textual healing: Communication Breakdown

originally the heading "textual healing" was supposed to be for literature by others, but since this was never pulished, not even on a message board, and in fact it was lost for a while, i´ll publish it under that heading - also: it is not entirely mine. it was a collaborative effort with my best friend and muse beate. gosh, the memories: this was an exercise in creative writing class, i think something to do with narratorial perspective...that term was the best cw-class, even better than the one that gave birth to "the importance of being pretentious". great group, great exercises, great fragments;-) i still have two stories in the making that were spawned in that class. the theme was ovid´s "metamorphosis". i haven´t read the whole damn thing...yet...errr...i got so hung up on the "narcissos and echo"-myth - whatever that says about me:-/
one of the fragments is also a variation on that myth, but the other one is "pygmalion", although the narcissos-thing is more urgent - look closely and you will see it in "the importance of being pretentious" as well - it´s actually pretty obvious - so go ahead and psychoanalyze me - you sure as hell won´t find any oedipus around here: never knew my father, didn´t have to kill him, hate my mother. and i actually think the narcissos-myth is more accurate and pertinent and useful for the analysis of our culture. but that is beside the point for now.

so here goes:
when i get that feeling
i want textual healing...

...with:

Communication Breakdown
By Thomas Hemsley and Beate Schulz



NARCISSUS I look into the water. There I see a beautiful man. I smile. The man smiles back. What a lovely smile. I bow down. H ecomes nearer, too. I draw back, he does, too. Have I frightened him? Who is this man? I ask him: „Who are you?“ He says something, too, but I can’t hear anything. I ask again: „Who are you?“ Again I can see his lips move, but can’t hear anything. I ask him again, slowly and try to pay attention to his lips, maybe I can see what he’s saying: „Who . . . are . . . you?“ I’m not sure, but I think his lips formed the words „Who are you?“. I ask him : “Are you talking to me?“ I look around. „Are you talking to me? You must be, there is nobody else here. Could you speak up, I can‘t hear you.“ Again he has said something. But what? I ask him again who he is and reach out to point at him. He does likewise. As our fingers touch one another, his image is blurred and I reach through his blurred image into the watery void.
REFLECTION Oh my god, is he still trying to touch me? They shoud’ve learned by now that we are not made to be touched. I mean, I get so wobbled up every time his clumsy fingers poke through the surface. It ruins my outline and I hate to do that dumb grimace he makes when he’s astonished and disappointed again. It gets exhausting to mimique those grotesque faces he makes to „study“ his features in every boring detail. The sole fun of teasing him by pointing back at him has worn out for ages. Doesn’t this guy have a bladder so that he will retreat to the bushes and leave me a rest of at least 5 minutes? Well, he’s getting skinny anyway and I can already count his rips, so he won’t make it much longer and I will have my peace again.
ECHO Now I can come near him and watch him watch himself. Now I see more of him than a shadow. Now I am a shadow. He won’t even feel my breath and my presence is like a gentle breeze when I bend over his shoulder. The shadow of my love still caring, the shadow of my hand still caressing. Following his as they’re longing, drawing the lines of his reflection above the surface of the water, both inches and aeons apart from the one we love.
NARCISSUS There must be someone else around. What is he looking at. He seems to be looking at me, and somehow he doesn’t. What does he see? There’s just me. I look around. Nothing. I poke into the air. Nothing. Nothing else but me and the forrest about me. Not even the essence of a trace of a breeze of a shadow of the presence of any kind of existence. Pure void. The nothingness of a voidity per se is there without myself. And within myself. Nothing but my outward appearance.
DEER I know, you humans think deers are majestic but stupid. But when I bow down to the water I drink it, let me tell you that. I don’t look into it for hours. I mean, what does he see there anyway? O. k., my eyes aren’t that good, but all I see is water. But this guy seems to see something worth looking at for hours. And he doesn’t seem to realize this spirit that is trying to get his attention. What is she doing anyway? Whispering into his ear and stroking his hair all the time. They definitely have some kind of communication malfunction. What is she doing now? Hopping around him, waving, even bumping him? Is it pairing time for you humans or what? Well, it doesn’t seem to work. When I do that, you can be sure, I get laid and reproduce my race. But all he does is staring into the pond, and she tries to get his attention. Well, you humans don’t seem to be very bright. And majestic you definitely aren’t at all.


GHOST She is such a young ghost, so vulnerable and fragile. And so bound to earth, to the life she left and to this statue and his reflection whose shadow she still is. He is embraced by her, covered with sparkles, like sunbeams that reflect on the water and on him. And he ignores her like he did when she was alive. When he is gone she should be able to turn loose. Then she will learn how to materialze either as an image they call halluzination when they don’t want to admit our existence or as a gentle voice. When he is gone.