H. Adler - Panorama

If one finds his Launceston amid his sleep, then he is free not to act, but instead to rest, to germinate, to multiply himself, he containing a world of seeds of consciousness that quietly and yet excitedly interact with one another, this being no wild, tattered delirium of fears and dangers in which force rules most any day. Josef reckons that he will no longer be threatened by this shadow, and he hopes for an end to the frightful and the abysmal, but already he has realized how idle it is to formulate his own future. He wants to get up and once again have a look at the withered wreath and the Quaker’s prison, after which he would like to visit a bookstore in order to learn more about George Fox. No, he won’t do that, for there is nothing to learn here, and Josef feels it is forbidden him, and he needs to conquer the past for good, to bury it, nor should there be any monuments set up to it, no memorials, instead a garden, a lawn, no painted plaques, but instead allow the site of suffering to sink into soothing, blessed forgetfulness, leaving only something felt in the heart, but no thoughts of any places through which one can just naïvely stroll. That is not an irreverent wish, it is the desire for life, as only then will forgetfulness be freed of the burdens that the after-world presses upon it without indeed trying to maintain any kind of genuine reverence, for though everything meets its end, forgetfulness is new as it emerges, the voices of its unconscious experience remaining loud, as a new show begins, the public needing images to look at to set it at ease.

Josef takes stock, sensing a comfortable certainty, but he also worries, for he knows that the moment he gets up frightening faces will reveal themselves, faces full of tense expectation, empty faces, perhaps, that don’t want to reveal anything, but Josef looks into them more deeply and sees through their fleetingness, their endlessly anxious apprehension. Then he sees that nothing has changed, the former prisoners of war are not satisfied, their victors are not satisfied, Josef is not allowed to speak to either, he having to tread carefully between each, it being the least of his worries that they should only laugh at him, but instead they will threaten him and be hostile should he tell of his memories and thoughts, and thus he will remain silent. But if he can no longer remain silent, what will become of him?

Josef looks at the sea before him, the fog beginning to rise over the coastline, the wind still, the fog climbing ever closer, encasing everything in white, Launceston already blanketed, all sounds muffled as well, every noise silenced, everything recognizable now hidden, no way to distinguish what’s far and near. The fog is comforting and pleasant to the observer who can fathom what stands before his eyes. Josef sees the sea, a quiet sea, a still and softly swaying sea in which pain and pleasure are brothers, where forgetting is united with remembrance, a sea that celebrates remote memories. Josef floats upon the sea, wanting to be borne and cradled by it, the fallen castle tower of Launceston the last island in the endless sea, only a single sound rising within the sea, a swaying gong that sounds continuously, its constant call more lonesome than any silence, Josef himself the gong that sounds in the distant sea, the fish swimming about Josef in surprise at his submersion, he perhaps having sunk into the pool of the world, perhaps everything is finished and gone. Any attempts to find him will fail should anyone seek to, for vainly his name and number are called out at sea, because he floats, and no one is ready to climb the tower, people are too tired to do so, they tarry in the depths, water sprites, fish people, and fountain mermaids slowly crawling along the ocean floor, all of them magical and therefore unable to sense that they live in water and are sunk below, and since they can breathe without gills they are at home in this element, shedding their fate as easily as their clothes in order to feel at home, bringing with them what they need for the everyday — dented tin tools, mallets and funnels, round-bellied pipes with ties and scissors and coffee cups from the windowsill, beaten-up washbowls and cracked plates, diaries and books of poetry. The fish easily ready themselves for a bal paré in the castle pool, not noticing the electrified fence, the current circulating throughout, through the macrocosm and the microcosm, the fish looking through microscopes and telescopes, though they don’t see that the Conqueror is already standing in the fish trap and hurrying all the fish to the transports, the next train now leaving for Pitchipoi, though the fish don’t realize it and count their yearly earnings as they flounder in the cinema sea at the gala lecture about the great minds and get their VIP seats without a ticket, the Red Cross gratis to the red fish, lost bathers scraping off the scales of the fish, blood trickling out from under the fins, then it’s off to the baths, breathing not allowed here, though the fish don’t know that they will be killed, as they turn into people again, reining in their sorrows, earning their money, tidying their rooms, preparing their meals and their tidbits, Josef thinking about people and for once feeling indebted to them, he owing them everything, for it is they who make the world turn that he is able to observe, and that is without end.

Thus Josef is conscious that nothing has ended for him, no decisive change has come about, nor is there even a pause. It’s a passage, because even during the quiet and abidance he is carried forward unawares, he at times seeing what he confronts, then as he dives in he finds that any of the questions he faces again return him to an ongoing confusion, as he is still somewhat asleep, a dreamy expression in his eyes, but quickly the first wind of the day blows it away, Josef able to talk reasonably, his demeanor no different from that of others, his nature taking hold of him and admonishing him that he is acting cocky, he’s not so special, only little more than nothing has anything to do with you, even though most individuals are inclined to overestimate their own importance, though rightfully his surroundings rein in the scope of his influence. Each is granted his lot, which in turn makes demands upon him, the only exception allowed being his right to look after his little pastimes, should they be granted him, after which he again must fulfill his duty, while whoever smiles at this or even tries to ignore it is foolish and upsets the balance of the world. But is any of this satisfactory? Can one finally say that something has been attained? The panorama offers Josef no answer to this. Much can be demonstrated, but not everything. The wish dissolves when no longer repressed, but nonetheless it persists. At one time it’s a thorn that is pressed into the world around us, at another time it bores into its own realm. Man is a creature who wishes, who desires matter, but who wants to transform matter into essence, but regardless of how hard man tries to do so he never succeeds. Matter is indeed pliable, but nonetheless it remains unconquerable, refusing to give up its hold until the sweet end. Matter is the victor over essence, which in turn likes to be immortalized as the unvanquished.

Josef’s thoughts spin in circles, the ancient questions not letting go of him and never letting go of him, even if he wants them to. If only he could finally silence them! For what would it be like if things never changed, if they just continued on this way forever? When Josef was a child in the panorama he never thought about things in this way, he lived continually in the present, day-to-day life structured in such a way that he never had to worry about anything, just as he never had to worry about buying tickets for the panorama, he remaining free of any such worry as much at the conclusion of the show as at the start, the experience having swallowed up the boy, whisking him away and not yet declaring the need for him to account for himself. Instead he was regularly overwhelmed, and in no way attained any consciousness, even if he could begin to perceive the formulation of this consciousness within himself, something continuing to grow inside him which saturated his every fiber and was continual. Josef had only to go along with it all, nothing more or nothing less demanded of him or even possible, and everything was understood, the gift of an irrepressible vitality, Josef found it inexhaustible, he feeling the same even during the most extreme solitude, while even in the grip of seeming doom, his ability to contemplate what he observed spread beyond the searing pain of the sharpest despair, such fulfillment the result of all the reflections taken in of the various views and linkages arising on their own.