Benign Gloom, Merciful Isolation

Benign Gloom, Merciful Isolation

By Brian Looney

When the expanse horizon slaughters the light of day and bathes the land with its shadowy blood; that is when I am truly free. I embrace the moonless night because it clouds perception and bestows the priceless gift of anonymity onto the public mind. By day I am hounded by bands of marauding pinpricks; contracted pupils which bore into my quivering flesh. You see, I can no longer withstand the profane glances of infantile cretins. And I will not allow them to uproot my sanctity. Their relentless siege will not breach my holy walls. By night I am sheltered in the bosom of divine privacy. Nothing can harm me then, and I am godlike. Thus, I vanish. I become an unseen essence, an invisible force.

I have climbed the highest peaks of reason, murked through the foggy recesses of a blundering insanity, swum through the perfumed pool of arousal and done battle with the hoary monster of love. I have shouldered the staggering weight of ecstasy, and I have fed off the selfish nutriments of depression. I have experienced the demoralizing failure of unrealized goals. I have dreamt of peace in times of war, of violence in times of harmony, of innocence in times of corruption, and of debauchery in times of virtue. I have watched hope's limbless figure worm through the spiteful streets in search of moldy bread. I have seen a cringing body, in the last throes of life, yield to Death's peaceful refuge, and in the same hour I witnessed the wailing, shaking terror of the newborn infant. I have experienced and I have seen, and I wish to see no more.

I chant of freedom, for sight is slavery. That uncontrollable overseer demands response. The briefest glimpse may monopolize the subconscious, dominate the imagination, and hound the emotions until the freest thinker is toppled into the depths of a self-less monomania. A distracted mother suckles a lusty infant within the bustling cacophony of the New York subway. A creased, ashen face: lips pursed, eyes raised to a decorous church ceiling, reconciles its vivacious interior with the premonition of approaching death. A lonesome alcoholic enters an overstuffed bar on Friday night and is harshly attacked by the joyous din of glutted souls. I refuse to submit to sight's pervasive tyranny. I refuse to undermine my mind with these omnipresent bombardments. Sight drives me to distraction. The unwanted perspicacity hampers my thoughts, leeching my individuality. I will not let them overpower my thoughts anymore. Thus, I choose a life of willful blindness. I sacrifice a superficial sense in order to liberate the crippled identity.

Now the eyes of my hovel are blind, for I have sliced out their innards and filled their sagging sockets with planks of sturdy cedar. There are no bulbs in this flat. I have popped their smooth exteriors, reveling in the sudden release of pressure. Their mutilated flesh lies scattered about: a gruesome surprise for the shoeless interloper. The sun's hypocrisy no longer beats down my door. That churning sphere of liquid fire; that nauseous, gaseous heater of hell! Aten, Sol, Surya, Helios: they are all my enemies. I'll douse them in stormy torrents of sodium chloride and powdered graphite. Because I know that all things are noble when sheathed in merciful darkness. Because all things are free when judgmental light is quenched into tolerant and forgiving gloom. Because I can no longer stand the shallow responsibility of perception.

The lonesome crag stands supercilious in the night. It's invisible presence strikes the soul with trepidation. Human arrogance melts against its haughty crust, fleeing before its timeless presence. Yet creeping insects mount its hide and penetrate the virginal mass. They pump and plumb until they have sated their passion, and the Queen of Independence lies spent and violated. They cart the shining loot of their profit-rape back to smoggy centers where transient greed holds it in high esteem. The immortal Queen is left impure, bleeding auburn tears down her fondled bosom. But she stands proud and undaunted in her divine solitude. She spits in the judgmental eyes of ignominy. She is eternally scornful of the bejewelled businessman, the money counting banker, the laundering politician. She knows she will outlast them all.

Within the shadow of the Queen, only my metamorphosed form remains. I'll be here when humans have perished marching to time's awful drumbeat. I'll be here when the last letter of this chronicle wisps away on the winds of oblivion. I am a despairing depression threatened by an asphyxiating foundation of hardening concrete. I am a subtle slope where famished shovels feed, chomping into my benumbed flesh. I am a moralizing mound, doomed to eat the dung-filled treads of clomping army boots. I am a hardened hillock enduring a despicable siege, scratching for stamina. Painlessness is a thoughtless state of weakness. I embrace my pain and command the power of thought. My body grows, my might increases, my presence strengthens. I fortify my hapless soul against affliction's savage attacks. Yet the amorous wind breathes her whirling breath on my weary face, and swaying blades exult in the path of her pungent exhalation. I am not quite a mountain, but I flourish with tribulation.