V E S S E L (Final)

Giacco stood, finally.

Dusk had passed, it was night and dark now. The day weighed heavily on Giacco; it showed in his slow rise and heavy sigh. Hart had finished his screaming and suffering and crying only an hour before, so it still rang in the bowels of that mouth. The sound still bounced slowly off the walls; even now it managed to burrow its way into Giacco’s mind, to find a home there. Hart made much noise; many things left their place in that cave and in the minds present. It was violent, beautiful, raw.

Hart was asleep now, Giacco was sure of it, so he made way to the lip of the cave, passing stalagmite and entering the wood. The coming of night was not trouble for Giacco, who could see perfectly well in the darkness, so he strode with confidence. Something stopped him as he passed the first tree, though, and he thought back to what was said to Hart: is this unnatural? Hart cannot see at night, he needs my help when he needs to get around, Giacco thought. What am I, that I might see this tree so clearly even when the sun hides its shine? It is hardly a difference to my eye… why should that be?

With that, Giacco continued his trek. He moved toward a place he only vaguely remembered, a place whose memory was sparked by Hart’s burst- it was far from here and Giacco was not sure if he even remembered exactly where it might be. It was a cave, like Hart’s, but it was not in the shape of a mouth. It was something different, like a womb. There was little that Giacco understood or remembered about the place; he hardly knew why he walked there now. All that Giacco knew was that the womb-cave was a place where he felt scared and stripped. This is why he returned there, now: the womb-cave was like a lost memory, only recently and fragmentarily recovered; Giacco could not help his curiosity, so he walked into blindness.

He walked, and walked, and he passed trees and rocks and berries.

Eventually, he left the trees and rocks and berries, and when these things were left behind, still Giacco walked.

Giacco did not walk on land, not anymore, the soil had already left Giacco’s mind at this point: no, Giacco was walking with Dream, now. On Earth, his body continued its movements, but in his mind, he was elsewhere. All manner of nature and life and world passed Giacco during his trek, but he was not there; the mind and sense of the man named Giacco had retreated into itself. There was no mental command or urge yet his legs moved in direction towards a place neither man nor Earth knew.

Giacco was a man, he was a saint to some, and also Giacco was Earth. Giacco was clay, Giacco was to be molded, fired, made into shape: Giacco was a man. Giacco was body. Soil. Giacco was this and he was more and also he was less. Giacco thought, and Giacco walked, and Giacco slipped away; faded. Giacco ran, at a point, and Giacco wept, too. Later on and after he left the wood behind, Giacco found himself in the unbroken light of moon; he was naked and heaving. He was elsewhere. Giacco had retreated to a naked place, a trance and journey. As the body walked on Earth, so too did the light of that body walk, and the place it traversed was not here, with the body.

Giacco was a man- no, he was more. Giacco was Light. The Light guided the body toward a place far from the mouth-cave, it was a beautiful place but terrible, also. The Light knew this place because the Light knew that Giacco belonged there now. At this moment it was the only place that Giacco could ever be, so he walked and did so without mind. The Light was not afraid, but Giacco was. As they neared the place, Giacco shivered and started to shake. Against this, the Light gently pushed Giacco into the entrance of the womb-cave. The Light guided the body here and pushed it inside not for Reason but because all things led here, anyway. As Giacco pushed further into the dark of the womb, the Light became Giacco and he was whole again. As Giacco exited the liminal, a voice came to him between the ears:

Giacco

A Man

Why have you returned?

Giacco froze

he was naked, blind, crying

weeping

Weeping

Why?

The womb-cave was nothing more than darkness, now, Giacco had walked far enough that the moon escaped this place. There were tricks of the mind in this place, too- Giacco felt it in the heavy steps and whispers at the corners of his awareness. There was something else here, something Giacco had known at a point but forgotten now, he could not put his finger on it, not exactly, not yet…

Giacco!

Vessel-

You are not among your kin

Why not?

It was a layered question. He did not abandon his kin, they abandoned themselves, and Giacco could not bear to watch them do this, so he left and wandered.

Giacco-

you misunderstand

What I ask is:

how

You

found

Me

Why was he here? How was he here? He felt it a strange place; he felt as if he had to concentrate, else the womb-cave would slip away and he would wake up elsewhere, forgetting this. Why had he chosen this place?

“I… I remembered this place. I was reminded of it, by a story, by a friend…”

There was silence, now. Giacco was beginning to remember this place, but only in the corners of a darkened and increasingly mute mind. Giacco was here, once, but the details slipped from him. He remembered a Dream like this…

Yes, Giacco

Dream

That is our meeting Place

But You

are not Dreaming

Not now

Why are you here?

It is a Dream that comes to Giacco every time he closes his eyes, it comes to him just before he wakes. It is a Dream that comes to all who Sleep on this Earth. In this Dream, he sees a dancing light, and he hears a Voice, like the one now, which asks him:

What are you?

Who are you?

What is Supreme?

What is Low?

What is the most High?

Who/What/is It Creator-

Creation-

Created?

When You return to Dream

Bring Understanding/Knowledge/Light

The Voice is not singular, it is not personal, it is not God nor is it an emissary. Giacco strained to remember and to touch the Dream; he was rewarded with glimpses. The Voice was Familiar to Giacco, in a way: whenever he heard it, he thought of the Stars. Giacco remembered now that with the Voice always came a strange vision and feeling; a sensation he had not known before, like a new texture of Life/Being. Whenever he found himself in such a Dream, he knew himself to be in the presence of an Other. It was hard to explain, but he knew this Dream always came from another place, another Star, perhaps…

Why have you come here, Giacco?

Do you wish to know my purpose?

My origin?

Why I call you at the end of Dream?

What do you seek?

“Understanding.”

Of what kind?

“My friend-”

I will not speak of such things.

“I-”

I know of what you speak:

Your friend

The Human

That one came to Me once

That one Blinded Me

It was Radiant

I could not search that one,

As I search You

“What…?”

I will not speak more of it.

I have no more to say:

Your friend is beyond Me.

but, Understand

Your friend is Human

Not Other, not Demon

The One who brought your friend

Is Unknowable

Your friend is

You

What You might Become

That One is a pathway

“I…why… why are you here?”

I wish to Understand, just as You do

Humans/Others

In their Seeking

They use Ways

that I cannot

You/Others Become

a Way

I Travel from Far places

only to Learn about/from You

Giacco,

it is Time for you to go

***

Giacco returned, finally. Light illuminated the cave-mouth and made clear Giacco’s mass, naked, shivering, and tired frame. He was cold, and so was the stone of the stalagmite frigid as he pressed a hand on one of the forms- colder than usual, Giacco thought. He stopped for a moment before he fully passed the teeth and into the cave-mouth. A thought flashed in his mind, and he felt he should hold it for a moment…

What will I tell Hart?

What will I do now?

What even is it that I Know/Understand now and

what Happened?

Giacco closed his eyes for a moment. Behind them he spun harmonies; his mind moving towards a solution:

I will tell Hart

that he should Learn about

not Judge

categorize

his

Self

or

I will tell Hart

That the world is ignorance

And that there is no answer for him,

Here

Giacco remained with his eyes closed, but took a step forward into the mouth. It was silent, here; the air was still and Giacco could smell what he presumed was the death and decay of animal bodies. Still, Giacco remained, eyes closed, moving, moving, breathing, breathing.

Perhaps

I should have nothing to say

So that I might be able to Listen,

Understand

more closely

What is Hart?

and

What am I?

I move deeper into the cave. My eyes are still closed- I feel the winds of Outside fading from the touch of my skin, the sounds coming from that same Outside slowly leaving my ears, too. It is all going away from me, and it is going swiftly, quietly. It is as if all the World is running from me right now; as if all my sense is collapsing the further that I walk, the tighter I shut my eyes. It’s foolish, because I know it’s all there, but I refuse to open myself to it. It’s the smell, it’s the silence: I don’t wish to open my eyes. I don’t want to see what might be there. Why is it so silent?

Should I speak?

Should I fill the air with a noise?

Why is it so silent?

“Hart….?”

I jump at the sound of my voice. I have not heard it in… however long, and it sounds strange to me, now. As I speak, the words tumble out as if they’ve been grated, shredded: the vowel catches on my throat and my enunciation skips over itself. Ha-a-aa-rt….? What is happening? I continue walking, but I don’t know where. I think I have passed the tongue, haven’t I? What is happening? Where is Hart?

I should open my eyes.

And so I do: I open my eyes. I am standing in front of the tongue, now, my head and eyes only just reaching over the top, as it always goes…. there is something there, on the tongue. It is splayed, spread, open to sky and cave-ceiling. It is blood, flesh, matter, it is lifeless, it has exited and ended its form. It is body, mind, life, collapsed into a single point: it is a dead man, and there lies Hart.

Do I accept this?

What do I do with this?

what

what

what

why

how

how

why

what

why

how

wgt

how

wa

w

ho

Now: what? My friend, the one I could not understand, the human/love/light/fractal/reflection: he/it appears to be dead. I am dancing, or, my body is. I cannot control it. It is a strange dance: my hands cover my eyes and I rock back and forth while on my knees. Weird and guttural noises escape my throat, and periodically I moan noiselessly with my neck craned towards the Heaven. My knees eventually begin to bleed after being gnashed against the floor and spikes of the mouth for perhaps too long: the bleeding is violent but I ignore it. My head bows to the mouth, my forehead touches ground: I continue my ritual, my dance.

Hart,

Why?

Why?

You were supposed to show me

what I’ve sought

What would you have become?

I knew you before I knew you

I waited for you

But here you are,

Hart,

what does it mean?

What do I do?

I finish the ritual: it is night again. I am tired, but I do not feel it. As I awake to the night, as I gather my senses once more: I know better now what to do. It is not an easy answer, it is not an easy reality. Hart was, is, will be, but not in form. Hart was something, Hart would become something which Giacco could also be, this is what was told to Giacco in the womb-cave. Hart would not be alive anymore, but perhaps in a sense, he still is. I feel it, I do. Hart hardly made any gesture without emotion or flaw, yet there was something about him: he suffered, he grew, he learned, and he suffered more: even when his suffering consumed him, still Hart remained. Is this true of myself? When I suffer, do I remain? Do I bring what I know with me and into that suffering, do I even allow myself to suffer truly? Hart was also fresh in mind: he never rejected what he knew or learned, always he took the world and what it said and taught to him, and he made these things his own. Yet, he left all he knew open to challenge: when I called him Animal, Demon, yet recognized him as Human, I could see he was liberated. He allowed this to happen: he took what I said and wrapped himself around it until sense was made.

I do not know at all what I am supposed to learn from Hart, or what there could have been to learn. I do not know what he was, where he came from: I know nothing about Hart. What was it about him? It does not matter. Whatever he was, he is now not: he is dead. The question remains with Hart, there on the tongue, I will probe it no further. I can do nothing, I can say nothing: there is naught to say or do here, no longer. The settlement-folk will find Hart here: they will have learned nothing. This, I cannot change with the moment. I must wait, I must bide my time, I must seek, I must learn. When the time comes, perhaps I will be made like Hart would have been. I cannot aim for such a destination: I do not know what it looks like or where to find it. I do not know what I am, where to go, what to do: perhaps this is best.

I will start from here.

END