Descending Road - FERDINAND READING by Dana W. Paxson

FERDINAND READING

15?? 4D

The book is gone. I’ve slipped into a deeper innerspace, a card slid under a locked door, and life presses all around me in bitter-scented air, word-colors straining even my andro sight with their singing. I dance their music as it shakes the crystals of my bones. Somewhere a pair of hands holds a book open like a portal, and I am here.

In the mind we have sieves, dams, walls, gates to slow the inrush of information and let us observe it, ingest it, digest it, apply it. This torrent of meaning blows aside every barrier, washes out every channel, floods me into madness. Screaming delight and terror erupt from me and vanish in the surging blast.

Awareness returns in pieces. The awareness is in pieces, but so am I, calling out to myself, hearing myself from a distance, answering, hearing other cries for help in my voice. I know all these different things but they will not join in me, because I am not joined, even though I am aware. I am we.

We keep calling like shipwreck victims at sea in a fog-soaked night, paddling, reaching, crying out, finally drawing nearer to each other. Two of us embrace. A third joins us, clinging; now light returns. Maybe this one of us has some of vision.

A fourth, a fifth, and now we have the taste of sweat, the colors of fleyatZK and fyaZKol (infra-red and –orange), the recalling of a woman’s hair brushing lips. My self reassembles. But the tidal waves of meaning regenerate themselves, mount, and tear it all apart again. The cycle repeats, once, again, again many times. Exhausted at last, I am the beach of the sandy dream from Kuklagrad; I stare unblinking at a depthless night sky.

The crabs come to remove the grains of sand from me. Their tiny claws tickle me. But I am the sand – they are taking away bits of myself. My eyelids do not close: the crabs have taken them. Now they begin their work on my face and neck.

Thought is my only hope. In each grain of sand I seed a thought no bigger than a coiled hair, coded with the genes of story, forgetting the knowledge into the molecular twists. Maybe if my thought is big enough I’ll escape this death as myself. I don’t know. I work feverishly as the crabs disassemble me. My eyes blur over, blear, and darken. The stars fade and vanish into blackness. The rattling pulse of information entering me ceases. Silence.

Story List	SURPRISE ME	Author Page
USER SURVEY	PUZZLE ME	MAKE ELM MARK

HOVER Lucida Bright BARE	HOVER Lucida Bright FULL	HOVER Palatino Linotype BARE
HOVER Palatino Linotype FULL	HOVER Times New Roman BARE	HOVER Times New Roman FULL
PAD Arial BARE	PAD Arial FULL	PAD Lucida Bright BARE
PAD Lucida Bright FULL	PAD Times New Roman BARE	PAD Times New Roman FULL


	FERDINAND READING 15?? 4D The book is gone. I’ve slipped into a deeper innerspace, a card slid under a locked door, and life presses all around me in bitter-scented air, word-colors straining even my andro sight with their singing. I dance their music as it shakes the crystals of my bones. Somewhere a pair of hands holds a book open like a portal, and I am here. In the mind we have sieves, dams, walls, gates to slow the inrush of information and let us observe it, ingest it, digest it, apply it. This torrent of meaning blows aside every barrier, washes out every channel, floods me into madness. Screaming delight and terror erupt from me and vanish in the surging blast. Awareness returns in pieces. The awareness is in pieces, but so am I, calling out to myself, hearing myself from a distance, answering, hearing other cries for help in my voice. I know all these different things but they will not join in me, because I am not joined, even though I am aware. I am we. We keep calling like shipwreck victims at sea in a fog-soaked night, paddling, reaching, crying out, finally drawing nearer to each other. Two of us embrace. A third joins us, clinging; now light returns. Maybe this one of us has some of vision. A fourth, a fifth, and now we have the taste of sweat, the colors of fleyatZK and fyaZKol (infra-red and –orange), the recalling of a woman’s hair brushing lips. My self reassembles. But the tidal waves of meaning regenerate themselves, mount, and tear it all apart again. The cycle repeats, once, again, again many times. Exhausted at last, I am the beach of the sandy dream from Kuklagrad; I stare unblinking at a depthless night sky. The crabs come to remove the grains of sand from me. Their tiny claws tickle me. But I am the sand – they are taking away bits of myself. My eyelids do not close: the crabs have taken them. Now they begin their work on my face and neck. Thought is my only hope. In each grain of sand I seed a thought no bigger than a coiled hair, coded with the genes of story, forgetting the knowledge into the molecular twists. Maybe if my thought is big enough I’ll escape this death as myself. I don’t know. I work feverishly as the crabs disassemble me. My eyes blur over, blear, and darken. The stars fade and vanish into blackness. The rattling pulse of information entering me ceases. Silence.