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| (Double self-portrait by David Saltaire) |
I seem to have lost all appetite for food,
recently. I hadn’t really noticed, not for days. It suddenly struck me, as I
was talking to a friend of mine, my best friend, perhaps. I hadn’t eaten in a
very long time, weeks. It simply hadn’t occurred to me. I told Jack about it.
He didn’t seem to hear or, he did, but chose to ignore it.
Funny, hanging out with Jack. It was like
we’d never parted. There was a time, not so long ago that he and I were not
friends. We had been, long ago but, he had forsaken me and it hurt me, badly.
He had refused to stand by me after I was arrested. “I have to think of my
reputation,” he told me. “It wouldn’t do to have people think of you and me
together.” It was a betrayal. He’d always known about me and my little quirks.
I really hated him after that, really resented him. It didn’t seem to matter
now, although I couldn’t remember what had led to our reconciliation. Or even
that we had reconciled. It just stopped mattering. Things had gotten pretty
fuzzy around the edges.
“Really, though, Jack,” I said, “I’m not
even hungry. I passed a restaurant today and I could see in. There was quite a
banquet going on in there. The most wonderful food and a lot of it. I looked at
all of that food and it seemed beautiful. It almost made me cry. But, I was just admiring its collective gorgeousness.
I didn’t want any. I wasn’t in the least hungry. It was like looking at a
mannequin.”
“Honestly, David, why bother about it? It’s
just not important to you, anymore. Just move on and worry about something
else.”
“I wonder why it isn’t important, though. I
feel as though I am just a character in a book. They never eat, either. They
hunger for love but not food, at least not very often. That’s why I think I
like Dickens so much. His people always roll out these great feasts. They
hungered like I do… used to, anyway. Even Scrooge blamed seeing Marley’s ghost
on something he ate.”
Jack laughed. “You and your Dickens. Did
Dickens ever make the New York Times bestseller list? I don’t know why you like
to read that creaky old Victorian stuff.”
“I like it. It’s about the way people lived
then. You should read some for once. You haven’t read anything since you were
in school and yet you want to be a writer. What bullshit. How can you write
when you never read anything?”
“Well, I always passed my classes, didn’t I?
Who needs to read? I can pick stuff up pretty quick.”
“Not that it matters.”
Right, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.”
Jack gave me one of his patented
gingery-beard smiles. It was wonderful to see him looking so young. He looked
just the same as when we first met. All the stray hairs in his beard were
trimmed for once. His eyes were bright, not all clouded with alcohol and angst about
his latest girlfriend.
“So, nothing to worry about, eh?” He said.
Worried? No, I wasn’t worried about anyone
or anything. That in itself was remarkable because I’d always been a person
with passionate opinions and gargantuan worries. I was always restless,
fretful, opinionated, although good humored enough. Now, I scanned over some of
the things I ought to be fretting about.
Not one of them seemed important. Not even
work. Especially not work. Not my relationships with my parents. They had been
on my mind a lot the past few years. The fact of my not being involved in my
parents’ lives. And they were getting so old. Now, none of that troubled
me. Just some baggage I thought I needed
once. But, I’d been carrying it for so long and nothing inside those burdensome
cases even fit me, they were worn out, tattered. It was like being on a bridge
after walking for twenty miles griping the handles, arm aching, hands all
sweaty and blistering. Looking down into the dark water it was a great
temptation to throw all of it over the railing. And, why not? Seems I could
forgive Jack. Why not just get rid of all that trash? I made the decision to do
just that. I hoisted it up to the railing and over. It dangled in my sore hand,
straining my arm muscles. With a great sigh of relief, I let the hard-shelled
luggage go. I heard it splash heavily, and gurgle as it sank below those calm,
calm waters.
I felt so light, so happy. Gravity didn’t
seem to matter anymore, either. I floated with bounding steps until I was
actually aloft. It was easy, actually. It had never been so easy. I sailed over
rooftops, looking down at the earthbound. All the lonely people, going about
their daily business, their foolish, useless business. I felt a love for them, and
a pity. They couldn’t be up here with me. They didn’t seem to know how easy it
was to fly. It made me wonder about myself. How come I had never noticed it
before, myself? That I could fly. By now I was gaining altitude. What was
happening on the ground was very small and, very far away.
“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” Jack said in my
ear.
“Hmm… yeah,” I replied. It’s fun.”
I realized we were flying together. Something told me it wouldn’t last though. As
we were flying through the air, with the greatest of ease we seemed to be
getting thinner and thinner, wider and wider. After a while I felt as big and
as thin as the whole sky, integrating with it and even into the trees and soil.
There was a long period, very long indeed,
where I wasn’t aware of anything at all, I was just being. There was no Jack,
no mother and father, no buildings, jobs, taxes, loves or hates. I saw nothing
and experienced everything. Suns were born and died, worlds leapt up and burned
to ash. Entire galaxies grew up before
my rapt eyes, turned on an invisible axis. The material world vibrated in a
song of indescribable beauty. The forever, endless black turned to light of a
thousand colors and began to flash like a strobe. It all seemed to happen
within me and without me. I was a part of the nervous, joyous music, ecstatic
and free, exulting in the great, over-arching intelligence that was the infinite
Creator.
Finally, there was only the calm. I floated
in it like a castaway in a milky sea. It
lulled me for ages, bringing blessed forgetfulness. I was nourished, without
striving. I was caressed by the saline universe. Then, the membrane began to
crack and the sea leaked out. The warmth became uncomfortable and cramped. I
longed to free myself from the cocoon of muscles I found myself in.
‘What is this?’ I thought, ‘what now?’ I
turned and felt a great pressure squeeze me, propelling me towards a sort of
door or hatch, viscous and red. Before I knew it I was through it and blinking,
dazed at the light.
The air felt chill and bracing. I lifted my
voice and cried out. I was trying to sing the universal song. It was a thin, but triumphant sound I made,
mingled with regret at having lost my safe, warm home in the sea. I heard about
me laughing and delighted exclamations, felt hands as big as giant leaves
holding me, laving me, pulling something from my belly and felt the odd pain of
severance.
And so, here I am, again. It’s time for some
sleep. I have much to do, much to re-learn. In the morning I’ll begin
collecting things to put into my hard bag again.
