Monday 20 October 2008

My metaphysical slumber

Never again, I promise, never again. A once in a life time experience. And never again. Unique, but embracing it all. Permeating it all. Right now, I am all those that I have ever been and ever will be. Like root hairs pressing themselves against the surface of a Petri dish – I am in touch. I refuse to specify with what, for even 'in touch with all' would be too weak.
This moment is the ultimate interconnectivity, the eternal wholeness – the oneness that is always there (for now is then and then is now) but somehow is more pronounced in this infinitely small dot in the space-time-emotion-framework. I can taste how tight the network of all my experiences is: it's an organic, green, peaceful taste, like immature lucerne.
This moment is the lightning that shoots through the most intricate knot called 'me' – the rope being the trail of my consciousness, folded like the proteins that form my DNA: over and over and over and over again. A Quarternary structure is what they call it, the scientists. The only way to ever comprehend this knot is by splicing it. And the moment the flash of brilliant heat cuts through – this moment – right before it loses its balance and falls apart in innumerable fragments, it is still one life: an organic unity, yet comprehensible. For one instance it is clearly visible, audible, smellable that all I've ever been doing and all I'll ever do, is digging my grave with my own knife and fork.

Suddenly I wake up. I shiver. Why am I so cold? As I reach for something to cover me – a blanket? – I notice my hands are trembling. Am I that cold? My shaking hands halt while I internally examine myself. No, I am not that cold, and I recently probably haven't been that cold either. For my back and legs are damp and salty. I'm covered in sweat. It has to be sweat – it can't be blood. No! No! No! Not again! Never again! Once in a lifetime is enough! You cannot possibly kill me again!
I regulate my breathing. I'm alone, it's okay. I have been here before, in touch with that unbearable spell of vulnerability called sleep. Last time I revisited that vulnerable me, right before I was slaughtered by the Unnameable, I didn't manage to write anything down. My frustration built up energy, so that I would not merely have to observe my own death, but that I could actually warn me, get through to me, wake me up, end my vulnerability. Alas, 't was not enough and 't was too late.


This is why adultery is so much more intense than the same sex would have been when you were single. Reflections, such as feeling guilty towards your partner and fear of him or her finding out about your little sin, send you right back to the act. This is not just your memory, you're actually in touch with that very moment, pumping your current energy – be it shame, sadness, regret or revenge – into the sexual experience. The act of adultery is literally charged by the future. Later versions of you keep returning to the same moment, whereas sex without consequences is easily forgotten. Ironically, this is what makes adultery worth it.
But I am allergic to bees, and every time I get stung the allergic reaction is more vehement, the amount of antibodies in my blood increases quicker.
I have learned from last time. This time I can go back, struggle my opponent – the Unnameable – break all barriers of the scientifically possible and warn the former me of the misery that awaits her. I want to live!
I can go back in time, for my lifeline is curved and curled and crinkled and crumpled – like DNA – and prevent the horrors I have endured. I need to focus, to concentrate my entire being into this one weak spot. This is how I can save myself. This moment is concentrated life, like tomato purée is concentrated tomato: it tastes like shit but it's the same anyway – and an essential ingredient of student cuisine. You can't live without it during your college years, but afterwards you'll never use it again. Never again. (Not even if you survive those years of malnutrition.) Tomato purée: a once in a life time experience.


My split tongue and thoughts tipped my balance, there.
The left hemisphere (you know, the one that does the linear, sequential, symbolic, logical and language-based thinking) is trying, really trying to keep up with the rest of my being, but maybe time is not ripe yet: I need more ripening, more practice. For my right hemisphere (the part of the brain responsible for holistic, random, concrete and intuitive processing) took over.
I slipped leftwards of my chair and lay on the floor shivering. For how long, I do not know. But it doesn't matter. If I can't save myself now, at least it's practice for next time. Perhaps I do not wake up my past, but like the rising sun on shut eyelids, I will call consciousness closer and lighten the ship of sleep. (Sleep: the darker the deeper; the brighter the lighter.)
Next time it will be easier. And I know there will be another time, my present effort is proof. I was murdered, but I'm here now trying to save myself. If I don't succeed today, a later me must have saved me, to enable this attempt. The fact that I'm trying means I will succeed, I just don't know when.
But as my limbs tried to keep still by shaking the floor I realised it wouldn't be now: too much distraction. From brutal murder to anal sex with guinea pigs I went straight to spooning it out and back to shipwreck – and I kept falling deeper and deeper leftwards leftwards.

Turning toppling twisting tumbling over over over over again. Please stop it, I shout. Do I shout? I don't hear myself shout. I try again, as loud as I can, I scream I'm going to be sick. Nothing. Absence is starting to take over my whole being. The lightning has split me into thousands of shatters (clear, crystal splinters sail through the space-time-emotion-grit – this is me) but the heat is not enough to forge me back together. My throat is bleeding from vocal haemorrhoids – at least I can still taste my own blood, like iron. Irony. Still the roller coaster doesn't halt. Trapped in my very own DNA I pray to the Unnameable and make everlasting promises that are broken before I made them (since now is then and then is now): I am never smoking weed again.

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