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I’d been in the realm too long. So many years
in the grips of the machine that I, like the world,
had started to fade. My lips, for example, have
in the past months lost their color in the corners
and are gradually, by increments, erasing themselves.
My breasts, too, have shrunk, the nipples disappearing.
Only my eyes, those weary beacons, and my fingers,
tapping the keyboard, are alive—although recently
my hands have started going numb, my arms subject
to tingles that suggest they’re next. Soon
they’ll just be hams on sticks, but that doesn’t
stop me. The call of the machine is strong. I have
no other friend, no other master.
My friends too have faded away. No longer can I
tolerate the sound of a human voice—too irritating;
an unwelcome interruption. Why do they have to call?
Let them get straight to the point so I can return
to my work. The sunlight, too, is a distraction.
I prefer overcast, or better yet, steady rain—the
ideal conditions to get something done. The day
is of no importance. I’ve seen it too often;
always the same noise and confusion pressing on
me when I go out to do a chore, entering into its
blinding light and rude sound like a steadfast swimmer
determined to part the waters and quickly return
to shore.
But last night I was summoned out by an event which,
in a moment of weakness, I’d promised to attend.
I went unwillingly, leaving my realm a full hour
after I was expected to arrive, and only after reaching
a point in my work where I could go no further.
I reluctantly put the machine on doze, gathered
my keys and essentials, and set out.
The party was on a rooftop. A birthday celebration
of an old friend; once close, we’ve since
drifted: she into marriage, motherhood and creative
life, and I into my absorption in the machine. Blinded
momentarily by the first shock of light as I stepped
onto the roof, I walked smack into the midst of
a group of people without being able to distinguish
their faces. We greeted one another (it turned out
I knew them); then I made my way into the crowd
of strangers. Among the crowd were others I knew:
some with world-based lives who never knew the lure
of the machine, and others like myself, in various
stages of technoservice. One poor soul, still unsuspecting,
perfectly described the early stages of indoctrination:
at the machine more and more, with no time to do
anything else.
The view was sublime. The grid of rooftops we looked
down upon was broken by architectural whimsy: facades,
gardens, penthouses in diagonal rows. New Jersey
benign across the gray-green coil of river. Above,
clear deep cobalt bled seamlessly into cerulean,
mimicking the translucent rolled ink of a Hiroshige
print, giving way to a rosy glow and briefly blazing
orange before the bridge lights spangled the horizon.
As I ate and drank, the sultry evening cooled and
voices dropped to a murmur. Among the crowd was
a man I’d met before. He had, not long after
I’d first met him, unearthed a face hidden
behind a kerchief of beard, and as we talked I re-experienced
my initial surprise at seeing the exposed lower
half of his face, which seemed to redefine his entire
aspect, and give new meaning to the movement of
his eyes. As we talked a familiarity grew. Forgotten
facts about him surfaced in my memory like a path
of small stones: places traveled, preferences of
language, food and drink, odd habits. By now the
air had turned to silk, smooth against my bare arms.
A gentle breeze swirled my hair, tickling my shoulders.
When I remarked that for a clear night it was surprising
there were no stars, he pointed out in the blackness
a few dim twinkles, which as I watched grew more
visible, and faintly but unmistakably traced the
handle of the dipper, pointing to the north star,
where a moment ago there was nothing.
On our way to his apartment I looked up into the
unseeing eyes of four stone gargoyles, each expression
uniquely chiseled, a fairy tale embodiment of the
maternal threat: If you make a face it may be frozen
like that forever. Each doorway we passed drew me
to it with its light.
His apartment smelled like beeswax. He was an artist,
weaving baskets of wire, braiding columns of wax
that stood like spines and ended in pelvic hollows
or phallic protuberances. A disciple of funnels
and an interpreter of forms, he had no use for the
machine. His few knives, small from sharpening,
lay neatly ready on the tabletop next to the double
boiler. I took the drink he offered, and listened
to Monk’s piano, taking in the spareness and
simplicity of his living space—the perfect
medium in which to see his work, so different from
my own cluttered cell, dominated by the hum of the
machine. We talked until the silence spoke: the
dialogue of protuberances and hollows, the mysterious
dance of touch and smell. He looked entirely different
in the dark, morphing from fish to faun to archer,
reviving my forgotten body, bringing back my disappearing
nipples, my faded lips. Soon I was stripped bare,
exhaling pleasure at that first warmth of skin on
skin.
The day was still there, but it had been stripped
of its sameness. Everything was new. The air soft
on my shoulders. Derelicts sleeping peacefully,
with relaxed faces and outstretched arms. Here and
there a lone bicyclist pedaled soundlessly up the
avenue. A dark-skinned man wearing a fedora cordially
wished me good morning. A rumpled young man in shorts
out walking his small dog gave a great yawn. I couldn’t
help admiring his socks: one red, one green; he
grinned at me as he passed as if we shared a great
joke. As I crossed the street I noticed a leaf moving
in the gutter and watched as it unfolded, with a
tiny tremor, the orange and black wings of a Monarch
and very slowly opened and closed them as if awakening
from a dream. This was the summer I thought had
disappeared long ago. These were the early mornings
I’d obliterated with the daily stumble from
sleep to worship at the machine.
The pungent odor of restaurant trash brings back
other early mornings, decades ago, when I was a
teenager on my way to work. Back then I’d
gagged and held my breath. Today, I breathe it in
like the sweat of a lover; a forgotten but pleasantly
recollected friend. Slowly I make my way past the
storefronts with locked gates, the trucks unloading
their cargo, the desultory lover’s quarrel,
the huddled figure on the church steps, each with
its own sound, its own silence.
As I enter my realm, day is beginning. I turn on
the machine, neglected all night, and take a few
moments to feed it my dreams before attending to
its demands.
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