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LEfreeMan

Page history last edited by Richard Doyle 15 years, 6 months ago

Who is L.E. Freeman?

 

Who asks? Harrison Bergeron, of course.

 


Untitled: or, Green Chords

 

Green chord, wrapped twist-ways round,

All tucked wilily 'way,

Wording you'll need found.

 

Will I remember?

 

These shoes, this dress, this bag,

All indicative of inward lag;

An old hymn sung in sag.

 

Does this augur?

 

What I am to become,

A building crescendo, a fading hum;

In obeisance to the One,

 

Or incidental humdrum?

 

Take in and offer back;

A kind of relay track

Only working when we lack

 

Twist-tuck guile.

 

No need to remember you,

You greened hue chord rue.

Palm up through a bow of yew,

 

That's how I flew.

 


 

 

Lemonade Secrets

 

 

By L.E. Freeman

 

 

1

 

The Staircase

 

 

 

For the same reason there is no science of history, Elle would never quite know why it happened like that on her staircase, though she could very well venture a guess. Every time without fail, upon reaching the topmost steps, she was seized by a sort of panic. Addressing Elle on this part of her ascent, an amorphous darkness enclosed and accosted her with such force, it threatened suffocation.

This was, naturally, a little off-putting. And for the first month or so Elle would wonder: Was it she that scared herself so, that caused her these frights? But it just couldn’t be. It couldn’t be entirely her doing, at least. Since it persisted in recurring without much variation, Elle eventually deemed it reasonable to assume that it was indeed something about those topmost steps. After all, the terror never stayed with her. It lived there on the staircase. To end it, she had only to step through it, to get to the top. It was that simple.

Whatever, why ever, however, or even whoever, Elle had gotten used to it by now. 203 Curtain drive had been her address for nearly three years. It was an old farmhouse, lauded the oldest in town, built in the days of steam, sporting high ceilings, unique geometry and spacious rooms. Overall, it was a warm and welcoming place, homier than most homes. And it was largely agreed upon by those who had spent more than a twiddling minute inside its walls that this was due to the residue of its yesterdays. The air in the house seemed to reverberate with aged essence. Enchanted, Elle would sometimes sit and loose herself in the layers of time, trying to feel what it would have been like to live a century, then two, then three ago, her horse hitched outside, mamma’s bread in the oven, a simple self-contained life.

Standing out in high relief from its surroundings was one stark exception. The stairs, steeply and narrowly encased, stood in sharp contrast with the rest of the house. A complete anomaly, they towered forebodingly.

Now Elle’s staircase superstition was her only irrational belief. As such, she never mentioned her daily encounter with this unnamable something to anyone. For Elle esteemed herself a reasonable young woman. And indeed, she had so far been very well trained in the way of reason-ability. In fact, Renaissance rituals had just recently rendered her a piece of parchment to prove to whomever may happen to doubt it, that Elle Bea Giuseppe, in recognition of completion of the requirements of the degree of B.S., is reason-able. Yes, she had just passed that most privileged milestone and for the first time in 17 years, found herself no longer a student.

The rapid pace of it took her by surprise. She felt thrown. And understandably so. Total life changes never feel too completely natural. But in addition to this, Elle had not known she’d be graduating as soon as she did. There must have been some confusion between the desks.

Bureau is French for desk. In a bureaucracy then, desks have the final say. Elle’s University was, like every respectable institution of the day, a bureaucracy. It is efficient in dealing with the masses. But when it comes down to it, desks are desks are desks. And the gaps between them are large enough to consume entire lives.

But Elle didn’t slip through the cracks of Bureaucracy. That is not her story. She simply had it happen that, because of some glitch (which is to say, chance), up until a month into what was her last semester, Elle thought she was going to need at least another one. Unlike her classmates then, she hadn’t commenced in taking all the little steps necessary for the next big step, let alone prepare for the transition and embrace for the turbulence that inevitably accompanies change.

Apart from this little snafu, Elle was no different than her classmates. Elle, too, wanted to take all the steps towards creating for herself a future, the “some day” of her dreams. But now, somehow, she had slipped, and saw underneath her a gaping gulf of uncertainty. Afraid of being swallowed alive, she switched into high gear. And at first, she was pretty pleased with herself. She was effectively taking action and giving her life direction. She envisioned her “some day” unfolding and taking shape. But the burden of its actualization proved an unbearable load, exhaustion took its toll, and soon enough Elle could no longer hold the requisite pieces together. It was evident both mentally and physically.

Mentally, she grew increasingly anxious. She was sleeping less and less, prone to severe mood swings, became careless, and couldn’t think straight. Performing poorly at nearly everything she did, she was no longer so pleased with herself. So she went to her doctor and got on government issued dope, xandroe. It helped.

Physically, Elle’s frame wilted and went frail. Healthily and naturally, Elle was among the 5% of all women with the body type exaggerated and worshiped by the world at large. Elle was a fence post, healthily and naturally so. Those who knew her knew this. Those who didn’t know her doubtlessly sometimes thought she had achieved an imitation of a body type other than her own through some sort of self-abuse or another. But when she started growing ever gaunter, it concerned everybody.

One day, a friend said something to Elle about it: “Something, something, something, so thin...I’m just worried, that’s all.” On hearing this, Elle stood still, glazed eyes gazing from a hollow face. She must have looked all but conscious. But unbeknownst to the outside world, Elle was involved in a taxing mental inquiry. She was caught up in wondering why it was that everything she looked at was so hard to see. It would all jump about as if trying to evade being captured by the spotlight of her attention. And it was all so bright, as if a veil of shimmering specks hung between Elle and the world. She’d have to squint to make out what was behind the spangle. Elle contemplated this peculiarity for so long that by the time she registered she had been spoken too, she could no longer remember what it was that had been said.

A little over two months went by like this. And although she was exhausted, at night, she couldn’t fall asleep. So the cycle perpetuated more and more violently. And then one day she did something stupid, which really doesn’t say much because during this time Elle had been doing many stupid things. But it was this particular stupid thing that caused in her a lucid awareness of the larger, stupid succession her days had become. And she saw the futility of her situation, that she was in fact compromising everything she was working so hard for by working for it so hard. So she stopped, took things on a first-things-first basis, and tried to best reconcile with the fact that she wouldn’t have the next step ready to jump on to when the time came.

That night, Elle slept for a long time.

When she woke up, it wasn’t to an alarm. Instead, it was to a delightful performance. Dream and conscious awareness danced, intermingled. They swiveled, swirled and spun, reeling and whirling quite elegantly. Elle enjoyed the show. They were beautiful together. But one must’ve been getting jealous of the other because, slowly, slowly, their dance turned into a sort of wrestling match. At first, it was imperceptible. But then Elle could see quite plainly that dream and conscious awareness were pushing up against one another, trying to gain power over the other so as to win Elle’s full attention. It became a full out fight to come first. Now they clashed, intermingled. Dream was getting weaker and losing. Eventually pinned down, he subsided into a consciousness of Elle’s body and her surroundings and she noticed a blindingly bright white rushing into her room from behind her drapes at a speed of 299,792,458 mile per second and wondered what time it was.

But dream hadn’t given up. He wriggled and thrust and by some miracle managed to usurp awareness, coming out victorious. Dream intoxicated Elle and dragged her under again. She let her warm body be carried along.

She was in a familiar place. It was dark, drab, dungeon-like. It was prison. Elle had been in prison since she could remember. It must have had something to do with corrupt power, because everyone, it seemed, was in prison.

In the middle of a room full of stinky, long faced cohorts who pretended not to notice, Elle and a fellow inmate performed the most central of carnal acts, from which she conceived her first child. The gestation period was a short week. And on the day she bore her babe, something like the French revolution happened. As Elle held her newborn for the first time, riots began to destroy the prison. The guards all fled. If Elle and her inmates wanted to live, and possibly escape, they would have to take it upon themselves. So, immediately postpartum, Elle and her screaming baby were on the run, navigating through the intricate bowels of the building to the back wall where there was rumored to be a way out. On the way, Elle remembered that she hadn’t yet fed her newborn. She hadn’t got a chance to; the rapid pace of it all structured it that way. But how convenient it is that newborns take breast milk! It’s the only thing I can offer on the run, anyway, she remembered thinking.

It was down time. Elle and the group of prisoners she was with were sitting in a dark corridor, awaiting the return of an inmate that had volunteered to go on ahead to scout out the route. Kneeling, cradling this crying thing, Elle exposed her left breast and put her swollen nipple near her baby’s face, hoping it was as simple as that. And it was. How real this is, she remember thinking, my first time breastfeeding. And what a curious sensation! As her baby suckled, Elle enjoyed a sweetly sentimental moment. It didn’t last long though, as it was time for the group to move on. On his return, the scout reported that they were surprisingly close to the rumored exit, that he’d seen it himself. And indeed, a hole forged by explosives brought freedom. A few carefully orchestrated acrobatic movements over and through some still settling rubble, and Elle found herself on the precipice, baby strapped to her chest. Blindingly bright white bounded, forcing her eyes shut.

When she opened them again, she was in her room, lying, feeling the whole of her body relaxed, peaceful in the farewell embrace of sleep. She had forgotten how good it can feel to be alive. She was satisfied, her body and mind delivered from the chronic agonies of hasty step taking. All that was left of the past two months was a small headache, as if she were hung-over from the madness of it all. A headache and the still lingering sensation of milk sucked through her tit. She laughed. It was about a month before graduation. Around this time she met the 10.

But that was then and this is now. Now, Elle had just taken her ceremonious walk across stage some three days ago. She was sitting at her kitchen table, enormously hung-over from the previous night’s festivities, sorting through the day’s mail. She had recently been receiving much mail from the E.C.W., a subset of the government, though no one knew what the acronym stood for. In fact, before they started keeping watch on her, Elle had never so much as even heard of them. They sent her frequent surveys, asking her to report on her daily activities, the allocation of her time, who she sees, why, what she plans on doing, and how she plans on servicing the government for all the kindness it has shown her. The nature of these questions went to confirm Elle’s mounting suspicions.

“Whatcha got there?” It was her housemate, Jenn, who had quite obviously just woken up and looked to be in just about as much hurt as Elle. She stumbled to the sink for some water.

“Just some junk mail. How’re you feeling?”

“However you’re feeling, I guess. What time did we stay up ‘til?”

Elle shrugged her shoulders.

“I don’t even remember going to bed….hey, where’s Elliot?” Elliot was Elle’s boyfriend. They had been together for nearly two years. And things were getting serious. They frequently exchanged the “l” word, and sometimes even talked about the “m” word.

“Working. He left early this morning.” Elliot was a bit older than Elle and was establishing himself in his trade.

“That’s a shame. When’ll he be back?”

“A few days.” But one was all she needed. Just one night and Elle was sure she’d get to the bottom of whatever was going on.

Elle followed Jenn back up stairs. When they reached the top most steps, Elle wondered if Jenn felt the terror too, if she'd been feeling it all these years and, if she had, if she was dying to talk to Elle about it as much as Elle was bursting to talk about it with her. But then again, maybe Jenn was too sensible for such nonsense. And self-doubt did its work once more in keeping Elle silent. Back in her room, Elle popped a xandroe and laid down in reflective repose.

 

 

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

 

Brainstorming for magazine who’s purpose statement would be something like “helping humankind evolve,” and serve as a sort of forum for investigation into our condition, broadly stated:

 

 

 

 

Out of the 10 (the 11?) comes

Multidisciplinary Association of Secret Seekers

 

Ramblings from (nameless):

 

manifesto

 

 

 

“Immersivity. Only through on-going reflective meditations and participation in a community of fellow inquirers spanning the chilia can we come to catch steadier glimpses of – of, well, ourselves. But who are we without our nexus of others or milieu of conditions? Our realm! The in-be-tWEen?

If any one phrase ever wrapped anything up, wasn’t it Socrates’ Know Thyself? Because who are we? How did we get here and where are we going?

 

Cogito. Is that it? We are trapped inside pictures of our own making! Cogito, ergo sum. Is that all?

 

And everything points to one truth. But nothing can sufficiently sum it up, no picture adequately captures! And it drives us crazy, because we always try, anyway. Oh the lull of forbidden fruit! So based on our facts or beliefs, we argue about who’s most right while making fun of who’s most wrong.

 

But then time comes along and shatters all our premises, breaks all our beliefs, and ruins our entire picture. And would you believe it, as if all of human history were inflicted by a mad repetition compulsion, we start drawing more pictures! Imprisoned!

 

But we are first and foremost agents! Actors flickering and burning-out on the grand schemed stage of things. Immersivity! Our most primordial state of being! And when we immersify, what are we handed but a series of reminders? Everything decodes.

But then we get caught up again in our land of pictures. How do we get out of this thing?

Transcend, deconstruct, whichever way it be. However fragmentary our various approaches, Secret Seekers are we!”

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