Part Fifteen
Editors at NONzine, Mike: You may or may not be wondering what this thing was that so infuriated me that I felt the sudden blinding urge to smash it. I have no idea. I have no idea if you are yet interested in my little toilet-paper story or what vague meanings it might have for your exquisite arts and entertainment publication. I do know that it continues to pour out of me despite what consequences it may bring if ever I am discovered in the act of writing it, my secret pen stolen away and my cache of toilet paper whisked off for someone else's ass of a story. I do not know if you care, and I do not know what the thing was -- which is what led me to destroy it. Nothing that cannot be labeled, in my world, can continue to exist.
I stood there in the thicket of grass and weed, the buzz of the locusts thrumming to the rhythm of my pain which in turn kept time with the still-present Yes, Yes, Again Yes echoing in my mind. I stared with wide, unblinking eyes at this thing that spanned the culvert. I moved to walk across it but stopped again when I recognized the peephole and the socket for the doorknob. It was a bridge. It was a bridge that had been a door. It was a bridge that had been a door that had been a piece of lumber. It was a bridge that had been a door that had been a piece of lumber that had been a tree -- and the green grass grows all around all around, and, my God, where would it all end? At that moment I had no idea. I was scared. I moved closer to the bridge / door / lumber / tree / thing, and my shaking intensified again, and the thrumming and the pounding and the Yes's all in time now to my uncontrollable, quivering body.
I had never in my life flown into a rage, nor have I since, but at that moment I really did snap, if snapping is indeed what it was and had not already been before. I leapt from the sloped ground of the culvert, no longer mindful of the pain I had nor the pain I would be causing -- a great leap of a kind and power I'd not known I possessed the ability to muster, and I came crashing down on the bridge / door / lumber / tree / thing, breaking it in two, and falling to the culvert floor on top of the two pieces of wood. Again, without losing a beat in my symphony of rhythms, I sprang to my feet heroically and fought these pieces of whatever-they-were as if I were in the midst of a battle to save mankind. I smashed them against the sides of the culvert, and stomped them, and threw them, and scattered them among the blades of weeds and grass above the edge.
Somehow, for the moment, this single outburst of rage finally silenced the rhythms in me as I came to a breathless collapse on the culvert floor. Now, as I sat atop the scattered mess of splinters and chunks of what had been this bridge / door / lumber / tree / thing, my labored breathing was the only drum. I sat hunched over my extended legs, enveloping myself in the miniscule up and down movements of my abdomen as I inhaled and exhaled. Time passed and I was unconscious of it. People or other creatures may have passed, but I was unaware of them. At some point, my actions disembodied from my thoughts, I reached down and picked up a splinter of wood and turned it over and back between my thumb and finger, and I stared at it. I pulled out my sharpie and wrote “splinter” on it. I tossed it aside and grabbed another and labeled it too. Then another and another and another with the same copious diligence with which I’d begun my mission that morning and until I could no longer find an unlabelled shard of what I’d smashed.
Night had long since fallen. It occurred to me now what had to be done. The labeling of objects was senseless and futile. It was people at whom I should have been pointing my sharpie and my postit. Though people often changed, they never changed in their use as a bridge / door / lumber / tree / thing might. People were users instead of used and I knew I could work with this.
In far greater pain now, I hobbled up the opposite bank of the culvert and back onto the city street. Things were much quieter than they’d been this morning but there were plenty of people around for me to get started.
I saw a man, a great, hulking, elderly fellow in a fedora and a t-shirt strolling down the other side of the street. I jotted “old man” on my postit and jogged across the street to catch up with him.
I stood there in the thicket of grass and weed, the buzz of the locusts thrumming to the rhythm of my pain which in turn kept time with the still-present Yes, Yes, Again Yes echoing in my mind. I stared with wide, unblinking eyes at this thing that spanned the culvert. I moved to walk across it but stopped again when I recognized the peephole and the socket for the doorknob. It was a bridge. It was a bridge that had been a door. It was a bridge that had been a door that had been a piece of lumber. It was a bridge that had been a door that had been a piece of lumber that had been a tree -- and the green grass grows all around all around, and, my God, where would it all end? At that moment I had no idea. I was scared. I moved closer to the bridge / door / lumber / tree / thing, and my shaking intensified again, and the thrumming and the pounding and the Yes's all in time now to my uncontrollable, quivering body.
I had never in my life flown into a rage, nor have I since, but at that moment I really did snap, if snapping is indeed what it was and had not already been before. I leapt from the sloped ground of the culvert, no longer mindful of the pain I had nor the pain I would be causing -- a great leap of a kind and power I'd not known I possessed the ability to muster, and I came crashing down on the bridge / door / lumber / tree / thing, breaking it in two, and falling to the culvert floor on top of the two pieces of wood. Again, without losing a beat in my symphony of rhythms, I sprang to my feet heroically and fought these pieces of whatever-they-were as if I were in the midst of a battle to save mankind. I smashed them against the sides of the culvert, and stomped them, and threw them, and scattered them among the blades of weeds and grass above the edge.
Somehow, for the moment, this single outburst of rage finally silenced the rhythms in me as I came to a breathless collapse on the culvert floor. Now, as I sat atop the scattered mess of splinters and chunks of what had been this bridge / door / lumber / tree / thing, my labored breathing was the only drum. I sat hunched over my extended legs, enveloping myself in the miniscule up and down movements of my abdomen as I inhaled and exhaled. Time passed and I was unconscious of it. People or other creatures may have passed, but I was unaware of them. At some point, my actions disembodied from my thoughts, I reached down and picked up a splinter of wood and turned it over and back between my thumb and finger, and I stared at it. I pulled out my sharpie and wrote “splinter” on it. I tossed it aside and grabbed another and labeled it too. Then another and another and another with the same copious diligence with which I’d begun my mission that morning and until I could no longer find an unlabelled shard of what I’d smashed.
Night had long since fallen. It occurred to me now what had to be done. The labeling of objects was senseless and futile. It was people at whom I should have been pointing my sharpie and my postit. Though people often changed, they never changed in their use as a bridge / door / lumber / tree / thing might. People were users instead of used and I knew I could work with this.
In far greater pain now, I hobbled up the opposite bank of the culvert and back onto the city street. Things were much quieter than they’d been this morning but there were plenty of people around for me to get started.
I saw a man, a great, hulking, elderly fellow in a fedora and a t-shirt strolling down the other side of the street. I jotted “old man” on my postit and jogged across the street to catch up with him.
© 2006Labelman
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