Having
lost your privileges at the Akashic Hall of Records, you have been forced to
see through a cone of 55 degrees. Once, before the Deluge, you could see by
simply entering into the depth of the world body, which meant, of course, that
you should be fearless in exiting from your own. Your current methodology is more
cautious. Still, in spite of your amnesia as to origins, by some natural blind
reckoning you can sense when you are doing what you should, when chance is
cooperating, and when all is moving in accordance with the preexistent
death-flash video. This is, at any rate, a good description of your experience
when your life is going well. So you tell yourself at the time.
You will
probably choose to overlook the fact that several days have gone missing, along
with several continents, and that there is no way to un-brand the barcode from
your forehead. If only the world body had not been turned into a shopping mall,
in which there is no way to tell if you are product or consumer. If only your
guides were more consistently supportive. If only no other forces were at play.
If only you could interpret your harsh punishment as proof that you had taken a
wrong turn. If only Pollyanna were omniscient. To the extent that you can
judge, the operative principle is as follows: if you are good, you will get
patted on the head; if you are bad, you will get spanked, or vice versa.
Beneath
black domes, the all-seeing eyes of the video-cameras watch. They are motion
activated. They come equipped with the latest in backscatter x-ray technology,
which does only minimal damage to the chromosomes, or so your masters say.
There is no point in pretending to keep secrets! There are few embarrassments
that are not yet part of the archeological record, few atrocities in which you
have not yet indulged, including those about which you are dreaming at this
moment. The cameras move with you, step by step, as you attempt to probe more
deeply into the mystery of the labyrinth.
***
There are
those who say that Worcester, Massachusetts, is a city. It is more like a
collection of discontinuous neighborhoods. It is a place of factories and
colleges, of Gothic spires and freight yards. Worcester was the only U.S. city
that Freud visited. Robert Goddard, the inventor of the first liquid-fueled
rocket, was bounced out for scaring the cows. There were trees to climb and
hills down which to roll and corner lots where friends could throw a last-
minute baseball game together. It was a city where men might work for the same
factory for most of their adult lives, where schools taught them to sit up
straight and not complain, where molten steel could put a sudden end to a
career. It was, in retrospect, not a bad place to grow up. I get sentimental
when I think about the twilight of the American working class, about the culture
that formed me. Yet this was also a city in which it was possible to get stuck.
At the age of 18, I was ready for adventures. I was willing to travel light. I
would bring only a few books and some clothes and a sleeping bag and a radio.
From Worcester to Boston it is only 45 miles. A bus can take you from one to
the other in an hour. I am puzzled that it should have taken me two years.
Even now,
there are times when I wonder if there are pieces that I left, if it was only
the subtle essence that I took, if these last 40 years have actually taken
place. It is possible that my imagination is more powerful than I know, as well
as more deceptive. Beneath an upright oar, I may be peeking through the soil in
the yard of my three-decker, breathing slowly in and out, with a view of the
Seven Hills. There is not much left of the industrial powerhouse that I knew
and towards which I once felt so large an amount of ambivalence. I am no longer
tempted to pass judgment on this place, this city of filled-in canals, this
navel towards which railroad tracks converged, this target for Nazi bombs. The
city blinks to let us know that it is there. As Anonymous, I now just barely
have such an urge. I am in the world but not of it. In passing, I take note of
how desperate I was to prove that I had talent. I smile to see how eager I was
to say goodbye to my home.
Continue
reading at Scene4: International Magazine of Arts and Culture: https://www.scene4.com/0323/briangeorge0323.html
My book
Masks of Origin: Regression in the Service of Omnipotence is available through
Untimely Books: https://untimelybooks.com/book/masks-of-origin/