GEE

II

A RATHER BECOMING UNBECOMING

The ultimate dialogue I now reveal is but the final instance of the time shared together by Gee and I, in my little two-bedroom flat on C_______ Street. The balance I now feel, because of my friend's happening, is tantamount to a life. I believe I know now how to live. I am happy, and pursue Truth within and without. At thirty-two, a five-week old led the way to Serenity. If you, dear reader, have not hitherto arrived also, or are stopped along the way: may the very idea of Gee be the zeitgeist of your sally. And may you ever have more revelations than qualms.

What is edification without an expansive eye? Why shadow knowledge only to throw shadow upon it? Why be so eager to learn but never listen or think? Why worry? Why credit fantasy when life gives us all the beauty and interest we could require? We have enough but want more. We look too often only to the surface. We feign acceptance. We accept feigners. We distort. We could unite but rather ourselves herded. We are infinite and yet insignificant. We see an illimitable spread and draw lines in the sand. Mine. Yours. We kill. We hate. We consent a settled haze. We choose not to choose. We are developed, yet infantile. We are civilised and savage. We are beautiful and disastrous. We are volatile. We are against others. We are against ourselves. One body that pleads atomization. We are lowly by election. We are less than ourselves. Peradventure we always were.
The Good News? We are all still on our way to greener pastures.

*****

Gee eased himself into the vermilion Voltaire by the fireplace, after we had enjoyed the splendid repast Mary Jane had prepared. Infant cow. I noticed the look in his eyes, harmonious with the meat so recently devoured. We had spent almost two months in each other’s company and my friend had learnt a lot about our time and place. I had been taught a lot about our time and place. We had spoken little of the life and world he would, now so shortly, return to. Very little, in fact, though Gee had related to me that his memory had not been fully granted him and as such, his ken of his native habitat was cloudy. Gee preferred to talk about our world, and as I am almost sure one could never wonder too much at the beauty and folly of us and ours, I was forever willing.

“This time spent together has served me to a great end, my good friend.” he began, casting his eyes into the fire “I have now come to know quite a good deal of your kin and chronicle, and while it is indeed true that I am still suffused further with questions than answers, I would be glad to leave today, this very afternoon with the divine enigma now known. You and yours are truly beautiful.”
“The time we have shared has, I’m quite sure, changed my life, Gee. And perhaps there is truth indeed in your claim of our beauty. Though spake you of questions? I am sure this world raises not a few.” I offered, lighting a B&S and passing the case overhanded. He launched his cigarette and directly he exhaled the grey, said pleasurably:
“Beautiful is it not, that your cigarettes are still relished by some of your people?”
“Enjoying a good smoke is a perfectly necessary thing in this Age, I would opine.” I replied.
“Indeed. And yes, I do have many questions that I should wont we endeavour to address, brother. Questions to answers. To answerers. To believers.”
“Ha! Have you still a small chip from our good Sam?”
“Ah! That is the very thing! Is it not obvious to all your kind that heaven is merely a lollipop? Hell a coal-lump?”
“Well put, I might venture.”
“Regardless, I think perchance your people would be much better off by realizing it. The real question is that of these ‘truths’ they are wont to let consume them. These insoluble, unpardonable answers that lofty folk sell to dullards. I favour that your kind would be most benefitted by a complete betrayal of dogmatic discourse, and a focus rather on pragmatic appreciation of the boundaries of knowledge. It is not impossible. Questions are all that is needed. Questions and resolve.”
“So you, to use the parlance of this world, are an Atheist as I am?” I questioned him, wondering at the space of time that had elapsed since our last talk on the subject.
“Of course not, and I should wont that you become more than that also, my dear friend. Atheism is another doctrine. It tells with authority that there is nothing. That cannot be known. I implore you, give pass another few questions and find your way more toward, to slip also into your vernacular, Agnosticism. Think for yourself and fall not into the mire of hereafter beliefs.” He finished his cigarette and stamped it out as exclamation. “Of course, I dislike entirely these boring isms, as we have before discussed.” I was unspeaking for a few moments, then replied him;
“Truer words never were spoken, I warrant. I must take a spell and muse at a late time.”
“I have come to find that beliefs are quite dangerous things. One should stay clear of shared beliefs, most especially. Answers that have come from the mouth of others. Truth is, after all, experienced. Oft yours have shed blood of their own, and others in the name of these Answers. Their own, when they believe them too little, others when belief is too much. Forever fed by fear, they are not? Fear of Death and Fear of the Unknown. The Unknown is of course, beautiful, however, and these persons must seek understanding of that fact. There are two possibilities for the post-body conduct of the soul, if indeed the soul does exist in a form or another, namely that it will be instantly and forever extinguished, or live on detached from the body. It can be easily seen, can it not, that either eventuation brings happiness?”
“It can of course, and I consider much the same. Everything dies, and that is right. This universe will die, as shall we all, those who are but a trifling measure of it. We are all part of everything, and every thing passes through Life just as one another.”
“Most eloquent! May I have another B_______?” he asked, rising slightly from his reclined position to accept the offered silver case a second time. “Yes, most pretty, August. Most artful. Art! Ah! Let us speak once again on your Art! For as you know, it is a theme most lofty and interesting.”
“Oh, but of course! Art has always stood to me as the uppermost humankind has achieved. But let us not leave completely behind our talk of pragmatism...” I replied, another cigarette lit now betwixt my faceportmanteau.
“Never!” Gee exclaimed.
“As such; Say you there exists in Art, a ‘Right and Wrong’ way? A nonsensical, and a rational approach to its assessment?”
“Surely! Though again, I might say neither is that which people have come to consider in Art. The correct way for one to analyse Art is from a purely aesthetic position. Ethics is not in Art. And this is the problem, I feel, with much of your wider social critique. People seem to care not whether a work of Art is correct or incorrect, but rather by judging if it does align to their notions of Good and Bad. If the artist themselves align to these notions. It does them no benefit, of course, that they do not understand either of their used labels, and as such, lose sight of that which is worthy of their admiration. Artists have been killed in many instances, for their being judged ‘bad’ by the public, no? And often, those that have been considered ‘good’ have snaked within the common soul, carrying harmful intentions. I feel however, this is a small instance of a bigger problem; the face of the water shows not the uncalm beneath. Labels and propagandas oft blur vision, and tarry us within a clouding dark. It is vexing, is it not, that your people on the whole seek not for the best Art in existence, but merely for that which is popular and prosaic? And in my acquaintance, it has been ever the call of that kind to vilify that which does not conform… to think that any of your True Creators have been slain or marred for their misunderstood work, while artful dodgers are gloried blindly, is of course, quite startling to think on.”
“I argue not, though much of the world now sways to a superior rhythm, no? The chant on the wind calls now for ‘Tolerance!’ I have been told many times.”
“We may now be leaving again the theme of our dual-love, however, for there is more to this double-edge than the preponderant account of Art. I fancy a vast difference between “chanting ‘Tolerance!’” and understanding true brotherhood, no? I would venture your society has forgotten this and appointed the former under the misapprehension. One calls a spade a shovel to no avail, if one does not admire the work twixt you both has been done. Labels are even only mere words until pervaded by indoctrinated associations. Remove the label, the hateful undertow remains. That is wherefore this call in the wind, I have also heard of, is wholly tasteless, and must be relieved.”
“I understand your point, friend, though I’m not sure I would wholly agree. Say you that the abolition in decent society of such labels as ‘nigger’ has not come by way of a vast psychological change?”
“I propose the two things to be entirely distinct. Widely it may be true, white men do not enslave coloured men in this time, and leaders of your countries do not seek global domination for their race. But this is because your people have evolved over time, my friend. You have taught yourselves to compose better than your ancestors. Surely you have discovered this though? The circumstance of society rejecting these mere words is because people themselves are all too fearful of using them, or of hearing them. And simply for people have been told they aught. However, surely a white man should no longer feel any dissimilarity with a black man because he understands that there is no dissimilarity? Where there was Hate and confusion, now resides Love and knowledge; this is how it should surely be, and I feel your people have come quite the way toward it, even despite being hampered by this extensive smoke and mirrors show. To put my small point another way; there exists both those who may use the aforementioned term, and similar terms, and feel not a jot of hatred toward any other person, and then those who refrain from the use of such words, yet feel only odium for others. I feel that ‘tolerant’ society of today would have that the latter breed be exulted, for he shows naught but compassion in his words; and labels only are what seems to have come to matter to your people. For white men, black men die even today, fighting Wars of Tolerance. ” I was smiling, quite in approval, I could feel an entire conversation forming from this lone point, but an irksome feeling had kept announcing itself behind my left ear all afternoon: Gee would soon be leaving.
“What you say may be entirely right and once again I will have to think on it further. It certainly seems that though we have created a bulwark of praised diversity, true unity has perhaps been left at the gates. However, what say you of our Nations? Mere labels also?”
“Absolutely no more than redundant lines in sand. A periphery has been provided for categorization, and that is the edges of all existence. As you correctly stated earlier, my good friend, that boundary is the fringe of the entire, and we are all but small parts of it. The very notion of your thousands of languages is astounding to me. I recollect a sole language being spoken within my people, a single pragmatic, godless, shared culture recognised. I have tried to meet with your myriad languages and civilisations, and I entreat you do the same. Each is beautiful and wondrous to reveal to oneself. There is much to be learnt. Become through acquaintance with as many you might. National and racial lines are worth thinking of not. They are dangerous barriers that atrophy auxiliaries needed for perfect condition.”
“I find it hard to believe your people whole speak a single language! It must be, of course, that I am so very used to mine own time and place, and the ways of it, but the very idea is absolutely beautiful! I feel we humans must seem primitive and vastly inferior to you, no? Your people seem to me truly extraordinary!” I hurriedly spat out, excited very much by the notion. He reached questioningly for a cigarette once more, and I, of course, obliged him. That small, vexing voice again: ‘Time is up. Thank you.’ After lighting,
“And that which is new always does, no? I of course had that same feeling for some time after becoming here in this body. Everything novel and beautiful. Magical. However after having come to know a great deal of your time and place, and your sublimely colourful history, I may say definitively one thing: there is more beauty in this world than can possibly be imagined. There is no relating what I remember of my home, my people, and this… Heaven! Ha! Your people are amazing. You are magnificent. You are each one of you full of the potential of all the Gods you preach. You positively glow! This is why nothing but confusion results within when questioning the seeming resistance toward what is known by all. And you, sweet August, my dearest friend now and evermore, I would hereby beseech to spend your given in search of that truth that is inside you. Think you not seriously on things that cannot be known. Know you what you know and be happy. Draw no lines, erect no statues. Believe not answers given by other mouths. Truth is experienced. Let go. Love. Forgive. Unify. Live with open eyes and heart. Be you a radiant beacon for those seeking succour in dark storms. Become.” He finished his cigarette and put it out in the tray with this last word. He was silent for some time, staring into the dying embers of the fire, and as I sat, motionless and absorbing, I fancied that I did hear fleeting within, from the audio system in the room hard by, a lightly dropping melody, sweetly singing:-

Oh, Very Young what will you leave us this time?
You’re only dancing on this Earth for a short while.
And though your dreams may toss and turn you now,
They will vanish away like your daddy’s best jeans;
Denim-blue fading up to the sky…

Gee looked up at me, cloudy-eyed and remote, and fixed himself to say something. Only this was not Gee. I knew then and I was unhappier at that moment than I think I ever have, or ever will be. Gee had unbecome. The physiognomy that had until then conveyed his shadowed, true, beautiful self unto me, now stared emptily, drunkenly at me and spoke:
“Where is my coffee? Ah! Where is my wallet!?”

*****

Thus it was that I was departed by Gee on that day.
For that initial trice I felt shocked and wounded but very quickly this morphed into a great happiness, for I had been favoured with a glimpse into the magic of Existence, for a time, and would be forever grateful. I owe much to the memory of my most becoming friend. To the very idea of him, in fact, hence, I have penned this story. Perchance it takes a person to be brought into this place without harbour of those long-implanted and reinforced beliefs we all share or fight over continuously, to show us how truly odd they, and we are. Perhap an enigma is what we each yearn. Maybe we each of us seek an inexorable fact to show us how far left of the road we have to travel. To contradict our assumed cleverness. And to prove how glorious Life in this place really can be. There is so much beauty in our world. There is a great amount of absurdity too. Far too much for beings as us. One must seek and accept Truth, say thank you, and know always that there is still so very much to learn.
We have a ways to go, though I am optimistic.

Friday January 3rd, 2014