2004-07-27
In My Own Patch of Eden, I Fall Asleep
It must be difficult to subsist in this dark forest of life, blanketed with the milk-satin light of the night�s arsenic moon. The tips of stark-naked branches scratch the tips of the velvet sky, tearing down stars like two hands would cherry blossoms. Branches snap like skeleton fingers under your feet, and this fiery sensation engulfs your soul like a famished flame. Slowly, it rises up with the piercingly beautiful sound of the violins. How haunting this is, as we walk like a regular Raskolnikov through the bustling streets of Petersburg, and vivid visions reveal themselves to us as we pass alleyways that are now echoing in sheer loneliness.
I fail to bring back February nights stringed and knotted with uncertainty and calmness; my greatest flaw is that I covet these untouchable moments, and covet them dearly. These feelings induce me to have one particular day-dream of myself, kneeling before some white-robed deity, who holds a staff in one hand and rides on her chariot of flaming stars; I kneel and plead with her to help me re-live those moments that are now so dear to me.
As her silver hair sways and becomes stained with shadows of the velvet night, she looks at me piercingly. Her head gives a slight nod, telling me that it is useless. Out of my pockets, I produce remnants of these moments--a ray of the dry summer�s gleaming sun, crisp pages ripped out of Voltaire, and that perfect breeze that seemed to echo the melody Moonlight Sonata. Refusing to hear me, she points her finger toward a gnarled willow tree, where I would spend my days in deep reflection. But I refuse to go and leave these things behind, and in seeing my hesitance, this deity suddenly endows me with a perfect oil-painting. She has asked Renoir to paint those moments for me with his glassy, dream-like, and feathery brushstrokes--made for the welcoming of the rising sun; and in my hands is this quaint picture--a vignette in colour and without words. Staring at it, my greatest pain comes in realizing that there is indeed nothing that can be done. These moments that have passed are now lost--swallowed in time and drowned within the sands of the hourglass. And, no, songs cannot bring them back; morning walks cannot bring them back; passionate soliloquies are not enough, and neither are the tangibles that pose as their reminders.
And so, I yield and walk towards that gnarled willow tree surrounded by a glittering creek. Bullfrogs sing in the background, but the profound darkness does not permit me to see them. The thick night air--tasting of some sweet curry--wraps around me and smothers my face. The soul of nature herself appears before me like an odourless and vapid cloud of smoke--the ringlets taking human shape, and I begin to see the contours of her hand as she wipes away the tears that slowly dance about this untouched skin.
These two apparitions, one nature and the other time, silently tell me something with their stares and hypnotizing gestures. In this dark patch of Eden, provided me by the deity of time, I must sit and understand the cruel actions of life. Laying down, I look up at nature�s deity, and my lips begin to softly tremble--prelude to a tempest of sobs. She smiles warmly and begins to float away, taking time�s deity with her. Before disappearing into the depths of the night, they suddenly turn into two flaming comets bound for infinity. Whispers linger about my ears, and I am asked to make one wish whilst their flaming light still burns brightly in this brilliant sky. Pleadingly, I look at them both, and ask them one thing:
�Drink my salt-drenched tears like you would your ambrosia, and you will have read my story from it�s very beginnings.�
The fire burns out, and I am left sitting on this same patch of Eden, cloaked by the still night. In this place, I fall asleep.
Finally, I awake from my day-dream, which entraps me with its iron bars made of dead echoes. And the only thoughts that comfort me are these: that one day spring birds will chirp the songs of Pavarotti in Bellini�s �I Puritani�, and that one day, the scarlet-engraved covers of this story-book will close. The piano keys sing in the background, and with hands deep in pockets, Raskolnikov continues through the cobblestone streets of Petersburg; and we can continue into this dark, uncharted forest.