One Man`s Bible

31

A vast quagmire, reeds growing here and there, you're in a quagmire, you reek of stinking mud and want to crawl somewhere dry so you can stand up, you wash yourself, even your face, with the water lying on top of the mud, clearly knowing you won't be able to wash yourself clean, somehow you've got to get out of this swamp, you jump as hard as you can but still land in swampy water, you somersault and get yourself into a worse mess, muddy and wet, you have to crawl on…

A faint glow in the distance, there seems to be a light, you head for it, that is, you crawl toward it, light is coming through a crack, it's a house, there's a door, you crawl to the threshold, reach for the door, it suddenly opens, you hear wind but there's no wind, the large hall has a circle of light, you crawl into the circle of light, you finally stand up, it's a solid timber floor, then you find-fuck!-not a thing at all, you can't see a thing…

You need to adopt a posture, so you don't move, turn into a statue.

You need to be like a thread of gossamer, drift in the air, gradually disappear like clouds.

You need to be like a thorny branch on a jujube tree, like leaves frozen purple on a tallow tree in early winter.

You need to wade across a stream, need to hear bare feet squelching on cobblestones.

You need to drag heavy memories out of a vat of dye, make the floor wet.

You need a stark, white stage with bright lights, so that he and a woman, both naked, can roll about as everyone looks on.

You need to look down at them from high up, show your gaping eye sockets, two black holes.

You need to see the dark shadows of the bright, round moon in the lonely sky behind this door.

You need to couple with a she-wolf, put your heads up together and howl.

You need to take light quick steps, di-di-da, di-di-da, and pirouette right here.

You hope your dancer, he, will thrash and leap about like a fish out of water.

You hope a cruel hand will seize that big, slippery, thrashing fish, slash it open with a knife, yet you don't want it to die just like that.

You need a soprano voice using the highest pitch to narrate a forgotten story, like your childhood.

You need to be in darkness, like a sinking ship slowly entering the seabed, and you want to see a profusion of bubbles rising serenely and soundlessly.

You need to turn into a fish with a big head and swim about in the reeds, swishing your tail and moving your head.

You want to be a sorrowful eye, penetrating and grieving, an eye observing the world as it turns this way and that, and this eye is in the palm of your hand.

You want to be a multitude of sounds, a velvety alto teased out from its midst and set against a wall of sounds.

You want to be a piece of jazz, flowing but unpredictable, passionate and yet so smooth. Then you abruptly strike an odd posture, adopt a scary expression with an ambiguous smile, an enigmatic smile that solidifies, then turns wooden and stiff. Afterward, you calmly slide out, turn into a mud fish, and leave that odd smile on that atrophied face. The mouth opens and reveals two tobacco-stained front teeth, or, maybe, they are two fitted front teeth that are shining with a golden glow on that joyful, smiling, atrophied face. All this will also be a lot of fun.

You want to be the little boy pissing in a small square in the center of Brussels. Young boys and girls, taking turns, crane their necks so that the spring water he pisses collects in their mouths. Some other girls stand on the side, cackling with laughter. However, you are an old man sitting in a cafe, watching them, a very old man whose deeply wrinkled face looks the same whether he is laughing or not. You take a sip of the sweet ale that is as dark as soy sauce.

You want to weep and wail in front of everyone, but don't make a sound. People won't know what you are weeping about, won't know whether you are really weeping or whether you are acting, but you want to have a good cry in front of this playacting world. Not making a sound, of course, you mime that you are weeping, and get the honorable members of the audience to look on helplessly. Next, you rip open your shirt and take out a plastic red heart. Then, from it, you take out a handful of straw or toilet paper and throw it to those willing to applaud. You strut about with an elegant gait, and then, then slip and fall and can't get up. You have had a heart attack on stage. Really, you don't need to be saved. It's just theater to show suffering, joy, grief, and lust. And then, with a crafty smile that could be a laugh or a grimace, you quietly slip off with a young woman. You have just met, but she has won your heart, and you make love standing up in the lavatory. People can only see your legs, her legs are around your waist. Then you noisily flush the toilet. You want to flush yourself like this, to cleanse yourself, so that the world will weep, so that the windows of the world will be washed with rain, so that the world will turn all hazy, so hazy that it could either be rain or mist. You then stand at the window and watch snowflakes falling soundlessly outside. Snow covers the whole city like a huge white shroud wrapping corpses, and you, by the window, mourn his loss of his self…

Or, for a different perspective, it is you in the audience, watching him crawl onto the stage, a deserted stage. He is standing naked in the bright light, and it will take a little time for him to get used to it, to see past the stage lights, and to see you sitting in the red velvet seat in the last row of the empty theater.