Tuesday, August 28, 2007

The unforgivable sin

This world may have been painted by an amateur god.

The sky is a deep blue but a dull ceiling. It is small and lifeless, unbroken by a bird or a cloud or even a puff of smoke. Beneath it, what life there exists is confined to this narrow yard of colorless rock and surrounded by cement walls. The rough faces like curdoroy, are pierced here and there by open black windows. There is also that single, wide, doorless hole that is the sole exit from the yard... or entry to the yard depending on your mood.

The animal inhabitants, myself included, are of no interest. Not worth the bullet as the judges told us. They were right. We are so contemptible that we prefer total silence to conversation. You might think I wonder what the others think, what crimes they had committed and so forth. But the truth is I don't care in the least. That would be like admitting they matter somehow. They matter less than me if that is possible. Their silence says tehy think the same way about me. They are here, like the cement walls and the gaping maw and the yard and the painted blue sky.

From day one it has been the same. I walk counter-clockwise. Everyone does. Some faster and some slower but it doesn't matter a bit. Standing or walking its the same. I could have passed the black hole a hundred times or a million or a hundred trillion and it matters no more than if I had passed it at all. I haven't even got the will to reach out my left hand and touch the walls. I just walk. And do you want to know the worst of it all? I can't even muster a sneer. Not even a sarcastic snort. Absolutely nothing.

Nothing matters but this. I am a cynic and nothing. not. one. thing. will touch me.

1 comment:

Standifer Evasto Visum said...

Very nice.

It evokes the thoughts in this writer of "touching" others, but only then, via the ink to avoid in totality the corruption (or possible enlightenment) of the spirit.

The "walls" are the laser-sharp edges of our paper, like concertino wire that binds us to that papyrus prison; and our only escape is to bleed black blood upon the unadulterated and pure, white page.

I truly believe that I am in league with masters of the craft.