Arcadia Run

I think there's something more than memory inside everyone. It's more than imagination, too. I think it's a mixture of both. For the past few years, since my little project about chasing after wind, I've been in a drought almost as bad as the Southeast when it comes to writing anything worth more than week old stale shit. Yeah, you'll disagree. I know you. But trust me. Stale shit.

But a few weeks ago I found the key to a door that's been being beaten on for a while now and the story finally came out. I found it inside me as a mixture of memory and fiction and when both of those combine with the correct proportions, the result is something resembling truth and truth is only a feeling. Truth is never definite except in the moment because it's only an emotion. We know those are fickle and fleeting, but remain in memory and in the back of our minds like dreams.

So, for better or worse, I wrote this story called Arcadia Run. If you really look hard into that title (or if you're really smart) you'll find that it's an allusion to Paradise Lost. Which it is. But it's also a play on that. Because it's the first real piece of writing I've come up with since In Pursuit of Wind. So, really, it's Paradise regained. I'm really lame on the puns here, but I'm enjoying it. And for the story's sake, it really is Arcadia Run because somewhere in the course of a night, a little boy turned to stone against a house while his mother died for freedom and in the morning, the boy was gone, replaced by an adult. I edited it a little. He couldn't move in the end, either. So he's in a stasis like all of us whose daemons have settled.

But is that good or bad? I don't know. And since everything over the past eleven months, since I shut the door to the angels (for the most part), I've been wondering if I really should. They're always knocking anyway. And every time I pass the gypsy like just under an hour ago, I feel the loss pounding at my door and slam it shut before it breaks me down all the way again. I've turned into stone, a bitchy, evil stone because I can't deal with that hurt. How do I deal with that? Go on the run. Run, on the road, but inside I'm grounded. I'm not a gypsy like that. I know myself. The door's ajar to prospects and hope.

Arcadia done run from me. And I saw myself hangin' in that tree with the fog and the smoke all around and I knew that I died on the edge of the cliff that night and I'm alone.

It's all an illusion. But illusions be sweet, don't they? I'm conflicted. I'd rather be disillusioned than the subject of a lie, but the dream is beautiful and someone once told me that love wasn't for trusting, it was for getting lost in. But the moment you're out of that maze, all the walls come crashing down.

Is the risk worth it?

I'm ready for the road again, the kind where I'm alone and all I feel is motion.

A year ago, I believe, was the happiest time of my entire life. Only I was terrified of it, so I lost it. I guess most of us lose most things, especially the good ones. That's all right, I suppose. It teaches a lesson...or however you want to interpret it.

On the music scene: Martin Sexton (again) "Freedom of the Road". He's had enough of that "freedom of the road" but I'm the opposite. I've had enough of stagnation. Lately, there's no time for that, because I've filled it up with things. I finally got some dirt on Melusine. The mermaid/snake fairy tale I became a little obsessed with in Luxembourg. Lucky me, though, my Classics professor is letting me research her, so I went up to the haunted third floor of the library, making my way through the secret staircases through the middle and picking out a couple of books. Half of them are in German and I have no clue how I'm going to get through that.

Otherwise, though, I'm busy with other things. Puritan poetry that really makes me want to gag most of the time with its utmost sappiness and extremism: love, love, love or hell. I'm the kind who likes a happy medium, no extremes.

I don't know if I mentioned this, but I ditched anatomy. So I'm down to four classes and two jobs and no labs. Best decision I ever made. I had dreams three nights in a row saying "You dropped anatomy. Look how happy you are." I figured it was a divine message. So I took the advice, and lo and behold, I felt amazing afterwards.

SciFi is incredible, as expected. The War of the Worlds is the reading for this week. I'm almost done with it. Last week was Frankenstein, again, and it just gets better every time.

In Creative Writing, I finally pushed out a story (after fifteen drafts or so in fourteen days) that I'm proud. If any of you want to look at it, it's not even six pages, so you're welcome. It's completely different from my usual experimental literary junk, and more pulp, more readable, and more enjoyable in general. The bad thing is, I have to write a new one for next Tuesday and workshop it for the whole class. I guess I'll come up with something.

But Rosh Hashanah starts tomorrow night and I'm leaving campus for that until Friday. It'll be good to have a break.

Overall: life is amazing. And when I compare it with a year ago, maybe it's better. Because this year, my happiness is genuine, it's real, and not based on an illusion and a lie. No, complete bliss doesn't shoot through me, but there's that baseline of happiness that's always there, no matter what. That water is rising, too, and it's about time this island submerged.

Speaking of islands, John Donne came up recently and like I've said since I read his essay, I still say I disagree: all men are islands. It just depends whether you count the dots on the horizon and if you really take the water in between seriously. I'd rather be an island than not, though, because "a rock feels no pain and an island never cries."

"Alison!"
"No, Mac. Not anymore."
"What do you think this is, huh? You think you're alone in this, Al? You're not. And I've been in this longer."
"Not harder."
"I lost my sister. I lost everything."
"You don't get it, Mac! You never got it because you never knew the truth. You were always running after the wrong one! You still are."
"You're still blaming yourself on Margaret. It was the Knight. Not you. You know Zeus. He doesn't take place holders."
"God damn it, Mac! There's no such thing as the god damned Black Knight. You chopped off her leg that night and I know it. She watched Athena jump and she could've saved her but she didn't. She shot the fucking Minister even though she knew the history behind it. It was a ploy. And I was a part of it."
"How? How were you a part of it, Alison? The Knight is a rival."
"No, Mac. Zeus made all of us. There are no rivals. Just us and NOCs that no one knows about. We play double. That's what he did with the Second Generation. And this'll be our whole life. And mine. Caught up in it because even though we hate it we can't live without it. We don't know anything else."
"You're going crazy like Margaret."
"It was me, James!" she screamed. "It was me!"
"What was you? What!"
"The Black Knight is your little Alison. I worked against you my whole life. My right leg from the knee down is bionic. And the Black Knight is as much a legend as Sarah Hughes. A multitude of names for one person, all conjuring up a difference sense in the scattered subjects. You're out to kill me and I'm telling you now there's no way you'll succeed unless I let you. But the moment I pull that mask off and you believe me, that knife will be in your chest, not mine. Only you're the one who'll have to live with it, while you turn me into ashes and go on in Olympus. It's all lie. And you might've been in longer. But I think faster. And I only speak the truth."

"Sarah Hughes?"
"Yes?"
The young man looked at her, an undefinable look in his eyes.
"You're called Sarah Hughes?"
"That's my name. Yes."
He gave a curt nod and a scrutinizing stare.
Sarah looked back at him with her arms crossed across her chest, her right foot tapping impatiently on the cement.
"Look, buddy, I don't know who you are or what you want from me but I know you've been following me for three months. And now is not a very good time to be stalking me because everything's already so bloody fucked up in the first place."
The man laughed.
"What the hell are you laughing at?" she said.
His face grew somber again and he swallowed.
"Sarah?"
"How do you know my name?"
He held her eyes and said, "I knew Susan."
Sarah gasped. "Susan?"
"Susan Leight. Yes."
"How?"
"It's a long story."
"Longer than the last year?"
He looked around and Sarah noticed the left corner of his moth curl up in a semi-grin.
"Much."
"Ok. Who are you? And how do you know who I am?"
He took her arm just above the elbow and started leading her down the street.
"I'll tell you but we have to get out of the open. Just walk with me, A--Sarah."
"Ok...I'm starting to get used to strange occurances and I'll just follow you because for some reason I trust you."
"Oh, really? You trust me, aah, Sarah?"
"Well, now you're making me doubt a little."
He led them around a corner and crossed a street Sarah had never been on before.
"I'm called Louis Alan. I know who you are because Jill--I mean, Susan...Susan told me about you and what she told you."
"What the hell do you mean, what she told me? And why did you call her Jill?"
Louis jerked her arm and pulled her down an alley.
"Jesus! Don't say that so loud. Pretend I didn't say it and don't mention it again until we're inside. All right?"
She looked at him wide-eyed and began to doubt having let him lead her away into this unknown section of town.
"Are we almost there?"
"Yeah. Just a few more minutes. Don't speak until then."
"How long is this going to take? My boyfriend is expecting me."
Louis kept walking quickly, pulling her along but she noticed an ever so slight change in his gait when she spoke her last sentence.
"Ok. We're here."
He pulled out a key and opened a black door that was hardly noticeable from the street and pulled her inside.
"It's not much but I've ended up better than the rest of them," he said as if she knew what he was referencing.
"What?"
"Sarah?" he said quietly. "Tell me what she told you. I want to hear it from you."
"She didn't tell me anything. All I know is that there was some crazy bullshit going on with nutcases having heart attacks over my stories and Susan knew about it and told me I was my fucking main character. And then next time I heard from her, it was the police department calling me to identify her body. She didn't tell me anything."
"But she did. You just told me. Jesus Christ!" he hissed and ran his hands through his straight, dirty-blonde hair. "She told you."
"What are you talking about? I'm so confused. What the hell is going on? I publish that goddamned story and the whole work collapses. And Susan...Susan tells me the craziest thing in the world. I get abducted by nut cases in suits interrogating me for hours about how I know about something called New Co or something..."
"NOUCO," he cut in.
"Whatever."
"It's an acronym, but keep going."
"Fine. I don't know anything about New Co or whatever it's called and then I don't remember what happened. I woke up in my bed and maybe I dreamed it all but then Susan went crazy when I told her about it. I mean, I told her I had a crazy nightmare and she looked like she'd seen a ghost."
"Jesus. The inhibitor is malfunctioning."
"What inhibitor? They kept saying that in my dream...or whatever it was."
"It's still malfunctioning. That's why you remembered it at all. Even as a dream."
"Can you explain your rambling here, please, because I think I've had enough perplexion to last the rest of my life."
The man called Louis snorted and turned around quickly, then without warning flipped over and landed across the room and smashed the wall with his fist.
Sarah backed away and calculated the distance between her position, the man's and the door.
Suddenly, he whirled around, panting hard, a distraught expression on his face, ran up to her and grabbed her shoulders.
"Alison! Don't you remember?"

Dreams alone won't get you far. I guess that's the way things work out. I wrote a whole stinking novel about it. "All is futile and pursuit of wind." All is windall is windall is wind.

I took my own advice and decided not to be Sibyl Freid. I walked in a door and closed it; I blocked out the wind. I held onto what was tangible and took is as far as I could, farther. I tried to prove myself, not to anyone, but to myself. But I fail. Still, I'm doubted, and still, that gives the people who should have the most faith the reason to screw me over. Usually, I'm not one to give up, but it's too tiring now. The plan has changed. I'll get a job and work and instead of making it a reality, I'll remember the vigor of academia and the ecstasy that enraptures me when I learn anything. I'll remember it and leave it behind.

No, I don't blame anyone. The buck still stops here, Harry. Still. And always will. I'll just never understand why it wasn't ever enough, no matter what. Maybe it's stupid, but I can't swallow my pride here. I tried and I'm changing my mind. I can't. I'm sorry. I just can't swallow it and more blows come and the dominos fall.

It wouldn't have made any difference. I wonder how some people can keep on putting faith and love or whatever it is into something or someone who only goes through the motions, who pretends to care and sympathize but doesn't give a damn at all. Not to say that I'm not selfish, but I take others into account. My last intention in the world is to hurt someone. But some people don't care and that's all right. I've always moved myself, taken care of myself, and have been by far happier for it.

If this doesn't work out, though, the path will change. It's back to the heat, back to the South, back to the only focus I ever should have had: words and what they say. No more people. I tried there, too. And no more trying to regain what might have been.

I should have stayed in Europe.

"Angel, cover me."
And he does.
"Angel..."
"Do not speak, my dear." It is not Uriel, but Micha'el. I turn my head under the weight of Uriel's wings. "Do not speak."

I nod and look at the angel. He reads my mind, so I don't have to speak.
"No, do not give up. There is time, yet. And there is life. You have said yourself that it is more imaginative in itself than any make-believe. Here is your living proof. And do not listen to a foolish Seraph filled with human notions of hearts and death. Listen to me. Listen to the message a true angel has to convey to you, a message not from his own mind, but from the Heavens."
"I will, Micha'el. But I'll still love the other."
"Certainly. You find his time will be most like yours."
"What do you mean?"
"Your time will tell you."
He calls Uriel away and I am released and there is nothing but my own reality surrounding me. I shut my eyes to it and press my face into the bed.
Suddenly, my own words whisper in my ears, a reminder: "There will always be blank pages and full pens. And if there aren't, there's always dust."

When I was fifteen I started gaining this little thing called confidence...not just the sappy self kind but confidence in everything, myself and the world around me. Yes, I'm still a cynic, but that takes confidence, too, to trust the world to be a stone cold bitch to you and itself and everything involved in it or around it. But when I was fifteen, I still didn't really believe it. I had that notion, the little itching voice in the back of my head saying "Hey, this is real, believe it. You want to believe it." Yeah, yeah. I pretended to but never really got there until recently.

So now power isn't a dream, it's a reality and I know it. There's a huge difference between knowing and believing and I have learned that believing is only the first step. Move beyond belief. See it realized and touch it, and know it.

This is why I don't believe in God. And why I don't take anyone seriously who does. I know one thing, and I won't say either way here. But only a few people know one way or the other, and both ends of the spectrum are true.

I never got to Paris, but I did make it back to America. That's a feat, I think, when everything in me was working against it. Like the last time, I felt more free where the paper didn't say it, but life actually gave it. We can have a law suit all we want over here, but it won't give us more liberty.

The last time I was in Italy. I didn't make it there this time, just like I never made it to Paris, but the effect on me was the same. The air was freer and I was alone but not lonely. That makes all the difference. I always love the idea of something but face the facts (I'm a realist after all) that sometimes wishes can never come true. Or if they do, it's always a different interpretation, because this wasn't just my wish and it wasn't just my life, but a wish logically thought out and presented to the world in a miracle in Philadelphia in 1789. Here we are, 218 years later, and that wish has been battered and twisted and misconstrued.
Has it ever been granted? Yes. But not in full.

But when it comes to wishes, although I believe them unfulfillable, I never cease to hope that I may just be wrong. It's not only the wish of a country, but of millions of individuals. It's funny because we all work for the same dream, and that dream means something different to each and every one of us. That makes us a miracle and a tragedy, it makes us tolerant and bigoted and lovely and grotesque all at once.

So I work to fulfill what I interpret that dream of the Founding Fathers to be for myself. I work for an ideal. Call me a fool, but nothing great was ever achieved by anyone less. I keep myself in check like this, playing the fool against myself as well as the logician. I see from a wider perspective if I am farther away. In this way I become closer. I can't stand being around the places I love, because I'm closer to them in my head. I fight for them from a distance. And so I would like to return to Europe, to be far from the Land of the Free, so that I can see it from every angle, so that I can work to keep it alive and to mold it and to hold it and to live it as I have always dreamed.

I cannot be a demagogue. But I can be the force behind one.