Stone & Fantasy

A Choice to Live in Fear or Ignorsnce

The daylight binds us all, to the world of clocks and no time, but here at night, I lose myself in men's eyes, in lips and smiles and. These diversions release my mind, from obligation, from purpose and from time, but in my stranger's eyes, I never grow and content I never see.

So by the rules that I've created, in which I believe, I've left no provision for obligation, not even to myself. Indulgence takes priority over work and living over memory ...and I do believe in this world, as monks believe in God, as dying men believe in mortality. That is to say, I choose and am condemned to my life at the same time; a glorious contradiction over which I have no control.

The steam rises from the streets and disappears into the air. The cars are heading for the tunnel and downtown shines brightly against the new fallen darkness. The daylight people are leaving the waterfront and slowly the streetlights begin to cast long shadows.

In the warehouse the empty second floor windows seem to watch the street through broken glass. Passing headlamps light the doorways in flashes but I can pass into the night ...and out of the night ...and no one will see.

The music is beginning outside, rhythms of the houses. The parking lot is filling up for the nightly show but behind the windows, upstairs, something is telling me to come inside.

There is magic in this place ...of metal ...and stone ...and water ...and much more. There is poetry on its walls and art and profanity that seem to belong nowhere else.

Through broken doorways and along decaying passages one can read warnings of its hazards and the stories are enough to keep the wise away.

Even in daylight the wind in this great expanse engulfs you like an ancient ruin. The catwalks, the broken floors, float on different planes and then disappear... but this is not a place of light, but one of darkness, of passion and pleasure; a time of hazard and abandon and most of all... fantasy. The risk is real and can be understood, yet, it all seems worthwhile.

Not many stray far from the large metal doors that lead to its vast dark interior and there is always the feeling that they'll close up behind you. Only a few venture into the heart of this place, past the last glimmer of streetlight, into the black center and beyond.

You have to know the floor and where there's none, the passages that are safe and those that lead nowhere or to the water; thirteen steps to the first landing and then ten beyond. Twisted metal and glass grow up from its floor as well as reach down from its ceiling somewhere above.

There is no sound here; a vow of silence is taken upon entering. The darkness holds close against your eyes and you gladly give up your sight in favor of your other senses ...and you are afraid ...that's part of it ...not of the place ...that soon becomes familiar ...but of what you sense and know to be true.

No one will see the strangers come or go because we're all strangers and in the night we live our dreams. Our bodies move in silence and when we touch ...we feel with our whole being ...we see with our minds.

The object is not to give pleasure, but to take it. Without a face we're free of convention, of what should be. We live a voyeur's dream; fantasy and reality overlap, for a moment and there is no time here. When we wake we find ourselves alone, half again, yet twice what we were, a glorious intoxication ...there is no equal and addiction is the way of things.

People die here, that's a fact, but they're strangers. The men with razors and guns, the brutal children with clubs, the men in heels and stockings and nothing else, the prostitutes doing their business in the crumbling rooms, are all part of this world... and one day, if you leave this place and your legs are covered with a stranger's blood ...and the smell and the damp come back to you in the light ...well, that's part of this world, too.

Here, nothing is as it should be, only as it is.