This is the second incarnate of The Long Tunnel. If you have any questions please contact : thelongtunnel@gmail.com
Introduction
Summoning of the Brine
Glass
Life Canal
Acanthaceae
Death in Modern America
The Editors
06 January 2010
Introduction
Dear travelers,
At first, when we decided to call the issue ‘Dying Things’, we were immediately inspired by the idea. However, there was a despairing tone that mimicked an already dour media: potential bathos, more dead things, and more bad news. That’s when a friend told me about a story he was writing (he wasn’t aware of the new theme). It’s about an old, forgotten graveyard no longer visited. The burial places are unmarked; one has to ask their great-great aunt (who forgets to feed her nebulous cats) to mark the spot on a map; of the few sunken spots that have a gravestone the words have been weathered illegible. One day, a young man visits the graveyard to lay flowers for his great-great grandfather. The dead burst out in a small celebration, “Oh, look who has a visitor!” “We have a visitor?” “Yes, how wonderful!” “Yes, I’m so happy I have a visitor!” This is as far as my friend got with his story. Instead of a theme of oblivion, my friend turned death inside out. This made me realize that too many people see death as the anti-life. To add a separate, but comparably similar, point of view, I adopt D.C. Lau’s commentary on the Chuang Tzu, “[The Chuang Tzu] follows that life is desirable and death undesirable only from the point of view of the living. How then does one know that the reverse is not the case from the point of view of the dead?” To this we aim our next theme: The Living.
In a time when so many things are dying (e.g., the economy, the environment, social standards, culture, language, intelligent consumers, biodiversities, etc.), we must look into this death and seek out life. If we don't, we are susceptible to morbidity, nihilism, and meaninglessness; prone to the modern day panic for absolute happiness. This is not an easy task. When after the awesome foliage turns brown, how often do we remember that the dead leaves nourish the tree from which they have just fallen? Or when do witnesses of the visceral aurora borealis imagine the magnetosphere electrons crashing into atmospheric atoms? Finding life in death is a common, if not cliché, lesson heard throughout our lives. However, it seems that people are still hypnotized by death or consciously forgetful (out of fear/discomfort?) of it. This paradox (from death comes life) is often neglected as trite; perhaps because the inability to understand it is overbearing and foreboding. What we are left with, in this ignorance, is the pain of dying; we are passive to these emotions and allow ourselves to be swallowed too easily into passivity and frankly, an unhappy life. What the cliché doesn't illuminate is that the stamina of these “unhappy” emotions is false; we just don't know how to handle them, and put them off for later. Thus, our own vitality is diminished and we begin to believe that we are powerless against any of these larger forces (i.e., the government, society, Incomprehension, etc). This has been at the heart of human tragedy since the Greeks.
Part of any writing is an investigation of the human condition. Part of this life is death, and ignoring death shouldn’t be tolerated. Courage dictates that (wo)men amidst fear still take on the task. We therefore must engage death if we are to understand life; we must have courage. The first step is difficult and is more of a leap of faith. But the essential lesson (again cliché) is that life moves on; “All Things Must Pass”; your choice is to suffer (and suffer for suffering) or to engage and at least attempt to deal with these dead and dying things (“Nothing beats a failure like a try”).
We should reevaluate the death of the newspaper or the failing economy. It is not a time for remorse, but an opportunity to engage humanity at its forefront; to recast our hope in the new avenues that have opened. To grovel in our angry, frustrated spires is but the nagging of our own demons: we fight the good fight for meaning, and for the empty spaces in our lives that shape the forms we love; our friends and family, our pets, our plants, our conversational tics, our good deeds, etc. We are not talking about non-attachment or the act of getting over death, but writing as the hope to understand death and his spectral sister, life.
In a time when so many things are dying (e.g., the economy, the environment, social standards, culture, language, intelligent consumers, biodiversities, etc.), we must look into this death and seek out life. If we don't, we are susceptible to morbidity, nihilism, and meaninglessness; prone to the modern day panic for absolute happiness. This is not an easy task. When after the awesome foliage turns brown, how often do we remember that the dead leaves nourish the tree from which they have just fallen? Or when do witnesses of the visceral aurora borealis imagine the magnetosphere electrons crashing into atmospheric atoms? Finding life in death is a common, if not cliché, lesson heard throughout our lives. However, it seems that people are still hypnotized by death or consciously forgetful (out of fear/discomfort?) of it. This paradox (from death comes life) is often neglected as trite; perhaps because the inability to understand it is overbearing and foreboding. What we are left with, in this ignorance, is the pain of dying; we are passive to these emotions and allow ourselves to be swallowed too easily into passivity and frankly, an unhappy life. What the cliché doesn't illuminate is that the stamina of these “unhappy” emotions is false; we just don't know how to handle them, and put them off for later. Thus, our own vitality is diminished and we begin to believe that we are powerless against any of these larger forces (i.e., the government, society, Incomprehension, etc). This has been at the heart of human tragedy since the Greeks.
Part of any writing is an investigation of the human condition. Part of this life is death, and ignoring death shouldn’t be tolerated. Courage dictates that (wo)men amidst fear still take on the task. We therefore must engage death if we are to understand life; we must have courage. The first step is difficult and is more of a leap of faith. But the essential lesson (again cliché) is that life moves on; “All Things Must Pass”; your choice is to suffer (and suffer for suffering) or to engage and at least attempt to deal with these dead and dying things (“Nothing beats a failure like a try”).
We should reevaluate the death of the newspaper or the failing economy. It is not a time for remorse, but an opportunity to engage humanity at its forefront; to recast our hope in the new avenues that have opened. To grovel in our angry, frustrated spires is but the nagging of our own demons: we fight the good fight for meaning, and for the empty spaces in our lives that shape the forms we love; our friends and family, our pets, our plants, our conversational tics, our good deeds, etc. We are not talking about non-attachment or the act of getting over death, but writing as the hope to understand death and his spectral sister, life.
A Summoning of Brine
by Heath Mayhew
I want to tell you the Story:
She was fifteen when she stopped caring for her stuffed bear. Instead, she held the weight of a man’s head on her breast. It was different, against her dreams, it was -God’s will. His is mightier: she laid quiet, white pearls for eyes. Her father, returned to the door ajar, agape. –Why did you cry? -Papa, it was useless for me to fight it. –To tell me this as you lie! She left with a dark cloak, believing herself slipped unseen into darkness.
She lived outside of town on a small path leading off the main. To live, she sold jewelry and fruit to passersby. When she needed to, she had the blacksmith buy food and cloth for her. She prepared everyday for the baby; with prayers of absolution, making clothes, a bed. She did not sleep well; her days were work, and nights were shared between twin brothers, the barber and the cobbler. She hated both men. The barber was a man-child, his brother vile; both pinchers of swollen breasts. One day, while succumbing finally to a mental lapse augured some place ago, she threw possessions outside her small squat, then, over a pile of leaves, she, abject with her teeth clenched, withdrew into unconsciousness.
The baby was not unhappy: Ycha, who at first came out silent, coughed softly, and she slapped him on the back as he dangled upsidedown. He cried loudly; she was already scared. She caressed his lips with her shell-like-fingernail and sang to him. The barber, just outside, listened. -Shhh...
…a crow sprang from a brown oak; the barber hummed sincerely towards town.
Now that Ycha was born, she drew late into the nights; uninterrupted by the twins. Using charcoal from the fire, she traced lines she imagined. Every night it was the face of a man; never a different angle, always the same face facing forward.
-One face? -Because it is the only face I know. -I have another face. –No, you do not. It has silence as punishment for the crimes it has witnessed. –Your hand is as flimsy as a branch in sway. –It is God’s, not yours. –Let us run away together. –With that, leave us alone. –It will be the best life. –From now on, you speak only foolishness. And then she said to Ycha, -boy, never listen to this man.
Ages passed, leaves turned over and back to green again, pastors turned to pastures, from sun to soon, moon to mud, and spring to sung. She continued making money, raising Ycha as best she could. But he was timid, especially when she screamed; his bravery diminished from something beyond his experience. However, the men she depended on were cowards; her hands were guilty for the shape of Ycha’s eventual manhood. All these hopes, when the future is daring and bold, were fulfilled every night in dream. She at least had Ycha by her side.
Suddenly: Ycha was collecting firewood when he heard shouting. Ycha had heard loud voices before, but this spittlevoice was exhausting. And then, grunts and feet shuffling, a flower vase crash, sharp, violent, another grunt and a scream, NoOoo, air bubbles gurgling as she gasped. Pots clanked and dishes scattered. The man, whose face he saw only from the side, set fire to the shanty. And then left.
A single portrait of his father was tacked to a nearby tree. He drew her face on the other side with charcoal from the fire. He placed a rock on top of it in front of the tree. He buried it with leaves and he knelt over the tomb. He stared at the grave and then drearily at the tree. He lost himself between the embracing smell of flowers and the abandoned trunk.
She was fifteen when she stopped caring for her stuffed bear. Instead, she held the weight of a man’s head on her breast. It was different, against her dreams, it was -God’s will. His is mightier: she laid quiet, white pearls for eyes. Her father, returned to the door ajar, agape. –Why did you cry? -Papa, it was useless for me to fight it. –To tell me this as you lie! She left with a dark cloak, believing herself slipped unseen into darkness.
She lived outside of town on a small path leading off the main. To live, she sold jewelry and fruit to passersby. When she needed to, she had the blacksmith buy food and cloth for her. She prepared everyday for the baby; with prayers of absolution, making clothes, a bed. She did not sleep well; her days were work, and nights were shared between twin brothers, the barber and the cobbler. She hated both men. The barber was a man-child, his brother vile; both pinchers of swollen breasts. One day, while succumbing finally to a mental lapse augured some place ago, she threw possessions outside her small squat, then, over a pile of leaves, she, abject with her teeth clenched, withdrew into unconsciousness.
The baby was not unhappy: Ycha, who at first came out silent, coughed softly, and she slapped him on the back as he dangled upsidedown. He cried loudly; she was already scared. She caressed his lips with her shell-like-fingernail and sang to him. The barber, just outside, listened. -Shhh...
Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep.
Be good, baby, now go to sleep.
Do you know where your nurse
has gone?
Gone to her village across the
mountain far away.
Be good, baby, now go to sleep.
Do you know where your nurse
has gone?
Gone to her village across the
mountain far away.
…a crow sprang from a brown oak; the barber hummed sincerely towards town.
Now that Ycha was born, she drew late into the nights; uninterrupted by the twins. Using charcoal from the fire, she traced lines she imagined. Every night it was the face of a man; never a different angle, always the same face facing forward.
-One face? -Because it is the only face I know. -I have another face. –No, you do not. It has silence as punishment for the crimes it has witnessed. –Your hand is as flimsy as a branch in sway. –It is God’s, not yours. –Let us run away together. –With that, leave us alone. –It will be the best life. –From now on, you speak only foolishness. And then she said to Ycha, -boy, never listen to this man.
Ages passed, leaves turned over and back to green again, pastors turned to pastures, from sun to soon, moon to mud, and spring to sung. She continued making money, raising Ycha as best she could. But he was timid, especially when she screamed; his bravery diminished from something beyond his experience. However, the men she depended on were cowards; her hands were guilty for the shape of Ycha’s eventual manhood. All these hopes, when the future is daring and bold, were fulfilled every night in dream. She at least had Ycha by her side.
Suddenly: Ycha was collecting firewood when he heard shouting. Ycha had heard loud voices before, but this spittlevoice was exhausting. And then, grunts and feet shuffling, a flower vase crash, sharp, violent, another grunt and a scream, NoOoo, air bubbles gurgling as she gasped. Pots clanked and dishes scattered. The man, whose face he saw only from the side, set fire to the shanty. And then left.
A single portrait of his father was tacked to a nearby tree. He drew her face on the other side with charcoal from the fire. He placed a rock on top of it in front of the tree. He buried it with leaves and he knelt over the tomb. He stared at the grave and then drearily at the tree. He lost himself between the embracing smell of flowers and the abandoned trunk.
Glass
by James Michael Scott
(An excerpt from 1000 Thoughts for Funeral Occasions, compiled by F. M. Barton, 1912, appears in this work.)
“perfumed and in flowing robe, with languid step and slow…” -Menander
Life is ice on a tilted plane of glass. It is measured by the rotations it makes before spilling over the edge.
Clouds loom above feigning Life. They taunt him and lure him out to what he believes is the good life, the wet earth. He crawls out onto the pavement to soak in the rain. When the gray overhang disappears, the worm, still lingering for another glimpse of Love, is pinned by the fatal rays of the sun.
Death is not who we expect. He is a coward. And he is insatiable. We picture him as patient, content on striking exactly when he deems appropriate; however, he lacks that mythological perfection we dream about. He is nervous and he often saunters in too soon. Upon his arrival, he is unable go through his procedure quickly: at a loss, he pecks our cheek and revolted, pecks the other, until he realizes the inevitable and timidly finishes his work. He often wishes he could die himself – so that he too could end meaning. He decided long ago that the significance behind his work wasn’t collecting souls, but that eventually, when everyone has passed through his lips, he would rest in peace.
Why is it that only the grieving cry? Shouldn’t the dying, too? Shouldn’t they be terrified of their shallow breath? Isn’t the nearness of Death overbearing? Maybe the grieving are envious of the dying? Perhaps the dying finally voice their subconscious feelings subconsciously as we, the grieving and dying, breathe in together, and out, in a final terse draw of breath?
Thirty white stones surround sixteen black stones. The black stones have one lung; it is worthless because it is false. Even with a real lung, the stones would die just as quickly. A group of stones need two lungs to live; or as the Japanese say, two eyes for Life. It’s balanced that way. ‘Dwell on the past and you’ll lose an eye, forget the past and you’ll lose both.’ In the end, the stones don’t struggle; they die quickly and, with the snap of a stone, are removed, leaving their imprint on the living.
In this Life, “live free or die”. That is the motto of a modern conservative state. How far we have strayed from the path our fathers built for us… us children who think that we know better. We should be embarrassed to have spoken against our fathers’ wishes. We should have let him die so that we wouldn’t have to continue speaking against his wishes, as if he’s there watching us as we rebel against invisible stone hands.
Walking on a bridge, I look out onto the river, stories below. A whisper of yellow light reflects on the river’s surface; a dapple of sun waves and I see the birth of heaven. Angels hovering, glowing tenderly, watching me as I pass; softly talking to each other. One extends his hand, another her hand and the golden reflection is no longer a path leading to the sun, but an extension of itself. I must leap off the bridge into the water. Death is the squall that will slow my fall; he is the cold water that will embrace me; and the angels are his face that will kiss me.
Why do you seek such little deaths? Why do you give up your dignity for this petite mort? Are you unsure of life? Or do you need Death, in some way, to go on living? What possesses you to seek vulnerability, when all your life you struggle against it? Is the dawning of Death’s beak and its closeness what keeps us asking for more?
Doesn’t suicide exist? I’ve poured over the newspaper stands for the evidence; I don’t see anything but a black-and-white Reaper sowing his wheat.
And I will die without a hope, a care, or a desire. Everything shall be for Death. Because today, I am unsure how to act; whether to sing or cry or roll. That I might have kicked the air during my youth, it is true that I fought the wild (the rocks and the trees) bare-fisted. And when that final breath dawns on me it will be revelatory and I will understand what Love truly is.
How does the sun rise over me every morning? What could possibly make my days rear forward into the arms of Life? How will I escape little deaths? What will sanctify me? How will I escape these industrial fields? Am I not trapped between misery and joyfulness? Am I not strung up to run back and forth between the heart’s yearnings and its billows? When will I stop needing a sunrise to verify the morning? Will cold oatmeal ever fill the meaning of my day?
Death is always past or always future. We cannot articulate now: when Death has taken our loved one, just as the uncertain moment of sleep, it is already too late.
Death is a mirror. He is a heart attack, a gun, a screeching car. Death is a poison, a virus, an infected limb. He is teeth, a rope, fire, and water. He is two hands, a fall from great heights, sleeping pills, and exhaust. Death is sleep, dreams, fantasy. He is motorcycles, a bee sting, a cup of coffee, acceleration. A tow truck, the wind, arrhythmia is Death. He is electricity, a casual stroll, reading, and playing guitar. Death is a tornado, a pole vault, peanuts. He is music, a Sunday shower, weeding, and chewing the fat. He is a vacation, cocaine and valium. He is stairs, the sun, and the full moon. Death is armless, a coca bean, a landslide, and silence. Avalanche, rhythm, and stillness. Death is a parked car, the desert, a marathon, awake. He is eyes staring back at you.
Death crawls towards you. He creeps along, trembling eagerly. It is the vision we all fear: the large mass of black, nodding one of his infinite heads, teeth grossly blackened, his form only discerned by his white panting breath and by the myriad of shrieks from our ancestors; they abjectly warn us at once to keep away and beckon us to come. We are spared this noise throughout our lives. It whispers if we are lucky, so minutely that we cannot hear it until it blossoms as desire to sin. It reminds us of some eternal bosom we tasted from our childhood. The aftertaste – that is the soft undulating of our ancestors’ moans.
A woman lay with closed eyes… a man knelt beside the bed…
In the room were Life, Death, and Love.
“What have you given her?” questioned Death of Life.
“I brought her my best gifts,” answered Life, “youth, health, beauty, joy—and love.”
“Has Love brought her good gifts?” again asked Death.
Said Love with wistful eyes: “I brought her brave, bright hours, sunshine and laughter, happiness and glory in living and then a heavy cross. The sunshine she shed about her, even with the fading of Life’s glory; the cross hidden deep in her soul cast out self and made a new radiance and beauty there.”
“Let her come to me,” said Death. “Life had much to give, but peace and rest are not for Life to bestow. Love would give all, but must reckon with the human heart. I will crown and glorify and bless her.”
Life fled from the quiet room with a sigh and one whispered, tender word; but Love lingered, brave even in the full presence of Death.
“What of him?” said Love, pointing to the kneeling figure.
“He made the cross?” Death asked.
“Yes,” said Love weeping.
“We must teach him,” said Death, “what he could not learn from Life.”
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Epilogue:
I can’t look anymore. I watched too closely. I held his callused hand. It didn’t help, he didn’t wake up, he didn’t cry. I was afraid that he might open his eyes and scare me. I wished he had. I began getting anxious, but I lingered on in the room, staring at his face and his thinning hair. I noticed the shaved peak of his widow’s peak. I felt guilty. Most of my life with him was a miscommunication. Silence, it hummed and thickened. The lights buzzed, I swallowed saliva, and I heard my breath. He hadn’t any. Whose words aren’t susceptible to misunderstanding? How many things pass without say because fear of misunderstanding? And what kind of son am I if I can’t show him the man I have become? No longer can I linger on for his answers; he had given them to me, on a day long ago.
“perfumed and in flowing robe, with languid step and slow…” -Menander
Life is ice on a tilted plane of glass. It is measured by the rotations it makes before spilling over the edge.
Clouds loom above feigning Life. They taunt him and lure him out to what he believes is the good life, the wet earth. He crawls out onto the pavement to soak in the rain. When the gray overhang disappears, the worm, still lingering for another glimpse of Love, is pinned by the fatal rays of the sun.
Death is not who we expect. He is a coward. And he is insatiable. We picture him as patient, content on striking exactly when he deems appropriate; however, he lacks that mythological perfection we dream about. He is nervous and he often saunters in too soon. Upon his arrival, he is unable go through his procedure quickly: at a loss, he pecks our cheek and revolted, pecks the other, until he realizes the inevitable and timidly finishes his work. He often wishes he could die himself – so that he too could end meaning. He decided long ago that the significance behind his work wasn’t collecting souls, but that eventually, when everyone has passed through his lips, he would rest in peace.
Why is it that only the grieving cry? Shouldn’t the dying, too? Shouldn’t they be terrified of their shallow breath? Isn’t the nearness of Death overbearing? Maybe the grieving are envious of the dying? Perhaps the dying finally voice their subconscious feelings subconsciously as we, the grieving and dying, breathe in together, and out, in a final terse draw of breath?
Thirty white stones surround sixteen black stones. The black stones have one lung; it is worthless because it is false. Even with a real lung, the stones would die just as quickly. A group of stones need two lungs to live; or as the Japanese say, two eyes for Life. It’s balanced that way. ‘Dwell on the past and you’ll lose an eye, forget the past and you’ll lose both.’ In the end, the stones don’t struggle; they die quickly and, with the snap of a stone, are removed, leaving their imprint on the living.
In this Life, “live free or die”. That is the motto of a modern conservative state. How far we have strayed from the path our fathers built for us… us children who think that we know better. We should be embarrassed to have spoken against our fathers’ wishes. We should have let him die so that we wouldn’t have to continue speaking against his wishes, as if he’s there watching us as we rebel against invisible stone hands.
Walking on a bridge, I look out onto the river, stories below. A whisper of yellow light reflects on the river’s surface; a dapple of sun waves and I see the birth of heaven. Angels hovering, glowing tenderly, watching me as I pass; softly talking to each other. One extends his hand, another her hand and the golden reflection is no longer a path leading to the sun, but an extension of itself. I must leap off the bridge into the water. Death is the squall that will slow my fall; he is the cold water that will embrace me; and the angels are his face that will kiss me.
Why do you seek such little deaths? Why do you give up your dignity for this petite mort? Are you unsure of life? Or do you need Death, in some way, to go on living? What possesses you to seek vulnerability, when all your life you struggle against it? Is the dawning of Death’s beak and its closeness what keeps us asking for more?
Doesn’t suicide exist? I’ve poured over the newspaper stands for the evidence; I don’t see anything but a black-and-white Reaper sowing his wheat.
And I will die without a hope, a care, or a desire. Everything shall be for Death. Because today, I am unsure how to act; whether to sing or cry or roll. That I might have kicked the air during my youth, it is true that I fought the wild (the rocks and the trees) bare-fisted. And when that final breath dawns on me it will be revelatory and I will understand what Love truly is.
How does the sun rise over me every morning? What could possibly make my days rear forward into the arms of Life? How will I escape little deaths? What will sanctify me? How will I escape these industrial fields? Am I not trapped between misery and joyfulness? Am I not strung up to run back and forth between the heart’s yearnings and its billows? When will I stop needing a sunrise to verify the morning? Will cold oatmeal ever fill the meaning of my day?
Death is always past or always future. We cannot articulate now: when Death has taken our loved one, just as the uncertain moment of sleep, it is already too late.
Death is a mirror. He is a heart attack, a gun, a screeching car. Death is a poison, a virus, an infected limb. He is teeth, a rope, fire, and water. He is two hands, a fall from great heights, sleeping pills, and exhaust. Death is sleep, dreams, fantasy. He is motorcycles, a bee sting, a cup of coffee, acceleration. A tow truck, the wind, arrhythmia is Death. He is electricity, a casual stroll, reading, and playing guitar. Death is a tornado, a pole vault, peanuts. He is music, a Sunday shower, weeding, and chewing the fat. He is a vacation, cocaine and valium. He is stairs, the sun, and the full moon. Death is armless, a coca bean, a landslide, and silence. Avalanche, rhythm, and stillness. Death is a parked car, the desert, a marathon, awake. He is eyes staring back at you.
Death crawls towards you. He creeps along, trembling eagerly. It is the vision we all fear: the large mass of black, nodding one of his infinite heads, teeth grossly blackened, his form only discerned by his white panting breath and by the myriad of shrieks from our ancestors; they abjectly warn us at once to keep away and beckon us to come. We are spared this noise throughout our lives. It whispers if we are lucky, so minutely that we cannot hear it until it blossoms as desire to sin. It reminds us of some eternal bosom we tasted from our childhood. The aftertaste – that is the soft undulating of our ancestors’ moans.
A woman lay with closed eyes… a man knelt beside the bed…
In the room were Life, Death, and Love.
“What have you given her?” questioned Death of Life.
“I brought her my best gifts,” answered Life, “youth, health, beauty, joy—and love.”
“Has Love brought her good gifts?” again asked Death.
Said Love with wistful eyes: “I brought her brave, bright hours, sunshine and laughter, happiness and glory in living and then a heavy cross. The sunshine she shed about her, even with the fading of Life’s glory; the cross hidden deep in her soul cast out self and made a new radiance and beauty there.”
“Let her come to me,” said Death. “Life had much to give, but peace and rest are not for Life to bestow. Love would give all, but must reckon with the human heart. I will crown and glorify and bless her.”
Life fled from the quiet room with a sigh and one whispered, tender word; but Love lingered, brave even in the full presence of Death.
“What of him?” said Love, pointing to the kneeling figure.
“He made the cross?” Death asked.
“Yes,” said Love weeping.
“We must teach him,” said Death, “what he could not learn from Life.”
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Epilogue:
I can’t look anymore. I watched too closely. I held his callused hand. It didn’t help, he didn’t wake up, he didn’t cry. I was afraid that he might open his eyes and scare me. I wished he had. I began getting anxious, but I lingered on in the room, staring at his face and his thinning hair. I noticed the shaved peak of his widow’s peak. I felt guilty. Most of my life with him was a miscommunication. Silence, it hummed and thickened. The lights buzzed, I swallowed saliva, and I heard my breath. He hadn’t any. Whose words aren’t susceptible to misunderstanding? How many things pass without say because fear of misunderstanding? And what kind of son am I if I can’t show him the man I have become? No longer can I linger on for his answers; he had given them to me, on a day long ago.
Life Canal
by Andrew Alleman
Quivering like a mirage, fuzzy at the edge of vision, madmen have dreamt its poetry, only to succumb suddenly to drugged states, with the babble of gods and monsters. Philosophers and spiritualists have long theorized its possibility, ‘existence’ being not the correct term for an object with no historical record. Now, thanks to swift-thinking field technicians, the life canal, in existence, will begin the history. An object of awe to zealous Pan-Africans, to them the life canal is spiritual excrescence; but more, it is the excreter itself, the colon of the prophet. To archaeo-science, it is pure gold research.
The life canal is under Code 5, maximum alert, in an undisclosed location. Squads of armed men stare space down in a ring around the wooden experiment, in a cage of interrogatory lighting. The technicians enter through an elevator to adjust a battery of sparkling equipment immediately surrounding the phenomena. Cameras, cables, a heart/brain activity monitor (in itself an experiment in this strange circumstance), stacked in corners of the lit square. Here, in this underground parking lot, all fixture surfaces are chrome with softened edges, the cement shines, and dark space goes on for miles, the right conditions for an American religious experience.
The bud’s provenance began on alien soil, under the Algerian sun. Since its discovery it’s become a crucial evolutionary linchpin. Peeking around pillars, bronze men furtively gaze upon their beloved root. The hum of belief vibrates in their sinuous frames. Not merely a life canal, it fulfills a semi-obscure prophecy of Abiku, the 12th-century scholar of Constantinople. It is a soul seeking a new host; a new god, apprehended on its journey. What brought about the gods’ shifting loyalties to transparency? Is the gift of invisibility in its genetic code? Is materiality a destructive act? The spies will not tell you what they know. Eventually, the lights will be turned on. Security will fan out, their Kalashnikovs piercing—goodbye mujahedeen.
How this strange root came into being, biologists cannot tell. Even now, its substantiality, its being, is in question, as its corkscrewed, barbed corpus, housed in a botanical garden below the city, occasionally fades, disappears, according to its keepers. Is this object sentient? It was; it’s origin code shifted like analog, needed only small amounts of information. It has planned obsolescence, but possible transition. Is this object illusion? It used to be, but is now failing. This is key to the relic’s followers. They believe this fallen state portends something foretold by the modern theologian Hassan—‘The Perfect One will be brought by the miracles of the prophets.’
Even to the specialized team assigned to and employed at studying the thorny bud, this is new territory. Their numbers come from hospital surgery units, zoo-botanical graduate programs, simple ‘field digger’ archeology internships. Yet there is not even a school, or theory, that anticipates this experience. There are no numbers to analyze. The first of several micro-video inspections (based on Fantastic Voyage technology) has been conducted. There were CAT scans and blood tests, but they revealed nothing. There was a carbon test begun, but dilatory effects were noticed almost immediately. From the field diggers comes the spiritual element. They are professional, but frustrated when the thorny object disappears.
It is several miles long, the crawling king snake that is the soul of the earth, but coiling and folding in upon itself compresses down to roughly nine by three feet. Its diameter shrinks to hundredths of an inch (measurements supplied by a gyrating micrometer), and bulges to 9-plus inches. The pulpy maze has the knotty, random bulbousness of the conqueror root. A fecal tang heralds the arrival of the baby’s changing room, the bouquet of an aged compost heap. This is a problem for the scientists. Now burnt gold and copper, then dark chocolate and tan, sometimes resembling a chunky anal clod: tender, lyrical tendrils sporadically sprout from its mass.
A kind of transcript winds with the ease of a long and complex life, scarring and calcifying the inner walls of the root: a chronicle self-created, autonomic, stream of conscious. Long moments of clarity unfurl in the passages, long moments of absolute disorder. The transcript is alternately crabbed, cursive, or blocky. There are rarely gaps, but at regular intervals the script thins and executes perfectly rounded and spaced curlicues. Many characters are reminiscent of known languages; Latin, Cyrillic, and Arabic are represented. Many characters are not characters at all, but superflourishes. There is a vague suggestion of color. Researchers question its role in the memory of the colon. These details exist on a miniscule scale; this is why the colon can host a secret operation.
This miracle object has no equal: we do not know if all consciousness is like this. It has no antecedent as consciousness, or soul; it has no reference. It has substance and can be measured as a material object, yet occasionally, it does not, it cannot. At any moment, the holy bush can become a will-o-the-wisp. Yet, while it is considered by theoreticians who ponder its purpose to be a startlingly old model of propulsion (where existence is not dependent on being), they see its applications for a new engine design. Now, even when nothing is there, it is considered as extant.
Quivering like a mirage, fuzzy at the edge of vision, madmen have dreamt its poetry, only to succumb suddenly to drugged states, with the babble of gods and monsters. Philosophers and spiritualists have long theorized its possibility, ‘existence’ being not the correct term for an object with no historical record. Now, thanks to swift-thinking field technicians, the life canal, in existence, will begin the history. An object of awe to zealous Pan-Africans, to them the life canal is spiritual excrescence; but more, it is the excreter itself, the colon of the prophet. To archaeo-science, it is pure gold research.
The life canal is under Code 5, maximum alert, in an undisclosed location. Squads of armed men stare space down in a ring around the wooden experiment, in a cage of interrogatory lighting. The technicians enter through an elevator to adjust a battery of sparkling equipment immediately surrounding the phenomena. Cameras, cables, a heart/brain activity monitor (in itself an experiment in this strange circumstance), stacked in corners of the lit square. Here, in this underground parking lot, all fixture surfaces are chrome with softened edges, the cement shines, and dark space goes on for miles, the right conditions for an American religious experience.
The bud’s provenance began on alien soil, under the Algerian sun. Since its discovery it’s become a crucial evolutionary linchpin. Peeking around pillars, bronze men furtively gaze upon their beloved root. The hum of belief vibrates in their sinuous frames. Not merely a life canal, it fulfills a semi-obscure prophecy of Abiku, the 12th-century scholar of Constantinople. It is a soul seeking a new host; a new god, apprehended on its journey. What brought about the gods’ shifting loyalties to transparency? Is the gift of invisibility in its genetic code? Is materiality a destructive act? The spies will not tell you what they know. Eventually, the lights will be turned on. Security will fan out, their Kalashnikovs piercing—goodbye mujahedeen.
How this strange root came into being, biologists cannot tell. Even now, its substantiality, its being, is in question, as its corkscrewed, barbed corpus, housed in a botanical garden below the city, occasionally fades, disappears, according to its keepers. Is this object sentient? It was; it’s origin code shifted like analog, needed only small amounts of information. It has planned obsolescence, but possible transition. Is this object illusion? It used to be, but is now failing. This is key to the relic’s followers. They believe this fallen state portends something foretold by the modern theologian Hassan—‘The Perfect One will be brought by the miracles of the prophets.’
Even to the specialized team assigned to and employed at studying the thorny bud, this is new territory. Their numbers come from hospital surgery units, zoo-botanical graduate programs, simple ‘field digger’ archeology internships. Yet there is not even a school, or theory, that anticipates this experience. There are no numbers to analyze. The first of several micro-video inspections (based on Fantastic Voyage technology) has been conducted. There were CAT scans and blood tests, but they revealed nothing. There was a carbon test begun, but dilatory effects were noticed almost immediately. From the field diggers comes the spiritual element. They are professional, but frustrated when the thorny object disappears.
It is several miles long, the crawling king snake that is the soul of the earth, but coiling and folding in upon itself compresses down to roughly nine by three feet. Its diameter shrinks to hundredths of an inch (measurements supplied by a gyrating micrometer), and bulges to 9-plus inches. The pulpy maze has the knotty, random bulbousness of the conqueror root. A fecal tang heralds the arrival of the baby’s changing room, the bouquet of an aged compost heap. This is a problem for the scientists. Now burnt gold and copper, then dark chocolate and tan, sometimes resembling a chunky anal clod: tender, lyrical tendrils sporadically sprout from its mass.
A kind of transcript winds with the ease of a long and complex life, scarring and calcifying the inner walls of the root: a chronicle self-created, autonomic, stream of conscious. Long moments of clarity unfurl in the passages, long moments of absolute disorder. The transcript is alternately crabbed, cursive, or blocky. There are rarely gaps, but at regular intervals the script thins and executes perfectly rounded and spaced curlicues. Many characters are reminiscent of known languages; Latin, Cyrillic, and Arabic are represented. Many characters are not characters at all, but superflourishes. There is a vague suggestion of color. Researchers question its role in the memory of the colon. These details exist on a miniscule scale; this is why the colon can host a secret operation.
This miracle object has no equal: we do not know if all consciousness is like this. It has no antecedent as consciousness, or soul; it has no reference. It has substance and can be measured as a material object, yet occasionally, it does not, it cannot. At any moment, the holy bush can become a will-o-the-wisp. Yet, while it is considered by theoreticians who ponder its purpose to be a startlingly old model of propulsion (where existence is not dependent on being), they see its applications for a new engine design. Now, even when nothing is there, it is considered as extant.
Acanthaceae
by Diego Oviedo
Translated by Heath Mayhew & Ximena Cordova
Translated by Heath Mayhew & Ximena Cordova
II ACANTHACEAE
Justicia sp.
Det: D. Wasshausen, 1990.
Chimane: Viyucure. Español:
San Antonio: A cotton grass up to a meter tall. Lance-shaped leaves and small purple flowers. Of pleasant, almond-like, smell. Uncertain crop; may be cultivated or sporadic in family gardens.
G.O. - 34 / LPB. (Flowers: August).
USES
Firstly, it is used as a common remedy known throughout the Chimane: The leaves are prepared by grinding and then boiling; the decoction is drunk to fight infections of the respiratory system (1)(ejevadye: whooping cough (lit. cough from choking)).
The second use has two methods. The first follows the same procedure as before, except the water is not drunk. The leaves are left to marinate the water throughout the night to be used for a morning bath. This bath must be performed at dawn for two consecutive days. The third day one mustn’t take a bath; and after the third day has passed, the treatment should abate “laziness”. It is important to remember, “not to touch water” during the three days, that is to say, you must abstain from taking a bath with regular water. This first method is suggestive when we consider the informant and his religious affiliation from which this use is derived — a young man educated in the bilingual school of the Evangelical New Tribes Mission (M.N.T.). This contrasts with the second method, collected and corroborated in different circumstances.
In the second method, baths are also the central element and are noteworthy as one of the primary passages required for the shamanic initiation (2). In contrast to the first method, the baths must be taken for two weeks and only at night, starting on a night of full moon. The baths mark the initiation of apprenticeship, which also requires the student to observe, in addition to complete isolation, a strict diet (nuts, fruits, certain vegetables; no meats) and abstinence throughout his apprenticeship. With the completion of this process, an important quality arises, which is dutifully recognized by the Viyucure: your smell (3). The smell rises like an invitation for the appearance of a woman called Ocajsi. Based on these conditions, Ocajsi makes her appearance and becomes the principle helper or mediator; she accompanies the aspirant during the entire process of his apprenticeship, whose first stage culminates (after a year or two) with the return to his family or village, finally converted to cocojsi, a shaman. The bond created between Ocajsi and the cocojsi is still maintained after the initiation is finished and is strengthened by a constant and dynamic process of teaching-learning that never seems to fully culminate or stop. In this sense, Ocajsi accompanies the cocojsi permanently, developing a series of contacts with special beings that instruct the cocojsi of a specific therapeutic technique. Ocajsi, belonging to and inhabiting many mythical world religions, is similar in appearance to women in general. The link that is established with cocojsi is like a solid pact (or bond) that eventually crosses over to matrimony, which is to say, she becomes his wife and may later bear his children. The children, apparently, develop a life in the world of the mother.
_______________________________________________
Footnotes:
(1) Grenand et.al.(1987: 89-90), in reference to family and gender says: “..the use of this species, or more precisely of the those varieties, as a hallucinogen has recently prompted a thorough chemical study of her properties. This drug doesn’t contain the active antimicrobial that could be used to treat infections in the respiratory system.”
(2) In the Descripción del Territorio, etc.(1905: 138), the initiation rites are described by the following way: “To obtain the title of Cucucsi they must go through a test… The candidate is presented to the Cucucsi, who would wash their body with the juice of the herbs, called Moseteno Zaraca…”.
(3) Schultes, R.E.(1990), “we present an important compilation of studies with Justicia and its utilization as a hallucinogen for various ethnic groups in the Amazon. The anthropological issues regarding use, even aspects of botanical interest, and phytochemical, has similarities in the analysis of active principles in Justicia pectoralis. Additional studies of other ethnic groups from the Amazon helped complete the study, and where the reported uses, similar to the results from the different chemical analyses, validate that the plants, J.pectoralis y J. pectoralis var.stenophylla, are more important in South America.”
Justicia sp.
Det: D. Wasshausen, 1990.
Chimane: Viyucure. Español:
San Antonio: A cotton grass up to a meter tall. Lance-shaped leaves and small purple flowers. Of pleasant, almond-like, smell. Uncertain crop; may be cultivated or sporadic in family gardens.
G.O. - 34 / LPB. (Flowers: August).
USES
Firstly, it is used as a common remedy known throughout the Chimane: The leaves are prepared by grinding and then boiling; the decoction is drunk to fight infections of the respiratory system (1)(ejevadye: whooping cough (lit. cough from choking)).
The second use has two methods. The first follows the same procedure as before, except the water is not drunk. The leaves are left to marinate the water throughout the night to be used for a morning bath. This bath must be performed at dawn for two consecutive days. The third day one mustn’t take a bath; and after the third day has passed, the treatment should abate “laziness”. It is important to remember, “not to touch water” during the three days, that is to say, you must abstain from taking a bath with regular water. This first method is suggestive when we consider the informant and his religious affiliation from which this use is derived — a young man educated in the bilingual school of the Evangelical New Tribes Mission (M.N.T.). This contrasts with the second method, collected and corroborated in different circumstances.
In the second method, baths are also the central element and are noteworthy as one of the primary passages required for the shamanic initiation (2). In contrast to the first method, the baths must be taken for two weeks and only at night, starting on a night of full moon. The baths mark the initiation of apprenticeship, which also requires the student to observe, in addition to complete isolation, a strict diet (nuts, fruits, certain vegetables; no meats) and abstinence throughout his apprenticeship. With the completion of this process, an important quality arises, which is dutifully recognized by the Viyucure: your smell (3). The smell rises like an invitation for the appearance of a woman called Ocajsi. Based on these conditions, Ocajsi makes her appearance and becomes the principle helper or mediator; she accompanies the aspirant during the entire process of his apprenticeship, whose first stage culminates (after a year or two) with the return to his family or village, finally converted to cocojsi, a shaman. The bond created between Ocajsi and the cocojsi is still maintained after the initiation is finished and is strengthened by a constant and dynamic process of teaching-learning that never seems to fully culminate or stop. In this sense, Ocajsi accompanies the cocojsi permanently, developing a series of contacts with special beings that instruct the cocojsi of a specific therapeutic technique. Ocajsi, belonging to and inhabiting many mythical world religions, is similar in appearance to women in general. The link that is established with cocojsi is like a solid pact (or bond) that eventually crosses over to matrimony, which is to say, she becomes his wife and may later bear his children. The children, apparently, develop a life in the world of the mother.
_______________________________________________
Footnotes:
(1) Grenand et.al.(1987: 89-90), in reference to family and gender says: “..the use of this species, or more precisely of the those varieties, as a hallucinogen has recently prompted a thorough chemical study of her properties. This drug doesn’t contain the active antimicrobial that could be used to treat infections in the respiratory system.”
(2) In the Descripción del Territorio, etc.(1905: 138), the initiation rites are described by the following way: “To obtain the title of Cucucsi they must go through a test… The candidate is presented to the Cucucsi, who would wash their body with the juice of the herbs, called Moseteno Zaraca…”.
(3) Schultes, R.E.(1990), “we present an important compilation of studies with Justicia and its utilization as a hallucinogen for various ethnic groups in the Amazon. The anthropological issues regarding use, even aspects of botanical interest, and phytochemical, has similarities in the analysis of active principles in Justicia pectoralis. Additional studies of other ethnic groups from the Amazon helped complete the study, and where the reported uses, similar to the results from the different chemical analyses, validate that the plants, J.pectoralis y J. pectoralis var.stenophylla, are more important in South America.”
Death In Modern America
by James Michael Scott
“If we owe regard to the memory of the dead, there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to virtue, and to truth.” -Samuel Johnson
Grandpa Scott died in 1990. America had yet to fully emerge out of the shadow of the bubble economy and geeky neonsynthpopculture of the 80’s; large cell phones were being toted around and the Internet was just arriving at doorsteps, having just lost its baby fat after its military incubation. The Information Age was in its inkling stage, still lacking the full civilian and business participation that it would eventually convert. This is why it was strange, that in 2007, my grandfather’s name would still exist in the digital records of credit card companies, that he could still be eligible for $500 maximum Visa cards, and still receive advertisements and coupons from a handful of various conglomerations through the U.S. Postal Office. Had businesses already converted over to digital records by the early 90’s? Or had my grandpa’s paper file eventually become digital? I don’t know. But what is more disturbing is that my father, who passed away in 2006, receives more mail than I do. From Harley Davidson invites, Playboy re-subscriptions, AARP membership card offers, letters from Publishers Clearing House, and, of course, credit card pre-approvals. At my current apartment he receives at least one piece of mail a day. Is this what society awards a man who worked a full-time job for three-plus decades, held down mortgage payments, had three credit cards, owned two cars and a motorcycle, smoked Marlboro cigarettes (enough to use Marlboro mileage to “barter” for a two-man tent, sleeping bag, rain jacket, camping lamp, long sleeve shirt, a blanket, …), and bought occasionally from mail-in catalogs? More mail? Is this what the system spews back at us after we’ve put our sweat, money, and hopes into it? Couldn’t these companies at least have the decency to delete his name from their databases when he died?
No, the Information Age is only now beginning to be understood, and utilized efficiently and effectively. When he died, the funeral home told the State Department, who in turn reported to relevant federal departments. I don’t blame the funeral home; they did their job. And the state or federal government isn’t to blame either. I’d point my shaky finger at that shabbily dressed collective of money-launderers, who don’t care about the individual, not enough at least to let them rest in peace.
But weren’t the companies merely trying to meet my father’s demands? They might not be evil after all. He had a lot of stuff he left behind; and of those things, I took: an old-timey children’s pinball game (circa 1950), a small collection of rusty knives (varying in size, from 2-inch folding blade to a six inch “Rambo” knife) a photo of Grandpa Scott taken while on tour during the Korean War (he is smiling happily with a Korean woman sitting closely at his side), a Marlboro hiking backpack, two-dozen books of matches, a plastic container of tiny metal balls with Chinese lettering (belonging to another children’s game??), a backgammon/chess play set, a traveling Rolls Razor (my Grandpa’s), personal files (medical records, criminal history report, several packets from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society with highlighted sentences; two essays, one entitled, ‘Boundaries: Tools of Respect in the Relationship with the Addict’, and the other, ‘Are You Trying Too Hard to Please?’; address book, debt book, and his receipts for the last year and a half of his life, two that were dated one day before his death), notebooks (with indebted names, list of Hawaiian islands he had doted on moving to or the carpentry details for an extension he had planned on adding to his house), and his leather wallet.
Among everything, the wallet was the most important; it was emblematic. In its entirety, it represented everything I came to dislike about the world: my father, capitalism, materialism, and the “normal” life. Throughout high school I didn’t carry a wallet; my father suggested that I should own one, but he didn’t persist. Throughout college I went walletless, shoving loose bills in my back pockets and carrying only my ID card. Once, I made a make-shift duct-tape “cardholder” that held only my debit card and ID.
By the time I inherited his wallet, at the age of 23, that angst had faded. During college and his death I met my father again, and we bonded. Yes, a touching lighthearted story for the fam: when I took the wallet, it was an acceptance of everything he is in me. It was emblematic as the penultimate point our relationship had struggled to reach. It took his death to be given that realization. Today, I don’t carry it to prove loyalty or honor: I carry it because it is mine. It is my personal consubstantiation.
Since his death I have wondered if every time I have read his notes he was rolling in his grave; or whether or not his spirit was summoned. If his possessions invoke his personality (which is the very reason we keep personal items), doesn’t his personality, to some extent, induce his spirit? Of course, he was (and people are) more than his possessions, yet they provoked memories within me, that, if nothing else, summoned his spiritual content. Is there anything worse than provoking the dead? How can my father ever rest in peace if I can’t let his memories be buried with him? Certainly my father continues to live within me; he is one-half of me and to live forward, now, is to best commemorate his life, no? He gave me life to succeed and live, not to wallow in memories of his life. If I am to pay my respect to him, I must let him “go gentle into the good night.”
With certain possessions we can construct a timeline; footprints of dates and activities through time; reenact moments of their lives that we were not given witness to. It is more than an archaeological record because we know the person by whom the possessions were kept. Illusory: I am there with him, picturing him standing in line at the post office, waiting to mail the package in his hands, the address in his clumsy all caps handwriting, a cane in his right hand, and as the receipt shows, purchasing a money order; he is muttering under his breath; he is nervous to be there and doesn’t want to talk to the man standing behind the counter. Oddly, those are activities I normally dread in my life, but his death changed those feelings and suddenly those insignificant trivialities became very important, perhaps necessary. With it, I am able to better understand my father. Unknowingly, we hope that these possessions will give us an answer, or at least a clue, anything to ease the suffering. Can an object really give us an answer?
What I am guilty of, as are most Americans, is taking a possession, whether it is a family heirloom or article of clothing, and holding onto it for as long as I can. We all grieve in our own way. Observant Jews mourn for a year (following strict rules of dress, diet, and customs) and then mourning is over. It is considered almost sacrilegious to continue mourning. In many Buddhist countries, they mourn for 49 days and then only on the anniversary for seven years afterwards. Perhaps Americans can, eventually, when we are able to see through the materialistic understanding of others and ourselves, be able to devise a better way to mourn. For now, we will sip our brewing sadness cautiously, and take it one sip at a time. The American tradition reveals some of its roots. Thus it continues.
One of the ways Americans mourn is by having a funeral and having a burial or spreading of the ashes. And generally, if someone is buried, he or she is commemorated by a tombstone, or if someone is cremated, then he or she is remembered by the urn. When my father died, I couldn’t afford a tombstone. For $600, a nameplate could be placed into the ground. Oddly, six months after his death, a nameplate appeared mysteriously, by an anonymous donor.
When Americans cannot give their deceased a proper burial, it can mean travesty. Just think of all those who grieve for P.O.Ws./M.I.As. This tradition runs deep. And interestingly, this might be a clue to why Americans mourn with possessions.
During the Civil War, when so many of America’s sons died alone on the war field, which resulted in sending consoling letters home to the bereft as a testament of identity, families began cherishing anything significant in the absence of their loved one’s body. As Drew Gilpin Faust explains in her book, This Republic of Suffering, American citizens hoped that everyone had the “Good Death.” In summary, it was to die in your home surrounded by family and to make peace with your sins and repent so that everyone knew that you died in peace (and so that they knew they could meet you again in heaven). But with soldiers dying in war, families could not know how their sons died. Often the soldiers themselves wrote farewell letters before dying (many deaths were slow; most deaths were began with infection), or if they could not, their friends would send home a letter addressing, mostly, the deceased’s composition (during or after death) and any last words or thoughts given by the dying. The families were left with a short letter and maybe an article of clothing or a personal possession. Civil War families, uncertain of their child’s ascension to heaven, might mourn an entire lifetime. It is certainly possible that because Civil War era families were quite accustomed to death (due to high birth mortality rates, shorter lives, no penicillin, etc.), they didn’t mourn for an entire lifetime. However, that most people died at home, war death, being aberrant, caused families to mourn in a different way.
How would I have mourned had my father died in a secluded jungle in the Amazon (having cut off all ties with the world, etc.)? Would he have had a more peaceful death? Would his memory have faded sooner so that his name would disappear into oblivion? Would I have been able to deal with his death any better? Could I accept his death more easily?
A good friend of mine once told me that she would never stop missing her father. He had died ten years earlier. My first thought was, ‘Come on, you can’t be serious?’ And my subsequent thought was, ‘I’ll never do that.’ Since the death of my father was still fresh, I felt masculine bravado at my own emotions: I was still tender in dealing with them and believed that I had gone through the grieving. However, I was still in shock of his death, or perhaps had gone through anger and sorrow and come back around to shock. My emotions felt cyclical, as they are wont to do.
At the time, I had mistaken her word ‘missing’ for ‘mourning.’ Yes, I had put my foot in my mouth, but weren’t my remarks somewhat legitimate? Given the evidence (a picture of him at her computer, and I believe wearing a bracelet from him), my confusion is not entirely out of line. My line of sight saw possessions as acts of mourning, and I certainly didn’t want to be mourning for ten years. I didn’t want to revolve around grief. Yet, I reiterate, her complexity of emotional strings, which I could not understand, were delicate flashes of longing; it wasn’t the inner turmoil I had been feeling at that moment.
The rest of America, myself included, is right beside her. The possessions we keep are emblems of the body. Whether or not these help or retard the process of mourning is the question at hand. Or is the more immediate question, “Are these possessions necessary for mourning?” I would argue that as long as it doesn’t prolong our sorrow, it is necessary.
The morning my father died I called out of work at the hotel, but later that evening I reported to work at the Chinese restaurant. I pretended to be fine, as if I nothing happened. This is a trend that plagues Americans; the inability to face our emotions in their rawest forms. We will find something else to occupy our time so that we won’t have to deal with their immediacy, vain about their true nature; that they are always raw until you deal with them, until you handle them and understand them. I was one of those people who ignored my feelings, and I acted like I wasn’t. After three years passed, I realized that by neglecting my emotions they got buried and separated and became foreign.
The death of a loved one is the articulation of your life with the person; how he or she filled your life. What did my father mean to me while he was alive? What have I lost? How do I deal and perceive the void that has be given? Just like any relationship, the further it recedes into memory, it fades. The longer I didn’t confront his death, the more it grew ensnared with multitudes of other emotions; muscle insulated by fat. The intrusion was a source of embitterment and further estrangement of my own emotions. When they reemerged (after some serious writing about the topic), they were distant cousins, or worse, strangers to me. Strangers to whom we sometimes say, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” But like a stranger, an emotion is a breathing, living, organic being with a heart of its own; often netted in the cobwebs of our closets; intertwined like one wiki page to the forty others nested within it.
The Internet has yet to last an entire generation, and why it shouldn’t is prophecy. Yet, as the Information Age matures, as the Internet becomes better organized and more easily searchable, as personal information becomes digitized, it will change how we remember. History is no longer exclusively for paper or our memories. Our lives, which include our history, have been interpolated by the digital world. Websites that are dedicated to the deceased alone mark a pioneering of eternal remembrance; drifting serenely and forever frozen like a stuffed animal through the echelons of each succeeding generation (see http://www.mydeathspace.com). Websites can be permanent memorials with photos and commentaries from friends and family. Not only does the Internet externalize death, it also follows the evolution of the effect of death; friends share their emotions publicly and engage in grieving together. Family members report ‘John would have been 35 today!’ and may write an aside that he is missed. In a twist of things, it fills the void left be the departed.
Although a website maintains such a dynamic record, what does it mean for our presently encroaching deaths? Does it help us accept our own anymore than we used to? And can we get over someone whose history remains so fluid and alive? Or is this the new way Americans mourn someone? Instead of a small, private circle of people having the only access to the deceased’s life, everyone can now “share a life.” We will always have feelings attached to those we’ve shared our life with: at the very least we’ve given them a part of us and when they die, as the cliché goes, a part of us dies too. Perhaps our digital gravestones are erected to mourn the small part of us that has died.
Even if critics believe that these electronic memorials are pathetic and invoke partial and incomplete persons, incomplete because in death people write only the niceties, no back stabbing so to speak, we must give them a moment in our lives. For we too, although fighting to live meaningful lives, deal with our encroaching death. We too wish to live for as long as we can, and in death, to be remembered for something more than a grotesque being. We are not here to make enemies: we want to rejoice, in the light of family and friends and goodness and God and such. My father never wanted an open casket funeral; he didn’t want to be ‘gawked’ at. But we gave him one because in spite of his voiced words, we knew that his friends and family needed to see him. Just so that when we knelt and said our prayers, we could see him. In that sense, it was as if he was watching us. And in that sense, provoking that spirit every now and again, with our possession, we are being watched, heard, and loved.
My mourning has passed; I continue to miss him from time to time: I knew he had tripped walking down the stairs and had a minor heart attack. When the paramedics arrived, he was D.O.A. I remember as he lay resting still in the hospital bed. He looked as if he’d been sleeping, but the lack of breath confused my immediate intuition. It seemed a hoax, and I wanted to see a deep breath of air go into his lungs. He looked pale, but he was still warm to the touch. I was oblivious to any questions or concerns. In my mind, a door had slammed, forced shut by a passing cool breeze, taking the hot air from one room, and pulling it into another. I spoke to him and cried. I loved him more than before; another door had opened. I didn’t want it, but it was there. I struggled to understand my own position; I wondered how long the feelings would last. I’ve decided to write a letter and tell him about it.
Grandpa Scott died in 1990. America had yet to fully emerge out of the shadow of the bubble economy and geeky neonsynthpopculture of the 80’s; large cell phones were being toted around and the Internet was just arriving at doorsteps, having just lost its baby fat after its military incubation. The Information Age was in its inkling stage, still lacking the full civilian and business participation that it would eventually convert. This is why it was strange, that in 2007, my grandfather’s name would still exist in the digital records of credit card companies, that he could still be eligible for $500 maximum Visa cards, and still receive advertisements and coupons from a handful of various conglomerations through the U.S. Postal Office. Had businesses already converted over to digital records by the early 90’s? Or had my grandpa’s paper file eventually become digital? I don’t know. But what is more disturbing is that my father, who passed away in 2006, receives more mail than I do. From Harley Davidson invites, Playboy re-subscriptions, AARP membership card offers, letters from Publishers Clearing House, and, of course, credit card pre-approvals. At my current apartment he receives at least one piece of mail a day. Is this what society awards a man who worked a full-time job for three-plus decades, held down mortgage payments, had three credit cards, owned two cars and a motorcycle, smoked Marlboro cigarettes (enough to use Marlboro mileage to “barter” for a two-man tent, sleeping bag, rain jacket, camping lamp, long sleeve shirt, a blanket, …), and bought occasionally from mail-in catalogs? More mail? Is this what the system spews back at us after we’ve put our sweat, money, and hopes into it? Couldn’t these companies at least have the decency to delete his name from their databases when he died?
No, the Information Age is only now beginning to be understood, and utilized efficiently and effectively. When he died, the funeral home told the State Department, who in turn reported to relevant federal departments. I don’t blame the funeral home; they did their job. And the state or federal government isn’t to blame either. I’d point my shaky finger at that shabbily dressed collective of money-launderers, who don’t care about the individual, not enough at least to let them rest in peace.
But weren’t the companies merely trying to meet my father’s demands? They might not be evil after all. He had a lot of stuff he left behind; and of those things, I took: an old-timey children’s pinball game (circa 1950), a small collection of rusty knives (varying in size, from 2-inch folding blade to a six inch “Rambo” knife) a photo of Grandpa Scott taken while on tour during the Korean War (he is smiling happily with a Korean woman sitting closely at his side), a Marlboro hiking backpack, two-dozen books of matches, a plastic container of tiny metal balls with Chinese lettering (belonging to another children’s game??), a backgammon/chess play set, a traveling Rolls Razor (my Grandpa’s), personal files (medical records, criminal history report, several packets from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society with highlighted sentences; two essays, one entitled, ‘Boundaries: Tools of Respect in the Relationship with the Addict’, and the other, ‘Are You Trying Too Hard to Please?’; address book, debt book, and his receipts for the last year and a half of his life, two that were dated one day before his death), notebooks (with indebted names, list of Hawaiian islands he had doted on moving to or the carpentry details for an extension he had planned on adding to his house), and his leather wallet.
Among everything, the wallet was the most important; it was emblematic. In its entirety, it represented everything I came to dislike about the world: my father, capitalism, materialism, and the “normal” life. Throughout high school I didn’t carry a wallet; my father suggested that I should own one, but he didn’t persist. Throughout college I went walletless, shoving loose bills in my back pockets and carrying only my ID card. Once, I made a make-shift duct-tape “cardholder” that held only my debit card and ID.
By the time I inherited his wallet, at the age of 23, that angst had faded. During college and his death I met my father again, and we bonded. Yes, a touching lighthearted story for the fam: when I took the wallet, it was an acceptance of everything he is in me. It was emblematic as the penultimate point our relationship had struggled to reach. It took his death to be given that realization. Today, I don’t carry it to prove loyalty or honor: I carry it because it is mine. It is my personal consubstantiation.
Since his death I have wondered if every time I have read his notes he was rolling in his grave; or whether or not his spirit was summoned. If his possessions invoke his personality (which is the very reason we keep personal items), doesn’t his personality, to some extent, induce his spirit? Of course, he was (and people are) more than his possessions, yet they provoked memories within me, that, if nothing else, summoned his spiritual content. Is there anything worse than provoking the dead? How can my father ever rest in peace if I can’t let his memories be buried with him? Certainly my father continues to live within me; he is one-half of me and to live forward, now, is to best commemorate his life, no? He gave me life to succeed and live, not to wallow in memories of his life. If I am to pay my respect to him, I must let him “go gentle into the good night.”
With certain possessions we can construct a timeline; footprints of dates and activities through time; reenact moments of their lives that we were not given witness to. It is more than an archaeological record because we know the person by whom the possessions were kept. Illusory: I am there with him, picturing him standing in line at the post office, waiting to mail the package in his hands, the address in his clumsy all caps handwriting, a cane in his right hand, and as the receipt shows, purchasing a money order; he is muttering under his breath; he is nervous to be there and doesn’t want to talk to the man standing behind the counter. Oddly, those are activities I normally dread in my life, but his death changed those feelings and suddenly those insignificant trivialities became very important, perhaps necessary. With it, I am able to better understand my father. Unknowingly, we hope that these possessions will give us an answer, or at least a clue, anything to ease the suffering. Can an object really give us an answer?
What I am guilty of, as are most Americans, is taking a possession, whether it is a family heirloom or article of clothing, and holding onto it for as long as I can. We all grieve in our own way. Observant Jews mourn for a year (following strict rules of dress, diet, and customs) and then mourning is over. It is considered almost sacrilegious to continue mourning. In many Buddhist countries, they mourn for 49 days and then only on the anniversary for seven years afterwards. Perhaps Americans can, eventually, when we are able to see through the materialistic understanding of others and ourselves, be able to devise a better way to mourn. For now, we will sip our brewing sadness cautiously, and take it one sip at a time. The American tradition reveals some of its roots. Thus it continues.
One of the ways Americans mourn is by having a funeral and having a burial or spreading of the ashes. And generally, if someone is buried, he or she is commemorated by a tombstone, or if someone is cremated, then he or she is remembered by the urn. When my father died, I couldn’t afford a tombstone. For $600, a nameplate could be placed into the ground. Oddly, six months after his death, a nameplate appeared mysteriously, by an anonymous donor.
When Americans cannot give their deceased a proper burial, it can mean travesty. Just think of all those who grieve for P.O.Ws./M.I.As. This tradition runs deep. And interestingly, this might be a clue to why Americans mourn with possessions.
During the Civil War, when so many of America’s sons died alone on the war field, which resulted in sending consoling letters home to the bereft as a testament of identity, families began cherishing anything significant in the absence of their loved one’s body. As Drew Gilpin Faust explains in her book, This Republic of Suffering, American citizens hoped that everyone had the “Good Death.” In summary, it was to die in your home surrounded by family and to make peace with your sins and repent so that everyone knew that you died in peace (and so that they knew they could meet you again in heaven). But with soldiers dying in war, families could not know how their sons died. Often the soldiers themselves wrote farewell letters before dying (many deaths were slow; most deaths were began with infection), or if they could not, their friends would send home a letter addressing, mostly, the deceased’s composition (during or after death) and any last words or thoughts given by the dying. The families were left with a short letter and maybe an article of clothing or a personal possession. Civil War families, uncertain of their child’s ascension to heaven, might mourn an entire lifetime. It is certainly possible that because Civil War era families were quite accustomed to death (due to high birth mortality rates, shorter lives, no penicillin, etc.), they didn’t mourn for an entire lifetime. However, that most people died at home, war death, being aberrant, caused families to mourn in a different way.
How would I have mourned had my father died in a secluded jungle in the Amazon (having cut off all ties with the world, etc.)? Would he have had a more peaceful death? Would his memory have faded sooner so that his name would disappear into oblivion? Would I have been able to deal with his death any better? Could I accept his death more easily?
A good friend of mine once told me that she would never stop missing her father. He had died ten years earlier. My first thought was, ‘Come on, you can’t be serious?’ And my subsequent thought was, ‘I’ll never do that.’ Since the death of my father was still fresh, I felt masculine bravado at my own emotions: I was still tender in dealing with them and believed that I had gone through the grieving. However, I was still in shock of his death, or perhaps had gone through anger and sorrow and come back around to shock. My emotions felt cyclical, as they are wont to do.
At the time, I had mistaken her word ‘missing’ for ‘mourning.’ Yes, I had put my foot in my mouth, but weren’t my remarks somewhat legitimate? Given the evidence (a picture of him at her computer, and I believe wearing a bracelet from him), my confusion is not entirely out of line. My line of sight saw possessions as acts of mourning, and I certainly didn’t want to be mourning for ten years. I didn’t want to revolve around grief. Yet, I reiterate, her complexity of emotional strings, which I could not understand, were delicate flashes of longing; it wasn’t the inner turmoil I had been feeling at that moment.
The rest of America, myself included, is right beside her. The possessions we keep are emblems of the body. Whether or not these help or retard the process of mourning is the question at hand. Or is the more immediate question, “Are these possessions necessary for mourning?” I would argue that as long as it doesn’t prolong our sorrow, it is necessary.
The morning my father died I called out of work at the hotel, but later that evening I reported to work at the Chinese restaurant. I pretended to be fine, as if I nothing happened. This is a trend that plagues Americans; the inability to face our emotions in their rawest forms. We will find something else to occupy our time so that we won’t have to deal with their immediacy, vain about their true nature; that they are always raw until you deal with them, until you handle them and understand them. I was one of those people who ignored my feelings, and I acted like I wasn’t. After three years passed, I realized that by neglecting my emotions they got buried and separated and became foreign.
The death of a loved one is the articulation of your life with the person; how he or she filled your life. What did my father mean to me while he was alive? What have I lost? How do I deal and perceive the void that has be given? Just like any relationship, the further it recedes into memory, it fades. The longer I didn’t confront his death, the more it grew ensnared with multitudes of other emotions; muscle insulated by fat. The intrusion was a source of embitterment and further estrangement of my own emotions. When they reemerged (after some serious writing about the topic), they were distant cousins, or worse, strangers to me. Strangers to whom we sometimes say, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” But like a stranger, an emotion is a breathing, living, organic being with a heart of its own; often netted in the cobwebs of our closets; intertwined like one wiki page to the forty others nested within it.
The Internet has yet to last an entire generation, and why it shouldn’t is prophecy. Yet, as the Information Age matures, as the Internet becomes better organized and more easily searchable, as personal information becomes digitized, it will change how we remember. History is no longer exclusively for paper or our memories. Our lives, which include our history, have been interpolated by the digital world. Websites that are dedicated to the deceased alone mark a pioneering of eternal remembrance; drifting serenely and forever frozen like a stuffed animal through the echelons of each succeeding generation (see http://www.mydeathspace.com). Websites can be permanent memorials with photos and commentaries from friends and family. Not only does the Internet externalize death, it also follows the evolution of the effect of death; friends share their emotions publicly and engage in grieving together. Family members report ‘John would have been 35 today!’ and may write an aside that he is missed. In a twist of things, it fills the void left be the departed.
Although a website maintains such a dynamic record, what does it mean for our presently encroaching deaths? Does it help us accept our own anymore than we used to? And can we get over someone whose history remains so fluid and alive? Or is this the new way Americans mourn someone? Instead of a small, private circle of people having the only access to the deceased’s life, everyone can now “share a life.” We will always have feelings attached to those we’ve shared our life with: at the very least we’ve given them a part of us and when they die, as the cliché goes, a part of us dies too. Perhaps our digital gravestones are erected to mourn the small part of us that has died.
Even if critics believe that these electronic memorials are pathetic and invoke partial and incomplete persons, incomplete because in death people write only the niceties, no back stabbing so to speak, we must give them a moment in our lives. For we too, although fighting to live meaningful lives, deal with our encroaching death. We too wish to live for as long as we can, and in death, to be remembered for something more than a grotesque being. We are not here to make enemies: we want to rejoice, in the light of family and friends and goodness and God and such. My father never wanted an open casket funeral; he didn’t want to be ‘gawked’ at. But we gave him one because in spite of his voiced words, we knew that his friends and family needed to see him. Just so that when we knelt and said our prayers, we could see him. In that sense, it was as if he was watching us. And in that sense, provoking that spirit every now and again, with our possession, we are being watched, heard, and loved.
My mourning has passed; I continue to miss him from time to time: I knew he had tripped walking down the stairs and had a minor heart attack. When the paramedics arrived, he was D.O.A. I remember as he lay resting still in the hospital bed. He looked as if he’d been sleeping, but the lack of breath confused my immediate intuition. It seemed a hoax, and I wanted to see a deep breath of air go into his lungs. He looked pale, but he was still warm to the touch. I was oblivious to any questions or concerns. In my mind, a door had slammed, forced shut by a passing cool breeze, taking the hot air from one room, and pulling it into another. I spoke to him and cried. I loved him more than before; another door had opened. I didn’t want it, but it was there. I struggled to understand my own position; I wondered how long the feelings would last. I’ve decided to write a letter and tell him about it.
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