Thu, 19 May 2005

Revisitation Five: River City Sutras
Not so much a hiding-place as a surrogate light, containing from all directions, the breath frozen in you as luminous things hunt out your time-pulse. Gratitude springs up and forth once the lights stop. Story had planted his journals out in the fields, not staying long enough to see what sprouted up, struggling for sunlight, new words meshed from the old. airbourne harvesters sifted the grain, the pages, the clouds, utilizing these components as one of the engineers would. The automated pilots would wave to Story, and he would wave back, and smile. The earth was filled with portals, in those days.

the pulse was moving into different time-signatures, capitulating and recapitulating with the train-sounds, the oxidized cardiovascular system of the grain-plains. There was no wind at this time, and thus no pathway. So difficult to gauge action, all teh mapmakers died and their children have no interest in carrying on the lineage, poisoned with the inner critic, never good enough, content to hang from bridgebottoms and suck on river-mist.

There are times when Story is in the bright place, where the Aliens speak to him, ask him his Path. “Which is your door?” they question. This is not a place from whence one can find the King, although the Aliens seem to know where to set him, hidden assignments he fufils despite intent. The Aliens have left him here, on the edge of town; this is not a place they can enter. The scents are stripped from his dreams, as he sleeps in an emptied gas station, feeding on leftover candy bars from a machine no one ever thought to reclaim.

The train-paths, Story thinks. They were not laid out by capital or by travel-want. They serve the same King as I, and are forever and immortal until such a time as their service is completed. He stalks the streets for tracks, for trains, for a sign, but in the houses the families were casting out dreams of displacement and ensnarment; the signal was lost. There were no lights to be seen in the sky.

There was a small luminous boy in the garb of a preacher. He told Story a parable of revenge and loss. He told Story a parable of ache and love and how all these hungers will be satisfied. He told Story a parable of DNA sequences, of the star-maps along the zodiac, of the misguiding direction of gravity. “Do you believe there is a secret road?” the luminous boy asked Story. “The road is not secret; I can hear it even when I am asleep.” The luminous boy smiled. “I grant you safe passage into River City, as an envoy of the King. You will need to find a second passage out.” Story nodded, and faded.

Lines of travel (roads, tracks, the cropduster-airport on the edge of town). Lines of utility (sewers, steam tunnels, water manes, electrical cables, refineries, generators, sewage plants). Lines of commerce (store-clusters, banking-clusters, light industrial clusters, heavy industrial clusters, warehouses, and failed versions of the above). The city is a nest of grids. It is a difficult place to find the pulse, should one not be able to find the center, the magic, the heart-line of a city, at which point all becomes clear. Story has not found River City’s heart-line yet, and fears for his likelihood of ever finding it. Seeker-logic.

Dampeners in the tiles of the ceiling along the hallways of the city council absorb faith and radiate blistered fear. Story is protected, but knows to pay attention to such foul omens. Children smile at him, and he whistles short themes they will remember and whistle themselves, in quiet times, for the rest of their lives. Orange voices. Hope can manifest anywhere.

At a certain length, tone-sequences begain to fold on themselves, algorhythms coded in the first few sequences in order to map the unfolding of the entire piece, frequency limiters and repetition hues, cerulean in this light, a milk-white hum as the interoffice spiral tightens and Story closes in on this place’s heart, tucked away, stored in a jar of bleach and gooseberries to repel stray dreams. “You, you are a key,” Story whispers, and tucks the jar beneath his colored coat.

From Kornley and Voss Story can hear the train-whistle. His time here is ending. The out-gate is outside his sight. Desperate and lost. All fives and sevens.
(12:11.05.19.2005) [/alpha/revisitations] #