From Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale

People disappear when they die. Their voices, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living mempry of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continut to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humour, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic.

--Diane Setterfield



Thursday, May 8, 2008

This is NOT current... fyi

Frustration abounds with it's sometimes sweet sometimes bitter flavor. And the burning question is why. why. why. why. why not you ask. because the effort on my part and the tragic irony to effect all my energies spent. Minds race but the speed of mine is hindered. by what I know not. ooze and slime, molasses or honey. but per the irony it is crystallized and bespotted with mold. witty. perhaps at one time, but not now. pretty. perhaps as a child but not now. happy. I was thought to be, but not now. and here in lies the crux. For what is happiness? why do some struggle and never quite grasp, some achieve and others accept as a part of their being, put there with the spark of life and as removable as a fingerprint. That is you can scorch it off but it will always grow back, and quicker than you think, happiness. Ah!, it is a choice. If I am not happy it is my choice. True... And then the way to happiness is to choose never to be unhappy. So simple until the simplicity becomes complex. Like walking a straight and narrow path, as narrow as a knife's edge. If you slip, the unavoidable cut. The bigger the slip the deeper the cut. and while my life force slips away I hear that all I need to do is to choose to be happy. Happy that I die? Happy that I have slipped? or perhaps, happy that I am not yet dead. and that thought until I am. but until eternal twilight, there is the chance of another knife walker, with better balance than my own to come along and assist my wounds. And lo, though my vision is weak, I see a figure who helps me up and shares a pill that masks the pain, that bandages the blood. As I look harder I see he is covered in scars of trips down the knife blade, much deeper and ragged than my own. Stories are shared and a illumination surrounds him. He has learned how to choose happiness, how to live with a crutch and how happiness and putting one foot in front of the other elevates him enough that the simplicity of walking the straight path is not lost. Oh! the admiration. And when I start to progress the encouragement of praise. And when I stumble, there is no praise and I try herder. The words 'Well done' are so enticing, addicting. I try to please. Perhaps if I just live as if I belonged. And the fantasy is created, played out and just shy of perfect. I play it so well that my puppets become real. My blue robe and glittering wings give them life. But I hav not forgotten, this is not real. So I try to break free of the spell Ihave ceated. I try to live the way I should. I get back on my knife.A few tentative steps and I am reminded why I slipped in the first place. but before I fall, a conversation restores the good humours. And life progresses along quite happily. We are lerned in the ways of choosin to be happy. My mentor fills so many roles I cannot express my gratitude. So I will show my gratitude. But I am not as pretty as she, as flexable or athletic as she, not nearly as wise as she, my bread does not rise, the crayons ruin the wash, and to top it all off I still battle zits. I pray and cannot hear. perhaps my prayers are too loud. to soft? am asking for that wich the Lord will not grant? I ask again and answers come. Flying and poisioned. the little arrows are everywhere I turn, family? no and no. Friends no. But then if these good people who have fallen from their knifes and are invarious stages of getting back on, have the same cryptic answer... what then? The answer I understand, choose not to be unhappy. The application I cannot fathom. Must I jump fom the bridge just because everyon else is jumping. Once i was so happy to live so far from the edge. Earthquakes brought the edge to my front door. So now I must jump? And those others who have found their way out the back door and lived on solid ground forevermore? Am I not to be given the same chance? Or has my choice to bed in the front room bared all doors going back through the house?



But perhaps all this are the foolish immagionations of my mind, when in reality my slip on the knife-path was greater and more deadly. I create a fantasy to obscure the truth from myself, from you, but mostly from me.

4 comments:

Janika said...

Isaiah? If it's not current, where did it originate? The dark recesses of your mind are so like mine--have been at certain stages of my life.

Mrs. James Quigley said...

Beautiful writing Arren, you are so talented.

James Quigley said...

wow.

Please send this in to be published in an essay contest.

Wow.

Peachblossm said...

Jamies...
You inspired me and I have to give credit where credit is due. Thanks!