Short Story ##: Garden, the
whereas factual writing calls for a more formal and academic tone. Such is the nature of linguistics.
I stepped through the blackwhite door, observing the careful precision of the sharpround arches. I strode down the echo-laden hall, heels clicking (tok, tok, tok, tok, tok) along the blackwhite checkered floor. Streams of light poured through the barred windows, shadows of barbs dancing across the floor. Books piled past the ceiling, as far as the eye could see. Finally reaching the headmaster's desk, they turn around in their revolving throne, revealing a gleaming redwhite smile, fastened with cutting animal teeth.
Let me tell you about the nature of our delight.
They are upon me from where they sit. I find myself in the grip of early morning life, bitter liquid, freezing wind tunnels and public transport that always seems to be a step ahead of you. Smells that will always be mysteries, just out of reach like those tropical beats blaring through dark speakers that fit right over your ears. A cushioned relief from directionlessness. Restless, not sexless, cruel candles taunt your eyesight. They take me into the garden.
This is the source, the muse, the inspiration.
The old fucker's trying to pull a fast one on me! That or no one told him this neo-enlightenment philosophy shit has been rendered irrelevant in our increasing subjective relativity. Pages and pages, but still the same result! Maybe it's just another mask to hide behind, another bible, another candy-coloured book of reassuring beauty from our very own Hubble Space Telescope. And you could take the stars and pluck them one by one from the sky and pop them into your mouth and chew them and Know God. Or Inner Piece. Take your pick.
The fucking cowbell never ceases, though. It's said that nothing is really true and one thing only relates to another. It's also said that this is nonsense, and you should listen to me because I know THE TRUTH (or at least I'm looking for it). We did some complex diagrams once to try and figure this out, with arrows and all that shit, on a spare sheet of paper during university orientation week. Formulating the nature of things on the surface of a cheap wooden table later to spoiled by hot food and alcohol. All we really know now is that we will never know and that might be worth celebrating.
And these ivory towers, the fucking books and pages and pages. One letter after another, word by word we connect things, we build things, we construct, only to see it wither away. Isn't that beautiful?
I mean it's beautiful if you've got a brain. Which requires blood. Which requires a heart for the transfer. Which requires energy. Entropy, am I right? And they say:
Sit down, enjoy the harmony of nature, feel the Inner Piece.
I'd rather more blood and bruises than this. At least I get something for my time.
I'd rather a symphony of harsh noises. Actually, I prefer a symphony of harsh noises and clanging rhythms and screeching sirens, it fucking wakes you up. It keeps you on your toes. Better that than an army of bores armed with flimsy wooden things trying to croon you to sleep like a baby. It's fucking insulting, is what it is!
The last living stones hang from the walls of the garden, idly eyeing one another in their bleak greyblueness. A solid foundation for a sold property. Markets are the backbone, after all, even in the cloak-and-dagger, cap-and-gown, robe-and-rice "simplicity" you find here. This boywoman is showing their redwhite teeth again while their greyblack hair flies into a hurricane of machinery. The devil's gears grind against the track of the heavens, moving clouds aside to reveal THE SUN. (enter THE SUN)
Unholy silence. Pure blasphemous nothing. Nobody can hear you praise God when you don't have a mouth attached to your brain. The deaf fall quietly into the abyss of light and purity. Grasslands quiver as a very confused graffiti artists searches in vain for a wall to tag. What's for dinner? Horrifying disfigurement again? C'mon, Mom! And they say:
You're not looking hard enough.
And YOU'RE not LISTENING hard enough! Kneeling in the grass of the garden, your head to the ground, you do not hear the soft pawprints approaching from behind. I mean, I'm not gonna bullshit you here: you're both equal, I'll grant you that. Everything is in harmony, all is at peace. There's just one difference: one of you is going to eat tonight. The other one won't even be able to remember what food is by the time it's through.
Such writing tends to call for very dramatic and stylistic flourishes