DAS MEER
He heard a knocking coming from inside the clock,
not a tick-tick-tick, but a tock-tick-tock, tick-thump-tock.
His gaze, as usual, was panning from side to side at the Mural that sprawled across his bedroom wall: a cacophony of oils, charcoal, and absinthe. Streaks of red violently struck into pools of violet, while dappled fragments of orange and pink formed a horizon over an ocean of scratchy grey sweeps. And at the centre was it, or him, or her - a vague, flowing image, rendered in a colour he couldn’t describe. It might have had a body. It might have had arms. It might have had some legs. It might have had an expression, or a face. It might have been shuddering into itself, or radiating a warm light. It might have just been a mass of shapes.
He absent-mindedly scratched his head, and noticed another clump of hair fall out.
Mein Lied, mein Blumenlied.
Josef was really doing well for himself, really, he was. It had been a while since he’d left the building, but that was okay. His ex-wife would squeeze some bread, a bottle, and a newspaper through the mail slot of his apartment every two days; some new oil tubes every few weeks. Although, every time he got to the door, crouched, and peered under the small, brass flap, she had already left. He listened carefully to the quick plinks of her hurried steps, the whispers of her left hand sliding off the handrails every time she made a turn down the staircase.
Du, du. Du und du, sie sagt.
He scraped more wood from the chair in the living room with his teeth-sharpened chisel, and carefully tip-toed across the floor. He hadn’t seen his shoes in months, or maybe days, and was sick of getting broken glass stuck in his feet. He walked past the swamp-green walls that hid the shadows of the creeping evenings, and kneeled by the fireplace. There was a photograph hanging on the wall next to it. Someone stared from inside the portrait.
Ein Onkel?
Eine Tochter?
Ein Sohn?
Eine Tante?
Their happy sad eyes peered through the grain.
He did his careful routine: scrunching up the newspaper section that spoke of new wars between new countries - maybe old countries. He couldn't remember. He stacked up the crumpled information in the firebed and built up a temple of wood shavings around it. He carefully took out a match - and this was the part that had been getting harder as of late. Why were these god-damned boxes shaking so much? He finally struck it.
He stared unblinkingly at the waves of orange and red that sank into a heap of black.
His left hand gently scooped up the results of the procedure. He walked over to the Mural, and dipped his right index finger into the ash in his left’s palm.
Today, he was going to do something special.
It was going to grow, today.
His right index finger dragged across the wall, and he made a wobbly diagonal line over the left side of the Mural (the right side, from its perspective.)
He decided that it was time for a break.
He shuffled away, tightening his left hand’s grip - he couldn’t risk a spill on the rug, the one that had been so carefully woven, thread by thread, in his favourite colours. He found an old bottle under the nightstand. He swirled it around, then felt it pass by his dry lips. He couldn’t taste it anymore.
Ein Lied, eine Flasche,
Ein Leid, eine Feigheit.
He was lying on the rug now, looking at the ceiling.
His left hand was still curled tight.
There was a crack in the ceiling that framed the black mould around it beautifully. It always made him smile. Always.
It reminded him of a memory of a painting he once saw when he was a young boy that always made him smile. Always. The colours were wonderful, and the cracks that ran across the dried oils were marvellous, he always thought. He sat in front of it, always cross-legged, for an hour, or two, he had always remembered, until his mother pulled him by his hand. He had always kept looking at the painting as long as he could, always, walking backwards just to take more of it in. It had made him smile, while his mother’s eyes narrowed further, always, and it made him smile, and his mother had brown hair and a red coat, maybe, and it always, it always made him smile; the painting was of a man on a horse, always, and it made him smile always, and when they turned the corner, always, and when his mother slouched her shoulders and always said something that made him smile that he couldn’t always remember, always, and the painted man that always made him smile was always holding a sword and it always, always, made him smile, and when he grew up Josef always wanted to make paintings like that always. Always, always. Always. It always made him smile. Always. His hand was still curled tight.
Der Luftbusen, der Luftbusen.
At some point, one of his hands had let go, but he couldn’t remember which, or when.
His eyes looked at the midnight pile of wasted charcoal, and they watched small drops of water slowly melt it down. Black days bled into the rug.
Josef wondered why no sunlight ever seemed to scatter through the squared holes in the close-to-closed lettuce windows. It must have been overcloudy for a very long time.
Bortärgenurschlägetennen.
The knocking of the time was starting to give a head's ache. He felt a sharp pain somewhere, and he saw red glass fly and fall from time. The minute hand, the hour hand, and the year hand had all stopped, rigid grip at one of the clock.
He placed the shapes at the ends of his arms onto the bedroom wall and sank into the earth, smearing vibrance into formless bars. Through the downpour of noise, however, he could still see the figure that he could always remember as long as he could remember, however; but, however, he couldn’t remember how long he could remember, however, however.
He was wading through das Meer, now. Fish, shaded in colours that he couldn’t recognise until yesterday, or tomorrow, swam aside him as he dived deeper into the deep blue, the deep blue waters that continued for a while, a while, another little while. He felt fine - a life alive. And he floated by a bed of singing red coral, past the yellow sea urchins breathing between, though he had forgotten what an urchin was by swimming between, but the words were still somewhere in his head; breathing, somewhere in his head. And his swimming, drifting mind could always teach him the breathing he needed while swimming alive, such a beautiful place, alive, swimming and breathing and breathing, and swimming, and breathing deep blue breaths of living water that filled his breathing lungs, and breathing a life alive; swimming under the blurs of fish, under the thick oil surface of the breathing living sea, a surface he couldn't see, that he couldn’t see to see, das atmende Meer that his eyes were breathing in; and he remembered that look living, the corona of deep blue in her breathing blue eyes that he swam in breathing, and he was sinking and floating, and floating and breathing, and sinking with the urchins, and the orchids, and he thought of the sinking blurry house where he lived a life alive with her breathing, the little swimming blue roof that he drowned in phthalo blue swimming alive, the blue cornflowers breathing behind the swirling loops of their breathing little fence, breathing not drowned not but breathing, and breathing promises made while breathing life's tomorrows alive and swimming in the blue sky beside the ringing wharf and living and swimming when she put the ring on her breathing sing-ringing living ring finger breathing I love you.