panic! at the basquiat (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ladyjaida) wrote in ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} pie_ix,@ 2005-08-02 16:44:00 |
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The Sort-Of Introduction.
The clock was broken. Only one hand was left, pointing to IX. There was no way to tell if it was the second, minute or hour hand, but it looked long. The boy nudged at the clock with his toe and it slid forward. Beneath it, an unsteady pile of cans shuffled, agitated.
"Careful," his friend called up to him. He didn't listen to his friend. He had his reasons. To begin with, his friend was a girl. Also, due to perverse boyhood, he was determined to do the opposite of what he was advised to do. From where he was perched, king of the garbage heap, king of the whole garbage dump world even, his friend was just a bodiless voice. He didn't have to listen to her. Instead he crouched down amongst the detritus of his every-day world, breathing in the stale rank free smell of garbage. There was something terrible and beautiful about the rust on the cans, the stopped clock. It looked like the face pried off an old upright, the sort of grandfather clock with a ponderous pendulum that only the eccentric or the very wealthy still owned. The boy liked the numbers especially, all Is and Vs and Xs. He reached over and tried to poke the clock hand around, but whether from force of rust or force of habit it was stuck. The cans shifted like a sea of rain-eaten metal beneath him.
"What did you find?" His friend, the girl, changed tactics.
"A clock."
"Anything else?"
"Cans. A dead rat. A shoe."
His friend, the girl, was the only person in the boy's limited acquaintance who wouldn't shudder at the intricate world of garbage, at the delightfully dirty task of sifting through piles of other people's abandoned things. It wasn't biodegradable waste -- that wasn't the kind of garbage which interested the boy. He was interested, rather, in the garbage that didn't go away and which time could not erase. This garbage dump was immortal in the same way a stopped clock was immortal. Somewhere deep down the same trash had been the same trash for longer than the boy could imagine. It was truly delightful, all shivers to think about it.
"Anything worth keeping?"
"The clock."
"Throw it down."
"You might drop it. It could break."
"I won't! I won't. I promise."
"I'll carry it down."
The pile of cans and bits of bed frame and doorknobs and ladder and light-bulbs and then all the things that could no longer be recognized, large and small and sundered, was steep and unstable. The boy was stubborn, however. The boy felt he was more stubborn than the pile was steep. He held the clock against his chest and began to slide down on his lower back, feet and free arm guiding the way. Garbage rose up like hills and mountains just over the mounds of his knees. The cans and scraps and odds and ends, but primarily cans in this heap, shifted unpredictably beneath him. Then, a terrible groaning sound. A sudden crumbling collapse. In the landslide which followed, a sense of peace fell like a layer of dust over the pitch of the boy's panic. If he was to be crushed beneath so much garbage then in turn he too would one day know the immortal secrets of trash. He would be like a stopped clock. One day, some nameless other boy could find him, paused in time but still somehow recognizable.
Yet the boy wasn't buried. Just as a cascade of metal blocked out the sun and the boy resigned himself happily to that rust smelling darkness, something sucked him out through the shifting undertow of metal beneath him and above him both, through to another side. It wasn't "the other side" but a completely new side, one the boy would never have expected. The boy landed on something knobby and hard, like the spine of a large lizard. Somehow he'd lost the clock, let go of it, in his surprise. He cursed the way he'd heard his father curse once, putting a word to the suddenness of his self-reproval, but the word in his piping shrill mouth came out ridiculous and small.
The girl's face rose into view.
"I told you to throw it down to me! I told you it wasn't safe!"
"I lost the clock."
"Don't be stupid. It's just a stupid clock."
"It was not. It was a good clock. You don't know anything about it."
"It was broken. You said so yourself!"
"That's not the point. You're stupid."
The boy sat up, rubbing his back. When he frowned his pinched little boy face looked timeless. That was his disposition showing through. Without age, that moodiness obscured the boy-features of his face and only the disposition now presented itself. As he sat up, the spiny thing behind him dug into his thighs. It was an enormous cogwheel. The boy hadn't seen it yet, moving at all speeds. Some moved so slowly they barely seemed to move at all. They made no noise as they connected and turned and connected. Someone must have oiled them very carefully, the boy thought. They were a kind of dimly shimmering metal the boy had never seen before, and over their surfaces, at once round and knobby, were now and then reflected faces, maps, glistening bodies of water or a curling lip of a flame. When the boy brought his face up close to one he saw these things play over his own reflection. On his left cheek, someone died.
"I don't know where we are," the girl said. "I didn't do it. I don't think I did it. I thought you were going to die." This overly dramatic sense of reactions juxtaposed, the placement of her last statement especially, made the boy snort. Wasn't that just like her, he decided. He harbored this kind of contempt out of no individual malice. It was only a state of mind his large boy's ego, fragile as it was, demanded. "Anyway," the girl continued, "I want to go back." She looked angry, a flush of resentment revealed in two red spots on her cheeks. "I don’t like it here. You and your stupid garbage! I'm going home." She grabbed the boy's hand. He pulled back. Her fingers were surprisingly strong. They stumbled together , and fell together, in a brackish pool of rainwater that had collected in the hollow of an old tire and its hubcap. Next to them the face of the clock had split in two where it fell and from the wound, like magnified blood, spilled a collection of cogs and gears all shivering in the afternoon. The boy realized then what he had seen. They had been on the inside of a very large clock.
The clock was broken. Only one hand was left, pointing to IX. There was no way to tell if it was the second, minute or hour hand, but it looked long. The boy nudged at the clock with his toe and it slid forward. Beneath it, an unsteady pile of cans shuffled, agitated.
"Careful," his friend called up to him. He didn't listen to his friend. He had his reasons. To begin with, his friend was a girl. Also, due to perverse boyhood, he was determined to do the opposite of what he was advised to do. From where he was perched, king of the garbage heap, king of the whole garbage dump world even, his friend was just a bodiless voice. He didn't have to listen to her. Instead he crouched down amongst the detritus of his every-day world, breathing in the stale rank free smell of garbage. There was something terrible and beautiful about the rust on the cans, the stopped clock. It looked like the face pried off an old upright, the sort of grandfather clock with a ponderous pendulum that only the eccentric or the very wealthy still owned. The boy liked the numbers especially, all Is and Vs and Xs. He reached over and tried to poke the clock hand around, but whether from force of rust or force of habit it was stuck. The cans shifted like a sea of rain-eaten metal beneath him.
"What did you find?" His friend, the girl, changed tactics.
"A clock."
"Anything else?"
"Cans. A dead rat. A shoe."
His friend, the girl, was the only person in the boy's limited acquaintance who wouldn't shudder at the intricate world of garbage, at the delightfully dirty task of sifting through piles of other people's abandoned things. It wasn't biodegradable waste -- that wasn't the kind of garbage which interested the boy. He was interested, rather, in the garbage that didn't go away and which time could not erase. This garbage dump was immortal in the same way a stopped clock was immortal. Somewhere deep down the same trash had been the same trash for longer than the boy could imagine. It was truly delightful, all shivers to think about it.
"Anything worth keeping?"
"The clock."
"Throw it down."
"You might drop it. It could break."
"I won't! I won't. I promise."
"I'll carry it down."
The pile of cans and bits of bed frame and doorknobs and ladder and light-bulbs and then all the things that could no longer be recognized, large and small and sundered, was steep and unstable. The boy was stubborn, however. The boy felt he was more stubborn than the pile was steep. He held the clock against his chest and began to slide down on his lower back, feet and free arm guiding the way. Garbage rose up like hills and mountains just over the mounds of his knees. The cans and scraps and odds and ends, but primarily cans in this heap, shifted unpredictably beneath him. Then, a terrible groaning sound. A sudden crumbling collapse. In the landslide which followed, a sense of peace fell like a layer of dust over the pitch of the boy's panic. If he was to be crushed beneath so much garbage then in turn he too would one day know the immortal secrets of trash. He would be like a stopped clock. One day, some nameless other boy could find him, paused in time but still somehow recognizable.
Yet the boy wasn't buried. Just as a cascade of metal blocked out the sun and the boy resigned himself happily to that rust smelling darkness, something sucked him out through the shifting undertow of metal beneath him and above him both, through to another side. It wasn't "the other side" but a completely new side, one the boy would never have expected. The boy landed on something knobby and hard, like the spine of a large lizard. Somehow he'd lost the clock, let go of it, in his surprise. He cursed the way he'd heard his father curse once, putting a word to the suddenness of his self-reproval, but the word in his piping shrill mouth came out ridiculous and small.
The girl's face rose into view.
"I told you to throw it down to me! I told you it wasn't safe!"
"I lost the clock."
"Don't be stupid. It's just a stupid clock."
"It was not. It was a good clock. You don't know anything about it."
"It was broken. You said so yourself!"
"That's not the point. You're stupid."
The boy sat up, rubbing his back. When he frowned his pinched little boy face looked timeless. That was his disposition showing through. Without age, that moodiness obscured the boy-features of his face and only the disposition now presented itself. As he sat up, the spiny thing behind him dug into his thighs. It was an enormous cogwheel. The boy hadn't seen it yet, moving at all speeds. Some moved so slowly they barely seemed to move at all. They made no noise as they connected and turned and connected. Someone must have oiled them very carefully, the boy thought. They were a kind of dimly shimmering metal the boy had never seen before, and over their surfaces, at once round and knobby, were now and then reflected faces, maps, glistening bodies of water or a curling lip of a flame. When the boy brought his face up close to one he saw these things play over his own reflection. On his left cheek, someone died.
"I don't know where we are," the girl said. "I didn't do it. I don't think I did it. I thought you were going to die." This overly dramatic sense of reactions juxtaposed, the placement of her last statement especially, made the boy snort. Wasn't that just like her, he decided. He harbored this kind of contempt out of no individual malice. It was only a state of mind his large boy's ego, fragile as it was, demanded. "Anyway," the girl continued, "I want to go back." She looked angry, a flush of resentment revealed in two red spots on her cheeks. "I don’t like it here. You and your stupid garbage! I'm going home." She grabbed the boy's hand. He pulled back. Her fingers were surprisingly strong. They stumbled together , and fell together, in a brackish pool of rainwater that had collected in the hollow of an old tire and its hubcap. Next to them the face of the clock had split in two where it fell and from the wound, like magnified blood, spilled a collection of cogs and gears all shivering in the afternoon. The boy realized then what he had seen. They had been on the inside of a very large clock.
