by Kevin Johnson Murillo<\/p>\n
Regent<\/strong><\/p>\n \n He cut the apple with an umbrella. The apple was shaped like a pear. Actually, it was a hat. An old lady was wearing it. She wasn\u2019t pleased. Lou<\/em>d reproaches. The constable and his cronies swiftly arrested him<\/em> before he could protest. Swoon of quick vehicles, headlights. Then not-so-quick vehicles. Heavy Traffic.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cHow could it occur<\/em> to you to do<\/em> such a thing?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt sickens me, how depraved these freaks can be,\u201d growled the constable from the front seat.<\/p>\n Tossed into a tiny, cramped jail cell with a tiny, barred window and a Bible. Still confused. All could remember was feeling the merciless pangs of hunger. Breadcrumbs: more fuel for the fire. It hadn\u2019t rained in 7 days. Then why the umbrella.<\/p>\n A purchase, to stand properly. One wobbly leg. The other: misshapen. A not-so-expensive cane with a second function for when the time came to defend oneself from the sky\u2019s tears. Gots to run<\/em>. Had to run, after he had committed the dissection of the hat, but didn\u2019t, (couldn\u2019t?), decided not to because it all happened so fast. (What kind of a choice was that?) So much unpleasantness, all of a sudden, after the relative stability of hunger, no more pleasant but known. This led eventually, apparently unknowingly, to jubilant crime and swift incarceration (Punishment).<\/p>\n I never really liked the Bible. I always preferred the good old Abrahamic scriptures as standalone <\/em>oeuvres. Those were simpler times. Deluges and genocide, this I can understand. Then they added all the stuff about Jesus, and now look at the <\/em>mess I\u2019m in<\/em>.<\/p>\n Ironically, his jail cell was as tidy as the cupboard he stored the umbrella in before the murder, now confiscated. No signs of dust between two walls or four walls. The window looked over an idyllic valley with a waterfall. The first time he looked into it there was a rainbow, faint clouds hovered. Still, no rain here. 8 days without rain. And now he didn\u2019t have an umbrella to defend himself from the sky\u2019s tears. It was only a matter of time.<\/p>\n \u201cWould you like something to drink?\u201d asked the jailkeeper some 8 days later, again.<\/p>\n \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n They brought him champagne. He spat it into the jailkeeper\u2019s face, who then proceeded to lick it off himself slowly. (Why let a good thing go to waste?) Other than this, his days were uneventful, still, less eventful, yes, than before, when guaranteed a semblance of freedom with which to walk on the sidewalk, single file, not to step on the street where lighter traffic zoomed and would<\/em> tear off one\u2019s legs if he weren\u2019t careful. Or the freedom to tamper with others\u2019 articles of clothing only up to a certain, delicate point.<\/p>\n 8 days, again:<\/p>\n Rushed to his window to see the valleydrowned in a darkness grey and thick, clouds rupturing, drop-uhhh<\/em>-lets falling not only on the unseeable trees and below, but also on his hair and orange shirt. The jailcell\u2019s ceiling above him was no obstacle for the rain as is proven by the fact that the entirety of this cramped space was occupied by it <\/em>in a space of a matter of minutes, possibly, yes, but not really, because twasn\u2019t really a question of units of measurement (of time or space), but more substantially a question of time felt<\/em>, and (for {almost} all intents and purposes) no time was felt before the entirety of the jailcell was filled, top to bottom, not a square inch was spared from the drowning water.<\/p>\n And our unlikely martyr died a quick and ruthless death.<\/p>\n But as it is with all things that must end, so it is that they may as well ascend from paltry water, bobbing, like an apple, a head, in which\u2019s lips were heard moaning the following words:<\/p>\n Forget rot Nakedness!<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \n Gridlock<\/strong><\/p>\n \n There\u2019s no such thing as stasis. Every time I reach a new square and stop, the red lights harass me and I\u2019m forced to evacuate it. I find myself on a new square. Nothing has happened yet. I\u2019m able to feel my coordinates, to sense my relation to the other squares in this space. Nothing has happened yet. And as soon as I\u2019m lulled into a sense of security, the red lights come on and the blaring sirens radiate this space. I\u2019m forced to proceed.<\/p>\n As you may have gathered from that summary narration, I inhabit a grid. \u2018How many squares\u2019 by \u2018how many squares\u2019, I do not know, I\u2019ve yet to reach an exact limit. I\u2019m under the impression that I once reached a square beyond which I could not reach. From this I infer that there might not have been a square beyond that one. I retired. But this squareless frontier is only an intimation. It\u2019s been so, so very long since that memory was forged in me that I can\u2019t vouch for its authenticity. Therefore, it\u2019s just as likely that the grid is limitless and that the squares go on in every direction forever:<\/p>\n North, East, South, West.<\/p>\n Or:<\/p>\n South, West, North, East.<\/p>\n Seeing as stasis (i.e. immobility) can\u2019t exist, sometimes I like to make use of circularity as an alternative. The red lights and sirens don\u2019t seem to take notice or mind. Because it is not motionlessness it is not stationary. To be in constant motion in a circuit is still to be in motion and every completed super-square (square \u00d74) is felt differently by the subject (i.e. myself). The result, ultimately, is boredom. And then, again, I\u2019m forced to proceed in a different direction, lest I stop.<\/p>\n The red lights and sirens don\u2019t seem to mind the games I play. There are, it goes without saying, more complex ones at my disposal. For instance, I can create a crisscrossing loop that encircles two squares without ever touching them. Just think of a tilted 8. The greater length of this course makes it easier to forget that I\u2019m returning. The goal, seeing as I\u2019m not allowed to be still, is to produce the sensation of stillness in motion. Time kills all thrills. A new pattern is to be created. How about a wide square, <49 squares> \u00d7 <49 squares>? How many squares does this new square contain? You\u2019ll never get to the bottom of it. Then to abandon this loop and to abandon all loops and to simply go in one direction recklessly until something changes. What can take place but apathy? Or red lights and sirens. Exactly, the outcome is foreseen, already I know how this course will conclude, but still there\u2019s the uncertainty of when<\/em> this ending will come about. That is enough. When I forget, and eventually I do forget when I spend enough time going in one direction or retracing the same shape ad nauseam<\/em>, eventually you forget; then, inevitably, something happens that breaks <\/em>the pattern of stillness. Either you stop, which means you are attacked (that-is-to-say: bombarded) or you tear the pattern apart.<\/p>\n There is, of course, another way to experience the grid outside of fixed notions and patterns that I haven\u2019t touched on yet, and that\u2019s the question of directionlessness or patternlessness. What happens when I give up any pretense of tracing a shape or going in a particular direction? Then all preconceived sense shatters; one is left only with motion, different potentialities (North, East, West, South) which make themselves known to us repeatedly and always in relation to the last choices we made. (Why do I include you? I can never quite get to the bottom of that [i.e. \u201cyou\u201d]. Am I not alone?) All too soon I\u2019m overwhelmed and I\u2019m forced to instantiate some kind of order, some sense of directionality to my movements. I find myself in or am found inside of another pattern\u2014by blaring sirens. And stop moving. Which, as I pointed out from the start, is hopeless. Rest is just an excuse to be harassed.<\/p>\n \n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Kevin Johnson Murillo Regent He cut the apple with an umbrella. The apple was shaped like a pear. Actually, it was a hat. An old lady was wearing it. She wasn\u2019t pleased. Loud reproaches. The constable and his cronies swiftly arrested him before he could protest. Swoon of quick vehicles, headlights. Then not-so-quick vehicles. 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