Post by heraclitus on Feb 9, 2006 12:05:30 GMT
So fairly self-explanatory; part of a longer piece. Just wanna know what anybody thinks. Anything gratefully received 
. Honestly, rip it to shreds if you think it needs it!
...
I’m dreaming again. A drop of blood falls, hanging in the air, now hanging in the water as the bath overflows, carried up, stirred by the current, stretching filmy red wings out into the hot water. Another follows it, then another. This is wrong; a million shades dancing in the water, flowing around one another.
Black jerked awake. He was sweating. He fumbled for the mobile phone by his bedside, struggling to lift it up so that he could see the digital clock on its screen. Three-thirty. It had happened again. Restless and irritated, he threw off the sheets and got up. It was cold, so he got dressed, turning on the lights to fight the oppressive, whispering darkness that even now thrilled him with fear.
I cannot keep taking the cocaine. It will kill me. I know. I’m not that stupid. But I must keep taking it. I need it. But I’m afraid. No, I’m terrified. I don’t want to die. I must die. I need to die. I can never cope with desire, could never cope with the way it burns in me. It’s going to kill me. I don’t know how to stop it, how to neutralise it, how to draw the claws of something that is nothing more than a concept; intangible, untouchable, unthinkable. This can’t be right. I have everything I need here with me. What else could I possibly desire? I have everything my body needs. Why do I feel I need more? Freedom, freedom from care, is short-lived. Like a butterfly, it stretches its wings over the world, only to fall again as it reaches the apex of its flight. Freedom must come at a high price. Only the flying creatures fall. I wish I wasn’t here. I have everything, and yet nothing. Somehow I sense so much more beyond my reach, but I can’t know what it is I crave and there is no way I can attain it. What am I meant to do? I want to own, to possess, not to be owned. I want freedom. Freedom I can’t have.
He swallowed hard and pushed the needle into his skin. It might hurt now, but it would be over soon. He just had to put up with a little more of this pain.
Pain, and out of the other side, freedom. Freedom to be a slave to the drug. It will stop hurting soon. The depression falls from me and I see, for a moment, what a wreck I was, the butterfly caught in brambles, shredding its delicate wings in its frenzied struggles to escape. True freedom can never be attained. Maybe it can be found inside, not inside ourselves, but inside the prisons we all forge around ourselves. The freedom from struggle, from strife, is freedom of a sort. We don’t need any noble cause, any high-minded ideas, to simply slip our chains and sit quietly in our boxes, keeping our wings alive, spreading them for a brief moment in our short little lives to let some theoretical observer bask in our glory before moving on. It makes sense when the butterfly’s red wings are held in shape by the blood pumping through its tiny veins. But a moment can stretch into centuries, into forever, pinned in a frame of glass and aged oak wood. Some of the lustre is fading, but the shape remains and the colour’s still there, just not in all of the brilliance that once caught the air, caught the sun, crouched on that delicate bramble flower. The wings are still held outspread, preserved by formaldehyde, freedom in form, servant to the pin. My heart is clear, too, but it doesn’t pump formaldehyde. Instead it’s a sudden rush of blood to inflate our beauty, only to fade and crash in a few short minutes. It’s never enough; the time spent drifting will never be enough. We all crave freedom. What can be freer than a butterfly?
No, it’s coming back again. The black sun is rising, a black orb in the white sky, veined with red lightning. It’s getting bigger, a drowning pool of darkness. I opened my eyes further, letting the sun blaze forth in a tidal wave of shadow. The water crushes everything. The wreckage of brambles now lies at the bottom of a rising ocean of salty fresh water, putrescence rising from the depths, a foul breath of what must come. My fate rises to the surface, spreads its black future across the now lethal mirrored surface. The sky has turned black and yet the sun still hangs over the horizon. The butterfly can still set its course through the air, the only pure thing in this drowning world, but it has nowhere left to fly to. Its red wings look black against the sky. Even something so free must succumb eventually. There can be no freedom.
The crushing fall, the killing exhaustion, drags the butterfly down until it’s no longer the sky that holds its reflection, but the water. Wings trace twin wakes on the otherwise still surface as it flies lower and lower. Nothing can stop the descent now. The trailing edge touches the water, lifts up in an agony of inevitability, then dips down again. Restless, the butterfly’s wings spray tiny droplets of water. I am amazed by its strength. I would have never thought such a tiny creature could even break the meniscus of the water, but it has. It is in vain, nevertheless; its wings are becoming saturated and are too heavy for it to hold up. It struggles on, but it’s fighting destiny now. There’s nothing it can do. It falls lower and lower. Now it’s dragging trails in the water, coming ever closer. The reflection lunges upwards to meet it. It falls, but it is so sudden that there is no apparent change in state; the butterfly is caught in the trap of the clinging water. It is dead in a moment, but still limping along the surface, doomed yet fighting its fate until the very last. It is dead, in a potential sense that means a child in the womb is alive. In that moment I realise my own mortality more profoundly than ever; watching that tiny insect skipping across the water, I realise that we are all of us caught in the half-light. Down, down. It can no longer lift its wings. It is pinned to the water’s surface, sending out circular ripples from its vain struggles. Only then does the water show any colour. In the ripples from the butterfly’s dying struggles, I see momentary flashes of light. There must be some life in this black world, but I am blind to it. My eyes remain fixed upon the butterfly. I realise my own humanity in that one second I see the colours bleeding into the water below which nothing can live. In the unseen moment of descent, I see it all. I understand, in a flash of mania, I understand everything. I know why the butterfly gives up at last, surrenders itself to the water. We can only understand in the half-light.
Black stumbled and put his hand out to the wall. He hadn’t even realised that he was standing. Suddenly dizzy, he sank to the floor and bent over, coughing. Angered by his own weakness, he remained there, blinking, unable to focus, unaware of his surroundings, confused and afraid. The conflicting emotions tore his mind apart and everything he’d seen in those few minutes, everything he’d resigned himself to, was gone. Every time he repeated this awful cycle, he came out of it needing more. What the hell had just happened? Why did he feel so weak, so drained? He was taking less of the drug now. This shouldn't be happening. He wasn’t after a high. He just wanted to feel normal. Not to soar on red angel wings.
Black went to the bathroom and washed his face and hands in cold water, wiping away the rivulet of blood on his arm. The needle must have slipped. He turned off the lights and went back to bed, not bothering to get undressed again.
. Honestly, rip it to shreds if you think it needs it!...
I’m dreaming again. A drop of blood falls, hanging in the air, now hanging in the water as the bath overflows, carried up, stirred by the current, stretching filmy red wings out into the hot water. Another follows it, then another. This is wrong; a million shades dancing in the water, flowing around one another.
Black jerked awake. He was sweating. He fumbled for the mobile phone by his bedside, struggling to lift it up so that he could see the digital clock on its screen. Three-thirty. It had happened again. Restless and irritated, he threw off the sheets and got up. It was cold, so he got dressed, turning on the lights to fight the oppressive, whispering darkness that even now thrilled him with fear.
I cannot keep taking the cocaine. It will kill me. I know. I’m not that stupid. But I must keep taking it. I need it. But I’m afraid. No, I’m terrified. I don’t want to die. I must die. I need to die. I can never cope with desire, could never cope with the way it burns in me. It’s going to kill me. I don’t know how to stop it, how to neutralise it, how to draw the claws of something that is nothing more than a concept; intangible, untouchable, unthinkable. This can’t be right. I have everything I need here with me. What else could I possibly desire? I have everything my body needs. Why do I feel I need more? Freedom, freedom from care, is short-lived. Like a butterfly, it stretches its wings over the world, only to fall again as it reaches the apex of its flight. Freedom must come at a high price. Only the flying creatures fall. I wish I wasn’t here. I have everything, and yet nothing. Somehow I sense so much more beyond my reach, but I can’t know what it is I crave and there is no way I can attain it. What am I meant to do? I want to own, to possess, not to be owned. I want freedom. Freedom I can’t have.
He swallowed hard and pushed the needle into his skin. It might hurt now, but it would be over soon. He just had to put up with a little more of this pain.
Pain, and out of the other side, freedom. Freedom to be a slave to the drug. It will stop hurting soon. The depression falls from me and I see, for a moment, what a wreck I was, the butterfly caught in brambles, shredding its delicate wings in its frenzied struggles to escape. True freedom can never be attained. Maybe it can be found inside, not inside ourselves, but inside the prisons we all forge around ourselves. The freedom from struggle, from strife, is freedom of a sort. We don’t need any noble cause, any high-minded ideas, to simply slip our chains and sit quietly in our boxes, keeping our wings alive, spreading them for a brief moment in our short little lives to let some theoretical observer bask in our glory before moving on. It makes sense when the butterfly’s red wings are held in shape by the blood pumping through its tiny veins. But a moment can stretch into centuries, into forever, pinned in a frame of glass and aged oak wood. Some of the lustre is fading, but the shape remains and the colour’s still there, just not in all of the brilliance that once caught the air, caught the sun, crouched on that delicate bramble flower. The wings are still held outspread, preserved by formaldehyde, freedom in form, servant to the pin. My heart is clear, too, but it doesn’t pump formaldehyde. Instead it’s a sudden rush of blood to inflate our beauty, only to fade and crash in a few short minutes. It’s never enough; the time spent drifting will never be enough. We all crave freedom. What can be freer than a butterfly?
No, it’s coming back again. The black sun is rising, a black orb in the white sky, veined with red lightning. It’s getting bigger, a drowning pool of darkness. I opened my eyes further, letting the sun blaze forth in a tidal wave of shadow. The water crushes everything. The wreckage of brambles now lies at the bottom of a rising ocean of salty fresh water, putrescence rising from the depths, a foul breath of what must come. My fate rises to the surface, spreads its black future across the now lethal mirrored surface. The sky has turned black and yet the sun still hangs over the horizon. The butterfly can still set its course through the air, the only pure thing in this drowning world, but it has nowhere left to fly to. Its red wings look black against the sky. Even something so free must succumb eventually. There can be no freedom.
The crushing fall, the killing exhaustion, drags the butterfly down until it’s no longer the sky that holds its reflection, but the water. Wings trace twin wakes on the otherwise still surface as it flies lower and lower. Nothing can stop the descent now. The trailing edge touches the water, lifts up in an agony of inevitability, then dips down again. Restless, the butterfly’s wings spray tiny droplets of water. I am amazed by its strength. I would have never thought such a tiny creature could even break the meniscus of the water, but it has. It is in vain, nevertheless; its wings are becoming saturated and are too heavy for it to hold up. It struggles on, but it’s fighting destiny now. There’s nothing it can do. It falls lower and lower. Now it’s dragging trails in the water, coming ever closer. The reflection lunges upwards to meet it. It falls, but it is so sudden that there is no apparent change in state; the butterfly is caught in the trap of the clinging water. It is dead in a moment, but still limping along the surface, doomed yet fighting its fate until the very last. It is dead, in a potential sense that means a child in the womb is alive. In that moment I realise my own mortality more profoundly than ever; watching that tiny insect skipping across the water, I realise that we are all of us caught in the half-light. Down, down. It can no longer lift its wings. It is pinned to the water’s surface, sending out circular ripples from its vain struggles. Only then does the water show any colour. In the ripples from the butterfly’s dying struggles, I see momentary flashes of light. There must be some life in this black world, but I am blind to it. My eyes remain fixed upon the butterfly. I realise my own humanity in that one second I see the colours bleeding into the water below which nothing can live. In the unseen moment of descent, I see it all. I understand, in a flash of mania, I understand everything. I know why the butterfly gives up at last, surrenders itself to the water. We can only understand in the half-light.
Black stumbled and put his hand out to the wall. He hadn’t even realised that he was standing. Suddenly dizzy, he sank to the floor and bent over, coughing. Angered by his own weakness, he remained there, blinking, unable to focus, unaware of his surroundings, confused and afraid. The conflicting emotions tore his mind apart and everything he’d seen in those few minutes, everything he’d resigned himself to, was gone. Every time he repeated this awful cycle, he came out of it needing more. What the hell had just happened? Why did he feel so weak, so drained? He was taking less of the drug now. This shouldn't be happening. He wasn’t after a high. He just wanted to feel normal. Not to soar on red angel wings.
Black went to the bathroom and washed his face and hands in cold water, wiping away the rivulet of blood on his arm. The needle must have slipped. He turned off the lights and went back to bed, not bothering to get undressed again.
