The Arsenal Files 8/The Arsenal Files Collection #8 (Arsenal Computer) (1996).ISO/doorware/rubyv62.zip/RUBY62-4

Text File | 1996-10-27 | 8KB | 149 lines

Copyright (c) 1996

                          ASTRAL PROJECTION
                           by Paul A. Toth


    "In Paradisum deducant te angeli..."
    I once shared your life.  Your suffering was mine.  Can I tell
you about it?
    For months I studied your day while you held on for dusk.  You
sat, laid down, rose, showered, dressed.  Waited, mostly.  Then,
between 6:30 and 7:00 p.m., every day, you finally left your
apartment, a skeleton wrapped in pale tissue walking as though your
bones would crack in a breeze, with only me to keep you company.
     You hurried under the sun and perhaps you could smell me, or
hear me.  I had a sweaty smell, a hum, my outline the dull blue of
the sky, translucent, seen out of the corner of your eye.
    "Just nerves," you told yourself. "Keep your head down.  People
are watching you.  They know you've been in that room all day.
They know what you do to love:  You squash it like a spider.
You're going to hell."
    Time slowed during this walk.  You imagined a second hand and
tried to push it along with your mind.  This was the worst part of
the day, all your impatience squeezed into a few moments.
    But a few minutes later you were returning home, a bag
crackling in your hand.  If it was cool, you carried the bag inside
your jacket, as shamed as a child with muddy new pants.
    "I was framed.  It was a trick.  I'm not a criminal."
    That's what you told yourself, though not out loud.  No, my
sweet baby, it wasn't a trick.  But I had to keep our secret for
a while longer.
    One night, finally, you allowed me to come a little closer.
You weren't paying attention, fixed on the transition between just
a moment ago and oh, yes, that's better, better.  Funny, that's
when we were closest, when we almost merged.
    Your fingers fluttered on the bottlecap like wings.  Soon the
bottle was open and you drank.  Any minute, objects would obey you
again. Everything would soften, quiet, darken.  The second hand
would glide. You drank more, hurrying, as you couldn't be sure the
moment would really come.
    Then, as always, the building began to hum and shiver.  The
stucco walls swirled like cake mix.  The breeze came in from the
west, moved through the canyons, over the passes, to the streets,
avenues and alleys.  Finally, the breeze found you and you could
almost feel it lift you, not your spirit but your 95 pound body.
     You looked at yourself in the large mirror.  I should have
known it was time for me to go.  You'd been avoiding your
reflection for months, ducking under it or closing one eye.  You
feared you had very nearly become disembodied, but you finally
stopped and looked.
    To your relief it wasn't the symptom of a disease that stared
back at you, or some other harbinger, but a smaller version of you,
compacted by the past few months, thinned, withered even, but still
breathing and renewable.
    I felt myself stir, then, too.  Someday, I knew, you'd forget
how it really was.  But I'm not supposed to -- worry about that
kind of thing.  And why worry?  Because I was the disembodied one
-- again.
    You forgot so quickly.  What once had the intensity of a murder
you now barely recall.  You've forgotten what it was like when a
tree branch became alien, threatening, and your thoughts ran out
your ears like captions.  Remember?  But now that all seems like
a teenager's heartbreak, laughable.
    So you finally saw what everyone else saw:  Rusty gold hair,
a body as light as straw.  Your frailty, homeliness even, could be
something else -- life on Mars, new, not here, not us.  It was this
that brought him in, what you didn't like about yourself.  You knew
it, too. That was the secret.  Who could blame you?
    Now you've recovered your beauty, your words, your appetite,
your self-preservation.  That's what I brought you, and I shouldn't
ask for thanks.  It was a gift, for Christ's sake, not to mention
my job. However, you could remember me, as if I had ever existed.
    Jennifer.  Jennifer?  Listen!  Damn it!
    You exhaled me, next.  Not purposefully, I know.  I left the
zone of your body like a photograph double exposed, one image
separating from the other, first a slim edge of the moon and then,
soon, independent objects.  Others would envy me.
    You reentered the world, unencumbered by me.  You turned away
from the mirror.  I slipped away from your body, the sun shining
through a thunderstorm, the rain refracting light, the weather
God's dream.
    That's how it happened, though you've probably reduced it to
barometric pressure, humidity, a cold front, whatever.  I came to
you with the forgiveness that you did not have and let you feel it
without knowing what it was, until it became as familiar as a
winter coat by February, a swimsuit by August.
    Don't you understand?  You came here in terror and you'll leave
in terror.  But for just a moment, you had what I have, but on
earth.  I never had that. I get to fly sometimes.  But things are
only new until they happen twice.
    -- To hell with it.  It's stupid of me.  I'm waiting for work.
It gets me down.  It's like you and your first drink used to be;
I don't think it will happen again, and then it does, and every
time the same sadness afterwards.  That's my hangover.  But you
don't have hangovers anymore.  I'm sure you've forgotten them, too.
    -- Who am I kidding?  I know what I do to love:  I squash it
like a spider.  I'm going to hell. There's no one taking care of
me.  It was nice while it lasted but now I can think again.  Fuck
my mind.  Fuck thinking at all.
    -- No, my sweet baby  --
    -- Oh, shut up.  I'm sick of myself.  I want to vomit myself.
     -- This is the secret.
    -- What secret?  It's no good.  I'm talking to myself, that's
all.  That's the secret.
    -- Now's the moment.  You're slipping.  Good, I missed you.
I like your needing me.
    -- Why can't I just shut up?
    -- You think this is you?  I've got my fingers on your lips,
so easy to --
    -- So easy to what?  Look at clouds and make up pictures?
That's nice for a while but it's too airy, too sunny.  Not as real
as someone you can still remember hurting, on purpose, for no
reason at all, except that you could, and it was done to you.
    -- I know you want to drink.
    -- You want me to because it will make me weak and humble.
    -- We're both angry lovers.
    -- Not both.  One, we're one.  Me.
    -- We were one.  Now we're two.  But I suppose you should be
proud.  Why not?  I am.  I'm proud.  You're right, to hell with
humility.
    -- It's so damned dry in here.
    -- Yes, it is.
    -- I'm getting sleepy.  I can feel my fingertips.  There's just
a little bit of electricity humming around them.
    -- Yes, I'm here.
    -- What story shall I tell myself tonight?  The one about the
--
    -- Yes, that's a good one.  And since you're not paying
attention, if you don't mind, I'll come a little closer.
    --  I feel so... stilled.
    -- You can feel my breath, such as it is?
    -- Yes.  What?
    -- You're already half-asleep.
    -- If that's you --
    -- Yes?
    -- Will you come back, just for tonight?
    -- Oh, yes.
    -- Any time?
    -- I'm yours, only yours.
    -- It's not wrong, is it?
    -- I don't know.
    -- I'll put a word in for you.
    -- That would help.
    -- Come here, lie beside me.  Do you forgive me?
    -- For what?  You forgive me.
    -- We're both forgiven, now.  Let's not be angry anymore.  Come
to sleep.  I'm so tired.

                                 END