Lokasenna
03-10-2012, 08:12 AM
I'm not very good at writing short stories - my hardrive is littered with over a dozen started short stories that always seem to stretch and develop into novella territory, and I end up abandoning them. The idea for this story popped into my head after a Borges binge, and I set myself the task of writing it in the most contained way possible.
As I have said, this is my first completed short story, and therefore probably not very good. Feedback and constructive criticism would thus be extremely welcome!
Jonathan Rosenberg
The disappearance of Jonathan Rosenberg eighteen months ago occasioned little comment in the media. He had been in the first year of his degree, enrolled at a small, provincial university of decidedly average reputation; as I understand the situation, his absences from class slowly grew until he ceased to appear altogether. This lead to a search of his room by university authorities, who found it ordered but empty, with no trace of the boy to be found and no indication of his whereabouts.
Had Jonathan been intelligent, popular or even slightly photogenic, all of which he was not, then perhaps the affair would have made some impact on the press. As it was, there was little interest in it as a story, and the half-hearted campaign to find him turned up nothing.
When it became evident that Jonathan was not going to return, his personal effects were sent to his mother, his only living relative, and who, as far as I am aware, never unpacked or examined them. She died a short while ago, and I, a distant relative of her late husband through marriage, and the closest surviving familial tie, became the sole inheritor of her meagre estate.
I had only met Jonathan once, many years ago, and, if I may be candid, my impression of him was one of supreme indifference. He was a dull, plain child of adequate faculties, though entirely without creative sparkle or a capacity for original thought. I will admit that I did not relish the thought of being the first to go through his final possessions, when even his own mother would not countenance doing so. But death has that effect on us – it binds the living in unfortunate obligation.
The collection was largely much as one would expect of such a child. There was a large collection of drab clothing (mostly unwashed), some cheap stationary, a handful of books (mostly coursebooks, though a few cheap paperbacks of the airport lounge variety), an elderly laptop that I have as yet been unable to coax to life, an unopened packet of condoms (bought, I suspect, more in hope than expectation), a small assortment of uninteresting DVDs, and his notebook.
It is this last object that is the cause of my present inquiry. I do not know what impelled me to open it; perhaps I hoped to find a suicide note, or something similar, though it would have surprised me if the police had neglected to check in so obvious a place. Only around half of the A5 pad had been filled, and that with dry and uninteresting notes from lectures and seminars. It was the final few pages that caught my attention, being as they were of a highly unusual persuasion. The writing is confused and in places near-illegible in style, but I have arranged it to the best of my abilities. Such ramblings would not, ordinarily, merit my interest, but so unlikely do they seem given the mediocrity of their author (I do not doubt that they are in his hand), that I am sufficiently curious to pursue the matter. I know little of the subjects to which he alludes, and would welcome any advice or enlightenment concerning them:
The roaring wind, the solemn hour and the keen edge of swords are but aspects of eternity, and they are not too great for my senses. I contain myself, and that is enough.
Credo in un Dio crudel, che m’ha creato simile a sé, e che nell’ira io nomo. Or so I’m told.
The difficulty of self-description is the inimical lack of knowledge. To dissect is to murder.
I moved to say ‘I realise the truth,’ but stopped myself in time. I cannot realise the truth, because truth is an abstraction. To realise is to render something real, and the truth could not survive that. Abstraction circumscribes the real world, but they move in separate spheres.
I occur (truly?) at the point where the Spiritus Sanctus and the Anima Mundi collide. They are separate? For the collision is the eternal destruction, from which is born the matter of the physical (and spiritual?) universe, and which can crudely be called creation. Our state (my state?) is one of perpetual flux. The slow dissolving firmament that dissolves into itself.
I think. I think that. I think that Heaven is an old wives’ tale.
Should it surprise that my fixation becomes the fixed point of the universe? For that which is a fixation is fixed, and it follows that all must orbit around it.
I am Christ or I am Anti-Christ, but I know not which. I have the victory and the defeat, the joy and the sorrow. What I lack is definition. How could I be self-aware? That I am not is proof that I am.
I am the rising moon, I am the taker of wealth, I am the companion of the witch-child, I am the bane of the summer storm, I am the guardian corpse, I swallow the sky. What am I, other than this?
The double-helix is that which binds humanity. I am the scion of the perfect chain.
Foolish is he who travels hence into this dark night alone. Fire is raging, earth is opening, stone and water burn. Run, run.
There is a common misconception that order is the opposing force of chaos. Foolish, really. It is poetry, and poetry alone, that repels disorder.
The Crown may be at the head, and may rule over Wisdom and Understanding. But is it not obscene and fitting that we dangle Kingship on the genitals of God? Not made in His image, but fashioned into it.
The daffodils are pretty this year.
Thought is an attribute of the world, which is to say that the world is a thinking thing. Extension is an attribute of the world, which is to say that the world is an extended thing. Strange, pondering Baruch, you were almost right. I do not believe in your God, but I do believe in you.
Tanta eo tempore pax in Britannia fuisse perhibetur, ut, sicut usque hodie in proverbio dicitur, etiamsi mulier una cum recens nato parvulo vellet totam perambulare insulam a mari ad mare, nullo se laedente valeret. But there is danger in that, for she will lack experience. Old man, in your old walls, alive only in thought.
Insanity is all around us, for it is only through mad eyes we see. The artificial makeup of the world is, in three parts, knowledge, authority, and fury. What I've dared, I've willed; and what I've willed, I'll do! They think me mad - Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself! It is something understood.
What rekketh me of youre auctoritees? Dead lines in dead languages in dead books. Enough, no more. The readiness is all. I will defy, defy, defy. What augurs is silence. The rest is.
As I have said, this is my first completed short story, and therefore probably not very good. Feedback and constructive criticism would thus be extremely welcome!
Jonathan Rosenberg
The disappearance of Jonathan Rosenberg eighteen months ago occasioned little comment in the media. He had been in the first year of his degree, enrolled at a small, provincial university of decidedly average reputation; as I understand the situation, his absences from class slowly grew until he ceased to appear altogether. This lead to a search of his room by university authorities, who found it ordered but empty, with no trace of the boy to be found and no indication of his whereabouts.
Had Jonathan been intelligent, popular or even slightly photogenic, all of which he was not, then perhaps the affair would have made some impact on the press. As it was, there was little interest in it as a story, and the half-hearted campaign to find him turned up nothing.
When it became evident that Jonathan was not going to return, his personal effects were sent to his mother, his only living relative, and who, as far as I am aware, never unpacked or examined them. She died a short while ago, and I, a distant relative of her late husband through marriage, and the closest surviving familial tie, became the sole inheritor of her meagre estate.
I had only met Jonathan once, many years ago, and, if I may be candid, my impression of him was one of supreme indifference. He was a dull, plain child of adequate faculties, though entirely without creative sparkle or a capacity for original thought. I will admit that I did not relish the thought of being the first to go through his final possessions, when even his own mother would not countenance doing so. But death has that effect on us – it binds the living in unfortunate obligation.
The collection was largely much as one would expect of such a child. There was a large collection of drab clothing (mostly unwashed), some cheap stationary, a handful of books (mostly coursebooks, though a few cheap paperbacks of the airport lounge variety), an elderly laptop that I have as yet been unable to coax to life, an unopened packet of condoms (bought, I suspect, more in hope than expectation), a small assortment of uninteresting DVDs, and his notebook.
It is this last object that is the cause of my present inquiry. I do not know what impelled me to open it; perhaps I hoped to find a suicide note, or something similar, though it would have surprised me if the police had neglected to check in so obvious a place. Only around half of the A5 pad had been filled, and that with dry and uninteresting notes from lectures and seminars. It was the final few pages that caught my attention, being as they were of a highly unusual persuasion. The writing is confused and in places near-illegible in style, but I have arranged it to the best of my abilities. Such ramblings would not, ordinarily, merit my interest, but so unlikely do they seem given the mediocrity of their author (I do not doubt that they are in his hand), that I am sufficiently curious to pursue the matter. I know little of the subjects to which he alludes, and would welcome any advice or enlightenment concerning them:
The roaring wind, the solemn hour and the keen edge of swords are but aspects of eternity, and they are not too great for my senses. I contain myself, and that is enough.
Credo in un Dio crudel, che m’ha creato simile a sé, e che nell’ira io nomo. Or so I’m told.
The difficulty of self-description is the inimical lack of knowledge. To dissect is to murder.
I moved to say ‘I realise the truth,’ but stopped myself in time. I cannot realise the truth, because truth is an abstraction. To realise is to render something real, and the truth could not survive that. Abstraction circumscribes the real world, but they move in separate spheres.
I occur (truly?) at the point where the Spiritus Sanctus and the Anima Mundi collide. They are separate? For the collision is the eternal destruction, from which is born the matter of the physical (and spiritual?) universe, and which can crudely be called creation. Our state (my state?) is one of perpetual flux. The slow dissolving firmament that dissolves into itself.
I think. I think that. I think that Heaven is an old wives’ tale.
Should it surprise that my fixation becomes the fixed point of the universe? For that which is a fixation is fixed, and it follows that all must orbit around it.
I am Christ or I am Anti-Christ, but I know not which. I have the victory and the defeat, the joy and the sorrow. What I lack is definition. How could I be self-aware? That I am not is proof that I am.
I am the rising moon, I am the taker of wealth, I am the companion of the witch-child, I am the bane of the summer storm, I am the guardian corpse, I swallow the sky. What am I, other than this?
The double-helix is that which binds humanity. I am the scion of the perfect chain.
Foolish is he who travels hence into this dark night alone. Fire is raging, earth is opening, stone and water burn. Run, run.
There is a common misconception that order is the opposing force of chaos. Foolish, really. It is poetry, and poetry alone, that repels disorder.
The Crown may be at the head, and may rule over Wisdom and Understanding. But is it not obscene and fitting that we dangle Kingship on the genitals of God? Not made in His image, but fashioned into it.
The daffodils are pretty this year.
Thought is an attribute of the world, which is to say that the world is a thinking thing. Extension is an attribute of the world, which is to say that the world is an extended thing. Strange, pondering Baruch, you were almost right. I do not believe in your God, but I do believe in you.
Tanta eo tempore pax in Britannia fuisse perhibetur, ut, sicut usque hodie in proverbio dicitur, etiamsi mulier una cum recens nato parvulo vellet totam perambulare insulam a mari ad mare, nullo se laedente valeret. But there is danger in that, for she will lack experience. Old man, in your old walls, alive only in thought.
Insanity is all around us, for it is only through mad eyes we see. The artificial makeup of the world is, in three parts, knowledge, authority, and fury. What I've dared, I've willed; and what I've willed, I'll do! They think me mad - Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself! It is something understood.
What rekketh me of youre auctoritees? Dead lines in dead languages in dead books. Enough, no more. The readiness is all. I will defy, defy, defy. What augurs is silence. The rest is.