Wasted Space

[mnaz]

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Fog seizes the plateau with irreversible chill, as the painted desert goes gray. Broken-line fever has kicked in. But I'm running low, just when the hills melted into a brick stream. I'm an overdue bill, still stricken by possibility. December says a lot. It's hard to imagine this road running much farther. I should take my cue from this pitiless and patient place, find a broken motel on old 66 by the tracks with a king-size bed and singing pipes for $18 cash, where it was once possible to contemplate Cadillac tail fins. But I might brood over religion instead.

The roll comes of age. I'm on the verge of aimless; the most holy state in pursuit of asphalt. Anyone who chooses the road without grasping its folly is likewise eligible. I'd like to round up the road-weary in a tri-county radius and storm the local white steeple this Sunday for some forgotten exits. I'd stand before the congregation with envy. They are home. They have what I gave up. I live in cheap motels and my truck. I spend almost nothing, yet the money goes, and even if I could roll indefinitely, the indefinite roll would finish me in due time. But rootless drive was the only way here. And I needed to be here.

Hail the purple mountain's majesty. I crossed its backside on a wheatfield wave, in devotion to my golden hue. The radio spilled details of military base closures; the latest bills come due from a Twentieth-Century orgy of militarized manifesto, paid for in equal parts by greed, fear, duty, taxes and blood; some parts more equal than others. I thank those who died to protect the purple mountains. I owe them that much. The radio droned on like the engine; a long list of resources at risk if the bases close; assets which I could ill afford to lose.

I should seek inconspicuous land; that of least possible value, removed from the rich forests and diamond-blue ports, for to possess them is to possess the marauders who will come over the wall. I should seek undressed earth, compound curves, like contours of my hand at first light, first sight. They won't look for me there. Wasted space. But it won't fool me like before. For as big as this place seems, it may all be crossed with sufficient will, by encyclopedic armies equipped with doctrines, across oceans and quietly-beheld mountains, filled with breakthroughs.

It's the big picture we're after-- a hair-trigger lens. I can't seem to fix a wide-angle; not from space, nor killer screws loose from Sputnik, nor pillow-wisp hurricanes too quiet, nor from Apollo's moon porch, thumb-blue lifeboat rising. We're out too far. Nor from across oceans, nor from the ancient city's edge; its muffled, ageless bombs, concussions of the righteous. Still out too far. Nor from two blocks away in utter terror, neighbors crushed under the rubble, nor from sacred canons of war, staked by a mother's cry of anguish. Now we're too close. Refocus the lens. Recede back into the big picture.

The next war is factory-installed. Check the calendar. We need only install the political calculus, the glory, the inevitability of it. To argue politically against it is to send robbers to guard the stage. I marshal my facts, plug into cyber ducts; a glut of truth for hire, where bloggers chop forests of tall verbiage in their checkerboard pundits. A screaming firehose of data. I'd use it to bury my opposition, but I'm thoroughly exhausted.

I'll go 'round the bend into mad sanctuary of dust, drop off the screen. But it won't last. The bully pulpit will have its say and there's no remedy-- not a damn thing I can do. I made some sort of deal with the universe-- how it sat when I came in-- and I'm bound to it, as the astrologers remind me. There's no real place to hide among the billions of light-years. No purity of free will. But I'll simulate it for awhile. I'll thank the war and its bright blue markets, same as I thank a bright blue mirage boiling over the playa.

[mnaz]

(last chapter)

[mnaz]

No, seriously.

I want your comments.

I'm not operating in a maximum-security cell, am I?



I mean, 56 readings is quite a few, dontcha think?

Surely, someone, by now, must have formed some sort of opinion, right?

Personally, I think this self-indulgent rant still needs some work, but that's just me. I'm a pretty damn harsh critic, when I need to be.

[mtmynd]

Okay... okay...

...but remember, mnaz, I am a lit loser so whatever I write here may not be what others think or how they may see your piece... (just to let you know!)

I got caught up in the flow of your images and I like 'flow'... (flow is what I know). It matters not to me how the words correlate as much as the flow continues.

The piece was a peaceful read, but like any good flow (imho), requires an occasional rut or bump to keep me from flowing so easily that I lose insight into the journey I being taken on. You provided that -

It's the big picture we're after-- a hair-trigger lens. I can't seem to fix a wide-angle; not from space, nor killer screws loose from Sputnik, nor pillow-wisp hurricanes too quiet, nor from Apollo's moon porch, thumb-blue lifeboat rising. We're out too far. Nor from across oceans, nor from the ancient city's edge; its muffled, ageless bombs, concussions of the righteous. Still out too far. Nor from two blocks away in utter terror, neighbors crushed under the rubble, nor from sacred canons of war, staked by a mother's cry of anguish. Now we're too close. Refocus the lens. Recede back into the big picture.

For reasons immediately undefineable to me, I found this to be one of those bumps in the flow... a pleasant bump, a probable necessary bump, but yes! it bumped me outta my flow. It'd take me some time to digest it... re-read it and visualize not what you've written here, but more of a visualization of what brought this on..? A peculiar passage but still maintaining the essence of your flow.. it caused pause.

(When's the book coming out?)

[mnaz]

Thanks, Cec. Your observations are exactly what I needed on this one, 'cause it got the better of me. I'm not there yet. The embedded protest must be done in a more subtle way, if at all.

Sometimes a 'bump in the flow' is intended, effective. Other times, not.

As for the 'book', well, it's half-written, or maybe 2/3.... To complete this thing (at least to do what I have in mind), I'll need to live for awhile in the sort of space I've tried to describe so far... Will that ever happen? Good question.