fractal007
Senior Member
since 06-01-2000
Posts 1946
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
|
0 posted 06-11-2009 11:25 PM
| |
Obsession with hell is a thing which dogs many a creator. Hell is the place conjured in the imaginations of those who are not blessed (or cursed, as the case may be) as the creator is with the ability to build whatever dwelling he so chooses within the confines of his mind and to live there in relative contentment. Hell is the place wherein the non-creative find solace when they contemplate with envy the mansions of the imaginative. Or so Kelvin had read in one of the annals Wu still had from his time under the tutelage of Du Mu.
But now he was beginning to understand the importance of such a dogma to the citizen of Weiland. One could not remain sane in the environment of endless criticism and nay saying without some form of consolation. Wu, he knew, had taken the less travelled path. It was very easy to be a critic in Weilandian society.
The critic played the supporting role in the lives of the successful. The critic was the person who looked down upon them, trying to keep them pinned to the ground with daily affirmations of impending failure and futility. “If you keep obsessing over that new invention of yours, you'll alienate everyone around you.” “Do you really think your little heroes will save you when you catch a cold or when you're stricken with diarrhoea, or, administration forbid, you catch a case of the Fulan worm?” “What you've chosen for your vocation isn't practical. A man needs to work with his hands.” “Women shouldn't be dirtying themselves like that.”
If someone finally did succeed in realising her aspirations the critics were commended for their brave performance in the face of such a determined foe. They had propped up desire by opposing it, lighted the way in with a blackened haze of disparagement. The realiser of aspirations on the other hand would be canonised, idolised in the pantheon of success stories who beat the odds and built their dreams in spite of all the haters around them. Scholars would scour her private diaries, if she kept any, and add any useful bits of wisdom to that fabled text “The Aphorisms of the Dead.” No one knew they were doing this, of course, since “The Aphorisms” was an ancient art of worldly wisdom written millennia ago.
Slowly Kelvin had grown accustomed to Weiland. Parts of it were not unlike Kelvin's own world. He could see why Wu had chosen to deposit his wanderer in a desert. The place was empty, devoid of hope. To live in Wu's desert was to live alone and that was precisely how Kelvin felt now, how he had felt for most of his life.
“Why doesn't he die?” Kelvin asked on one occasion.
“What do you mean?” Wu replied.
“I haven't read one line about him eating food or drinking water. How can he stay alive?”
Wu thought about it for a while. The oversight was blindingly obvious to Kelvin but Wu seemed to shrug it off. “Sometimes being guaranteed life is worse than dying the natural death we'd all die if deprived for long enough.”
Kelvin was proud of himself now, proud that he'd mastered the synthetic language designed to keep Wu an outsider. He was glad to have met this man who stood like a tall and thriving plant in a desert not of his own making but rather of his society's contrivance. And as the pangs of hunger grew in him Kelvin began to understand finally what it was like to face the world as it really was.
He didn't need to scan the horizons or to look at the stars. He knew the desert was all around and inside of him, tricking him into walking in circles day and night, following a star that promised stability but moved like all the rest.
Life's short. Think hard!
Me!
|
Main Forums
)
