From: paulchem@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Atharvan)
Subject: 16 years later.
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 08:32:56 GMT

1] Another story.
   Comments welcome to paulchem@tigger.cs.colorado.edu

2] 

                     16 years later -- Icarus.
				     -------------------------

I stepped of the train into the dark dark night two days ago, between cheverly 
and bowie state, returning quietly to the City, A. 
Sixteen years have passed.

So I came back to the City. Nothing has changed. The lobsters still gather 
nightly under the city roads and let out their collective steam in revenge
for being sold down the river, at the stroke of midnight, when they think 
no one is watching.
But I was there A. !  Watching while watching was verbotten.

I wouldnt have remembered at all. I was I must admit now quite taken up with
my work and the people who I have gathered around me as debris of the passing 
years. But yesterday A. while I was waiting for the light to change at the
corner of Pratt and Sewall, I saw the twins and that impossible skipping of
every fourth step and then I saw them race across the street trusting God
and the love of men for litle lives. 

Remember Preverts Barbara ? The little french poem that says:
'Remember Barbara ?' a dozen times in three dozen lines ?
And when I read it, whispering every word in your ear you turned your face
away in qaurter profile and said "Do kindness Seh, Do kindness."
And you looked at me waiting, and I saw your face break into the 
smile you reserved for victories over me, when you saw that I didnt
remember who wrote that. Now, after all these years I must confess I wasnt
really trying when I watched, I was reminding myself to remember that
moment. 

Sometimes there are moments, just after the train leaves a stop
or just when the steam billows from the manholes at the stroke of midnight,
there are moments A. when I think you made it up yourself. I lay awake at
night A., what did you mean, I ask myself. I look at the ceiling, and at the
patterns that the light falling on the walls through the shades make and try 
to seek meaning there. Sometimes I think you meant that I was  cruel and you
wanted me to soften. Sometimes I think it was meant as sarcasm. Do kindness.
And Seh. was it a softly spoken sir ? or a harder say. 

Before I reached the other bank of the street, it all had come back to me.
So I trekked all the way back to the school, and there in the front yard, in
the front yard I found the brick, impossibly preserved, and I told myself,
X marks the spot, it marks this spot I said. And then I felt an shadow fall
over that step I took over that brick sixteen years ago. All that remains
of that bright etching infinitesimally erased by hundreds of random feet,
are the two initials: M.D.  And when I took that step over that brick I 
felt like Tomas felt at the end of his final drive in Kunderas book.
I was thinking, as I took that step, how happy I was.

Suddenly overwhelmed I sat down at the bench, cold in the onset of 
winter, and I looked at the ground, at the grey cement, at the statue they
have made of the pleasant looking woman sitting on the bench next to mine.
I looked at the sun pouring down between the clouds, and I saw a bird 
soaring in the sky and I saw the people walking by in suits, men and women,
in business suits,  and out of all the pensive thoughts only a maddening
desire to drink coffee swept me. Do other people feel this way A. ?
Or is is just me ? Does such a trivial thought sneak into others 
deep contemplations too ? God! Im not sure of anything now.

Its ok now I think, the trick of dealing with lobsters when they try
to intimidate you by letting hot hot steam pour from their bodies,
when they try to scare you with their injuries, is to walk sideways,
in lockstep with them. Face them down, when they try to wave their 
chitinous arms and threaten to sink an armoured claw deep into your
heart and tug. Do kindness Seh, Do Kindness, I tell the creatures
when they come swarming out of the night. Its ok now. But there was
a moment of weakness of vertigo a little while ago, wasnt there ?

Blessed are the weak of comprehension, you said, for they shall
never over-interpret. 

I have come back to the City. Sixteen years later. Still nothing
has changed really. I heard a gun ring out three times last night
behind the house. I saw a man in shorts and t-shirt walk down a crowded
street declaiming loudly from a tattered copy of War and Peace.
There are people in the streets trying to save my soul, for a nominal
charge. Hey dont trash my soul I tell them, it may not be much, but its
the only one I got. 

A. how low my faith has fallen! Theres a group called the dustafarians
in our part of town that believes that everything in creation is Dust. Rocks
are hardened Dust, dust proper is loose Dust, lust both proper and improper
are lowest Dust, they say. And I believed it a little, after all its a 
matter of scale, as you would say. A sun is galaxy dust. But I couldnt believe,
A. I tried, but I couldnt, I will not have people asserting that all I 
have loved is dirt.

But now that the twins have reminded me, I feel the weight of that 
silence we have endured.

'Remember Barbara ?' 

Being crushed in the winepress of life, the crowds smile, not knowing
what is happening to them. As the wheels grind and create an illusion
of perfection, they go about smiling. While the wheels churn people
apart and churn people together.

Tell the twins to watch for the traffic when they cross the roads, A.

When the man at the door gave me a ticket and told me to hand over 
12 dollars I was tempted to tell him, Do kindness Seh, Do kindness.


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.   Rain makes me remember,                                                .
.   The sunset of that golden hour,                                        .
.   When my eyes were first opened,                     Paul Chemmanoor    .
.   And I saw your eyes, No longer blind.                   Boulder.       .
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