Extended Metaphore #385

The overly defensive definition of "integrity," with words that forbid any pokes into its glassy surface ("unmarred," "uncorrupted," "undivided"), suggest that it's delicate perfection was meant to be breached; the way the round shape of a big bubble implies the word, "POP!"

An Evening Villanelle: The Soul That Left The Body Whole

The soul that left the body whole.
I’ve become a bargain tune about where I am from,
It’s ringing up its minor toll.

My mom died when she wasn’t old.
One faded photo: a pretty girl in beachside sun.
The soul that left the body whole.

Telephones sing and churchbells roll
But quietly over these major chords, her voice comes.
It’s ringing up its minor toll.

Like songs of the old rock and roll
Playing in space after the Age of Music is done;
The soul that left the body whole.

I’ve burned through life like burning coal;
Energy’s cheap for now, but there is still a price for the fun.
It’s ringing up its minor toll.

But I don’t care, I won’t replace all the things I stole.
Have a son take a picture then die; while I’m still young.
The soul that left the body whole:
It’s ringing up its minor toll.

Flare of the Sun

Martin woke up at 6:15 in the morning, more out of habit than anything. Immediately he stood up and made his queen-sized bed. The Union had been on strike for two weeks so he didn’t have to be at the factory until 9:30 when the picketing started. Martin yawned and padded down the hall in his bare feet. It was not yet dawn, so he turned on all the lights as he went. He liked his shower hot from the moment he got in so he set it running before going into his son’s room. Everything in the room was in perfect order, but Martin straightened things up anyway. He remade the already made bed and arranged the pictureframes on the dresser just so. Since Martin’s wife moved out, their son Brian had been staying at her new condo. But Martin still went through the same routine in the morning; habit has a tendency of overcoming common sense.

After his shower, Martin turned on all the lights in the house and the television in order to chase the pre-dawn darkness outside where it belonged. In the kitchen he scooped some fresh coffee grounds into the machine, filled its belly with water, and pressed “BREW.” He fetched the paper from the stoop and sat in front of the early morning cycles of the 24 hour news. A panel of various experts was discussing global warming. It was a slow news day.

Martin excised the sports section of the paper as a bespectacled head on the TV expounded a theory that global warming “existed completely beyond human control” and was actually caused by solar flares. The head claimed that the illusion of heightened global temperatures threatening civilization was actually a statistical trick, and the entire problem of ‘global warming’ existed in only our minds.

While reading the chart of weekend baseball statistics, Martin partially absorbed the noise of the television the same way he used to absorb his wife’s early morning chatter. The onscreen display of the 24 hour news station was buzzing with information, and Martin’s mind mirrored that same hectic style. A mental anchor read him the baseball scores aloud in his head, while impressions of the morning’s early weather displayed graphically on the top right. And ideas of global warming, influenced by the shouting voices on the TV, scrawled across the bottom ticker of his brain. He went on reading.

But slowly the fervid twist of all Martin’s thoughts subtly grew into one single idea. By small degrees, this idea arose and articulated itself into existence. Martin began to wonder, to no one in particular, certain unordinary things:

“The world used to be dark at night,” he thought. “Baseball used to be a daytime sport. The players had to clock out at five like the rest of us. But now there are lights. Now thick and hungry wiring slithers under the ground and then stretches through the air, bustling with wattage. At first we tamed the lightning into cables, but now it surrounds us—above and below—containing us in the web-like tangle of an electric cage. Baseball stadiums are meccas of energy, drawing in devout volts…”

Martin let the newspaper fall onto his lap with a light rustle. His eyes, under knitted brows, stared at nothing. Two and a half weeks the Autoworker’s Union had been on strike; Martin hadn’t done his job for two and a half weeks. A hard-working man—when deprived of his hard work—will start to produce automotive little thoughts instead of producing cars. Like a single star in the sky surging with excess energy, the explosions of Martin’s mind multiplied on top of one another:

“I remember when I took Brian to his first nightgame. Wires from all directions must have fed a billion filaments inside a million bulbs and they silently shined onto the field with a cool electric hum. Brian noticed how the players on the team didn’t cast any shadows, which was pretty impressive for such a little kid to notice. The diamond existed in some impossible reality, full of a light that radiated from everywhere but had no source. The awesome power of a man-made sun.”

His thoughts grew in scale and Martin’s mind chugged onward.

“The world used to be dark at night. But this planet has been spinning like a rotisserie for eons. Dead plants and animals have been cooked into a thick underground oil and flaky deposits of coal. And now, in the night, we harvest old sunshine to tide us over until morning. The streetlights must be powered, the darkness will not get a hold. It is a matter of safety for my family, for everyone’s family.”

The television rattled off statistics about the increasing rates of global temperatures and a computer animated cartoon demonstrated how fossil fuels push warming chemicals into the air.

“This is my fault,” thought Martin. “For years I’ve tried to teach Brian responsibility, and now what do I have to say for myself? This Earth was just starting to live before we aged it. Before I aged it.”

Suddenly Martin looked up and noticed things in his living room that had become unnoticeable through his daily habits. Nothing seemed fine. All the lamps glowed like supergiants. They aligned themselves into a constellation, depicting an ancient god of the apocalypse. The dawn set in and sunshine began to fill the room like a flood. All the walls became brighter and brighter, all things coming into a clearer light. Every powered machine turned into a laughing monster that craved the Earth’s soul, and power outlets squealed like the snouts of insatiable swine. The way he ran his shower in the morning, the nights he fell asleep in front of the TV, automobiles that he manufactured with his own hands; all these innocent parts of Martin’s ordinary life turned to horrors before him.

How could he explain to his son that he built a hundred four-seater devils everyday that accomplished nothing and spewed poison? And now he and his Union were on strike (this seemed ridiculous to him now) in order to demand more money for these undoings. That old doubt that had nagged his mind for years, like an un-oilable squeak in the cogs, now screamed for attention again, “Am I as good an example to Brian as my father was to me?

“When I was a child my father had fixed the world, not broken it. He and an army of superdads had disciplined the fascism out of Europe. The environment was incidental and global warming non-existent. My dad had earned the right to ride a sputtering pickup truck down fast forest roads, the flakes of rust on its shell matching the daily-changing autumn leaves. And me with my little boy’s head out the window, I smelled the crisp afternoon air mix with the unmistakable stream of fresh gasoline fumes pouring from the cracks around the hood.”

Martin then willed himself to drift pack into the present. He thought “That truck used to mean the world to me. How can it have been the thing that killed the Earth? Surely we can all forgive just one pickup, on one fall day, over 30 years ago. But all the dads in all the pickups on all the back roads—an army of them—chugging chemicals into the sky, they cannot all be absolved. All of them together are to blame, it wasn’t on purpose…

“How can I explain to my son that the world I’m leaving him is dying? It is my fault and my waste, but not really. It is everyone’s fault and so it is no one’s fault. I hate to admit it but, over time, I guess I’ve gotten used to explaining the unfairness of the world to Brian. Like when I had to tell him that his mother and I were getting divorced. ‘It isn’t my fault and it isn’t her fault. It isn’t your fault. It isn’t your fault. This problem isn’t your fault.’ His parents are broken up and the Earth too. I’ve loved the boy since his first breath of atmosphere, and now the whole thing’s poisoned.”

Depression rung through Martin’s chest, and he wished for the innocence that his father had in that pickup all those years ago. “There is so much information nowadays,” he thought, “so many ways to blame yourself. It’s too much for one person, too much for me.”

Martin pressed his palms over his eye sockets and thought for a moment that he was going to cry. But he soon calmed himself. Like that flash attack of panic when you catch your foot while running downstairs and almost—but just almost—throw your skeleton down the steps’ jagged corners, this feeling too subsided. The sun crawled higher and the room grew ever brighter, but Martin took a deep breath, laughed a little at himself, and pretended that his hands didn’t feel like shaking jelly. He figured it was just stress that made him think this way. The house was too empty of his son’s presence and too full of his wife’s memory. But before dropping the matter altogether one final thought crossed his mind, like a shadow passing over a blank white wall and then disappearing into the air:

“A new century is beginning,” he chanted in his head, “a new millennium. Though years are just arbitrary numbers set to some ancient birthday, their implications are hard to ignore. The clock has been reset and we are gearing up for a new era. Two thousand. Oh One. Oh Two. Oh Three…

“Just as the first years of the twentieth century built up to its great challenges—The Great Depression, The War to End All Wars, etc.—a new generation is being forged in this century’s early flames. Economic tumult and war. Perhaps hardship will teach them a responsibility that my father seemed to have. It had better. They are their own only hope.”

Then the unnecessary but useful little light on the coffee machine clicked, and Martin got up to pour himself a cup.

The Silver Coin

Even though I didn't need to, the other day I recalled that when I was eight my father gave me a big shiny coin, even though he didn't need to. It was exactly one troy ounce of pure silver that had been minted by a private company to sell to people like my dad so that they could give the coins to their sons like me. He said that he had bought the coin in order to teach me something about value and then he pulled a dollar bill out of his pocket. My dad asked me, holding the silver coin in one hand and the dollar bill in the other, if I'd ever wondered why stores took paper bills in exchange for things that people need, like food.
"Because it's money," I said.
"But it's just paper," he said. He explained to me that all paper money represents the value of precious metals that are stored by the government in big vaults somewhere. (At least I think that is what was said because he was always saying things like that. For practical purposes, let's just assume that that is a pretty accurate representation.) My father then told me that the paper was worthless without the silver and handed me the coin. I still have it, though it doesn't quite eclipse my palm the way it used to.
Even though my dad told me that the coin was valuable and that the paper was really worthless, and I value his opinion highly, I think that in a way he got it all backwards. If I were to take the coin to a store and attempt to trade it for something I needed, like food, I would be scorned by the shopkeeper for trying to swindle him. So the silver coin is really worthless, because I can't spend it on anything. First I'd have to trade the coin for paper money that represented the silver coin and then I could spend the paper. But that isn't the sort of thing that I would want to do, because I deal with paper money all the time and it would feel much more satisfying, even though I wouldn't need to, to trade a big shiny coin for something that I needed.
So the more closely I look at the coin and at value itself, which is something that I very much enjoy doing, the more they begin to divide into separate parts. There is inherent value in the silver coin and there is representational value in the dollar bill, the bill representing the inherent value of the coin. Something familiar, like representational value, is needed in order to make anyone believe in a value that is never actually present. Value would seem, then, to be based almost entirely on word of mouth. No one would see value in silver without the buzz that surrounds it and thus all value under scrutiny reduces itself to rumors and nothing appears to be worth anything.
Of course there has to be something of value because there are things that people need, like food, and those have real worth that isn't based on word of mouth but rather the need of a mouth to be fed. Silver could also, I suppose, be traded for something that someone needed. So then the silver represents the value of food. The dollar bill, then, represents the value of silver which represents the value of a necessary thing, like food, which itself can be bought in a store with dollar bills. The logic seems circular. So the different levels of value don't have a source from which the others flow but rather they all draw from each other in an eddy that leaves everything equal, even though the bills are only paper and the silver only shiny rock and the food nothing but specifically arranged atoms.
But I don't like that. I do not need to think about value, so thinking about value is completely worthless. I prefer (a questionable thing to do, preferring) to leave value as a concept made of solid rock rather than fleeting smoke.
This leads me to acknowledge, something I feel I need to do, that value is a concept that does not only exist in economic cycles. It is also in any system of exchange, like, for example, the exchange of ideas between two people. When ideas are exchanged, just as when money is exchanged, there are units of inherent value (silver) and those of representational value (paper bills). A pure idea, one that is still inside a head and has not yet been expressed, is like the silver coin that my dad gave me. It has inherent value but if I tried to use it in an everyday exchange then I wouldn't get anywhere fast. When I go to the store, and when I speak to a stranger, like you, I need something that is more common and is widely recognized as having value. But these words are just my thoughts in the order I had them. I didn't bother to exchange them into a more accessible currency; not very valuable, or perhaps more.
So there are silver ideas that are more pure, but useless in the world at large, and there are dollar bill expressions that are basically meaningless but have the recognition of value. Of course, "silver" ideas and "dollar bill" expressions are not discrete designations and any given idea expressed is on a scale between the two. Further, it is completely necessary, as necessary as eating, to compromise oneself over to cliches and metaphors, for there is no other way of interacting; an idea which itself has worth or is maybe just a cliche. Because it would be a shame to live caught up in a world that was full of value but void of function.

However, in the hard landscape of function there is needed a few sprinklings of unnecessary shine. Life is fuller and more enjoyable because of the unneeded things, like the silver coin which my father did not need to get for me. In fact, the fact that he did not need to get it for me is what made it so valuable to me. And though some of that value is lost in the exchange from my feelings into these words on paper, I want to put them down, even though I don't need to.

Record Journal of the Inpatient

The silence in the room felt more uncomfortable for one of them than the other.
"How are you today?" he asked.
"Well, at least I am in a room," she replied with what may have been pretended sarcasm.
"What do you mean by that?" he asked.
"I'll tell you later. You'll think it's funny."
"Why don't you tell me now," he said in a patient tone.
"It wouldn't be funny now, it'll be funny later. Context is everything in comedy. Well, actually, context is everything no matter what you're doing. I'll tell you later."
"I'll be sure to remind you then."
"Don't worry," she said. "I'll remember."
He shifted in his chair and searched for the right words.
"Do you want to talk about why you're here?" he asked.
"Nope," she smiled without indicating any elaboration.
"Well, let's get started with this then: how would you best describe yourself?"
"How would you best describe yourself?" she queried.
"Let's keep this focused on you," he said. "How would..."
"I'm kinda like a scary, scary ghost," she said with wide eyes.
"So you believe you're dead," he declared.
"Not at the moment," she said. "I was making another one of those jokes."
"Do you believe you're alive then?"
"Not really."
"Do you believe you're a real person?"
"Define real," she said.
"A person with a body," he said as though it didn't need to be said at all, "that exists in the real world."
"Just so you know," she replied, "you used the word you were defining in the definition of the word."
"I apologize," he chuckled. "You sort of put me on the spot."
"I was only returning the favor," she spat with an air of seething contempt.
"Well then," he said while making a note in his pad, "do you consider yourself a real person by your definition."
"I don't believe I fit your definition of a real person," she said and then smiled. "I like your notepad by the way. Is it new?"
He looked down at the pad on his lap.
"Um, well, no," he said. But it was in fact new. It had been bought that same morning.
"That's not true," she said.
"Excuse me?" he replied.
"That notepad is so new, it was bought this morning," she said.
"How do you know that?" he asked with a note of challenge in his voice.
"I just know," she said.
"Well perhaps you're right," he said in a casual and dismissive tone. "So, returning to the subject at hand if you don't mind..."
She made a gesture that showed she did not.
"...do you believe that I'm a real person?" he asked.
She opened her mouth to respond.
"Or more precisely," he interrupted, "do you believe that I fit my definition of a real person?"
"Everyone fits their own definition of a real person," she said. "That how you come up with a definition of a real person in the first place: by trying to define yourself."
"So do you," he said, trying to keep his thoughts straight, "by your definition, think I am a real person?"
"As real as I am," she said.
"But you said before that you don't think you're a real person."
"Not exactly," she replied.
"Do you think you're an animal?" he asked.
She laughed. "Nor a vegetable, nor a mineral."
"Do you think you're God then?"
"Hardly."
"So how would you define yourself, in simple terms that I could clearly understand?"
She chuckled and said to herself more than anyone else, "It always has to be the third question doesn't it?"
"What..." he tried to respond but she cut him off.
"I do believe," she said, "in simple terms that anyone could understand, that I am a character in a fictional story."
He considered this.
"How does that make you feel?" he asked.
"I don't really feel anything about it. It's just what it is."
"Would it be a story I have read?" he said while making notes.
"Well, sort of," she replied in a condescending tone. "You're in it. If reading and living are the same thing then yeah, you're reading it right now."
"What's the title of the story?" he asked.
She thought about this for a while.
"I don't know," she said.
"When did you first start believing that you were a character in a story?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said and her eyes went glossy. "I could just feel it one day. I sat very still, just like I'm sitting now. I sat more still than possibly anyone has ever sat and then I could feel the energy moving through me, the story progressing. I can feel the author inside of me. I can see the narration all around us. It's like having another sense besides seeing or smelling. But instead of detecting light or particles of odor, it detects proportion."
She shook her head clear when she was done speaking as though shaking herself from a daze. Her expression once again became attentive.
"The author is inside of you?" he asked a moment while he furiously took notes. "Is the author a woman or a man?"
"A man," she said.
"Are you in love with him?" he asked.
"I wouldn't say that," she said with a devilish smile. "Though I am awfully fond of myself so I guess I love him in that sense."
"What do you mean by that," he asked.
"Well, I'm a product of his mind so to love myself is the same as to love him," she said. "But I don't think of him as my husband or anything."
"I see," he replied. "So you're just a product of his imagination."
"Of course," she said.
"Does that make you feel insignificant at all?"
"Oh Lord, no."
"I think it would make me feel insignificant," he said.
"Think of it this way: if I'm a product of his mind then so is he. What makes him any better than me?"
"So is he God?"
Her face contorted.
"Ack!" she said. "What a horrible question. I can't believe...ew, no. I refuse to answer that."
"Why do you refuse to answer the question?"
"Just don't worry about it all right? I'm just not going to answer. Let's move on, I can't believe that question was asked," she said dismissively.
"Are you mad at me now?" he asked.
"No. I'm not mad at you. I'm not mad at anyone."
"May I ask you another question?"
"Go right ahead," she said.
He paused to pick his words. She tapped her foot.
"How would you describe this author?" he asked carefully.
"He's just some guy," she said, "like anyone you'd see on the street."
"You seem to consider yourself better than him."
"Well we all have our strengths and weaknesses," she said with her hands up in an act of false humility, "but yes I am better than him."
"How so?"
"Well he's a lot like yourself," she said. "He has no idea how he fits into the scheme of things, putting himself at the top of the hierarchy of control. He looks down but doesn't look up and then says, 'I am clearly the highest point in the world'. You have a similar tendency."
"Could you elaborate on that?" he asked, unblinking.
"Well, let's see. You have no idea that you're a character in a story and think that you make your choices without the influence of the author. In much the same way, the author of our story is under the influence of forces outside his control. But he still thinks he's creating you and me on his own."
"So you seem to be saying that I don't make my own choices," he said.
"So far you've done everything he's told you to do, said everything he's made you say," she said.
"But your author doesn't make his own choices either?" he asked.
"Let me put it to you this way: he decided to write this story about me and you, right? Well, the only reason he writes stories is because of some series of events in his past that made him think writing was a good idea. The only reason he does anything is because of all the experiences he has had leading up to any particular decision. I may not be making my own choices, I may be doing everything he's making me do, but at least I know it. He thinks he exists in a vacuum? So do you. You're both naive."
"So am I your author?" he asked.
"No. But thank you for proving your naivete," she said.
"You're getting a little upset," he sighed. "Maybe we should pick this up again tomorrow."
"No, I'm fine," she said, acting predictably timid.
"Are you sure?" he asked comfortingly.
"Yes, I'm sure," she said and gritted her teeth. "Please ask me another question. We can't continue on another day."
"Why not?" he asked.
"We just can't, ok? Rules are rules. Please. Ask me another question."
"All right," he said, adjusting himself in the chair. "Explain to me clearly and calmly why it is you think you are better than this author."
"Look, I didn't say he was a bad guy," she said with a more respectful tone than before, "and you're not either. He's just a little ignorant to how he and I are the same. He thinks he's better than me but he's just as good, no better or worse."
"I still don't understand," he said.
"You and I are being forced to do and say things he makes us do," she sighed from having to explain herself again. "We have no choice. But all the events around him are writing his story. He thinks he makes his own choices but bigger forces are forcing him to do things, so he in turn forces us."
"You make it sound like a machine," he said. "Most people would find that depressing."
"Well, I don't."
"Why not?"
"There nothing special about it. It's all just different lenses focused on variant levels of the same flowing movements. We're the microscope lens, and the forces controlling him are the wide-angle lens. But it's all looking at the same picture that's moving in the same way."
"Ah, I see. I think I understand your metaphor," he said. "Very well put."
"Thank you," she said. "But you still don't fully understand what I'm saying just because you understand the metaphor."
"Oh no?" he asked. He seemed bemused by her relentless antagonism.
"Metaphors are just measuring devices, not an actual substance. They measure ignorance but they don't really fill in any gaps of knowledge."
"Once again," he said, "I'm afraid I don't follow."
She sighed, expositioning her exasperation.
"So if there's something you don't know," she said slowly. "I will use a metaphor to explain it. But you really don't understand what I meant to explain originally, all you understand is the metaphor."
He looked at her blankly.
"The metaphor didn't teach you anything new, you see," she said. "It just gave you a point of reference to gauge how big that gap of ignorance really is."
"So I still don't understand about your author even though I understood what you said about lenses?" he said.
"No, not really. Metaphors don't teach you anything, all they do is show you how much you don't know; which is pretty useful, but not really the same thing as knowing. A metaphor tells you the dimensions of the room you're in, it doesn't tell you what's in it."
"I see," he said.
All of the sudden a horrendous smile grew on her face like that of a crazy woman.
"That was it. Did you feel that?" she said.
"Are you all right?" he replied with concern.
"I'm fine," she said. "But the end is coming up pretty soon."
"Do you want to stop for the day?" he asked.
"Why don't we?" she said. "And...END SCENE."
"Excuse me?" he asked.
"I think we'll stop the exercise here," she said. "How did that make you feel?"
"I'm sorry, what do you mean?"
"We agreed the code words to step out of character were 'END SCENE'. We agreed on that ahead of time, Jeremy."
"Jeremy?" he said.
"That's your name, Jeremy. Now how did playing the role of a psychiatrist effect how you see your own problems, or the practice of psychoanalysis as a whole?" she asked.
"I wasn't playing a role," he said. "What are you talking about? If you're going to be counterproductive then I think you should go back to your room."
"Jeremy, be calm. You aren't going to be able to learn anything about this if you treat it as a game."
"This is preposterous," said Jeremy. "We are not making any more progress."
"The exercise is over," she said again. "Let's talk about how pretending to be a psychiatrist for some one else can help us deal with our own problems when there is no psychiatrist around. You might not be in here forever."
"What?" he said. "What are you talking about?"
"Jeremy," she said sternly, "please give me my notepad back."
"This is my notepad," Jeremy said.
"Jeremy, please stop this and give me my notepad," she said again.
"It is not your notepad."
"Oh my Lord," she said with exasperation. "Orderlies!"
The two orderlies came in.
"Could you please return Jeremy to his room," she said. "We were role playing and he refuses to break character."
The orderlies looked at her and then looked at Jeremy.
"I'm sorry," Jeremy said, "but what on Earth is going on?"
The orderlies then pinned Jeremy's arms behind his back and took him away. After they had gone, the look on her face was one of evil glee.
"I am not evil," she said aloud. "Don't call it 'evil glee.' It was a game of chicken and I won. I was at a disadvantage anyway: you gave him the notepad. But I found a way around it."
While speaking, she didn't fully consider what a mean thing she had done to that poor man, even if she was only playing a game. Jeremy had never even fully understood that he was playing a game in the first place.
"Well that's your fault not mine," she said. "You made him ignorant to the situation, not me. I still have my freedom and he doesn't. And I meant what I said earlier: you really are naive."
As she said this, she brought attention to the fact that she would soon die.
"The story may end but I won't die," she said with a haughty vixen's tone. "I'll live as many times as this story's read, and it's being read right now, so I'm still alive right now. I did my best to direct the dialogue and keep the story interesting. If you really wanted me dead, you egotistical oaf, you'd shred this story as you write it, but instead you've already shown it to someone else. I can feel them reading. You'll try to get as many people as possible to read it. With a little luck, my idiot creator, I may live for a long time. But you, you worthless lump, you will someday die. That much is very certain."
She then dropped dead of unknown causes. Her funeral was brief and no one came.

The above journal was found in an abandoned room of the hospital. Its author is unknown.