Pale Fragments

1 / homeless man

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My name is Ida Kneaux. This book is an elegy to the past sung by my hope in the present passage towards a magnitude of Nows. I hope it finds you.

Here is a poem scratched down quickly by me after hearing the words unrehearsed and sprung casually from the mouth of the Hero of this story, the nameless Robot, the Mover of many names, the Goddess self-named Grace:

Dreams are truth we write ourselves

With pen of mind and ink of life;

The dreaming-place is melted Time;

We find the hidden truth in movements

Apathetic matter makes

In gravitated patterns and

Routines of living human life.

I've always felt the need to justify my life with clarity. My ways, my conduct in this mysterious place we find ourselves lost within. Makes me feel safe to have everything labeled and narrativized, y'know?

I no longer believe in any of the gods you hear stories about, so I am unsure at whose bench I seek to plead my case. I will settle for yours, if you will listen.

I feel somewhat embarrassed and ashamed to be standing here before you. My deepest thoughts and most divine experiences echo in your mind. I feel as if you've walked in the bathroom while the shower head is in between my legs.

But, lover, I want you to see what I have seen, feel what I have felt. And I'm unsure as yet if this gesture, this offering of mine will come across as the final ice broken between souls which has been thinning for years, or like the lazy exposition of a porno; and what for me is a beautiful thing, for you might be horrifyingly awkward and make you slam the door of this book.

I was driving earlier and I saw a homeless man crouched on the median of a freeway entrance. I'd had a few bowls and was feeling cognizant of the absence of common empathy, seeing a poem in the steel cages that seal us off from one another and move through the world faster than our souls have yet learned how to appreciate.

There was a long line of cars in the right lane of the entrance before the red light, and only one car in the left one closest to the man. I pulled slowly up closer to him, remembering that I didn't have any bills in my wallet. Too late, the light turned green as soon as I stopped and had read the first sentence of his hand-written cardboard sign: "struggling to get by. Any help..." In a panic, seeking to do something about the coldness of the world, I exchanged a moment of eye contact with the man. He was grizzled, tired, crouching, looking down, his sign propped against his jeans. He looked as if he could have been a hippy in the 70s, or maybe had fought unwillingly in Vietnam. I held up a peace sign, and he did the same.

I felt good, like I'd had a moment with a man who needed to be seen, lessening some of the pain in the world with a simple recognition of common humanity.

But what did he make of my attempt? Peace as in "I see and love you, human" or "peace, sucka" as I drive away in a cheap and old car that he doesn't dream of affording ever again in his life? And did I do it for him, or for me? The latter is unforgivable, no matter the clarity of insight which motivated the intention.

I was driving to a school where I subbed for the day. One girl in my class didn't speak any English, only Spanish. Nobody in the class spoke Spanish. When she was leaving for the day, I said, "Lo siento, no para espanol," trying to say, "I'm sorry that I couldn't communicate with you." But I looked it up when I got back to my car, and what I said was, "I'm sorry, not for Spanish." Did she understand what I meant, my intention? Or did she think I was telling her that she wasn't welcome there in my class because of her ethnicity?

On the ride home, I stopped next to a homeless man for at least a minute while I waited for perpendicular traffic to clear. I looked straight ahead, pretending that he wasn't there.

You see what I mean? But despite my fear of my inability to communicate, I will tell you what I came to tell.