He sat watching the sun as it set over the ocean's horizon,
waiting for the spectacle that he had seen before although
it was a rarity. The evening was warm late September, and
the air was still, save for an occasional light breeze which
would float in, over a glasslike ocean, in itself a rarity
of sorts.
"Pacific, Ocean Blue," he mumbled half to himself.
This particular place was not the best for observing the phenomenon,
but it was where he happened to be at the moment. His calculations
suggested that the evening's sunset would bring forth the
event. The atmospheric conditions, relationship of the planet
to the sun... all were ideal.
Sitting with him on the beach were some local people, the
Pomo, with whom he had an occasional meal, to whom he extended
the occasional word of advice, and with whom the pleasure
of the spectacle would now be shared. While he was not from
among them, looked subtly different from them, and chose to
not live among them, he was welcomed as a friend who spoke
their language, and appreciated their customs, even shared
some of them. They viewed him as a sort of wise but obscure
traveller who had claim to a large stone lodge at the end
of the trail which led to the top of the mountain. Both the
trail and the lodge had been there beyond memory. They called
him Manitou, for he came from a mountain but not their own
to visit them. He often told the tale of a great mountain
called Manitou ewichi saga that before the time of the great
winter, had been the tallest in the world. Now it was much
smaller, but trembled with such ferocity, that the local people
who were called Iroquois gave it that name, for they feared
it but lived beside it just the same.
"Watch", he said. "The sun is about to set and it will pass
below the far horizon. When it does, watch the horizon and
do not blink your eyes or you may miss it." Small children
strained in earnest to keep their eyes open when they had
feathers in them.
In the final moment of sunlight, the colour changed from a
reddish brown, to a momentary flicker of blue- green. The
watchers gasped, and young children exclaimed excitedly. The
elders reminisced. Harvest. Peace and Plenty.
"In a place, far off to sunrise, people sit as you do to watch
the sun set on their ocean. They call it `le rayon vert.'
They feel much as you do, whenever they see it. For some,
it is the dream of their lifetime, to see it once. To see
beneath sea, sun.
He turned from the group, and taking his sack, proceeded up
the trail that went through the forest in a nearly perfect
straight line. Trees, some of great size, seemed to yield
to the path. As he walked, he passed another trail which ran
north to the inlet of the great bay, and south a great distance.
This was the trail to the south that ran along the ocean's
coast. Only a few of the Pomo had followed this path for any
great distance. To the south lay other peoples with different
customs and languages: the Yokuts and the Chumash. On occasion,
the man would tell of his travels in southern lands. It was
warmer, and not as beautiful as their place. But each place
had its own special qualities that the local people understood
well. The land was plentiful, and mostly peaceful.
The man called Manitou reached his destination. He sat upon
a boulder, reclined, and took a fix upon her star. He knew
intimately each star system that his unaided eye could see
clearly. The misty portions of the sky that told of star systems
a great distance off, he knew of as well, but considered them
with less interest.
Pomo. Their ways would change in the centuries to come. Soon
the missionaries would come in the wake of the Conquerors.
Far to the east, on the shores of the Atlantic, tribal cultures
were adapting mostly by ceasing to exist to the arrival of
European settlers whose vision of the land was different,
and who brought with them a plague of diseases. `Give up your
world.' The Europeans were hungry for land and resources.
They viewed indigenous cultures as an impediment to settlement,
but only occasionally. Locals moved into the wilderness. The
more sophisticated peoples, namely the Algonquians, did not
move so readily.
Some Europeans, the French particularly, entered into fruitful
relationships with the local cultures. Manitou knew the French
settlers well. They called him Noir. Bartoleme Noir, Monsieur,
in fact. Noir spoke a french free of accent. He was a Frenchman
to the Francais. With old priests, he delighted in speaking
an archaic tongue, one closely derived from the early latin
roots of the language. Those who worked with old scripts and
books knew the old derivatives. They were old men themselves,
and their numbers dwindled with the passage of time. Books
were copied and translated in the process. Few felt it was
of any value to retain knowledge of archaic languages. Noir
smiled as he thought of the countless subtleties lost through
the ages. Texts through the passing centuries lost their flavour,
as one dull scribe after another copied after copied after.
Words, and their intents and purposes, would be lost through
the ages. He thought of words. Codign, a word that meant `to
have equal dignity,' was falling into disuse, and with it,
a subtle concept of measurement. Retaliate, a word that meant
`to return a favour', was slowly starting to take on a sinister
undertone. Words like these, once stripped of their original
meaning, or worse, abandoned, were gone forever, and with
them, their power to communicate meaning and intent.
Europeans, Noir thought, needed every word they could find,
to help them express their burgeoning desire to expand and
conquer, to take and to hold, so to speak, the world they
found at their feet.
The earth was as yet a pleasant place. Humans had changed
it, in their fashion, mind you, creating a desert here and
there, reducing a forest, here and there, to a treeless plain.
Nature had adapted, for the most part, quite readily to human
change agency. People did not have tools, nor the numbers,
to invoke catastrophe. Noir knew, however, that the times
of chimes of change were soon to be visited. Ecosystems, tribal
cultures, all would be trampled. All the more so, Noir mused,
by a dominant culture that had lost grasp of the mature, intelligent,
yes... wise concept of having equal dignity. Mused. Did he
muse? Noir held feelings, certainly, but of a refinement and
complexity that would suggest scarcely more than a quiet despair.
He closed his eyes, and wandered.
*******
He opened his eyes. He sat in a voluminous room lined with
first editions, all immaculate, most signed by the author.
Some were little more than manuscript. These deserved special
regard for the fine distinctions they offered between the
thoughts of an individual alone, and the machinations ex post
facto: Occasionally grotesque, all with the best of intentions.
Sometimes editorial changes were made by the typesetter without
the knowledge or approval of the author, for the sake of a
neater page or a private joke. No matter mattered left untouched.
He climbed to the mezzanine that surrounded the hall, forming
a passable second floor to the outside world. He walked the
circuit, looking out of each window in turn. The Pomo were
no more: they were long since replaced by the more assertive,
aggressive. That aside, the city held its own beauties, and
had some qualities that might, be called noble. But for smog.
He was here, in his hall. His hall was universal, one place.
Duties and destination were beyond its protective walls but
he had no desire to venture beyond for the moment. He would
go out in time. In time. In the meantime he would pursue human
enjoyments in a human manner, enjoying the moment, his eyes,
ears, touch. His body.
The passion of the moment was reading high art. Perhaps J.C.
Why not? The Mouthless Horse. No, Jimson was anything but
in his statements. Noir still waited for the `Creation' described.
He saw the rattrap shack down from Pigalley that Gulley swung
angels, boulders, mountains, fingers with ion trails.
He was deeply fascinated with Them. Those outside. Other side.
Their endless imagination machinations. And those others,
the pure, so pure as to sustain singularity and occasionally
produce brilliance. Syd had been like that, for a moment.
Then he got called away. Or Dennis, who slept into the arms
of the sea, in the end.
He stared out of the window that faced toward the north-east.
In the distance, between trees lay the edifices of culturing,
some magnificent, others expedient, most simply greedy. Buildings
that were built of local experience where enlightenment took
precedent over avarice. He walked. He reached the near corner,
gazing toward the north-west. He had erected a transmitter
on the knoll some time ago. The hill took the name. Beyond,
blue. An occasional boat.
More to the north lay a hive of activity yet to enter a prolific
phase. A mixed bag of lifestyles starting to sag under the
weight of those with nothing who had not yet been given a
one way pass under water and don't come back now. Futile,
in any case. Supply distribution of the dispossessed far outstripped
all attempts at relocation or extrication.
Noir knew more than his fair share of them. Without trying,
he could pass for one. Perhaps not quite. He had to live like
one for a week or two to take on the characteristic smell
of the long term unwashed.
To nobody. "You should try it sometime. Put your head into
a dumpster and sort. Cans rattle, bottles clink. Never go
hungry. Fried chicken in the supermarket trash bin after closing."
Lots of trash in the dumpsters of the rich world.
"Sound recording Bryars 1993 engage."
"One cannot achieve the aim without suffering."
Bryars over, Noir selected. "Sound recording Fripp 1981 increase
SPL to 96 dB on peak engage."
Let the power fall.
©1994 (from Zero She Flies)
