Prolog Auf Erden

("Prologue on the Earth")

The time has come. After almost six months of impatient waiting the time has finally come. Every time I try and devote my full attention to something --to really immerse myself-- there's always interruption, always some dumb little thing that draws me away from whatever it is I am trying to indulge in. It's infuriating, and inevitably breaks the tenuous connection I might have been building with a book or a piece of music. But not tonight. I will not stop listening until I'm ready to stop. I lock the door, turn off the lights, and lie down.

I turn up the volume for good measure, and press play.

A tremendous, soul-rending power chord slams through the silence with terrible strength. The bass drum behind the guitar pulses with steady regularity. It is tame, calm- simply warming up for the deluge of furious beats that its slowness portends. In the distance ominous, heavy bells clang as that first guitar chord rings on and the choir sings out in a single octave. The guitar changes chords- down a third to a lower set of notes. The drums, choir and bells stay where they are, creating wonderful tension within the sound that is resolved in another two measures.

The pattern repeats itself, and at the next cycle the guitar shifts into steady eighth notes, staying on the same chord. The choir has moved higher. This is building up towards something dreadful, I can sense it looming on the horizon. I steady myself for what may come, thrilled with the steady, exciting pace the song is revealing itself to me.

And then they appear.

The brass section thunders in, compressing my lungs with colossal force, overpowering the other instruments with the gargantuan magnitude of its sound. Their part is simple, but sweeping, regal, and jaw-droppingly majestic. It is perfect. The drums have switched to a galloping pattern now, and as I lie there, my heartbeat quickening, my entire body chilled, my soul desperately opening its jaws to accommodate the glory of it all, I can almost feel myself on the back of a horse, riding alongside thousands of fearsome, armored warriors across a muddy plain under an overcast sky. Flutes and pipes gently take over from the trumpets, ringing out in a tender, higher octave, elaborating on the musical theme the trumpets introduced. Orchestra hits strike through the sound like flashes of lightning.

And then it all stops. The guitar strikes four deep, resonating chords, complimented by cymbal crashes. My mouth spreads in a fiendish grin as I prepare for what I know is coming:

One.
Two.
Three.
Four.

The drums explode in a violent, thunderous cascade of beats as the distant roar of the vocalist slashes through the air. The sustain in his pained, feral rasp is magnificent. There is a sad, far off loneliness in it, speaking of fury and desire. I slowly sink into the wall of sound as its grip tightens over me. He stops for a moment as the drums and guitar continue on, and then returns with the same long, mournful scream, this time layered with other echoing, indiscernible words. Violins make their entrance, playing a slow, sad melody over the senseless, rushing clamor of the band below. The warriors are dying, striking each other down with malice and spite. Blood and rain is splashing up from the muddy ground, horses and people are writhing in pain. My heart quavers.

And it all stops once more. The guitar returns with the same four chords as the sad screams fade off into nothingness:

One.
Two.
Three.
Four.

The song shifts from 4/4 time into 3/4 time, and a more peaceful melody sweeps in, devoid of the heavier instruments. It contrasts sharply against the furious battle scenery of the last segment; my mind's eye is swept away from the disfigured, bloody corpses of the fallen warriors to mountains, forests, streams. As suddenly as they left, the trumpets return again, blasting out victorious triplets like beams of sunlight shining through the forest canopy. And they're building up to yet another arrival- the pipes. They move throughout the music with elven grace, trilling through almost familiar phrases, tinged with the slightest hint of Baroque. I sink further into them, swaying with the rythm.

The pipes head up an octave and get very quiet as a single voice speaks. I don't know what it is saying, and catch only hints of words as it speaks, but I don't need to understand them. The voice is low, calming, full of wisdom. It comforts me as it tells its story, and as he speaks his last words the volume of the instruments in the background gradually increase in volume. This is it. This is the culminating moment of the entire song. My mind shifts gears, attempting to understand the buildup of sound, frantically awaiting the approaching resolution. My breathing feels tightened, my fingers tingle, and then it happens:

The pipes explode into the forefront, striking out with awesome grace, captivating all of my attention. My eyes literally water as the sheer wonder of it all pours its way into my ears. This is the moment the drums have been waiting for as well, and they return with a blast of sixteenth notes that carries the melody along. The scream is back as well, still far off in the distance, behind the other instruments, but this time the sadness is gone; it now tears through the music with a primal sense of satisfaction, of victory. The wall of sound crashes down on top of me, and I lie there dazed as the music finally comes to an end, the sun shining out onto a green landscape, fresh with rain. I lie there wrapped in darkness, my heavy breathing and blazingly fast heartbeat the only things cutting through the silence, and try to steady myself before the next song comes.

This is what I have been waiting for.

(Part one of two)

Interview with the Hobo

It was Tuesday, 5:00 PM. I just got off of work moving big cardboard boxes full of office furniture in the LDS Church Office Building. If I may make an aside- the building looks like a gigantic penis,the main section of the building and the globes on either side representing their obvious body parts. I've always liked to think that the design of the building was the result of one architect's gigantic, absolutely amazing prank on the Mormon church, but I've never known for certain. Either way, it gives me joy to know that I work in the giant penis building, but I digress-

I walked out into Temple Square, arms bruised and scratched, knees aching, but filled with that incredible feeling you get after working eight straight hours lifting and pushing and maneuvering big heavy things: knowing that you are finished and have absolutely nothing to do for the rest of the day. I was feeling pretty damn good. I walked up South Temple onto Main Street and sat down at the Trax station (Trax being SLC's light rail system) and waited for the train.

A guy in a green jacket with a bunch of plastic bags crossed the street and sat down next to me on the bench. He was sort of doubled over, moving slowly, his white cross trainers scuffed and torn and worn down. I didn't mind. I think I attract homeless people.The same thing happens with little kids and animals- they are inexplicably drawn towards me. I'd forgotten how much fun homeless guys are to talk to, though, and was pretty tired, so I didn't pay him any heed at first. After a while he glanced over at me, looked down at my shirt, and opened up the conversation:

"Ohio State University, eh?"
I was wearing an Idaho State University t-shirt. He was reading at an angle, though, so he probably didn't see all of it.
"Idaho State University, actually."
"Aaaah, what are they up there, the Bengaaals?"
I was very impressed with his knowledge of the team mascot of a pretty unremarkable Idaho school.
"Yup, the ISU Bengals. This is the second time someone has asked me about the shirt, actually, but they didn't get the mascot right."

A little more time passed, we both sat in silence. I leaned back in the bench, holding my gloves, occasionally peering down the track to see if the train was coming. He spoke again:

"You ever watch the Today Show?"
"Uh, yeah, sometimes."
I don't watch the show at all.
"I was watchin that on them HDs over there. Duh hur."
He had a funny way of laughing to himself after every other phrase or so. He was very pleased with pretty much anything he said. With absolutely nothing to say, I responded with a simple, "Ah, nice," and left it at that. He soon dived into another completely random topic of one-sided conversation:

"A buck 25!!" (referring to his red Gatorade), "Got it over at them Rite Aid.... Rite Aid, duh hur."
"Yeah, I could definitely use some of that right about now." We were sitting in the sun, it was in the mid 90's."
"Yup, made a dollah today! You got a dollah?"
Homeless people use money to buy booze and drugs. I had many dollars, but not for him;
"Nope, sorry."
The Gatorade was turning his mouth into a vibrant shade of red. He smiled at me with his one tooth, his gums and lips slathered in crimson liquid.

"Yup, made a dollah, duh hur. Hey man, you wanna see my wallet? I got a really nice wallet man, all shiny leather, check it out."
For a little while I believed him. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. This wallet was actually a huge wad of 3 by 5 pieces of paper. He flicked through the pages with his thumb to show me his incredible wealth. It could have been a joke --a really bad, out of place joke-- but his characteristic laugh was absent as he showed me his wallet. He seemed completely serious, as if this really was where he kept his money. I glanced in between the slips of paper as he thumbed through them half expecting to see dollars tucked away somehwere, but they were nowhere to be seen.

"Hey man, you want a dollah? Here you go man."
He took a slip of paper and handed it to me.
"Uh, sure... Thank you."
I took it and looked at it. It came from some sort of phone book, with a bunch of numbers for different departments at the University of Utah's hospital. I folded it up and stuffed it in my pocket. He went mumbling on about something; I think in a few places I heard things about Interpol and gunships. I made a mental note to speak more clearly around others. He went on yet another tangent;

"Hey man, I worked at the U for six years, doin janitorial work, got my education up there."
I highly doubted that, but listened on anyway.
"Yup, got two years of college under my belt man, got grant money from California to go to school, duh hur."
I find it interesting that anyone in California would pay for a Utah education, but I listened on,
"Yeah man, I'm fuckin continuin my education, check this shit out man,"
He handed me one of his many plastic bags and held it open. I peered inside- it was full of blank printer paper. This guy has some sort of strange fixation on paper I guess. I admired the vast collection of academia he had in the bag, and handed it back. Before the train arrived he imparted one more piece of wisdom to me;

"I got some real good bread in here man, this is the good shit."
He reached into a different bag and held up something wrapped in black plastic.
"You get some good fuckin bread at funerals, man, that's the one good thing about them."
I decided to get on a different car than him.

Coming Out of the Closet

Deciding one afternoon to clear out all of the old crap in my closet to make room for my new crap, I set up a basket for recycling, emptied out my trash can, and delved deep into the dusty, long forgotten corners of my closet. I've kept some really stupid stuff over the years, but some of the stuff I found was really interesting, and I'd forgotten about a lot of it. Among the more notable items-

-A cumberbund (those black things you strap around your waist) from a tux. I remember very specifically looking for this one afternoon before a choir concert in high school and not finding it. I had to race down to the nearest tux shop and buy one, and barely made it to the performance in time. I have two now I guess!

-A bra, blue skirt, and black top. ... Uhhh, what? I have no idea where these things came from.

-A bunch of sketch books. For a while I was convinced as a little kid that I wanted to be a comic book artist. The drawings really suck.

-A computer magazine from 1997. The ads are the best: laptops with 200 MHZ processors and 2.1 gigabyte hard drives for $6999! I held onto it, it's become far too valuable by now to ever throw away.

-A newspaper from New Zealand. Why would I save this thing?

-The outline for a story I wanted to write once, scribbled on an envelope. I had a nightmare once, and literally screamed after waking up from it. For a long time I wanted to write a book about it, but I'm just hopeless when it comes to writing fiction, so I just let what I wrote sit. This was a really valuable find though, I may try again in a while.

-Slips of paper with dreams written on them. I used to write them down a lot, not any more though.

-Fliers from when I taught guitar. $10 for a half-hour lesson. It was a stupid job to quit, now that I've actually spent time working at real jobs.

-The "Naked Issue" of the SUNY Purchase Independent. This annual edition of the campus magazine was in circulation right around the time I visited the campus. And you thought Ithaca was liberal.

-A copy of The Book of Mormon my stalker gave me for Christmas. This girl used to follow me home at night after rehearsals for the musical and watch me park in my driveway. Sometimes she'd park on my street facing the opposite way and watch me drive home. Thankfully it only went on for a few months.

A Fire Inside

For the disappointingly commercial edge their music has taken as their popularity has grown,
for all the lame high school English class literary references they throw into their music,
for that awful thing Davey Havok has done to his hair in recent years,
lyrics like this make me wonder why I write:

Breathe in the life of the summer's death
as the orange and red breathe their first breath,
so welcome as they're burning through.

I'd never really paid attention to the words before now, I'm not much of a lyrics person, but wow. For a bunch of 90's punk rockers, AFI can turn a phrase.
(And I spelled Malleus Maleficarum right on the first try!)

Inside Cat

Johnny Mathis stands at the precipice of Outside, crouched down, sniffing at the door frame. This is no ordinary unexplored closet or space beneath the bed, this is something new entirely. It is unfamiliar. Outside is ever present behind the windows he so often growls at the birds from, but when faced with the prospect of actually setting foot outside the house and exploring he has no idea what to do. His ears pricked up, he daintily cranes his grey and white head out, peering around the corner. I stand a few feet behind, keeping my eye on him as I clean out and reorder my bookshelf.

While Johnny is inside the house he is bored, complacent, a little hostile. He'll often leap up while lounging on the carpet in the center of the floor to chase after some sort of ghostly prey, his claws digging into the carpet, his tail raised up. While I walk down the stairs he makes sport of chasing me and swatting from the first staircase as I make my way down the second. He is truly the master of the house- sometimes seeking affection and attention when feeling bored or playful, always dashing away in disgust whenever anyone makes to pet him or pick him up.

To see him so humbled in the face of the great, unknowable vastness of the deck above our backyard is very funny. Every noise and motion I make sends panic straight into his little feline heart, and he dashes out of the room, only to return to the vestibule of Outside after a few moments. Even now he is sitting in the center of my room, surveying the giant collection of random things scattered over the floor, standing tall, chest thrust forward, ears standing at attention. Yet when faced with the unfamiliar he is flattened to the ground, on the alert for any number of fearsome beasts that lurk beyond the protection of the sliding glass door.

I used to be an inside cat.
I wonder if I still am.

Cellar Door

"A sight for sore eyes."
It's really a beautiful expression. It is perhaps a little cheapened by it's heavy, cliched usage, but if you take a minute to think about it, it's really very pretty.

"Sore eyes." Sore implies too much use. Imagine- having eyes that are always sore. To have experienced so much, to be so jaded and world weary as to have sore eyes --to be so unenthusiastic about life that even looking out at it is a painful exercise-- how awful. One of my favorite lyrics is, "Now let me close my eyes cause I don't wanna see anything anymore." It implies an unthinkable level of pain, weariness, hopelessness.

And to be the recipient of such a complement. To be someone with the power to inject new life and enthusiasm into a splintered, dried up human being. To be the one that makes even looking at the world with pained eyes worthwhile again.
How incredible.