Bone Quida Ida

Bone Quida Ida - Beneath the Pier

The Greyhound

             The dreariness of the thing is almost incalculable. I don’t mean life itself — good lord, no. That rich, green fullness is a miracle and I, as one who wastes the gift, know it better than anyone. No, I mean my own being, my own small gray center within which I breathe as though surrounded by ash. From a young age, I found action of any kind repugnant. Indeed, it would seem as though languor were my natural state, a great flowing weed on the bottom of the ocean of life. As a boy, I was forced or bribed into moving (“playing” as they called it) with extravagant promises. They never understood that they had nothing I wanted, absolutely nothing. I desired time and my own passive, barren soul. Was it so hard to understand? I suppose it might be, rare as my ilk have become. We bear almost no relation to the rest of the populace, those industrious, ruddy-cheeked wonders. Careening through the hours like billiard balls, hard and bright and shining. I find their frenzy absurd just as they find my lethargy revolting. Where might I find a brother, me, a wet rag in a cold universe?
                There is a certain primitive joy when one has renounced the world and its inhabitants, a joy that is not far removed from terror. The words, to me, often seem interchangeable. Abandoning the productive life, a life of any positive value whatsoever, was as simple as shrugging off a coat. I remember the day clearly. I simply laid down in the road, one foot trailing into the gutter. I felt weightless and somehow giddy. I heard the steps around my face, my sallow cheeks pierced by rubble and glass. Now and then, some kind soul would stop to ask me if I was in some sort of trouble, perhaps ill or assaulted in some way. I stared straight ahead without answering, the thick street grime turning my eyes a dull gray. I appreciated their effort, I simply couldn’t return it. The authorities showed up eventually, all brass and scorn. They thought I was drunk or perhaps insane. I was still green then, young and naive, my methods unpolished. If a similar result would occur now, I would be most unsatisfied with myself.
                I am, of course, virtually invisible all these years later, as I have atrophied almost beyond sight. Coupled with my diligence and professionalism, I am virtually unnoticeable.  But this mastery developed over a long period of time. At first, my desire to be utterly without motion far outweighed my actual ability to follow through with my plan. I had not learned to insinuate myself into the gray lines of the pavement, to hide my shivering smile in the sun’s glare. But as I said, I was diligent. I began missing more and more work. My productivity had always been below company standards and it was with a measure of relief that my employers accepted my resignation. Being a man without many relationships, I simply allowed the few I had left to slowly fray like twine against stone. I was always an obscure person to my acquaintances and my family, a distant shadow lurking across some city, some time. This too was rather easy, to let the entirety of my relations deteriorate into so much dust. I felt as though I were hanging above the world, pierced by a thick hook, and swinging, swinging…
                Without prospects, friends or gainful employment, I took to the streets. The days followed a similar routine: after a day and night of searching for a place I could lie prone without harassment, I woke to the prodding stick of some officer, eager to have me on my way though I desired nothing so much as to remain still. “Wake up!” they were always shouting at me, “wake up, you lout!” Were I inclined to speech, I would inform them that I was not asleep just then, nor was I ever asleep. I found slumber as abhorrent as action. The disintegration of the mind before sleep, the perverse terror of that final conscious moment before drifting into darkness or, worse, dreams. They would not have believed me though, thinking me merely lazy. The simple, clean rules they lived by. The ethical roads weaving through their souls, smooth, bordered, seemingly infinite. I would forgive them if I could relate to them in any way. It would be difficult to forgive a wolf for killing a deer, wouldn’t it? Not because you cannot forgive him but rather because forgiveness becomes a rather silly proposition considering the circumstances.
                My appearance began to change after several weeks of this drifting life. I was hollowed and filthy. It was not entirely unpleasant. I had long since lost the desire for food and vanity was as strange to me as labor. My skin, too, had strangely begun to peel and flake off. This was slightly unsettling, as I had no desire to die, death being as boring as sleep. If only I had known then that I had begun the great change that was to mark and direct my life. I was somehow fading physically, wasting away in body but growing into the fullness of my latent spirit. It wasn’t just my skin that was changing; my hair became thinner, falling out in clumps; my teeth were shrinking into sharp nubs like tiny white nails; even my voice, little used though it was, had gradually reduced to a hoarse whisper.
                The changes weren’t relegated to myself only. Whereas before I had been harassed unceasingly or lectured on my profligate ways, people were now beginning to look over me and, uncannily, look through me. The way one feels there is something just out of one’s peripheral vision, something vaguely threatening but unknowable. Their feet, printing and pressing me further into the cement, made me strangely happy. Sometimes they would look down afterward, as if they had noticed something, a different texture underfoot. But, not seeing anything, a curious frown would appear on their faces, and they would walk on, busily, but thoughtful and somehow frightened. It was all quite satisfying, this new life of mine. I no longer had any need to worry about the police or other authorities. I was well and truly on my own for the first time, a solitary figure receding farther and farther from the calamitous world.
               I purchased a gray suit with the last of my money. It was very fine and clung nicely to my lean, emaciated frame. It was the color of dust, the color of concrete. It suited my needs perfectly, this length of gray cloth. It was hard to see myself in the mirror. My thin lipped smile could just be made out, a hovering row of sharp white stones. The haberdasher was clearly terrified of me. He attempted to remove me physically from his store until I flashed my wad of soiled bills, waving them daintily under his nose like some grotesque coquette. He looked at me now, his face twitching with a comforting regularity, and muttered “It’s a sharp look. Sharp, very sharp. You’re a real greyhound.” I laughed at this remark, a harsh, gasping sound like leaves through a grate. I laughed and laughed while he stared at me with a curious little smile on his twitching face, unsure as to the meaning of my mirthful outburst. And I was not about to share with him, for the distance between the two of us was that of galaxies from one another, the distance between the living and the dead. I stifled my rasping laughter and paid for the suit. There was no mistaking the shopkeeper’s look of relief as I vacated his store. I placed my old clothes into the nearest trash bin I could find, stuffing them into the grime and filth with a cruel and satisfying pressure.
                As I walked through the careless streets in my thin gray suit, the world opened up to me like a poisonous flower, blooming, wilting, dying in its own thick beauty. This freedom! How can I explain it? It was the freedom of the meteor farthest from any star, awash in the rich darkness. It was the freedom of the dying bird, taking a last look at the vast sky before expiring. It was as if I had broken all the hands off of all the clocks in the entire world. Time ceased to exist; I was now merely a creature of space. I walked through the city a great deal that day, every step like a knife twisting inside me. But the effort was worth it, eventually. Turning a corner, I found a generic city street, one of a thousand grid lines upon a dusty map somewhere, and my heart contracted in a strange and powerful way; for, finally, I had found the spot I wished to spend the rest of my allotted time. It was a painfully average street. A row of little shops squatted beneath the apartment spaces above, each one like a thick and stupid animal. A fair amount of people were walking the street, letting their eyes dart into the darkened windows of the various shops, the various apartments. The sunlight had the slightly sickly quality of late afternoon and it framed the street so perfectly that I couldn’t help but smile, my lips stretching strangely, my teeth feeling very dry. I waited until the street cleared somewhat and then allowed my body to fall towards the cement. Gratefully it accepted my thin sack of bones, like a lover, like a mother whose eyes are far away, and I sighed deeply, achingly. I had never been so happy.
                That was many long years ago. This spot, my little patch of dust, has remained my own. My gray suit is even grayer now, if that is possible, bleached to invisibility, to a thin sheen of nothingness. My skin and the concrete melded some time ago; indeed, I cannot tell where I end and the street begins. The days and nights bleed together into a thin broth — they cannot touch me now, these cycles, these times. I greet each with the indifference of the dead. I am much more interested in myself, in the growing mind inside my brittle head, in the strange corners of the labyrinth. I am overwhelmed at times but I do not worry. Worry has been left behind with love, with death. Each foot pressed against my face, each mound of snow that freezes my bones, each shopkeeper that sweeps me further toward the gutter is merely extending my life, grinding me into the immortality I have always known would come, not loudly with trumpets and angels, but rather with the soft scraping tread of an aging clerk. I can see the moon rising now, gently. The night has forgotten me again and I feel something akin to grace wash through me.
                When the Rapture occurs, and Christ returns to gather the faithful, He will find at least one soul difficult to move. He will not raise me to the skies, though He will try. I will offer Him a small smile, a barely perceptible shake of the head. His filthy feet will be a comfort to me though, the enormous sweet filth of my soul mirrored on his holy heels. But He I cannot follow; no, not I. Salvation being, after all, just another obligation.

Bone Quida Ida - I'm Gone

Bone Quida Ida - Berlin

The start //

This blog will be a repository for anything creative I’m doing. I’ll be uploading mainly new demos and short stories; however, a rant or ill-advised essay may show up now and again.