Flow Chart, "As dead wood floats..."
Excerpt from Part II, Flow Chart (1991)
As dead wood floats, the expanding afternoon exhales its mousy fragrance, battening on the memory of countless similar ones it thinks are in the heads of those going about in this one, and so the structure stands, without any apparent support. Doors are left open as in spring, and beyond them float tunnel-vision landscapes brought from somewhere else, and none recognizes the clever substitution. Here a man carries bags out to his truck, and makes the same trip over and over. There, windows shine. And on a far-off hilltop someplace a living sacrifice gleams, red in the puddled haze, and all eyes are cast downward, defrocked, speechless. And though one can hear the traffic’s swish as it cuts from one side of the island to the other, one is transfixed, facing an army of necessary revisions. “How would it be if I said it this way, or would so-and-so’s way be better, easy on the adjectives?” And if I told you this was your life, not some short story for a contest, how would you react? Chances are you’d tell me to buzz off and continue writing, except it’s so difficult; we barely begin and paralysis takes over, forcing us out for a breath of fresh air. Meanwhile the vengeful deity whose acts are being recorded has all the time in the world. “OK, that’s it for today,” as if one weren’t busy on other fronts too, such as writing letters to friends in Panama and Hawaii. Not to mention keeping track of expenses in a ledger acquired for just this purpose. But though reams of work do get done, not much listens. I have the feeling my voice is just for me, that no one else has ever heard it, yet I keep mumbling the litany of all that has ever happened to me, childish pranks included, and when the voluminous sun sets, its bag full, one can question these and other endeavors silently: how far wrong did I go? Indeed, one can almost see the answers spelled out in quires of the sky: Why? it enthuses, and immediately some of the metal trim falls off, the finish has gotten gooey, but we persevere, and just as the forms begin to float away like mesmerized smoke, the resolution, or some resolution, occurs.