Cindy was not going anywhere physically at the moment so she put her Jane Austin book down and smoothed her skirt (as one of the eighteenth century ladies would have done)sat up straight, cast her eyes out inward and went to Rome. She pulled hard to open the door of this particular Catholic Church. Once in, all peacefulness surrounded her. It was a Tuesday so only a few women were kneeling off to the side dropping coins in metal boxes and lighting candles for aid in their journey through time. Cindy admired their faith in the unseen powers they aligned themselves with. She thought, as a daily routine I need to give thanks, light a candle, feel at peace. That would be good. Cindy had physically been in this small cathedral before many years ago and felt a need to move her mind there now. She was waiting for a bus that would take her only to known places with only corporeal concerns. Reading the slow, breathing pace of Jane Austin moved her spirit into a certain quietude that allowed her to go to this place and in her mind and now she was there.
The sculpture of Saint Teresa in ecstasy was in its wooden sarcophagus to the left in the front of the church. Cindy first genuflected and sat in the ninth pew to absorb this amazing place. Carved roses were all over the ceiling as if petals might fall on and around you at any second. It rained roses the day Saint Teresa died. Roses were everywhere. Roses were lying in vases in various states of life and decay. They were next to the candles, in the paintings, by the pews, on the columns. Of all the roses in the church none surpassed the roses carved in the sky. With her eyes shut Cindy could feel their velvet petals skimming her face as they fell to the ground. CindySleigh opened her eyes and brushed the soft pink and pure white roses off of her gray muslin dress on to the floor and decided to walk to the altar to visit with Saint Teresa.
As CindySleigh made her way down the aisle in her bare feet she felt the rose petals pressing down with each step releasing the cold, strong aroma roses are known for. At the altar Cindy turned left and knelt down on the low cushion and consumed Saint Teresa with her eyes. She lay in marble, stark white and static, but somehow so alive with her head tilted back and her mouth slightly open. She truly was in ecstasy. Fingers spread, surrounded with soft undulating folds of fabric exquisitely carved soft.
Cindy then watched her with her heart. Her marble eyes did not open. Saint Teresa did not move her arm and place it over CindySleigh to comfort her. However, Cindy could most decidedly feel and hear and see the beat of her heart pulsing ever so slightly from under the surface of her marble chest. She let herself melt into this moment, cherishing how alive this sculpture was and in comparison how dead the living can be. Cindy had no idea how much time she passed there. She quietly touched her arm, said farewell and walked away. CindySleigh calmly stood up and smoothed her eighteenth century muslin, walked forward with grace and climbed onto the waiting bus.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Thursday, May 13, 2010
The Bleached Horse (A part of Blank but I don't know where yet)
Her nostrils flared as she clomped her hoof into the loose sand moving the grains about with no outcome expected. She shook her mane and the bleached hair moved like liquid lightning on either side of her long head. Lifting her eyes up to the sky she stared at the round white disc of the sun, so bright it made the sky chalk white. Her body was so scorched that it no longer had color. The relentless sun ever so slowly made its way across the sky. Her body tried to shake off the afternoon heat and beads of sweat went flying into the sand sizzling and they evaporated as they hit.
She closed her eyes and felt the heat blurring the edges between her and the sand. She snorted and pounded what should be ground, swished her tail in dismay, reared up to the sky and cried out in the only voice she had announcing her rage at that day, at all days. Then she began to gallop. Not walk, trot or canter. She ran sinking in sand as she climbed the dunes of the desert making her way up and down the hills. Waves of heat were vibrating all around her. The edges of her body kept shifting, fading and still she ran. There was no destination, no hope. Only the constant, enduring pounding of hooves sliding down the dunes only to bound up yet another hill to nowhere.
Cindy saw her from a distance. A purple shadow extending down from each of her four hooves creating an exaggerated version of her elegant shape as she lunged forward again and again into the bright, white landscape empty but yet filled with the heat of the afternoon. Cindy was fascinated, seeing this beast randomly flailing about without purpose or path. She stood very still and called out to the half demented white on white creature. CindySleigh silently called to the horse with her arms reaching out in front of her, straight and forward. She willed with all her heart...come to me.
She turned her head and shook her mane and met Cindy with a blue eye that bore in it all emotions. They were the swords of her state of mind. Cindy returned her piercing stare with unblinking but diffuse gray eyes of her own. CindySleigh kept her arms stretched far out in front of her and in that quiet eternity she beckoned her to come, she pleaded her to come and she commanded her to come. An invisible tunnel was between them for though they were separate, they were one.
The Bleached Horse could hear the silent calling of CindySleigh. She tried to shake off Cindy's stare. She reared up yet again, letting her voice and body express the rage that kept her moving without destination. Ghostly lines surrounded The Bleached Horse, blurring her edges with waves of heat. She faced Cindy and cried out against her loving command. When her hooves hit the ground she found herself galloping at full speed towards Cindy's open arms. The sand under her shifted as if to help her. Like the splitting of the sea the sand pulled away from her on either side to make her way truly clear.
Cindy began to panic. This horse must weigh in at fifteen hundred pounds and was headed straight for her. She was sure this horse from hell was going to run her down and just keep on going but Cindy did not move one inch from where she stood and her arms were open as if for an embrace. Time moved. The sun had made its journey and now was low on the horizon creating a brilliant fuchsia-orange light across the dunes. the shadows were deep as the night that was approaching as quickly as the horse was running. Cindy was sweating from the heat of the moment with great fear and anticipation.
As if in slow motion, as the uppermost arc of the sun disappeared below the horizon line the lapis lazuli blues of twilight appeared. The time when all white turns different shades bluer than blue. The stars were beginning to make their appearance known, even though they shine just as brightly during the day repeating what we see and do not see but is always there. All this in the few seconds of the bounding horse and a woman standing, frozen in her spot, hands forward, shaking slightly, wondering the where, how and why of all.
The Bleached Horse stopped immediately in front of CindySleigh with its head dipped down so she would be between Cindy's arms. The sand billowed around them both making clouds of light blue that floated around the two of them and through them making them seem a little less solid, a little less real. Cindy tilted her head back and forth slowly so she could see the eyes of the horse on either side of her head. One eye was palest blue and the other the black of a moonless night. The blue eye showed Cindy a reflection of the confusion and disarray of her past life. A mirror with the illusion of reality, even though reversed, like theater presenting itself as truth. Then Cindy tilted the other way and looked into the black eye of the horse for what seemed a very long time. CindySleigh was pulled into the space which seemed a vortex to a possible world she could feel but could not see. The black eye was like a vacuum pulling Cindy into the unknown.
The Bleached Horse stomped its front hooves and Cindy stomped her feet in return. She shook her mane and snorted and Cindy shook her white head of hair and laughed. The dust died down and they were left with the night and the stars and each other. CindySleigh walked over and very gently patted the horses back. A shiver ran down both of their spines. Cindy took her brush and began to methodically brush The Bleached Horse. She brushed the hair from her eyes, she brushed the sweat from her brow and she brushed the sand from her coat. Cindy plaited her tail into a braid as one might a child, a four legged one that towers over you but raw and innocent in all its emotions. Cindy looked into the blue eye of The Bleached Horse and revisited her past with bewilderment. Cindy then switched to the other eye finding the black vision leading to a place of solace and peace. "Thank you for coming to me," she said out loud for CindySleigh had been missing her rage and terror and ecstasy and love in the desert for a very long time.
She closed her eyes and felt the heat blurring the edges between her and the sand. She snorted and pounded what should be ground, swished her tail in dismay, reared up to the sky and cried out in the only voice she had announcing her rage at that day, at all days. Then she began to gallop. Not walk, trot or canter. She ran sinking in sand as she climbed the dunes of the desert making her way up and down the hills. Waves of heat were vibrating all around her. The edges of her body kept shifting, fading and still she ran. There was no destination, no hope. Only the constant, enduring pounding of hooves sliding down the dunes only to bound up yet another hill to nowhere.
Cindy saw her from a distance. A purple shadow extending down from each of her four hooves creating an exaggerated version of her elegant shape as she lunged forward again and again into the bright, white landscape empty but yet filled with the heat of the afternoon. Cindy was fascinated, seeing this beast randomly flailing about without purpose or path. She stood very still and called out to the half demented white on white creature. CindySleigh silently called to the horse with her arms reaching out in front of her, straight and forward. She willed with all her heart...come to me.
She turned her head and shook her mane and met Cindy with a blue eye that bore in it all emotions. They were the swords of her state of mind. Cindy returned her piercing stare with unblinking but diffuse gray eyes of her own. CindySleigh kept her arms stretched far out in front of her and in that quiet eternity she beckoned her to come, she pleaded her to come and she commanded her to come. An invisible tunnel was between them for though they were separate, they were one.
The Bleached Horse could hear the silent calling of CindySleigh. She tried to shake off Cindy's stare. She reared up yet again, letting her voice and body express the rage that kept her moving without destination. Ghostly lines surrounded The Bleached Horse, blurring her edges with waves of heat. She faced Cindy and cried out against her loving command. When her hooves hit the ground she found herself galloping at full speed towards Cindy's open arms. The sand under her shifted as if to help her. Like the splitting of the sea the sand pulled away from her on either side to make her way truly clear.
Cindy began to panic. This horse must weigh in at fifteen hundred pounds and was headed straight for her. She was sure this horse from hell was going to run her down and just keep on going but Cindy did not move one inch from where she stood and her arms were open as if for an embrace. Time moved. The sun had made its journey and now was low on the horizon creating a brilliant fuchsia-orange light across the dunes. the shadows were deep as the night that was approaching as quickly as the horse was running. Cindy was sweating from the heat of the moment with great fear and anticipation.
As if in slow motion, as the uppermost arc of the sun disappeared below the horizon line the lapis lazuli blues of twilight appeared. The time when all white turns different shades bluer than blue. The stars were beginning to make their appearance known, even though they shine just as brightly during the day repeating what we see and do not see but is always there. All this in the few seconds of the bounding horse and a woman standing, frozen in her spot, hands forward, shaking slightly, wondering the where, how and why of all.
The Bleached Horse stopped immediately in front of CindySleigh with its head dipped down so she would be between Cindy's arms. The sand billowed around them both making clouds of light blue that floated around the two of them and through them making them seem a little less solid, a little less real. Cindy tilted her head back and forth slowly so she could see the eyes of the horse on either side of her head. One eye was palest blue and the other the black of a moonless night. The blue eye showed Cindy a reflection of the confusion and disarray of her past life. A mirror with the illusion of reality, even though reversed, like theater presenting itself as truth. Then Cindy tilted the other way and looked into the black eye of the horse for what seemed a very long time. CindySleigh was pulled into the space which seemed a vortex to a possible world she could feel but could not see. The black eye was like a vacuum pulling Cindy into the unknown.
The Bleached Horse stomped its front hooves and Cindy stomped her feet in return. She shook her mane and snorted and Cindy shook her white head of hair and laughed. The dust died down and they were left with the night and the stars and each other. CindySleigh walked over and very gently patted the horses back. A shiver ran down both of their spines. Cindy took her brush and began to methodically brush The Bleached Horse. She brushed the hair from her eyes, she brushed the sweat from her brow and she brushed the sand from her coat. Cindy plaited her tail into a braid as one might a child, a four legged one that towers over you but raw and innocent in all its emotions. Cindy looked into the blue eye of The Bleached Horse and revisited her past with bewilderment. Cindy then switched to the other eye finding the black vision leading to a place of solace and peace. "Thank you for coming to me," she said out loud for CindySleigh had been missing her rage and terror and ecstasy and love in the desert for a very long time.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
The Shadow we call Death
Death was following CindySleigh. Cindy was not afraid for herself. Her instinct told her that the scythe was not intended for her right now, today. No body can see any further than that. Death was in its traditional hooded black garb carrying the mightily sharpened scythe that showed no favor to wealth, age, pleading, love, though it seems to like chess(according to Bergman). His blade can cut quickly through your current breath or step. Sometimes he will slowly reshape your body until you no longer are who you are. Pain can be constant or intermittent if he chooses a longer timetable for you. Death can come within a second’s moment of the shiny, silver blade slicing your throat and stop...dropping his deadly weapon and calmly walking away leaving you seeing the world in which all the flowers were in constant bloom.
Cindy could watch him behind her by turning her head slightly using peripheral vision. Left back, then right back she would slowly move her head seeing a shadow that expanded to the horizon on both sides behind her. It was not an ordinary shadow. It was not attached to any object or person or even to death itself. It was a shadow as deep a void as the ocean on a moonless night. Its darkness included the hollow sound of waves that you could hear but not see. Its darkness had sparks of phosphorescence like bright green veins of electricity. Its darkness is the empty you sometimes feel just under your solar plexus that has no explanation. Its darkness is something worth running from though you can never out pace it.
So Cindy walked slowly as running was to no avail. Death continued to slowly move forward, though slightly behind her, keeping time to her gait. She was conscious of soft crashing of waves of water, the ground falling away behind her turning into black, endless black, with no up or down or left or right. Occasionally acid green crooked streaks flashed quickly and then disappeared like all of the earth that disappeared when the shadow approached. Sometimes Cindy would get a glimpse of the silver, curved line of the scythe and she would sense the gliding movement of this phenomenon that was the knowledge we ignore most of life, Death.
Cindy stepped back with her left foot, stood in a horse stance, shifted her weight and turned one hundred and eighty degrees. She had her right hand out to block defending herself against the undefendable. She stared straight into the void and flashing green veins lit scenes, like a stilted film. A beautiful six foot four man waiting and smiling as Cindy ran full force into his arms and he lifted her like a feather and hugged her laughing at her silliness. He was falling from a very tall window, the wind rushing timelessly by him, then nothing. A lovely round woman in an above ground swimming pool filled with iridescent bubbles laughing with glitter around her eyes and all the colors and smells too bright and clear for ordinary life. In a bed, speaking so softly as she changed. Surrounded by many so touched with love for her, then nothing. A story telling, giggling Irishman with always a glass and always the time for one in need that would come to Cindy’s aid when the sounds were too much for her, with the theater in him wherever he went, then nothing. A woman, a mother from Indiana, coming to the States marrying an Englishman from the Second World War, leaving sons and their children and eventually their children’s children, then nothing. Flash after flash of all the people Cindy knew and people she did not know but felt the love from the people they had touched. They flashed up like film and flames would appear as in a movie that could not move forward or backward and left a thin trail of smoke of what was.
Cindy turned yet again and began again to walk slowly forward, if there is such a thing. Wondering if we all were but remembrances in some one else’s brain. As she walked Cindy began pinching her arms, face, body and legs. Am I really here? Where is balance for this? She saw the bruises on her arms and still felt as if she did not understand. CindySleigh decided there is no such thing as truly understanding. Corporeal finitus. So she did what humans do she walked and decided not to look behind her. There was no need.
Cindy could watch him behind her by turning her head slightly using peripheral vision. Left back, then right back she would slowly move her head seeing a shadow that expanded to the horizon on both sides behind her. It was not an ordinary shadow. It was not attached to any object or person or even to death itself. It was a shadow as deep a void as the ocean on a moonless night. Its darkness included the hollow sound of waves that you could hear but not see. Its darkness had sparks of phosphorescence like bright green veins of electricity. Its darkness is the empty you sometimes feel just under your solar plexus that has no explanation. Its darkness is something worth running from though you can never out pace it.
So Cindy walked slowly as running was to no avail. Death continued to slowly move forward, though slightly behind her, keeping time to her gait. She was conscious of soft crashing of waves of water, the ground falling away behind her turning into black, endless black, with no up or down or left or right. Occasionally acid green crooked streaks flashed quickly and then disappeared like all of the earth that disappeared when the shadow approached. Sometimes Cindy would get a glimpse of the silver, curved line of the scythe and she would sense the gliding movement of this phenomenon that was the knowledge we ignore most of life, Death.
Cindy stepped back with her left foot, stood in a horse stance, shifted her weight and turned one hundred and eighty degrees. She had her right hand out to block defending herself against the undefendable. She stared straight into the void and flashing green veins lit scenes, like a stilted film. A beautiful six foot four man waiting and smiling as Cindy ran full force into his arms and he lifted her like a feather and hugged her laughing at her silliness. He was falling from a very tall window, the wind rushing timelessly by him, then nothing. A lovely round woman in an above ground swimming pool filled with iridescent bubbles laughing with glitter around her eyes and all the colors and smells too bright and clear for ordinary life. In a bed, speaking so softly as she changed. Surrounded by many so touched with love for her, then nothing. A story telling, giggling Irishman with always a glass and always the time for one in need that would come to Cindy’s aid when the sounds were too much for her, with the theater in him wherever he went, then nothing. A woman, a mother from Indiana, coming to the States marrying an Englishman from the Second World War, leaving sons and their children and eventually their children’s children, then nothing. Flash after flash of all the people Cindy knew and people she did not know but felt the love from the people they had touched. They flashed up like film and flames would appear as in a movie that could not move forward or backward and left a thin trail of smoke of what was.
Cindy turned yet again and began again to walk slowly forward, if there is such a thing. Wondering if we all were but remembrances in some one else’s brain. As she walked Cindy began pinching her arms, face, body and legs. Am I really here? Where is balance for this? She saw the bruises on her arms and still felt as if she did not understand. CindySleigh decided there is no such thing as truly understanding. Corporeal finitus. So she did what humans do she walked and decided not to look behind her. There was no need.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Falling and Flying
During the night Cindy tossed about on her piece of sky. In her dreams she was tumbling down through the air having moved over an edge. With sky under her, above her, all around her she fell. The wind whistled past her body. The clouds, a montage of white and gray. Time moved like motor run snapshots of every second collaged one on top of the other. She moved over an edge and fell. The sky all around her. Spread eagle soaring through the open sky feeling gravity pulling her through. She moved over an edge. She drooled upward as he fell too fast to decide anything. All night CindySleigh repeatedly moved over an edge and fell through.
The wind picked up outside of her white room. Small tornadoes of sand began to swirl up and they tried to meet the sky higher and higher. The many spirals would reach up until the sky was no more than whirling white sand. Cindy wondered where the ground was. It seemed all was falling up or flying down whether she was asleep or awake. All sense of linear time was gone. Immersed in a sand blast that kept her outer eyes shut, with a part of her white tee shirt over her mouth and nose to work as a filter for this incredible onslaught of energy that she was trapped inside of.
CindySleigh stood completely suspended like a human ladder between desert and sky. Feeling her way, being immersed in natures active energy. The words still, movement, forward, backward were meaningless. Actually all words fell away from her brain and the letters scattered and were carried apart and away by the power of wind and sand. CindySleigh felt for a time the knowing of not knowing. Cindy liked suspension, being suspended, hovering in an unknown place and surrendering to the reality of unseen powers that defy what we define as real.
The wind picked up outside of her white room. Small tornadoes of sand began to swirl up and they tried to meet the sky higher and higher. The many spirals would reach up until the sky was no more than whirling white sand. Cindy wondered where the ground was. It seemed all was falling up or flying down whether she was asleep or awake. All sense of linear time was gone. Immersed in a sand blast that kept her outer eyes shut, with a part of her white tee shirt over her mouth and nose to work as a filter for this incredible onslaught of energy that she was trapped inside of.
CindySleigh stood completely suspended like a human ladder between desert and sky. Feeling her way, being immersed in natures active energy. The words still, movement, forward, backward were meaningless. Actually all words fell away from her brain and the letters scattered and were carried apart and away by the power of wind and sand. CindySleigh felt for a time the knowing of not knowing. Cindy liked suspension, being suspended, hovering in an unknown place and surrendering to the reality of unseen powers that defy what we define as real.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Blank
Cindy suddenly became aware of the sound of a man's voice hollering. She smelled the wet,rotting leaves and knew the time of year. Her arms and legs were shivering from the dampness, her white tee shirt and jeans were wet from the rain. It was a steady, soft rain. The ground was covered in mist as if somebody was using dry ice for a stage production. If she weren't shaking so she might be able to appreciate the soft rhythm of raindrops. As it was they were dripping down her face and her clothes were stuck to her. Glued to her skin making her feel more than a little self conscious.
When she began to lift her arms to hug herself she noticed the sound of metal. Her wrists were bound with a silver chain. In her confusion she held her bound hands up to the sky as in question, but no answers came. The metal made clinking sounds as she lowered her arms and glanced at her bare feet, also bound in chain. She scanned the immediate distance and saw nothing through the rain but she could hear people and hear sounds. There was one voice in particular that rang out clearly.
"At what price, at what price will you pay for this strong, older woman? What price for what looks frail but could be full of spirit and spite? What price will you pay for unknown possibility? She'll give you a run for your money, this one, sometimes that's just what the doctor ordered for some of you fellas or maybe gals out there. What do I hear? Let the bidding begin."
Cindy tried to feel the inside of her mind. Where was her life? What was her life? Lifting the chains to hold her head in her hands she tried to focus. She knew she was standing there, being auctioned off, but that was now. What happened to then? There was nothing in there. It was if her mind was swept clean and now was like the inside of an all white room. Silent, peaceful, blank. It was truly gone. She longed for a mirror. Perhaps seeing her face would trigger thoughts about who she was. Cindy knew she must have worn glasses because all the space, filled with leaves floating down midst the rain drops, sounds of voices echoing, and sky and ground united in mist looked slightly out of focus, somehow askew. Other than that and her soaking white clothes Cindy had not a clue.
Without memory, without emotion CindySleigh stood on the slaves block...waiting...waiting for when and if anyone out there, in the now, would take charge of her empty being.
After much shouting a blindfold of red flannel was placed over her eyes and a person guided her off of the auction block. Cindy's hands were in front of her. She reached out making clinking sounds with her chains making random metallic tunes to ward off whatever evil could be before her. Cindy wound up in the back of a pick up truck. The feel of metal under her was one that was familiar. Curled up in the back of the open truck she murmured harmonies to the sound of the engine as the truck bounced along a dirt road. Cindy could smell space. Time moves differently when one's eyes are not available. She could feel the sun slowly drying out her wet jeans. It was a welcome warmth on her face. It calmed her to sing, hum in this unknown world.
Eventually the truck stopped and dust billowed all around her. Somebody lifted her out of the truck as if she was a child and carried her a short distance. Helping her stand took some doing with all her heavy metal parts. When finally she stood, her blindfold was removed. At first the brightness of light all around her made it hard to distinguish any one part from another. It was a seamless landscape. As her eyes adjusted Cindy found herself in a white room. Two window shaped holes were on either wall in front of her as well as a hole the shape of a door. There was a turquoise mat lying on the floor like part of the sky was placed there for her to rest upon.
She crumpled down on the floor like a useless piece of discarded paper. Words came from her captor's mouth, sounding something like French but not. He knelt down and began to remove the irons from her ankles. Swollen red and bloody Cindy suddenly became aware of pain. He threw the metal outside the door. Gently, like a lover unsure of himself, he reached down and held both of her hands. Cindy looked at them also. He lifted her up and stood before her softly singing songs incomprehensible to her. He slowly undid the metal holding her wrists together. The sounds of the chains mixed with his melody. Cindy stared down at her hands- looked up and he was gone.
Evidently,in this place there was no need for shackles as there is no place to go. Even if there was, why would she go as there is no need to seek. CindySleigh had no desire to move. The empty room mimicked the white inner room in her head. Where her thoughts and memory used to clutter, clamoring for space like an overfilled library of nonsense.
She looked out over a landscape filled with many heaving hills of beige sand. Cindy sat down cross legged on the dirt floor and watched the sun pass over the neutral landscape. The shadows full of lavender and blue would cut through the blankness of the eternal expanse of sand making shapes ever changing. The chariot ran its way across the sky leading the day into twilight.
CindySleigh rubbed her red, inflamed wrists and unconsciously began rubbing her hands together continually turning them over and over like Lady Macbeth...what to do...what to do? However the die had already been cast. There was, at this point in time nothing to do, nowhere to go, no thoughts left, no sentimentality (otherwise known as memory). She was sitting still with what is. Empty rooms within and without. Surrounded by a barren land alone wringing her hands as though they had been stained with blood.
Cindy Sleigh looked down at the dirt floor in front of her kneeling legs. Pieces of pain were scattered about in the form of a broken mirror. Cindy could see only parts of her reflection. The triangle, trapezoid and rectangular pieces showed many faces broken in half or quarters. Cindy leaned down close to one of the splintered slivers of silver coated glass. "My eye is gray." She pulled herself up and away. "My hundred eyes are gray." Moving her face from side to side she watched the movement of repetitions. Parts were gliding across an imaginary space.
CindySleigh picked up one of the chunks of the glass and eyed it carefully. She scanned it around her face and head. Her hair was very, very short and bright silver. "I am old," she exclaimed. Before she could absorb this new information Cindy noticed dark red rivulets running down her arm like veins only placed on the outside. "How is it I do not feel pain?" Part of her multifaceted reflection had sliced her left hand as she was searching for a remembrance in all the parts of the looking glass.
Cindy ripped part of her white shirt off at the waist using her teeth. She slowly wound it around her left palm. Here was the spot Lady Macbeth washed which never disappeared. Cindy held her hands as if in prayer to apply the pressure needed to stop the brown red blood. "Well, at least here is proof I know I am actuality. There was a reflection. There is blood. I am real." Though, in fact,it was hard to know for sure. The blankness in the empty room of her mind and the endless beige dunes outside pouring in through the opening of the door seemed more a place that belonged to a specter than a human being.
CindySleigh pressed her hands together hard. She stared up at the heavens. The sky reflected her prayer with heavy leaden clouds, violet, blue, gray, black billowing up and moving in with great speed full of portent. As these many bruises moved across the sky they could be seen circling round her heart. Then it began to rain.
She lay on her piece of sky and fell asleep. She dreamt of being under the earth. Moving her hands up like a seed looking for the light of day. Her digits spread and moved up out of the sand mimicking winter trees. Upon awaking she took special note of the dead trees outside of her doorway. They were birch trees, white with gray striated stripes surrounding the trunk and limbs. She could hear them as she sat inside. They were trembling as the wind whistled a low tune in the desert. Occasionally pieces would break off and fall onto the ground. Cindy decided to go outside the door and collect all the sticks that lay on the ground. "They are as broken limbs," she thought as she leaned forward to pick one up. Like bones bent and curved at the elbow or hands with a few digits cut off or lost.
Cindy created a pile out of the sticks four feet in front of her doorway. The sky was the orange before the red before the violet before the blue that became night. Her wood was like tangled hair yet it seemed to have a rhythmic sense to it. " A pile of lines," she thought. Her room needed no key, however, the key to her fire would be where other keys hide. Cindy searched the underneath of rocks tumbled about near her room and under a rock shining with mica she found the sulfur sticks that create the short erratic life of fire.
When she sat down and ignited the dry limbs began to grow from feeding on branches of life long dead. The flames quickly spread and became a living version of the orange in the sky as if the fire believed that if it leapt high enough it could touch that eternal space. Cindy heard a shivering in the trees. She looked up and dead leaves were on all the limbs shaking as if they were cold in the brisk wind. Translucent and curled, their tips reflected the orange of the fire. The wind whispered and the scratching of the ghost like leaves formed a vibration under the sound of the crack and snap of fire. The sky was moving from red to violet. Cindy tried to count the many leaves to quiet her mind about their sudden appearance. "How do dead leaves appear by the hundreds on dead trees?"
Then they flew. All at once the orange tipped butterflies took off circling in patterns that seemed like chaos but somehow made sense. They whirled and swirled around Cindy and her fire like an inner lit tornado. Just as quickly they disappeared into the dark purple of dusk. Cindy focused on the flames once bright and high, now burning red and gray. The limbs crumbling slowly down became ash. She sat and waited for the lapis blue of twilight. She sat until the moonless sky let the stars meet her like glitter sprinkled above her head. CindySleigh absorbed this into her very being and her spirit was both exhilarated and calm. Never had she experienced such magnificence. "Empty is full," she thought.
When she began to lift her arms to hug herself she noticed the sound of metal. Her wrists were bound with a silver chain. In her confusion she held her bound hands up to the sky as in question, but no answers came. The metal made clinking sounds as she lowered her arms and glanced at her bare feet, also bound in chain. She scanned the immediate distance and saw nothing through the rain but she could hear people and hear sounds. There was one voice in particular that rang out clearly.
"At what price, at what price will you pay for this strong, older woman? What price for what looks frail but could be full of spirit and spite? What price will you pay for unknown possibility? She'll give you a run for your money, this one, sometimes that's just what the doctor ordered for some of you fellas or maybe gals out there. What do I hear? Let the bidding begin."
Cindy tried to feel the inside of her mind. Where was her life? What was her life? Lifting the chains to hold her head in her hands she tried to focus. She knew she was standing there, being auctioned off, but that was now. What happened to then? There was nothing in there. It was if her mind was swept clean and now was like the inside of an all white room. Silent, peaceful, blank. It was truly gone. She longed for a mirror. Perhaps seeing her face would trigger thoughts about who she was. Cindy knew she must have worn glasses because all the space, filled with leaves floating down midst the rain drops, sounds of voices echoing, and sky and ground united in mist looked slightly out of focus, somehow askew. Other than that and her soaking white clothes Cindy had not a clue.
Without memory, without emotion CindySleigh stood on the slaves block...waiting...waiting for when and if anyone out there, in the now, would take charge of her empty being.
After much shouting a blindfold of red flannel was placed over her eyes and a person guided her off of the auction block. Cindy's hands were in front of her. She reached out making clinking sounds with her chains making random metallic tunes to ward off whatever evil could be before her. Cindy wound up in the back of a pick up truck. The feel of metal under her was one that was familiar. Curled up in the back of the open truck she murmured harmonies to the sound of the engine as the truck bounced along a dirt road. Cindy could smell space. Time moves differently when one's eyes are not available. She could feel the sun slowly drying out her wet jeans. It was a welcome warmth on her face. It calmed her to sing, hum in this unknown world.
Eventually the truck stopped and dust billowed all around her. Somebody lifted her out of the truck as if she was a child and carried her a short distance. Helping her stand took some doing with all her heavy metal parts. When finally she stood, her blindfold was removed. At first the brightness of light all around her made it hard to distinguish any one part from another. It was a seamless landscape. As her eyes adjusted Cindy found herself in a white room. Two window shaped holes were on either wall in front of her as well as a hole the shape of a door. There was a turquoise mat lying on the floor like part of the sky was placed there for her to rest upon.
She crumpled down on the floor like a useless piece of discarded paper. Words came from her captor's mouth, sounding something like French but not. He knelt down and began to remove the irons from her ankles. Swollen red and bloody Cindy suddenly became aware of pain. He threw the metal outside the door. Gently, like a lover unsure of himself, he reached down and held both of her hands. Cindy looked at them also. He lifted her up and stood before her softly singing songs incomprehensible to her. He slowly undid the metal holding her wrists together. The sounds of the chains mixed with his melody. Cindy stared down at her hands- looked up and he was gone.
Evidently,in this place there was no need for shackles as there is no place to go. Even if there was, why would she go as there is no need to seek. CindySleigh had no desire to move. The empty room mimicked the white inner room in her head. Where her thoughts and memory used to clutter, clamoring for space like an overfilled library of nonsense.
She looked out over a landscape filled with many heaving hills of beige sand. Cindy sat down cross legged on the dirt floor and watched the sun pass over the neutral landscape. The shadows full of lavender and blue would cut through the blankness of the eternal expanse of sand making shapes ever changing. The chariot ran its way across the sky leading the day into twilight.
CindySleigh rubbed her red, inflamed wrists and unconsciously began rubbing her hands together continually turning them over and over like Lady Macbeth...what to do...what to do? However the die had already been cast. There was, at this point in time nothing to do, nowhere to go, no thoughts left, no sentimentality (otherwise known as memory). She was sitting still with what is. Empty rooms within and without. Surrounded by a barren land alone wringing her hands as though they had been stained with blood.
Cindy Sleigh looked down at the dirt floor in front of her kneeling legs. Pieces of pain were scattered about in the form of a broken mirror. Cindy could see only parts of her reflection. The triangle, trapezoid and rectangular pieces showed many faces broken in half or quarters. Cindy leaned down close to one of the splintered slivers of silver coated glass. "My eye is gray." She pulled herself up and away. "My hundred eyes are gray." Moving her face from side to side she watched the movement of repetitions. Parts were gliding across an imaginary space.
CindySleigh picked up one of the chunks of the glass and eyed it carefully. She scanned it around her face and head. Her hair was very, very short and bright silver. "I am old," she exclaimed. Before she could absorb this new information Cindy noticed dark red rivulets running down her arm like veins only placed on the outside. "How is it I do not feel pain?" Part of her multifaceted reflection had sliced her left hand as she was searching for a remembrance in all the parts of the looking glass.
Cindy ripped part of her white shirt off at the waist using her teeth. She slowly wound it around her left palm. Here was the spot Lady Macbeth washed which never disappeared. Cindy held her hands as if in prayer to apply the pressure needed to stop the brown red blood. "Well, at least here is proof I know I am actuality. There was a reflection. There is blood. I am real." Though, in fact,it was hard to know for sure. The blankness in the empty room of her mind and the endless beige dunes outside pouring in through the opening of the door seemed more a place that belonged to a specter than a human being.
CindySleigh pressed her hands together hard. She stared up at the heavens. The sky reflected her prayer with heavy leaden clouds, violet, blue, gray, black billowing up and moving in with great speed full of portent. As these many bruises moved across the sky they could be seen circling round her heart. Then it began to rain.
She lay on her piece of sky and fell asleep. She dreamt of being under the earth. Moving her hands up like a seed looking for the light of day. Her digits spread and moved up out of the sand mimicking winter trees. Upon awaking she took special note of the dead trees outside of her doorway. They were birch trees, white with gray striated stripes surrounding the trunk and limbs. She could hear them as she sat inside. They were trembling as the wind whistled a low tune in the desert. Occasionally pieces would break off and fall onto the ground. Cindy decided to go outside the door and collect all the sticks that lay on the ground. "They are as broken limbs," she thought as she leaned forward to pick one up. Like bones bent and curved at the elbow or hands with a few digits cut off or lost.
Cindy created a pile out of the sticks four feet in front of her doorway. The sky was the orange before the red before the violet before the blue that became night. Her wood was like tangled hair yet it seemed to have a rhythmic sense to it. " A pile of lines," she thought. Her room needed no key, however, the key to her fire would be where other keys hide. Cindy searched the underneath of rocks tumbled about near her room and under a rock shining with mica she found the sulfur sticks that create the short erratic life of fire.
When she sat down and ignited the dry limbs began to grow from feeding on branches of life long dead. The flames quickly spread and became a living version of the orange in the sky as if the fire believed that if it leapt high enough it could touch that eternal space. Cindy heard a shivering in the trees. She looked up and dead leaves were on all the limbs shaking as if they were cold in the brisk wind. Translucent and curled, their tips reflected the orange of the fire. The wind whispered and the scratching of the ghost like leaves formed a vibration under the sound of the crack and snap of fire. The sky was moving from red to violet. Cindy tried to count the many leaves to quiet her mind about their sudden appearance. "How do dead leaves appear by the hundreds on dead trees?"
Then they flew. All at once the orange tipped butterflies took off circling in patterns that seemed like chaos but somehow made sense. They whirled and swirled around Cindy and her fire like an inner lit tornado. Just as quickly they disappeared into the dark purple of dusk. Cindy focused on the flames once bright and high, now burning red and gray. The limbs crumbling slowly down became ash. She sat and waited for the lapis blue of twilight. She sat until the moonless sky let the stars meet her like glitter sprinkled above her head. CindySleigh absorbed this into her very being and her spirit was both exhilarated and calm. Never had she experienced such magnificence. "Empty is full," she thought.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
October Fifteenth Two Thousand and Nine
This morning when CindySleigh woke up there was salt crusts around her eyes. She touched them gently with her fingers and touched her tongue to her fingers. It was such a faint taste it was like a memory of the sea. Cindy knew she must have cried but had no memory of nightmares or dreams. The only memory she had of her sleep was the dried sea salt of her tears.
Her brain woke up with rapid transit speed...why?...why?...why? Cindy's mind ran scenarios, yesterdays plays like an express train trying to always be on time when bridges collapsed in front of it or snow blinded it or the demands of crowds of people would stop it in its path.
Cindy had trouble sorting out the daily interactions and what her place was. CindySleigh knew she was but one small piece of the game (of course she would be the queen if the game was chess) but the fluidity of the days were like trying to run on slick ice. Cindy needs ice skates for her psyche to keep up with the movements of the days. Slower moving days are not in her immediate future, her brain noted. Yet She yearned for days filled more like a Bach fugue, complex but somehow orderly. Instead it felt like eternal car crashes in Dantes Inferno. "I am being just a tad dramatic," Cindy said to herself.
"I feel dramatic god damn it."
Her exhausted physical being was hovering around an engine of energy that would not stop. That would not even sit in neutral. This engine wanted to move, to go, to act, to do. "How does one rest with these human contradictions," she wondered. Such were the thoughts of CindySleigh on October Fifteenth Two Thousand and Nine.
Her brain woke up with rapid transit speed...why?...why?...why? Cindy's mind ran scenarios, yesterdays plays like an express train trying to always be on time when bridges collapsed in front of it or snow blinded it or the demands of crowds of people would stop it in its path.
Cindy had trouble sorting out the daily interactions and what her place was. CindySleigh knew she was but one small piece of the game (of course she would be the queen if the game was chess) but the fluidity of the days were like trying to run on slick ice. Cindy needs ice skates for her psyche to keep up with the movements of the days. Slower moving days are not in her immediate future, her brain noted. Yet She yearned for days filled more like a Bach fugue, complex but somehow orderly. Instead it felt like eternal car crashes in Dantes Inferno. "I am being just a tad dramatic," Cindy said to herself.
"I feel dramatic god damn it."
Her exhausted physical being was hovering around an engine of energy that would not stop. That would not even sit in neutral. This engine wanted to move, to go, to act, to do. "How does one rest with these human contradictions," she wondered. Such were the thoughts of CindySleigh on October Fifteenth Two Thousand and Nine.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Distance
"This distancing thing is harder than my left brain said it would be," Cindy thought. You have to walk around with a searing heart inside while you practice, while you sit silent. The anger pulses through your veins and your mind is as one that would explode. She pushes her chair back and excuses herself from the table. Cindy retreats to the bedroom. She puts on her transparent gloves that sparkle with iridescent glitter. She slowly points both hands forward and glides into the mirror. The silver slate becomes fluid and makes circles that repeat themselves moving outward as if the mirror was a still pool. Each of her fingers has led her into the land of in between. Cindy sat cross legged and began to breathe with intent. Her room seemed very far away. She stared at her bed from the other side. The beating of her heart slowed. Cindy passed into the land of in between to rest and reflect, to find the empty place that does not expect to be filled, ever.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
