DESCRIPTION
You have seen things. I thank you for describing them to me with so much care and poetic accuracy. Your eyes must be beautiful. As for the things at hand, I am unclear regarding their purpose, if any. [826 words]
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
Short Biography: Pepijn Sauer Born midnight between the 3rd and 4th of February 1970 in Arnhem, The Netherlands. Studied Japanese, Philosophy and Psychology at the universities of Leiden and Utrecht, finished neither because of tendencies towards the more obscure sides of the above mentioned fields. Paints, does illustrations and translates from Dutch to English and vice versa. (mainly scientific articles). [September 2001]
AUTHOR'S OTHER TITLES (8) A Song Of Absence (Short Stories) Absence. Everybody is on the beach but you. Meister Eckhart sunbathing in bright green shorts. Dostojevski and William James play beach volleyball against the Marx Brothers. In the shadow of a palm t... [1,412 words] [Mind] Dis-Appointment (Poetry) Short poem. [12 words] [Romance] For Sofia (Short Stories) You live with the question. Wondering how to proceed, we find ways to make things happen. We do not understand the question. It is there despite our lack of understanding, as are many other things. Fo... [449 words] [Mind] Gravity (Short Stories) I circle the gravity of this situation in elliptical curves. Inside the fences, so fashionably dressed in distractedly elegant drapings of barbed wire, the TV show goes on showing. (White noise. Fragm... [589 words] [Mind] Party (Short Stories) Actually the host is dead. It took me a while to notice, but it's true. The host is so dead he has a lot of time to give parties. [581 words] [Mind] The End Of History And The Last Fish (Short Stories) When Field commander Asinine launched his final all out withdrawal the first one to be killed was major Fuck Up. The loss was grave but they had no time to bury him. [1,168 words] [Mind] The Function Of Criticism (Short Stories) We forget without remembering what. Something started at some point but the point is now almost identical to everything; or rather, it is starting to be, unstoppably, constantly. [774 words] [Mind] The Mind That Is Morning (Short Stories) The mind that is morning swims. As it grows later it will become frosted glass; an empty couch by the window; twelve words; a dolphin blowing rings of air and an empty coffee cup in the sunlight. [459 words] [Mind]
Witness Pepijn Sauer
Witness.
You have seen things. I thank you for describing them to me with so much care and poetic accuracy. Your eyes must be beautiful. As for the things at hand, I am unclear regarding their purpose, if any. I recommend more looking. We must look into these things very carefully. Everything is changing. A giant television screen has appeared outside. It broadcasts commercials and cartoons. At this, too, I look attentively.
Blue seems to be important; so are a particular kind of sea mammal and a kind of bird. I have practiced sleep. The smell of freshly made coffee is pleasant, especially in the morning. Besides this there are other things. All of this is unrelated to the giant television screen. We will understand it somehow. We do not have to but we will. This is a comforting thought.
Things are very strange. It may be my way of looking at them that reveals this, though I have no way to be sure of that. History has come to me, though in a somewhat abbreviated form. It just walked in the door in a blue two volume edition with black print across the front and along the spine. The first thing it asked me was If I had a Hope. When I told it no, it walked out again and came back from the supermarket with four boxes marked ¡®Hope¡¯. It smokes one packet of Hope everyday. Three days later it dies without answering any questions.
I bury history in the garden, along with what is left of the Hope. It is not raining out of the white clouds, the blue sky.
Facts. Should we be looking for facts? Can we face the facts? What are the facts? Are they hard? Soft? Are they cold? What does facing the facts amount to. Do we have to bend at the knees - stand on the roof - on a soapbox ? Do we have to kneel - lie down maybe? Face down or face up?
Even if we are willing to face the facts: is this circumstance mutual, that is, will the facts want to face us? If so how will we know which of the things facing us, if any, is a fact, and not, for example, an entirely fictional cerulean blue piano? In what light should the facts be seen? Do facts have to be faced in daylight? Can we face the facts in the dark? How do facts relate to laboratory rats?
'Let the facts speak for themselves,' they said.
The facts lie face down on a tropical beach with their heads stuck in the sand.
The sand lies face up on the beach with its head stuck in the facts.
The rats, meanwhile, are still having a hard time.
Yes.
We will witness many things. I will witness you speaking the words I have wanted you to speak. (I am here.) We will witness death, the deep eyes of it going shallow in a sudden lapse. Death like a feather falling - and sudden. Witness the things that dig into us with sharp claws - fear. Witness breath from inside - space expanding. The outcome of things unequal balanced in delicate equilibrium. The clarity of frost - the clarity that bites your face like translucent wolves jumping up against your chest. At night, the collapse of consciousness, slow and graceful. The rise and fall of fearful symmetries. We will witness the birth of a question - crying - CRYING - can I KNOW YOU? We will see flags become wells of gravity sucking blood out of hundreds, thousands, ten thousands of bodies, flags soaked with blood, soil soaked with blood.
The instability of frames of reference. It is troubling. The assumption of dependence - the thing inside my left hand.
I must have wiped myself out again. I can remember you said something, but I can't remember what: '...' The thing that is evolving remains outside. It is not part of the pattern you have provided.
You know I can't continue this way. You know. There is a big deficit involved in this thing. Evolution is not as clear a process as is sometimes assumed. The principle is not the same as the thing that happens.
I don't feel like explaining it now.
I don't think you would really
care for my explanation.
I can understand.
Neither do I.
We will return to it after many other things. Like many other things. Outside. You understand that nothing has been clarified?
Now I remember what you said:
'Go on - we have to keep speaking. To much has been left unsaid. I am therefore. To be included, the thingness of things shall be shattered. The shattering shall be joy - wingless - undivine. In the now that is this we shall speak - speak the things that are blood and bone and sand. Speak the things that are water and sky. We shall be this speaking.'
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