For An Ancient Friend

& she wept,
& she beat her chest,
& she moaned,
for her child—
tormented, hanging, alone;
on the sand, over
thirty pieces

Shore for the Godless

“It is not God you worship, but his music, his art, his people, his buildings, his stories, his culture in general. God is thanked, which is, it seems, a secondary act—a formality for the engenderer of what it is you actually love.”

“You misunderstand my worship of God; grossly misunderstand. Worship is not intentional, for me—but a groundswell of devotion, &, because of God’s position relative to mine, an exuberance, a dancing-love: that God, after everything, yet loves me. God’s music, art, and the like, which is human music, art, etc., are hints, reminders, mnemonics even, that retrieve that encounter; it is the re-living, re-vivifying, of that relationship—like the ring on the betrothed. I may not be mainstream in this, but I consider the Christian reality of being reborn a perpetual experience—perpetuating into eternity; it is, & I don’t mind sounding naïve, an eternally fresh waking-up, of being timeless with the infinite Creator at the heart of all creation—which, to my mind, is love.”

“Beautiful—what you say. I believe in the power of words, too.”

“Don’t be fooled by your own words, then. I mean more than words.”

“Who doesn’t in conversations like these?”

“Well, I venture to say: you.”

“I mean more than words, but let me prove it: let me prophesy, or rather, predict, if I may. Religion, spirituality, faith, or whatever the appellation, has been, I believe, a companion to mankind since mankind acquired imagination; it is powerful, because—powerful for the same reasons the human imagination is powerful. It flows from the core of that magical sense, & has given it breath—metaphors, poems, confessions, etc. But this religiousness, this transcendence, has had many faces, many gods. Now, & only recently, this magical sense has no face—no gods, no God. It is master-less; without a set of axioms, or narratives, or heroes, or lexicon—without a concordance. “Now what,” the newborn asks itself. There is one certainty, it thinks: its mortality. Mortality—mortality for what it is: my end; no more beginnings, no middles, no more ends, but the final one…”

“Is this your prediction?”

“No. Allow me my wordiness…” he paused; “Without the old language, the familiar tongue, that is, the religious tongue—without wanting to refer to it, since we feel it is too much associated with misleading lifestyles & images—we try to find our own descriptions of our magical sense, feeble perhaps—but ours. As the archaic beliefs die, their poetry dies; it does not die from lack of use, but of recognition; it perishes in secret, in its heart. Your light-towers are foreign; our home is far-off; its shore is all darkness. So far, some of us have attempted praise of the fact—that dream of homelessness. But even they look for our light-tower, furtively. So we search, perhaps without success; but, and I predict tendentiously, over time, over a long time, a span equivalent to the span of religion’s incubation, its monopoly on our history’s imagination, over an eon of futile stuttering, we may perhaps find our poetry, our shore—a shore for the godless. A meeting-place, our temple, for our hymns, & our love. There, I hope, human beings will see themselves, all at once, without additions, without falseness, & still speak lovingly. Someday, perhaps. I say to myself, ‘it is today.’ However, this is only what I say.”

Gymnosophy

Bertrand believes God is communicating through rainfall on his windowsill -- particularly, if recorded with the proper technological setup, the raindrops that hit his windowsill translate into Morse code messages.

Bertrand translates Morse code messages into English. (We do not see the message)

Each beginning letter of each word in all the Morse code messages corresponds to the first letter in the name of a city, any city on earth. How does Bertrand know this?

It was revealed to him by another man by the name of Rupert. Rupert received a mysterious telegram addressed to him from a Mister Baruch. It read: “To Gilstaff, B of Ugashik, Alaska (stop) Beginning letter of word (stop) Beginning letter of city (stop) the same in raindrops (stop).”

Where is the telegram? It is buried in Vadnais Heights, Minnesota. It is buried with a blow dryer and an address. How did it get buried, and buried with these things? Rupert’s dead ex-wife was an interpreter of dreams; it was her idea. She wrote the address, selected the blow dryer, and chose the location of the burial.

They uncover the telegram, but only the telegram and the blow dryer are there. The telegram has been scribbled over, and stamped: “Babington’s General Store.” It is a local store. Rupert departs. Bertrand goes to Babington’s General Store.

There is a poster up for cracker jacks. Bertrand buys some cracker jacks and discovers a small map (of coordinates) inside the cracker jacks box, which leads to something in Ugashik, Alaska. In fact, the map from Babington’s leads to Bertrand’s house, specifically, under Bertrand’s refrigerator.

A tunnel is beneath Bertrand’s fridge. It leads to Tallmadge, Ohio -- it ends up in somebody’s basement. There is a man sitting in a chair, wearing a pope’s hat. His name is Anne Killigrew.

Anne asks for the blow dryer, receives it, plugs it in, and blows it in his ear. He tells Bertrand to write what He dictates (Anne is hearing messages from the blow dryer). The message is this: “Gladbrook is very pleasant in the spring. You will meet a woman named Fornax. She will introduce you to Ocrisia, who will in turn shepherd you to your destination.”

Bertrand is in Gladbrook, Iowa. He stands in the middle of a desolate field (no one around). He turns slightly to his left -- a young boy is standing next to him. He says, “I am Ocrisia; I will introduce you to Fornax.”

Bertrand is puzzled. He turns slightly to his right; the same young boy is standing there. He says, “I am Fornax, let me introduce you to Ocrisia.” Then Fornax points to Bertrand’s left. The same boy is still standing to his left. He says, “I am Ocrisia. I will now take you to your destination.”

Ocrisia is suddenly an older woman. Bertrand asks, “Ocrisia?” Ocrisia nods, and then waves her arm towards a home in the distance. They both enter; there is a television on. Bertrand smashes it. Ocrisia takes the pieces and makes a line of broken debris that leads back outside of the home. The line leads to an outhouse.

Inside the outhouse there is a man by the name of David; he just stands in the outhouse. David comes out of the outhouse, Bertrand goes in, and then Bertrand shuts the door.

David and Ocrisia stand for a minute. The door opens -- Bertrand is gone. Ocrisia leads David back into the house. A crowd of silent people are there, standing ever still over a hole where the television was. David jumps into the hole.

David finds himself in a large ballroom. There is another hole in the ground. David jumps into the hole. David finds himself in a warehouse of boxes. He browses the thousands of boxes, on their millions of shelves. He finds three boxes that have words on their fronts. One box reads, “Green Spring, Kentucky.” One box reads, “Red Cloud, Nebraska.” One box reads, “Blue Grass, Iowa.”

David pulls two young girls (about 15 to 17) from an unlabeled box. One girl climbs into “Green Spring” and the other climbs into “Blue Grass.” David climbs into “Red Cloud.”

We find Ocrisia standing over Anne Killigrew. Ocrisia hacks off Anne’s face. Anne calmly scatters into the washing machine (in the basement). A faceless Anne runs down the “washing machine tunnel.” It ends at Bertrand’s fridge in Ugashik, Alaska. Anne finds the young boy Fornax sitting with Rupert’s dead ex-wife. Fornax shoots Anne and pushes his body back into the fridge tunnel.

Fornax gets a Morse code message from the rainfall on Bertrand’s windowsill. It states: “Go to Appomattox.”

Fornax promptly commits suicide with drano. Rupert’s wife then commits suicide with the gun Fornax used to kill Anne. Bertrand arrives home to find the bodies. Ocrisia arrives from the fridge tunnel and commits suicide in front of Bertrand. Rupert arrives from the window and kills Bertrand. David climbs out of the toilet and slaughters Rupert. The two teenage girls (from the warehouse) fall through the ceiling. One kills the other one. The surviving teenage girl goes into the toilet. David commits suicide by hanging himself in the bedroom. A new character walks in the front door, then walks out the back door.

We find ourselves with the surviving teenage girl in a small room. There is a little desk in the middle of the room with a paper form on it. The form says: “Please write your name.” The form has many entries, so the girl writes her own information on the form: “Henry George.”

Henry then climbs and walks through a series of portals: doors in walls, ceilings, floors; a cabinet; under bedsheets; etc. Each place she enters leads to another place of portals and entrances. This continues for a minute or two.

Finally, Henry is back in the warehouse. She slips into her “original” box. She falls into a king-sized bed, ornamented with all kinds of comforts: down pillows, down comforters, peacock plumes, etc. Henry’s room is beautiful and cozy. She becomes drowsy, falling into a deep slumber.

The “new character” (that walked in the front door & exited through the back door) enters her room from beneath the bed. He gets in bed with Henry. The two bodies literally melt & mold into one mutated body.

The phone rings. The new mutated body (without a name) picks up the phone, but never speaks. The body is merely spoken to. [We hear the voice] -- “To find God, go back to Babington’s”

The body (hereafter called “Bob”) arrives at a huge, intricate factory -- the entrance sign reads, “Babington’s.” Bob is crawling towards the entrance, but falls into a concealed pit. Falling, falling, and falling. Then Bob splats into a pudding on a lonesome highway, next to a sign that says, “Zavalla, TX. Pop. 29”

A passing car pulls off onto the shoulder to investigate the “pudding.” There are two people -- an old man and young, blind boy. The old man begins to stir and shift the pudding into a pattern of lines on the ground. Another car pulls up and three people exit. The three gather around the old man. They look inquisitive. Then another car pulls up, more people gather. Then another car, then another, and more people gather. Eventually, a large, silent crowd is gathered around the old man who is twiddling the pudding into patterns, shapes, lines.

The old man abruptly stops, and looks a bit horrified. A man asks, “What does it mean?” The old man pauses, then slaps the blind boy to the ground. The old man shouts, “Tell them, Bertrand! Tell them!” Bertrand remains silent for a minute, and then sobs wildly. As he sobs, he begins to beat the old man to death. Still sobbing, Bertrand begins to eat, slowly, very slowly, the corpse of the old man. He sobs & eats; after some time, the crowd begins to exit. Bertrand is still sobbing, still cannibalizing, as the last person exits.

Snippets

“The world is my sin,” wept a criminal on a cross.

His philosophy reads like a dictionary.

Some cry out, “Let the curtain fall!" when it was, in fact, never raised.It was never raised.”