The Nameless Man

Volume One: XXXVIII - XXXXVIII

XXXVIII.

He carries the leftovers under his arm. He walks home with the casserole as companion.

Too dark to see. He trusts the angle of the ground. Can taste elevation through lack of vision.

XXXIX.

A path leads backwards. Steps are not traced. Planned yes, but not enacted. Impossible at the time.

Messages sent through the air. The delivery made. The letter. Possibilities. The paper between fingers. He feels the machine. The silk-screen press that prints the literature of someone's future. Maybe his.

XXXX.

He explains weather to a blind man. A calm resolute academic.

He teaches. The colors. His explanation of "blue sky" with no clouds. His explanation of clouds. Of sun. How the heat feels red and orange.

"Of course," the blind man says. "I've know for quite some time that the sun feels orange and red."

They sit outside. His favorite café. In the city that is small enough to lose. Jazz. Tenor Saxophone from the right.

The player's axe is a wand that dictates the splash of water. Ocean current. The rise and plummet of the horn.

He explains brown for hours. The color of coffee. The color of bark.

"You can feel brown if you touch it," he says.

The brown of dirt. Of wood. Of instruments. Of pianos.

"I've played the piano once," the blind man says. "About twenty years ago. It was a matter of experience, of resolution. I never touched the thing again."

The waves sift through rocks. The face at the edge of the harbor. Cigarettes from somewhere. Steam of coffee. Breath of Spring wind.

"Few understand its chain to history," he says.

XXXXI.

He walks with his head down. There is a color to see. A bend of the back to avoid his tendency.

He looks at everyone in daylight.

***

He is capable of earth. Under his palms. His spine rotates.

The view of the summit. Clouds. Electricity in the sky. He holds a metal rod. Rain falls in clusters. The soil is mud. He mixes granules of rock and dirt. A prehistoric balm. An ancient oil. He fashions wild beasts. Strokes of his fingertips. Indian figures with spears. Buffaloes. Beasts run and fight.

On the side of rock he paints memories. It crusts and becomes part of the surface. Always present. Never applied by his stranger hands. The wind redirects. A flash of light changes the shape of the summit.

He climbs boulders. Around their mass. Through covers of interlocking framework. He discovers a berth. An eyelid opening.

He digs with dry hands. Separates smaller limestone and granite. His body is guarded by rocks. Rain blows overhead.

He has a year's supply of rope. He fashions a harness. Uncovers a passageway that leads to the heart of the mountain. A path hidden by erosion. By weather. By seeping fluid of sky. By time itself.

He lowers himself a hundred feet. He lights a fire. A torch in his hand. He is a pendulum of light. He drifts in space. Water drips from his clothes. Down his neck. His waist. Down his ankles. He plummets into pools of ancient water.