Days I shall feel
When, with joy, the eye for the boundless desert fills,
When to a mere multitude the grains transmute,
And dunes ever-changing, exchangeable hills.
Days I shall see
When neighborly vultures flee my persuasion’s feat,
When shadows – once cast – provoke peace at their leave,
And the astral eye enlightens the worlds he meets.
Days I shall smell
When naturally manufactured fragrances dwindle,
When perceptibly desolate, odorful meadows turn,
And unnamed scents – at a resurrecting dawn – enkindle.
Days I shall taste
When grey’s bitter savor – at last – dulls,
When but the meaningful I’m left to revolve,
And empires of exquisite (flavorless) roses fall.
Days I shall hear
When the wind plays in the silence of the screams,
When its ever-present howls light the fire within,
And wisdom I encounter – a ceaseless gleam.
Fox Stories
It was a fortune and an almost certain chance of death for bringing down trees in the Alaskan frost. I think our university peers paid too much attention to the last part. John thought they did not pay enough to the first.
December 25 (Leaving Academia)
As we were departing the known world, the mountains got closer and the trees taller. The ponds laid frozen, the rivers flowing fast. The white of the snow, the blues of the water and sky, and the occasional dark greens of the winter trees took the views. And as I digested the beautiful and heartless ecosystems, I felt the kind of dread that must have driven our species to settle in every corner of the world. A dread drowned in curiosity and thirst for adventure. A feeling to make shaking limbs move forward into the darkness.
But as any action rooted in ignorance, we could not grasp our decision or its consequential product. We were traveling only sighted enough to know our destination and, on the seven days of pilgrimage, for no continuous repetition of an identical sight to lessen our awe at the natural splendors.
We were to arrive with the new year.
Be with me, dear all
My sight will yield to you
Humor me with a world
And with a witness I’ll honor you.
December 28
The first time we camped in meadows, John and I mutely spoke as not to break a stillness we had never heard. It had never occurred to me how overwhelming civilization was. How many stimuli continuously avalanche into a person in the lands of men. And yet, as we dwelled in a shoutless space, the silence was elusive and the moment too dense to seize.
Gift me a dwelling
Of usual splendor,
Mend me forgetful
Of the hunt to render
And such prospect
Will rout as tender.
January 4 (Working with the Brutes)
I saw the foxes and the weariness turned unseeable by the frozen sweat. I felt the winds that slithered through the paths laid by the scattered tree - the gales that tested our jaws’ force-. I think of the women who offered their divine virtues to the wifeless men and the sound of the ax’s blade piercing the mashing oak.
Comfort had been the compass of our way forward. The indicator of the correct succeeding step. And now we fared where our minds served no use, where our shapes proved brittle, and our status was lesser than none. Uneasiness had made its masterpiece on us.
But in those spaces between the swings of metals, the forgetting of the touch of bitter cold in exhalation, the pauses of human movement in the fallings of the giant trees. In those spaces, I felt a faded sense of something. Something both buried deep within me and simultaneously everywhere.
In the chasms of heaven’s hells
My unshackled form achingly sleeps.
For my boughs I despise
Though their fruit I lust to keep
Thus, let bitter words shepherd the nature of thy nature,
For victors of an own war art but lesser losers in truth’s gaze:
Bless all thy sins, for they’ve led you to thyself.
With an ally’s summer zeal embrace thy winter foe.
For thy river dries not from the changing of its sea,
It swills thaws much as heaven showers turned storms.
And raging waters art golden shields for our routes home.
February 5
I imagine it was what I felt in the woods what led to the mysticisms that took our ancestors. The monotonous work in the bone burning cold of the natural splendors. It turns men into the beasts we speak of so foreignly. John rendered their simple manners unworldly; their dismissal of the height of the stacked knowledge of our civilization as clearly the actions of the ignorant. And they were indeed ignorant.
He never joined the brutes in the woods in their strange communions, for they strayed far from what was ours to what was fate’s. He never felt unrest for the moonlight or the enigmatic mountains that preceded it. His existence was never endangered by a swift conclusion or a dreadful episode. But with all his wisdom, I think he never understood existence in his escape from pain. For he who explores nature always betrays it and, in change, comes closer to infinity.
And so, John never heard the stories told within that unknown where we made foxes and fire coexist. But he had learned of many others of the same significance. And thus, he will keep the steady rhythm.
Dawn to dawn, winter sceneries hearts display
For when not, ardor’s brittle meadows nudely lay.
Yet slothful’s the gaze which bears sway
As the veiled construct crumbles the prey.
What’s vainglory at mastery’s greed?
What’s secrecy for warmth’s needed need?
On pillars of Ruth royalty’s charm rests not,
For golden crowns on dull hairs merely rot.
February 15 (The Fox Stories)
Many stories were sung and told in the night. Stories which I can scarcely remember yet their message certainly bear. Simple stories about things that were once felt and heard and seen, stories that in their lack of abstraction were unquestionably honest. Tales of foxes and wolves and heroes and warriors and travelers and common men and women. And although no prose lingered in my mind to be precisely transcribed, one was sung enough to be engraved in my memory:
Now,
Run from me
You fleeing smile.
Run from times
Made time worthwhile.
Burn your bones
With fleeting stones.
Light your lights
With fleeting fights.
Trust the flame
That kept you sane.
Lust the name.
Eat the shame.
But dear,
Don’t fear.
What’s time without us here?
And so, as we marched back to our beds, we were only left with the silence of the mountains and the fresh recollection of the tales to be reflected upon our lives. And in our dreams, our minds would wander free to attempt the recited feats. And in our wake, our bones would renew and our souls be born anew.
March 19 (leaving the brutes)
As we departed once again to the countryside into civilization, the ponds had thawed, the rivers flowing fast. The brutes farewelled us with great gratitude for the time that we had shared but did not attempt to extend it. They had lived too long in the wild to force a fixed plan upon a destiny that already came with much grandeur.
And now as I return, the steady sights are no longer foreign and the lingering route is no walk into the darkness. The discomfort that had once dominated my peace was now absent. And when the stillness of rest crosses the tenderness of beauty, I sink softly and deep. The moment an engulfing sea. And as I become detached from my desires and passions, I lay as nothing palpable or present, like an energy, a boundless shaping and reshaping source of transcendence. And for a second there is just the essence of everything, a grand common denominator rendered magnificent through the vessel of my mind.
June 15
Like leaves of the same root, everything and everyone a child of the same source. The brutes lived to die well, they walked to the rhythm written by a trillion lives before them. They did not become untangled in humanity’s entanglements to which our people had succumbed. And from this status I had embraced an unspoken doctrine and felt it grow ever more securely within me. And instead of corrupting the structures granted by divine academia, they folded and refined one another. And so, my mind was a demigod, a mixture of the men that were and the mankind that will once be. And as I gazed at the stars, I laid easy in this threshold.
The Light drops, the Night falls
- memories are all.
Moments enlarge,
And the hush fills the voice of Light.
He walks the forest.
What can he do but fall?
And he screams,
It’s bittersweet,
The agony he casts.
A feather escapes the bow,
Red fills the skies.
Death kills the wolves,
And he is alive.
“Kill the man
Who sleeps untouched
From the great showers
Of God’s undone.
Give him thy force,
thy power,
thy strength.
to move himself from this forsaken state”
A dry savanna dominates the scene. The faded outline of a mountain range on the horizon is overshadowed by the dominant pale color of the grass painting the landscape below. Which in turn is overshadowed by the immensity of the cloudless sky above them. On rocks scattered throughout the field, symbols in black are drawn. In a corner, the greatness of a vast city is betrayed by how far it is viewed from, as one can only tell a collection of large buildings in pristine white, surrounded by a meandering wall. [Visit Shibam]
A grey horse is galloping with a woman at her back. The woman carries a rifle of the narrowness and length of a spear, on its long barrel, strips of cloth with words written on them dance in the wind like the whiskers of a Japanese Dragon. She wears a thick red poncho the gales struggle to flutter, and her head is wrapped in a tight, thin, black cloth topped with a boregheh mask around her eyes.
Another horse joins her, the boy on its back wears an outfit akin to a Guacho with red cloth around his waist to his hip, a white shirt, and wide trousers. Equally, on his head, he wears the same mask and cloth.
They are chasing a man riding a motorcycle closer to a bicycle in structure. He wears wide cotton pants and tall boots. His naked arms are tattooed in even black and his chest is bare.
His terror, anxiety, and frustration are only equaled by the calmness with which the woman lifts her rifle and poncho and presses the trigger once, releasing not a bullet but a loud click. Then the horses halt, the broken bike motor stops its humming and in between them the body of their victim lays as if sleeping.
The desert is silent for a moment before the riders step down, first the woman, then the kid. They approach the body slowly. As the woman flips him over, the kid lingers a few steps behind until she withdraws a green dagger from a crease in her poncho. The kid impulsively grabs its handle but grows meek as he draws closer to the body, coming to a complete stop with a few inches between the man’s heart and the tip of the blade. The victim’s eyes are closed, his cheeks red, his breathing and skin soft. He forcefully plunges the dagger into his beating heart, his breath is drawn from his lungs, his limbs tighten, and his open eyes adopt a penetrating look into those of the kids in his last expression of life before taking the form of an object, not a person, but a thing.
The kid draws the dagger out slowly and tremblingly. The woman removes the blade from his weak grip and then grabs tenderly the back of his neck. He then softly directs his words to him.
Fume:
“Go ready my horse for him.”
The student and teacher walk along Loway Street on the subterranean levels of Tengshi. They wear leather braces on their shoulders, to which a thick rod is attached, and between them lies a sarcophagus in a fetal position, carrying the body of their victim. They have lost their black hoods, and the woman is no longer wearing her poncho. The floor of the street consists of thick glass panels beneath which a river-like stream flows, teeming with specially bred bioluminescent algae that cast a cyan neon glow on the bustling street above. The city was once a grid plan of Art Nouveau and Art Deco mansions, each block featuring courtyards at its center. Now, however, it serves as a reminder of a beauty that has faded, replaced by products of necessity. Many structures have become a maze only decipherable by its residents who mostly deem the city’s orgy of light and tumult as beautiful as oppressive. Within the businesses that littered the streets, the orange flicker of torches and candles mixes with the blue glimmer of the road to reveal fast food shops, pleasure lounges, taverns, medics, barbers, and baths. Hagglers and pedestrians stare at the boy and man, as well as their cargo, until they lose sight of them inside a temple with an intricate facade at its entrance.
Within, blue rock adorns walls and vivid frescoes its curved ceiling and black, yellow, and red stone lay below their feet arranged in patterns. In the greeting room, a white-bearded man dressed in a black tunic approaches them alongside five sturdy men wearing white skirts and intricately adorned bandages covering their eyes, rendering them blind.
The teacher:
“Fume of Zeno”
The student:
“David of Ghan”
A glowing gleam shines through the thin halls at the center of the chambers. The teacher and student put the sarcophagus down, the old man opens it and touches the lifeless body’s fatal wound, he then closes it and directs his words at the guests with a Latin accent.
Old man:
“perseverare”
They follow the path of a stone corridor the width of a man. On the other side, women with four-faced masks tend to ponds of illuminating fish in the nude while around them barren earth lays surrounded by white pebbles of marble reflecting against a beam of light coming from the following corridor. Crossing the room, young men with long manes and overgrown beards scurry into doors at either side while entirely ignoring the women and guests.
They follow the light originating from the next corridor.
In the next room, sunlight shines down from a circular hole in the ceiling. Right below, at its center, an almond tree sprigs - its hanging leaves shaping the cast shadows in the rest of the small chamber. There, bioluminescent stone pervades the walls, giving life to otherwise dark corners. In front of the tree, a fire burns atop a bronze pedestal, adorned with shining silver. In the shadow of the tree, women dressed in simple red tunics, fashioning long hoop earrings, read from large, heavy books. Horizontal tattoos mark the corners of their eyes, and red circles the back of their hands; their arms are bare. Another woman appears from the shadows, wearing a blue tunic and thick tattoos under her eyes, lips, and neck. Her hair is buzzed, and she carries the smile of a drunk. Without speaking, she approaches Fume and picks up the knife, then she approaches the tree and creates an incision in it, letting the sap of the tree mix with the dry blood on the blade. She sets the metal against the fire and cleans it with a rag, then grabs a walnut and cracks it open with the knife, laying it at the threshold of the blade and feeding it into David's mouth. His swallow is preceded by his prostration at her feet.
The priestess moves to his ear as a mother to a son, and with a casual and caring tone, speaks into his ear.
“Here, child, you prostrate to the sight unburdened by the transcendence that suffocates lesser men, as you have felt the warmth of its nascent flame. No cause is more arduous nor more fruitful than the evergreen burden of the nursing of that flame.
From now, you will be called a name not of you, you will have desires not of your making. Your memories will be like sweat in frost and you will look upon your duty like a wave to an ocean.
Loose yourself to that duty, delude yourself in the cleansing of those who delude the spirit of man. Cast them to the kingdom of beasts to the mold they have crafted and in the morn when your shape calls scavengers you will be the wind and the mountains and the rivers and the flame, for you have done as a Kami and the sight will not err in the gifts to his own mettle.
Lay and your blood will run and your soul judged faithfully.
Rise and tender will his eye be upon you, rise and you will become a Kaeru.”
David stands.
The priestess speaks as she gives the knife to David.
“Nurse that flame afire”
A bunker gate opens on the outskirts of Tengshi, letting in the light and out the protagonists; they stop at its threshold waiting for the opening mechanism to complete.
Fume:
“There is no use in worrying about things I will not mention”.
David:
“There is rain coming”.
Fume:
“What?”
David:
“Can you not smell the soil?”
Fume:
“Yes. Let’s go.”.
Cut to the inside of a round building nested organically in an oasis, fashioning a spiraling and curved entrance like a conch shell. Its subtle curves are made with bricks angled and protruding sharply at the bends, forming waves of terra cotta. Missing bricks in the patterns allow light into the interior of the building. At its zenith, and akin to the temple, an oculus lies unreinforced, yet instead of a walnut tree, directly below a large conversation chair grows out of the lapis lazuli from which the floor is built, with the two protagonists sitting at either side stoically. Surrounding the inside perimeter of the building, faded yellow stools protrude from the wall. A man and a woman slowly converse as they take their positions on the stool. On the side of Fume (west), older men and the woman, dressed like Shinto priests, sit, while young men in different variations of Gaucho uniforms of varying earth colors sit on the side of David (east). On the north and south side, two men with black facially exaggerated masks and black tunics sit cross-legged on cushions while writing in small typewriters.
Clamor turns to silence and the shifting of the typewriters starts the proceeding. One of the masked man commences it.
“Council is now the formalization of David of Ghan. This endeavors chronological review his deeds and nature.
Council! Directness and objectivity to the formalizee. Sacredness of our assortment.”
A pause.
‘Begin’
A middle-aged man speaks from the side facing the boy.
“In the winter of the 3rd year of the 75th virgins, our party arrived at the refuge for unhoused youths in the Valley prefecture. Their numbers had dwindled from the drought and harsh winter of the previous year, yet surprisingly, we found our task successful.”
Cut to 5 raggedy looking children.
“There were 3 days of behavioral and physical evaluation on the grounds. We ultimately settled on five kids aged 8 to 12. Him being the youngest. A conversation with his caretakers revealed he had been there for 6 years and had been mute for the first two. A Christian family had found him half dead wandering through the Ghan grasslands. They named him David.”
“His tutors described him as astute but not smart. His doctor as sickly but perseverant. His peers highlighted his introspective personality and shyness. His main caretaker, alternatively, almost solely highlighted his boundless curiosity. His subpar preliminary physical evaluation was significantly offset by his skill to endure distress on the mental tasks.”
In a barren rocky landscape, David prays, engulfed by fog.
“On the way to the mountain, he spoke very little but prayed often.”
An old man speaks from the side facing Fume.
“During his time at the foothills, he alienated himself from the rest of his comrades. He was a slow learner, at least a week behind the rest of the group, and often fainted from physical exertion. His only redeeming quality was his refusal to give up or die, which kept him on the roster. While his contemporaries were forming packs and alliances to hunt the game that would graduate them up the plateau, David went into the wild with only his Ulter as soon as he was given it”.
“Six months later, on the morning of January 6, David appeared from the fog with a slain lioness on his shoulders and immediately collapsed at the feet of a guard. A week later, after his recovery, he graduated to the plateau".
A younger man, facing David, asks him:
“How does a boy kill a lion?”.
Cut to a young David kneeling in the snow, the tip of his dagger pressed against his beating heart, his eyes closed.
Cut back.
David looks at him expressionless.
“You aim for the heart.”
The young man chuckles.
Lejart’s Interlude I:
Henri Lejart was born to Marie Lejart and Louis Mortaper in the spring of 1777 inan affluent stone house in the outskirts of Melun, a small commune a day's walk from Paris and sharing the waters of the river Seine with the city that overshadowed it both culturally and politically. He was the first child of a stoic mother who he did not remembered holding any occupation apart from her solitary devotion to him and her five children out of which only a brother and a sister would survive long enough for him to call them so. Throughout his boyhood, his tutors described him as astute but never smart and his doctors as sickly but perseverant. His brother and sister pointed to his artistry in lies and his impulsivity in his disdain for injustice. His mother, alternatively, almost solely highlighted his boundless curiosity. For reasons that he later deduced originated from the bitterness that is born from love and then betrays it, his father was almost never in their life after the early death of his second son and apart from a guilt-born yearly stipend to keep the family just above the poorest of the third state, he was immaterial to their everyday life until his death in the winter of 1788. All he knew of him was his occupation as either a Commodore of the French Navy or a Sargent in the King’s army although Henri would never know exactly as a consequence of a facade of disinterest he maintained as to not open a sore wound which remained for his and Marie’s entire relationship as both unspoken and perpetually palpable.
It was the time and consequence of this death which came to coincide and be transformed by the larger streams of history from a horribly timed tragedy to a synchronized fortune in the following years of his Henri’s still young life.
