A black cat bolted from a dingy doorway in inexplicable haste, sending a
vagrant tin can reeling across the vacuous concrete as it soared onto an oily fire escape
like a nonchalant Nosfaratu transforming into a bat in the grim solitude of night. An
ominous flame burst out of the dank nothingness and garnished the sky in a flamboyant
explosion which made the unsuspecting feline slip and tumble like a discarded feather
first into the groggy air, then into a handy spire of cardboard boxes; the poor residence
of a less fortunate former citizen. It humbly brushed its eyes, wiped its mottled fur, and
immediately forgetting the unfortunate ordeal, drifted back into the center of the road.
Confronted with terror in one moment, you are certain to be granted satisfaction in the
next. Dwelling in the past or looking constantly to the future neglects the very instant
in which we really live.
Lincoln shook her head as if it was some infuriating rubix puzzle. It was as if
everything that had ever made any sense to her had been thrown into the air like the
baking debris of an erupting volcano, leaving her to struggle in a fruitless scavenger's
hunt as she attempted to claim all the mismatched chunks of her integrity back and
mold them into some manner of tangible order. She leant wearily against the crooked
wheel of the abandoned taxi cab in which she had sought some degree of protection
from the raging storm outside and unconsciously conceded to wallowing in her self
inflicted misery. Iron cracked his knuckles feeling like an amateur psychiatrist and
wondered how you deal with someone in such an emotional state. He'd had his own
unfair share of depression, but hadn't had much experience of sitting on the gnarlingly
solid chair rather than lying on the comfortable although cumbersome couch. Lincoln
covered her face repentantly as she wrestled with the notion and recollection of having
violated her own personal morality so viciously in causing such an unwanted tragedy.
She had never killed anything in her life; not a mouse, not a bug; certainly not another
human being. She could hardly fathom the depths of her guilt, and somehow the
rational reminder of the validity of the arguments of self defence and honest accident
did not seem to offer much comfort.
She began to offer silent prayers in an instinctive reaction to the spectre of the
recent past in the hope that a benevolent spirit would take pity on her victim and at the
very least reward him a more fulfilling afterlife. She wished she could push herself back
in time to alter the outcome of that ill fated confrontation, though such vain attempts at
spatial and chronological transmigration were unlikely to defy the laws of physics just
for her. At this moment she regretted she had not been more religious. Though her
curious mind more often than not agreed with the fundamental basis of most religion,
she wished she had acquired the ability to immerse herself more in spiritual matters. If
so, perhaps she could have offered some meaningful offering to the gods; done some
genuine work to help a lost soul over to the other side. If effort were the catalyst of
salvation, she would have been a venerated saint by now, but whereas commitment is
vital, she only regretted not directing herself better. Having said that, perhaps the
mildly warming feeling she had begun to perceive in her own soul indicated that to an
extent this whole hearted wish was enough. If the effort is real and unsullied; true and
without reserve, perhaps it suffices. She honestly would have plucked out her own soul
at this point and handed it to her enemy so that he may pass on to a less hateful realm.
The fact that this would entail her having to spend all of eternity in some fiery,
torturous pit really seemed to concern her little at this point in time. On the face of it,
such a concept would have felt unnerving; certainly it was unexpected. To be willing to
give the one thing she had; the most necessary and private of things; to someone whose
ethics and life style she disagreed with so much that they had come to fatal blows.
But when she examined herself over this issue she found that her proposed
sacrifice was genuine, and with that realization she felt a measure of peace in her heart;
not her own peace, but that of her victim. A kind of telepathic forgivefulness from
beyond the grave which told her perhaps Alma's demise was some sort of test she had
failed miserably, but was determined to learn from; a painful but productive prodding of
her faith. She considered that if all beings where inseparable; part of the same
essentially indivisible whole albeit without knowing it; perhaps in death the hearts and
minds of people merge in some way so that voices from beyond can indeed be heard in
the shape of deep, intense feelings. Certainly, the sudden warm chill; if such a thing was
logically possible, felt like a valedictory redemption which clearly did not originate in
her own scathing mind. Whether or not her assertions were correct, there was nothing
to give her some other more reassuring distraction.
Iron coughed just to reassert his presence and came to the conclusion that he
wasn't properly attuned to the world to solve such problems, but quickly realized it was
just this conclusion that did put the spokes of a solution into motion as Lincoln was
alerted to the fact that she wasn't; for once; alone in a dark hour. She almost managed a
thankful smile, but persuaded herself such an action was less than appropriate and
contented herself with leaning back and at least looking at the world if not fully
entering back into it. "Isn't it strange; you live with death, but when you're the one to
dish it out...." She shook her head and wiped a tear from her eye with a jacket sleeve;
"I'm not meant for this. Army types, 'patriots', fighters... not me. I wish I had a choice
over what I do, even who I am. I've been put here and given a job to do that I really
don't like despite the fact that I'm actually quite good at it, but I'm really not sure if I
can keep on with it; at least not indefinitely." Yesterday for the first time she could
remember she had not felt constrained; constrained by circumstance, by feeling, even by
language. Everything had been a muddle; a stifling mire of words, concepts, emotions
and sensations none of which seemed to make sense. Yesterday all that had drifted
away from her as if she had been washed clean in a meritricious monsoon which
highlighted to her that she had been covered in decades of dust which at last dispersed
in the pluvial shower; as if she had been baptized after a lifetime of suffering for the sins
of the fallen in a heavenly cascade of holy water. But after today’s events, the sin had
been repeated; only this time it was directly of her own design.
She felt as if the inside of her head was a megalithic amplifier being used
unsparingly by an especially raucous death metal band rejoicing at the imminent arrival
of lucifer. "There are so many better things to do with a life than waste it cutting other
people's short. I've never wanted to kill anybody. Human beings aren't intended to live
like this; with mindless violence taking up such an obscene chunk of our lives. Human
beings are creatures of peace, and we shouldn't resist our natures, but when everyone
else around you seem to be resisting their natures it's difficult for me not to. I guess
that's the excuse they use; everyone else is doing it..." Iron watched a bludgeoning
surge of rain squeal down to earth; sparkling like a lucent gemstone in a dense, dark
cavern of backstreet shade as it edged down the windscreen and shivered with concern
rather than lack of physical warmth. "Life isn't fair." was his mystifyingly unenigmatic
statement; "but that's just the way it is; you've got to accept it. You can't go through
your life pretending things aren’t how they are. You can't place yourself in a state of
denial and expect the world to make sense. Sometimes things go right and sometimes
they go wrong. That's just the way it is. Yeah; it's wrong to kill people whatever the
reason, but for the less fortunate among us there may come a time when we're put in a
situation where you can't escape it. Thankfully, most of us go through our lives without
ever having to face a situation like that; a situation we can't avoid. It's not the result
that matters; it's the intention. We can try to avoid the most horrible things as much as
we're able, but if we're unlucky enough to be forced into a corner where we can't
escape them, we can only try our best."
"Perhaps. But I just can't help thinking.... I just can't help wondering; what if at that
split second in time I'd been just that little bit more thoughtful; that vital inch more
awake? It's times like this all the things in your life you'd rather forget about come back
to haunt you. That's good in a way because it stops you thinking about the immediate
problem. Aw, it can be such a miserable existence at times, but it's nobody else's fault
but my own. I 'spose since I was a kid I've just felt alone and unloved. Busying myself
with all the huge problems the world offers just to forget about all the smaller but
significant ones in my own heart and soul. It's easier to solve other people's problems
because you don't have to delve into yourself. To see your own inadequacy; to
encounter your own insignificance. Its a terrifying thing, and I guess I'm guilty of
avoiding it like a pericardial phalanx of pestilent rats. It's not the admission I've always
found difficult; it's the combating it. But since I lost... all I lost; nobody's ever cared
about little me. Here I am; just twenty two years old; twenty two years of striving to
make something of my life. Twenty two years of failing dismally in that specific quest.
Nah; it was never that bad; I've had good times. They were a long time ago, but I've
had them. Memories, huh? Look what they can do to a person."
She relaxed a little and began to feel better about herself as if there was much to
feel better about. "It's not me who's unprivileged, it's everyone else; I'm lucky. Here I
am, worrying about these things; thinking how unfair it all is, but other people have it
far worse. At least I've got some sort of purpose in my life; that's the important thing. I
may not have ever had material wealth or moral support, but I've always had a path to
walk. Even when I've been lost I've had some place to go; some future. Others aren’t
so fortunate. I've always had an ethical conscience. An ethical conscience which warns
against... killing."
"It's not what you do that's important. Linc, it's what you intend to. And you didn't
make any decision against that ethic. You never meant to kill him, but it's a fair bet he
meant to kill you. You won't get banished to Hell for doing something you despise even
thinking of doing while defending yourself; and that's a personal Hell as well as an
objective one." With the word 'hell' said its threat appeared to lessen, and with this
positive thought she nodded, rested her head on her hand and mouthed a candid
'thanks'. "Then there's some measure of happiness in all this. Si guarda al fine;
sometimes situations dictate that you overstep your own moral boundaries." Now Iron
felt good about himself; he'd given someone a helping hand using a more peaceful
method than the practice of beating the nearest government official to a pulp, which
generally didn't strike him as achieving an especially effective solution to civil
discontent and social injustice anyway, but which often seemed to be the only avenue of
opportunity open to him. It was funny, in fact that he cared; unusual to posses some
specific concern for somebody; somebody he could think of as being on first name
terms with; a friend. Why he felt a kind of kinship with his newfound soulmate he didn't
know, but perhaps when things just click its in some way intended.
The rain now a mere drizzle, he struggled to wind down the window and soon
became aware that the gaunt landscape outside was hardly expected to give him much
comfort, and the word 'fresh' could never be used in conjunction with any apt
description of that pungent air. For Lincoln, on the other hand, comfort had become
manifest in the present moment and the present situation; however logically and
categorically dim it appeared.
She looked back in time and for once her memories pleased her. She was
beginning to appreciate the fact that when you loose such an integral part of your life
it's best not to remember the fact that you have lost it, but to commemorate how lucky
you were to have shared in such an experience in the first place. The simple act of
listening had saved her from an unwelcome retreat into the black claws of depression,
which prompted her to offer similar solace to someone who carried around a
remarkably similar past; "So, tell me about your family; what were they like?" Quite
typically, Iron looked back on something he prided himself on knowing everything
about and found he couldn't remember anything about it. What use is pride, anyway?
"Actually, I don't really remember them much at all; only with the memory of what
happened to them. I guess the rest has all been erased somewhere down the line. I think
I used to force myself to forget in order to survive. All the important things; all the real
things; the stuff that made sense; they're just so distant now. All I remember about the
people I loved the most is them dying, not being alive. I remember some of it; then I
get a sudden flash of memory, but at other times...."
"People's minds work in strange ways. I think we both desperately desire something
which is now impossible, even though we remember little of when we had it. We only
realize what we have when we loose it. I remember my sister; she was seven when I
was eight; when they died. We never got on well, so I guess that's why I remember;
assuming we accept the hypothesis that the traumatized forget unconsciously but
deliberately what they love the most. We were a normal family leading a normal life in a
place quickly becoming the most bizarre monstrosity on god's not so green earth. I
don't remember what happened to me after that day until six months later; when I got
'taken in' by the so called authorities. I miss a whole half a year of my life when I go
through my memories; like I was abducted by aliens or in a coma or something." She
looked down as if she was somehow to blame. Past things retold were to her as things
existent; things present but as a tale. "I don't know who's the lucky one; I must have
gone completely numb after that tragedy. I just stayed at the crime scene until the
police arrived. I had no choice; my energy just seeped out of me like liquid out of a
bottle with a hairline crack in the base; I was rooted to the spot. I just didn't know what
to do; what to believe. It was like the movie film of my life; which until then had
whirred on at a normal cohesive pace; suddenly lurching and buckling as if the divine
projectionist had forgotten to put in the next reel."
She looked around at the shattered cab dashboard; something she had failed to
notice before. A registration card baring the photograph of your every day cab driver;
equipped with the scowl of a psychopath and three long night's facial hair growth;
swang two and fro on a silver chain from the rear view mirror like a dead dolphin in a
tuna net. An apparently neon guilded icon of the virgin mary which stood above the
glove box looked suspectly out of place but then, god moves in mysterious ways.... "I
had a sister too." When Iron began he found that he had been wrong on two counts
before; he now found that when he considered he knew nothing about his past he had
just begun an unintended speech which would reveal it all; "She was older than me by
two years, and she hated me like any big sister should, but I didn't mind it. I was happy
then.... I suppose I'm not really happy now; you know; inside."
"You put a brave face on it; I know. You seem to handle it well, but really it's not so
easy. It's a constant struggle but one you can conceal with a healthy dose of positive
thinking and warped humor." Iron was taken quite aback; nobody had penetrated that
pierrot persona before to retrieve the bruised and barracked reality inside, but then
admittedly nobody else had ever tried. Obviously he hadn't done such a good job hiding
it afterall, but instinct told him his secret was safe with her. "I'm a multifaceted person."
At this Lincoln scoffed a smile; which was a start. She was grateful to him for that as
soon as she realized she was doing it. "Can't take even the serious things too seriously,
huh?"
"Unless you're keen to sign your own death certificate. I don't know why I stayed in
this place at all; hanging around a graveyard after all the other mourners have gone
home for the tea, biscuits and a reassuring natter about the good the faithfully departed
did in their lives. It's just that there's something that seems to keep me here; some
invisible hand making sure I remain here when I really don't want to be here at all.
When I look at it rationally there's really no reason to be here, and yet I somehow feel I
have something left to achieve before I'm able to move on."
"Bad memories, huh? But our memories all the same. I guess I'm not willing to leave
them behind me. Anyway, I reckon I've grown accustomed to this life and I don't think
I'm up to changing it; not now. If I left this damned City State where is there left to go?
America is hardly the flag bearer of prosperity; what's left of it. And what would I do
there? Get a steady job and a nice little home and family in a neighborhood where
nothing ever happens, and when it does it's probably something so portentously weird
and baffling that only a stereotypical American small town could ever have conceived
it."
"You'd probably just end up in a mental home or something." Despite the fact that this
would have been the most likely scenario, he received a sharp dig in the chest for his
comment. "No; I'm not fit for that kind of life, or for any kind of life. I've always been
alone; in my views as well as my environment. Come to think of it, if I went to America
I'd probably be called up for military service in Europe. Locked under the whim of
some blood thirsty, camouflage clad crook with a menagerie of miscellaneous
medallions and a fiery forked tongue intent on driving his faceless fanfare of
unfortunate followers into the jaws of death and straight down into the beast's
beleaguered belly. Such a fate doesn't tempt me, nor does the prospect of fighting for
goodness, equality and the American way inspire me. I can't live in society, but society
is all we have. Taxes, mortgage, property, business, law.... Or war, patriotism and
brotherhood amongst mutually doomed men. I couldn't handle it; I'm geared for other
things."
"Yeah, we've sadly led sheltered lives. People don't understand me, and I guess I don't
really understand people."
"Touché. I've only ever really feared one thing in my life; I've always been afraid of
being alone. Pain, loss; death; I can face those things now, but solitude; even the
thought of it gives me acidic anguish. And yet until yesterday that's what I had endured
without even thinking it. Can't everything be harsh when it wants to be? I guess that's
why I don't fear death; I'd rather just leave life behind than bear being alone and alive."
With all this talk of death, Iron had the sudden thought that if neither of them really
ever worried about the occasionally imminent prospect of it, what was the point in
thinking about it at such length? "You know we must be the rarest kind of people in
this city; we must be the strangest. Is there some God up there, moving us about like
chess pieces and contemplating each move before he makes it?"
"Are we kings amongst rabbling pawns, or pawns amongst ruthless kings?" Iron
imagined the whole thing; the whole junkyard tyre pile of life set out on a gigantic
chess board by a divine grand master who contemplated his next move while at the
opposite side of the table a fire skinned, forked tongued devil watched vindictively as
the clock ran down. He concluded that if the grand master was a competent one, and as
long as he was one of his pieces and not the opponent's, it was probably OK, but in his
experience things had not often panned out the way he would have assumed an
altruistic God would have wished it to.
Lincoln wiped away her final bulbous tear on a nocturnal noir sleeve and
watched transfixed as raindrops pelted an abandoned hubcap with an ongoing subtle
clang. "The almighty, huh?" One of the major philosophical questions of history
paraphrased eloquently in two words and an expletive; "do you believe in god, Marti?"
Iron had always hated being called Marti; his sister used to call him Marti; perhaps it
was a good thing Lincoln had brought it up because it had proved another key to the
precluding padlock which prevented him access to his past. But whether or not the
recollection was a positive one, Lincoln's almost automated instinct advised her to
avoid calling him that again for the time being, although in her case he didn't seem to
mind. But back to the pressing issue; "Yeah, I think I do."
"You think you do?"
"OK; yeah. I mean, not some big bearded guy sitting up on a cloud throwing
thunderbolts at people like there's no tomorrow which, I suppose, there wouldn't be if
He wanted it that way. I mean consciousness, a purpose; a destiny bringer. The things
of this world are so complex; so intricate, and they all work. There's a symmetry; a
beauty to things which isn't really necessary. Evolution works on the principle of
necessity, right? But so many things are unnecessary. Art, music, tastes, emotions. Why
do we need these things? Isn't it better according to the convinced Darwinist to spend
our days gathering food and furthering the species than composing 'artistic' creations
and growing to feel for people even though such feelings are troublesome because in
the end the people we feel for will die and we'll be emotional wrecks?" Lincoln
shrugged apologetically; "I dunno."
"But we do all that, right? There has to be some greater purpose; a theme in the
intricate pattern we haven’t noticed yet. everything works so well; even the
unnecessary things. We don't need all those things to live, so why do we persist with
them? If survival is the only aim, why go so far out of our way to appreciate things;
why have an opinion; why waste our time? There are just too many clues pointing to
the notion that we are intended for something more than this. There are greater things
we are intended to achieve."
"Yeah, you're right, but then the whole free will and determination thing rears its
sizable head;" Lincoln was thankfully beginning to forget the horrors of her grave
mistake and its implications, which was partially the intention; "I do believe there's an
underlying power; an energy in the universe which brings all things together and which
breathes life; and more importantly, spirit into things; that zest for living; that faith, that
'magic ingredient'. It's a flow which we should let ourselves become swept up in; the
current of righteousness; the way, the path. Where traveling takes precedence over the
anticipation of the end location. But if our lives are mapped out at birth, or even with
the karmic effects of past actions, can we really be as free as we seem to be when we
cut ourselves adrift in the stream? Do we have a destiny- a fate predetermined by either
ourselves or some higher agent?"
"A fate that's already been designed for us which we just automatically follow."
"And are those fates inexplicably linked with those of others?"
"You mean can it be a person's destiny to encounter their 'other half'; the missing part
of the jigsaw? Do we sail headlong into our destinies; arriving there no matter what
path we take? And is it the purpose of life just to realize that destiny? Does God sit
there watching after he's placed the two ingredients at opposite sides of his world like a
magnet and an iron filing; watching to see how long it takes for the two to link up,
because they inevitably will. Can two parts of the puzzle be grafted to fit each other;
cut out of the same wood by an angelic jigsaw maker and scattered over earth so that
they eventually find themselves?" There was a momentary silence both comfortable and
awkward as for a moment; without words; the whole thing made some sense and the
universe was at rest as it should be. Lincoln smiled an at last contented smile and the
tense readiness she so regularly subjected herself to eased for the moment like a heavy
ether drifting away from her as if an exorcised demon. It was ideological, but extremely
comforting to imagine that we are all put on this earth for a purpose. That we all have a
role to play; a destiny to achieve, and that no matter what we did; how much we fought
inevitability; we would irrevocably achieve it. OK, so it meant that much defended
western notion of free will would have to sleep with the fishes like a misfit hoodlum,
but to relieve oneself of the pressure and responsibility was indeed inviting. "Can two
parts of the jigsaw be meant for one another, you mean; fitting only in one place?
That's a romantic notion." She had shown a great deal of the softer side she tended to
hide away like the precious jewel it was today, but somehow with someone to talk to
she was prepared to take the risk.
She gulped nervously as she realized what she was implying to herself. For
years she had kept her inner feelings hidden; they were all she had left; her own private
world nobody else was allowed to touch or even know about. She was a delicate
person at heart; balancing on an eternal knife edge in terms of both sanity and
sensitivity. Everyone she had ever known had fallen through her fingers like soggy
putty; never had she been able to 'share herself' with anyone, or even fully be herself;
especially when surrounded by other people; and it shocked her to contemplate that she
still possessed the capacity to trust anyone. It was a relief but at once a burden, because
broken trust or another homicidal bout of that ailment called loss would inevitably spell
her demise. She had been knocked down too often, and had known for quite some time
like a boxer on the brink of severe brain damage that one more and it would be no
thanks for the bitter memories and hopefully goodnight. Risk; in a physical sense; had
been a close associate, but on the emotional level she had always been careful to keep it
at arms length. Damage limitation, she had called it; continually denying herself. A lone
rock feels no pain. Iron scratched his head like a confused schoolmaster duped by an
inquisitive child protégé; "Romantic, huh?"
"Well yeah, you know; we're all parts of a whole; only half people until we meet our
other halves. It's a classical romantic notion." Iron; true to his name; avoided the
implications; preferring to maintain his steely persona despite the obvious fact that
Lincoln saw right through him. The latter continued what to him qualified as corrosive
banter; "That idea that the human spirit is just half a spirit; wrenched at birth from fifty
percent of its vitality; its soul. That we trudge through life until we look into someone
else's eyes and see more of ourselves than we would in any mirror." Iron scolded
kiddingly; knowing that she was ribbing him even if she may have believed what she
was saying herself. Personally, he liked the idea that one person was meant for another;
that God had predetermined it so that it all worked out in the end in the most amicable
way. But the macho persona that failed to adequately sum him up by a long shot
refused to take such matters seriously in public; "aw, that's just typical...."
"For a girl, right?"
"Yeah, that's what I was about to say."
"Was not what you were about to say." Reading Iron's mind was like reading a kid's
picture book in double sized print for the visually impaired, but the comedy; though
playful in its nature; came in him not realizing the fact; "anyway, it's the female
prerogative, right?" Iron frowned momentarily at this like a mathematician recounting
the steps of a complicated formulae to see where he'd gone wrong; "Yeah, right."
"Hey look; I've had years of death, violence; anger. I need a break; to appreciate to
nicer things in life." If she had been a better actor, she could have carried this off as an
honest protest, but in reality Lincoln had become accustomed to the sorry regime of her
twisted everyday life, and in a sordid sense had become fond of it. She curled up like a
comatose cat and watched the rain wittle away; glad of the uninvited intervention of
chance. Here were a pair of kindred spirits childlike in their appreciation of the world,
and behind facades of hardened exterior personas both equally fragile and terrified of
the world around them despite constant and decisive although insignificant dominance
over those forces of a local satan which regularly threatened the roaming reactionary's
time, space and existence. They had kicked off like a pair of old school buddies who
had always mucked around in class together stumbling upon each other ten years on in
a chance reunion in a roadside bar which immediately reminded them both of the old
times. They had never enjoyed the chance to grow up and to wise up to the ways of the
world; to develop the claustrophobic arrogance and self centered pettiness of modern
culture. But in Zen it is the childlike mind which is the end point of spiritual practice; it
is only the realization of its intuitive presence which alludes us.
Lincoln; always the cynic, possessed a psychology which wavered between two
corresponding outlooks. On one hand, life was an ongoing virtual rollercoaster where
anyone who had confidence in their beliefs and the will to make them into a reality
could indeed do so. This was the life she lived. But on the other hand, existing was a
bane; a tedium and a curse which she wished would end every morning when she woke
up and every evening when she sat there trying to put her life into perspective and
failing miserably. That was the life she used to live. The two standpoints dueled in her
head like psychotic swordsmen. "They say life's hell and then you go there. It's true;
life's hell, and then you get more lives. I've never understood how death could be an
end. I mean; the end? That means when we die, there's nothing. But when there's
nothing, how can there be death? Unless death is the absence of something. But that
doesn't mean it's nothing. The universe is something, and space is the absence of
something, but space isn't nothing; not really. Space isn't death. When we think of the
universe, we can't help but think of space. In fact, if space didn't exist, the universe
would be completely different. Now, how can nothing have such a profound effect on
something? And, if space exists, how can it be the absence of something? If it is
nothingness, surely the only qualification it must hold is that it mustn't exist! Ah; I love
paradoxes. They make me happy; happy to know I can understand that they work, even
if I fail to understand how, and even though I fail to understand some of the simpler
puzzles of this existence."
"Well! We've covered a lot here; family, society, inequality, God, death." Iron rubbed
his hands together and watched the rain collapse into a calming taplike drip like a divine
entity watching the calamitous goings on of humans and nature from the lofty heavens
for such a lengthy seventh day he had to hastily pour himself a glass of water to stem
his dehydration. "Shame we don't have any answers to the questions we compose."
"Whoever reads the music plays the tune. Perhaps the beauty of it is there are no
answers; we each have to ask ourselves, and if we don't know, perhaps it tells us more
about ourselves than the question itself, and maybe that self same question is the
answer."
Iron jarred the cab door open with a foot and hopped into a newly emerging
sunlight which blossomed extravagantly into existence as the ravaging rain subsided
unnaturally as if a studio special effect contraption being switched off to cut production
costs. Lincoln followed; immediately feeling at least a little less constrained as she
stepped out into the glorious, budding open in which both material and metaphysical
phenomena seemed to have been washed alluringly away with the harrowing storm.
She paused a moment and considered her options. On one hand, she could go around
dealing with the neglected difficulties of society the only way she knew how. On the
other, she could sit back on the pinnacle of morality and watch it all fall apart. The
latter, she concluded, would be preferable for her , but the former was imperative for
society, and furthermore, what was imperative for society was in fact imperative for
her, come to think of it. "I 'spose I've got too much of a workload to go around
moping...." Iron nodded her on knowingly. ".... and I'd be cheating myself and my
beliefs as well as all those helpless people out there if I did.... and, though I do, I really
shouldn't feel guilty for killing a killer." Iron put an arm round her shoulder more like a
fellow weeping relative than an anxious undertaker with heavy debts and a talent for
falsifying pity. There was something relaxing about that; something she had missed
without realizing it; some distant, broken sense of security that had slipped
inadvertently through her dainty yet enigmatically deadly fingers somewhere in the
casmatic darkness of her jigsaw jangled past like a haunting ghost of a dead relative she
had had so much to say to before they unsuspectingly passed away. She had regrettably
learned to stop trusting; to be suspicious. Independent, she called it, but then, she had a
talent for deceiving herself. She had spent recent years fighting that faceless enemy
which shrunk and sprinted in and out of ugly black buildings and gnarled, pitted streets
in the dank of night. She had battled to reshape and reconstitute herself. Now she was
forced to reevaluate her cause. A human being is what it makes of itself; we are
determined by events, by people, by circumstance and by culture, but in the end there
can only be one architect; one designer of this infernal menace we call ourselves, and
that designer is the self same being which is being designed. We are a possesed canvas
which paints the picture by itself; a creative creature which determines its own destiny.
After her years of self righteous even if at once wholly ethical action and reaction
towards and against those ghastly shapes, sounds and shadows which the ghoulish god
of this narcissistic metropolis hurled haplessly at her like spasmodic acid rainfall, she
was beginning to realize that the real demons where those of her own making; of her
own mind. There was no enemy to be fought 'out there'. The challenge of the material
world is really little challenge at all. To defeat a physical opponent is a hollow triumph.
To tear a work of art or literature in two like a phone directory does not display
courage, intelligence or devotion; no matter how precise the method or how clean the
cut. The reader or critic only becomes triumphant when he unravels the text or realizes
the purpose of the picture. To defeat one or ten or a thousand opponents is never
enough to secure the status of the hero. To 'win' is an empty solution to a problem
which though it displays itself as material is actually far greater than that. Anybody can
drop an antique vase, but it takes a master to sculpt one. At last she saw through the
cloudy visage she had dismissed as nothing but the whirling cloak of the material
demon which stalked the world. This demon's nature was not as she had assumed it to
be. It was not simply a maniacal despot delighting in the carnage he caused or a gung-
ho assassin willing to slice down other members of his own species to make a fast and
easy buck. The demon was of her own projection; her own hatred, and more
importantly her own anger which chewed her vital organs from within like a deadly
cancer. She rested her head on her newfound friend's as if this would enable her to
transmit her realization to him via the sudden convenient acquisition of a psychic
power. The real enemy in the world is not the world but the self, just as the world we
witness is a projection of the self. Shadows in the outside world can only be cast by
objects comparable to them; objects of the mind. We like to get a grip of the writhing
reflections of the world and file them nice and neat; we lump things together and label
them. We separate things and do the same. We fool ourselves that reality is the way we
condition it to be because we like it that way; because it is comforting and because it is
easy.
But life is not like that. A true warrior is one who conquerers the self; who
defeats the ego. Lincoln had been running headlong into life with the drive of a starving
bloodhound but the awareness of a drugged mutt. It had been easy in retrospect, to
achieve a level of expertise where she could use her advantages and avoid her
disadvantages. Where she could exploit her opponent's weaknesses and highlight her
own strengths. But bigger fish lined the barbecue of her consciousness waiting to be
fried. Because the real enemy was herself and her own delusions, and when battling
yourself there are no strengths and weaknesses to exploit. Its like trying to outsmart
your reflection in a mirror. But from now on, it was this more meaningful quest which
she would pursue.
Right on cue, a brilliant sunlight seemed to beckon them out of malicious moral
uncertainty as it parted the storm clouds over Times Square with magical equanimity.
Freedom, in its truest form, is liberation from the ravaging claws of the self. The self
conditions us; fools us into thinking that our gormless language is sufficient to grant us
freedom through the pursuit of mere knowledge. It is no kind of freedom; whether we
live in a state of anarchy or democracy; when we have a wealth of choices all of which
we equally despise.
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