Thursday, February 19, 2004

Speak to Me--Breathe

Pink Floyd, lyrics by Roger Waters, "Speak to Me—Breathe"
"Breathe, breathe in the air
Don't be afraid to care
Leave but don't leave me
Look around and choose your own ground
For long you live and high you fly
And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be

Run rabbit run
Dig that hole, forget the sun,
And when at last the work is done
Don't sit down it's time to dig another one
For long you live and high you fly
But only if you ride the tide
And balanced on the biggest wave
You race towards an early grave"


It takes in a breath of the warm limiting air and looks to the sky. Deep up there there's the sun and it eyes it with anticipation and revolt. Its stupid dull eyes, banal circular spheres, shake a little from the sun's harshness on its eyes. It takes its gaze from the big, shinning sun. As it leaves the afterimage of the sun stays in its stupid dumb eyes for a while, like the letters branded on a domesticated cow. And slowly the afterimage fades as it busies itself with other tasks.

The naked form, without clothes, cocks its head to the solemn ground. Its dull dumb eyes look at the dirt with an overbearing cessation, a wondering pause. It seems to be thinking something, arranging something in its fatuous, impertinent head. The big dumb creature, provincial as everything else, stares back up at the sun.

There's no change. The stupid creature's eyes gaze in the star's eye and they're looking at one another, far away and impersonal. Its eyes flutter and glint in the burning sun. Soon it turns its eyes away yet again, defeated.

It knows in its dumb mind what it must do now. The afterimage of the sun seeps away and its eyes wont over on the ground again. There's no vegetation on the ground. It then takes its big dumb head up and looks all about it. There's nothing but the hot heat and an endless expanse of more sand and more sand. A desert.

It stands and looks to the ground again. It stands there long. The sun continues to bake the stupid creature. All the creature can do is stand by as it continues to get warmer and warmer. Sweat begins and comes from the pores on the big stupid creature's skin. It waters down at first in small drops, then augments into bigger and yet bigger pools. Soon the big dumb creature is sweating profusely, the salty sweat coming down on its face, its legs, its torso, its naked genitals. It can taste it in its big dumb mouth. It tastes strange. It makes it even more thirsty.

It's getting thirsty. Its throat feels like a dry guttural refuse of rocky chasms with each encumbered breath and swallow. Its hands feel chipped and are dry to flakes. They feel gritty. Its back is getting sunburned, the red prevailing over its fleshly peach color. The red has almost made it to its buttocks.

And at last, the big dumb creature has a plan: it shall burrow into the ground. It has no idea what the ground is, nor what it is doing. At first it just absently puts its big dumb calloused hands on the dirt as it lies on the ground, grasping it and throwing it in frustration. It kept doing this and soon realized it was making a hole.

Frantic, wanting survival, the big dumb creature burrows its hands in the sand. It grabs a large handful, throws it aside, grabs another with the other hand, throws it aside. Repeats. The big dumb creature sits there doing it a long time, its eyes in a painful pant, its hands flaking and dry, its back now sunburned almost to the buttocks. The pain is racking, hits its big dumb body and jolts. But all that is on its big dumb mind is survival. All it wants to do is escape into the depths of the ground, the cold cool ground, and be safe. It must forget the sun—must get away from its prying, ever radiant, ever warming ephemeral gaze. It must find suitable ways to last.

The sun begins to fall. Its glow begins to fade into the back dropping distance. Its then orange radiance is now a mosaic of punctured color. There's a shade of violet flower, a rose-red crimson bleed, a fruitful orange of growth, a bruise-blue wound. The sun is setting, permeating its intensity, its vivacious coordinationed hues. It's not leaving without a show.

From the big creature's stupid form, the colors cadence all around. The kaleidoscope of variance dances and dresses the creature's naked flesh. And the big creature's stupid face, stern with determination, hard with pain, flickers with the light too. The light touches the creature's face in a powerful grasp, and slowly leaves with one last dying finger.

The sun has fell. Now night approaches.

But the big dumb creature, having worked most of the day, has dug itself a big hole in the ground. The hole's diameter is just enough for the big dumb creature's form. It wearies its eyes for one last look at the sun. The big dumb creature gets the very edge of the sun's leaving face. It then looks around its barren surroundings once more. It sees the endless desert which encompasses it.

Slithering into the hole it begins journeying down. Its entire body spasms in aching pains, and sunburn stands on its back in harsh overtones down to the buttocks.

Down it climbs in the hole. It climbed for what seemed eternity. The sun is lost to the creature's primitive cognitions. It is no longer cognizant of where it came from; it is only realizing of where it's going. Down it tells itself, into the ground, where it's safe, that's where to go.

It went down and down and deep—went into the bowels of the earth, a festering thing going and moving. When it reaches the end of the hole, it sees a new surrounding, a new dwelling.

It fell from the sky, a naked form in a blur of innate motion. The fall is short and it lands.

All about there are large monoliths which seem to touch the sky; the monoliths look as if they would lean and fall at any moment, and crash to the ground, but they do not. These monoliths have people coming into them, and it can see there's clear squares appropriated on the monoliths. Some of the squares leak light out into the daytime. Others only let light in.

There is a hustle and a bustle all about. Sputtering things go to and forth, the wind hitting the creature's face each time as they pass. People walk along the side of the passing blurs, creating a tangled mess.

One approaches the big dumb creature and opens his mouth. The big dumb creature doesn't understand and gives a glint of miscommunication in its eyes. The man looks angered. It only can look at the man and wonder what his problem is. And feel a rumbling in its stomach for food, and the lethargy of needed sleep.

The world is so anew to this creature's eyes. It looks to the sky, wishing it could go back up, but finds its hole is gone. It falls to its knees, grabs them, and cries from dry eyes. The salty murk clouds its vision but does nothing to its temperament. Sadness wells in its pained body, and an ununderstanding and unacceptance of what is happening heaves its mind. The man is still by the big dumb sullen creature. He looks angered and walks away.

It lay there a long time.

Collecting itself, it got back up. There is now a circle of people surrounding it, but it doesn't pay attention. It gathers away its pains well as it can and sets out to find some food. It comes upon a large building. It isn't quite a monolith but the front of it has a picture of food. The big dumb creature decides there must be food here. Somewhere.

The sign on the sliding door outside the store read SHIRT AND SHOES REQUIRED. It can't read so it doesn't even see the sign.

The doors slid open. It walks in. People stare at the creature. Some place their hands on their mouths. The look on their mouth says, "This is the worst thing to happen on the world ever. Anyone who does that shouldn't be around long." Others look at it with groping eyes. Some act like it doesn't even exist, walking right past it, whistling on their way, their eyes set ahead.

It walks to where it sees food. It grabs a round sphere which appears to be food. It puts it in its mouth. It tastes good. The texture of the food is crispy and hard but sweet. It clenches its jaw and takes another bite, and another. Inside its body its esophagus pushes down the bitten pieces of food to its stomach. Its body begins digesting the food to turn it into energy and waste.

Now it needs to satisfy its thirst. Its throat still feels rough and hoarse. It walks around the store a while. People still turn their heads and stare.

It finds a container with some fluid in it. It imbibes it to its mouth and felt the nice fluidity of it. The nice flow of it as it soothes the throat.

Just as it finishes guzzling down its beverage, a man with perceptive eyes and an embarrassed face approaches. He grabs it by its shoulder's skin and speaks harsh words to it. He drags it to the entrance and tosses it out. He screams more words to it and rages off. It doesn't understand what went wrong. It only feels the skin of its shoulders and feels a bellow of pain. It only knows it's full of food and water and that's what matters.

The stupid dumb creature begins wandering off. It wants to get out of there. It wants to leave. Looking to the sky, the creature sees the sun in the sky. It looks the same. It remembers.

It wants get away from the sun. It holds bad memories. The big stupid creature begins walking faster. It pans its gaze away from the sun, the undeniable afterimage of it racking its eyes and then leaving. Soon the hustle and the bustle is lessening. There's less monoliths, less tangles of people. It finally feels like it's getting away from this place.

It's out away from the epicenter now. There's only solemn things flying by, and next to no one out and about. It has come to a wooded area. Great trees crush out of the ground, their roots gnarling things. Light bushes also cover the ground, fighting for supremacy they'll never have against the great trees.

It can also hear the chirping of some birds in the trees. It looks up and stops its walking. It can see a bird sitting in the tree. There's eggs in there too. The eggs are oval and white as angel's wings. It stares at them in wonder but is soon walking on. It puts its head down, and is racked by its pain. Its back hurts; its head aches; its shoulders burn from the man's hands on his skin; its fingernails are broken and full of grime and dirt from digging, and full of nestled sores. Its body isn't in good condition

It feels fragile as it walks. It's like it's going to scatter and blow away in the light breeze, broken pieces of terse, sorely aches and pains, wounds and cracks. Soon it needs to sleep.

In back of it a noise emanates. The cracking of twigs and leaves and it starts off running. It runs with the last of its strength. Something pushes it to run. A large prick of fear stabs itself in its heart. It must run, it reasons, or it shall be susceptible to more pain. The people didn't like it, so it must avoid them.

The big dumb creature runs quick, easily outrunning its follower. When it stops running, it can see a small animal in the distance. It approaches it.

The creature it finds has flappy ears, a puffy tail, a round nose. And it hops when it walks, its fur moving up and down in spurs. It looks close at what the rabbit is doing. It's put its paws into the ground and is digging. The mound of dirt collecting grows in each lithe second.

The stupid dumb creature smiles. It's a pained smile lighting the corners of its cheeks, a slow smile spreading few and far, but still showing hope. It looks at the rabbit with great understanding and love, and a great feeling of joy from watching it dig.

Its paws went in the ground, the other in the ground, and out came the dirt in clouds, and landed. Then again. And again. The little creature works hard. The eyes are focused. The body exerted in what it's doing. The entire being moving autonomously. Paw goes in, other goes in, out it comes in a dirt, down the paws go again, up they come again, another dash of the dirt as it flies up and lands and the hole gets deeper. It was beautiful.

The stupid dumb creature smiled a long time. Then it got to sitting down on a tree beside the rabbit. Its eyes drift half open for a long time as it watches. And slow, so slow, its eyes shut, and it slept a much needed sleep.
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