P L A N T A R C H Y 2 - Critical Documents

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was only a matter of getting others to see that everything belonged to you. Any
explanation of the morass was taken as an affront, however accurate or revealing
its intent. Local flareups could lead to permanent sulking. No one anywhere felt
they received enough attention; even those who regulated airwaves and fields
of force knew they were surrounded by distorted replications of their own bad
intentions, masquerading as a drunk, a boisterous weekend bash, a gambling
problem, or perhaps the public plastering of images of a murdered entity. A lot
turned fast to smoke and was immediately smoked.
Moments were tracked and planned and stored and exchanged,
relentlessly. Calculated down to smaller and smaller intervals, they filled
charts, maps, books as if their presence could hide an unspeakable abyss. Many
inhabitants walked around stunned at what they had given away to maintain the
plan; they’d given away husbands or wives, parents, songs and jokes and usable
clothing, given away sometimes the only aura they’d ever claimed to love—
dreams whispered on beds in morning sunlight, hands and eyes up close—just
as easily as they’d given away talents, cars, tables, the feel of a cool breeze on
the face. Thirty years of devotion ending in no reward, cut off helplessly, could
erupt through the surrounding production units as a chance for the tracking to
be rearranged; if a unit died unexpectedly, there could be a scramble to cover, or
cover up, the resulting unprotected intervals. The highest form of art had long
since become betting on intervals, predicting their sways and heaves with ever
more calibrated instruments.
Expressions of sympathy issued themselves so thickly that one could
feel blinded by good intentions. Vectors of who wished to feel sorry for whom
followed pre-defined curves: money, theories of skin pigment, education, places of
residence. The evident desire to do good shown out of so many faces that, circling
in the usual circles, at times there seemed more than insularity and fenced-in
pathways around the basic mega-picture plazas displayed in groups of 3 or 8 or
16, the drama filled with cuddling, handshakes, righteous roaring from rafters
and penthouses, alleys and rooms with organized seating, all focused on aspects
of a plight which decided not to show up and lost itself elsewhere, because it
didn’t believe in this or that fix but stewed, thrashing, bursting out of mouths
at inconvenient instants during the photo shoot. Apparently, angels lurked
everywhere, if one believed the rumors, no food or clothing hardly a barrier to
the will bent on standing above rooftops proclaiming love, if only given a chance.
Bottom and top, bottom and top, a pyramid constantly reversing itself according