AZOTUSLAND chapter thirty three
In the middle of that small night Jim had a disturbing dream. It started like a typical "I have to pee" dream where Jim would be somewhere unknown and he had to releave himself and he would end up finding some odd place and usually that did not work for some reason. In almost all cases Jim would wake up and realize that he really had to go....bad.
Occasionally he could even wake himself while in the dream because he knew what it meant, but most of the time he would find some sink, or bathtub...or someplace not quite right to pee in his dream.
But this was a darker dream and different than any other. In this one after he found the tub he began to pee and he saw the water turn yellow, then droplets of red blood began to hit the waters as he looked down. At first he was a little stunned and thought he was hallucinating as this had never happened before. But it was happening, only the blood was not coming from, well, where he expected at all.
In fact, as Jim looked up at the bathroom walls spats of blood where shooting out and hitting the walls all in front of him. With each stuttered spat the blood would run red down the tiles until Jim closed up and looked down at his own chest.
It was matted with blood as if he had been shot with a shotgun. He felt nothing, no pain whatsoever. And he felt no panic, just curiosity as he grabbed the shower nozel off the hook and sprayed off his chest. After he did he could see where the blood was coming from...small wounds from around his chest where the blood easily flowed out.
Then he woke up.
It was 4:45 in the morning and he was shaken and disturbed. He went into the small bathroom of the bunkhouse and his nose started to bleed. He stopped it up and felt it trickle down the back of his throat. This was not starting out to be one of his favorite days.
Jim laid down on the bed and cursed himself for judging Helen so. It didn't matter that she was weird and terse. He had been wrong and sent Maugham on a dangerous mission that could have ended badly. And where was Manfred and why had he not called?
He didn't really worry about Manfred so much as just blame himself for a ridiculous night. Manfred would always rise to the occasion....he was impervious to all manner of harm, bullet-proof really in his semi-guileless way.
Which was true for at that moment an officer was unlocking the door to the drunk tank only to find seven drunks in various incapacitated forms of the lotus on the cement floor around Manfred who was telling them stories about his youth in Salamanca and Madrid.
"Let's go Manfred!" the officer smiled.
"Oh Officer Zunabi! What a joy of joy's to be seeing you again!!"
*******
Jim threw on a thick sweater and some old jeans and slipped on his Cole Haan's and headed down to sit in Silo 2.
Fortunately, He had made arrangements the day before for Ward to cover him in the morning so he knew he would have quiet time alone.
He was exhausted but his brain would not stop whirring and, quite frankly, he did not wish to sleep again soon if it entailed such dreams.
Ten minutes later he was sitting on the floor of Silo 2. The gas lights ulluminated the large room and he had pointed at HAL and chosen Albinoni's Adagio. To his left he had chosen three books to possibly read, although he was not quite sure that would happen.
The first was The Precarious Vision by Peter Berger; the second Christ the Center by Dietrich Bonhoeffer; and the third was Thich Nyat Hanh's Living Buddha, Living Christ.
The day before he had gotten an email from his friend Spence in Maine who had questioned him not unlike Maugham had done the week before.
As he sat in what was literally the center of the of the mountain and complex he was perplexed and sad.
What did the dream mean?
He sat listening to the way the Adagio rose and fell like the Pacific and he began to lay out, in his head, all the various pieces of an elaborate puzzle. He let the contradictions stay as they were and kept unraveling and then laying down new aspects and angles of approach.
After an hour or so, he stood up and went to the fridge and popped a Hornsby and went over to the drafting table and pulled out a fresh sheet.
Then he took out three 2 by 3 foot sheets that had been worked on and pinned each one in place on the wall so they matched up. He clicked on a retractible light from the wall and point it down on the large diagram that was now two foot by nine and started to go over it again.
It didn't work.
It was brilliant in places and made important connections that he had not seen before, but it was utterly flawed given it's intented purpose.
Jim sat down on the floor again and took another swig. It tasted good, but he knew it was bad to drink in the morning. So he took another swig and pointed the remote at HAL and switched to Bach.
What had Spence asked?
"Why is it so imprtant to you that people listen to each other and express tolerance?"
Jim had never really thought about it as he felt it was self-evident. But if you looked at the world it wasn't. The world was filled with intolerance, fear, anger, prejudice and a seemingly endless amount of division. Jim felt the judgment of humanity made any judgement to come by God seem proportional and almost reasonable.
"We are not more merciful than God," he said to himself aloud.
*******
Manfred had been taken back to the Jeep by two officers who actually seemed to enjoy his company. When they got there, one of the officers actually changed the tire for him while Manfred told them what had happened to Jim in the infamous Tahoe-Condo incident.
"He actually went back in?" the one officer laughed.
"Oh yes, indeed by jove he did!" And both of them just howled with laughter.
*******
Jim was the sort of man who was too smart for his own good at times. He often missed the obvious. So it was not until two ciders in at around 8 a.m. that he realized what the dream meant.
He had a broken heart.
It washed over him and he looked up through tears at the chart on the wall and knew that he was just lost.
He got up and took them down and with no malice or bitterness at all he simply folded them up and put them in the trash.
It was artifice he thought, or Gnosticism at best. But it was a fool's errand. Then he laughed trying to think of a good metaphor for it. And he thought about Bono singing and smirking the famous line "and a woman needs a man, like a fish needs a bicycle..."
Then he thought how absurdity was a part of the paradigm then had to once again laugh.
"Somebody stop him!" he yelled to the empty space. All of Azotus was around and above him.
Then he sat down at his iBook and started to type out his response to Maugham from the week before all over again...only this time, less academic.
Occasionally he could even wake himself while in the dream because he knew what it meant, but most of the time he would find some sink, or bathtub...or someplace not quite right to pee in his dream.
But this was a darker dream and different than any other. In this one after he found the tub he began to pee and he saw the water turn yellow, then droplets of red blood began to hit the waters as he looked down. At first he was a little stunned and thought he was hallucinating as this had never happened before. But it was happening, only the blood was not coming from, well, where he expected at all.
In fact, as Jim looked up at the bathroom walls spats of blood where shooting out and hitting the walls all in front of him. With each stuttered spat the blood would run red down the tiles until Jim closed up and looked down at his own chest.
It was matted with blood as if he had been shot with a shotgun. He felt nothing, no pain whatsoever. And he felt no panic, just curiosity as he grabbed the shower nozel off the hook and sprayed off his chest. After he did he could see where the blood was coming from...small wounds from around his chest where the blood easily flowed out.
Then he woke up.
It was 4:45 in the morning and he was shaken and disturbed. He went into the small bathroom of the bunkhouse and his nose started to bleed. He stopped it up and felt it trickle down the back of his throat. This was not starting out to be one of his favorite days.
Jim laid down on the bed and cursed himself for judging Helen so. It didn't matter that she was weird and terse. He had been wrong and sent Maugham on a dangerous mission that could have ended badly. And where was Manfred and why had he not called?
He didn't really worry about Manfred so much as just blame himself for a ridiculous night. Manfred would always rise to the occasion....he was impervious to all manner of harm, bullet-proof really in his semi-guileless way.
Which was true for at that moment an officer was unlocking the door to the drunk tank only to find seven drunks in various incapacitated forms of the lotus on the cement floor around Manfred who was telling them stories about his youth in Salamanca and Madrid.
"Let's go Manfred!" the officer smiled.
"Oh Officer Zunabi! What a joy of joy's to be seeing you again!!"
*******
Jim threw on a thick sweater and some old jeans and slipped on his Cole Haan's and headed down to sit in Silo 2.
Fortunately, He had made arrangements the day before for Ward to cover him in the morning so he knew he would have quiet time alone.
He was exhausted but his brain would not stop whirring and, quite frankly, he did not wish to sleep again soon if it entailed such dreams.
Ten minutes later he was sitting on the floor of Silo 2. The gas lights ulluminated the large room and he had pointed at HAL and chosen Albinoni's Adagio. To his left he had chosen three books to possibly read, although he was not quite sure that would happen.
The first was The Precarious Vision by Peter Berger; the second Christ the Center by Dietrich Bonhoeffer; and the third was Thich Nyat Hanh's Living Buddha, Living Christ.
The day before he had gotten an email from his friend Spence in Maine who had questioned him not unlike Maugham had done the week before.
As he sat in what was literally the center of the of the mountain and complex he was perplexed and sad.
What did the dream mean?
He sat listening to the way the Adagio rose and fell like the Pacific and he began to lay out, in his head, all the various pieces of an elaborate puzzle. He let the contradictions stay as they were and kept unraveling and then laying down new aspects and angles of approach.
After an hour or so, he stood up and went to the fridge and popped a Hornsby and went over to the drafting table and pulled out a fresh sheet.
Then he took out three 2 by 3 foot sheets that had been worked on and pinned each one in place on the wall so they matched up. He clicked on a retractible light from the wall and point it down on the large diagram that was now two foot by nine and started to go over it again.
It didn't work.
It was brilliant in places and made important connections that he had not seen before, but it was utterly flawed given it's intented purpose.
Jim sat down on the floor again and took another swig. It tasted good, but he knew it was bad to drink in the morning. So he took another swig and pointed the remote at HAL and switched to Bach.
What had Spence asked?
"Why is it so imprtant to you that people listen to each other and express tolerance?"
Jim had never really thought about it as he felt it was self-evident. But if you looked at the world it wasn't. The world was filled with intolerance, fear, anger, prejudice and a seemingly endless amount of division. Jim felt the judgment of humanity made any judgement to come by God seem proportional and almost reasonable.
"We are not more merciful than God," he said to himself aloud.
*******
Manfred had been taken back to the Jeep by two officers who actually seemed to enjoy his company. When they got there, one of the officers actually changed the tire for him while Manfred told them what had happened to Jim in the infamous Tahoe-Condo incident.
"He actually went back in?" the one officer laughed.
"Oh yes, indeed by jove he did!" And both of them just howled with laughter.
*******
Jim was the sort of man who was too smart for his own good at times. He often missed the obvious. So it was not until two ciders in at around 8 a.m. that he realized what the dream meant.
He had a broken heart.
It washed over him and he looked up through tears at the chart on the wall and knew that he was just lost.
He got up and took them down and with no malice or bitterness at all he simply folded them up and put them in the trash.
It was artifice he thought, or Gnosticism at best. But it was a fool's errand. Then he laughed trying to think of a good metaphor for it. And he thought about Bono singing and smirking the famous line "and a woman needs a man, like a fish needs a bicycle..."
Then he thought how absurdity was a part of the paradigm then had to once again laugh.
"Somebody stop him!" he yelled to the empty space. All of Azotus was around and above him.
Then he sat down at his iBook and started to type out his response to Maugham from the week before all over again...only this time, less academic.
posted by Obi-Mac BakDon | 5:43 AM
2 Comments:
That Manfred sure knows how to work around people. Cunning with that innocence.
WoundS not wound. I hope Jim gets the girl!
bonhoeffer . . . good choice.
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