A Spy in the Ruins. Christopher Bernard

was made to feel like a child listening to the incomprehensible conversation of adults the shorthand of an uncanny omniscience.

      These were the beneficiaries of power.

      His only certainty was that he would be put in the wrong and made to pay for it.

      The penalties came randomly and severely.

      You had to make up your mind though mind was what you did not yet have.

      He stood on the threshold unable either to enter the room or turn on his heel and leave.

      The darkness at each moment promised to break and did not.

      Phase transition into being.

      The war against reality.

      It was like a dream and you wanted to awake and were not allowed to.

      Words wedded in luminous arcs chains of laughter lightning and music promised a gift even as they dimmed to haunting possibility brightened in the air between two eager faces rose from the pages of an afternoon garden then out of nowhere broke like a pod eaten by parasites clashed in the twilight scattered like fireworks fell into pockets of ash and brightness memories of regard grails of understanding burned the ear with anger and fear shimmering in splinters of incomprehension.

      All was in suspense it was thrilling at first and for long after not knowing or caring to know not seeing ahead more than the next curve in the road the spine of the next hill against a cloud forming on the horizon a charge of lights down a night road a crowd of shadows massing around your head your hand held out for an alm of the mystery.

      But then one wanted it to resolve into something firm and clear a plinth of stone a crystal even a door of lead to batter against in exhausted frustration for it was mortally wearying to chase it over those icy meadows there was nowhere to rest there was nothing to believe there was nothing to know but no it stayed quick and fluid and slipped from his grasp like a joke he was not meant to understand the book the solitary one read was his life at that time it abandoned him to questions he could not answer yet needed to urgently it tantalized him with every conceivable answer and

      therefore

      no answer at all the binding dissolved in his hands the print appeared on his palms he read the runes of his veins until he was half blind.

      You wanted to run away but there was nowhere to run.

      This was escape and there was nowhere to escape from that.

      Any attempt to stop the wheel merely made it turn faster.

      The world spun like a nail inside his head. It drove down through in out the axis of a top a pain just barely endurable.

      Nothing was allowed to make sense.

      The hammer descended without ever reaching the vase.

      Neither creation nor destruction but a state between the two suspended.

      The unmerited punishment of love.

       Silence. Or is it the hum of an iron lung? But do iron lungs hum?

      Or have you too fallen asleep.

      Then you will never know how she contracted bliss that summer. There was nothing that was not real. She wore sun dresses and woven sandals and her hair in a long braid or loose bun and large floppy hats that hid her eyes from the sky. She carried her heart between her lips. A silver anklet sparkled at the back of her mind but she feared that wearing one might make her meaning too clear. She had the painful tenderness of those who are both timid and sincere. She told herself bitter truths in the desolation of her solitude as though picking at a wound that would not heal. She was moral to a fault. She was in love with God. She was ashamed of the blood between her thighs. She wore no lipstick on the day it started it was as though she were doing penance for something she had forgotten she ached to remember. Her mother had not told her how it hard it was to be a woman and why were men so unaware. She opened her eyes with all her might she fed on light as a vampire does on blood and yet we saw nothing at the time. Her body was a wall between herself and the world. And yet there were times when the wall collapsed and light streamed in from every side bathing her darkness and penetrating her with wave on wave of joy.

      Where did it come from where did it go.

      There was amazement in the day. Anything could happen anything did happen. Her body shifted with the tides her body perished in the arms of the moon from those same arms her body was reborn her body was her tyrant her body was her lover her body was her betrayer a locus of tempests the principle of chaos the fault line passed through her she was the problem that no one could solve she carried a twister in her womb. Beneath her silence there was laughter shaking with tears. She felt like an aircraft doing somersaults in the air always on the point of lunging into a dive the crowd would be astonished amazed horrified with an eerie feeling of privilege that they had witnessed the tragedy they would never forget that day.

      Salto mortale.

      She sat quietly in a corner and felt herself spinning out of control.

      It was when she was happy that we worried most when she was desperate we shrugged at what we called her moods.

      She walked in unsteady balance over the abyss of her body trying not to look down.

      What will you do he asked himself on the other side of the partition.

      The light had fallen from the day.

      Between his desire and his desire there was fear it was like a page written in words of shame.

      There came a time when he was afraid to let himself believe.

      Golden was the arrow catching up with him as he vaulted toward the clouds. Gentle were the fingers of the bars. So he wrapped himself up between his walls.

      It was love that then ripped him from himself and returned to him shame and joy he walked each day across the splinters of his heart the scabs became scars the scars became callous eventually free of the bandages and the splint he hobbled outside again to the open air.

      Birdsong emptiness.

      She does not love you he said to the morning and grew calm.

      He returned the precious object to the shelf and steadied his nerves with a drink that was tasteless and clear.

      He had lost often enough to play without hope he had given up hope he was tranquil. Not joy not despair he thought anything but joy and despair.

      He discovered the reassurance of control.

      What after all was contentment not obtaining what one desires but not having desired or gained. Satiety and peace though this contradicted what he had just thought.

      He began smoking again.

      He picked his heart to pieces and then shook the pieces over the ground they lay there dazzling in the sunlight splinters of glass and flames as he stood blanked out in the sun. There was nothing to do but give up I am not a saint I am not a hero he repeated to himself over and over.

      In the mirror he saw her bitter look.

      Equipoise between two hindrances paralysis before the fork in the road which way leads faster to damnation one cannot tell from here the depth of the fall. So he thought at the time. He had grown.

      Nothing appeared as grand as what had never been but might be. The air was transparent as possibility it smelled without the pungent stimulating stench extremely pleasurable (piercing sweet) in small doses of reality.

      It was now clear. There was no smog at all between himself and his eyes. His movements his words were painfully awkward his thoughts his feelings were dazzling swift all powerful they swept the night in enormous dreams oh what will life hold in store. He was in love with life he could hardly bear the joy of taking in a breath the deep penetration of the light. He felt the hand of God beneath his feet each thought was touched with grace he felt the terrible privilege of living. He heard the hosannas of the angels welcoming him into time he shook in thankfulness.