Kyle Muntz - Voices

::::::::::::::::::::

"Do you mind if I tell you a story?" the Chimera asked.

I said it was fine.

It was strange to hear the Chimera asking questions.

"When I was young, just a few years old, I had a dream." Casually, he flicked a

finger, and from it came a cackle of energy. "I still remember it, barely. It was about a wall, and steps, and climbing into the light." He paused for a moment, examining himself, in relevance to everything else. Dwarfing it.

"I woke up (in the dream) at the bottom of a huge wall. There were huge blocks in it, going way up. It was so bright I could barely see. I tried to stand, but gravity held me down. I ran my hands alone the wall. It was smooth, though it looked rough. There were no shadows in the block, only one color in the grain. I tried to stand again, pushing at the wall, but it didn’t matter, I couldn’t. But I looked up, and there was the light, pouring over. So instead of standing I crawled, for as long as I could, and the grass made razorblades on my arms, cutting in, and the air pressed down so hard I could barely breathe.

"After that," he raised both wrists and touched held them together, "I crawled until both of my arms bled, until both of them were soaked in blood, until I couldn’t crawl any more. But the wall was still there, and it was even stronger than before, just as tall. I reached out and touched it again, lovingly, and I laid there looking up, over the wall, in a pool of spreading redness. Behind, for maybe fifty feet, I’d left a thickening trail, getting wetter. No flowers grew. I wanted to see an orchid, or a carnation, or a lilac, but there were no flowers, just the wall. And then I stood.

"It was impossible, but somehow I managed stand, and I kept going. The whole way, I leaned on the wall, because it was stronger than me, more real. I didn’t walk so much as I staggered, like an old man, dying one step at a time. And then up ahead I saw a staircase, coming from the wall. The steps were big, and tall, and wide, and I couldn’t walk anymore, but I took them, crawling arm over arm. Quite a few times I hit my face on the rock. Just as many I almost fell. The higher I went, the heavier it got. Cosmos pasted matter to groveling in the sand. But I kept crawling until I got to the edge."

"What was there?"

"Nothing," he said, "just a boundless sea of white, an infinite, flowing ocean. But I kept crawling, and then I fell, like heavy, heavy rock, into a void where it wasn’t possible to fall anymore, and direction didn’t matter."

"What happened then?" I asked.

"I woke up."

"Oh."

"And when I opened my eyes, everything in my room (the bed, the lamp, me), was

f l o

a t i

n

g. "

"Did anything happen after that?"

"It never

came down.

"

"Oh," I said. "Did it really happen?"

"The dream?"

"Yeah."

"Maybe." He laughed. "I’ve never told anyone before, just so you know." "Then why did you tell me?"

"Because I’ve heard… that you’re good with memory." He paused. "Is your

camera on?" For some reason I was surprised. I’d assumed he knew. "I was hoping," he said, "that your camera would be on."

"Yeah," I said. "It’s on."

:::::::::::::::::::: The sky was blue. The sun beat down.

A car drove by. Ripples coagulated, an optical swelling. Travis dribbled. He wore a jersey, numbered, and shorts, colored. Sweat escaped him, the unattractive kind. It matted clothes to him. Disgustingly. My skin burned. Rust grew over mountains of metal. The dust was not refreshing. But there were worse places to be than here.

"I don’t know if I ever told you before," I said, "but you know that Jacob kid, the one we hang out with sometimes, who’s fucking your sister? I don’t think I like him very much."

Travis missed another shot. Apparently, it shot a surge of elation through him. He grinned. This was his ultimate fulfillment, his anchor in the dark.

"No," he said. "I don’t think I like him much either. But no one does, so it’s okay."

We played. He missed another shot. He dribbled. The sun beat down. As we played, my mind wandered. Travis and I did have poignant conversations sometimes, but not very often. I stole the ball, but I missed. I wanted to write a poem about redundancy. Travis got the ball.

He scored.

The net whooshed all strange like, whipping as the shot passed through, and the ball bounced off the side of the court.

We paused.

"Jesus," I said.

"Jesus." He scratched his scalp, confused.

We stood, dumbfounded, as the wind picked up. Scraps of leaves scrambled in gusts. Clouds, pulsing away, turned dark, ominous colors, and the sky cleared, in all directions, moving away from the axis of us,

pulsing back

because we’d torn something free, that was, that wasn’t supposed to be. The sky turned gray. The sun hid in shadows. Delirious, a rhythmic affront to continuitydiamondsallgleamingfor some abrupt disintegration, to make clear the consequences of an end, here and now, in a bastardized place, undone, by some pernicious fluctuation in the rules, breaking.

A few feet past the post, by the ball,

a green globule grew out of the ball, ionic

with emerald lightning in the side, as it took the strenuous into itself, enlarging strangely, all but flickers in the coming dark. Static flashes, faster than eyes, sprang out, lighting pieces of grass on fire, wickedly, so they curled, in

a fit

of ruination,

all things casting aside the

real.

Reality gave a vicious,

curdling scream, and split in twine

as it

kept growing,

a conical beam in the center, vibrating, all the

things inside

as they grew. .

Reality split

and the ball

went nuclear, sending a spear

of brightness

into the center of the storm, where the thunder was, the angry clouds,

swirling,

into a tornado,

spreading out

like a tear in the

universe.

::::::::::::::::::::

I fell. Which is to say I broke the water, splashing, hands and feet, scrabbling

once, with a grasp I didn’t have. The surface rebuked me, in failure, and I fell.

Deeper and deeper, but slowly, waves, cloudlike in the undertow,

enfolded me,

so cool, so neutral , that the water might not have been water at all, lacking wetness, and liquid fortitude. I breathed, but of course I breathed, going under in the darkness, reaching out, opine, for a handhold in

the light.

But

the light

was done with me, because I wasn’t strong enough to take my own advice. I was naked

here, in the sinking place, nimble, wearing a glove of a body, just a hint of skin. Way out, casually swimming figures, invisible from above, swam with me. They were impassive, but of course they were impassive. This was their place here.

It was

all they knew. Kaleidoscopic colors, welling cumulus from below, cushioned descent, a fall onto opium dreams and lazy, lazy swaying. Already

I

knew nothing of memory, that bane, and the confines of

me ,

the gap in the universe that was

me ,

in line with itself, as though there were really anything loose, in silence. Layers

peeled away

as I fell, as simplicity came true, casting aside the actual, the factual, the

unnecessary.

Who was I, who in moments

such as these

thought nothing of being understood?

I fell into the darkness

and nothingness

cared for me there.

:::::::::::::::::::: "Thanks a lot for seeing me," I said.

The Chimera nodded.

"People say that a lot," he said.

And most likely, they did.

"Just one question," I said. "Have you ever thought… maybe that you were still falling?"