Date:         Fri, 22 Dec 1995 23:17:34 -0700

All I can say is, this is what happens when you read Thomas Pynchon late
at night.  Enjoy.


GENTLE TOUCHES
by James Kythe Walkswithwind
Dec. 22, 1995

        A single fingernail drawn across the taunt wire was all it took; it
snapped, ends flung back as the severed pressure released them.  He
watched it calmly, as if he didn't care that he'd cut a string of his
favourite instrument.  He didn't, of course.  One could always buy new
strings.
        Other things were not so easily replaced.  He snapped another
string, one finger drawn.  Some days simply were spent like this- solemn,
quiet, unending.  Snapping wires with the barest touch of his fingernail, not
quite hearing the sound of the rude slap of metal against polished wood.
The sounds meant nothing, there was no need for them to be heard.
        He wondered if he could still see the sands, blowing.  He looked
up to see, but the curtains were drawn.  It was day.  Wasn't it always?
He did not know this place, filled with the smells and sands of a
desert.  He did not remember why he'd come.  _He_ was here, it was
enough that he knew.
        Only one string left.  He held a finger up, poised.  Wondering.

        They'd begun the evening with a fight, like always.  He hadn't
intended to do so, not this time.  That's what he told himself, and he
did believe it.  He didn't want to see him only to fight.  He hadn't
lived so long not to realise that this fighting between them would not
win him his goal.  Even as he made his plans, he knew they should not
fight.  They always did.  A chain he could not break, everyone should
have such unbreakable bonds.  But why he wasn't allowed to pick his, he didn't
understand.  He railed in vain, trapped into this bitter cycle of warring
against the one thing he ought to treasure most.
        He did, he must have.  But still he found himself fighting,
losing, falling ever farther away.  Perhaps it was not supposed to make
sense- perhaps it did, and he simply did not understand.  It was, he
conceded, possible that he had his purpose wrong.  The failure of his
attempts might have been unwavering signals that he was going after the
wrong thing, and that if he would turn himself to.. whatever it was fate had
aimed him for, he would win and find the winning easy.
        Perhaps not easy, but win just the same.  If his goals were
wrong, well...
        He knew he wouldn't change them.  The dismal prospect of spending
his life struggling against a will too strong to overcome, never getting
free, never winning the subjugation he wanted- it did not dissuade him.
He made his plans, he perservered.  Even knowing that again, they would
only end up fighting and he would walk away, never closer, often farther
did not dissuade him.
        He wondered if that, itself, was the purpose this served.
Something must become of all of this, if only because it had gone on so
long.  It could not be so meaningless.  He wouldn't ask, what that
purpose was.  He knew he didn't need to know.  Knowing it was there.. he
knew he didn't need that either, but sometimes it would be nice.  Knowing
that something was coming from all of this.  It didn't matter that he didn't
know whom he should ask.
        He wouldn't have asked.  It would ruin the game, knowing why they
played.  Perhaps knowing there was an end was what he wanted.  Knowing
that someday, the fight would not occur for one of them had finally won.
Perhaps neither would win, and the game would be called.
        Perhaps, and sometimes he admited this and sometimes he could
not, it was no game, there was no end.  Nobody watched, nobody cared,
nobody won and everyone lost.
        Usually he found great comfort in that belief.  Sport for the
sake of sport was exhilarating, more than enough to keep an immortal
occupied.  He usually found great pride in his ability to play the game,
knowing fully well it was only a game.
        It did not explain how he knew.  Why he felt that somewhere,
whether in time or space or something else besides, it had already been
decreed.  It was no game, there were no rules, and something- something
very important, must be decided.  It was why they fought, why they came
together relentlessly, when everything said they should leave it off and go
in separate ways.  When everything said they should simply depart,
knowing nothing could come of it but angry words and empty threats, still
they came as if something, important, was waiting to be decided.
        Each time they ended up fighting.  Vicious words, heartfelt
blows, the neverending desire to win, possess, gain freedom, destroy.
Everytime, and yet they came.  Perhaps there was a reason.
        Perhaps there was no reason.  Perhaps it was only latitude for which
they strove.  Perhaps it was for nothing at all.  Perhaps it did not
matter, if they played in earnest or played in jest, or if their fights
were very, very real.

        The day is almost over, and it is time to make his plans.
        There is one string left.



James Walkswithwind         "Ueberlieferungsgeschichte.. is a longer and 
                                nobler name than fudge."
gila@jbx.com                                      AE Housman