A Country Rag Another Side
Midi file: "Theme from the Twilight Zone"
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Diamonds by Jeannette Harris
"It is a little lonely in the desert..." "It is also lonely among men," the snake said. |
Serinafrom the sea where life began hold my hand through death and life and drowning rise again walk again over the land roll in wonders of sand sifted by sun electrified by water wave to grain atom to beach invisible to matter Science fiction and the possibility of extraterrestrial life are as popular in Appalachia as in other regions, particularly as spaceships tend to land and aliens to leave their markers in remote areas, especially farm fields. Galapagos 7xn-1* * *Amazerqs kept knocking hir off course. As they took control of Techne Mythos in a vicious attack that slayed and enslaved, Trismes set sail for the peaceful sound and jeweled caves of Adha Pateeg where rain falls in sparkling ribbons, curtains of gold. The Valhalla of hir galaxy drew like a magnet. Trismes needed no compass but hir heart.
“Let me take over for awhile.” Arga came to hir side and, with consent, they exchanged bodies. “Aaaooww!” “Thanks,” Trismes grinned. “I’ll get back in real soon. Just give me a mezu or two.” E stretched Arga’s arms hard toward the cosmos, reached for Io, hir favorite of Jupiter’s moons, and hurled the orb toward Haraita, a launching pad of the Amazerqs. “How does my heart feel?” Trismes asked, worriedly. “Like a stone. A large one.” “We’re off-beam. You shouldn’t be able to feel it at all. Is it beating?” “Like a Zulu tom-tom.” “We’re visible,” Trismes warned. “It should be completely still.” Arga began to panic. “Which way should I steer?” “Turn the wheel till my heart feels calm and light,” Trismes instructed from the warmth of hir temporary digs. Trismes’ legs were becoming a torment for Arga. The piercing pricks of metal in hir skull sent brain cells fleeing, zigzagging through Trismes’ whole body. E saw them start to work when they reached the knees, mending nerve and flesh, spinning white corpuscles out to withered surface skin. Tracers glared to their left. The ship had turned in its ocean of space. “How does my heart feel now?” Feeding on Arga, Trismes’ strength had returned. “Shall I go back?” Failing, Arga flung hirself weakly back into hir body and shimmered with content. “Home is where the heart is,” e laughed. Trismes bent hir head, turned an ear up toward the chimes. “I can hear the triangula of Adha Pateeg,” e sighed in relief. Trismes held out hir hand and, with the ship, they vanished on course.
* * * Transmission from ArgaNote: Translation, particularly of complex imagery and concept, from one communicative form to another is deflective, circumscribed by profound grammatic parameters. Sadly, much is lost of the original transpiration from instant to written word. They come from X!ph= and I don't understand their language. Actually, I can't really hear them but the import of their message seeps into my consciousness and I recognize the source. Their natural home is, of course, far away in distance as we measure it, but quite close by locomotive means of 'X!ph a-, a wave for which we have no name as yet being unevolved to perceive it. Altho tactile in their entirety, I can see but small portions of a X1ph+. In fact, they are not -- and this is difficult to explain -- separate from other in the sense that we recognize Jane as distinct physically, etc. from Jack and Jack from Jake the poodle and Jake or Jack or Jane from Jessie the fish. In play and for defense, a +X'ph may impart to earth objects -- stone or leaf, for instance -- its life force. Together, X'ph1 may move suns or skip a feather to particulate seas in galaxies beyond our dimensions.
=X!ph'1 reproduce outside our proscribed sense of self, universe and communicative causation. As well as I can describe in earth terms, they are self-created and have no, or many, genders. Both eternal and non-existent, they experience our constructive edifice as awkward, chaotic and enervating. In attraction, elements of a '+Xph=ian spark photochromically. A 1X=ph' instructed this pen. Although I meant to say more and thought I did, the emanation is gone, not on the page. I cannot relate or draw it from my cellular level and -- oh! -- the X!ph= is gone. Suddenly I am earth, female, I am ravenous for apple pie and I want to braid my hair. I have no interest in writing.
ShineStraight, slim rays tapdancing on teardrop glass, alien wings point and pull within the lavendar haze. Dawn in aqua, milky dunes round mystery moons, reveal clusters sparkling, diaphanous with new worlds. To a lyric beat the shape of grace implodes, injects blinding light. "Contact": the movie
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Suddenly, Amazerqs forced Trismes to their gravity with a staccato burst of sword fire. Shrapnel hit hir legs and skull, sent messages of cut-and-burn screaming, stampeding through hir system. Trismes howled, fell to hir knees and gripped the wheel tighter.
Being of pure energy not matter as we understand it, X'ph1 react in movement
and discovery without emotion, pain or expression.|
"The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel." -- Piet Mondrian |
Graphics & "Diamonds" © Jeannette Harris, January 2000. All rights reserved.