[thisislife]

“The trick,” he began, “is simple.” I could hardly believe so, especially coming from such a withered and taxed man. He worked some moisturizer into his cracking hands as he continued. “You lie in waiting, for what seems like ages. It’s like you’re a snake in a cave. And outside the sun is rising and falling, and the sky is turning about, and night is churning from east to west to east again. But eventually the fire comes to you.”

“Then what?”

“Then it hurts. Fire can’t help but burn. But while you cook and writhe you focus, and deliberately – dreadfully deliberately – you descend. You fall through slaughter.” Then he started to cough and his chest creaked, slamming like a gate in the wind.

And that was the last time I spoke to him. And that was that.

The next time I saw him everything was quiet. All I remember is this: before they closed his eyes, they seemed strangely blackened; before they took him away, he look strangely blistered, as though kissed by cinders.

There are a multitude of maladies that I might surrender myself to–
In truth, the names of despair are legion–
And seated in their long yellow rivers I would wallow my way
To the inevitable confession,
The repentance,
Punishment,
Short, nasty, and sharp;
Deep-seated in my mid-brain I can feel that this is what I crave.

And would it be that I could call out from my lolling tongue:
“These are my bloodied hands!”
And at long last, wandering eastward with every passing winter,
I might return to the seat of purity, the wonders
Of those flowing boundless hills.
But what thirst is left to be satisfied when none remains?
And an inkling in my battle-brain shouts at me to repent
While every fiber of my being roars back in a tidal wave,
A sweeping deluge,
Ripping upstream and apart, through rapids and rip-tides,
And into my eyes whereby I conceived of the strangest things.
And upon waking could remember none.

The names of despair are legion, but the harshest is paradox,
From whose scorn I flee.
But while I quibble and quake between the highest glistening walls
And the gauged sloughing pits, I am starving in the midst of an abyss.
In this space it is the fruit of the basest mind which blossoms,
Unfurling,
And although its nectar is poison
I must eat.

I can see my feet walking in the darkness,
But they are not on the path.
They must not be mine, I tell myself,
But there is nowhere else left to go.

I have seen the world and it is burning;
I have seen my flesh and it is burning;
I have seen the topless towers of Ilium come cascading
Down down down
And burning
To the deepest pit
Is burning
And my eyes
Are burning and opening wider than I have ever known.
But these sockets–
They sputter sparks like an engine
And scatter cinders in spirals.
All this is burning
And this is truth.

I believe myself to be carrying acrid fire.
I can feel it on lonesome days when the rain falls
And my sadness seeps through my legs
Until I cannot get up any more.
Drizzles of gold leaking through my window—
Fear death by water, wreathed in poppling boil.
I smell like dust and ancient things, I like to think,
But perhaps that is merely the bedsheets.
They hold me like tradition.
They are sure in this world
And this is truth.

But my mind is aflame and quivering still;
Take these thoughts from my head: they are burning.
Take these breaths from my lips: they are
Burning.
Take these words from my tongue: they
Are burning
And eating of me
Until there is nothing left
But the vicious want that spits from my lips:
The guttural consonant,
The streams of molt.
This burns me new, but I fear my hunger
And I wish for something to hold on to
Yet still know that nothing is certain.
I have seen the towers of Troy fall
In unwavering defiance to their majesty,
And in short, I was afraid.
I am scared of what might be real in this world,
And this is truth.

I remember the horror in Priam’s eyes
When his world was toppling down.
And on some nights I wake, sultry,
Damp with fear of the fire.

“Hello? Is that Mr. Jeremy Clapham? I’m afraid that I will be requiring your services tonight.”

When Evelyn’s eyes rolled to again, the operation was complete. Jeremy Clapham, pet taxidermist and avid amateur surgeon, had transplanted the courage of eleven or twelve gerbils – we still are not sure if one got away – directly into Mr. Peters’ brain. He gave a few blinks and regarded us wearily.

“Now, Mr. Peters,” I asked him one last time, “what did you want to say? Please do hurry; I am late for dinner and my wife will be furious.”

Evelyn stammered and stuttered and mumbled and gaped, but at last managed to jot out a few minute sounds. “Professor Peach,” he wormingly whispered over the course of a few minutes’ hesitations, “what does your field do? I really have no idea, but am thinking of enrolling in a course or two.”

And at that, I frowned. And I creased. And I regarded this poor young man with a simmering pity as he dripped away in the chair. Already I could see the fear growing in his eyes. (The courage of gerbils is hardly of sterling quality.) But although I knew my time was brief, no answer came. “I am sorry,” I said, “but even I am not certain. The entire field of Razzamatology is devoted to reflexively determining what it, in itself, is.” And although I knew this was hardly a satisfactory response, I had to let Evelyn go.

It was such that I remained in the flicker of the candles while Mr. Evelyn Peters tramped off outside. I do not know if it is just my fancy, but I remember him turning back one last time before disappearing into the streetlamp gloom. The rest of my memory is nothing more than dull flame, and the raindrops that martyred themselves on the upturned collar of his coat.

-END-

I thought of leaving him, but resolved that he would only fester in my cupboards and cause a great mess, and so I was forced to root him out using an ingenious – if I do say so myself – trap composed of a burning watermelon. Sure enough, he was drawn out of the dark and toward the sizzling, succulent flesh of the fruit. (I cannot think of a single man who would not do the same.) After that, the procedure was easy enough: I merely detained him in a bag until he tired himself out – passed out, rather – and then fastened him securely to the aforementioned chair.

He came to when a particularly boisterous gust of thunder rolled through the office. Eyes darting about, heart palpitating rapidly, I was forced to give him a sip of Fireball, and then myself a sip of Fireball, and then him a sip of Fireball again. “Mr. Peters,” I stated with equanimity, looming over the poor soul as Jesus must have loomed over Lazarus – although I’m certain that in his mind it was more akin to Poseidon towering over Aeneas – “what exactly is it that you came to ask me?”

There was no answer. Instead, Evelyn’s face contorted into a sordid mess of sweating stress, the bone-numbing fear preventing him from exuding any utterance. I was about to reach for the pliers when he squeaked nothing more than an undecipherable gasp; still, it was enough to prevent my further interrogation. I had realized what needed to be done. I turned to inform the poor Evelyn of my plans, but the unfortunate thing had passed out again. No matter. I lit a new cigarette and picked up the phone.

He fumbled his way into my office a mere three weeks after enrolling in a course I was teaching. I cannot remember the subject. But I can remember the look on his face as he inched forward across my office floor — it was like a sea cucumber, all damp and terrified. Trying to ease his evident panic at having to face another human being, I offered him a cigarette. It was an hour later that I convinced him to leave the broom cupboard, and resolved to allow him ample time in order to prepare for his interaction with a fellow life-form. While he gathered all reserves of his will I turned up the chandelier and lit a few sticks of incense. He had regressed to merely soggy by the time he opened his mouth to speak.

And alas, no words came. His voice, so terrified from the previous encounter, had gone into shock and was currently on hiatus, not to be returning for a good while yet. He was bewildered by this more than anything, and began to slink off into the shadowy corners of the room. But I gathered myself and swept behind him, cut him off, and ushered him into a chair. “Mr. Peters, Mr. Peters,” I murmured as I adjusted the bulb on the desk lamp, “you seem to have a persistent problem.” But the chair did not respond; although it was slightly damp from Evelyn’s visit, he was no longer in it. Outside the rain drummed apologetically. Some lightning went off self-consciously.

Mr. Peters – Mr. Evelyn Peters – was a milquetoast man of moderate height. He had been abandoned at the age of five for his overtly curious nature, and was adopted by a family of stray cats until they died. At the age of ten he was found in a gutter and promptly sent to the most esteemed boarding school in the Vatican countryside. It was there that he had his curiosity surgically removed; although, in all likeliness, they probably took out a good chunk of his courage as well.

A mere seven years after his operation he had quibbled his way into acceptances from the top universities in the northern hemisphere, but upon realizing that his timidity was not as they thought – they had mistaken it for an introverted cleverness akin to that of the mightiest savants – his offers were revoked and he found himself in the more fitting environment of Bagtown.

It was during a brief stint as Professor Emeritus of Razzamatology at the University of Bagtown that he came to me one hallowed eve. To this day I cannot possibly postulate why he might’ve ventured toward me – perhaps it was merely the glow from my room on such a brumal night – but no matter the reason he managed to sadly wobble into my office, dribbling a pool of blackened water behind him as he entered, rather like a snail. I barely bothered to look up until he began to dampen my Bunsen with his soaked-through self. As the flames soon sputtered and died, darkness began to creep across my table and I found it increasingly difficult to focus on my work; I had no choice but to address the shadowed form before me. Given the circumstance, I could not help but do this with a bitter sigh on my tongue. “I would appreciate it, Mr. Peters, if you would keep the rain outside.” I must have boomed mightily, for he hastily fumbled at his jacked and cast it back into the storm. As he was chasing those watery demons from the room I took the time to light a few candles. He then approached me once again from the doorway.