Flaming June

One day he woke with a small itch of an idea, it grew like an eager cancer and within the short time it took to figure it out somewhat clearly it had become a solid unstoppable individual monster. No one could halter this. Not now.

So the day arrived when he opened up his eyes and saw himself laying there on the mattress, the biting cold outside pressing him to come out and feel it. The day was born when from now on things would not be the same anymore. Forever changed. To never return to the beginning of the known path ever and never again. Deviation the only way out.

In the beginning he conducted his daily routines like normal, without as little distractions and with as much precision as was needed for each task. Nothing was wasted and all had a place under the sun or in the shadow of it.

His time alone was quietly slipping through early mornings and late afternoons, evenings in dark and quiet solitude at his old worn oak desk. Same desk served as dining table as well. His deep meditational sessions where time stood still, the black of the night sought his company, always at this solid piece of furniture. Important to know that it was just a piece of furniture, made of wood, taken from a majestic and strong tree in a distant forest somewhere. It roots but had been cut off from it’s trunk, then dragged and sliced up and made into an useful item purpose-built for man. A desk, a very simple item that had had a meaning in all history and was used with a meaningful purpose. Love letters and Suicide notes. Still important to simplify as a mere objects made by man to serve a purpose. All things landed in the same light, this was before the idea that changed all took root and grew stronger.

Days went by, stronger by the minutes the itch made itself reminded of it’s existence, that he was in control of it but was controlled by his own desire and mind. Resistance is and will forever be futile it told him, always never.

It was best described as a mere itch. As a deep desire to reach into a point, it sought the fullest attention and to end it was the goal, the aim.

A certain pleasure and excitement was to gain from the process of killing an itch. How irritating when it came knocking but how fulfilling to reach it and end it, always a welcomed irritation. Like feeling horny and hungry alone in bed in the morning. There were simple ways to end these deep-rooted wants or needs. But they would come back, you knew this, with a forced certainty.

As the days and weeks was dragging along and it became harder to concentrate. A simple task needed the outmost attention to be done in a way that was required of him. To drift off and stop in his tracks happened more and more frequent. A nuisance that at the same time gave him pleasure and a newfound will to do what he knew was needed of him. Nervous ticks and deep breathing became a thing of the past, as his ambitions grew stronger and more fundamentally concrete. No one was ever close to him in the first place, and the few people in his life that he had some kind of semi attached relation to felt at unease in his shy presence and avoided contact with him at all cost. He became a man of true solitude, in need of no one, needed by none. It was easy to reattach from something that had never been of any importance. What you don't need you will not miss as seeking and understand solitude for a loner was like for a person with green fingers adapt to plants and understand how they function and why, all came very natural. How a horse-whisperer can gain complete trust and reach into that inner most mind of an animal in distress, a task he was meant to understand and use for that purpose only. A natural thing indeed. He knew he was going insane.

Pain was always welcome in his life. Pain was showing it self in many forms. Pain of not being able to think straight, pain of loss and falling behind. Pain of shame and remorse, pain of not knowing a way out. Never pleasant but welcome nevertheless, a true physical pain was a negative number reflecting in a positive one of the same caliber. Pain and insanity was words you could look up in the dictionary, but what you read didn’t have the same meaning for him. If pain and insanity represented these qualities, then why was these words so rooted in shame and distress? He was no murderer, no mad man with deeds on his conscience, someone whom society wished to burn alive on the stakes just to satisfy and justify what mankind had made of the word. Mankind is kind of unkind…man.

Flaming June. Her spirit’s not taken, never. Forever living forever dead. Rest in peace my beautiful.

To write had become a pastime exercise of a sort. Writings that took all of his night hours to fine tune, to polish off unwanted corners of. Writings aimed for nothing and no one in particular. Writings that would span for pages upon pages or sometimes just a mere couple of words, leftovers from a wrought out collections of half dead sentences. Short and to the point was the goal, trimmed of all fat and dripping grease. Vanity a plague. Writings that when read and re-read, deemed fit and justified was burned without a moments of reflection or regret. This was the purpose of his need to write, that nothing would be traced back that could hold down the writer. He who knew no limits. Burned and reduced to thin light ashes, so easily broken down and when mixed with most liquids would stain anything it came in contact with. Time and effort was given with an outmost dedication to make the words sing, find a balance and display the true absent of light from the dark hole they originated from. Nothing was left now, no memories or thought lingering in his small room. Often letters to none, letters posted to himself and burned after reading. Always burned.

 Hi You

I just came back to where I stay here in the city. Been out. I don’t want to call it home because it’s a temporary shelter for my aging body and mind, still I place I like and can feel at home in, at peace with. I walked through a very wet and bleak park on the way after thinking of you. Accept, adopt and overcome is my mantra as I walk. Feet wet in muddied shoes. The park was dark even though just barely after 4 pm. I walked just randomly in the grey light rain, it wasn’t cold and the rain light. I ended up at my Oak, and saw that it had shed almost all of it’s leafs by now. This oak is special to me in many ways. It consists of two main trunks, growing out of one big main root but looks like two separate trees at ground level, to join further up into one big majestic Oak crown. Because it’s actually two trees in one it appeals to me greatly. They make such a seamless couple as ‘one’. Two becomes one big crown, perfectly round shape against the night sky, now with bare branches, now enables you to see everything that was hidden earlier. There is something special about this tree that appeals to me. I wish I found it but in a remote stretch of woods where no one else would know of it’s whereabouts. But here I am, in the middle of the city, in it’s most famous and spacious park, in the middle of a flatland metropolis. One thing about the Oak that reminds me of me is one specific low hanging branch. It’s an almost perfectly horizontal level thick branch not too far above the ground, yet higher than one could ever reach without standing on anything. But you could climb up and reach it without too much trouble. I always see myself hanging myself from this branch. Strong sentence, sounding rather morbid but that is what spoke to me when I first noticed it. I can see myself, deep in some forgotten woods far away from anything human, speak to and get acceptance from the old Oak. Then climb the huge trunk of the Northern one of the twin sister. I would fasten my cord rather close from the stem of the big level branch to get as little play as possible and put the noose around my neck, tight it some, make sure all was properly done, double check the lengths and knots. I am somewhat afraid of the pull that will come but very relaxed overall. Now I sit there inside the tree for a while, feeling the old Oak, being one with it before letting go. As I fall, ‘-Here goes nothing’ would be my last words. The rest would be out of my control. Line goes tight, noose slip harder around my neck in a fast squeeze and life as me slips past me fast. Happy and sad memories in a blur before nature would claim me. In my mind I would be alone, free of observation for years and years, in the middle of the big woods where only the sunlight would come and visit once per day on cloud free days. The moon a couple of times a month would let me hang there while it’s reflective light displayed me for the forest. I would hang in peace till only a clean white collection of bones would be remaining. Not a rag of clothing that could be traced back to the ‘he’ would remain. Camouflaged by my friend the Twin Oak. Always protected and in hiding, nobody’s business but my own and the Old Oak.

I go to see the Oak almost everyday, I feel it’s a good reminder that ‘be yourself is all that you can do’! I will seek out other big trees on my travels, as my travels aren’t over yet. I’m afraid that the deeper into the world, into the wild one goes other pure Oaks will be found. Answers. It’s only on the deepest of desolate oceans the true self will be able to be lost and forgotten with respect. Only far away on remote islands, deep into the most rugged mountains and forgotten lost deserts that one as a whole can end with an absolute peace of mind. There shall not be anything left, no reminders of the man you once used to be, nothing. He was not born into this world who will live after death, forget and forgive, remember only the future.

I feel ‘safe’ when I go to bed at night. The room I sleep in is small compare to what is the set norm, roughly 2x4m. I sleep on the floor on a thinning mattress, there is a window that opens inwards and I sometimes sleep with it open, even if the ground level is just below the window and any critter that feels like taking a chance can come in and join me, let them. I can hear the city outside and sometimes even the pounding wind and whipping rain. I feel safe on the bottom floor in the basement, on the real floor, sleeping at the absolute lowest location of the big house, below street level. The city outside and the rest of the dark house is above my small cell. The room reminds me of the many small cabins I used to occupy when working the seas, many years ago now. I have seen the world. Tokyo, Bangkok, Berlin, New York and Sydney, I keep them as in a pocket. I have wandered on the main continents at the highest peaks and the deep basins. I have met people and witnessed many of the so called wonders.

In the room I have a chair and a small table, a small stereo stands on a simple wooden drawer near my bed. When I wake up I can turn it on without letting the heat out from below the blankets that covers me. There is a small but sturdy bookshelf attached on the wall above the stereo where I keep my books, organized with the ones I’ve read closer to the wall, the bookshelf is rapidly growing too small, I have only vacated this room for a short time. Moving and drifting as times seeps into all cracks and slowly wears me down. The room is not as cold as the other rooms in the house due to the heater room next to it, the heat radiated off the bricks and even if I haven’t been through the coldest of winters yet I am most certain it will keep me warm enough. My mattress is on the same side as the heater room. The wall is not cold, just dry and cool.

No one bothers me down here, rarely anyways. I can sit for hours at my sturdy Oak table and think in the dark with no sounds but the distant city and the occasional ‘whoof’ when the gas ignites to reheat the warm water tank. At times I crank up the music and let it all go to the end of the spectrum and back. Behind the fireproof door I sit, trapping and keeping the music for myself. I feel safe when I go to bed, but I rarely sleep a deep and content sleep, waking up early with an ever-present angst. Every morning. “Fuck” and “Shit” is the first words I can think of. Always feeling the events that have been playing up till this moment has been for nothing, that it’s time to leave, always leaving for somewhere, to something, that I have nothing to give anymore. I wish that I at least had a better game, a better aim, I could take this and at least have that, whatever it may be. I would be able to prevail, nothing to loose. You see, now I’m left to just be the man hiding in a basement in a city, with no aim or goal. Just to be, wait for something. Wait for nothing? I’m the passenger, the seeker that left and never looked back. There is one thing that I tell myself, telling myself to look for. One thing, one thing that may take things up and above, one thing that will give meaning to my solemn being…That I want your love, and I want to give you mine.

The Old Oak in my room and in the park always a reminder. Writings becoming like a must, time is slipping, dragging on, hanging and dangling in a thin but oh so strong thread. Hey, you! Don’t live too long my friend.

                                                                                                                 ‘72 Animal Garden / F.S 

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