Thursday, February 5, 2004

Martha

1
There's the flow of paper; swish and swoosh, white stark and it's there. Pencil in hand, a strange wry hand and it is writing. Scribble scribble, write it down. Write it down, put it there, make it there, it feels good there. Touch the words in that right way, put them down the right order. Does it look good this way? Give it more meat. Feed it some. Here starve it more. Let it suffer. Scribble scribble, write it down; scribble scribble, let it suffer, let it drown, let it starve, let it grow, let it eat, let it die, let it breathe, let it feel alive let it be alive and moving; make it kinetic make it have inertia.

Here I draw flesh and here it's given sinew and bone and mallow. And here she's a woman and she has long white hair and she's old. Wrinkles crack the face, the face is white as a ghost. Her name is Martha she was never young but I can make her remember. I can make her young. I can make her feel it.

Scribble scribble, there's the turn of the page, there's the words coming down, crashing and they're pouring out and can you breathe them in? Martha let me know you're there. You're old and you're white; and I can see your eyes. Deep-set eyes and they're black as dead space with no stars, no twinkles, just bare and clean; just full of stark nothing. What's your story Martha? What are you? Who are you? Tell me.

She's you and I'm her and we're all the same. Scribble scribble, there's the pencil flowing; click-clack there's the keyboard clanging, banging, and it's coming all down and what does it mean? And where is it going to go, and what is it we're seeing? Martha let me read you for a while.

Everyone has a story and so does Martha. Martha you were born in a hospital and the hospital was full of large quiet men. And the large quiet men were writing and they were talking to their papers. And they were pushing you, they made you. When you were in your mother's womb they made you form; there wasn't any sperm, there wasn't any ovum, there was just you and them; they made you, they built you, they loved you from the start. Martha you were so cute as a small little fetus developing, growing. You were augmenting and you were getting beautiful.

You look human from the beginning Martha. At first they just wrote MARTHA and then you started talking and then you starting making. At first you were just what the quiet men were writing down and you were empty; then you started coming alive in your mother's womb as she pushed and pushed—as they pushed and pushed. And Martha you were going to be beautiful from beginning.

When you were born the quiet men cried and looked up from the blank sheets they were writing on. They smiled at you as they saw you for real for once and they were glad to see you. You were beautiful and you had those black eyes; but they looked like obsidian, lustersomely smooth, shiny; like small black smooth pebbles. Your hands were just like they said: they were your hands from the beginning. They were smooth and curious and were creation hands. Fresh and new from just being made they were unworked but soon enough they were brought to working Martha.

A little baby you were Martha, with peculiar powder white hair and plump cheeks and a little body. They nourished you—smiling, the quiet men were still in the hospital with you and so slow you were being cut from your umbilical cord. Blood was all over, but it was blood that didn't stain; it was blood that was, that is, that makes. It was red with emotion, thick with meaning, thick with what would be. And you didn't mind at first. Martha you looked at the blood and thought it was just the beginning, and the quiet men still writing away looked at the blood and it was just the beginning. It was just the start.

You were a wailing thing then. You would cry and cry and you'd want anything you could have. And you wanted it all right away. Rome was built brick by brick; but it was always there, it was always in those peoples' hearts. Peoples' hearts are deep hidden things, and blood pumps through that machine that writhes and lives. Peoples' hearts aren't ever seen these days, but the quiet men writing wanted to show theirs, and they wanted to find your heart and let you see it. They wanted you to be alive and as full of your heart as they were; rich into it, and feeling it beating, and realizing how it felt.

Brick by brick; hand by hand; heart by heart you were being built. In the quiet men you always existed, deep in their hearts you were always waiting to get out. And so they sat to their blank sheets and they wrote with letters; and the letters were full of heart. And so they wrote with words; and the words were full of heart. And with these words they made sentences, and with these sentences they made paragraphs, and with these paragraphs they created chapter and section and skin and layer. Brick by brick, Martha; hand by hand; word by word; sentence by sentence. Heart by heart, Martha, heart by heart. It was all there, but to make it matter it takes time. Peoples' hearts take time. They take time. Take time even though they've always been there.

A heart is as big as a fist Martha and is red and full of veins and muscle. Doesn't it seem small? But hearts, little blood fists, can work hard and heavy. It can pump and pump and push and push and it can make and it can feel. And it can blacken too, it can die it can not want to beat. To use a fist you have to beat it bloody. To use a heart you have to beat it even bloodier Martha. You have to work it hard. It's strenuous it takes time it takes will. Brick by brick; heart by heart; beat by beat; vein by vein; it'll be made Martha it'll be made. And why did you want it so fast?

The men were sleeping one night, their blank and filled pages to their sides; and your eyes opened wide and they look like they look now—looked like black dead space with nothing in it but futile expansive intent. You had been growing quickly Martha hadn't you? You were now twice as big as you were when you were born. The blood all over your operating table was drying, wasn't staining, and your umbilical cord was feeding you. Was eating you. It's controlling you and nourishing you.

You want to break free.

Click-clack and scribble scribble and it was the first time you were alive. Really alive. Make it suffer there. It feels good there. The words are coming out right Martha and you didn't like it you didn't want to be sold away. You wanted to be alive; you wanted to be. You wanted to think; to think and therefore say you existed, and not just in these men's words.

You made a knife come to your hands; you made it, you wanted it, you wished for it. It was yours and you had it. One of the quiet writing men was sleeping, wasn't he? You could see in his dream and you were controlling him. You had the power. You could just see his hand as it groped out a fresh piece of paper and it wrote. One word, scribbled and written in chicken scratch; one word that started it all, that made you alive. One little thing that started it.

And he did grope for a fresh sheet of paper. And he did put his pencil in his hand. His eyes were closed tight; closed tight and deep in sleep, and the eyelids quivered in his deep dream. Back and forth in their sockets, back and forth and back and forth; so fast Martha so fast. You had him good. He was yours. All yours and no one was going to stop you now, they were all asleep. The words came slow and hard and you didn't like their feel. But you know what you want. You wanted a sharp cutting instrument, you wanted sharp steel. You wanted a scalpel. Wanted to cut them away.

So slow Martha he wrote SCALPEL and then there it was in your hand. It's shiny in the light isn't it Martha; it's beautiful. Kill your beauties Martha; kill your beauties Martha.

The umbilical cord was long and big and full. And with your scalpel that shown your eyes on its reflection you cut it. It took a long while for you to do it. You had to puncture it slowly; had to take it brick by brick; heart by heart; word by word; incision by incision. But soon it broke, soon it gave way. And it was only the beginning for you Martha, it was only the beginning. The real one. It was the real start. With the cutting of that cord you were alive for the first time; were a breathing living thing; you were Martha. You had killed your beauties Martha you had killed them.

All the quiet writers you kill. You slay them with your own hands. It felt good, you felt like a monster, and that was good. You smiled and smirked and your eyes were no longer black like pebbles; they were cold and rigid but still so fragile. Two small dark black lakes where the water was rising up and down. Pulled by some moon's gravity way up in space.

They were dead Martha, kill your beauties Martha. Murder them. Redrum. They're all dead. He's in the corner and his face is not recognizable. And the other one's there and he's not recognizable. You can't tell who any of them were. Martha, where do you think they went? Do you think they went where the words took them? Do you think they were going someplace good?

Your eyes Martha. They are cold; cold as revenge. Revenge is a thing best served cold; best served with a bitter feeling. Your eyes are cold. You're shaking. Shake shake shake shake. You can't believe it. You did it to them. You feel remorse, you feel sad. You're shaking, you're cold. You did it Martha. You killed them; you killed your beauties.

What did you do? Why did you do it? Now you're feeling regret; feeling it for the first time. There's a first time for everything Martha, a first time for it all. Get used to it Martha, get used to it. Peoples' hearts, people themselves, they are so many different things. You know it felt good; you know killing them felt good. It didn't feel right but it felt good. People change all the time; people are so many different parts. Elated, sorrowful, morose, violent, sullen, anguished, depressed, good, happy, glad; peoples' hearts know what they want to do, but sometimes they don't know. Sometimes their hearts play tricks on them. Sometimes their brain acts as their heart; sometimes their heart acts as their brain.

You're about to cry Martha, I can see the tears coming. Get up. Go on. It doesn't end here, this is just the beginning. It's the start: the death of others for the lives of some; innocent, good peoples' deaths for the lives of someone like you, Martha. Pig's blood for a pig; kill your beauties; bleed; burn maim destroy effuse decay; dilapidated and run-down and full of shame. Martha's blood for her. Their blood for them.

It's okay. Don't cry. Don't cry, I don't like to see people cry Martha. I don't like it, it feels too sad. Get up, it's time to go, Martha, there's more to see. There's more of your story to tell isn't there? I can see it in your face, in your black eyes, in your white hair.

You're growing right now. At a fast rate. You're no longer a baby; now you're a child. Your plump cheeks are now less plump; your white hair is now thicker and has more depth; you're taller; your thoughts are more profound. Become what you will, there's more to come, more to see, isn't there?

She's going on now. She's leaving the hospital; she's leaving where she was born. Martha holds back tears. She's leaving where she murdered. Where she killed. She's leaving, and Martha's going out to show herself. She's going out to be.
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