Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Masker
Monday, December 20th, 2010
I don’t remember the stairs down, or grabbing my coat, or going out, but I’m part of the procession now. Masked and singing, we walk in a line through the snow. We sing the song that I’ve been hearing in my head since I first put on the mask a few weeks ago, the words that came clearer as the solstice approached.
Repeated for hours, the words become nonsense, then seem to mean something else. My fellow marchers are blurred as if by tears, no matter how much I blink, and there are no tracks in the snow but my own and the drummer’s. After a mile or two, I realize I’ve forgotten my name, and every other memory that isn’t about the mask or the procession is a distant as a dream lost on waking. The wind blowing the drummer’s clothes shows he’s skeleton thin. He grins with all his teeth.
I keep singing, even though I don’t know how much sound makes it past my scarf, which is pulled up over my freezing nose. The ghost-wind stings my eyes and there are frozen clumps of tears along the bottom of my mask. If I don’t keep singing, I know they’ll find me in a snowbank when the spring melt comes, and I wonder if that’s who the rest of the marchers are–recipients of the same mask, who sang and marched until the winter overcame them, and can’t help but come back to walk the longest night.
I can’t stop singing the words that are pulled out of me in an unending thread. And I’m running because I can see the sun’s glow, and I keep running, because the procession will end when it’s up, but the sun gets halfway over the horizon, then I swear it’s going down again, and there are hills, each valley a pocket of night, but we charge up the next incline hoping the sun will be higher, and I can’t tell, it should be up by now, I keep running, and then, at the crest of one hill, it’s the moon, not the sun, and I don’t know how many hours we still have to go. The beat of my heart, and the beat of the drum in time with it, slows back to marching. My feet are stumps of ice.
The drummer drums. I march.
The drummer grins. I sing.
Continued tomorrow with “In the Bleak Midwinter.”
Father Time
Wednesday, December 1st, 2010
Once there was a man who realized the days of his life were finite. Unlike others, he decided to do something about it and so paid a visit to Father Time. Back then you could speak to Father Time if you moved in the right circles.
“Father Time,” he said to the greyness, “will you add more days to my life?”
“No,” said Father Time in a faded voice. “But I can lengthen the days.”
“That will do,” said the man. So with his lengthened days the man went on to build giant robots, huge armadas, a vast empire. But soon the man realized he had very few days left, so he went again to Father Time. Back then you could speak to Father Time a second time if you paid the right bribes.
“Father Time,” he said to the crumbling mountains. “Will you again lengthen the days of my life?”
“No,” said Father Time in the voice of the tide. “But I can lengthen the hours.”
“That will do,” said the man. With those lengthened hours he accomplished more: he carved monuments, composed anthems, designed cities. But soon the man realized he had very few hours left, so he went again to Father Time. Back then you could speak to Father Time a third time if you sacrificed the right people.
“Father Time,” he said to the hourglass. “Will you again lengthen the hours of my life?”
“No,” said Father Time in a fleeting voice. “But I can lengthen the minutes.”
“Very well,” said the man. So with those lengthened minutes he did even more: rewrote DNA, split the quark, warped space. But now he had almost no time left at all. “Oh, Father Time,” he cried out, for once you have seen Father Time three times you are old friends with each other’s name in your rolodex, “my time is almost up. Will you again lengthen the minutes remaining to me?”
“No,” said Father Time in a distant voice. “But I can help you know what you should do with the time remaining.”
“That will do,” said the man. So Father Time showed him Death, for the power of Death is to concentrate the mind on what you most fervently needed to accomplish. The man looked into the end and then he knew what he must do.
But now he had no time left at all.