TWENTY-ONE

From the Journals of Sheriff Friendly

[Spring, 2005]

– because the last, among the last, the thing I have to look into would be that space, yes, that terrible space; the last thing I have, the last place, every word and every gesture relates lastly and at last to and into that space, and I don’t know what it was that I put in there, or if I put it in there, or what it was that went in there, maybe in there on its own (maybe), but at any rate it is there, in there now, looking at me…

It is there now, looking at me. I don’t like it.

It doesn’t like me.

The buzz of the lights. The lights are the worst. The hum of the warm wind. These are desert winds. They blow warm; they make the building hum and sing; and I, and it. It.

The thing there is growing and it doesn’t like me. I don’t like it. The thing there is looking out. I’d say it hates me.

In the cage, why where it is. Cage-kept. It stays there for some reason. It stays for its reason. It has its reason; it knows its reason; I don’t know its reason.

And so but then I jump around the room and I jump from one end of the office to the other end of the office I go BOUNCY BOUNCY BOUNCY I can’t help it and at last I end up at the cage – the cage is empty except for it, but but but the cage is FULL of it – and I put my hands against the metal slats (and, please, you will, see, that these slats are cold) and I wrap my finger fingers around the cold cold slats and I call out (listen), “HELLO,” and there is nothing, no word, not even a feeling of, nothing, so I say it again I say, “HELLO?” and stick my ear up against the cold metal and the thing there it goes like:

[NOVEMBER. AERATE THE PLACE. ONCE WE KNEW THE WIND IT TOO. IT WAS OFTEN IN US. IT WAS TOO BUT IN US. THEREIN LIES THE. DISTINCT AND AS WE KNOW IT NOW, TO FACE OR NO EFFACE IT NOW, THIS THE WIND IS OFTEN HERE IS OFTEN HERE WITHIN US. WE IN. WE IN THIS WIND. IT WON’T KNOW IT YET BUT NOW WE IN IT. THIS THIS THIS THE WIND. (And then more quietly:) Yes we know the one the one he is not now no more but a broken one the call we shore we shore him up it goes good now good god is does now but no it goes. Seen to that, we seen to that, nothing but to what it seems and sure enough we’ve seen to that but no we know it. Doesn’t know that. Would better but it doesn’t no it doesn’t even know that. Good is god. Good god…]

I took my ear away. My ear was cold; I couldn’t feel it. I looked around the room. The room was still, sick with the pale, even light, the light the worst thing, quiet again but for the wind and nothing more about it. But it was here too, yes. And I didn’t like it much, and it liked me less than that. And these terrible lights in this terrible space, and the last thing now, I have –

 

 

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