Falling Out of Time (8 page)

COBBLER:

Barren brain-hill,

a terrible sight,

it pulsates perhaps

once

in a thousand years—

TOWN CHRONICLER’S WIFE:

It is the brain of the universe,

and it is cold, frozen. It is not

what emits the wail. It is

desolation, only desolation,

mute and deaf

and flat,

it has no wails,

no thoughts,

it has

no answers and

no love.

DUKE:

And you—pick up

a hoe and till a bed.

Plant in it a pillow, a lamp,

a letter, a picture of

a beloved face, perhaps also a kettle,

thick socks, gloves and a satchel,

a pencil or paintbrush, a book

or two, a pair of glasses, so that you

can see near

and see far.

CENTAUR:

I built the cradle

with my own two hands. The day

he was born, from branches of oak. My wife

painted the two ducks.

She painted so beautifully.

She was a quiet,

gentle woman. She left me,

three years after

the boy did. If I could have,

I would have left me, too.

Adam—that was his name.

Adam. I placed him

in the cradle

after he was born. He lay there

with his eyes open, looked

at me, studied me with his gaze.

He was so serious! He always was,

his whole life. His whole

short life. Serious

and slightly lonely. Hardly

any friends. He liked stories.

We used to put on plays,

he and I,

with costumes and masks. You asked

about the cradle. My wife padded it

with soft fabric,

but he could only fall asleep

with me, on my chest. He would cling

to me.

I just remembered, you’ll laugh,

but there was a special sound

I used to make to put him

to sleep on me. A sort of quiet,

deep, trembling

moan.
Hmmmm …

Hmmmm …

WALKING MAN:

Walking, walking,

neither awake nor

asleep, walking

and emptying

all my thoughts,

my passions,

my sadness, my fervor,

my secrets, my volition,

anything that is me.

Look at me, my son:

here I am not.

I am but a platform of life,

calling you to come

and be through me—

to occur, if only for a moment,

to once again be purified

by what is.

Come, do not hesitate,

be now,

I am gone,

the house is yours,

and it is furnished with every limb.

Flow into it, pool in it,

this blood is your blood now, the muscles,

your muscles. Come,

be present,

reach your arms

from world-end to -end,

rejoice from my throat, laugh, vibrate,

celebrate,

all is possible at this moment,

everything now is
yes
,

so love and burn and lust

and fuck.

My five hungry senses

are at your command like

five horses foaming at the mouth,

stomping, raring

to gallop to your never-end.

Do not stop, my boy,

your time is short, meted out,

my eyelids are trembling now,

soon I will come home,

soon my pupils will contract

in the light of confining logic. Quick,

taste it all, devour, be deep,

be sad,

determined, delighted, roar,

tremble with pleasure and power,

my pleasure is yours, my power, too—

enchant, shower your soul,

be the swing of a sower,

a cascade of grain and

golden coins streaming

like light—

be engorged like an udder,

and torrid as midday,

and rage, and rave,

tighten your hand into a fist until

arteries swell in your neck,

and be thrilled, like a heart, like a girl,

be agape, thin-skinned, alight

with the glory of

one-off wonders,

be a whole,

momentary fraction

of eternity.

And as you do so, pause suddenly, breathe, inhale, feel the air burn your lungs, lick your upper lip, taste the salt of healthy sweat, the tingle of life, and now say fully:
I—

(Damn it, I realize now:

that pronoun is also

lost, it died

with you, leaving me

with only
he
and
you

and
us
, and no one

will ever again

say
I

in your voice.

That too. That, too.)

Just hurry, my boy,

dawn is rising, the magic

soon will melt, so you must love,

and, even if betrayed,

even if you taste the venom

of disdain, love

and be brave, but be cowardly, too,

be everything, touch defeat,

touch failure, hurt someone,

disappoint

and lie.

Quick, my boy, pass through all these,

there is no time to linger,

such illusions are so brief,

but you must touch, caress

a warm body, a woman,

bounteous breasts in your hands,

the head of a newborn child, unborn

to you.

Quick, quick, the first strip

of light—

see the world you never saw: New York,

Paris, Shanghai, so many faces

in this living

world—

No, no, stop—

it’s too late now,

come back

to rest,

quick,

to obscurity,

to oblivion,

just do not see

with my own eyes

what happened

to you.

WALKERS:

Our feet lift slowly

from the earth lightly

lightly we hover

between here and there

between lucidity

and sleep

the thread will soon

unravel

and we will glide

and look

at whatever is there

at whatever we dare

to see

only when walking

in a dream

DUKE:

Sometimes, alone

in my private chamber,

I take off both shoes and look

at my feet and think

it is

him.

ELDERLY MATH TEACHER:

I hit him. He was

a stubborn boy, and impudent,

with strange opinions

even as a child, and I—spare

the rod, spoil the child—I had to

beat him.

When he raised his hands to protect

his face, I hit him

in the stomach.

WALKING MAN:

But where are you, what are you,

just tell me that, my son.

I ask simply:

Where are you?

Ayeka
?

Or like a pupil before his master

(for that is how I often see

you now),

please teach me—as I not long ago

taught you—

the world and all its secrets.

Forgive me if my question

sounds foolish and insipid, but

I must ask because

it has been eating

at my soul like a disease

these past five years:

What is death, my son?

What

is death?

MIDWIFE:

Great, definitive death,

my girl,

with b-b-boundless power. Eternal,

immortal d-d-death. And yours.

Your single, little death,

inside it.

COBBLER:

Actually, I wanted

to ask, What’s it like,

my girl, when you die?

And how are you there?

And who are you

there?

DUKE:

It is a perplexing thought, my son,

but perhaps you now know

far more than I do?

Perhaps a new and wondrous world

now carries you in flight,

and with a massive flap of wings

it spreads out

its infinity, just as

in our world here it long ago

lavished your soul with its abundance,

your pure, boyish soul. I feel

so young and ignorant before you.

MIDWIFE:

I see her

jumping,

dancing in the kitchen,

before she fell ill,

when she still

had the strength. And her f-f-father,

my man, my love,

my cobbler, kneels before her

and places his hands: shoes for her feet.

COBBLER:

Am I dreaming?

I hear my wife.

I swear

her words are

hardly broken

anymore!

MIDWIFE:

… he walks her

through the house in his

hand-shoes, and laughs

until the roof almost flies off,

and she hugs his neck

and squeals, she has only just

learned how to talk,

you remember,

just beginning to say

her first words,

Dad-dy,

Mom-my,

Lil-li-li-li-Lilli.

COBBLER:

Lilli,

my

Lilli.

WALKERS:

We walk. Impossible

to stop. My body

won’t allow it. My feet

are weak. And me, my breath

is short, yet still our body

will not stand. It pushes from inside, onward
,

onward … It’s like

going to meet your sweetheart
,

isn’t it, Mrs. Chronicler? Yes
,

my lady of the nets, it’s like a lovers’ rendezvous
.

WALKING MAN:

This void,

this absence,

death alone can render—

and it is not at all

a disappearance,

a cessation,

nothingness.

It has one final place,

a window opened

just a crack, where still

the absence breathes, still loosened,

palpitating, where one can still

touch the
here
,

still almost feel

the warming hand that touches

there
.

It is the threshold,

one last line shared both by here

and there, the line to which

—no farther—

the living may draw near,

and where, perhaps, they still can sense

the very tip,

just one more hint,

the fading embers, slowly dying,

of the dead.