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Sunday, April 8, 2007

Pressure

The clamour is becoming overwhelming. My email account has crashed. That's two gigs, and it crashed. You people are insatiable. Oh Jack H, tell us more and more about yourself. When are you going to post a full body shot of yourself and that hot body we hear so much about of yours? Can we make you a cake? What's your favorite flavor? I drew a picture of a rocket ship, and I want an orange van. On and on they go, just like that. How can something be both flattering and pathetic? Cuz that's you, bucko.

Well. I suppose I can open myself up a little more, share a bit more about my day, since the requests are so constant. This morning started pretty much the same as always, all brillig. The toves brought me my fruit, along with their usual bleatings that I deliver them from the momewraiths. I donned my battle apparel and descended into the pit, spent a few hours hacking them down, cleaving their baboon-like hides with my vorpal blade. They tried to outgrab, but you know the drill. Snicker snack. Just more of the same.

I did finish the mohole today. Clear through the magma, just as the theory predicted. Elegant. I found an ancient civilization of hominoids in a mighty cavern illuminated by burgundy phosphorescent fungi. We danced around bonfires of glittering crystal, singing the songs of Eden. Then we feasted on sacred amanita muscaria until the walls of illusion came crashing down.

I floated down an unending river while jaguars swiped at me from the banks. The air was filled with a fragrance of cinnamon, stirred by the fanning of broad leaves hanging from the canopy. The water was salty. A woman rose like sunrise from the green tide, her skin golden and her hair long and black. She walked to me, full-breasted and wide of hips, and she raised her arms and took my hand and drew me to her. I forgot myself and fell into her eyes until after a time I passed through and I was alone again.

And now I come to myself once more. It's Easter, and I find I didn't make it to church. But I never go to church anymore. How far, how high, how broad, how deep. How empty. How full.


J

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd be intersted to hear why you no longer go to church. Or have you already covered that topic in a post I may have missed?

Don't misunderstand. I am not suggesting you do so. I am simply wondering if the reasons I used not to, but now do, were an aberration or do you have insights I have lost but should regain.

Jack H said...

That's a little sad, isn't it, that ending.

I don't pretend to be entirely rational. Maybe I'm trying to punish God. The emotional reason of which I am most aware is that I can't bear to bring my angry heart into that particular light. Something to do with feeling like a hypocrite.

I know. Please don't say it.

Eventually I'm sure I'll grow up. I have all the time in the world.

J

Anonymous said...

I didn't mean to pry. It just seemed a bit incongruous, is all. I don't know why it took me by surprise, but it did.

Jack H said...

Oh, I'm complicated.

J

Anonymous said...

Well, I guess I'm disappointed then because I expected either a more profound or, at least, a less mundane reason.

That's what they all say.

Jack H said...

Oh! Madame! You wrong me! Misunderstood again! Alas for me. Woe and woe again.

To imagine that I, even *I* could be slandered with such a calumny. Mundane. Mundane. Me. It is unbearabable. I can't, no, I can't go on. How could I continue? It is impossible.

Farewell, my huckleberry friend. Farewell forever.

J

Anonymous said...

My apologies.

Perhaps someday I'll learn to leave well enough alone.

Fare well.

Jack H said...

Wait! Wait, come back! I ... I have these moods. You can't hold me to them. You can't believe everything I say when I suffer under their pervading pall. Uh, what were we talking about? Me? It's just that, being a retiring and unwontedly modest fellow, I grow uneasy under close attention. I know, it's unbecoming of a man of my obvious gifts. It's just how I am. Humble. And I'm not complicated at all. I don't know why I said that. Simple. Very simple. A simpleton, in fact. Stupid, actually. I hate myself.