The egotism at the core of both motivation and desire is wired into the isolation of body from body by body.  Discrete, yet drinking from the same pitcher, breathing the same sustaining air, the individual identifies with others while knowing (even if not admitting) the essential isolation of being.  Whether or not this predicament translates into loneliness becomes wholly dispositional: A so-called pessimist might derive ratification from this state of affairs thus bolstering his or her confidence in the accuracy of her or his world view; an optimist, on the other hand, might fight tooth and nail against the very idea.  As is often the case in such matters, his or her struggle will give the monster teeth.  

It may be obvious in this dichotomy that the underlying tenets of this world view align neatly with what is commonly considered a "darker" and existential perspective.  But to the body (the mind within the body, the soul within the mind) that is cognizant of this dilemma, denial would be self delusion; apparent truth must be absorbed as truth and the explanation--even while being read negatively by a considerable portion of the audience--is actually a salve for those who instinctively see (and feel) this separation.  In point of fact, the connection and communication that can be achieved and activated between bodies (minds, souls) will be eclipsed by the lie if these facts are not integrated.  I am not advocating forcing this lens on those who, either by faith or simplicity, are not inclined to engage this idea and the questions that it generates.  However, a facile dismissal of the content is dishonest and impossible for the individual who, unglued from others, sees their being as essentially alone.

Tucked In

Hay bales and flour sacks stacked tightly behind the overturned wagon, as if the scene of an accident had suddenly been attacked and transformed into a fortified final stand, a besieged jumble sale.  I have a habit--a knack, really--of turning the bodies nearest me, my family, my friends, my significant others (and their off-putting brothers) into the human shields that allow me to isolate myself from the wider world. They are the grain sacks, the oil barrels, the carcasses of sacrificial steers whose black bodies absorb the bullets valiantly, the lead getting lost in the labyrinth of their sinuous entrails. Peering (barely) over the escarpment, my lazy eyes absorb the mayhem as if it were a dream.  I imagine the war; I hear it even, when I am in the garden having my last cigarette, my private ritual.  But, distressed by the emotional indictment that comes ringing from my eyes, people protect themselves by protecting me.  There is always someone anxiously  sitting at the edge of my bed, ready and waiting to tuck me in.  Snug between the pressed, white memories, recalling fairy stories, songs, I know at some point the whole thing will be in flames.  For a brief moment, I panic.  My straitjacket unnerves me.  But before long, a little bit bored, I fall asleep (the old Wuthering Heights flickering on the mute t.v.).  Ten hours later, in the afternoon, I rise with the heat of our attic bedroom.  The tight embrace of the sheets has long since been torn free, the churning tornado of limbs as I swam the ink of dreams, as I rode the night mares--bucking, bareback--into the blood-dipped sun.

Juke

This was a song, which he had chosen from 48 songs, 96 counting the unfamiliar grooves on the backsides, their obscure spiral paths. And here was the silver throat, the pleasure when the quarter--for a moment--chokes the mechanism, a little. The nickelodeon gags. E-8 is too maudlin. C-4 reminds him of a fat boy from 4H camp. B-8 is danceable, aggressively so. No matter--walk, run, or crawl--the end was always the same: breathless, the sighs and whispers, the crackling circumference as the black plate spins, and the unnerving comfort in its repetition. Even the scratches contain rhythm and melody.

But this song was something else: an oxidized coin, an old letter, a man out of time; and it evoked the smell of his grandmother's moldering basement, the dusty sachets in her dresser drawers. This music was music his father--less than half the son's age now--would have sung and hummed and whistled in that little box on the prairie. (The radio did its best to plump up the rooms.) Respiration, windows open, allowed imagination to circulate, the spices from the baking inside going outside; the flowers now allowed to stealthily cross the sill into the claustrophobia of home.

"Everything absorbed through the wide-eyed stupidity of the wantonly naive..."

"Be quiet, Charles." I pause. The whiskey gives me manners. "Please," I add, "Just sit back and be quiet. Listen to this song."

He is still fidgeting. He had a point to make and its stuck there. Between the pulls on his cigarette and the sips from his beer, he looks everywhere except at me. Its not that he's "angry", just consumed with his own thoughts. Meanwhile, I can hear my father humming; I am dancing back near fifty years. This is a crowded fair filled with bustling associations, sounds and visions. Cotton candy melts in the summer's oven (easily) while the starched bouffants of the lipstick girls survive the heat AND the Tilt-a-whirl. And I am lost there for a while, til I realize, conclusively, that Charles would not have followed me here even if he could have. The black spiral maze. The gasping at the end of it. A few seconds of anticipation...Then, the soft clatter as the next 45 falls, and then a hiss, the prelude to...

Dominique by The Singing Nun