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Shooting The Volcano in Old Japan Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty and sadness...Were it otherwise, he would never never have been able to find those words.-Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters To A Young PoetMy spoon dips into the rice, stirring it around. If there was a fire, I would keep stirring. Outside, the light is as sharp as the glass your fist breaks to get out of wherever you are. The sun is already buried in the soil. Jasmine sits beside me. The man with water for eyes was complaining, bloodshot about hours paid by his research company. In exploration of market statistics. 'Would you like some chicken?', she asks.She places a small piece onto my plate, into the rice. I gaze at it. Its stringy flesh, fried, nestling into the grains. I gaze at it, my mouth dropping open. 'You've began eating meat, now?', I ask.He doesn't answer. Jasmine makes yum sounds. 'Daddy?', she asks.'What?', he answers. 'Keep your mouth shut when you're eating. What do you want now?''Daddy...can you take your money with you when you die?'He looks at her, shocked. The news broadcast debates a disclosure of a drunk prime minister admitting, no, I didn't feel bad for going out east. But what of the millions of dead? I cried every night for them. Oh.. I saw them in my dreams. Did you ever regret going out there? No, comes the answer, slicing the silence like a butchers knife. No, how could I ever live through these days if I had regret? This means I would be responsible. No..we pay men good money for that burden...I never touched a trigger. His eyes harden. We all die in the end, whichever choice is made, what difference does it make for the way we meet our ends? His lips turn upwards as he says, if you ask me, we did them a favour, they had such poor, impoverished lives..'No', he answers, smiling. 'No, this is samsara, Jasmine, nothing lasts forever, especially money.''What about my piggy bank?''That too. That's why you have to make sure you don't get too attached to it now...easier that way.' His eyes light up when he says this, taking great pleasure in the telling.'Oh..', a sad expression fills her face, casting down her eyes.I keep stirring, avoiding the piece of chicken.'Is this really chicken?', I ask again.He glares, then smirks, raising his chin as if struggling to keep it up from its weight.'Do you really think we would lie to you? Manipulate you? Feed you meat even when we know you refuse to eat?'I say nothing. The sky is struck with a pale orange. Every time I come here, I come back to the end of the world, the end of myself. The silence hangs in the air, the corpse of a dolphin swinging from a branch. Its blood sings to me.'You...you must be used to everyone manipulating and lying to you...distrusting the whole world. Always seeing the worst in everyone, every situation. No wonder this french woman had enough of you.' His words are full of saliva that would burn my skin if it touched me.'You're...as merry as ever these days, I see.'But he spoke over me.'You know nothing...you just think of yourself. Ever thought of why people are critical of you? The root, the string, the origin of the bullet?'His eyes are bloodshot now, no longer full of water.He returns to the fake chicken pieces. 'And this..', picking a piece up, throwing it into my dinner. 'This...is just another sign of your attachments, you're attached to the idea of eating meat just as you are by everything else petty in this world.'My body shakes as if it would split open, involuntarily, half of it running for mountains and the other half for the sea. Both, I adore so. I could never choose. Half a body may be uncomfortable for a while, but you become accustomed to anything in time. I gaze up at his holy books, scriptures; books by lamas, monks, yogis and zen masters. 'And if you don't like it, you can get out of my house, you can sleep outside, tonight'.Here it was. Here, of all times! After so long, the train screeched to a halt. Spent so long trying to derail it, burn it, throw myself before it.It comes out of me like an ocean swallowing a comet. The shakes calm and turn to joyful, maniacal laughing, a kind of laughter that had been buried for a lifetime. Only a soul full of despair can ever attain serenity and, to be in despair, you must have loved a good deal and still love the world.—Blaise CendrarsIt takes a long while to cease. Jasmine begins to laugh with me, surprised, without reason, hitting her plate with her plastic spoon, rice flying everywhere and onto his shirt.'For so long...so, so long...you've threatened me with things that my imagination created and destroyed me with. The fear, the fear, the fear! Listen..this was foolish on your part, and you've lost. You have no power any more. It begins with me and I will spread it to all else who is trapped by you'. He looks ready to hit me. 'You can still hurt me, don't worry. But, you've just made me realise that I'm no longer scared of you. This is it..this is what I've been searching for, for so long. Do you actually think, now, in a time when I sleep outside for pleasure, that this threat could become anything? If you want me to leave, bravo, I'll make my leave now, and this will be the end of everything. There is no going back and...'Jasmine reaches up and places her hand on my mouth. 'Shhh', she says. The words that were to follow would have been regrettable, of my knowledge of those around me and their abuse at his hands. It would have made things worse.Her hand slips into mine. 'Shhh, let's watch nothing to declare'. On the screen, a bear was discovered coming from russia within a man's suitcase, into australia. Its paw must have been bigger than my head./The tide was in, from Siberia and far, far, far ahead was an old fishing boat with its anchor down. It had an orange light, throbbing. I; sitting with a mug of hot steaming tea; passion fruit green and gazing out. Savour these simple, unmoving days.Most people guard against going into the fire,and so end up in it.I desire the fire like I do water. Bring me in, show me the way. This is the only way; this searching, this confronting, this knowing.
