Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.53.0303171724410.7082@panix1.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>,
"WRYTING-L : Writing and Theory across Disciplines" <WRYTING-L@LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: The Eternal Story
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 17:25:06 -0500 (EST)
The Eternal Story Mon Mar 17 16:38:11 EST 2003 Time-Date-Stamp "Sometimes," Travis said, "you don't have a choice. But I wake up in the morning and there's, just for an instant, a sense of hope. You don't know what to do with it; it begins to fade just as soon as you're alert, as soon as you realize what the day is going to bring." Sue-Ann felt otherwise. "I keep the whole day like a bouquet of precious flowers," she replied, brushing her hair back. "It keeps me going. These aren't hard times for a lot of people, no matter what you read in the news." Travis said, "I'm going to pay for the espressos," thinking "with my life in this era of inconsequence when you can already hear the military band over there in the Plaza." Sue-Ann was listening intently. When he returned, she went on, "Brass instruments make me nervous, even in an orchestra. And marches are so, well, plodding, as if we've nothing better to do than go around walking in the sand." "Dragging our cannon," replied Travis. He, too, was ill at ease, glancing at a table across the cafe. The General was sitting with his Chief of Staff. They, too, heard the music, and smiled. They were prepared for war. The Chief had laid out a series of maps and diagrams on the small table. He pointed excitedly. "We're here, but we'll be here by fall," he said. The General could only agree. All the satellites carried fresh news of victories. The Chief thought of the desert. In the desert, Claude had his legs shot off. He screamed. Didn't the Chief know what was going on? Surely, Sue-Ann must have filled him in. "Oh, this is a sorry sight," he thought. "I won't survive much longer." In the distance he could hear cannon-fire; it sounded like a military band, all that brass singing for the showdown. He wondered where Travis was, what was going through his mind. Travis was thinking. "War is god-awful. There's no escape; it fills the air, contaminates everyone except the righteous. Anyone who can 'die for something' has never lived for anything. Sue-Ann, thank God, has no illusions. Sue-Ann exists, like I exist, like the men at that table over there, like Claude. Claude must be bored out of his mind, all that sand..." He paused, lit a cigarette, waited for the Resistance to kick in. "Can a desert be ruined," he wondered. "Can anything?" Claude died. The last radiotelephone call to the Chief concerned a flock of black birds over the horizon. "They're everywhere," he said. "They're coming closer and closer. Enormous talons, black as night, red beaks almost glowing in the sun. The birds." "The birds" were his last words. The sand was stained red. His black uniform stood out like the sky. It was inescapable, obscene. The General was pointing. "Stop thinking about Sue-Ann," he said. He pointed at the maps. "Over here, and here, and here." His fingers moved quickly across the landscape. Jean was alone down there, somewhere down there. The Chief said "Don't think about time. Or space, for that matter. This is dead land, a dead map. Someday the sun will disappear. In billions of years it will disappear. That's not much time in the scheme of things. A lot can happen, but then nothing happens at all. Once you realize that, you're saved. You don't have to believe anything, and you're saved." Sue-Ann thought of Jean. "He was my first love," she said, to no one in particular. "Unbelievably empty. That's what kept him going. That's what destroyed me." Travis nodded; he was distracted. "Jean" was a name to him, nothing more. A syllable of affect, like "fuck." It collapsed of its own weight; it was lost, spoken, unspoken. "Jean," she said. "You know it's Jean." She paused. "He's nothing to me." The sand covered the body. The army marched forward, here, and here, and here. The army passed children with their eyes gouged out, women with the arms and breasts cut off, men without ears, noses, legs. All alive on the back of the beast. The dead were indescribable. The birds covered the sky, an enormous migration. The birds kept going, north to south, east to west, west to east, south to north. The birds kept flying. The desert, shadowed, cooled. The trace of the army across the sand... "Let's go," Travis said. "Let's get out of here." "Okay," said Sue-Ann. "Enough memories anyway. And it's getting late." They slowly made their way towards the Plaza. The General and the Chief were already gone. A single napkin remained on the table. "Here," it said. "The guns here." An arrow pointed to the north-east. Sue-Ann turned it as they crossed into the street. Louder and louder, the band! Stirring music and marches! The brass in step! The woodwinds backing up! And the drums! The drums! Night fell. The waiters chained the chairs down, cleared the tables. The band played on. A Story for All Times :: The Eternal Story :: A Story for All Times Mon Mar 17 17:05:05 EST 2003 Mon Mar 17 17:11:01 EST 2003 ===