Christopher WunderLee - Moore's Mythopoeia

“Beware the ground beneath your feet. This is a continent, this is a nation, this is a country, a home, a community… you are neither here nor there… Perhaps you don’t see the missing qualities of the bird’s song… These are not divine times, not our proudest moments, not our brightest hour… this is the time of the great cracks… when those underworlds begin to climb upward… seep onto the land… begin devouring… We’re at war… with terrorists, drug lords, street criminals, sexual predators, murderers, road ragers, juvenile delinquents, gays and lezes, women in general, runaway juries, mob bosses, unions, kidnappers, bumpers, psycho soccer moms, ravers, punks, degenerates, homophobes, white supremacists, anti-abortion bombers, anthrax mailers, you name it… The danger level is yellow, we’re on permanent alert, everybody hyper edgy… they’ll sue you for looking at them askance… they’ll shoot you down in a hail of gunfire for reaching over their white picket fence and touching one of their supermarket roses… a nation of fraidy cats… don’t spook ‘em for god’s sakes… gotta be careful who you say what to… keep the noise down… quiet… make no sound… silent as a cat… a cat burglar… cat on a hot tin roof… curiosity kills…

“Confusion is loss of particulars, to blur, to jumble, to mix indiscriminately, to make indistinct, to fail to differentiate one thing from another, to bring to ruin… the more simple, the less confusing… the less distinct, the more distinguishable… the more the same, the less concern… but the noise refuses to follow… its neither here nor there… chaos… anarchy… the end of the world as we know it… Suppose then, that that’s just it… Does dear Beatrice know it…? Suppose you could exist without particulars, mixing indiscriminately, indistinctly, failing to differentiate, bringing about ruin… noise… step out of the lines and mix it up a bit… AWOL from the whole thing…

“But who would do it…? Most would not… the world’s laundresses are pretty thorough… all the brains are clean… no turns, no parking, no dogs, no drugs, no boys, no girls, no birds, no loitering, no solicitors, no matter, no minds, no jumping, no picnicking, no camping, no panicking, don’t cross the line, wait in line, which line, take a number, take a seat, take a pick, pick a number, pick a insta-meal, pick a place, pick a career, pick a life, don’t offend, don’t judge, don’t question, don’t be a know-it-all, don’t be a pig, don’t be an ass, don’t be stupid, don’t be silly, do what I say not what I do, do what I tell you, do what you’re told, do what your brother did, do whatever your heart desires, don’t do that, don’t speed, don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t eat, don’t fuck, don’t chew, don’t sing, don’t cry, don’t swear, don’t fear, don’t smile, don’t laugh, don’t think, don’t die…

"So, what if… what if you just did… just did do all those things and didn’t do all those things and fell right off the map… no man’s land… the wonderfall… the blessed land of the air… music everywhere… noise surrounding… sound rules all… breathing in and out the great chorus of chaos… a brother and sister to the birds…

“Oh dear girl… who will be the first to do it…? Does it matter if we jump or are pushed? Who goes first or second? And we can argue forever about why… We should… you can’t deny it, we should… We two pilgrims of sound…”

Perhaps she would try the medication.

He laid his unshaved cheek against her hand. He closed his eyes. He was peaceful, a deception. He did not say a word. She talked. He leaned against the wall and she moved to keep her hand on his cheek. She said nothing about the Players. He did not ask a single question. She found herself just speaking to him. He did not respond. She continued because he was listening. She found herself telling him about her brother. She told him about her brother in the present. She went backwards. She had never told anyone about it. He listened as though he was asleep. He sighed once. She told him about her brother tricking her. She had wanted to learn from him. It had taken her a few years to realize it. The first time she had sex was without her knowledge. She was raped because she did not know that sex is when a man penetrates a woman. She did not know that her nudity would be exploited. He had seen it happen.

Elisa laid her head against a pillow and threw the book onto her nightstand. She looked towards the half-opened door to her bathroom, a stream of light invading her room. They were in there. If she just started taking the prescriptions properly, there would be no problem. She was afraid of what might happen otherwise, she knew she couldn’t continue for much longer, they were onto her. Vincent had been protecting her. She was deathly afraid of the proposition that she may be sent for rebranding.

She had met women who had been to those places, women who could no longer think, who took their meds without question, who said things like: “well isn’t that nice” and “my I’m happy” in a sluggish drawl, as if they had heard it repeated so many times, as if they’d been forced to listen to it over and over again so that any reaction was met with one of those two sayings. Your husband was killed in a fluke accident: well isn’t that nice. You don’t love me, you’ve never loved me, you’ve only been using me, my I’m happy. Elisa had no superior notions, no ideas that she could handle the pressure, that she could go to a rebranding facility and manage to avoid conforming, she knew that she would fall just like all the other women.

He had not said a word while she spoke. He had crouched down against the wall and she had knelt down with him, keeping her hand against his face. He curled himself into a small bundle. She moved over beside him. He opened his eyes when she moved her hand. She took his head and laid it against her chest, her arm around him. He closed his eyes.

She could try it for one night.

He opened one eye, the one that was brown. He started to speak and she stopped herself. He did not go on and she didn’t either. They lay in the corner. No one was in the room. She had been left with him. He was vacant while Nicholas spoke. She would entice him to join. He did not say a word about the proposition. He stared at her with his one eye.

“Do you think I could have ever been normal?” She touched his cheek with her thumb, running it around his eye. He kept the other eye closed. She lifted up his hand and kissed the spot on his wrist.

“No, but you could be rebranded, re-taught to believe in everything they say and then, maybe you wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t be here and we would be unaware of the aching desire for something more, something else besides this medicated tranquility, this façade of perfection that permeates every atom and every person. But that wouldn’t make you who you are anymore, nor would I be whom I am. We would be blissfully ignorant, but it would not be real.”

“I could marry Vincent, I know that’s what he wants and take my medication and live a very long, harmonious life, but I would be rebelling inside forever, I would never been truly content and then, on my death bed, or late in life, when Vincent was gone and all of this was just memories, I would weep bitterly into my tea, and I would wonder what would have happened if I would have been strong and would have let myself continue to fight, to go along with you on your quest, to end the misery of perfection, to be the advocate of the antithesis of the myth.”

Elisa had not said any of this, but he had looked at her as though she had, as though he had heard her thoughts and was pleased that she had said them. She looked into the camera, took a bottle of Revivoderm from her nightstand, read the instructions to take it every morning and took out four (not the two prescribed per dose) and gulped them down with a glass of bootleg wine. She kept her eyes on the camera as if she was staring into his eyes…