THE JOURNAL OF SOCIOPHYSIOLOGY

The compass of that sea : A cryptotextual thesis of certification

Dado Udidi (Hamiltonian)

introduction
Gray sky gray earth. Gray flesh gray bone. Feet foot foot feet. Walk march crawl run slip fall get up fall again. Darkness imagined darkness forgotten. Disremembered. Impossible to go backwards. Impossible (1).

Question: What is sky? Answer: Don’t know. Hypothesis: Call it sky only because it’s above my head. Counterhypothesis: Call it head only because it has sky above it. Conclusion: Don’t know never knew never will (2).

Question: What is earth? Answer: Don’t know. Hypothesis: Call it earth only because it’s below my feet. Counterhypothesis: Call them feet only because they have earth beneath them. Conclusion: Don’t know never knew never will. Theory: Gray sky gray earth. Gray flesh gray bone. Feet foot foot feet. Walk march crawl run slip fall get up fall again (3).

Question: What are the hands? Answer: Impossible.

Distance. No such thing. Earth melts into sky. Nadir approaches zenith. Indistinguishable. An ever encroaching envelope. Suffocating. All traces obliterated. Footprints struggles gropings hope. All signs of life. Or what might have been. Shit fuck piss. Semen. Gone. The inevitable crush of earth and sky. Infinite pull of gravitational fall. An ever encroaching envelope. Impossible to go backwards. Impossible to remember. Impossible.

Question: What is fear? Answer: Don’t know. Hypothesis: What I fear what I fear I fear what is imagined what I fear I fear impossible to remember impossible what I fear imagined but forgotten disremembered never seen darkness never never never seen able to imagine unable to recall what I fear what I fear shit. Grayness darkness earth sky ash bone.

Question: What is flesh. Answer: Naked.

Question: Don’t know never knew never will. Answer: Don’t know never knew never will. Hypothesis: Don’t know never knew never will. Counterhypothesis: Don’t know never knew never will. Conclusion: Impossible. Theory: Shit.

methods and materials
Grayness darkness earth sky bone and ash and ash and bone. Shit. Gray flesh. Don’t remember darkness. Don’t remember. Darkness seen darkness forgotten. Darkness imagined never remembered never seen. Shit and sky and sky and earth and shit. Don’t know never knew never will. Grayness all about me bone and ash. Feet foot. Shit.

Don’t remember don’t remember don’t don’t don’t remember how why when what color. Color of shit. My skin the color of shit. When last seen. When last seen was don’t remember. Last time last time don’t remember. When. All gray now. Covered with ash. Feet foot foot feet. Hand foot hand foot. Sunk softly into the gray ash. Impossible to rub off impossible.

Color of darkness. Darkness imagined darkness forgotten. Darkness seen. Eyes open eyes closed. Color of darkness. Darkness imagined never remembered never seen. Darkness always never grayness. Eyes open eyes closed. Last time last time when. My skin. The color of shit. Don’t remember.

results
Gray bone. Piles of bone. Count them. COUNT THEM. Impossible to count. Impossible. To count requires distance. No distance. Repeat. NO DISTANCE.

Gray sky gray earth. Gray flesh gray bone. Human bone. Covered with ash. Femur pelvis clavicle skull. Dig down dig down dig down deep how far impossible. Darkness how far impossible. Gray bone. Human bone. How far. Impossible to measure. To measure requires distance. No distance. Repeat. NO DISTANCE.

Theory. Impossible to measure impossible to count femur pelvis clavicle skull impossible to go backwards impossible impossible to remember impossible to retrace retrace retrace footprints struggles gropings hope. Obliterated. Shit.

Don’t know never knew never will. Inevitable crush of earth and sky. Collapse fall crawl. How crawl no hands. How begin. How end. Beginning ill remembered ending neither seen nor imagined. Don’t know never knew never will. Impossible to go backwards. Impossible to go forwards. Impossible. Infinite pull of gravitational fall.

Nor earth nor sky at belly or back. Nor belly at sky nor earth at back. Nor back at sky nor earth at. Nor earth nor sky at head or foot. Nor head at sky nor foot at earth nor. Nor head nor eyes. Nor feet nor hands. How crawl no hands. How walk how march how crawl how run no feet. How see no head no eyes.

discussion
Don’t know never knew never will. Impossible to go backwards. Impossible to go forwards. Impossible to go. Impossible. Never worry never mind. No distance. Nothing to see nowhere to go. Nowhere to go nothing to see. Nothing to see. Sound. Softly always sound. Overlap of whispered voices. Tangled threads of speech. Labored breathing. Hushed moans. Deep resonant humming. All softly all rasping all wheezing all searing the throat. Giving voice to the mind’s isolation. Radiant echo. Ground through the teeth. Ground through the teeth from the throat to the fire. Question. What is flesh? Answer. Burnt. Hypothesis. Screams like a stuck pig fire crawling up the skin unravels dense burnt human stench black smoke slipping out of itself like a limp wet penis sliding out from a raw cunt. Gives voice to the mind’s isolation. All softly all rasping all wheezing all searing the throat. Femur pelvis clavicle skull.

Footprints struggles gropings hope. Walk march crawl run slip fall get up fall again. Breathe again. Stand again. Walk again. Sky earth head feet hands again. Infinite pull of gravitational fall. Inevitable crush of earth and sky. Indistinguishable. Indistinguishable the hand digs in gray ash hot ash pulls away gray bone no hand the hand buried in the hot ash lost. Indistinguishable the hand reaches forward touches down grabs earth grabs emptiness falls infinitely gray bone burnt flesh gray ash hand gone intermingled. Indistinguishable earth collapse sky collapse fall infinitely memory rushing forward falling past me I am falling try to catch it can’t catch it. Disremembered lost never remembered always forgotten the hand lunges forward into emptiness. Impossible to go backwards impossible. Lunges forward naked the hand falls grabs earth grabs ash grabs emptiness. Gray bone gray flesh naked and burnt intermingled falls infinitely ever deeper until something not quite fear wills the eyes close.

The feet forgotten. Forgotten irretrievably and lost. They’ll give me new feet. At least something to walk on. Give me new hands. At least something to grab with. They’re capable of that now. Something to love with probably not.

Wait. To be waiting. Sound. The throat chokes on its own language. Tangled threads of speech. Whispered overlap of whispered overlap of whispered overlap of tangled voices. Whispered voices. Don’t know never knew never will. Wait. Turn. Turn again. More whispers. Hands. Turn again. Touch of hands not my own. Wait. Masturbate. Don’t masturbate. How masturbate no hands. How masturbate nothing to masturbate. Nothing to love with. Nothing to lust with. No need. No urge. No. Desire still there but separate. Detached from what can satisfy desire. What can satisfy desire be satisfied by desire long gone. Almost forgotten. Soon. Another way perhaps. Have to try something else. But how try no hands.

Dry earth dry wind dry sun dead water broken spine bent spine dead fear dry hope broken. Broken what? Toes broken. Hacked apart. Cut off at the ankles. Useless as chicken heads beside the railroad tracks. Why. The questions asks itself. The question denies itself. The act of the question denying itself. Call it scream. Call it fear without the scream. Call it anything but what comes easiest to the lips. Say it. Don’t say it. Why say anything. Why even say it. Best not to.

I shall begin at the end. Though where I am is impossible to start from. One must have gotten here from somewhere else. One must have started somewhere else. But nevertheless, the end is where I am, and this is where I must start from. How I got here is not important. Or perhaps it is of the most extreme importance. But I’ve forgotten all that. How it is I got here. And so it’s not important. For if it was important, would I have forgotten so easily? But then perhaps the forgetting wasn’t so easy. Perhaps quite the opposite. But that too I have forgotten. And so I must begin from where I am, which is the end. I’ve been offered no other recourse but this, to begin at the end. Perhaps the mere act of beginning, of proceeding from here where I am, the end, will cause me to remember, if not in whole, then at least in part, what it is I have forgotten. And so then, I shall be able to tell, if not in whole, then at least in part, how I got here. And so then, I shall be able to know, if not in whole, then at least in part, why it is that from here, from the end, I must begin. But perhaps if indeed I do find myself, in the mere act of beginning from the end, able to remember what came before the end, perhaps I will not feel compelled to tell. For even though something has compelled me to tell of this necessary beginning from this obligatory end, namely, the compulsion of ever moving forward, nothing has compelled me to tell of the opposite. That is, I feel no compulsion to go backwards. That would be too easy. Provided, of course, it were possible at all. As it is, of course, that is quite impossible. To go backwards. No. I shall begin at the end and move ever forwards, for only in that direction, caused no doubt by the impoverishment of memory, am I compelled to move.

I shall begin at the end. Thus the end is perhaps not the end but something else entirely. The term of which I have long forgotten. But such a distinction as that, of end from beginning, or both from something else entirely, is quite a trivial matter. Trivial and arbitrary. To distinguish a beginning from an end, or both from something else entirely, is like, like what? Metaphors elude me at the moment. No matter. That is something I am quite used to. They have always eluded me. It is nothing new. In fact, the elusiveness of metaphors is one of the important, important because remembered, steps along the way from there, wherever there was, to here, where I am, which is where the end is. Thus, I have remembered something: Metaphors have always eluded me. And I have gone backwards. Without feeling compelled to at all.

A step along the way from there to here. What the way was I don’t know. Where there was I don’t know. Impossible to remember. And so it must not be important. Else I would have remembered. I would not have forgotten. As it is, I know only here. And here is where I must begin. But how begin?

Perhaps by describing where I am, describing the end. But that’s impossible. The eye opens, scans and tracks objects, stationary or in motion; focuses near, focuses far, but nothing registers; no image takes root, nothing is remembered. Impossible to describe where I am. So how begin? It seems that I’m forced to give up without ever having started. But I have already started. I have already reached the end. And this is where I shall begin. But this beginning from the end is not a so-called "new beginning," whatever that phrase implies, nor is it a "restart," or a "rebirth," or a "recollection," or a "retracing" of footsteps, or a piecing back together again of the details of a life. No. There is no life, no details to piece back together. No footprints left behind. Nothing to be re-collected. No. This beginning at the end is a, is a what? The name seems to elude me at the moment. No matter. The names of things have always eluded me. And now I’ve just remembered another step along the way from there to here: The names of things have always eluded me. Perhaps that’s why it is impossible to describe where I am.

The eye scans, tracking objects, in motion or static; images take root but the mind is unable to isolate one nameless object from among the tangled mass of innumerable nameless objects. And so to remember something it is necessary to give name to that something, or else the mind passes over it, or it passes through the mind. So then perhaps, to go backwards is not as impossible as once I thought. Perhaps to go backwards exactly, retracing each footprint exactly, provided that any can be found, perhaps that is impossible; but to go backwards inexactly, by following the general direction, only in reverse, of the footprints, but not stepping back in them, perhaps that is possible. For by remembering those two steps, the elusiveness of metaphors and the elusiveness of names, I have gone backwards. But I have not gone backwards exactly. For I am quite sure, why I am I do not know, but nevertheless, I am quite sure that the elusiveness of metaphors was not the last step I had taken before reaching the end. Nor, I am quite sure, is the elusiveness of metaphors the first step I took from there to here. Nor, I am quite sure, is the elusiveness of metaphors the step immediately preceding or immediately following the step of the elusiveness of names. Likewise, I am quite sure, why I am I do not know, but nevertheless, I am quite sure that the elusiveness of names was also not the last step I took before reaching the end. And likewise, the elusiveness of names is also not the first step along the way from here to there, nor is it immediately preceding or immediately following the elusiveness of metaphors. Why I am sure of this I do not know, but I am sure of it nevertheless.

Thus, both the elusiveness of metaphors and the elusiveness of names are merely two steps I happened to take on the way from there to here, each one neither the first step proceeding from there, nor the last step approaching to here; each one neither adjacent to the other nor related to the other in any conceivable or practical fashion. They are merely two steps along the way. But two steps nevertheless. And that is important. That is why I have remembered them. And that is why, and how, I have gone backwards, not exactly, but inexactly. The inexactness of this backwardness compounded by the fact of the indeterminacy of the distance between the two remembered steps. How far back, how far forward; how near, how close to one another: all this I do not know. The inexactness of this backwardness will lead to possibilities, to a way of proceeding that is neither backward nor forward, neither a retracing of footprints nor a blind rush into the unknown; a way of proceeding that is tangential to the past-present, then-now, backward-forward, action-consequence, cause-effect, dimension of, dimension of what? Of what is not important. Continue.

Thus, for example, I will start from here, where I am, at the end, and I will proceed to there, which is neither here nor there, neither backward nor forward, but is, is what? The name eludes me, as always. No matter. Continue. I shall proceed without names, without metaphors. I shall begin by remembering only what I have forgotten. I have already begun. The forgetting, the near remembering. That is enough. I need ask of myself nothing more.

Don’t know never knew never will. Never knew nothing but this falling this infinite fall through darkness or light perhaps don’t know never opened the eyes too scared to best to keep them tightly clenched. Don’t know when it all started. This falling. Eyes grip tight to their sockets, lids clench tight over the eyes. Wind boils about the ears. Been falling ever since I can remember. Don’t remember nothing else if I do or if I did it’s all forgotten now. But sometime don’t remember when someone told me or maybe overheard it but what’s to overhear what’s to be said. Maybe invented maybe imagined maybe dreamed inside this darkness. Open the eyes stop hit bottom impact against something fulfill the ineluctable teleomatic process of falling and that’s it a moment or a moment within a moment of light of sight then it’s all over finished you’re dead nothing. But what if outside the clenched lids not light but nothing. Nothing but more darkness. What if utter and viscous blackness no vision possible. What one sees with eyes closed and what with eyes open indistinguishable the only difference that with eyes closed one falls one continues to live if only half so or less than half so but that with eyes open one stops one dies. What to be done. Best to continue falling with eyes clenched tight against boiling wind falling infinitely no end imagined no beginning remembered? Or best to open the eyes end the fall if only for a moment. But if all of utter darkness outside no light no sight no difference between eyes closed eyes open then. One hits one dies. Ending indistinguishable from beginning save that it ends. One hits one dies seeing nothing realizing nothing. But falling falling not infinitely. No beginning remembered but ending not impossible to imagine. Always a possibility to conceive an end. All that’s necessary to keep on keep falling keep living to keep eyes closed ward off the desire to open them and end it all. To continue falling if not infinitely in actuality then infinitely in conception. In imagination. Or perhaps it’s better to open them soon as possible end it soon as possible.

It all comes back to me now. Nothing comes back to me now. It never comes back. I’ve forgotten, always have, will forget ever more. Don’t know never knew never will. Heard it somewhere. Don’t know exactly what. Love. Remembered without consciousness. Love. Abandoned and forgotten. Love. Ill contrived ill planned ill performed unknown unheard. Difficult to achieve painful to consider impossible to remember. Pain and hollowness well up in the resonant cavity of the body. The cavity dull and toneless. The bright hollow pain. The dark empty pain. Or vice versa. Or combined. Or alternately. Or not at all. A grayness wells up in the chest. A tightening of the throat. Love deferred rejected given up forsaken. My whole life forsaken. Deferred. Desires thwarted. Forgotten before they attain coherence. Inchoate pain inchoate desires inchoate memories. I hear no voices. I hear no words. Only the inconsequential music of silence. Bright silence. Dark silence. Combined. Or alternately. Or not at all. But even that is becoming lost to me now. Is able finally to elude me. Like everything else. All that’s left now is rhythm. But that too begins to fade. Begins to fragment, as of a dog barking. Marking time and nothing more. Fragments of rhythm with beats missing here and there. A rhythm without form. Formless rhythm. Impossible to piece back together even if the appropriate glue were available.

Impossible to speak, without the names of things. Impossible to give voice to the regret billowing inside the hollowness of the chest. The resonant tube of the body. Filled with shit. The words no longer come to me. Maybe they never did. Don’t know. Can’t remember. If perhaps there has been a time, an instance, a moment, any moment, in the past, in which my larynx, my jaw, my tongue, all worked smoothly together to spit out a few meager syllables, words, streams of words; managed to retch up a phrase or two here or there. Don’t remember. All I remember is that now I am incapable of speech. The jaw shuts down and refuses to open. No sound. Just a few drops of spittle. And the sound the spittle makes as it escapes flaccid lips. Or perhaps the jaw does agree to open. The larynx refuses to cooperate. The glottis opens as the jaw drops, as if the glottis could conceive for itself no other function than to breathe. Perhaps that’s all it can conceive for itself. But even in this simple task it often fails me. Cuts my wind, chokes me, refuses to cooperate for several moments, don’t know how many, don’t know how much time passes, if indeed it passes at all, or if, indeed, there is more than one moment. Only by pounding my head repeatedly several times, don’t know how many, against something, can I get the glottis to open sufficiently to breathe.

What the object is I pound my head against I don’t know. But it’s not very important, really, what I pound my head against. Suffice only that I pound my head in order to breathe. That’s what’s important. And even if I did know, even if it were important, I couldn’t tell you. I shall never be able to tell you what it is, that thing I pound my head against. In order to breathe. In order to live. In order to speak. Now there’s a thought. Perhaps next time I feel compelled to attempt speech I should pound my head against whatever it is I pound my head against. Perhaps then I shall manage a meager syllable or two. But I don’t at this moment feel compelled to do so. Nor can I imagine that ever again will I feel compelled to attempt to speak. To retch out a syllable or two, a brittle phrase of scorched glass. But who knows. Emotions are such intractable things. If things they truly are. They could be something else. Or combined. Or alternately. Or not at all.

Impossible to lend radiance to a given emotion. Impossible to fart it out. Any emotion, no matter how banal, how profound. Fuck it. Fuck it all. Pound head against wall or tree or rock or ground or whatever it is, let drop the jaw, relax and abduct the vocal folds, tongue against palate, tongue withdrawn from palate, protrude the lips, attempt a sound, hope for a sound. No. Don’t hope for a sound. Merely attempt without hope. The jaw closes and opens, closes and opens, the head makes contact, again, makes contact, the jaw opens, but still no sound, only that of head against brick or concrete or wood or dirt or something else. Try again. Breathe again. Impossible to speak. No sound but that of spittle soaked breath escaping flaccid lips. Sound of air inhaled, air exhaled. Dry rasping breaths. Dry air burns the throat. Spittle soaked breath farts through the flaccid lips. Perhaps the dry air has burned off the working edges of the vocal folds so that they are incapable of vibrating properly to lend radiance to a bit of exhaled air. Perhaps that’s why I’m capable only of wheezing and rasping, choking and pounding, spittle and silence.

And farting. Whether out the mouth or the anus. A form of speech perhaps. But what language I don’t know. It seems constantly to change. Every phrase in a dialect different from the preceding, in a language different from all the phrases ever farted out before. There are similarities, of course, but such similarities can perhaps best be accounted for by the nature of the medium that produced them. I manage to catch a word here or there, sometimes even a phrase; though granted, not a long one.

But that’s how they communicate with me. In bits and snatches, largely unintelligible. They make requests, which I ignore. They pass on information, which I forget. They tell stories, which I have never been able to unravel. Perhaps they even lie to me, though why they would want to do so, given that most of what they say passes through me without any comprehension whatsoever, I do not know. For at both ends of the lie must be a shared understanding of what is being lied about. And the ability to distinguish a lie from its opposite. The former would seem to me more appealing than the latter; therein, perhaps, the seduction of lies. But for my part, I am quite incapable of distinguishing a lie from its opposite. Only in theory, in the abstract, can I do so; when it comes down to actual practice, I am rather muddled by the whole issue.

They have told me about you. Or at least provided me with clues that you are somewhere nearby. Or at least hinted, in their abrupt and laconic fashion, that there is someone else, something else, besides them, and me, and what I bang my head against. Hinted that there is some emptiness sufficiently different from this emptiness that, given sufficient time, and sufficient resources, and an adequate amount of ingenuity, and a bit of luck thrown in to boot, though how one comes by all that, they have yet to tell me; provided with all that, with all the above, one should be able to perceive, however vaguely. Ah, fuck it. What’s to perceive? Perhaps they are lying to me. Why they would want to do so I have no idea. Or perhaps I misunderstand. I wouldn’t put it past me. Or perhaps they are lying to themselves. Perhaps they are deceived and deluded. I wouldn’t put it past them. But if they are deceived, they most likely aren’t deluded, but rather merely seeing illusion as something else. For if they are deceived, the illusion was perpetrated on them by something, or someone, else. But if they are deluded, they have perpetrated the illusion upon themselves. In other words, whether the veil is before their eyes, or behind their eyes, that is the question. To meliorate the former is a much simpler and less difficult matter than the latter. But perhaps I have deluded myself into understanding what they tell me. Into believing that I understand what they tell me. Into believing that they tell me anything at all. No matter. Whether what they tell me is of great importance or of little importance is of no matter. Or if they tell me nothing at all. All the same. The farts are uttered a syllable at a time, or a word or two, or a phrase. Perhaps they aren’t phrases at all, or even words, or syllables. Perhaps just the auditory phenomena produced by jets of air expelled at intermittent intervals through a tight, though elastic, aperture.

They have requested that you should attempt to communicate with me. Or so they’ve told me. Or so I’ve interpreted their utterances. Perhaps at one time they made the same request of me. That I should attempt to communicate with you. Bah! I have never complied with any of their requests. How ridiculous! Those times that it appeared as if I had complied with their requests were mere accidents. Merely the coincidence of my acts meshing with their desires. The perversion of circumstance, one might say. If you wish to comply with their requests, to attempt to communicate with me, I’ll not try to stop you. You’re on your own in such matters. Able to make your own judgements, I hope, and to act accordingly. But I’ll also give you no help. No advice from these quarters. If you wish to speak with me you’ll have to find some way to penetrate my silence. Perhaps I know a way. Perhaps I don’t. If I do know a way, I won’t tell you. I am incapable of telling you what I know, even if I knew anything at all. No. You’ll have to find a way on your own and surprise me with it. I mean, take me by surprise. Are those the same? To surprise and take by surprise? I don’t know. But perhaps somewhere between the two lies just what you are looking for. If you are looking for anything at all. For you might not be. I have neither heard nor seen any sign of you. But that doesn’t mean anything. For if you tried to alert me to your presence, by a sign, or a symbol, or a gesture of some sort, or by showing me something, or telling me something, I would be quite incapable of perceiving it. You’ll have to penetrate my darkness. How to do so I don’t know. But who knows. With persistence, what passes for miracles have been known to happen. Or so they tell me. They even gave me a few examples. But I’ve forgotten what they were. Only a vague memory of a tunnel. And falling. And a sudden and brief light at the end. Then nothing.

Perhaps if once, when I begin to choke, as I often do, and to relieve myself, to breathe again, I pound my head against whatever it is I pound my head against, and at that time I manage to spit out a syllable or two, maybe even a word, a sound that lends temporary radiance to some thought or emotion I’m suffering from at the time, or have suffered from at some time prior, or which I could imagine suffering from at some time forward; some sound recognizable by both you and me, and possibly them, that sparks a temporary radiance within you, and possibly them, so that you too, and possibly they too, suffer from the same thought or emotion which I am suffering, or have suffered, or will suffer; perhaps then, that would be a miracle. And you could respond in kind. So that I would suffer what you suffer, and you suffer what I suffer. In this way, the two of us, with them as audience, or auditors, or participants, perhaps (but should we, indeed, credit them with such incentive, such ability?); trapped each in our own silence, our own darkness; breathing our ragged breaths, choking and wheezing, rasping and gasping, pounding our respective heads against appropriate and respective hard objects, jaws open, jaws close, open and close, tongues wagging, air passes up the dead and bitter tube of the body, jarred through the larynx, ground through the teeth from the throat to the fire, dark air expelled from the depths of the body to be forged white-hot into a syllable or two, or a word perhaps; the two of us, in this way, suffering each to suffer in turn, each to the other penetrates with a radiant echo our shared but unique darkness, our shared but unique silence. Bah! That would mean complying with their requests. And I, for one, will not comply. I have never complied with their requests.

A tightening of the throat. The head makes contact. A sound dull and toneless.

Impossible to speak, without the names of things. Impossible to connect this moment with the one after. Or with the one before.

Impossible to speak, without the names of things. That thing, overthere, for instance. I know exactly what it is, but I will never be able to tell you what it is. I can’t see it, of course, but it’s always there. Always within reach. No matter how I move, it’s always there in front of me. Maintaining a constant destance from me. Move forwards, I get no closer to it. Move backwards, no farther. Swivel adn pivot from side to side. Rotate about a common axis. It’s still there in front of me. Within easy reach. All I need do to make contact is to lean forward slightly at the lower spine. About a centimeter or two. That’s about all I’m capable of. Extend the neck forward slightly another centimeter or two. Then a quick snap forward and down of the head. A tightening of the throat. The skull makes contact. A sound dull and toneless.

All about me gray. What I call sky I know as such only because it’s above my head. What I call earth I know as such only because it’s below my feet. One is indistinguishable from the other save for these two small details of position. In the distance earth melts into sky, nadir approaches zenith. What is above me tends ever to become what is below me, what is below me tends ever to become what is above me. A natural process that seeks ever to attain equilibrium. In the position where I am, for instance, I serve as the counterbalancing force that causes a state of disequilibrium to be maintained. What is up is forced to remain up though it wishes to come down, what is down is forced to remain down though it wishes to come up. In the distance I am absent and so the system achieves its natural state of balance.

I do not remember darkness. Save for the darkness that comes when I close my eyes. And so I am not blind. For how could I be blind if, when I close my eyes, I see darkness, and when I open my eyes, I see grayness? Yet I do not recall ever having seen other than this same gray evenness that radiates out from me in all directions. But the fact of the matter is, and this is a fact and a matter that gives me much fear, why so I don’t know but, the fact of the matter is that I can imagine a darkness other than the darkness that comes when I close my eyes. I can imagine something I have taken to calling sunset and I can imagine something I have taken to calling sunrise, though why those two words, again I don’t know, why not some other words? but nevertheless, between this sunrise and this sunset I can imagine a darkness that inhabits the space between the two. Yet never, as far as I can recall, have I ever witness this thing I have taken to calling sunrise and this thing I have taken to calling sunset and this darkness that inhabits the space between the two. And this causes me great fear. For how can it be that I can imagine that wich I have never experienced? I can imagine the grayness that surrounds me quite easily. But that is because it never leaves me. Just close my eyes and the darkness soon gives way to a grayness indistinguishable from that which I see with eyes open. Grayness of eyes open, grayness of eyes closed. One is indistinguishable from the other save for these two small details of ocular alignment. A natural process that seeks ever to attain equilibrium.

But to return to this darkness imagined, darkness never seen. Sunset imagined, sunset never seen. Sunrise imagined, sunrise never seen. What does it mean, to imagine? Does imagine mean to view what is seen with eyes closed, nor does the latter imply the former. For I see a darkness, if only briefly, whenever I close my eyes. Yet in no sense does this darkness equate with the darkness that I imagine; darkness never seen.

I shall begin at the end. Though where I am is impossible to start from. One must have gotten here from somewhere else. One must have started somewhere else. But nevertheless, the end is where I am, and this is where I shall begin. How I got here is not important. Or perhaps it’s of the most extreme importance. But I’ve forgotten all that. And so it’s not important. For if it were important, would I have forgotten so easily? But then perhaps the forgetting wasn’t so easy. Perhaps quite the opposite. But that too I have forgotten. And so I must begin from where I am, which is the end. I have no other choice but this, to begin at the end.

Perhaps the mere act of beginning, of proceeding from here where I am, the end, will cause me to remember, if not in whole, then at least in part, what it is I have forgotten. And so then, I shall be able to tell, if not in whole, then at least in part, how I got here. And so then, I shall be able to know, if not in whole, then at least in part, why it is that from here, from the end, I must begin. But perhaps if indeed I do find myself, in the mere act of beginning from the end, able to remember what came before the end, perhaps I will not feel compelled to tell. For even though something has compelled me to tell of this necessary beginning from this obligatory end, namely, the compulsion of ever moving forward, ever moving forward to where, now that’s another question entirely, and won’t be dealt with here, maybe later, maybe not at all, and why ever moving forward, that’s also another question that won’t be taken up here, and perhaps, like the other, not at all, but, to return to the main topic, which was? which was compulsion to tell or not to tell, provided, of course, that there is anything at all to tell: nothing has compelled me to tell of the opposite. The opposite of what? The opposite of this necessary beginning from this obligatory end. But must I begin at all? The question leads back to compulsion, or rather, what compells: I have no other choice but to begin. And to begin from somewhere I haven’t gotten to yet. Or more precisely: to begin from where I already am, but haven’t gotten to from anywhere else. In other words, but are there any other words? Whether there are or are not is not important, for if it were important, would I have forgotten the other words? And so easily? But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. Yes. I have no other choice. I must begin at the end. And as to compulsion, perhaps that’s not quite the right word, perhaps I am mistaking what is compelled for what is, what is, no, wrong again, I am incorrectly or inaccurately conceiving of what exactly those sisterly lexemes, verbal and nominal, compell and compulsion, mean. Thus, if I start from exactly what compell and compulsion mean, which is, which is what? Perhaps if I don’t start at all. But I’ve already started. Too late to go back now. There’s no back to go back to. Perhaps that’s what I meant by compell and compulsion: the impossibility of going backwards; the necessity of ever moving forwards, of always beginning at the end. Or perhaps to define the pair further: compulsion is an obsession imposed on one by something or someone, else. Compell is the process of transforming external obsession into internal compulsion. Or maybe compulsion’s the process, and compell is, is what? Perhaps the verb gives birth to the noun, or perhaps it’s the other way round. In any case, there the concept stands — or perhaps squats, or kneels, or lies — hermaphroditic, narcissistic; ever mating with itself, ever giving birth to itself.

I shall begin at the end. But how begin?

Perhaps by describing where I am, describing the end. But that’s impossible. The eye opens, scans and tracks objects, stationary or in motion; focuses near, focuses far, but nothing registers; no image takes root, nothing is remembered. Impossible to describe where I am. So how begin? It seems that I’m forced to give up without ever having started. But I’ve already started. I’ve already reached the end. And this is where I shall begin. I shall try again. Begin again. Describe again.

All about me gray. What I call sky I know as such only because it’s above my head. What I call earth I know as such only because it’s below my feet. One is indistinguishable from the other save for these two small details of position. In the distance earth melts into sky, nadir approaches zenith. What is above me tends ever to become what is below me, what is below me tends ever to become what is above me. A natural process that seeks ever to attain equilibrium. In the position where I am, for instance, I serve as the counterbalancing force that causes a state of disequilibrium to be maintained. What is up is forced to remain up though it wishes to come down, what is down is forced to remain down though it wishes to come up. In the distance I am absent and so the system achieves its natural state of balance.

I do not remember darkness. Save for the darkness that comes when I close my eyes. And so I am not blind. For how could I be blind if, when I close my eyes, I see darkness, and when I open my eyes, I see grayness? Yet I do not recall ever having seen other than this same gray evenness that radiates out from me in all directions. But the fact of the matter is, and this is a fact and a matter that gives me much fear, why so I don’t know but, the fact of the matter is that I can imagine a darkness other than the darkness that comes when I close my eyes. I can imagine something I have taken to calling sunset and I can imagine something I have taken to calling sunrise, though why those two words, again I don’t know, why not some other words? but nevertheless, between this sunrise and this sunset I can imagine a darkness that inhabits the space between the two. Yet never, as far as I can recall, have I ever witness this thing I have taken to calling sunrise and this thing I have taken to calling sunset and this darkness that inhabits the space between the two. And this causes me great fear. For how can it be that I can imagine that wich I have never experienced? I can imagine the grayness that surrounds me quite easily. But that is because it never leaves me. Just close my eyes and the darkness soon gives way to a grayness indistinguishable from that which I see with eyes open. Grayness of eyes open, grayness of eyes closed. One is indistinguishable from the other save for these two small details of ocular alignment. A natural process that seeks ever to attain equilibrium.

But to return to this darkness imagined, darkness never seen. Sunset imagined, sunset never seen. Sunrise imagined, sunrise never seen. What does it mean, to imagine? Does imagine mean to view what is seen with eyes closed, nor does the latter imply the former. For I see a darkness, if only briefly, whenever I close my eyes. Yet in no sense does this darkness equate with the darkness that I imagine; darkness never seen.

I shall begin at the end. Thus the end is perhaps not the end but something else entirely. The term of which I have long forgotten. But such a distinction as that, of end from beginning, or both from something else entirely, is quite a trivial matter. Trivial and arbitrary. To distinguish a beginning from an end, or both from something else entirely, is like, like what? Metaphors elude me at the moment. No matter. That is something I am quite used to. They have always eluded me. It is nothing new. In fact, the elusiveness of metaphors is one of the important, important because remembered, steps along the way from there, wherever there was, to here, where I am, which is where the end is. Thus, I have remembered something: Metaphors have always eluded me. And I have gone backwards. Without feeling compelled to at all.

A step along the way from there to here. What the way was I don’t know. Where there was I don’t know. Impossible to remember. And so it must not be important. Else I would have remembered. I would not have forgotten. As it is, I know only here. And here is where I must begin.

But this beginning from the end is not a so-called "new beginning," whatever that phrase implies, nor is it a "restart," or a "rebirth," or a "recollection," or a "retracing" of footsteps, or a piecing back together again of the details of a life. No. There is no life, no details to piece back together. No footprints left behind. Nothing to be re-collected. No. This beginning at the end is a, is a what? The name seems to elude me at the moment. No matter. The names of things have always eluded me. And now I’ve just remembered another step along the way from there to here: The names of things have always eluded me. Perhaps that’s why it is impossible to describe where I am. The eye scans, tracking objects, in motion or static; images take root but the mind is unable to isolate one nameless object from among the tangled mass of innumerable nameless objects. And so to remember something it is necessary to give name to that something, or else the mind passes over it, or it passes through the mind. So then perhaps, to go backwards is not as impossible as once I thought. Perhaps to go backwards exactly, retracing each footprint exactly, provided that any can be found, perhaps that is impossible; but to go backwards inexactly, by following the general direction, only in reverse, of the footprints, but not stepping back in them, perhaps that is possible. For by remembering those two steps, the elusiveness of metaphors and the elusiveness of names, I have gone backwards. But I have not gone backwards exactly. For I am quite sure, why I am I do not know, but nevertheless, I am quite sure that the elusiveness of metaphors was not the last step I had taken before reaching the end. Nor, I am quite sure, is the elusiveness of metaphors the first step I took from there to here. Nor, I am quite sure, is the elusiveness of metaphors the step immediately preceding or immediately following the step of the elusiveness of names. Likewise, I am quite sure, why I am I do not know, but nevertheless, I am quite sure that the elusiveness of names was also not the last step I took before reaching the end. And likewise, the elusiveness of names is also not the first step along the way from here to there, nor is it immediately preceding or immediately following the elusiveness of metaphors. Why I am sure of this I do not know, but I am sure of it nevertheless. Thus, both the elusiveness of metaphors and the elusiveness of names are merely two steps I happened to take on the way from there to here, each one neither the first step proceeding from there, nor the last step approaching to here; each one neither adjacent to the other nor related to the other in any conceivable or practical fashion. They are merely two steps along the way. But two steps nevertheless. And that is important. That is why I have remembered them. And that is why, and how, I have gone backwards, not exactly, but inexactly. The inexactness of this backwardness compounded by the fact of the indeterminacy of the distance between the two remembered steps. How far back, how far forward; how near, how close to one another: all this I do not know. The inexactness of this backwardness will lead to possibilities, to a way of proceeding that is neither backward nor forward, neither a retracing of footprints nor a blind rush into the unknown; a way of proceeding that is tangential to the past-present, then-now, backward-forward, action-consequence, cause-effect, dimension of, dimension of what? Of what is not important. Continue. Thus, for example, I will start from here, where I am, at the end, and I will proceed to there, which is neither here nor there, neither backward nor forward, but is, is what? The name eludes me, as always. No matter. Continue. I shall proceed without names, without metaphors. I shall begin by remembering only what I have forgotten. I have already begun. The forgetting, the near remembering. That is enough. I need ask of myself nothing more.

That is, I feel no compulsion to go backwards. That would be too easy. Provided, of course, it were possible at all. As it is, of course, that is quite impossible. To go backwards. No. I shall begin at the end and move ever forwards, for only in that direction, caused no doubt by the impoverishment of memory, am I compelled to move.

Gray sky gray earth. Piles of bone. A figure approaches. Neither dark nor light. Neither silhouette against sky nor faint outline against earth. Neither faint outline against earth nor delicate trompe l’oeil against bone. A figure approaches. Stopping here. Or there. Then proceeding as before. Slowly at first then gaining speed. Then slowly as before then stopping. Here. Or there. A figure approaches. Either on two legs or all fours alternately. Alternately switches from one posture to the other apparently without too much effort. Apparently with a slight bit of effort. Slowly at first on all fours then gaining speed then slowly as before on all fours then stopping here or there crouched on all fours. Or slowly at first rises from a crouch slowly at first on two legs then gaining speed then slowly as before then stopping here or there upright on two legs. Apparently enervated sinks to a crouch on two legs then to all fours. Then proceeds as before. Neither dark nor light. Neither silhouette against sky nor faint outline against earth. Neither faint outline against earth nor

A figure approaches. In the wan light slowly at first on two legs. Feet foot foot feet sunk softly into the gray ash. In the wan light slowly at first on all fours. Hand foot hand foot sunk softly into the gray ash. In the wan light slowly at first on two legs then gaining speed with some effort apparently then slowly as before on two legs then stopping sinking to all fours apparently enervated knees and elbows give way in accord the mechanical principles of their respective homologous morphology.

In the wan light slowly at first on all fours then gaining speed with some effort apparently attempts to modify posture midstride. Apparently enervated knees and ankles give way the body falls in accord the dictates of gravity. Hands and arms miscalculate proper motions necessary for maintenance of balance. Head first into the gray ash. Half seen in the wan light either on the back or on the belly or on one side or the other the figure lies gasping rasping harshly. Half seen half heard through the intervening piles of bone. What the ear cannot obtain the mind attempts to grasp. Futile. What the eye cannot light the mind darkens. Erroneous. In the wan light quarter seen quarter heard half imagined through the intervening piles of bone either on the back or on the belly or on one side or the other.

In the wan light on all fours crawling. In the wan light on all fours resting. In the wan light slowly from all fours to two legs rising. In the wan light on two legs crouching. In the wan light on two legs standing. Slowly in the wan light on two legs walking. In the wan light on two legs stopping sinking to all fours knees and elbows apparently enervated unable to maintain stasis the body collapses from two legs walking two legs squatting to all fours falling. Into the gray ash. Onto one side or the other. Or on the belly. Or on the back sky into open eyes falls infinitely ever deeper until something not quite fear wills them close.

Half seen in the wan light head bent downward peering intently apparently. Approaches on all fours or two legs alternately. Stopping here or there. Slowly upright from all fours rises slowly to a crouch on two legs then sinks again to all fours. Apparently enervated unable to rise. Collapses in a quiet fall head first into the gray ash.

Quiet flight through the air falling ever accompanied the figure is by its own harsh rasping gasps. Quiet trek through the wan light quarter seen quarter heard half imagined either on all fours crawling or two legs walking ever accompanied the figure is by its own harsh rasping gasps. Harshness of the rasps directly proportional to effort. Loudness of the gasps inversely proportional to proximity. Directly though to effort.

Quiet trek through the wan light quarter seen quarter heard half imagined either on all fours crawling or two legs walking ever accompanied the figure is by the slow sound of feet foot foot feet hand foot hand foot sunk softly into the gray ash. Slowness directly proportional to effort. Softness inversely proportional to proximity.

Half seen in the wan light either on two legs or all fours alternately approaching receding the figure ill heard. Ill heard breaths the inhalations exhalations of which the former characterized by slightly higher pitch relative the latter. Compounded by harsh rasping gasps proximate cause of which unknown but hypothesized to be teleomatic in nature. Ill heard then auditory phenomena the constancy of which accompanies visual phenomena whether half seen quarter seen ill seen or unseen. Sole constants then breaths and feet foot foot feet hand foot hand foot sunk softly into the gray ash. Variable harshness of rasps as the figure gasps. Variable loudness of breaths gasps rasps feet foot foot feet hand foot hand foot sunk softly into the gray ash. Sole constancy of ill heard breaths faint yet audible if the figure either recedes or attains least effortful activity.

How evaluate effort. Principle of external behavior indicative of internal state. The former infers the latter. Briefly then to explicate the figure’s primary modes of activity. (1) Either on the back face against sky or on the belly face against ash or on one side or the other face against bone. (2) Either on two legs or all fours crouched squatting either one arm or the other or both extended forward digging into the gray ash. (3) Either on two legs standing or all fours squatting neither arm extended forward significantly relative the other neither digging nor walking nor crawling. (4) Either on all fours crawling or two legs walking.

conclusion
Gray sky gray earth. Piles of bone. A figure approaches. Neither dark nor light. Neither silhouette against sky nor faint outline against earth. Neither faint outline against earth nor delicate trompe l’oeil against bone. A figure approaches. Stopping here. Or there. Then proceeding as before. Slowly at first then gaining speed. Then slowly as before then stopping. Here. Or there. A figure approaches. Either on two legs or all fours alternately. Alternately switches from one posture to the other apparently without too much effort. Apparently with a slight bit of effort. Slowly at first on all fours then gaining speed then slowly as before on all fours then stopping here or there crouched on all fours. Or slowly at first rises from a crouch slowly at first on two legs then gaining speed then slowly as before then stopping here or there upright on two legs. Apparently enervated sinks to a crouch on two legs then to all fours. Then proceeds as before. Neither dark nor light. Neither silhouette against sky nor faint outline against earth. Neither faint outline against earth nor delicate trompe l’oeil against bone.26

notes and references