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JackPhantasm
A man sat upon a fish.

Age 36, Male

Joined on 9/29/03

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Clarity

Posted by JackPhantasm - May 24th, 2008


Cold cut satisfaction lets out a sigh of relief, finally free from the catch. Free to search and free to kill all suspicion, drifting past every sense and into the heart. Beating down the door to you, to her, to him, to them, to anyone really. It's a story; one just has to read it. Listen now, listen here, listen; to the story, you'd never hear.

- Genesis -

There was a hill, in a place where there are many hills, along with grass and trees and other things that aim to please. But this hill was different, this hill was unique, this hill had architectural personality, for on this hill, there was a tower built of wood and stick, fastened with rope, and made dusty by the wind and rain. Very skinny, and extremely narrow was this pillar of oak and pine, and equally thin and small was the ladder that led up to the top from its extremely minute bottom.

Alone in a land of hills this meager tower sits atop, leaning over its surroundings as if it were letting out a low, indistinct and continuous sound, and at every day's inception, an equally gaunt and little being, a personified murmur of sentient existence, shimmies up the tower to deposit a certain tiny something into the vessel that lies specifically at the top of this skinny tower. The skinniest spot one could possibly rest a tiny something in a small fashion.

This being knew nothing but this process, its purpose, its niche. It was in the best of ignorant bliss one could possibly know. Naked as a soul, it calmly grasps each ladder bar almost mechanically, making more motion than sound. Under the cold blue and shimmering moon, sat the light from of the star, bounced off the satellite and laid down upon the land, a cool glowing finish upon the black surface of the night, the tower was bathed in such a high contrast that the small being was entirely eclipsed by shadow, bar a few shimmers of movement that indicated by its increasing elevation. The being knew not what the stars were or where they came from, it didn't even know that the object above it was known by the moniker of moon, or Luna. It simply called it "lighter cousin," 'for it was bright and the being was encased in shadow,' it shown out above everything and the little materialization of flesh and feeling crept quietly beneath, under, littler, smaller. In descript anonymity of mass and volume, not vast and ariel, not orbital and rotational, just singular and continuous. In a single straight line, a chain of events, this being existed in. Trapped and free, fixed and suspended, floating in a position of being, a little crevice of existence. Wrapped in its own wonderful little world.

This creature was known as a burrowing fold. An entity labeled, precisely and specifically, as a small-fallowed ponker, the plural being, simply, the ponk. There were many a sort of ponk, the small-fallowed being one of many different arrays. Each one was completely different from the other, for there can only be one small-fallow ponker at any given moment, just as there can be not but one large-gallow ponker, and one wide-burrowed ponker, and so on.

A name, at first glance, that manages to hold a rather frivolous tone about it, but it is in actuality far more particular, the ubiquitous nature of the ponk etched perfectly by each label. Paired in existence only here, for the nature and being of the ponk is one unknown to the vast majority, that is to say, all and every one. Every person, every thing, is unaware of the small ways of the small-fallow ones, yet it exists so close to us. To ever one and every thing, the ponker touches, brushes up against, resting adjacent, synchronously minute and gigantic, simultaneously invisible and massively relevant, concurrently very far away, and very close.

All these characteristics were laid down in the land of the ponk, married with the dirt were the smells, tied to the trees was the wind, floating above were the clouds, which stole away from the land to make their own geometry. All of it, this sphere of existence shaped out in its own way, in its own dimension, continuing down its path, made of smaller paths, composed of even smaller decisions and choices, weaved together by the choices and actions of every necessary and superfluous pattern, whether sentient as a human or inanimate as glass, it was all dependent on the ponk, no matter whether it was as dark as the night or as bright as the moon above it. Ah, the moon, eternally slipping around and yet pinned, with the ponker underneath it. Climbing up its ladder. To lie to rest the burden held within itself.

It was extremely heavy for its size, this burden, and strain could be seen on the coarse muscular lines of the ponker's gaunt torso, and on the bones of its many cheeks. The ponk were significantly distinct in aesthetic features, their cheek bones heavily extending like that of a primate, but were then again overlaid by additional bones, creating a sort of nest of stretched skin which framed their dominant nose and contrasting brow, casting decently attractive shadows across their face. Shadows were all of the eye that was visible, shadows that were lined, at the moment, with sweat, as the ponker reached the top of the ladder that seemed to disappear now below him, releasing a deep sigh that resonated in the awry silence of the land. Stepping slowly into the chamber at the top of the tower, the ponker's muscles relaxed, and he released his grip on what he had brought to give up. His journey, for now, had reached a pause in physical effort.

The room the ponker now stood before was austere save for a few small, incomplete columns radiating out of its center. The top halves dropped down menacingly over the bottoms, filled with kinetic anticipation. The columns appeared to move, by illusion, the same way a sculpture or tree moves, when one walks around it. Now, when visualizing anything in this land, one must keep in mind that this is an entirely unknown area. What is a column here isn't a column there, what is a top here may very well be a bottom there. In fact the ponker does not even see itself as one of the ponk, it is does not see the many hills as hills, the clouds as clouds, the tower as a tower, it experiences everything only in the context of its purpose, several points that create a line, pointing in the direction it knows it must go, for it is indeed one of the ponk, though it doesn't know, and if it saw anything aside from what was absolutely necessary for it to see, it would not be able to do its job. So, that said, what lay before the ponker could only be for certain a space, every other aspect fading into darkness. However, for navigational narrative reasons that must be followed into ascertain any sense of coherent objectiveness in this unimaginable space, the ponker did indeed, approached the center of the room in front of it as one might approach the aforementioned broken columns.

The burden grew heavier as the ponker drew its gaze more directly towards the center of the formation, it felt something, its nose drew up from the inspecting the aroma's of the ground, turning directly towards like a scanty skin covered arrow. The ponker felt something new, on top of the normal, spine-crushing weight of its purpose. The ponker had never felt anything other than its purpose, and this new mood that rushed into it was definitely something it did not know. Unaware of it, the ponker began to feel its end, pain rushed into it with tidal force from the burden it was carrying. Quietly at first, like soft thunder, then louder, a reverberating roar that pulsed through its blood and muscle, a careening sensory slamming straight into its heart and mind.

The ponker screamed, though it did not know or call it that, a shrill and hallow sound that could only be described as echoing this pain, and its burden began to lift, lighting up its chest and pulling it upwards, into the air, towards the broken columns. Its eyes lit up now, the rigid sockets could be seen, deep and callous, as they looked towards the center of the space, seeing beyond it. The ponker saw itself now, in the room and out of the room, alive and dead, real and unreal. The area around it now was disappearing, but the columns remained, now deepening around the ponker and growing larger, they began to glow with what could clearly be seen as heat. The scream of the ponker had become one with the thoughts and feelings around it, and it lost the ability to discern the difference between anything, between what was and wasn't happening. It forgot its place, it forgot itself, it forgot its purpose. Outside of the tower, the scream and another, indistinct sound merged to send an eerie tone out across the silent patches of hills, now clothed in the growing shadow of what could be defined as an evening.

Inside the tower, the columns were no longer physical, they had ascended, becoming mere beams of cylindrical energy, which began rotating around the ponker at an increasing rate. The ponker, which was now redefined by experience, in a sensory overload, it finally realized what was happening. Turning its gaze down before it, the ponker saw, on the ground below its suspended form, its purpose, the burden it had been carrying. It sat there, scintillating and neutral, but the ponker could feel still feel its weight pulling on it. It still felt the connection it had before, it seemed like a long time ago to the ponker, though it had no concept of time, it knew that it felt like it knew this shimmering entity from another lifetime. Outside, the hills began to change shape, melting into valleys and plains that filled with lakes and eroded with rivers. Clouds shooting by like galactic bullets, light fading and coming, weather receding and proceeding, colors revolving like doors and carousels upon wet moors and shore banks.

Suddenly, the weight broke, and the ponker was hurled towards the center of a silent blackness.

- Creation, and lots of Recreation -

*Clank*

My bloodied boots hit the ground one last time.

Capital punishment, smoke trails of justice, and the smell of leaving a few more souls in awe of your generous disregard for everything logical or with a hint of orthodox muting.

I seriously needed those toothpicks today. I always carry a pack, because stuff just always seems to find a way in to my sweet mouth. The blood just won't come out no matter how much I spit. I think I almost choked on those flying brains earlier. How annoying.

The cash box was blown apart, the buttons had revealed their springs as had the door its cash, 23 diddles, not pretty but enough to take. Fuck it, I'd even take one diddle to be perfectly honest. Everything else was strewn about it in equal poetic fashion, the condiments, fresh cat juice, mixed bug guts, even some Martianesque eggs, had come to rest perfectly all over the floor, it gave the fella' a festive artsy flavor. It really did make me smile. Not laugh, because it wasn't really no laughing matter, but more one of those calm artistically ironic moments that one has to appreciate in some sort of fashion. I settled for a smile, a smile I knew was probably the coolest calm smile this side of the galaxy had ever seen. Framed by the smoke of my space grenade hanging in the air. His face was blown off; the condiments really did add flare.

"What the hell are you looking at mooncalf, this isn't theatre, do I look like a fucking actor." I guess guys on this rim don't see rites of passage very often. To be fair, this didn't really count as that, I just didn't like the way the guy looked at me when I clanked down, he had beady eyes. Pools of blood and ketchup worms in a socket less crater face fitted his personality much better. Most likely wasn't even a cowboy, but that's chump change, and now this other, additional mongoose seemed to be getting an attitude. He just kept looking at crater face, and then back at me, then back again to spaghetti boy, then maybe a small sigh, it was getting rather annoying. Finicky fella. Had I not been looking at weasel wheeze, I would've noticed that crater face was beginning to effervesce like fine berry wine. The condiments were terrified as steam began pouring out of spaghetti boy, it was really stinky steam. An inhuman shriek caused me to turn back towards the weasel just in time, his face had become distorted, like it was made of wax, as he lunged straight at me with a lizard-like tongue.

Shit, shape shifters.

I had caught the other one pretty much at the get go, slipped a nice little frag-man right in its pocket, beautiful additions in the areas of décor and sheik if I do say so myself. The other people in the pub station had tried to leave immediately, the little suck and woosh of the airlock doors making a slow short trill as the first few all left in one small exodus. But that was no show, I put a stop to that. Can't have witnesses. I've made de-magnetizing ones boots an art in this galaxy, I'm the fucking Da Vinci of it. And with a quick flip of the magnet switch, I'm flying through the air to playfully slaughter these would be passer bys. The old weasel man had been the only one left. But I now knew, this was no man.

By the time it was close enough to smell I could see it for what it was. Shapeless flesh, thick muscles, and teeth that filled up what could be a face like a thicket of bony thistles; a cluster fuck of pain, good thing I can dodge faster than a ram. The teeth are the only things that scare me. It's always the teeth that get you.

Bounding up again after hitting the wall, mongoose comes back for more, but I'm ready this time. Never go anywhere with out a ridiculous amount of weapons. It's common sense really. And I had lots of it. I will now blindly draw out a sharp knife most likely crafted in the center of one of a few rare star formations, there's only 3 of these knives in the universe. I don't have to look to know it's by my side, waiting to be used. It loves the kill, that release of energy; it feels like a thousand suns beating out of my heart to fill my mind with the raw sensations of instinct and survival. I'm alive. I'm alive and you aren't going anywhere.

The vicious slug shit piles at me.

*Thwiip*

It's in my hand. Hello friend.

...Swaaaaaoosh?

I can't really describe the second sound. Imagine a giant slug, muscled like a mammal, every changing like water, and filled with the smelliest toxins and fluids imaginable. Put it this way, it definitely added more flavor to everything, and I definitely needed those toothpicks even more now. Fucking hell...

*click*

I was blinded. My eyes and ears were on fire. I felt like a piece of myself had been blown away.

It came from the door. I could see the station slowly fading back into a dim focus, ornamented with a wonderful headache. That was a camera wasn't it? I remember those things; I had always hated them. They were the superficial monsters that carved society before it fell, sustaining shallow traditions with carnal tenacity. Devil machines. Tracking and trapping information, stopping the flow of energy and hording it below, out of reach, ultimately stealing all of man's emotion, his courage, his intelligence, his information, it all relied on this wretched photographs. Soul stealers, smile takers, eye grabbers, memory snatchers, they take a piece of you bit by bit. Each click, each take, each shot. I could feel the hole left behind by the shot that had been taken of me. That bastard, no one takes a picture of me and gets away with it, no one gets away with a piece of me.

No one.

Running blindly out the airlock, I attack the docking catwalk like I shouldn't, by flying through the air past it and careening into the hull of my ship. Guess I should've left the magnets on that time, but I needed every second. This guy was getting away with a part of me, and if he developed it, there would be nothing I could do to get it back. It'd be gone, like the rest of humanity, buried in a still. Trapped in a useless memory.

I couldn't see the engine lights go on, but I felt the ship give, and I could see the light of the bastard's tail jets in front of me. Not getting away without me for company, buddy. He's gone and upset himself a real cowboy. I'm no joke, I'll fucking kill him, and he deserves it. They all pretty much deserve it, people are such a waste of energy. They interfere with the natural order of the universe on a fundamental level. Dangerous frequencies. Entropy will thank me, when I'm done. In the end we all get there anyways.

My vision started to come back full fledged, and then I realized where I was. Not just in space, somehow, how had it happened? I'd only been following him for a short while...somehow.

Somehow I had followed this man towards the end. And when we arrived I realized everything, horrible clarity consumed me. All the knowledge that had been lost, images rained down from space like gigantic galactic storms. I began to scream. And realized that it was all-fake, it was all the same, it was all real, and it was all dead and alive, it was a photo, a movie, a single entity. There was nothing individual, there was no choice. I laughed, before the white light of knowledge consumed me, and I caught fire. I saw it on my hands, red flames, bursting from my fingertips, then my eyes, I couldn't even feel the pain.

It all happened so fast.

I exploded.

And all was lost.

And all began.

Once again.

- Recap -

Imagine nothingness, where there had always been nothing. Not blackness, nor whiteness, existence, dissonance. No differences, no spatial relations, infinite vacuity, stuck in suspension, suddenly, nothing moves. Nothing, starts to become something. The ponker opens it eyes, where was it?

It couldn't see anything, feel anything, hear, taste, or smell anything. But it knew it was a thing, in something. Somewhere. Somehow. Where had it come from, what was it?

The ponk were not always the only beings in the universes to carry burdens. No, there once were quite more than a few types of what the ponk was. There were clonks, and zonks, even bonks, tronks, spelonks, donks, split down by several conks, would soon mate with plonks to form doconplonks, and so on.

Illustratively, imagine an infinite amount of beings, all traveling and changing through space. They all shared one thing, the burden of time.

An unknown, undefined, intangible force.

The ponker suddenly saw something far away, off in the distance, a great infinite leap of space so incomprehensibly huge, it is pointless to attempt to paint such a picture. A single bit, waiting in suddenly what it realizes is an unending sea of all sorts of bits. Dark, tiny, silent pieces, waiting to be awakened, waiting to be fully realized, waiting for purpose, the ponker began to feel all of this, it's eyes wide open.

It didn't understand it but it knew it was its eye, it could feel the connection to it, it could move it, though it still couldn't see anything, it could feel it moving around. It could feel its lids opening and shutting. It ran what could be a tongue along its mouth, feeling the contours of its teeth. A gasp exited its mouth as it realized its existence.

Suddenly, the ponker saw something, something new, something exciting. Light. Light was coming towards the ponker, a tiny speck at first on an infinite canvas of blackness, it slowly grew, coming closer and closer. The ponker smiled, it knew what the light meant, change was coming. Energy was alive and coming back to help the ponker carry its burden once more.

The dot grew from a pinprick into a small globe, then into a fiery burning circle, then into all consuming flares, and then there was nothing but the beautiful brightness.

- The Fall of Man -

People always say that I look like my father, I guess that's true, ones son does tend to look like ones own self. The blood travels down the line, carrying on our flesh and spirits. We connect as more than just a family, I am not just son, but companion to my father. Younger kin to my mother, soul mate to my sister, friend to my brother. We've always lived this way, intertwined in living and loving. Pure and simple. But today is different, today I leave for the city of roads, where I will find the pathway to my wildest dreams, answers to my darkest questions, the solutions to my realist fears.

The family apartheid runs rough against my heart, still, and I find myself questioning my choice. My decision to thrust myself into the spoon-fed arms of adulthood, weaned away from self-indulgence and teased towards admirable discipline. I was going into the legion. It was an honor, a scary one.

The first month is grueling, my sole task, I am forced to walk up the steep hills of Cermalus, Cispius, Fagutal, Oppius, Palatium, Sucusa and Velia, trekking solidly across their mythic peaks until my legs are carved from the heavens and my lungs can carry the wind of the rough seas. The work is rewarding and sobering.

Second month, I begin combat training. The first weapon, the classic spear.

"Your spear is your aid. Your spear is your friend, your spear will keep you alive!" The man ahead of me is teaching me, telling me, trying to show me how to use this spear. But I already know it closer than he could ever tell, he is ignorant of my true ambition.

I can throw a spear fast, but I throw thoughts faster.

I rise fast, my talent for thought leads me to commanding positions. I gain control, I gain power, I gain wisdom of every little horrible thing.

Here I am now, fast forward, past everything uncomfortable, everything unnecessary, everything trivial, to the things, the time that matters. Where I am now, at the present, happening and existing currently. For I am resting before a battle, and meditation after a war. I am alive after a death, and painfully aware after shedding ignorant thought, I am walking in the woods, and I am entranced in the things I see around me.

The light is ambient, and beautiful. I feel that all that matters at the second I look at anything around me is the exact thing that I am looking at in that instant, in that moment, I am it and it is me, I am around myself and the self around me is within my soul. I turn to my companion, who tells me quietly.

"Aenaes, seek the west, seek the world that you once visited when you slept, seek the destiny you left behind, find the land you once called home."

The words sound garbled and read backwards and forwards, interlacing between my ears and my eyes. I see the words, I hear the words, I feel the words, anesthesia kicks in upon my perception of the world. I kneel down on the ground, and look straight ahead, there is a path. It feels as though, though there is no apparent reason for it, that I must go down this way, I have to follow this path, I have to find out where it leads.

Something may happen, I may not return from where I go, I may not make it back from the decision I choose to carry, the possibilities and chances I activate with each step, the amount of endings that could happen terrifies me. Completely unknown, solid, intrepid mystery. I move forward as I must.

I go down the path. I follow it, and I begin to realize with wonder the decision I have made. I see what it all means now, I can see. I see it all. I am complete.

- Genealogies -

The ponker existed now, once again, in front of a vast sweeping landscape of hills as far as the eye could see. It saw other ponkers around it, it saw the drooping, ornery towers that it new it must climb eventually, once more. It didn't know that it knew this, but it knew that it must get going, that it had a place to be, and things to do. A burden to carry, and no time to waste. Being at the right place, at a certain time, the ponker realizes that it all is the same, and that it will continue to do its job, right next to you, pristinely and precisely.

The ponk are all around the universe, scurrying back and forth, up and down structures unseen by most, they are out of sight, but not out of reach, out of touch, but not unfelt. They are energy, they are existence, they're moving time for you right now. Feel lucky that you aren't the one that has carry to it.


Comments

I like the first verse, not too fond of the other two.

dammit I knew it.

I didn't picture you for such a great writer. Normally I would give constructive criticism and point out things I didn't like, but I did like all of it.

Write more!

I like it, but request an explosion somewhere in it.

fo sho

Wow you got a lot in your mind, you got some good writing skills. You actually got me to read something : P

Geez, you SHOULD get more comments than me.

haha so true. but you're a girl and that makes you infinitely cooler by internet standards.