10-4-18

Thursday October 4th, 2018

 I followed the sounds into the orchard.  It was faint but impossible to ignore. It kept me awake for hours and finally, after rolling and tucking my head under the pillows to no avail, I rose and put on a pair of pants.  I sat briefly on the side of the bed, taking in the sound.  

Chuck, chuck, chuck and a low hum...

No apparent pattern to the sound. Just that staccato thrumming and the hum.  I leaned into the sounds.  I searched for a language, a pattern.  I longed, suddenly to understand its nature.  My body felt a buzzing as nerves fired.  the sensation started kin my legs but it did not seem real.  Like the imaginary itching of a phantom limb.  Then I felt a metallic coolness in my right palm.  More tingling, this time up my right arm and then across my face and hair.

Suddenly I was standing at the open back door watching myself release the knob.  I had no recollection of walking down the stairs or opening the door.  I looked around to see the kitchen in ruins.  Someone, or something had torn open all the cupboards and drawers, spilling the contents out onto the floor.

I felt not paralyzed, but stuck in some thick substance that restricted movement.  There was something else in my left hand but I could not move head nor hand into the right angle.  what I did see was the cutting table and the knife-block with its impressive array of blades, especially the big one.  It sat in private confidence, fully aware of its power.

Again, the sound...

Chuck, chuck, chuck, hum...

Faint but loud.  Muddled but clear.  The language not understood but no longer completely foreign.  it was like hearing a great story-teller in a tongue I did not speak.  it was beautiful and mysterious and it was moving me through space like the images of an overhead projector.

Chuck, chuck, chuck, hum...  I am staring at the block, naked of its knives like porcupine that has shed her quills, defenseless...

Chuck, chuck, chuck, hum...  I am on the stairs, my right hand on the rail, my left holding something still.  I am staring into a picture.  It of my family.  They are all together.  A man stands with them.  I do not know who he is.  his face is unrecognizable.  I think that he is a monster...

Chuck, chuck, chuck, hum...  My arms are sore from exertion.  there is sweat on my face and I am breathing very heavy.  The sheets of the bed are sliced into long strips and something lies still there, covered in crimson...

Chuck, chuck, chuck, hum...  I am back on the staircase, again staring at the photo.  There is a small paring knife plunged into the face of the man-who-is-also-a-monster.  In my hands are draped something long and soft and knotted...

Chuck, chuck, chuck, hum...  I have somehow followed the sound to the orchard.  It has been talking to me, comforting me.  I almost understand it now.. I think  and their obsession with the creation of a universal language, music.  And its ability to affect, more, transform the listener.  

I have heard the music.  I have heeded the words of the composer and now i have followed the symphony out into its source.  Between the notes I have completed all of my tasks, slung the knotted bed sheet over the sturdy limb as half-notes bounce and the deep grey of night begins to soften with staccato quarter and sixteenth notes of tiny birds that flit in early morning dew.  A slow cymbal roll as i tighten the know around my neck and ease off the ladder, letting the noose snug with gravity.

Finally the big brass softly moaning the creaking sway of the sturdy limb.  The metronome eases back and forth slowly as the world does too.

The kitchen door drifts back and forth and in its tall rectangle, light flooding from behind, I see them.  My family.

They look horrified at what they are seeing.  But I know that they are better, happier.  if not now, soon.  For in that door-frame, just as in the picture frame, the monster is gone!