A man picked up a stick and threw it in the direction of a dog who then ran in the direction of a man feeding squirrels who then ran in the direction of a woman with a large purse who then ran in the direction of a mail carrier, all the while running in the shadow of a hawk that flapped twenty yards above her. For a moment it appeared as if the hawk were on her shoulder. Then it disappeared. The man looked up just as the hawk collided with its reflection in the sixth floor window and plunged to the sidewalk below, directly in front of the mail carrier. He jumped and letters burst from his mailbag and fluttered away in the breeze.
Lars shook his head. "I wouldn't have known it if I hadn't been thinking about it. And then, I couldn't believe what I knew." He takes a sip of his coffee. The waitress walks by, looking the other way, heading to the cash register. She stumbles on the edge of the carpet and drops her tray. Somewhere, a dog barks.I ask him what he is talking about.
"You didn't hear? There is an archaeological dig next to our apartment building. They want to build another high-rise on the site."
"I haven't heard."
"I can hear the hammers all day, pounding on the rocks, chipping at the clay. I can't sleep. They split open another boulder and out waft the prehistoric molecules, the cholera and plague and decadence and it makes its way up the ventilation shafts into my room. My eyes water.""I haven't heard."
I look at his tired, sad eyes, drooping like a basset hound, the membranes below the eyes thick and red, like a second set of lids. His face melts down from his eyes like a candle, the fat accumulating like wax on a deepening frown. I look out the window and everyone looks tired. "Yes."
"At first it was random, aimless hammering. It blended in with the street noise, the rapid fire of doors and truck concussions that shake the windows, trains rocketing past, the horn blasts, bursts of raging wheels and distress calls, whistles and cat-calls and yelps. The war of sound." He rubs his eyes. "And it blended in with the apartment noise. The hundreds of television sets tuned to hundreds of disparate stations yammering simultaneously in a random, purposeless way. No selection. Nothing to hear." He looked out the window at a loud truck that had passed by the window several times in the past hour. "Do I make sense?"
"I couldn't hear you - the truck -"
"Exactly." He rubs his forehead. "Well, now it doesn't sound the same."
"It sounds the same to me."
"No, I mean the hammering - "
"Too loud." The truck idles at the stoplight.
"Right. About two months ago I noticed that each hammer had a distinct sound. Then I noticed that each hammer would take its turn pounding. Then I noticed that they seemed to be hammering in response to each other, like Morse Code. Then, about three weeks ago, they developed a rhythm, a sort of samba, at times even a bossa nova. This has gone on ever since. Today, I swear, they were playing 'Chega de Saudade'."
His face brightens and he begins to hum the tune. I look out the window and see a man pounding on his car horn. Lars stops singing and the man stops honking. He looks at the man in the car and the man in the car looks in the direction of a police car which slides into a telephone pole, setting off its siren. Lars mutters the last lines:
I do not want this thing anymore
Of you living without me
Let us quit this thing
Of you living without me
His face begins to sag again. I ask, "So have they found anything?"
"Have you heard a word I have been saying? They found samba, music, harmony."
"But have you been down to see them?"
"Sure."
"And what do they say?"
"Not much, just a lot of talk about the landscape before the city came along."
"What have they found?"
His face darkens. "They say this was once a savanna - open woodlands with oak, ash, juniper and elm and interspersed prairie with lazy creeks beneath big cottonwood trees. They found lots of bison bones, plano and folsom points, tipi rings, bison wallows. They say the land swarmed with antelope, mule deer, elk, wolves, coyotes, bighorn sheep, prairie dogs, black and grizzly bear, bobcat, prairie chickens, ferruginous hawks, sage grouse, snow geese." He puts his head in his hands. "I don't know what it means, but it sounds beautiful."
"What happened?"
"This." He gestured with his hand across the urban skyline.
"And what about their singing?"
"Ah, the fools, they deny the whole thing - they say I am hearing things."
"I couldn't hear you - the truck -"
"Exactly." He rubs his forehead. "Well, now it doesn't sound the same."
"It sounds the same to me."
"No, I mean the hammering - "
"Too loud." The truck idles at the stoplight.
"Right. About two months ago I noticed that each hammer had a distinct sound. Then I noticed that each hammer would take its turn pounding. Then I noticed that they seemed to be hammering in response to each other, like Morse Code. Then, about three weeks ago, they developed a rhythm, a sort of samba, at times even a bossa nova. This has gone on ever since. Today, I swear, they were playing 'Chega de Saudade'."
His face brightens and he begins to hum the tune. I look out the window and see a man pounding on his car horn. Lars stops singing and the man stops honking. He looks at the man in the car and the man in the car looks in the direction of a police car which slides into a telephone pole, setting off its siren. Lars mutters the last lines:
I do not want this thing anymore
Of you living without me
Let us quit this thing
Of you living without me
His face begins to sag again. I ask, "So have they found anything?"
"Have you heard a word I have been saying? They found samba, music, harmony."
"But have you been down to see them?"
"Sure."
"And what do they say?"
"Not much, just a lot of talk about the landscape before the city came along."
"What have they found?"
His face darkens. "They say this was once a savanna - open woodlands with oak, ash, juniper and elm and interspersed prairie with lazy creeks beneath big cottonwood trees. They found lots of bison bones, plano and folsom points, tipi rings, bison wallows. They say the land swarmed with antelope, mule deer, elk, wolves, coyotes, bighorn sheep, prairie dogs, black and grizzly bear, bobcat, prairie chickens, ferruginous hawks, sage grouse, snow geese." He puts his head in his hands. "I don't know what it means, but it sounds beautiful."
"What happened?"
"This." He gestured with his hand across the urban skyline.
"And what about their singing?"
"Ah, the fools, they deny the whole thing - they say I am hearing things."
1 comments:
It is not the sound of the singing over mighty performance,
And it is not the sound of the singing of defeat;
It is the sound of other singing that I am hearing.
Storytelling at it's best. Stooges in an old movie about the end of the world as we know it. Lars is a true conglomerate character. Stoic world-weary faces non-reactive to noise and catastrophe in the immediate environment is what I am talking about. Like the cowboy cleaning his chaps with gasoline and lighting a smoke: WHOOM! Man, you look ten pounds lighter! Like the toothless old man maniacally going on about nothing. It doesn't make any sense and when people DON'T laugh and when they DON'T get it is when it is so funny I can't bear it for more than a few minutes. There is something soul-splitting hysterical in the bedrock of life. There is a straight guy neuron and the crazy neuron in my brain and when they fire at once, look out.
I spoil the moment with words of analysis, I know. That's why I can't sing, play musical instruments, or play games appropriately. I am discordant, off-key, and off-beat with the rhythm; a lousy drummer. Give me three chords and a mid-tempo steady beat. Like a child running from one thing to another, from red to blue to yellow; there is no you. There is only me.
So there is the manic-depressive anxiety dissonance that is the molten iron core and mantle of our being providing the magnetic orientation of bipolar north and south. In several thousand years it somehow reverses. Upon this lake of fire the whole land and sea scape of life floats and slides around this blue ball in the middle of nowhere. Never is that more clear than experiencing an early morning earthquake in the mountains out west when the sound and feel of massive rocks colliding awakens the entire family, shaking the foundations.
Above and below conscious thought are the simple, mundane, and comforting complexities that surpass even universal languages requiring the articulation of a mega-language. The end of words. Awakened by the primitive realization and endless implications of the truth that God has subjected His limitless Self to the limitations of His own Laws, although He Himself is the Judge rather than the doer of the Law and is, in that sense, above the Law. Here below I am a dreaming child. When will I wake up? When shall I grow up?
At 0500AM the radio alarm pierces the night like a sunbeam with the familiar sound and feel of our song. This moment brings tears of mourning over what was, what might have been, until they are dried by the internal combustion engine firing up across the street driving the perpetual well-driving operation pounding away all day, every day. Jim Morrison punctuates the organ solo of When The Music's Over: Cancel my subscription to the resurrection. The chthonian broadcast reminds the Hebrew slaves Egypt needs more bricks.
For timeless eternity I was alone. For billions of years there was only you and me. Suddenly, there appeared in extreme close-up the craggy face of "Reverend" Larson croaking, God has been looking for you for a long time! The Liar, exposed by his his own lies and covetous desires, self-righteously cleared the courtroom accusing you of deception and damnable heresies for telling the truth. The village idiot received an education. The town drunk sobered up. What was lost had been found. The sleeper must awaken.
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