The Black Laser

These fists.  These fists have known such discord as I cannot begin to recount.  In times before men lived upon this land, I rode across it, aimless.  I knew neither form nor consciousness, yet I was.  I remember those times, but I do not remember being.  And then the first men crossed the ice bridge in the north and spread down, adapting, changing, learning to live in this hostile, giving land.  And they told stories of the wind and the night and the lightning and the thunder.  They told stories of the great tusked beasts that roamed the land, of the fire that burnt the forests, of the place they went when they died.  They sought to make sense of so many things they knew nothing about, so they used what they knew—the animals, the birds, the seasons, the plants.  Each little group of these men created a web of stories, of belief, about the genesis of this place.  They created symbols to explain the inexplicable.  They gave names to the things and places and moments and stars that had no names, never knew they needed to be named.  It was then that I took form, though I was and am known by many different names to many different people.  As the years progress, I am known less and less.  My form has become a blending of so many cultures and traditions and ideas, the sum of so many thoughts, that I have become hard to recognize to all except the most attune to the natural world.  The modernization of the world has drained my once vibrant colors.  So few still believe, but I shall never cease to be for deep within them they know I am there.  To some, I am a benefactor, bringing with me change and growth and development.  To others, I am a malefactor, ushering in the end of an age, the death of what they had always known.  To be fair, I have never been either of these things.  My role is subject to their interpretation, to the context of the situation.  I only am.  I will only be.  I will continue to ride as long as the sun rises and sets.

And though I am impartial, my time amongst the people has imbued me with something like what they call emotion.  I have found myself taking part in their struggles, often against my better judgment.  When I have had time to stop and think about it—such a strange thing thinking—I recognized that my role is only to lead the change, not to fight for or against it.  Yet that is what I do.  I take sides.  While so many people thought I was preventing change from taking place, I knew that change would happen regardless.  Nothing can stop the change once it begins.

And here, again, I embarked on this cycle of change and rebirth, the cycle of death and destruction, leading the vanguard of discord to welcome an era of concord in my wake.  But on whose side shall I fight?  Whose blood shall I spill?  What shape shall the future take when my role, for the moment, is done?

It was Spring after a long, cold, dark winter, so I never noticed when the apartment across the hall from me was filled.  January and February had been particularly cruel and I spent most of it inside, alone.  I’m not entirely sure how it was that I missed something as noisy and drawn out as someone moving in.  I guess I was asleep that day.  Or hung over.  Or drunk.  Or something.  It didn’t matter.  The point I’m trying to convey is that it was March (or was it April?) before I discovered that the apartment across from me, long vacant since the old woman who previously lived there disappeared, she must have died, was filled by someone new.  New blood in my apartment building was refreshing.  A nice change from the old ladies who live here on pitifully tiny rents their sons pay for them.  They were nice, but quiet and shy.  A little fire never hurt.  

I was coming up the stairs from somewhere, the liquor store around the corner probably, cradling a fifth of Turkey in my jacket pocket.  I like Jim Beam, but when a man is faced with the prospect of nothing to drink versus something to drink of maybe not the exact preferred brand, then he has an easy decision to make.  I was going up the stairs with my Turkey, when beside me I noticed a tall, soft Asian boy, maybe 21, dressed nicely I guessed.  He smelled like a woman without a doubt.  I never trusted a man who smelled like anything other than a man, but this kid looked harmless enough.  He looked at me like I was the boogie man.  It’s not good to be scared of neighbors.

“You live here long?” I asked him.

“Oh, no, we just, uh, moved in, like, maybe two months ago?” he said.  Light in the loafers, this kid for sure.  Definitely light in the loafers.

“This wine is terrible,” I said.

“No, it’s fine,” Donny said.

“You can’t taste.  This is swill.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“This wine is terrible.  Waiter!  Waiter!  This wine is terrible.  I demand another bottle.”

“But sir, you’ve drunk most of it already and…”

“Are you calling me a goddamned liar?  Are you calling me a liar?”

“No, sir, it’s just that…”

“Just drop it, Phil,” Donny said.

“You will bring us another bottle, young man, or I will speak to your manager.”

When he woke this morning with the sun in his eyes he knew that today would be a fruitful one for him, for his art.  His guitar tuned, his song rehearsed, he was going to sing his poet’s heart out for the people on the downtown C local train.  Their souls would lift and swell and fly like an eruption of butterflies from the end of a rainbow when they heard his uplifting words, delicate fingering of his instrument, and unique take on “Lean On Me.”  He closed his eyes as the train approached the platform and imagined their admiring faces beaming with the pleasure he’d brought into their day.  Singing was never for the money; it was always for the love.  Always for the heart.