Irony becomes romanticism. Irony is romanticism in its own place. Irony is when the abandoned space is revealed. Irony says of the space between signs, “you have not counted on this; you have no language for this; you are helpless in the face of a beauty you can only see as profanity.” Romanticism, though, is the same, but it says, “This is not your jurisdiction because you have made laws. You can rule the profrane. You weild your power over it because you have called it your dominion. This is the sacred, and there are no prisons here. You, actually, are a heretic, but you are just.” Journalists are the poets now; they tell us what our words mean. More so than the musicians and painters and moviemakers; these folk just point out, with an arm on our shoulders, what everything meant. Even it it didn’t. I wonder about the role of rats. We just can’t get rid of em’. Why not? And how about the pied piper? Do rats and children have the same aesthetic? Would we love rats more or children less if we explored this? Possibly it’s our epistemology?
Hey! I’m on the train in a car, and I’m all alone? How is it that being in a car alone is less isolating than being in a full car? How is it that being alone in this car (still! after another stop!) is so different than being at home? There, if I saw a stranger, I’d be so scared, I’d have been transgressed upon. Here, though, my isolation itself is a transgression. . . . I’m in a car alone. I shouldn’t be? . . . I feel close to the train. We’re lovers. This way it’s sublime (train stopped in the tunnel before the last stop, it’s gonna last foeva!) but it’s not how it’s gonna or should be.
All of them, my cabinmates, even my brother — oh, no, he wasn’t there — went into the shower and bathroom to listen to the ghost story, the story about the mountain lion that stalked this camp, the mountain lion that didn’t die, the mountain lion that killed children but not for food. The mountain lion could’ve killed anything, little calves, goats, dogs. It didn’t kill; it sacrificed. Us. So they were in there, worshiping with their fear this creature. At a christian camp, they called evil out. They didn’t see it that way, so the stakes weren’t as high. I was scared of it, of this calling, so I stayed alone. Their temple was a toilet and my refuge was my bed. Beds are not safe for children. Every child knows this; every child knows this very well at least once. I struggled with the fear, which was the mountain lion coming for me. I pitted my god against it like I always had. I closed my eyes, hard as it was to do so. I said, “Dear lord, please help my family and everyone. Please keep me from thinking of scary things and keep me safe.” I knew, because I’d said this prayer so many times and formulated it to capture this insecurity about my own imagination. I knew it could terrify and hurt me, that it could sin. But, just in case it turned out real, I asked for protection. Really, it came down to this: Thinking of scary things lets them in. It’s like horses smelling fear or bees sensing panic. They strike when you think they might. So, I thought of Jesus, I thought of love. But they were in there, together, calling all evil, summoning the mountain lion. It WOULD come if they invited it. It would be just like evoking Jesus. I knew this: They were doing what they were doing, they were gathering like novice witches, they were asking for evil. I also knew this: They didn’t see it that way. So, they never had to worry about who’d win, their god or the one they’d invited. And there I was, all alone, closest to the windows, and obviously, not a fan of the horror. So it would come, and it would know, like animals do, that I wasn’t asking for it. I saw it, in my imagination, slinking through the door like a person would if they were evil. I saw it wander to the crack of light under the shower/pissroom door. I saw it look around and catch a better scent, mine. Because it would know I was there. If Jesus loves the sinner more, this evil would want me most. And when they found me? It begged the question, “What will it do to me? What happens when it has me?” I didn’t know. I just didn’t. Part of me thought, “They’ll help me when they know, when they see what’s happened. I’ll be in tatters. There’ll be blood and a hospital. I’ll be in a bed, and I will give hope with a finger raised. I’ll make sure they know what went wrong by saying, in gesture if not in word, ‘You can do such good if you are good. See, this is what you did when you were not good. Don’t you see? I wasn’t your victim until you asked for the mountain lion. You were better not being bad, even if you were not ever so impressive being good.’” None of this thought made me less scared. I was deeply scared; my body felt like I was running very fast. I wasn’t moving, though, so it wasn’t my body doing the fleeing. I worried about my faith. I thought of alliances and compromises. These people, who didn’t get how real the good-evil conflict really is, were bringing evil to god’s house and leaving me to entertain it. I didn’t want to give it what I’d known it would want. Not my body. Not my soul. It wanted Oh! I can see it all in feelings that come out in my stomach. It wanted my love, but the giving-up sort of kind. It, the mountain lion that was evil and all, might eat me or maim me, but it wanted no flesh or blood. It just wanted what I’d given God and Jesus and the Holy Ghost. The mountain lion wanted me to want it to take my flesh from my body; it would most want for its teeth, its claws to be my desire and comfort. This evil, I knew, wanted me to give myself as a blanket, a bleeding, sobbing blanket. So, I laid in my bunk and wondered. These thoughts (yes! I’d been having them!) were so doubtful. I, even if I’d wanted to, I didn’t trust my prayer. I was thinking these things because God wasn’t with me, and that was my fault. So, that leaves evil. I just wasn’t sure anyone in the shower was ready for this, for actual, real evil. God and Satan, in this view, are closely matched, and I wasn’t gonna be able to tip the scales alone. I asked, “Do they have more faith than me? Or do they underestimate evil?
It occurred to me that the fear of God was the fear of Evil, and they didn’t have it. This scared me the most. So, as a victim, as a real person, I begged, “Father, they do not know what they’re doing!” But this didn’t help. I felt God comfort me like he did his son. I felt the lord touch me, not as a sinner but as a martyr. I felt the lord touch me and prepare me. The lord touched me softly all over and said to me in whispers that weren’t secrets but lover’s promises, “You are clean. You are dressed in my clothes, and you will be recognized by them.” And this hurt me most because I knew then that God wasn’t as scared as I was. I didn’t think of it then, but this might just be why I think the gods are all conspirators. We should advance our postal service and other bureaucracies.
