#void walker

[Tape Begins] Good morning.

(Sigh)

Good Morning [different tone]

Good Morning? Morning Good. Good Morning! 

Haha, Why am I still saying that? I know at some point I had a reason. I had a structure based in the idea of a morning. Now it's vestigial. Like tonsils. No part of this is morning anymore. I'm not sleeping, there's no rising sun- no alarm- no light piercing closed blinds- hah- no tea. 

The only thing morning means is the beginning of a new tape. In that way, tapes form the days of this beautiful, horrible place. There's poetry in that. 

But what was a morning? In its original definition. It’s a- Golly, I struggle to recall. It's warm. It was summer the last I remember. There's an alarm giving me the weather forecast on the news station. I got up, took off my pajamas and changed into my clothes. I don't remember what they looked like but I know I liked the way they feel. And the way they looked. They were too large for me. I know they were because all of my clothes were. I've always been thin, like way too thin to find something both in my size and something I liked. I don't mind the way they hung on me. It was comfortable. Made me feel protected. 

I made myself some tea and started the coffee pot for Malaysia. She used to drink tea too, but after college she had grown more fond of, eugh, coffee. 

I remember every part of it now. I can feel the day playing out in my head. It's comforting to remember a life before this. 

 Malaysia woke up later than me. I had made us breakfast. She sipped her coffee and told me about her dream. We had oatmeal with sliced fruit on top. blueberries and strawberries and each half a banana sliced into bits. She liked it, I think. She didn't eat much. 

I told her I had a Mass today. That Santano wanted her to come. It would end long before she had to get to the library. I think it spoiled her appetite. She rolled back and started searching through our little drawer of candles. She opened one and smelled it. Then she closed it and opened another. 

I tried to convince her. I told her surely she had seen how happy it made me and that she should just give it a try. It was far from the first time I had to ask her, but I think she saw the desperation in my voice. 

She looked to the candle she held it as- if almost as if she was asking it for advice before- pensively setting it down. She shut the drawer and backed away. 

"I'll go," She said before quickly correcting herself, "Just this once. ok?"

I remember the drive there. It was silent. I remember thinking the sky was so beautifully grim but I don't remember what it looked like. I remembered sitting in the back, uncharacteristic of myself but a sacrifice I was willing to make for Malaysia's comfort. Then the poems began. 

A sonnet spoken from a masterpiece that creates masterpieces. The truth, the only truth I had ever known. I remember exactly what he said. I wish I could remember the delightful ways his beautiful face contorted around each word as they flowed out of his mouth- swirling into the air like this DARN RED LIGHT. 

(quickly calming down)

Sorry. Sorry. 

I-

Malaysia got more tense as it went on. As the words shifted from speaking praise to the Earth to speaking praise for its creature. Santano caught my eyes. I remember the string of tension that connected us even from across the room as he explained and even simpler and simpler terms in hopes to enlighten my friend. He was so kind and gentle and sweet like the grass cushioning your feet as you walked. 

He was the Earth's favorite and I was his favorite. I like to think that made me important. 

His feet were so connected to the ground it's like he spoke from the core of the Earth itself. 

Malaysia softly prodded at her phone from a position she thought I couldn't see. When she saw me she whispered that this wasn't right. She called it a cult, she said it was evil. I couldn't believe her. The gull to call my community a cult right in its very service?

Though, I- I kept my cool. she just didn't understand and I was sure the hole would enlighten her. That beautiful combination of generations worth of effort.

I worried for her. Her soul more than her body. I worried her death would be in vain, but here and now I have the capacity to save her. 

The people filed from the pews into a second room. The people smiled and chatted as they armed themselves with simple mechanisms to dig. Shovels, mostly, although I know quite a few preferred the  more intimate struggle of clawing at the dirt with their very hands. They organized themself wordlessly into their places and they began to dig. Malaysia was given the privilege to watch me and with Santano. The people almost looked like ants from so far above. The site gave me so much joy I almost couldn't hear the escalation of Malaysia's concerned whispers up to frantic yelling. 

I can't remember what she said as I tried to drop them from my mind. Such horrible things, I know they were. "Listen," I pleaded, "Listen to Santano he can save you. I want you to be saved. You're not going to die a meaningless death. Malaysia, let me save you!"

...

(gulp)

She stormed off. I don't think she went far. 

"She just needs time," I said, unsure if it was to Santano or to myself. 

And then Santano spoke, and I remember exactly what he said. 

"You are kindness and compassion greater than me. You are the image of that support. I see the deep desire to help in your eyes, but in the same glint I recognize an anger I've never seen in you. I'm so happy you care so much for this cause and I'm sure your conflict is hurting you but you know what you need to do to save her."

The people in the hole continued to dig as my soft cheeks were so gently caressed by the smoothness of his hands. 

I knew what I needed to do. 

"For your community, for the Earth, for me." He said to me, the spade in his hand sparkling in sharpness. 

And I knew what I needed to do. 

The spade fit perfectly in my clinched hand as I walked into the darkness. 

I knew what I needed to do like I always did and only then did I have the strength to admit it. 

And I walked to her. And I knew it and I knew it. And I felt the blood pool and I knew it was hers. Wasn't it that very same red dancing in the room now? 

Good morning. It's Krishna again. 

My hands are all chalky from all the digging. I think my sweat and the small bits of crushed stone have started collecting on my fingertips. I don't mind. It makes me feel connected to this place. All this time, however long I've been here, it's changed me as much as I've changed it. 

There's poetry in that. 

Hee hee hoo hoo

I feel alive, I feel so alive. I'm living and breathing and I'm sweaty and cold, the stone is harsh on my body and I love it. 

I love this place like a home and I hate who put me here. The feelings swirl in the pit of my stomach and it makes me want to laugh.

I feel the Earth, not physically but mentally. If I focus enough on my memories of dirt and cobbled stone and how they make me feel I can start to understand it. I'm remembering so many things. Things I never knew I forgot.

The visuals are all gone but I think I'm starting to understand my memories deeper than I did a moment ago. I think something's changing in me. I don't know if that's good or bad. 

(laughter)

There's a hole in the wall. It's (cath- cathartic? yeah) cathartic to take out this- anger (anger? no not anger) this - i don't know this feeling-- but It's so nice to let myself devulge into mindless hitting.

I wonder if that's how the people in the hole felt. Mindless like a colony of ants feeding into the whims of its Queen. Our queen. My queen!

Malaysia used to ask me why I like bugs so much. There are many reasons to like bugs. 

So many people think that bugs are pests and they refuse to see how beautiful they can be. I like spiders, especially the Daddy Long legs. I always thought that they- that it was a funny name and i remember they always looked so silly. 

Santano prefers worms. He likes them writhing in the core of the Earth, utterly entombed in its Majesty. 

I like the fur of moths and I love the sounds of crickets and cicadas. 

I love how bugs are so complicated even though they're so small. They can have hundreds of little tiny limbs or delicate antennae. 

Bugs have a lot to offer. I think people are scared of them so they don't try and look closer. I always liked looking closer. 

Have you ever lifted up a large rock and found bugs underneath? I don't mean one or two, I mean a colony. Have you kicked an ant pile and seen floods of them ooze out as if a physical manifestation of the beating heart of there colony? Have you felt your foot slowly become covered in creatures until it was an unidentifiable writhing mass of bug?

My favorite thing about bugs is that theres a lot of them. 

My old house had termites. We knew for a while, I could tell what they were from the pictures in my library books. My mother told our landlord time and time again but she always refuted. Then, one day, my mother saw one fly from behind her piano, so she moved it to see. The back side of it was gone. It was an insectoid pool spurting out flying creatures every way. They dispersed and made every wall look like it moved. 

My mother took my hand instinctively as if to quelm a fear she assumed I had, but I had never had been happier than that moment. 

They move as one. They all move as one, mindless in their movements, and that is why they succeed. We should be all a bit more like them.

When you hear this, you, the Warden of this prison. Know your not beyond saving. Listen to my words. Listen to the poetry. Listen to the Earth. 

I hope you put me here for revenge. I hope you feel- that you feel that lovely feeling seeing me struggle. I hope You're So satisfied as I lose direction like a spiral of ants. But I will return to my queen, he is waiting on me. 

(panting) 

You are not yet beyond saving. And as much as I hate you for doing this to me I want nothing more but to share our lovely plight. 

Santano would be so proud of me if he knew the rage I felt today. And I hope he does see me. No, he will see me soo- 

(tapes falling on the floor)

No! 

No no no-  The- the tapes. Warden, I have more to say to you but- No I - gosh I need to get these in order. 

[Panicked] 

There not broken are they? They- no no, none of them are broken. I'll get them back in order

Back in order in their little stacks. 

ok

~~~

No, no, 

Something happened 

The fifth one is gone. something must have happened when I was recording it or when I tripped. It's just. One of them is just static. No it's just static. (No no no) just static. Static. STATIC. 

[sob]

I'll get out. I'll get out. . And I LOVE this place and I hate it so much and I'll get out. 

out out out. 

And Malaysia will be there. And Santano will be there. And there will be no more static

and we'll all be so happy. My community. Its holes. It's rage. I'm going to get out. I'm going to spin webs of truth and rage and braid them together. 

my eyes will see every color my mind has forgotten. 

I'll get out

Hello. It's Krishna again. I have a story for you. 

Once there was a man who spun poems out of almost nothing. He was a masterpiece who made masterpieces. 

I asked him how he did it.

His mouth was like dexterous hands braiding thin threads into existence. I don't remember what it looked like when he spoke. I don't remember what mouse or hands look like at all. I only remember the feeling. I'm becoming more content with that. 

He told me he made everything poetry because everything already was. He told me there was poetry in the russell, the leaves and grass between your toes. 

He told me that many people didn't see it. He told me to see it. 

Of course, I saw it with more of my eyes. Gosh, my whole body saw it. I guess a better word would be that I felt it. I felt it and heard it and smelled it and tasted it. 

The earth is a masterpiece that makes masterpieces. 

He told me it was all a gift. The earth gifted us life and that we must repay our debts to it. Not in the way of nature but instead the soil that grows from. The rock and dirt that clods together to make all we know. 

He told me the earth was sleeping. He took my hand in his and he showed me a book of poems. 

I remember that I didn't know what the shapes represented. I remember the smell of the pages, like soil and river water. 

Santano gave me my community when I had none. We dressed in cloaks and heard his poems each day. I don't remember how many of us there were. I didn't count on ever having to. 

But, there were enough to fill a room.

And out of all of them, I was his favorite. 

I could recall his sermons in perfect detail, every word, every idea. What beautiful ideas from a beautiful, beautiful man. 

The earth gives us life. The earth let us take it. Nature itself is a gift for us. It would be... unwise not to appreciate it. 

A woman from my community took me hunting once. I was squeamish with the idea of blood but she told me the blood was just as much as a masterpiece as the deer itself. 

I don't think people often see it that way. For a while I didn't see it that way either. 

Santano helped me to see. To see not only the beauties of nature but the beauty of everything we make of it. Of the rigid edges of a city or the swirl of oil and water. Everything was beautiful because everything was earth. He spoke in poems because he got to see it all as poetry.. and I only wish to be like that. 

I think my time meditating has helped me to begin to understand. 

There is poetry in this darkness. In the cold cement floors and the sharp metallic smell.  

There is poetry in the way that little red light dances through it all, swirling and passing by as the only cut from the infinite depths of black. There is poetry in the way that that little red light is the only thing I can see, the only thing I can ever think to see, my only reminder of what vision is.

…

I never liked red. It was too harsh of a color for me. Now it’s the only color I could even think of… How ironic is that?

....

....

My community was small. We could all fit in a single room. We often sat in pews. Our size let us only grow closer to one another. In hardships and success we all knew one another. 

My community dug. They all dug a hole deep into the Earth. The hole was much older than them.  

They never grew tired. Their arms never grew weary. The earth gave them strength.

I remember why they dug, Santano told me, but I never had to dig. I was his favorite. I got to sit and watch. On occasion I got to preach. I remembered what I preached. 

I had a job in my community. I threw parties. I loved my community and they loved me. 

There was a melody to it, a certain rhythm. There's a certain rhythm to many things.  ...

Do you ever wonder if we invited art? Music, rhythm, poetry. Did we as humans create it or did we discover it? 

I think most people would say the former. Most people think that art is a strictly human subject. I know now that they are wrong. 

My mother played a song for me but she did not make it, she discovered it. Each note desperately searching for the path to its completion. She wasn't a creator, she was a navigator. Her song was a gift from the earth. She just didn't know it.  (ringing)

My mothers death was sudden. One day she was working and the next she was in the hospital. And then the next, she was gone. It was hard on me but Santano told me of life everlasting. I met Santano not long after my mother died, you know? I met him on a Wednesday. I remember the day we met. Well, it was the best day of my life. 

The sky was flush and gorgeous. I wish I could picture it. It was sunset but it was still hot and murky. I was waiting at a bus stop after work, my hands gracing the metallic seat for the soft coolness that remained trapped inside. I couldn't drive, golly, I still can't. I'm glad I never learned though. 

I didn't see Santano come, I only noticed that he had been there. I gave him a big smile in a wave as I would with any stranger, told him "Hi, how are ya?"

He smiled. His words were poetry, words so beautiful I remember exactly what he told me. 

It made me smile. He smiled too. 

I'm smiling now just thinking about it. It's so cold, so very cold in this room and yet the smile plays a song of heat on my cheeks.

I don't remember the looks anymore, but I remember the feeling. My cheeks were as flushed as the sky playing that same song of heat. The heavy humidity and deep heat made my shirt stick slightly to my chest. 

I remember everything we told each other. Every word of it sings to the song of my life. 

I had to go home, Malaysia would be worried sick if I was late and my bus was there. 

I shook his hand. It tangled into mine for a brief moment. Despite the heat his hands were like cool stone. They were smooth like tumbled rocks. My hands in turn were moist with sweat as if the humid temperature had become me. 

I walked onto my bus, sure to absorb that same glint of coolness from the metal bar I held onto, and for just a moment again, I turned back to him. 

I was expecting him to be gone, just a whim of the mind who came and went without a trace, but he was still there, still waving with a soft smile. It was only at that moment I realized how tired he looked. 

...

...

[Tape Begins] The Spider is dead.

This is Krishna Karna. This is day 6. I think. I'm starting to not believe that. 

I never really knew how much time was passing, I don't have a watch and my phone ran out of battery some time ago. I was going through my camera roll. I was crying. 

I don't want to be too self-congratulatory, but I think I did well. However long I've been here, I've kept my head up the whole time. I've done well. I had done well. 

I don't know what day it is. And- to be honest I never really did. I marked the days by my sleeping but I haven't slept in a long time. 

The spider is gone. 

The spider is dead. 

I ate the spider. 

It was going to die eventually, I know that. It made a frail attempt at a web before I grabbed it with two fingers and ate it. 

A spider is a majestic creature that spins web from almost nothing. A spider is a creator, a masterpiece that makes masterpieces. Don't think my actions deny the Majesty of Earth's blessings. 

I knew a man who spun poems from almost nothing. He spoke them like every other word, and I loved him for that. He was a masterpiece that made masterpieces. He taught me what Majesty truly looks like. He taught me how to treat it. 

I would rather have eaten the spider then watch it slowly wither away until one day I didn't feel its tapping on my legs.

It's better this way, I think. 

I feel stupid to only ask now but when will I wither away? I haven't been so much as thirsty since I first arrived here. There is no food. There's not even water.

Maybe the trauma of the situation has made me think it's been days when it's actually only been hours. They say goes fast when you're having fun and maybe the alternative of that is time screeching to almost a halt. 

No, I can feel the growing hair on my chin and cheeks. Prickly and thick.I was never able to really grow a beard it was always patchy. I've always shaved daily and I know by its length that it's been longer than a day. 

Maybe I was right in the beginning. I'm asleep and this is some twisted dream of my comatose state. I don't know if people in comas still dream.

I really hope they don't. 

My hair is greasier than when I first came. My clothes still stink of sweat. The toe I stubbed has healed. Time is passing; I'm changing. 

But I'm not hungry. 

I forgot what I wore here. I can feel it, but it's pattern is lost to memory. I try to think on the patterns my clothes had. I know they we're colorful but I don't know what colorful really means. The only color I can think of is the brilliant red from the little light. 

Maybe the light is feeding me. It ok.. it might sound stupid but- I guess it just feels right. Like the place where eating once would have been was replaced with these tapes. 

But, I know something, don't I? 

I know something that someone else wants to know, and they wanted me to record it. 

I'm not a very interesting man. I don't get into fights. What could I possibly know? 

Better yet, if they are willing to go to such lengths, am I willing to tell them? 

The... uh.. Warden of this prison.

The warden wanted me to record tapes. 

That much has always been obvious. (chuckle) Why else give them to me in the first place 

Maybe they just wanted to see what it would do to a man or maybe there's something they needed to hear. 

...

I have half a mind to destroy these tapes but- haha, it wouldn't help, would it? And these tapes, this recorder. If my crazy hunch was right, would I starve without them?  

Am I willing to take that chance?  Am I willing to die?

....

I don't even remember sight. I can recall adjectives. I know what they meant and what they made me feel but I couldn't tell you what they look like. 

How pathetic is that? If it really has just been 6 days, and I've already forgotten what seeing was like. 

I know it's been longer though. 

I wanted to tell a story about Malaysia. I can tell you she's smart and sweet but I don't even know what she looks like. I know the way she smiled felt like fresh sun. I know her eyes were moonlight, but the composition of her face is lost on me. 

And Santano, my Santano. I know he's the most beautiful man I've ever seen, both in body and spirit but the soft curves of his face are lost on me now. I remember the songs Santano would sing to me. I remember his face like a melody, like a poem. But I can't see it. 

Although this knowledge is burdening it only gives me more motivation to rip myself from this place and see them again. I need to let this fill me with strength. I NEED TO LET THIS-

(hit)

...

(sniff)

i… I need to see them again. 

i need to see them

(crying)

I can't remember my mothers face. I can't remember what she looks like. I-

I...

~~~

I have a promise to fulfill. 

I didn't forget about our promise Santano! 

I didn't forget about our promise!

I will remain hopeful; I am hopeful; I am so hopeful for you

Santano, I will return to you. I will keep our promise. 

I will hear you play my mothers song

I will see the soft curves of your face

I will listen to the poems you spin

I will be enveloped with your warmth

I will. 

I will.

I will. 

Its so dark