He wrote by hand

it cramped

                   evidently hed been writing far longer than he realised

if he ever recognised how long hed gone untethered   

                                                                                    taken leave of his surroundings

by habit  addiction as some chided  he tried to make the library early after stopping for coffee  eyeing sleepily that mornings particular barista

they inevitably had bright pleasant words and laughter to go off into the day after

 

the coffee shop unfortunately ran through them like pairs of underwear on hot humid days  he couldnt remember the last time the same girl made his coffee more than a couple week running

 

the ornate light fixtures mounted among the structural arches of the rotunda had come up

he sat beneath its cowering eave  compressed atmosphere  facing the huge front doors lost somewhere across the enormous room  obscured behind the sumptuous tall stacks of books and barricades rows of long tables seated with individual wood armed chairs

its suspended hush was deafening   

                                                          if you listened for it

he rarely did

he was too occupied

contended with too many voices arguing in his head  moderating  or thrusted his hands through moist fronds or ran heavy-footed into and wandered among inkblock expanses of Chinese- Japanese-influenced mountains and jungles and blue cellophane seas whipped by foaming white waves  infested with eerie shadows maniacal denizens vicious sirens and retiring maidens

his superlative imagination teased and whipped into shape by words

Fuck he growled as he stood and worked his hand out with the thumb of his other hand

thats pitiful  he pushed his afflicted hands palm hard against the knob at the top of the chair with his other  better

he still faced the rotunda  faced where the huge doors were hidden under their remarkable beveled-glass transom

he never sat with his back to an entrance and knew exactly where the rooms egress was

a sound piqued in between his stubborn grunts

caught his attention

behind him

not a good place to be for anyone unannounced

he untethered himself from his blunt mooring and slowly turned

not sure what to expect

he taken this remote place  small round table and two chairs  for the latter part of Summer and into the august Fall

virtually unchallenged

some people had worked their way back  but he ignored them as he would unseen ghosts  no one provoked him or stuck around for his discourteous

                                              Blow Nothing here for you

when he wrote he was rude

he didnt like being taken off his musings

didnt care for the curious  Oh youre writing What are you writing

The fuck you care

Please move along

(he did say please)

the sound stopped

he ground his palm with his thumb  the knot alleviating

Yah Hello

no reply

Hello

the plane of paneling behind him shimmered  like a stroke of electricity  then popped like colored fireflies

embers escaped from a churning fire  stoked by a smithys bellow

polished obsidian

the fireflies coalesced in an outline  a constellation

 

and the constellation breathed and breathing the sound he heard breathing a shape condensed and condensed a vapor translucent grainy ashen now luminescent forming

forming

fascinating

forming

forming curves  shaping face and eyes and ears jaw nape shoulders torso legs standing on feet  stepping out of the wall  or stepping through the wall  the veil of fireflies or embers gone out

she was black  naked

she turned to her left and began down a hall to antechambers where on rare occasion people met  entering through their broad glass and half-paneled doors

he followed

she grasped a metal-worked doorknob and opened a door

he supposed her materialisation complete  now tactile  of substance

she entered into the room beyond

he saw her in the dark through the window in the door on the opposite side of a small table and chairs before

a blackboard   a razorthin white outline or eclipse surrounding her  assembling highlights  nuances  her eyes  cheeks  mouth  at the hollow of her throat

he entered the room

Hello

she said nothing  however seemed to recoil very slightly from either his presence or voice

stepping back she bumped against a chalkboard that took up nearly the whole of the wall

and restrained her hands went flat to its face  widespread  beside the flare of her round hips  she turned quickly facing the board then achingly  s l o w l y  she ran her hands up the chalkboard until she was fully extended to her height  unable to stretch any taller

  

at that apex she splayed her hands wide upon it  then  s l o w l y  a g a i n  drew her spread fingers down its face  not by her nails  by the gentle quiet pads of her fingertips  streaking the chalkboard with wiggling tracers  like molten cuts of an acetylene torch on raw metal as wisps exhaled and slithered up to the paneled ceiling

she stopped when her hands were at either side of her shoulders

collapsing into the wall leading with her right she rotated her body so she was again backed up to the chalkboard

she grimaced

or smiled

a knowingness

leaning backwards she committed her body to the shiny black wall and was absorbed

he crossed the room

went behind the table and chairs

 

vaguely etched in thin broken chalk lines he saw her

she faced him

unashamed

fixed

stoic 

he admired her breasts

his eyes wandered to her narrowed waist

  

to the V delineated by her hips to her mons pubis

bringing his eyes back up to her exquisite face he found her head was tilted down looking at the place between her thighs where momentarily before he looked

she brought her head back up to face him

in her two-dimensional aspect

her eyes became fervent

liquid

hearty

he believed for the first time she witnessed him as he was witnessing her

maybe a smile swept up her face

                                                           maybe

she blinked

and disappeared

a librarian appeared at his back excusing herself  cautiously

probably curious why he was standing in the room in the dark facing the blackboard

she informed him that the library was closing shortly

she had recognised his things at the table where he wrote   Longhand  she said

Yes  Its a habit I cant break

Or wont

Yes  I wont

she smiled and excused herself

shed be locking the door behind him when he gathered his things to leave

                                                                                                                         Well see you again tomorrow morning

he glanced briefly over his shoulder at the blackboard  then back to her

Yes  That would be nice

the librarian seemed bemused

or perhaps her face reflected his expression

leaving he snugged the antechamber door shut    an empty room

he stood outside it a moment longer expecting something 

                                                                                              nothing

walking away he did not see the disembodied hand press at the doors glass

Wednesday night Thursday morning dream,  30  9.  --  1  10. 15

0818,  Sunday,  11  10. 15

In the East there was an explosive WHAP
                                                                                        

followed by a faint sigh 

                                        an elongated whine                       a simmering echo

then a suddenShakePopBrace    Seizure

                                                                                                                                         

in the blue distance a shelf pointed its nose to the sky and rose up  up    Upright

  

it moved towards him    a fast wave slithering across the earth
a flat towering silver sheen   

                                              shimmering  wrapping the horizon

running before it he could feel its concussion in his guts
a gust  

           the flatland disappeared      shallowed whole

a warm pale mist and spattered mud tickled his patient face

  

then the shelf stopped

stood

fast

its sheening face ran up into a dark turmoil of clouds and heaven  a colored purple rose hue twisting up 
into where it vanished

since it didnt come to him

                                           he walked towards it

                                    

it appeared tethered
at the sharp serrated edge where it joined the brilliant green swathe before him

still swaying from the initial GASP 
and onrush

  

nearing its dull reflecting face he realised he could see inside of it

a backlit luminescence segregated into long irregular honeycombed chambers rising in atmosphere separated from his
a storied superstructure
                                         as if built by insects 
its parceled walls excreted by some biologic nature

occasionally moving among its chambers   those he could see   were jet black figures

they didnt appear clothed                                                                                                                 

                                             fitted  rather  by carbon-fiber or an extruded carapace

 

moving independent  they often wandered over to the face of the tall chambered horizon
                           

seeming to peer out

                                 vacant      unimpressed 
   

he turned around to see what they might be looking at and realised  almost nauseated where he wound his way through sheaves of broad grass  they fingered and brushed at his throat and chin  he left a telltale thin black thread where he walked

had the earth he stood on not swelled up and taken a modest altitude where the junction of the fields edge and the vertical plane met he wouldnt have recognised he had betrayed himself

as he had walked forward towards the monolith he saw the plants had changed  they had become fabric  tendrils  a keener cellulose than the simple veined grasses they had been

he didnt realise it then or even thought about the grass or the now hardcrusted ground as he walked

he was mesmerised by the suddenApproaching luminous plane

the black figures dawdling at its face held and manipulated tablets in their hands(?) rubbed or pointed at them with their fingers(?)
suddenlyhe squatted

                                     a new sense  devoutly separate from thinking
a figure was walking up to the translucent material directly across from him

looking up at it 
it was opened at its neck(?) its interior flesh(?) it seemed dappled by pindotted  phosphorescence he would have attributed to marine cephalopods  a vapor emanated from its back(?) and head(?) rising straight up  uninhibited by any currents of atmosphere within   if there were any

he heard faint clicking  although he couldnt recognise if the sound was without with him or from inside with it

the tablet it held in its hand(?) throbbed and strobed colored lights  which devised its shadow to the ceiling above it
the tablet threw quivers of light at the surface of the plane between them

he didnt touch it

when he held out the flat of his hand towards it he could feel prescient vibrations

looking down at his feet where he suspected a joint between it and the earth might appear  there wasnt  and for many centimeters away from its face the ground was denuded  scorched   and blackened

 

the figure inside stooped

it set the tablet down on the bottom of the cell

when it stood again it retreated into the chamber  its resultant movement  without the tablet  seemed hobbled  or blind

he didnt stand again until his knees screamed  and was troubled when he did
  

there were various lights of fixed apertures  or diameters  emanating from the tablet and they swept in tender unison one hundred and eighty degrees left and right  
diminished  for whatever reason  from sweeping in an entire circle

that space which wasnt swept was between him and the face of the plane

unless what swept him wasnt visible to his eyes

the figure did not return

he did not retreat

as night fell it was not announced or preceded by the call of evening birds or the intimate sound of insects

it was silent

sterile

sometime  well before dawn  during the deepest of night the lights quit sweeping

their rays shortened and shortened until they congealed onto the face of the tablet in susurrating bubbles  maintaining
a low boil as a syrup might simmer

their colors continued to emanate

blinked  reptilian

its monotony  and the day   exhausted him

his eyes fell shut

he struggled to wake himself

tried to make himself fearful

he failed

his animal needed rest

slowly he took to his knees

his knees took him to his side

he slept

nothing had wakened him

his eyelids peeled back

the sun was high  late morning  probably approaching noon

he had rolled onto his back as he slept

he had lain with his head near the upturned shelf

that was no longer there

if it had receded

it was not dragged

it seemed it simply ceased to be

the green land ran to the East

the grass wasnt tall as when he had come

the black thread that followed him wasnt evident either

still

        there were no birds or animals or insects

the sky was spacious  unscratched   deeply blue and cloudless

in the grass before him was a riot of vines interrupted by pumpkins gourds and textured melons   heavy
crushing whatever they laid on

a slight breeze washed across the land

                                                                              it didnt smell of anything

he stood

he realised he couldnt ascertain any direction until the sun began to descend

the land was flat

there were no landmarks

he might have assessed he was lost

but youd have to know where you were going before you could say so

unmistakably 

                        he was somewhere

   

                  

              

Thursday night Friday,  1  10.  15
2003,  Monday,  12  10. 15