A Doomsday Device of Plywood and Twine: Part 3
Marius retired to his study and gazed upon the books that lined each wall. Over the years and throughout his own scholarship he had collected a wide assortment, from the great works of literature; to the most revelatory journals of scientific discovery; to the most obscure and terrifying accounts related to the occult. Was there a thinking man left besides himself, he wondered. The governments of the world had long crossed the threshold of acting in the interests of the people they presumed to represent, now only acting to either subsist or dominate. The governments had become organisms unto themselves, a whole new and vile species that would surely spell man’s doom if not soon subjugated by a force greater than it collectively possessed. But what might that be?
She was on the phone talking about how she just needed to calm down, and could she come over. Do I have more of my story written, she’s asking. I say yes please come over and no one will mind, no one else is home.
It’s one of those summer days where the end is met with an effervescence of petrichor and the clouds darken, and a cool breeze begins to blow. Standing on the front porch I can see her head emerge from behind the hill of asphalt that continues to radiate heat. Like a mirage, she’s stepping through. It’s a t-shirt and jeans day, and the rain has just begun, visibly rinsing away that horrible feeling she described.
On the porch we watch the rain continue and take deep breaths of the renewed air between sips of beer. Her parents were fighting again, she says. I knew this already, but her saying it out loud sends me like a straight line through my own pessimistic thoughts on relationships in general, and that is simply that they never last and someone will get hurt. It makes no sense to me that people who have no real understanding of themselves insist on establishing relationships and even having kids. I tell her things will certainly improve once she moves out; that they did for me.
We discuss Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and whether we’d be cast as non-entities in his depression era Paris; then Joyce’s Ulysses and the effect it had on Faulkner; then Carl Jung’s Individuation, and how Faulkner wove that into his stories. I say I’m nowhere near that level of applied intent, and this reminds her that she wants to hear what happens next to Cem and Sadie. We were at the part where their father is about to explain why they’re on the run, she says. I’m opening my laptop.
She was on the phone talking about how she just needed to calm down, and could she come over. Do I have more of my story written, she’s asking. I say yes please come over and no one will mind, no one else is home.
It’s one of those summer days where the end is met with an effervescence of petrichor and the clouds darken, and a cool breeze begins to blow. Standing on the front porch I can see her head emerge from behind the hill of asphalt that continues to radiate heat. Like a mirage, she’s stepping through. It’s a t-shirt and jeans day, and the rain has just begun, visibly rinsing away that horrible feeling she described.
On the porch we watch the rain continue and take deep breaths of the renewed air between sips of beer. Her parents were fighting again, she says. I knew this already, but her saying it out loud sends me like a straight line through my own pessimistic thoughts on relationships in general, and that is simply that they never last and someone will get hurt. It makes no sense to me that people who have no real understanding of themselves insist on establishing relationships and even having kids. I tell her things will certainly improve once she moves out; that they did for me.
We discuss Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and whether we’d be cast as non-entities in his depression era Paris; then Joyce’s Ulysses and the effect it had on Faulkner; then Carl Jung’s Individuation, and how Faulkner wove that into his stories. I say I’m nowhere near that level of applied intent, and this reminds her that she wants to hear what happens next to Cem and Sadie. We were at the part where their father is about to explain why they’re on the run, she says. I’m opening my laptop.
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