Zathura
Zathura was at a fork - an intersection - again. It's unfortunate to have bifurcations like these on a road. Her father knew better. Her omnipresent father; her egotistical, mad and analytical father, sought knowledge beyond himself; sought knowledge to transcend himself - knew better. This is a disastrous situation.
It was an unusual road. One in which she had never experienced in her life. Zathura knew it existed - such snaking, dual paths, but she was not prepared to face it. What a journey it had been this year. What a journey - of knowing hypocrites, of naivetes, of those cumbersome infidels and ignorants, and of course, of those scheming and conniving fruit flies that call themselves human beings. This snake-tongued road that marred a smooth gravel path brought the reminiscences of a complicated year. How unfortunate to have a split of consciousness to the memory banks of... the amygdalae. Irrelevant. But how dreadful... How bothersome - to have to confront the memory of knowledge in physical reality. Zathura felt the weight of this year compressed within this moment of time and space.
She asked petulantly, "What say you divergent road? What wisdom do you impart? You ask to split my self to two and offer no convergence of such an unnatural split. If I follow left I lose the knowledge of the right, and should I contravene my first choice I am sutured to ignorance of what lies within the left. A wholeness in being through fragmented knowledge? What nonsense. Oh, yes, I may walk back and take turns in both roads. But each path changes in time. Time is what I cannot reverse. I may not enjoy the fruits of knowledge that presents itself to me now if I took one road over another. Tell me, what should I do?"
Here lies two shifting directions in which she was witness to its ever slight changes. The soft breeze bats the ground and a visible wave of dust tosses to the side. The canopy of leaves relinquishes the hold of its dead children and they sway ever so nonchalantly to the crusted earth - ready to be consumed; ready to be fertilised. And she could not help noticing the little yellow bird dashing madly through and fro between the pathways, unperturbed by the frustrated furrow of Zathura's brows. How is it possible to freeze time so that one may traverse infinitely without the loss of knowledge? It must be true then, she thought solemnly, that to understand one's being-ness, we have to relinquish certain desires, certain knowledges, certain fulfilments. Loss is the constituent of our ontology. Loss is the discourse of epistemology. Unconsciously, she bit her lower lips till it bled.
Zathura sighed in mock relief that she only encountered a bifurcated fork. It could have been worst. It could have been five scratches on the ground clawing towards the horizon. Right... so what would it be then? Follow one and lose the other. Zathura could not decide which. To her untrained eyes, both routes looked alike. "Come on... Think!" she bellowed to the environment. She asked, why couldn't she have both? People lead double lives - don't they? Don't people have multiple selves? Do they not enact multiple selves everyday? After all, one could be a teacher, a lover, a wife, a child and a clinician all in the same day. Zathura pressed a hand on her sweaty forehead and aggressively smacked away the droplets on cooling skin. "Never of the moment," she whispered hoarsely. "Never in one moment could all those selves coalesce together." Multiple selves in fragments of time frames our ontology but could never compress its selves to one self within that mote of present time.
"Aargh!" and that screech sent the yellow bird darting quickly out of sight. She thumped the ground with aggressive feet. She kicked any unfortunate stone along the track and also a few stray bugs that paid its karmic debt by catapulting across the dusty eminence. She throttled the already cracked earth and somewhere, deep within the cavernous ruins of the arid ground, something must be hysterically laughing at her stupidity. Zathura stopped, spat right within the hollow vein on the beaten footpath, breathed a few ragged breaths, and then, suddenly, burst into laughter.
She finally caught her breath and whatever was left of sanity. She bent forward with her hands resting on the rounds of her knees while her forehead dripped incessantly to the parched floor. Finally she stood up and confronted the forked path - one last time.
Zathura heaved a sigh and said to no one, "You win. You win, you fucking bastard. I could stay right here and not traverse any path, but that would be ruinous to my life. I could walk back and retrace a different horizon of knowledge but there would always be memory to contend with. After all, the first sip of drink from a vessel would not change the texture of taste on the second sip, even though the act of drinking might have been slightly altered. So I have that forward move to anticipate. Something different, something exciting, and something worth losing. Very well then, let me ask you, whoever you are, which would you choose? The right or left path?"
The 'unchanging' path moved slightly. Somewhere, beyond sight and sound, something altered the course of those two divergent roads. It could have been an animal or it could have been a seasonal flood. But somewhere, somehow, maybe those roads collided - maybe. Would you take the risk? Would you? Would you dare risk the possibility of an imagined quality of life? Would you take such losses? Would you? Zathura asked silently and answered wordlessly.
Yes. But... what have I irretrievably lost? Would I ever know? Would you?
It was an unusual road. One in which she had never experienced in her life. Zathura knew it existed - such snaking, dual paths, but she was not prepared to face it. What a journey it had been this year. What a journey - of knowing hypocrites, of naivetes, of those cumbersome infidels and ignorants, and of course, of those scheming and conniving fruit flies that call themselves human beings. This snake-tongued road that marred a smooth gravel path brought the reminiscences of a complicated year. How unfortunate to have a split of consciousness to the memory banks of... the amygdalae. Irrelevant. But how dreadful... How bothersome - to have to confront the memory of knowledge in physical reality. Zathura felt the weight of this year compressed within this moment of time and space.
She asked petulantly, "What say you divergent road? What wisdom do you impart? You ask to split my self to two and offer no convergence of such an unnatural split. If I follow left I lose the knowledge of the right, and should I contravene my first choice I am sutured to ignorance of what lies within the left. A wholeness in being through fragmented knowledge? What nonsense. Oh, yes, I may walk back and take turns in both roads. But each path changes in time. Time is what I cannot reverse. I may not enjoy the fruits of knowledge that presents itself to me now if I took one road over another. Tell me, what should I do?"
Here lies two shifting directions in which she was witness to its ever slight changes. The soft breeze bats the ground and a visible wave of dust tosses to the side. The canopy of leaves relinquishes the hold of its dead children and they sway ever so nonchalantly to the crusted earth - ready to be consumed; ready to be fertilised. And she could not help noticing the little yellow bird dashing madly through and fro between the pathways, unperturbed by the frustrated furrow of Zathura's brows. How is it possible to freeze time so that one may traverse infinitely without the loss of knowledge? It must be true then, she thought solemnly, that to understand one's being-ness, we have to relinquish certain desires, certain knowledges, certain fulfilments. Loss is the constituent of our ontology. Loss is the discourse of epistemology. Unconsciously, she bit her lower lips till it bled.
Zathura sighed in mock relief that she only encountered a bifurcated fork. It could have been worst. It could have been five scratches on the ground clawing towards the horizon. Right... so what would it be then? Follow one and lose the other. Zathura could not decide which. To her untrained eyes, both routes looked alike. "Come on... Think!" she bellowed to the environment. She asked, why couldn't she have both? People lead double lives - don't they? Don't people have multiple selves? Do they not enact multiple selves everyday? After all, one could be a teacher, a lover, a wife, a child and a clinician all in the same day. Zathura pressed a hand on her sweaty forehead and aggressively smacked away the droplets on cooling skin. "Never of the moment," she whispered hoarsely. "Never in one moment could all those selves coalesce together." Multiple selves in fragments of time frames our ontology but could never compress its selves to one self within that mote of present time.
"Aargh!" and that screech sent the yellow bird darting quickly out of sight. She thumped the ground with aggressive feet. She kicked any unfortunate stone along the track and also a few stray bugs that paid its karmic debt by catapulting across the dusty eminence. She throttled the already cracked earth and somewhere, deep within the cavernous ruins of the arid ground, something must be hysterically laughing at her stupidity. Zathura stopped, spat right within the hollow vein on the beaten footpath, breathed a few ragged breaths, and then, suddenly, burst into laughter.
She finally caught her breath and whatever was left of sanity. She bent forward with her hands resting on the rounds of her knees while her forehead dripped incessantly to the parched floor. Finally she stood up and confronted the forked path - one last time.
Zathura heaved a sigh and said to no one, "You win. You win, you fucking bastard. I could stay right here and not traverse any path, but that would be ruinous to my life. I could walk back and retrace a different horizon of knowledge but there would always be memory to contend with. After all, the first sip of drink from a vessel would not change the texture of taste on the second sip, even though the act of drinking might have been slightly altered. So I have that forward move to anticipate. Something different, something exciting, and something worth losing. Very well then, let me ask you, whoever you are, which would you choose? The right or left path?"
The 'unchanging' path moved slightly. Somewhere, beyond sight and sound, something altered the course of those two divergent roads. It could have been an animal or it could have been a seasonal flood. But somewhere, somehow, maybe those roads collided - maybe. Would you take the risk? Would you? Would you dare risk the possibility of an imagined quality of life? Would you take such losses? Would you? Zathura asked silently and answered wordlessly.
Yes. But... what have I irretrievably lost? Would I ever know? Would you?
posted by Insouciantfemme at 2:13 am
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