| Life-Cide |
"A shroom-induced reading of Fineagans Wake
Had left him concluding his life was a fake."
Had left him concluding his life was a fake."
He
was an astronaut, fully capable, respected among his peers. But he
never went drinking with them after work. He never resolved to retire.
The concept was, to him, a bore. It's not that he didn't have concerns
above and beyond the work place; on the contrary, he could never take it
seriously enough to care about retiring. It was just a thing to keep
him busy, a bad habit, a way to move through space. But he had found it
was not the way to peace. It would never be the way to happiness, this
moving through the motions, this locomotion for the sake of locomoting.
It was unsatisfying food, without taste, without creative presentation. A
poor restaurant with literally no atmosphere.
He had not always felt this way.
He
had picked the book up at the beginning of one of his not-infrequent
psychotropic journeys. Far from being ashamed of his penchant for
altered states, he had often credited his success as a scientist with
his nonnative ability to see "outside the lines", to ask questions that
did not occur to others, to suggest solutions to complex issues. It was
these characteristics that enabled him to earn a place on the ship in
the first place. And as he was not especially naturally talented as a
thinker, he credited the presence of the characteristics to enthigens.
The book "Finegans Wake" had started slowly, incomprehensible at first. But
then he began to see. He saw the shapes, not only of the words, but of
the concepts, the symbology. Looking up from its pages three hours in, a
realization infused his cells: all is symbology. Life, as he had
conceptualized it, was Nothing. And Nothing is Ever (as it appears).
Nothing. Ever. Nothing.
Coming
down three hours later, he fell into a profound rest. He dreamt of
moving through pages of print, speaking with ghosts of ideas. All was
smoke, was All, separate and yet One. When he awoke, mouth agape, face
tear streaked from the beauty of new comprehension taken residence in
his bones, everything had changed.
He
went back to work, but it was stifling. He felt as if he were holding
his breath the whole time he was away from his sanctuary, his home.
Coming through the door at the end of the day, he would release a deep
sigh, retire to his reading room, and get lost in peace. The crew was
preparing for an extended mission. He knew he had no graceful way out of
his responsibilities on the ship. Moreover, he felt the mission was a
portal for him, a part of his personal journey as much as that of the
crew. He would be there, out of curiosity as much as responsibility.
The mission commenced, and six
months later the boredom and the false pride of the whole ship seemed
to ooze from salty controls, corroded, lifeless. Men he knew and
genuinely liked floated by like apparitions on their missions, minds
simply gone, tisking and tasking, focused on one thing. One thing among
so very many, infinitely so. He felt as if he could look through them.
They simply were not available, not without interrupting the task. And
then He would be the thing, and then the task would be the thing, and
the controls would remain corroded.
He
adjusted his space helmet. It seemed a prison. The room was all
starched white and chrome. His boss floated across the room, looking at
him. His boss was looking at him when he did it.
"A shroom-induced reading of Finegans Wake
Had left him concluding his life was a fake."
This
was said over the intercom. It was said over the air, and through it. His
boss mouthed it to him, speaking it aloud, and the controls also
spoke it. It was written on the backs of his co-workers protective
suits.
And he moved the latch to his space helmet.
And you opened it. And you floated free of it, and the ship, and the rotting corrosion. And the ship was free of you, too.
This happened a lifetime ago.
--Eric Marley
February 2015
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