Submitted by: Colin Quigley
Encounter
The following is my best accounting of an early morning last month, with all of today weighing in on the words as well.
As best i could say this , it is that much True
Barely 25f degrees out and with a wind that cuts, my day begins an hour early traversing the circumstance. I have no car and my shit job is three miles from my bed. So a hoof it I must, it takes 45- 60 minutes depending on how spry my wheels are feeling on a given day. It is January '08 and about four in the morning. The normal street light interference occurs at the normal places and still after years of it happening I still am concluding that it is nothing more than faulty equipment that seems to always allow my witnessing of its defects. Dimming down and getting much brighter than the others, then shutting off completely only to resume normal activity as I gain distance from them. As my constant fascination with these phenomena requires shoulder glances and many steps in a forward gait are spent in scrutiny of a moment yet rectified. The clops of feet, and shocks of pavement render quickly attention to the material now and the miles ahead before the day is to begin.
Still ahead are a few more lanterns that always seem to react in some fashion as I pass them, the one near the corner of Oakfield and Montgomery comes to mind foremost, as it seems to be among the most consistent of my notices. Yeah, 'tis I, a weirdo, a fringe relator, with not a speck of mystical ability, suddenly finding deep meanings, and strange patterns in places obvious, that were for most of my life hidden in plain sight. The street lights are just one minor manifestation of this energy. Perhaps too marginal to belong among the "Others" (as Trevanian calls the deep and super-synthesizer types among his readers), yet clearly of a different orientation than many of my life's daily participants leave a margin as a remainder - a fold in which the "be" is tucked.
Reticence is the order of the day, reserve that which is on the surface of expression.
Substitute the easy noise of casual conversation, and the banality of tasks as receiver of effort.
For sincerity is to be thwarted, ridiculed, and used as ammunition among the so called "peers" of mine. Thoughts like this were not crossing mind then, though familiar they are to me, in fact I was listening to Will Durant's views on Cosimo de' Medici, which fittingly begin with the mystery of his name as no Medico's are in his ancestry, and in 1428 at 39 he fell heir to a great fortune. He was as result an indirect dictator of Florentine affairs, He spent some of his fortune collecting ancient texts and in 1445 he established a Platonic Academy used for the translation of Plato's works. Well that was where I was in the audio-text, when I came upon a low humming compressor-sounding noise, it over -rode my headphones and made me instinctively remove them from my ears to assess the situation.
There at the corner of Beltagh Ave and Atlantic, is a transformer for the power-lines above on a telephone pole ( the lantern of which did nothing unusual) well quickly it was ruled out as the source of the noise, as it had its own hum distinguishable from the present deeper hum that I could actually feel in my body. Not nervous, but compelled and slowed down from the impulse my pace halted as I went along the ivy clad cyclone-fence that borders the backyard of this residence. Right at the point in the fence where for about ten to fifteen feet there is no ivy covering the view into the back yard is where five seconds of my life will change me for good. The fence is only five feet high as well so it was easily looked over from my perspective. However, the ivy kept a startling sight from my awareness until this break in its growth. This calm feeling and almost programmed steps took me to the fence and made me look down and there on the ground, in a prone pose, and with its head away from me was what I could only call an alien. Sort of like the grays or the tall whites that I have heard some researchers describe in common terms. It would have stood seven or so feet tall if it had stood up proper, but it did not move at all, it had its head turned over its shoulder to look back at me, and its eyes were oddly human for it's long lean human -like anatomy, but thinner than any human I have ever seen, a different narrower shape about its torso, it was off-white, but not grey, as far as the darkness and street lights would allow me to discern. It did not seem to have any clothing on in my short sighting, and its fingers seemed very long and thin; mimicking its overall anatomy . . . I don't recall the feet at all, when I try to picture it, the feet seem to not come into my memory's eye. I was shocked, not scared oddly, and there were a few thoughts that were fighting for my processing at once. Most humanly, the first of which was a sort of cop out "I got to get to work on time, got to keep on walking." In these tense ticks the idea of a hologram popped up, it wasn't moving at all as I observed for that four to five seconds. I began walking backwards in progression of my route and the idea of being positioned or set up to do so came to mind, so I promptly turned forward to keep walking, and over all of these thoughts was the idea of possible doom in the next moments, and my body, and spirit readied for a proper fight. Though I must say, I never was afraid, or even threatened to be true, more shocked to my baser expressions internally in that brief encounter.
That four to five seconds of witness, this seething and soothing of reality what with its dichotomous reeling and paradoxical generations(i.e., this sight of all sights), this flit of reality has become a boundless impediment. Here where my mind fails my tongue, the system ceases and symbol splits off from word. It is not the fault of letters, nor clacks, but the inertia of droplets crowning to new falling, within this puny machine of time and space. So more clops fall, and balance within the noise is soon in accord with the base that brought my process to state of combative or murderous peak just the first side of this moment.
How disheartening it is to learn that through this survival mode of thinking, perhaps one becomes less worthy of survival. Clinging tightly to that what has been conditioned to be called "mine," shows perhaps missed opportunity of letting go and set up among the "One." In other words, I missed a chance at a better observation and perhaps a more genuine meeting when I became defensive and insecure as my foremost reaction. If silence could cross my mind as a cloud dragging its shape along the ground below the brighter day, then maybe this reminder of fortune would vault thoughts beyond the trivial trappings of self-awareness. That gathering, that photic glance shades the embroiled convictions of individuated incongruence to cool respite, while staving necessary ends of our elliptical energies into simple quietude.
Ground keeps breaking rubber souls and feet call mind back to task, and this moment is begun in it's fading. The light at the corner did its dutiful flicker as I tried to regain composure, as I settled to the harsh facts of my whole day (a crap job built on crap choices), and the bulb just confirmed what I thought all along - that "some bulbs flicker." Can't help but laugh at myself as I sell myself, as I see myself . . . flickering.
Eventually the door of employ was reached, unlocked and disarmed by my doing. Where my favorite co-worker, whom I share views with openly was not privy to more than talk about the weather and other common exchanges. It was too freaky to just come out with, and it still is, I hate writing this down, but there is something inside me that is making me do so.
For What It Is Worth
CQ
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