Exploded stars long extinguished,
wind-swept blazes on the prairie,
incinerate the branches of last year’s joy
for we are dust and ash
and there is life in the memory of the flame.
Exploded stars long extinguished,
wind-swept blazes on the prairie,
incinerate the branches of last year’s joy
for we are dust and ash
and there is life in the memory of the flame.
Ludovicus Nihili sat encamped most nights at the corner of
the bar in the tavern in the village where I grew up. Patrons of La Port d’Enfer were subjected on most
evenings to his extemporaneous lectures. He could, and would, speak at length on various topics including (but not
limited to) Recent Historical Indeterminacy, Lunar Agriculture, Pre-Columbian
Idolatry, Pan-Germanic Warfare, Hypothetical Talmudic Exaggerations, Cro-Magnon
Architectural Novelties, Antediluvian Carrying Capacities, Fungal Infestations
and a Smellfungus Response, Psychic Archaeology, Classical Angelic Poetry,
Incarnational Medicine, the History of Future Conflagrations, and the Right Use
of Fireworks and other Incendiaries.
“Did you know,” he said to me as I approached the bar for
another tankard of ale, “that the three wise me of Luke’s natal account were in
fact Persian Gymnosophists, and that they travelled entirely in the nude?”
“Matthew,” I said blowing the foam from my beer.
“Hmmm?”
“The magi, or gymnosophists if you insist, are found in the
gospel of Matthew,” I told him as I made my way back to my seat at a booth in
the corner. Ludo followed me.
“And did you know that the ancient Romans used
electromagnetic cloaking devices built around the plinths of their monuments
and the foundations of important buildings to protect them from earthquakes
which functioned by diverting seismic waves from those constructions?
“No. No I did not…” I said.
“But sir! It’s an inconfondible truth,” he said energetically.
“Roman engineers would…”
“Ludovicus, for the love of the ursiform goddess, leave that
man alone,” the proprietor shouted across the room. “Either drink your beer in
silence or deliver your lectures elsewhere.”
I wasn’t sleeping; I watched them go. Without a word, without a warning, the stars slowly winked out of existence. I watched their twinkling lights fade away into an inexplicable and mysterious silence. The learn’d astronomers were of no help. They muttered in their observatories about gravitational collapse and neutrino distortion waves. “These things happen,” they told us. “What can you do? But there will be other stars in other galaxies. The universe is very large you understand…”
Maybe they are right. The universe is vast and strange. I’ve
heard stories like this, and believed them I suppose, stories of unholy stones
transported across Siberian wastes by train. I’ve heard the villagers whisper
of the mark of the devil burned into pale flesh. I’ve heard rumors of celebrity
gladiators left to starve in forgotten obscurity. I’ve watched self-righteous
mobs parade through the streets with fascist icons held above their head. And
all of this seemed normal, I guess.
The stars went out and I dreamt of people stabbing and
cutting themselves with large kitchen knives and broken shards of crockery.
They could not be restrained. If we accept the interpretive principle that we
are each individual within our dreams, this might be somewhat revelatory. I
wasn’t sleeping, but I could do nothing to stop them. I saw them extinguished.
My eyes are fine; reality’s out of focus.
Still, we were happy in their light for a time. And I
remember hope.
Jesus and his companions watched the news with horror – the rioting, the buildings on fire, people shouting in the streets, broken glass, shattered skulls, horse mounted police trampling protesters carrying nothing more dangerous than cardboard signs, riot squad officers firing pepper balls at reporters and cameramen, firing tear gas and flash grenades into the crowds to provoke them to violence.
“Jesus,” said Matthew. “I’m so sick of the division and the strife. Can’t people just get along?”
Jesus turned off the television and scolded them, “You think I’ve come to bring peace? Do you think that’s why I’m here? Shit no. I came to start a fire, and I wish to God it were already burning.”
“Burn it down!” whispered Andrew
beneath the keffiyeh he already had
wrapped around his face, and shook his tightly clenched fist in the air.
“But,” Matthew objected. “Destruction of property isn’t a valid form of protest.”
Jesus laughed. “Just wait a few chapters.” He laughed again.
“It’s going to be divided houses from here on out – three against two, two on three. This is the uprising, the struggle, the intifada. It’s the end of traumatized truth and tortured dreams, but the end falls hard. Fathers and mothers against their children. Children against their parents. The world upside down until all is made right. Till one can walk on through without feeling like they’re in hell anymore. The roof is on fire, but we don’t need no water. Let the motherfucker burn.”