poundstone would be proud of me perhaps. I wonder how they fed me, bathed me, got me to shit all that stuff for the months- without me being aware. I had heard about drugs that make you suggestible- but for that long? They broke me down, broke who I was, and now this is what remains. An empty husk.

  It must be February, I hate February.

  The guru sits silently. Breathing slowly. His flesh is a pasty pinkish colour, contrasted by his orange robes. His face oblong, body pear-shaped, pocked jowls, ill-fitting coke bottle glasses. The other disciples and I are clad in orange robes- all bowed in reverence waiting for our great guru and begin another teaching.

  The Ashram is attuned to the guru in anticipation- bound to his essence as soul is bound to flesh. The walls of the Ashram are an earth tone; we sit in the grand garden, raked sand, well-manicured landscaping, juniper bushes, and cherry trees. The sun is setting. The guru opens his eyes and makes a hand motion while smiling sublimely. He affixes a microphone to his robes.

  “Now, this vessel will speak. There is no more “I” within this vessel to address you. This vessel is a perpetual cosmic orgasm of being that is flowing before you lost vessels. This is my word today, think upon the doing and not doing, they are the same. Doing here and not doing there. What is not doing without doing? Nothing without something. Nothing is not the true nothing. The true nothing cannot be named, even as a true nothing. Enlightenment is within the place free of all contrarieties.” Thus, spoke the guru.

  “Wise guru, I have done all these things you have said, I meditate, I am a vegetarian, I attend conferences, I have been working as enlightenment advocate for five years but why have I not attained enlightenment?” A young woman in the front row spoke up.

  “Doing those things, you said, is still doing. Free the orgasm of the cosmos within you. Then the sexual orgy of creation will make you become pregnant with enlightenment.” Thus, spoke the guru.

  “I don’t understand still.” She said, downtrodden.

  “This vessel is enlightened. If you were to allow yourself to become my vessel, I could enlighten you.” Thus, spoke
the guru.

  “What?” She shook her head.

  “If this vessel were to lay with you tonight, then you would take some of the tantric cosmic orgasm within this vessel into your own.” Thus, spoke the guru.

  “But we need to be celibate.” She said, blushing brightly.

  “Yes, this vessel did say this, however, this would not be sex- this would be no sex, just as my mind has no mind- no nothing so carnal. This would be simply this vessel pouring the essence of enlightenment into you.” Thus, spoke the guru.

  “Can I be enlightened too?” A young man spoke up.

  “No, you are not ready. Very few of you are ready to receive enlightenment from this vessel.” Thus, spoke the guru.

  “But you think I am ready?” The young woman said excitedly.

  “Yes, but only if you are ready to receive this blessing from the vessel.” Thus, spoke the guru.

  “Yes. How do I prepare.” The young woman stammered.

  “You must choose three other vessels to accompany you tonight to receive the blessing from this vessel.” Thus, spoke the guru.

  “Okay. Will you?” The young woman took the hand of an older woman next to her.

  “I would be honored.” The older woman said, crying a bit.

  “Yes, she will do. You must choose two more to join you now.” Thus, spoke the guru.

  The young woman looked over our Ashram disciples.

  “You?” She called to a man in the back.

  “I will.” He said.

  “Will you?” She turned to me, looking into my eyes.