The Other Side of the Story - Part 1?

July 28, 2008

The Other Side of the Story - Part 1?

Direct is just my way. It's endearing, I find, in a falling on your face from a foot and a half up kind of way. "Did I break anything," I say, with a wiggle of my nose bridge, "No, but what the fuck just hit me, or what did I hit? Is it okay? Have I gotten passed the point where I care less about my injuries and more about the object that broke my fall? It could possibly have been inanimate, in which case, I don't know, unless it's a stained glass window, what's to care about. Even if it were, then, huh?" The rattling breath I heave in to begin the coercion of my senses into some semblance of cohesion tells me that I'd better see about me for a couple more seconds at least. There's no blood, so I guess it wasn't glass, stained or otherwise, nor was it sharper than a stop on a dime, or I'd be split into two pieces. My inner eye hasn't stopped spinning like a top just yet though, so whatever it was must have been harder than my notion's constitution. I could cry and complain, but I'm not at the recovery phase just yet, and I have no idea how long that will last, could be a couple of light years, or less than a second's breath, but in the infinity between congruence and cacophony it seems all but irrelevant.

Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut. Sometimes I don't see the warning signs until I've made intimate terms with an anvil's table-top (that's what it was! But the soft iron made for just a jarring experience), and I get myself into what most would call trouble. But until you've seen a Seles backhand in the form of an iron skillet, you'd have no idea the notion of trouble, or trouble's constituents for that matter. I didn't mean break me off a piece in the literal sense, but more, in a creative sense. Where the idea is taken in, shared, enjoyed and then made into something else to then be shared, enjoyed…blahdiddyadda…and so on…and so forth…the anvil wasn't listening. It must be a busy piece of equipment. All that hammering and white fire and such. It must work 10-12 hour days, and then have a beautiful anvil to come home to after a hard days work of getting hammered, so, by rights he must have to transfer some of the earnings...so to speak. I can't blame him though...have you seen his anvil?!

There must be a couple of screws still loose upstairs, but I can tell there's men hard at work, because the smell of horses and hay on its post-postmortem was the first thing to register and with it came the flood. The farmer's daughter, his wife, him, the sheep (all of them), the reach for the door, the bottle of Aunt Jemima Syrup and the quick inquiring thought about it's proper uses, the foot race (with me its only competitor), the long, slow, boring conversation about the rights of some peoples and the lack thereof of others (if only his cohorts new about the syrup…), the tussle, the anvil and the sweet smell of a stallion's aftermath… I'm surprised I'm still here.

Reaching my hand for an assist that would never come, I realized my error: Don't forget to leave out the part about challenging their definition, and using their name when they're in heat only meets with a short fall into a long wagon. "But don't you see that your affiliation with your…umm, Klan…Stan – no judgment…is just a distraction from your own joyful state?" Apparently them's fightin' words in this here place. Apparently the words "no" and "judgment" when used in conjunction only make people think you really are judging them. But not only that, apparently it stands to mean that the person who utters those words (for the moment anyway) is God almighty incarnate, in the flesh, and now's their chance to beat down the only thing that would solidify their actions as truly unseemly. They know it. They just won't admit it in this here place.

A dim, dank barn from the smell of it, and the sight of it's not much better, with its rusty tools that implement the seasonal demise of hayfields all across the wide open expanse of America's great planes (yeh-huh, planes) – at least I think that's what they're used for. I guess when someone believes so deeply in their definition, what they do, who they do it to and who they affiliate with to become what they are first and foremost, and, as opposed to realizing their humanity is lying just under the covers, they attach themselves to it like a large three mast ship to a dropped anchor, and if you try to be the wind in those unfurled sails, something's gotta give…

It was my face, from the outcome of it, or my lack of fisticuffs ability – chicken or the egg there – and as soon as that gave way, so did what passed for my consciousness. I've had this theory that, even though you're out cold you're still aware in some capacity, because the only thing that persists through time and space is you, or, to put it another way, your omnipotence, because the only thing that's out cold is what you think you are in relation to a great grandfather clock. How is that going to help me here? It's not. But it's nice to know that my faculties are still in a modicum of working order.

I shake in the cobwebs a bit as my eyes adjust to the new level of light, and when I lift my head, I find that I'm looking into the amused set of the single horse who shares with me the confines of my temporary abode – a gorgeous piebald pinto, whose eyes are, through some marvel of scientific terminology, a curious deep blue. Those eyes are saying, "Dude, I can't believe you were sleeping where you slept, but, you can do what you want." (Apparently Kansas horses speak in Californian, and they're big on allowing you to be and do what you feel like, even if it's sleeping without your legs underneath you…).

While I'm checking my face for feces, I hear voices from outside speaking in a drunken, slow southern drawl. From the sounds of it, they're not too concerned with where I nap either, but they are concerned with what to do with me once I'm awake, because they're foot stomping mad, like a leprechaun who just lost his pot'o'gold to a quicker competitor (they should watch that temper, it just makes them seem petulant. not that petulant's a bad thing per se, or that one should really care too much about what the world thinks of them for being what it is that makes them happy, but still...). And since I've never been one to want to find out anyone's plans for me before I can hatch my own, I move gingerly across the dirt floor to test the big wooden door leading to salvation. It's locked; from the outside. By something that would probably look like a hayfork, or maybe a wooden cross as of yet to be burned for yet another hundred year old misunderstanding.

I don't really want them to know that I'm awake just yet, but only because it's dark outside and if I let them know now, then I'd ruin my chances for escape, so I find a place to sit comfortably and meditate for a couple of minutes. The knot in the middle of my forehead is growing larger and more uncomfortable by the minute, but only by way of resistance, so I slip a little deeper, past what I think I am, and into the indefinable in order to allow for clearance and lift off, but before I can go too deep and just after the point of acknowledging that pain exists, I hear my buddy boy piebald…neigh? whinney?...in what I would call one of most beautiful voices I've ever heard (maybe I could take it on the road. We'd make a fortune with that throat. It'd be like the frog singing broadway show tunes, only, with a horse, who whinnies...neighs?). I look up to see piebald halfway up a stair leading into a hayloft I didn't notice before (I didn't know horses could climb stairs) and those eyes again, apparently not as impressed with the sound of his own voice as I am, say, "Hey man, we can get out this way. What the hell are you doing sitting on your ass for?" (someone should teach him that you're not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition. Where'd he get his education at?). Then he makes his way up without even a backward glance...