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The Sweet Heart Of The World
I was standing in an apocalyptic landscape. I was seeing snow as the first person to see snow had seen it. The boy appeared against the horizon with a sweet heart in his hand. There was enough heart inside him to keep him going, and a sweet heart beating in his hand. The moon rose up between two snow covered mountains. It was in the shape of a gold heart. The air fell sweet around the heart and glowed golden and dim. I knew that it was the sweet heart that was rising. I felt my own heart beating and sweet. Even if The Boy hadn't walked towards me at his point, the air was good it was sweet enough. It wasn't The Boy that had saved me, but that I had saved myself, through knowing him and others with hearts as sweet. At first I couldn't understand why he treated me so kindly and was astonished often. So I walked around in this astonished state, barely feeling anything but pain from the past and this vague notion of future. Yet it appeared that the more astonished I was, the more that he felt the need to astonish me with his sweetness. 'Get used to it,' Ingrid said sweetly, as if she knew that it was The Boy's way of making me get used to it, by overdoing it to me. I felt confused and ashamed that I still craved mistreatment. But those feelings were becoming more and more irregular. I mentioned it to Ingrid. She touched my fingers briefly. 'The wart has dropped off your hand, and has fallen into the sewerage and now you want to retrieve it. Well if you must journey backwards, go right on down and retrieve it.' Sometimes it felt like I was being smothered by The Boy. Even though he was ethereal, I soon wanted to go back to my old ways, which were lean and on edge living. I wanted violence as the backdrop, rather than this sweet warm mist I was swimming in. Then there were two doorways, one with The Mysterious Past in the entrance and one with The Boy. Above my shattered past it said, 'Stagnation Worse Than Death' and above the The Boy door it said, 'Possibility Better Than Life.' I knew that to go back would mean death of the physical for me. Then what good would I be to The Lost And Found Home, or to Ingrid and all the animals that needed me? I could not let him take that away from the world or the world away from me. When I felt the time was right to leave this earth, I would take my own life with higher instruction. When there was no more work to do for the animals of Detroit I would make the decision. Most likely I would fall in action. Like Ingrid and the sheep rescuers, I wanted to die with my boots on. I warned The Boy about me, but he wouldn't listen. Through it all he was prepared to see the good that I couldn't see. I said, 'There will be times that I have to shut the door in a big old building and sob. So that in the end I just hold on to the sides of the mattress, until the sobbing takes on its own life. Until I simply begin to observe the sobbing from outside myself.' I said, 'You couldn't imagine the worlds I travel through. I need to be alone.' The Boy told me that he would be waiting outside the door for me, for when I came out. I could not understand why he would wait outside for so long, alone in the dark and musty hallway. Just for the eventual emergence of my empty sweat soaked shell. I was always so very tired afterwards. Still he was prepared to be there for me and to astonish me. |
