“Desert Spectre” introductory prose composition – mock up
——————————————————————————————————————————————-
Tense: Present
0627
Sunday, April 26, 21 years into my life
401 Miles between Anywhere and Nowhere
Audio notes
This sunrise, in particular, is perhaps the most beautiful natural sight my eyes have ever been privileged to articulate. Its power, forcing it’s self through my pupils, is overpowering, and all-encompassing – so much to the fact that every molecule of my being feels as though it is in a state of constant and violent fluctuation consistent with a lightning bolt. I have never felt this God like. I have never been this instantaneous. I have never been this unstable.
The guitars ringing in my ears have started to reverberate off of their own echoes bouncing around inside of my head. I reached my hand up to the car stereo and oppressively finger-punched the volume down button until I the edge faded to a manageable decibel. As I scan the desert surrounding me, I can see the endlessness of nature’s vast ambiguity layered over God’s land like paint on a master’s handmade canvas. I instinctively reached for any one of the dozen cheap lighters scattering the forward compartment of my car and put a cigarette in my mouth. It’s ironic how cigarette and regret rhyme. More ironic, I suppose, is that I have no regrets. So I think. With one fluid motion, death was ravaging inside of my lungs.
There was a time in my life, not too long ago, that I would be fatigued right now. But I’m not. I haven’t bothered to use the cruise control, despite the less than populated state of this highway, and it’s faithfully unenforced speed limits. Between the soothing air flow around my face, and the sunrise lit desert cracks as far as my eyes could ever hope to see, I think I enjoy watching my speedometer rise and fall slowly, progressively, like the waves of the ocean – that very ocean that is nowhere near my present physical existence. That same violent ocean my soul has been lost in for ages, it seems.
The ever familiar ring of my gas light alerted me to what I had already known, but cared little about. I slowly let off of the gas pedal, and coasted to a complete stop, not quite off to the side of the road. The door creaked just loud enough to inform me it was whiling to work, but not pleased at doing so. How human that seems to me. This desert stretch of state maintained highway was thin, level, and faded. As I reached into my pocket for another lighter, I decided not to pull it out. But not without my own hesitation – my statement to God, and whoever else was watching me that I was willing to abide by good judgment, but not pleased at doing so. How mechanical of me.
Another creak sounded off as I opened the trunk, and pulled out two five gallon plastic gasoline containers. I knew that when I opened the gas tank lid, it too would distinguish its displeased compliance, like the rest of its counter parts have done. And I wonder what had happened to the times when this car was eager and even excited to function, if not almost silently demanding it. Again, how human that sounds to me.
As the fuel flowed out of the aging gas container into the fuel tank, slowly running down the container and splashing on the thinly spread pebbles beside my feet, it became increasingly obvious this would be a much cleaner, and faster process if I had simply stuck with the normal process of utilizing a gas station.
Today, however, was a bit different than any of the others I have lived in lately. There was a part of my essence, alternating deep down between the most root elements of my personality and my soul, that didn’t want to conform to the world around me. But rather, operate outside of it, or at the most, manipulate it to conform to my mind instead. This was my kind of embellished and overly complicated sense of independence shinning through in an aggressively stubborn fashion. The fact is, this is more peaceful than a gas station. It’s me. I closed the gas cap, and secured the nozzle and placed the can back inside the trunk and wiped my hands across my pant legs.
The ring on my finger caught on the reinforced edge of my trouser pocket, reminding me of what is behind me. Death navigated my throat until it reached my lungs, where it performed its familiar waltz filling them with poison, as I dropped the lighter into the base of my left pocket. The sunrise glorified the scratch and scared metal wrapped dutifully around my finger – the physical representation of the ideals and duties that appear as though they could cost me my very soul.
The steady breeze engulfed my body as I raised my head up towards the rising sun, and spread my arms out with my eyes shut. If there ever was a moment I could feel so liberated, this surely was that moment – an immeasurable variable on the timeline of existence, a glimpse of my soul standing freely among the discharged elements of nature. The unseen gears of world are shifting exuberantly in fluid motion all around me, sharing this precise moment, alone, with me. God is here. And in this very moment, her face flashed into my solitude.
The wind hastily swept away the smoke around me as I exhaled one last time. Looking about, I am right in the center of a flat and barren nowhere. My body and my car remained the only objects cluttering this sterile landscape. I closed my eyes as I reached for the ring on my left hand, and took in the clean air as I walked east, in front of my car and knelt down on the thin asphalt that composed this highway. Facing the sunset, the mixture of the breeze and the warmth of the bright sun gave birth to a unique feeling of peace inside my mind. Lord, stay with me .I believe in you, and I am learning to believe in me. Please help them to let it go, and forgive themselves, as they forgive me.
The notion of another vehicle passing me by, and the potential danger involved with that never fazed me, as I lay on my back with my feet facing east. I closed my eyes and extended my arms and legs, and took a deep breath, appreciating the universe I exist in.
_ _
Monday, April 20, 21 years into my life
This place, my home, is filling with poison quickly. Everything I have worked to build for months is slipping away from me, one piece at a time – physically representing our bond, our marriage. This room is becoming a court of damnation – a rather unjust transformation from a home that I had envisioned it to become, and remain. And there she stands in disbelief. And for once, shamefully, I admit, I do not know what is going on in her mind, or in her heart for that matter. And it has started. This battle I do fear.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” With her back against the closet, her eyes disenchanted, in a fools rage.
“Keep your voice down. Look, listen to me. Forget this mess; forget us, for just a moment. Please, baby, you have to understand what kind of situation this puts me in. What the fuck do you think is going to happen to you the next time they come to the door, because some one’s stupid fucking wife called the MP’s?. Hmm? What’s going to happen to you? Not a fucking thing! It’s me! I’m the one here who will get removed from his own fucking house, and put in the barracks, at the minimum! Not you! What’s next? I go to the fucking brig because you want to lose your mind?.Because you want to make some noise? Because I broke my own fucking door down to care for you crying you’re fucking heart out for what?” Suddenly I feel like an animal forced between wall and a ledge. And the inevitability of my probable suicide becomes apparent.
“And then what? What happens after I’m kicked out of my own damn house? What happens when your husband gets put in the brig, because he’s deemed the mother fucking threat? Because the military will always protect its own ass! What happens to our marriage then? When I go to Iraq, and spend seven months there in another brig, and come back stateside, with months left in the Marine Corps just to be dishonorably discharged, on top of being label a fucking wife beater? Are you out of your fucking mind? What kind of marriage is that? Yeah, I know, they said it wasn’t that serious, and they just had to ask questions, and complete the formal process. But what is the fucking difference? It all looks the same, and perception is reality!” And the blade cuts the flesh effortlessly and deeply; completely.
“No, I don’t fucking care! I don’t care! I’m not leaving here! Where am I supposed to go to?”
Suddenly, my objective nature seizes all together, and it becomes deeply personal. “Where the fuck are you suppose to go to? Where the fuck am I suppose to go to? I can’t leave this fucking base!” the tension in my body begins to cause pain.
My vision around her starts to blur, between the headache and the tears, this is a train wreck still screaming down the mountain with no hope to stop peacefully. “You say you understand, but yet you still don’t give a fuck what you’re doing to me? What the fuck is this?” with my head in my hands holding back the pressure, and maybe the tears, I feel completely alienated. But I know I must keep calm, and keep objective.
Running my hands over my head, I breathe deep. “Please, baby, let’s just go. I’ll drive you to your friend’s place, the family you stayed with when I was in Iraq last year. Just for a little while. Long enough for you and I to both clear our heads, and long enough for the Marine Corps to back the fuck off, and forget about us. And then we can build things back up again baby, please. We can figure out what any of this is even about, and deal with it.” I feel more afraid of everything coming crashing down, with no reign in my hand to tighten. I’ll lose her, my enlistment, my honor… for what? I don’t even know. She doesn’t even fucking know. “Fuck! Please, I love you. Let’s go. Please. We can’t do this here! We just fucking can’t!”
“Don’t fucking look at me. Leave me alone, I can’t believe you’re doing this!” She turned violently and walked to the bedroom to gather her things. Maybe, there was hope, just maybe God help us.
_ _
My heart is beating faster than my mind can process. As I get up off of the pavement, I realize my mind, maybe my heart, is rather deadened. But my body feels it. My body feels every little scratch, every cut. The cling of my wedding ring clashing violently against the pavement resonates in my ears like the echoing boom of a judge’s mallet in a court room. My sentence is down this road, off into the late rising sun. It is in this mind. And whiling or not, I am serving it.
I can feel every degree of the piercing warmth of the sun on my back as I steadily walk back to my car, hesitantly wishing I wasn’t here. There is a fierce battle inside of this heart. And yet, here I stand, idle, and alone. The juxtaposition of two opposing legions of condemned warriors clashing violently in empowered anger and love lust lost; a universe implodes – my universe implodes. However, even despite of this, I seem to be in a curious state of resolute peace. My mind can’t help but wonder if this is an acceptable state; if this is okay. With my hand on the door handle, I realize it doesn’t matter. This is me, and this is now. So be it.
I’m back into the blissful slipstream of hyper alert peace, edging my way back up to top speed. The world around me is blurring faster and faster, eagerly approving of my self-reprimand, and the ideals that are pumping through my veins – these same ideals I seem to have debased. I could bow my head in peace and solitude, and engage in a naturalist lifestyle or quest for global domination – and the scenery that surrounds me would never disprove. This is my state of mind, of freedom. Where everything I perceive, must be reality. It is, to me. Ultimately, I suspect, this is my brain medicating its self. My heart would never know the difference, though. The less than complicated factions inside of me simply accept this notion, and hope that it is indeed not a negative one.
Passing mile marker sixty-four, I realize I have no idea where those mile markers even originated from. Effectively, I suppose I am sixty-four miles in the middle of nowhere. That brings a smile to my face. But knowing that soon I will want to stop for some well craved breakfast, that smile fades away.
These simple thoughts are powerful, but still a placebo. My mind is nowhere near this wonderfully lean landscape. Instead, although I don’t like to admit it to myself, its back – far back – behind all the mile markers and pit stops, back between those emotional disrupted white walls. Caught up in the whirlwind of human emotion and relationship angst that brought me to a standstill, defenseless, and alienated. To tell you the truth, I really have no idea where I am at, mentally, emotionally, or physically. And the strange sense of misplaced peace I feel, despite this, is possibly the most uncomfortable aspect of this puzzle that I seem to have become these past months. I should be locked behind violent and rusty steel bars, for having committed some sort of crime. At least then, I wouldn’t wonder why I was there. They say the grass is always greener on the other side, don’t they. Well, I sincerely fucking doubt it.
The slipstream of an altered reality I have found myself in fades away, as my mind processes that familiar ring of my cell phone. I should change that. I know who it is. And for a few seconds I contemplate the idea of answering it. But ultimately I find I have nothing to say. And I’m just not capable of coping with the inevitably sour taste of a lovers-quarrel at the moment. I laugh, but it’s a reprimanding pain I feel as I simple allow it to ring, and ring. But I know that this is the kind of pain I like.
Maybe, if you asked me, I’d look you in the eyes and tell you it is not, for that would be fool hardy – to play these kind of emotionally corrupting games of spite and pain. But deep down, I know I do. I thrive on this. Because for one reason or the other, when my beaten and bruised body lay on the muddy ground, beneath those in my life, and I am supposed to cower and plead, instead I smile, and chuckle, and I fast forward to the end and pull the trigger myself.
So maybe all of this… is my fault in the first place. And so I ask myself, who the fuck am I to feel any of this, if, indeed, in some small fragile and darkened place of my soul, I chose these events to happen, because I crave and even thrive on oppression? Maybe, there is only one victim in all of this. That victim is the one I find myself in love with. Now I can’t help but ask myself if this makes me a bad person? Well, I hope not, because I feel a sort of empowerment now; a sort of invulnerability.
She’s calling for the second time now, and I still find myself in a self induced trance, possibly unable to simple answer the damn phone. So I smile, and now I have two missed calls.
I feel an oppressed part of me growing deep inside, almost to the rev of my engines. If I close my eyes, I think this car would grow wings, and no one could touch me. Not a soul in this world could touch me, as I flew away faster and faster in my tiny private space with wheels.
“Angels” introductory prose composition – mock up
Tense: Present
0627
Sunday, April 26, 21 years into my life
401 Miles between Anywhere and Nowhere
Audio notes
This sunrise, in particular, is perhaps the most beautiful natural sight my eyes have ever been privileged to articulate. Its power, forcing it’s self through my pupils, is overpowering, and all-encompassing – so much to the fact that every molecule of my being feels as though it is in a state of constant and violent fluctuation consistent with a lightning bolt. I have never felt this God like. I have never been this instantaneous. I have never been this unstable.
The guitars ringing in my ears have started to reverberate off of their own echoes bouncing around inside of my head. I reached my hand up to the car stereo and oppressively finger-punched the volume down button until I the edge faded to a manageable decibel. As I scan the desert surrounding me, I can see the endlessness of nature’s vast ambiguity layered over God’s land like paint on a master’s handmade canvas. I instinctively reached for any one of the dozen cheap lighters scattering the forward compartment of my car and put a cigarette in my mouth. It’s ironic how cigarette and regret rhyme. More ironic, I suppose, is that I have no regrets. So I think. With one fluid motion, death was ravaging inside of my lungs.
There was a time in my life, not too long ago, that I would be fatigued right now. But I’m not. I haven’t bothered to use the cruise control, despite the less than populated state of this highway, and it’s faithfully unenforced speed limits. Between the soothing air flow around my face, and the sunrise lit desert cracks as far as my eyes could ever hope to see, I think I enjoy watching my speedometer rise and fall slowly, progressively, like the waves of the ocean – that very ocean that is nowhere near my present physical existence. That same violent ocean my soul has been lost in for ages, it seems.
The ever familiar ring of my gas light alerted me to what I had already known, but cared little about. I slowly let off of the gas pedal, and coasted to a complete stop, not quite off to the side of the road. The door creaked just loud enough to inform me it was whiling to work, but not pleased at doing so. How human that seems to me. This desert stretch of state maintained highway was thin, level, and faded. As I reached into my pocket for another lighter, I decided not to pull it out. But not without my own hesitation – my statement to God, and whoever else was watching me that I was willing to abide by good judgment, but not pleased at doing so. How mechanical of me.
Another creak sounded off as I opened the trunk, and pulled out two five gallon plastic gasoline containers. I knew that when I opened the gas tank lid, it too would distinguish its displeased compliance, like the rest of its counter parts have done. And I wonder what had happened to the times when this car was eager and even excited to function, if not almost silently demanding it. Again, how human that sounds to me.
As the fuel flowed out of the aging gas container into the fuel tank, slowly running down the container and splashing on the thinly spread pebbles beside my feet, it became increasingly obvious this would be a much cleaner, and faster process if I had simply stuck with the normal process of utilizing a gas station.
Today, however, was a bit different than any of the others I have lived in lately. There was a part of my essence, alternating deep down between the most root elements of my personality and my soul, that didn’t want to conform to the world around me. But rather, operate outside of it, or at the most, manipulate it to conform to my mind instead. This was my kind of embellished and overly complicated sense of independence shinning through in an aggressively stubborn fashion. The fact is, this is more peaceful than a gas station. It’s me. I closed the gas cap, and secured the nozzle and placed the can back inside the trunk and wiped my hands across my pant legs.
The ring on my finger caught on the reinforced edge of my trouser pocket, reminding me of what is behind me. Death navigated my throat until it reached my lungs, where it performed its familiar waltz filling them with poison, as I dropped the lighter into the base of my left pocket. The sunrise glorified the scratch and scared metal wrapped dutifully around my finger – the physical representation of the ideals and duties that appear as though they could cost me my very soul.
The steady breeze engulfed my body as I raised my head up towards the rising sun, and spread my arms out with my eyes shut. If there ever was a moment I could feel so liberated, this surely was that moment – an immeasurable variable on the timeline of existence, a glimpse of my soul standing freely among the discharged elements of nature. The unseen gears of world are shifting exuberantly in fluid motion all around me, sharing this precise moment, alone, with me. God is here. And in this very moment, her face flashed into my solitude.
The wind hastily swept away the smoke around me as I exhaled one last time. Looking about, I am right in the center of a flat and barren nowhere. My body and my car remained the only objects cluttering this sterile landscape. I closed my eyes as I reached for the ring on my left hand, and took in the clean air as I walked east, in front of my car and knelt down on the thin asphalt that composed this highway. Facing the sunset, the mixture of the breeze and the warmth of the bright sun gave birth to a unique feeling of peace inside my mind. Lord, stay with me .I believe in you, and I am learning to believe in me. Please help them to let it go, and forgive themselves, as they forgive me.
The notion of another vehicle passing me by, and the potential danger involved with that never fazed me, as I lay on my back with my feet facing east. I closed my eyes and extended my arms and legs, and took a deep breath, appreciating the universe I exist in.
_ _
Monday, April 20, 21 years into my life
This place, my home, is filling with poison quickly. Everything I have worked to build for months is slipping away from me, one piece at a time – physically representing our bond, our marriage. This room is becoming a court of damnation – a rather unjust transformation from a home that I had envisioned it to become, and remain. And there she stands in disbelief. And for once, shamefully, I admit, I do not know what is going on in her mind, or in her heart for that matter. And it has started. This battle I do fear.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” With her back against the closet, her eyes disenchanted, in a fools rage.
“Keep your voice down. Look, listen to me. Forget this mess; forget us, for just a moment. Please, baby, you have to understand what kind of situation this puts me in. What the fuck do you think is going to happen to you the next time they come to the door, because some one’s stupid fucking wife called the MP’s?. Hmm? What’s going to happen to you? Not a fucking thing! It’s me! I’m the one here who will get removed from his own fucking house, and put in the barracks, at the minimum! Not you! What’s next? I go to the fucking brig because you want to lose your mind?.Because you want to make some noise? Because I broke my own fucking door down to care for you crying you’re fucking heart out for what?” Suddenly I feel like an animal forced between wall and a ledge. And the inevitability of my probable suicide becomes apparent.
“And then what? What happens after I’m kicked out of my own damn house? What happens when your husband gets put in the brig, because he’s deemed the mother fucking threat? Because the military will always protect its own ass! What happens to our marriage then? When I go to Iraq, and spend seven months there in another brig, and come back stateside, with months left in the Marine Corps just to be dishonorably discharged, on top of being label a fucking wife beater? Are you out of your fucking mind? What kind of marriage is that? Yeah, I know, they said it wasn’t that serious, and they just had to ask questions, and complete the formal process. But what is the fucking difference? It all looks the same, and perception is reality!” And the blade cuts the flesh effortlessly and deeply; completely.
“No, I don’t fucking care! I don’t care! I’m not leaving here! Where am I supposed to go to?”
Suddenly, my objective nature seizes all together, and it becomes deeply personal. “Where the fuck are you suppose to go to? Where the fuck am I suppose to go to? I can’t leave this fucking base!” the tension in my body begins to cause pain.
My vision around her starts to blur, between the headache and the tears, this is a train wreck still screaming down the mountain with no hope to stop peacefully. “You say you understand, but yet you still don’t give a fuck what you’re doing to me? What the fuck is this?” with my head in my hands holding back the pressure, and maybe the tears, I feel completely alienated. But I know I must keep calm, and keep objective.
Running my hands over my head, I breathe deep. “Please, baby, let’s just go. I’ll drive you to your friend’s place, the family you stayed with when I was in Iraq last year. Just for a little while. Long enough for you and I to both clear our heads, and long enough for the Marine Corps to back the fuck off, and forget about us. And then we can build things back up again baby, please. We can figure out what any of this is even about, and deal with it.” I feel more afraid of everything coming crashing down, with no reign in my hand to tighten. I’ll lose her, my enlistment, my honor… for what? I don’t even know. She doesn’t even fucking know. “Fuck! Please, I love you. Let’s go. Please. We can’t do this here! We just fucking can’t!”
“Don’t fucking look at me. Leave me alone, I can’t believe you’re doing this!” She turned violently and walked to the bedroom to gather her things. Maybe, there was hope, just maybe God help us.
_ _
My heart is beating faster than my mind can process. As I get up off of the pavement, I realize my mind, maybe my heart, is rather deadened. But my body feels it. My body feels every little scratch, every cut. The cling of my wedding ring clashing violently against the pavement resonates in my ears like the echoing boom of a judge’s mallet in a court room. My sentence is down this road, off into the late rising sun. It is in this mind. And whiling or not, I am serving it.
I can feel every degree of the piercing warmth of the sun on my back as I steadily walk back to my car, hesitantly wishing I wasn’t here. There is a fierce battle inside of this heart. And yet, here I stand, idle, and alone. The juxtaposition of two opposing legions of condemned warriors clashing violently in empowered anger and love lust lost; a universe implodes – my universe implodes. However, even despite of this, I seem to be in a curious state of resolute peace. My mind can’t help but wonder if this is an acceptable state; if this is okay. With my hand on the door handle, I realize it doesn’t matter. This is me, and this is now. So be it.
I’m back into the blissful slipstream of hyper alert peace, edging my way back up to top speed. The world around me is blurring faster and faster, eagerly approving of my self-reprimand, and the ideals that are pumping through my veins – these same ideals I seem to have debased. I could bow my head in peace and solitude, and engage in a naturalist lifestyle or quest for global domination – and the scenery that surrounds me would never disprove. This is my state of mind, of freedom. Where everything I perceive, must be reality. It is, to me. Ultimately, I suspect, this is my brain medicating its self. My heart would never know the difference, though. The less than complicated factions inside of me simply accept this notion, and hope that it is indeed not a negative one.
Passing mile marker sixty-four, I realize I have no idea where those mile markers even originated from. Effectively, I suppose I am sixty-four miles in the middle of nowhere. That brings a smile to my face. But knowing that soon I will want to stop for some well craved breakfast, that smile fades away.
These simple thoughts are powerful, but still a placebo. My mind is nowhere near this wonderfully lean landscape. Instead, although I don’t like to admit it to myself, its back – far back – behind all the mile markers and pit stops, back between those emotional disrupted white walls. Caught up in the whirlwind of human emotion and relationship angst that brought me to a standstill, defenseless, and alienated. To tell you the truth, I really have no idea where I am at, mentally, emotionally, or physically. And the strange sense of misplaced peace I feel, despite this, is possibly the most uncomfortable aspect of this puzzle that I seem to have become these past months. I should be locked behind violent and rusty steel bars, for having committed some sort of crime. At least then, I wouldn’t wonder why I was there. They say the grass is always greener on the other side, don’t they. Well, I sincerely fucking doubt it.
The slipstream of an altered reality I have found myself in fades away, as my mind processes that familiar ring of my cell phone. I should change that. I know who it is. And for a few seconds I contemplate the idea of answering it. But ultimately I find I have nothing to say. And I’m just not capable of coping with the inevitably sour taste of a lovers-quarrel at the moment. I laugh, but it’s a reprimanding pain I feel as I simple allow it to ring, and ring. But I know that this is the kind of pain I like.
Maybe, if you asked me, I’d look you in the eyes and tell you it is not, for that would be fool hardy – to play these kind of emotionally corrupting games of spite and pain. But deep down, I know I do. I thrive on this. Because for one reason or the other, when my beaten and bruised body lay on the muddy ground, beneath those in my life, and I am supposed to cower and plead, instead I smile, and chuckle, and I fast forward to the end and pull the trigger myself.
So maybe all of this… is my fault in the first place. And so I ask myself, who the fuck am I to feel any of this, if, indeed, in some small fragile and darkened place of my soul, I chose these events to happen, because I crave and even thrive on oppression? Maybe, there is only one victim in all of this. That victim is the one I find myself in love with. Now I can’t help but ask myself if this makes me a bad person? Well, I hope not, because I feel a sort of empowerment now; a sort of invulnerability.
She’s calling for the second time now, and I still find myself in a self induced trance, possibly unable to simple answer the damn phone. So I smile, and now I have two missed calls.
I feel an oppressed part of me growing deep inside, almost to the rev of my engines. If I close my eyes, I think this car would grow wings, and no one could touch me. Not a soul in this world could touch me, as I flew away faster and faster in my tiny private space with wheels
—————– End —————–
Circe: Winter 2008, Camp TQ, Iraq
Posted in Prose
Tags: absolution, angels, death, divorce, driving, forgiveness, heaven, highway, hyper-alert, iraq, kristan blanchard, Marines, memories, pavement, penance, placebo, prose, redemption, roadtrip, salvation, smoking, soul searching, trenton phoenix
the Con`cer`ta´tions of a mad MAN 