I skip and wobble through the streets, in search of men who breathe fire. I ask not for the educated or even for the handsome – both bore me. Perfection is foul to my eyes, just as justice is baneful to all nature. Neither the spider nor the fly know of morality, and for their ignorance they are far freer than man ever could be. I skip and wobble through the streets, in search of men who walk against history.
Some time ago while I was patrolling, I chanced upon three youngsters. They were kneeling around a dead bird. How it fell, neither of them knew. Perhaps if they did, they would wonder if birds died like men. In their wondering, they would find themselves at a loss to express the bird’s sentiments, for lack of proper language. They were struck not by the various insects moving in and out of its mouth and torn side either, and had they been, they would have seen how life paradoxically grows upon decay. A foreign interpretation though. For that which was, to cease to be. For something to rise from nothing, or the other way around, such a play of causality the thoughtful Descartes refused to accept. He saw only something come from something and something else before that. A chain that begins with God and Him alone. But what of the nonbeliever? Must he also be burdened with these notions? I say no. A man is not what he believes, but what he questions. I left the youngsters with only a sigh, for their eyes were too heavy with innocence – my heart flies only in the presence of the oppressed.
In the air I felt a call, a wistful melody that pulled me towards the park my beloved and I often twirled through. With the descent of the sun, the park had become devoid of distractions. A good place to sit and think. A good place to wait and drink. I perched myself upon a tree, and my eyes turned inward. Memories flooded, faces blurred together. I saw myself in-transition, time no longer apparent. The toddler became the boy; holding mother’s hand fades into standing before her;here in my cave, there lies me entwined with myself. I thought, perhaps I shall dance with my daemon.
Dearest
You sound far more calm than usual.
With eyes turned forward, and not back, we’ve come to see things better now
I feel in tune with this path we have come to. Certainty, that tormenter of my kind, tells me to persist. Those maxims of old have dispersed, all that sits before us is the long forgotten question. Yet, is it for me to bring it back into vogue?
We have endured all that the ever-present Mother has thrown at us. She, the harmoniser of heaven and earth, guides our every footfall. Yet, your hesitation proves to be the answer to your query
Still, you give me no straight answers.
Still, you lose grasp of your nobility whenever you watch leaves fall. This is only one wheel of life we have come to turn through. Withstand your mortality, for it is in its overcoming that liberation awaits you
But do you not see as I have seen? There is such beauty here, in this little morsel of existence that is my city, this city that is my body. Muscle and water, will and blood, I am the inheritor of my ancestors’ failures and successes. The hereafter no longer holds value, the beforenow no longer has any credence. I am of the earth, and again and again I must and will will myself to be.
This talk of will and choice has always excited you. Yet you stand before me as a drunk. What will you give, when all you have you spend to waste yourself?
I have nothing to give but my being. And who is to say I am wasting myself? If I have never been called a failure by the Mother, it must be that I am continually succeeding
Perhaps you are right, dearest. Go, then. Speak to them of being. Speak to them of what has been dispersed yet remains ever closest. Speak to them of the will of destruktion.
A knock on my head reminded me of my place. Two officers stood before me, each with a perplexed look upon their faces. I had fallen from my branch, and was rather wet. Time, she often confuses the drunk. The voice of my daemon, it was always rather perplexing. I say was when it should be is, but in saying is, I fear to forget who is speaking. I turned my attention to the officers.
‘What offends your gaze, kind sirs?’
‘A drunk man making himself an eyesore,’ the officer to my right replied, hoisting me to my feet. I was barefoot. I wondered where my shoes went.
‘You cannot sleep wherever you please, sir,’ said the other.
‘That and language is all that separates us from the beasts,’ I answered sadly, no longer caring about the shoes.
‘Do you have any ID?’ asked the first officer.
‘Hey, aren’t you that poet,’ the other replied in my place. ‘Yeah, it is you. So this is what happened to you,’ he added, looking me up and down with disapproval. How I was repulsed by anyone who thought they had a right to judge others.
‘With eyes that take the burden of Adam as their point of departure, you have turned nature into nurture, freedom into slavery. Zarathustra called out your blights upon man. I have not the wisdom or resolve to continue his task, but I tell you this – one day, one day, the tables will be thrown asunder once more, by the fire-breathers, and those who would march against history.’
They shook their heads, and proceeded to their car with me in toe. In this world that I love so dearly, the-they outnumber the free. One must have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing star, the old Zarathustra said. How I would have enjoyed his company when jests are few. Backwards, dearest time, take me back to where man was loftier and more sincere. But keep my feet before me at all times, for their procession is the first sight that I remember. And I’ve never left behind my first impressions – my daemon reminds me of them day by day. These feet know my story better than I do. They have taken me far afield, and for all my wandering, I have found only one thing to live for – the age of fire breathers, and the destruktion of history.
