Momentary Sacrifice

 

For several days now I had been conducting a quiet, obscure war. A small war, private, untelevised… not unlike the wars of the mendicants or flagellants; those hungry saints who beat themselves with cords to feel closer to the unnameable.

My battlefield was a chamber of weeds, a sanctuary grown wild with disuse and perhaps mercy. It may once have been a storage shed or the bones of a forgotten greenhouse. But I had made it sacred by the act of tearing.

Each morning: one bill. Always a ten. Jackson's face torn in quadrants, one piece dropped east, one west, one to the wind, one underfoot. The rite was methodical. The sacrilege was exact.

I did it to destroy the root, to disrupt the wormhole in my chest that had twined itself around the desire for accumulation. A fetish, not of worship but of yearning, of obsession, of the silent panic that can wakes me in the night, panting for what I do not yet have.

On the second day, as I stood on the weeds, I looked down at the scrap in my hand, this worn, fibrous rectangle of power, and saw it finally as it was: a piece of paper. An object without essence. A body whose soul I had invented.

I saw then how much of my life I had given to these revenants of value. How many hours I'd sold to preserve the illusion of worth.

And then… everything became transparent: the bill, the chamber, my intentions, my body, even the leaf that fluttered past my shoulder as I stooped to place the second quadrant into the soil.

I began to cry, but not for the money. Not for myself either. It was the kind of weeping that comes when a person understands, for one suspended moment, that everything around them is dying, and they too are dying, and there is no villain in it, only motion.

I thought of the people I loved. How little I had said. How foolishly I had traded time for control and business, affections for assurances, letters for ledgers.

At the third mark, I halted. I made a circle with my finger in the dust. A magic circle but not for summoning. Rather for banishing. To tell the spirit of money, or the echo of my longing for it: Go.

There were no candles, no altar, no knife. Only the final shard of the ten-dollar bill, held like a relic between two trembling fingers, and my voice, raw, trembling, untheatrical:
“I release you.
You are nothing.
You are what I made you
because I forgot the deeper thing.”

And in that moment, not redemption, not transformation, but clarity.
Clarity in the form of weeds.
Clarity in rusted nails.
Clarity in wind and tears and paper,
scattered like autumn prayers across a forgotten chamber where I, a fool of the world, had come to offer what I no longer needed.

The Mask

How long had he sat there? A part of him wondered, the part with the brain and the logic and the rules he had been taught as a child. He should have been warm, fed, in bed with a beautiful wife and anticipating the coming of another work day. He should have had all that, and his parents still believed it was possible. They shook their heads with sorrow everyday when his name came up and the vision of their son, lonely and without children, came to their minds.
He should have been all that they had taught him to be, but he was not. He sat nearly naked in the dark night except for shoes covering his feet and a simple paper-mache black mask on his face.
On the dark fall night, the winds blew past him like the names of old lovers, coming and twisting their way around him until they had seen every inch of him, and then they drifted down the hill, towards other trees and bushes, and perhaps other men like him, lonely and childless, waiting naked under the moonlight.
How long had he sat? His stubborn mind wondered. He was used to that mind with all its trickery, its firm grasp on his body throwing rusty old thoughts into his meditation, reminding him of his poor parents waiting for grandchildren. That mind constantly adding some stones to the soup, but it had to come along on whatever journey he chose. So there he was, sitting on top of the hill, exposed but for his feet and face, with his brain nearly intact.
He had stopped feeling his skin hours ago. His toes, despite their humble covering, had lost their feeling before the sun even set. Perhaps they were purple now. He didn’t dare look, he would not move. He didn’t want to see what the moon and night had done to him, what harm his own insistence would cause to his vulnerable body. He had accepted that his body might be a casualty, there must always be a sacrifice, and maybe the fleshy body would have to suffer a bit more.
He had decided to come to the hill against all logic, against any impulse his body still had for survival. The instinct was dwindling each day, for there were other concerns. He had come, without clothes, food, water, no weapons or blanket to shelter him from the bitter cold. Here, dark was not only the absence of light, but the eye of fear. His own fear. The night was the place where doors were opened and all that he had thought about and heard and dreamed were there, ready, waiting for one close look before he would surely go mad.
He had brought one thing, the one thing he needed for protection against the night demons and the tunnels that came pouring out of him, wriggling free from his ears and heart, dripping from the open wounds in his anus and penis. The fears dripped out like dancing eels, finding their way into the black night and then twisting back, infecting him once again with the same thoughts and worries, the recognizable monstrosities he had come to know, for they were him as much as his fingers, as much as his skin. They showed themselves with a rancid smile, grinning, exposing their razor teeth and black tongues.
He had brought his mask, his one defense. It was firmly on his face, covering his nose, cheeks and forehead like a lover’s strong hand. And though he sat and saw his own fears spilling forth in the night, he was protected from them, just barely, with just a whisper of fabric.
Under the moon, protected now, he could be who he was not. He could be stronger than the man he knew by daylight. He could be a man without cowardice, facing death not with a beggar’s plea, but staring into the eyes of the void, searching for the gnosis he felt glittering. With the mask, he could be the king with his sword, he could find the inner will to sit straight through cold and pain, looking into the shattered gifts of generations.
He knew the power of the mask, and with this new face, he looked up at the moon, spitting on all that would laugh him into the river. He sat, alone in the cold of a black evening, wearing nothing but shoes and another face, and he could be what he was, and what he did not allow himself to be. He could be this now, for now he was the other. He was the man with hidden eyes and a forgotten nose. He was the man in the mask.

The Service

Suze looked into the clear blue sky of a July day. It all looked so peaceful, the simplest painting from the genius of a man without arms. There was not a single cloud to agitate the evenly coated hue. It was all chirp and sun. All summer delights and watermelon, not a single cloud to throw in a thought of moisture or a hint towards a memory of rain, for a fall that would surely come before she could turn her head towards the grass. Above her the heavens were wide and clear, resembling a roof, though as she looked she knew that beyond the obvious sense of safety were other planets, meteors, and above else, the most dangerous of all, hurtling rocks coming in her direction, containing the spores of alien life. Up above, on a July day, it only looked like summer and sweet cherry pies and fireworks. Towards the left was fall, and further, towards the white house on the corner, was winter, with its piles of snow and thick boots and smoky fireplaces.
She lay back on the grass, her long sandy blond hair framing her face like a beached mermaid. She was safe and the sky felt like a roof because right now there were soldiers out there, fighting the aliens spores with every available bit of metal and technology and ounce of human will.
As she slowly turned her head, winter would come. In a few months she would be 18, and at 18, she would be required, like all 18 year olds, to put on the lifeless gray wool pants and the suit top with ample shoulder pads. On her head would sit the pointed military hat with the nation’s yellow embroidered eagle, meant to allude to gold, though failing miserably. This would be the suit, the new mask she would be required to wear, though not even Suze thought of it as a mask.
It was just what they did, what everyone had to do. One generation after the other, marching in lock step, marching one after the other with their knees up, elbows extended, chin raised in exaggerated pride. Each year there was a new batch of enlistees. A tray of dough that seasoned and hard instructors drilled with lashes and harsh words. After discarding a few burnt and crumbling ones that just never had a chance for the cookie platter dream, the battalion would be formed.
It was not just a requirement, but a rite of passage. What every young, bright eyed and overly enthusiastic young person had to do before they turned 20. And when she returned from her years in the hostile skies alive with alien sperm, after her skin had grown used to the lifeless green pants and baggy shirt and the collared jacket and the pointed hat, then she would come back, a woman ready to vote and throw back tall mugs of frothy beer in manly competition. After her service she would be able to apply for a child-bearing passport and maybe even become a teacher.
But first, before any of that, she would need to put on those pants. She would need to learn how to hold the impossibly heavy gun with its many chambers destined for variously weighted bullets, she would learn to run in time, in position, as part of the group; not ahead, not behind, but in perfect formation. The chants would become buried in her head, melodies that would follow her into old age like white hair and memories of bloody footprints. The sound of her instructor’s voice would bury itself in her mind, finding places in her dreams to escape and re-ignite the torment of humiliation.
Before she could get the gun, before any of it could begin, she would need to go to the office. There would be the forms to fill out, little x’s and lines that would require signatures and full disclosures. Tests, weights, prodding, measurements, scans of all her most intimate parts. By the end, they would know everything about her. They could see her dreams and almost determine her future.
The blue sky could give her no words of motivation, it knew her destiny. Beside her lay a small rectangular piece of paper with the writing of machinery and machine-like people all over it. The sky could offer her no recourse, no place to hide. And just as she had reluctantly always given up her location as a child when the game was called off, “come out, come out wherever you are!” it was time to face the nation. To become a bride, giving herself, body and soul to the nation. Take me, and make me a woman. Give me your gun, the power of your explosion, and I will be your woman.
She looked down at the card, an oversized flier for the national army. “We’ll keep fighting. And we’ll win!” There were a mix of men and women, three white men, a black and Hispanic man, one white girl with a wide smile and an Asian girl. They all wore the same lifeless green uniforms, held the same black semiautomatic weapons in their left hands, their right fists raised in the belief of ultimate victory. Their smiles were white and shiny, their eyes clear as though they had never seen the blood of war, and indeed they had not, for they were models, not soldiers.
But she didn’t need to be convinced, she already was. It was a requirement and there was no place in society for discussions about pacifism or even learning about those monstrous aliens with moon-sized sperm. What was out there, past the blue of the sky, was the enemy. A cold race intent on destroying human life because it hated them, it hated their lifestyle and the human species.
Service was not negotiable. It was a requirement for the species, and Suze knew that it was time to add her body to the marching mass, it was time she became a citizen.

The Hanged Man

He’s waiting to fall like a fruit that falls when it is ripe and ready to be eaten.
In this way he waits calmly for his moment to come, allowing his energy to accumulate in his head.
He waits to fall and the sensation of falling is all the time growing more and more intense.
The moment that he waits for is the moment of the fall.
The riper the fruit the more intense is the sensation of falling, until the fall becomes reality.

This is the man that is hanging.

We all have had that sensation when we sleep, that sense that we are falling (or that we are about to fall) but we avoid it. His message is to see things from another point of view and to allow ourselves to fall.

He is suspended in the air without touching the earth. His hair looks like the snakes of a medusa, his yellow arch is like the halo of the saints. The trunk that he’s hanging from is like the cross of Jesus, and his clothing is like that of a dancing buffoon. His face is serene and his eyes, which watch attentively, seem to invite you to establish visual contact with him. There is always the impulse to turn him around and see him from a different perspective, or one has to see him upside down..

The hanged man.
They tied his foot, because his foot was his head.

The natural fall.
As in birth, it’s the head that first comes out to see the light.
The rope that is tied around his foot is the maternal rope that comes from the navel.

Being hung up as he is, he doesn’t look down towards the ground, he looks forward without worrying about his situation. It seems that he is where he is by his own will, without resistance, without wanting to come down.

If he could speak, what would he say?
If I could ask him why he is there, what would he answer?
Was he at sometime in the past walking like any other man?
Did he climb up there for some reason and did he tie up his own foot?
And what is he doing there?
He doesn’t wait for anybody it seems.
And why does he have one leg folded and his arms at his back?
Are you the forbidden fruit of paradise?
If I were to stand in front of you and talk to you, where would I look, into your eyes or into your mouth?

The light that shines in you is a light that comes out of your head, but it’s a yellow light, as if it was lighting up your presence.

You appear to be a neutral being, neither good nor bad. You don’t smile, you don’t cry, you seem like a battery that is being charged.
How much longer are you going to be there charging?
And what will happen when you fall, will you feel that there is no further sense in living?

You will stop being what you are. Only hung up can you feel good, your feet don’t want to touch the ground.

You seem like the opposite of the crucified Jesus Christ. You are there without suffering, with your head facing down, alive and serene, without expecting anything.
Watching.

It is not in suffering that enlightenment is found.
It is in the other direction.

You are hung up and your blood runs from your feet to your head. In your head the energy accumulates and your folded leg has something to do with sexual energy. Perhaps you are holding it in with that foot, sending it from that place where it seeks to be released up to the head.

It appears that you have a certain kind of discipline to be there, straight, peaceful, and maintaining that strange position.

Snow Food

They cried out like little doves, their mouths open and pink and bare.
“Please don’t leave us!”
Their wails started to tear at the edges of her heart, but she had no choice. It was either wait and starve and appease their surface level fears, or put her soft white cheek to the bitter cold and look for something to fill their stomachs. There had to be something out there, because here, they had already boiled all the spare leather shoes and they had already consumed their small house plants and eaten the cinnamon dust that had settled on in their cabinets. There was nothing else. Nothing else they could close their eyes and pretend was food, there just wasn’t anything else to hold on to, and no one was coming to save them. It was them and the relentless snow. Three little bodies in the vastness of a small forest clearing that was just big enough for a small wood cabin and a vegetable garden that had long ago been buried in white. It was so beautiful outside, clean as a cold cloud, silent as death. Each bough was covered in a line of white, but it was a cold beauty, an unforgiving beauty that had no remorse for their hunger, it would not cry for their frozen bodies. It wouldn’t even notice, and then, more snow would come, covering them up like a gravedigger. So she had to go. She had to forage while she still had a little bit of strength in her muscles, while she could still walk into the snow and have a chance of coming back. Another couple of days and it might be too late. She looked at them, tears streaking down their pale cheeks.
“I have to go, you need to eat. We can’t wait for the snow to melt, I have to go now.”
She looked out the window into the nearly solid white landscape. Her body was motionless as she imagined herself out there, snow prickling at her soft thighs as she stepped through mound after powdery mound. And then, in a sudden burst of energy that assaulted her stillness, she went to the musty closet to grab her boots and her thick socks and her mittens. In the drawer by the closet was her scarf and woolen hat and she put them on with a stoic face and a thin lipped half-smile.
“Please don’t go, who will tend the fire when you are out?”
“You’ll just have to do it, you’ll have to learn as you go. Remember, we went over this, just put small pieces of wood on when the fire is small and when it’s blazing hot, you can put in the larger logs. If the fire turns to small coals, do not smother it with a large piece of wood. It’s very important to match the pace of the fire. Understand?”
She gestured to the stacked wood by the front door.
“There’s an ax over there, next to the pile, if you need to cut some smaller pieces, just make sure not to cut a finger off if you try it.”
She smiled at her little boys. They looked at each other, both wondering if they would manage to keep the house warm while she was gone. They were desperately hungry, and they were aware of their urgent need for food, but they didn’t want her to leave. They walked arm in arm to the hearth and sat on the warm stones by its base.
“Okay now,” she said pulling on her coat, “I’m going to go, I don’t think I’ll see many animals out today, but I’m going to look, even if I have to stay out there til dark, we can’t go on like this.”
The boys looked at her, again, they cried like little doves.
One spoke up, “Can’t we wait a little longer? Maybe the snow will stop falling soon.”
“No, we’ll be skeletons by the time the sun comes out and turns this all to water. It’s the worst storm I’ve ever seen. Maybe there’ll be a deer out…they need to eat too. Everyone needs to eat. Or maybe I can find some Douglas fir and take some of their tips, at least we could make a nice tea from them.”
The boys looked at each other, they didn’t really like the sour tea their mother made. She opened the door and a terrible wind filled with echoes and chills entered the room, it danced with the flames of their hearth and threatened to smother it with its cold whip. One boy immediately turned his attention to the flames, adding a couple of small pieces of wood to the relentless red mouth.
“Here you go,” he said, “you can eat this.”
“Okay, I’m going.”
They watched her take her first step into the snow.