And then there was the truth of…. The man grew tired of cataloging all the eyes the sphinx has, how many ways there were to truth or how many truths there were. He revealed with his naming diverse levels of apprehension and intention, and could spell out in language approaching poetry–perhaps it was poetry, some kind of future poetry, a poetry of things to come, the interlacing of all things in a vast web–the worlds and lack of worlds of fish and horseshoe, of gnat and broom, of eagle and football field, of hammer and the rainbow eucalyptus. What a boon, his fellows thought, who would come to him four or five or more times a day to hear a couple of his truthful tales concerning the truth of things, a boon because, after all, it taught them to lockpick themselves out of their boxes to see what’s out there, and being relieved to find that there is something, that the world really isn’t just a dark room with dark walls, or a room lit to whatever brightness with the walls illumined accordingly, or a room with its walls painted in whatever fashion, landscapes or seascapes or skyscrapers be there as they may, however realistically. I just thought I sat on it, a man guffawed and remarked to the busking phenomenologist on the street corner, that is, he laughed when he heard that his stool at home was something more, richer and far more advanced in imagination than he had ever dreamed. Our scientist of the things themselves was too busy to engage with the passersby when they made jokes like this; well, with all he had to do, in giving an account of the waves of the multitude of things approaching him from their own multiple angles and speaking to him from their own multiformed lips. Contented enough with the street-philosopher’s story of being, the man who had stopped by on his stroll through the city to listen to a portion of the truths for a bit walked on, smiling as though he had received a gift, shaking his head and smiling, astonished by the greatness of the gift. Wow…the chair, he muttered, or the stool. Hearing of the lives of things described, or depicted–sometimes his gestures made us believe it could only be a work of art, it could only be performance–designated in such a way, this science of this vagabond, was a truly reviving thing for the human beings living in this inquirer’s company. Humans became rich enough in his company that, for once, they were no longer ashamed of their answers, that is, the answers that really mean something and get to things and are not just tools of some crude manipulation. Life on earth with him felt truly beautiful, and his truths, too, were beautiful, truly beautiful truths. For once truth and beauty could dance together, and goodness too, in a fine and noble dance. The world sang to and with this dancing, it was this dance.
Then a storm billowed over this faithful man one day, this man who had made it his mission to be faithful, with a type of grateful faith, to the things of life. The wise man fell asleep away from his wisdom and had a foolish and awe-inspiring nightmare or dream which told him thus: Truths, you say, it spoke in ghoulish tongue, but what else are they but crashing and shrieking chaos of ever-swirling, invested, ravenous, rapacious, ever-surpassing, and ever-belittling, forces? Parts next to parts and wholes next to wholes, and this forever and ever…. There is no reaching the end or finish as there is no reaching the beginning…. You present chunks of coal as though they are diamonds or diamonds as though they are coal, when really there is only coal or only diamonds, when all things are equivalent in this way, truth and falsity, truth and untruth included. What you say is what everyone says, what the liar says too, and your gifts are naught.
The philosopher did not know how to rebut his dream’s expressions and kept silent after that, thereby silencing all things. He remained this way for a long time, so long, in fact, that the city dwellers ended up forgetting about the man who had at one time had a tale to tell, a truthful tale about the world and what composes the world, they would pass him without so much as a glance in his direction. Silent he stayed, for days, for weeks, for months, for the exchange of quiet seasons eight times over, quiet in his breast, surrounded by all the bustling and fury of city life. A child came out of the dollar store with his mother one morning in winter, dressed in a tiny parka with bright blue cotton cuffs. He pointed through the icy air at the retired scientist, prodded his mother and said That’s him, right ma? That’s him? Huh, the mother asked her boy nonchalantly, then directed her inspection to the man through the drifts of fine powder drifting to the man. Oh, yes, that’s him alright. Or, he USED to be, she tried to explain, but couldn’t let out any more words before the boy let go of his mother’s hand and followed the hand he had outstretched to the man huddled against the lamp-post before him. Mister, the boy said boyishly but bravely, preparing to ask his own question, a question that really mattered to him. In the cold and empty as he was, all the man huddled there so could do was consider the child through the unsteady lens of his shivering. This was enough of a concession on the man’s part for the boy, so he asked, boyishly and bravely still, What’s this? He held out his black gloves covered in a light layer of white snow, and meant the snow, meant to ask about the snow. The man huddled there, the former extraordinaire in phenomenological description, knew this, because his account of snow was always one of his favorites, and he knew too how much the story would more than entertain the child, true and good and beautiful as it was. In his current mood, though, in this storm of his which was also becoming a snow storm for the whole city, as the snow was picking up now, the world was whitewashed now and indifferent to all the complexity beneath the blankets of hammering white. He couldn’t just ignore the child, but he couldn’t simply tell tales in his old way, either. So he improvised. Full of passion, droplets of tears turning into crystals on his cheeks, wasted but not so wasted as to give up on the education of the young, he reached out to the boy’s hand with both of his own and clutched it, the last warm thing in the cold, clutched it tight, squeezing it as though to tell the boy something beneath his words as a countertempo, something perhaps more hopeful, squeezed it tight and said That, he stammered, THAT, he chattered, is one of the most beautiful lies you will ever see, another beautiful lie. The boy’s mother heard the man share this ugly truth with her boy, grabbed the youngster and marched off into the cold, down the street, yes, but more into the cold, into the coldness of things, turning around once from a half-block away to give the man behind her a good scowling with the rigid lines of her mouth and squinted eyes. As mother was doing this the boy had his own reply to the answer of the man back there: he smiled to him, still huddled against the lamp-post, and waved in a friendly way, the snow on his gloves falling to join the rest collecting under his and mother’s feet.
Love the Dust 