Transitive Taste

Once the comforts of the ordinary pass, as it invariably should in every season of our lives, he found himself unsettled and agitated, as if he had an insufferable itch on some unreachable part of his backside. Those faces he familiarized have become mere phantoms in those places where they would very regularly occasion. Like the porcupine raises its quills in sturdy defense at the tingling thrill of a unfamiliar situations, he, too, felt as if silent barriers and ancient bulwarks slowly rose from their dusty inactivity. Whatever he did he found doing in a careful practice of parsimony, so that each step in the constituent procedures, though done so many times before, were executed with an alien delicacy. What were committed once to muscle memory tumbled back into the framework of the focused consciousness, such that when he brushed his teeth in this new, foreign landscape, it was very much like he was assembling a shape he dreamt of using toothpicks, plastic knives, and an assortment of modeling glues.

Perhaps it was because he was afraid that whatever it is he might've learned, or in whatever ways he might've changed, during the passing antecedent chapter in his life might dissolve, dissipate, disappear when new sensations and circumstances flood through him. Without those buttresses that he identified as the pillars of his comfort zone, the sturdiness that he once felt became uncertain and tentative.

How did it once feel, he wonders aloud, to have not have been conscious of these facts before? As a drunkard of that poisonous ignorance I once habited, he almost yearned that amorphous, opaque ambrosia in a way that was most bittersweet and confusing. He didn't want to regress, no, that would be Chinese water torture, but he didn't want to let all that happened slip away in a muted collapse, a silent decimation.

He couldn't withstand, however, those who languished in their memories so vivaciously that it consumed them, stole their consciousness and excitement so easily that the dimwitted thief or bureaucrat flipped those individuals anyway that they could to access any valuables concealed or forgotten by that patron of ignorance.

He wanted to grab them by the shoulders and shake them awake, jettison from that lethargic realm of illusion and bring them into the world again. He wanted to reanimate them. He wanted to yell, "we are still alive, you and I, and it isn't until our final breaths that this can change. Don't count these numbered breaths, but taste the air in each and every one of them. Feel the texture of every individual intake and don't let the air simply pass through your lungs and digest mechanically into dioxides, but feel that miraculous exchange of life occur. Feel your feelings and let them digest you entirely."

That grey workroom of remorse. The shelves spilling over with expired things. He wanted to color them with fresh new paints and coat them with newly extracted lacquer.

diary of a madman, i: goodbye friends from yonsei

christ, i've been so goddamn emotionally tumultuous lately that i don't know what to do with myself. it's like i'm in high school again, railing out against society and the world but really just beating against myself. this incredible atmospheric pressure has me inside-out, i tell you. in any case, i don't know what i'm doing in this country anymore. i thought i could come here to, you know, explore my cultural roots and attempt to approach my identity from a different perspective, but all i've established is that these template identities are shallow - the moment you try to search deeper, you quickly find that they're quite meaningless. following the overall tone of my life, of course, i realize this as i'm leaving, making my attempt at a cultural experience entirely moot. i suppose, however, i should write something about my experience here without being so asphyxiatingly allegorical and biblically long-winded.


so here it is, the whole smorgasbord:


before coming here i was a misanthorpic little shit with more ego and chin than any individual should have. what could i say, new york leaves its mark. i dismissed everyone as inferior and put so much importance on intellect that i could've passed over a crowd with the most fascinating characteristics by merely judging the way they can talk about Socratic forms. what a pissant, yeah? what a fucking disenchanted savant. anyway, coming here made me realize that it's not the world i'm dissatisfied with, it's not the society and people i've become disillusioned to, it's a gaping emptiness that i realized inside of me. it's like what nietzsche wrote, yeah? gaze long enough into the abyss and it gazes straight back into you. i was so fixated by this beautiful blankness that the abyss convinced me into thinking it was right and all, truthfully zen -- beyond me truth, you know? sublime by burke's standards. so when i came here i shunned everybody, talked to no one, and quite simply blocked everyone out.

time passes and i realize that this is no way to experience life. you can't expect to have waldenesque experience in a city like seoul and with all the proximity of dormitory. i'll spare the proverbial social creatures skit because that's too blase. (even if i don't have much dignity, i like to think that i have style.) i didn't realize this myself though, so i'm writing this for those who, essentially, saved me from a path to self-destruction, a road to perdition, if you will. so thank you, thank you, and thank you again for salvaging what was left of a inimical, sardonic existence. like in dostoyevsky's WHITE NIGHT, it's like i've been an underground man for such a long time once i began to bear witness to what i construe as real friendships, i've suddenly realized that we're all meant for one another. the movements of the heart in response to sights of sickness, famine, and poverty mean something. when i feel lightheaded just by talking to someone, that means something.

so to those i've met here, i found that your characters are beautiful and it was by the grace of luck alone that our paths have crossed. even though we go our separate ways, i truly believe that we can never really leave one another. we're something of amalgamations: we meld into one another; we stretch, compress, tear, and mold together into infinitely fuller, more holistic aggregates. we will never again have what we had here together, but instead of grieving over this, i construe it rapturously. as you and i become farther apart, we will undoubtedly become further apart, as well. we will drift so far apart that we'll have just a legacy of a friendship once contained to the everyday. what of it? what i'm trying to say, i imagine, is that the true trial begins now. our final days together, these gloriously counted hours - how will they be spent? and after these instances, how will you remember us? we go through any given week meeting, interacting, and colliding with and into a whole lot of unfamiliar faces, but which do you remember and why?

constant vigilance, continuous questioning, and an unfaltering dexterity is what a lasting friendship demands. self-righteous, i know, but, my darlings, i shall do this very exercise to keep you all in my soul. so a few days beyond this posting, whether those whom i write this for read this or not, we bid our tearful adieus and take flight into our historic normalities. i leave with you a bit of myself, and i take with me a bit of it you. we trudge into our murky futures and i am excited to see what it holds for me, you, and us.

SHAL.

17.XII.2007

Empty Silence

The silence of an empty room is resounding as you enter it. Slowly, our once efficacious medications are no longer sufficient. They wither in strength and speed, until they begin to add to the weight over an overburdened consciousness. We change, don't we? We change at such a remarkable pace that I don't know who I'm seeing anymore. These words, they fail to supplant behavior at the most critical points in time. These incompetent manifestoes twist and mutate our senses until the distinction between this and that becomes so illegible that any belief in it is dogmatic blindness. Then and again, then and again, we're here right now but it's always then again.

Let's Meet at the End

They gathered together, the four of them, after a long day’s worth of traveling. Two of the party is male and the other two female, and each has come from a long way to be there at that spot. The sky is charred amber, as if the sky was falling in flames all around them. The landscape is flat and desolate, expected of the end of everything. No trees, no rocks, no animals, no movement beside that of these four travelers. One could peer into the distance of thousands of miles in every direction. The world has reduced the remnants of a fire that has been burnt out. Like the ashes left from that which was lit on fire, the world was deteriorating slowly, on its way towards nothingness. Just as it had started with an explosion, it all ended with explosions. Now it is left to incinerated powder, no different than a great grandfather in an ancient urn.

The four travelers gather and form a circle. They sit, facing each other, unable to speak because they each speak a different language. The climate is warm and comfortable, and there is not fear of the dark because there is nothing left. There is no fear of the dark because the sky radiates with flame, and will never extinguish so long as the earth still remains. They sit and stare at each other, unworried about food or loneliness. They are not concerned with their futures or their pasts because those details are irrelevant and forgotten, like their names and their identities. They sit together and meditate on the destruction of everything that has been, together.

The first male traveler has black hair and black eyes. He is from what use to be the Far East, and he was on his way to meet a friend that he has not seen in a long period of time. On his way to meet her, he began to visualize her face. He began to anticipate what they would talk about, and how she might have changed. He reminisced on their times together, and what oblique times they enjoyed. He thought of the different experiences and thoughts that he wanted to talk to her about. He got as far as getting off the subway and seeing her standing at their meeting point. He got as far as a smile of recognition, as she turned to him and waved. Then it struck.

The first female traveler comes from West. In fact, she was on her way to Europe. She has recently graduated from university and traveling to Europe to study fine art. Her mind functioned in various colors which swirled and formed the genius brushstrokes of those of the past. Her eyes traced each line and dwelled on each time the artist raised his hand from the painting to rub his wrist, rest, and survey what he has just painted. Her hair is an earthy brown and her eyes a similar green. She thinks about how she stepped off the jet and took a deep breath of the foreign air, as do all visitors upon arrival at a new place. She smiled as she saw the scenery, but then it struck.

The second male is from the Middle East. His hair is tan and his hair black. He was training in the palace of Egypt the crafts of political theory, so that he may one day serve as a man of that country that has a history that extends far into the depths of mankind. He was in the middle of his lessons, and he had great ideas to help the poverty in his country. So great, in fact, that he had written them on a sheet of paper, folded it into a square, and slipped it into his pocket. He was fondling the sheet in his pocket as his teacher spoke of theory. He was waiting patiently for a good time to share his ideas, so that the teacher may pass it onto officials. The teacher was near the end of the lesson, and the second male was pulling the sheet out but then it struck.

The second female is from the Southwest. She looks like the second male, but her eyes are wider and more observant. Her sister, also her closest friend, was getting betrothed and she was picking flowers before the ceremony began. She had picked all the flowers she wanted, and was sitting on a blanket to arrange them. She decided that the lighter colors should frame the darker colors, so that it would appear that the intensity of emotion is within, inside their delicate appearance. She raised each flower to her nose and felt their floral scents seep into her nose and tingle through her body. She had finished arranging the flowers, and was lifting to put one in her hair but then it struck.

At once, the four travelers thought of it. Of how it struck, and how everything that was is now nothing but smoking remains. It fell from the sky, and how it breached the atmosphere and how the clouds quickly dissipated before its impact. It was a quick flash and everything was ash. It was too quick for sound because it was as fast as the light which fills a room. This light filled the earth and scraped its surface of anything. The surface is now completely flat.

Why them? Why are they alive? They looked to each other and knew they were curious of the same question. They were left unscathed. Slowly the thoughts of tomorrow began to flood into their minds.

As evening came, they took turns drawing in the earth with their fingers. They understood where each came from. They could not remember their names or their age. But even though the night came, the sky was as bright as day. They never grew hungry. This worried them, because they were supposed to eat. Their abundance of energy worried them, because they were supposed to sleep.

Days passed, and they remained in that circle. They sat and contemplated their pasts. The man from the Far East, however, could not think of his past any longer. The thoughts were not enough, he wanted to go back and experience more and feel more. When he could no longer keep to himself, when he could not longer keep the anxiety at bay, he rose to his feet then immediately disappeared. He is now in front of his old friend, and she is still smiling.

The others, amazed by the male’s disappearance, began to wonder what happened to him. Again, days passed and they continued to contemplate their pasts. The female from the Southwest became bored with sitting there. She wanted to stand to stretch her legs, and perhaps survey the land for any interesting prospects that may entertain her. She stood then immediately disappeared. She then found herself floating in the sky as a child no more than five years old.

The last two, the second male and the first female, watched the spot where the second female used to be. They were not as amazed as the first time, and expected the same to happen to them sometime.

From the moment he arrived, the second male thought, it appeared that this new place was one of preparation. He intuitively knew that he was destined to move to a different location, though where that was he did not know. He feels an acceptance of what has happened and where he is, and has contemplated his life without any grievances. He smiles and stands, then immediately disappears. He now finds himself amongst the fathers of his country’s past, in a great palace of white marble.

The first female, looking to the emptiness all around her, felt, at first, a sorrow that her companions have left her. But she understands that once she stands, she, too, will disappear. But before doing this, she decides that she will contemplate longer on existence. She sits, and stares into the horizon of eternity. She looks up at the sky and watches the fires of destruction move through the clouds like snakes. She looks all around her and feel infinity surge all around her. There is no wind, there is no change, and there is only the homogenous sensibility of forever the same. She sits, and the earth never changes. She waits for a reason to stand.

Slamming 1

I let my fingers rest in the sand. I let my feet rise with the dust. My head's swimming with the stars and my eyes are lacking substance as my ears resonate resounding nothingness. Each strand of hair becomes iron and I sink into the earth like it's quicksand. The earth, it beats, beats, beats and I get dazed in its rythmic persuasion. I'm stuck to the ground like I've never had feet at all. I feel the seismic shudders like it's billions of feet moving at once, billions of people sleeping, eating, praying, preying, and I'm part of it like a conspiracy that I'm heading but have no idea is happening. I save old cologne bottles so that I could watch the scented oil drip and effervesce in the summer heat. I walk through the alleyways of New York and observe the pebbles that furiously spell out nothing important and I'm wondering how they got there. My god, my God, I'm swimming in dust and smoke, and I think in sepia overtones. The stellar supergalactic determinist scheme's got me tangled in my own conceit like a thousand cables weaving in and out, in and out, for the thousand appliances that I don't really need. These applications that have me all twisted up, but how they cradle me into a Dionysian slumber that's so eternal that words lick at an attempted meaning and get the dry taste of air. This burnt tongue manifesto that I use as toilet paper, I wrote all my life philosophies on tissue paper and watch as they split into ever slenderer parts until they shed thin enough that wind shears it all to incoherence. I go through each day and watch people smile through their teeth, laugh through their noses, and when no one's looking we're just sleeping with our eyes open. The surly mass of inconvenience, the earth ousts us with belligerent tectonics. I take a hot shower and drink dark beer after class as I try to deconstruct this maniac world and me with it. I listen to jazz and let myself be swept away by impromptu existentialism. I let my fingers rest in the sand. I let my fingers rest in the sand. An entire cosmos between my fingertips, this Wachowskian conundrum that's got us all mixed up because our philosophic sixth senses are all piqued at the sight of danger, at the prospect of a good fight. The noble savage and the modern man wrestle like biblical characters and this exiguous reality's got me wondering why I'm even here. She lies from her heart and I eat it up like candy. When is she coming to pick me up from the playground? Someone spilled water in the sandbox and it's turning into concrete with me in it.