They say there's a giant living here nearby, in the air or the sea no one knows for certain, but a giant it is. When it arrives, it blots out the sun, the moons, the stars, and your fears. It engulfs the sea and becomes it, each vein on it's body rippling like the waves it has replaced, each ridge on it's shoulders bobbing up and down in the distance like so many sailboats. It never makes a sound however, unless you learn to listen.
I have crept away from the city, all the way across town, to the sea, and I was afraid I'd see rust and oil slicks and broken machinery and dead fishes. And I did see all of that, and yet I told myself that this is what is expected, and I cannot do anything about it. The time for doing is past; you had your chance. So I accepted it for what it was, with a pathetic sort of honour involved in the proceedings. Human beings do that very well: lend honour to all sorts of absurd emotions.
It is very very late at night and I sit on this rugged beach and there are too many things strewn across it for me to not wince once or twice when I look up at the moon and back at them again. I wait because there has been talk that he shall arrive tonight, and when he arrives, he expects nothing from you. You have work in the morning, back breaking work, but everything shall melt away the minute he is here. For he himself would not give a moment's attention to your plight, or for it's plight. If there has been possible in this day and age for a mind to not look back upon itself with the slightest of doubt or ego or self loathing or pride, it is his. We simply bask in it's presence.
And yet, it is a sea creature with a brain the size of a football, for all I know. It has travelled many many miles through space and grown stranded here. You're making too much of it. You're just trying to escape your predicament. Don't. You'll not like the result.
And just like that I am lifted on it's leathery skin, and the water comes up and recedes along its surface and I'm already in the very middle of the ocean by the time I realize what has been going on. He lets out a cry that pierces my heart and rends meaningless all my hollow observations. It wants to fly. It's wings, several thousand miles of it, lie tattered in the water. Those aren't its fins, its wings. It cries and it cries and I wish I could grab hold of it tight and tell it, "Yes, it's okay, it's alright", but I can't because it's not me and if I want it to be me it won't be right. And the cries become softer and softer till it goes away entirely, and I'm back on the beach, and the creature's left, and dawn breaks, and the glaring colors and the honking ships and the smoke assault senses already battered, and perhaps soothe them with stink and familiarity.
I have crept away from the city, all the way across town, to the sea, and I was afraid I'd see rust and oil slicks and broken machinery and dead fishes. And I did see all of that, and yet I told myself that this is what is expected, and I cannot do anything about it. The time for doing is past; you had your chance. So I accepted it for what it was, with a pathetic sort of honour involved in the proceedings. Human beings do that very well: lend honour to all sorts of absurd emotions.
It is very very late at night and I sit on this rugged beach and there are too many things strewn across it for me to not wince once or twice when I look up at the moon and back at them again. I wait because there has been talk that he shall arrive tonight, and when he arrives, he expects nothing from you. You have work in the morning, back breaking work, but everything shall melt away the minute he is here. For he himself would not give a moment's attention to your plight, or for it's plight. If there has been possible in this day and age for a mind to not look back upon itself with the slightest of doubt or ego or self loathing or pride, it is his. We simply bask in it's presence.
And yet, it is a sea creature with a brain the size of a football, for all I know. It has travelled many many miles through space and grown stranded here. You're making too much of it. You're just trying to escape your predicament. Don't. You'll not like the result.
And just like that I am lifted on it's leathery skin, and the water comes up and recedes along its surface and I'm already in the very middle of the ocean by the time I realize what has been going on. He lets out a cry that pierces my heart and rends meaningless all my hollow observations. It wants to fly. It's wings, several thousand miles of it, lie tattered in the water. Those aren't its fins, its wings. It cries and it cries and I wish I could grab hold of it tight and tell it, "Yes, it's okay, it's alright", but I can't because it's not me and if I want it to be me it won't be right. And the cries become softer and softer till it goes away entirely, and I'm back on the beach, and the creature's left, and dawn breaks, and the glaring colors and the honking ships and the smoke assault senses already battered, and perhaps soothe them with stink and familiarity.
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