It must be liberating to be up at this hour, running about in rags through the park, kicking at phantoms and flies, stretching under the watchful gaze of the few still functioning street lamps. I look down from behind glass and over the wall and long to steal a bit of his freedom. What would happen, I wonder, if I crept past my sleeping wife, sleeping dogs, sleeping gate, and hid behind one of the grand molle trees to watch closer?
There are dogs passing by, though not often, casting shadows across walls. He doesn’t notice them, or me, as we shadow our way in a weave, careful to respect one another’s breathing. If I was to step out from this spot, and let my shadow fall upon him, would he let me in on his secret? Most likely, he would stop his pre-dawn calisthenics and speak to me. But then I would lose interest, because he would have lost his freedom.
Crawling back into the wrap of bed is best, or an invisible nod.
In the morning, evading echt, he stands onefooted in a dark room. When the world awakes, he puts his foot down and steps in to the light. This, he does every day.
The dark room, it is draped with symbolism, a goldflame so long an ubiety that whatever it might have stood for is forgotten.
Until one day he reads some words. These words somehow speak to a hidden place, trampled under a footputdown.
In the morning, evading echt, he stands onefooted in a dark room. When the world awakes, he puts his foot down and steps in to the light. This, he does every day.
The dark room, it is draped with symbolism, a goldflame so long an ubiety that whatever it might have stood for is forgotten.
Until one day he reads some words. These words somehow speak to a hidden place, trampled under a footputdown.
In the morning, evading echt, he stands onefooted in a dark room.
A circle of deflated quwi surround this extended rat-faced snake, yet not a single one pierced—poisoned, yes, bitten, no.
And now comes the farmer, machete wielding, farm communityjustice wielding, standing swinging over glutted serpent which
raises an wishedfor hand, sly smiling – my teeth are clean –
Quwi in hand, no marks no teeth, I should say but
obese ophidian?
spinning freely, often dreary, fallen presently, I will find it
….
he tripped upon the path,
shouted GOD DAMN YOU
and realized he was talking to a Stone.
Things have been off of late.
Doors cracking open, the black man that explodes over his heels is full of blue light, everything is bathed/muddied into the crystal of a madman’s eyes. Jesus shakes hands with Ahriman and Someone falls downs with a frown, pulling h[is/er] eyes out with the petals of a thousand petaled lotus.
What is this light? Someone asks, and only the blind saint in the suit who reads the Qur’an has an answer. Yesterday, he says, I walked with this cane in darkness, today, I hit with it and never miss. A crash follows, and Someone bursts, water flowing, blue, lost in Light, horizon gone, firmament fuddled.
An undoing, an unravelling, a righting of a crookedlygoingworld is passing through, effacing the edges like an army of spittingup camels.
Hafiz, climbing up a mountain into the clouds, encountered Rumi, who was descending. Their eyes met, laughter erupted, and in a loving embrace they leapt to the ground and began to roll downwards, tumbling to the base of the mountain where they landed in a large pit of mud.
Around this pit passed many roads, and on these roads were people of all sorts. When the two men arrived, making such a scene with their playful laughter and grapplings, the people formed a crowd around the pit and began to discuss the situation.
A wealthy sheik from the area looked with distain at these two adult men rolling around in the mud, spoke to those around him about how the struggling economy, indeed, was turning a great many fine men into nothing more than swine.
A pious mullah, who had been passing by with a group of young men, was equally disturbed. He used the display as an example for his young followers of why a God-fearing man must at all costs avoid strong drink and degrading relations.
A shrewd professor from a nearby university, speaking with his colleagues, suggested that the men clearly lacked a decent formal education, which most certainly would have corrected such miscreant behaviour.
All the while, the two men wrestled in the mud, giggling and seemingly ignorant of the dialogue going on about them.
A group of children who were in the crowd and who did not understand the talk of the adults, and who were quite hot from sun rising overhead, without much thought at all ran into the mud pit and began laughing and splashing about alongside Hafiz and Rumi.
The mothers of these children ran after them, at first to try to stop them from participating in such a scandal. What happened then, however, was that one of the mothers tripped and fell face-first into the mud and all those who came after her stumbled. They attempted to put themselves aright on their feet, but the mud, which clung and was very slippery, refused to allow such dignity. Resigned, the mothers laughed at their own feeble attempts of escape and began to play alongside their sons and daughters.
Well, as you can imagine, from there things simply spiraled out of control.
Some of the men, envious of the women, jumped into the mud of their own accord. Soon the pit was full of men, women and children, laughing and embracing, wrestling and falling to the ground, completely covered in mud.
Those who remained outside, concerned that allowing such conduct would give the region a bad reputation, called the authorities to restore order and clean up the mess.
The authorities, upon arrival, saw how large the muddied crowd was and decided they were to far gone to assist and too large to overcome. So, they built a fence separating the pit and mountain on one side and the roads and everything else on the other, with a big sign on it that read “keep out – dangerous mud pit”.
From this point, everything else is history. No one from the mud pit has ever attempted to leave it, nor have they wanted to. However, there have been and still are to this day those on the other side who, passing along the road, have seen mud flying or even been splashed upon, and who out of sheer curiousity have climbed the fence to investigate, and who seeing the savage and playful community in the mud, have tripped over the top of the fence and never been seen again.
