Discord, Goddess of Chaos, and Harmony, God of Unity, sit upon their thrones and look out at the whole of humanity, stopping to eavesdrop on one soul talkin’ back to The Mistress of the Night, wrapped around each other, she in her negligé of ultraviolet silky light as he clings to her bodice, trapped in 3.m. dread. She lays silent, almost disinterested if even at all listening.
Do I have what it takes here in my own fading days, a folly of Youth ever wrapped in a haze, to reconcile that none of this was ever mine to possess, that the stuff of access without merit does not exist? You cannot go home again the adage says but you fully possess the resources of time, energy, creative labor and even financial remuneration to build a new dream, any day, every day — a voyage to the proverbial stars or a foundation of a new home.
That I could yet construct a romance of consequence, one built to last, is beyond the pale and, more aghast you’ll find in the way you react, not that of romance, two souls entwined as a waking One but far more an impractical variation, foolish and extravagant in its vagrancy and meditation. Here, to wit, is an unvarnished mediation, an unfounded and ungrounded view is this solipsistic, soporific rant, this theory I posit as fact:
Said quest, excising the mind-body killing numbness that comes in living a mundane life waking dead, the constant search for an external elixir and remedy, if not outright anesthetic, to avert from being prepared, that the readiness is all — to return to slumber, if you even make it out of bed — is a dare itself imperiled, at best a desperation, an impulsive move to choose reactively rather than be scripted, thoughtful and well planned. All of it comes in the stead of, trying to avoid the fear of the bear trap, stepping into hypnotized, hedonic life and find hope, something akin to an actual and make life worth living.
(Starting to drift, slurring with inchoate slumber, stream-of-conscious sputter)
In succumbing to aforementioned dread’s existential existence aboard a lonely catamaran, venturing a somnambulist’s glazed sojourn of apparent and seeming solitude on a an ocean made of sand, not a sight in end, trapped in survivor mode on our lonely island, the one we all call home — both our bodies and this tiny planet we share, adrift together on a vast sea of despair, space to not the final frontier but to nowhere — in avoidance, rejecting to blaze a new trail, one borne of true grit rather than stale in its fear, one latticed in true romance, in love with the actual art of living, one that chooses to experience each beat and breath, each vital second…
He blacks out. The Mistress delicately setting him free
He suddenly comes to. Night cannot depart yet. He’s not through with Her
(Urgently) In all those lost moments we snuff out the very lantern of hope, we whittle down our own life, barely able to cope, only to lose sight of the light, the one that beckons ahead near horizon’s edge, the one keeping us steady on our quest.
(Dawn is breaking. The Night Mistress, in all her wondrous etherial mystery and potency, kisses the man-boy’s forehead and gently caresses his cheek with sweet sleep, sends him back to journey amongst the stars, soothing his aching head and permitting the body a bit more rest. The gods peel away and retire to their recreational space. For them, time does not exist.)
Discord: I’m BORED.
Harmony: (sipping from his goblet of wine, contemplating what they’ve both just seen.) I think much preferred than a consternation of clock watching and navel gazing would be perfecting the journey one degree, know the ropes, let go and haul one knot at a time. In this space (pointing with a certain pity back down on the man-child sleeping now) even sleep becomes overrated over time.
Discord: (checking her Instagram, all ju-ju eyes) Uh huh.
Harmony: Not even listening.
Discord: Ssssshh.
Harmony: I will shush you, Bitch.
Discord looks up, startled by Harmony’s edge, growls with a certain admiration.
Now put away your shitty device — Why do you even have one? You don’t need it.
Discord: I like to keep tabs!
Harmony: What. EVER. You created it for them in the first place.
Discord: Quality control.
Harmony: It doesn’t exist with that crap. Now that I have your attention for a nano second.
Discord: Possibly.
Harmony: Hear me out. Being alive, seeking to discover every day as here, now and new, memories shed, future bled of anticipation and expectation. The decision at last and instead to be here, now, to found and toil in matters of consequence!
Discord: (casually eating from a bowl of kumquats.)
That’s fucking crazy, Yo!
““““All things must pass away”””” or so I am told (eye rolling, glancing back at Harmony). Whatevz. So why laughably, so whimsically and comically be errant and ignorant a knave, perpetually dwelling in an ecosystem of self-deceit, one that begs the dance and fabricates that the dance will and must endure? Why harbor, safely inured, in a bounty of belief that choices do not need to be made and, worse, ones selected will not yield results?
Harmony: Matters of infinitesimal corrections in directional travel yield no discernible guarantees, do not avoid whitecaps if the voyager does not study the charts, prepare the journey, heed its obstacles and depths. For instance, the perilous bergs beneath, the ones that would cut a hull deep, ever so imperceptibly if excruciatingly, almost tenderly, when no attention has been paid, cull life a thousand times before they realize no calculus was ever factored in, a calculation to account for rate, time and sin, the distance between two shores of morality and desire, between civility and the pagan fire, a reality as frivolously tossed as might a salad when (pointing to the attendants now bringing the first course as the two saunter to the dining room) presented at the dinner table, entertainment substituting for the art of creation.
Discord: I have no idea what You just fucking said. That was a word salad. Bruh.
Something about dining in versus take out. But, seriously…
‘To construct a romance with living?’
‘To be in love with life?’
What the fuck are you both jabbering about??? Jive talkin’. Dudes. You can’t live with them. You only need ‘em for —
Harmony: Uh huh, right. There you go again. ANYWAY…All I’m sayin’ is "Why not live out loud and bold?”
Discord: Right. That’s the problem right now. Bruh. Are you watching it all come apart at the seams? Every one is experiencing their truth, confronting anyone who challenges their own reality. Everybody’ talkin,’ can’t hear a word others sayin’, all whilst claiming, preserving or, worse, overtaking space, others’ space, taking away instead of attempting to modulate, even respect their own.
Harmony: Perfect. You’re in your element. Congratulations on that. You achieve…success!!!
Discord: Suck a dick.
Harmony: That’d be a lot more fun than this.
Discord: Well??? You were askin’ for it.
Harmony: That’s right. I was just itchin’ for a fight. Look in the mirror much? Jesus. Fucking. Christ. Get a life instead of —
Discord: I know —
Harmony: No. No, you don’t, Cis. All I’m sayin’ is instead —Wait.
Discord: What?
Harmony: First. I actually think it is perfect what is happening now.
Discord: You would.
Harmony: No, I’m serious. It’s all about the resolution in search of a conflict.
Discord: Don’t you mean —
Harmony: Nope. I know. It’s crazy.
Discord: Yup.
Harmony: It’s counterintuitive but it’s all about the end game resolution.
Discord: When?
Harmony: You tell me. Or do you want perpetual chaos?
Discord: Oooo. That’d be nice.
Harmony: No doubt. That man is on to something, By Jove! How about instead of watching the sands pass through the hourglass and feeling helpless at that, attacking each other, they choose to be in love with the art of bearing witness together, to all of it?
Discord: (Yawns, twirling her hair, lookin’ off)
Harmony: (Unperturbed) One with another soul waking, yes and a deeper experience than whatever they’re choosing to live — this is to be the balancing act with one’s own soul, to curate a continued cultivation, to remain ever young even on board an aging junk —
Discord: Bwhahhahahahaa —
Harmony: Such a teenager. Look it up.
Discord: I’m sorry not sorry. It sounded too funny but I knew what you meant.
Harmony: Where wasn’t I? Instead of watching your junk age —
Discord: (Chokes on her wine as she sips) Now you’re just fuckin’ with me.
Harmony: (Smirking askance, continues) — in the throes of inescapable, late season rage, august winds, inevitable small craft advisories, fierce rip currents, hurricane level challenging, changing conditions. Instead of passively watching the flood levels rise and trying to sand bag or stick a finger in the damn, let go, take chance and sail against the wind.
What you seem to crave and where you seemingly thrive, want others to as well, is in the pain. Why?
Discord: Dunno. It’s just exciting.
Harmony: Ick.
Discord: Ok, Mister Helper. How does that sailor know when to tack and when to jibe? How can the voyager, intrepid and bold, realities and risks all well informed, design a new schooner, furnish it with the most precise of maps and binnacle, accurate compass and still be ready at the sail, sexton no match for naked eye and intuition, that which won’t permit her to be bilged on her anchor, nor blighted by an albatross of past misadventures, the errors, the mistakes of ill-conceived dreams and most merciless of all the dead and unflinching gaze of history, all while avoiding very real dangers in the present, all the pitfalls, back ’n fill The Straits of هورمغ yet remain centered, calm and still, a steady hand at the till, confident in what lies past the horizon? I’ll tell you. Impossible.
Harmony: You would think like that. Start the dumpster fire, light the match and walk away. Fuckin’ arsonist.
Discord: Let it all burn, Baby. Down to the ground.
Harmony: Interesting. Ok. I’ll see you and raise you this. Equally, how does one know when to lash oneself to the mast, to avoid The Sirens’ calls, sail past shark infested waters, undaunted, clear-eyed, resolute and on course to reach that unchartered next port of call?
Discord: You tell me. You’re the big bridge builder into the next destiny.
Harmony: I know what you’re up to.
Discord: Yeah?
Harmony: Yeah. “Destruction leads to a very rough road but it also breeds creation.”
Discord: All right, all right, all right. Well played, Mister Helper. Go ahead and high five yerself.
Harmony: You’re so glib.
Discord: Part of my charm.
Harmony: Is that how you get all those pretty little things to wine, dine and screw you? Send out a tweet, part the seas and wait for the drones to come?
Discord: Nectar of the goddess, Babe. Come and get it, boys and girls. Have all the yum.
Harmony: I say they know how, even drifting and dreaming, going on a feeling, making it up as they go. They’ll get to wherever the ‘there’ is.
Discord: Stop. Wait. Let me, before you embarrass yourself, simply pre-populate your idealism with this salty fact: The desire “““to be free””” relegates a sailor to be lost at sea. How did you call it when you were chattering on about it the last time? A saint of circumstance? Tossed about a lonely Ocean on stormy waves, risking damaged keel and rudderless journey? Worse, what of the ones when the Sun is beating down, the days with no cover and no wind, all alone in motionless inertia, all along a a voyage captained by an ill-prepared, ill-equipped captain over their head?
What of the slope, cracked and aged, damaged from neglect, a lack of mindful care to sand and paint the hull each and every year, delicately scrape moss and barnacles, peel away layer after layer to avoid rot, the kind of decay that eats away at purpose, the very core of that investment — to preserve in sturdy, robust shape the legacy of possibilities, the ones left still to helm and steer true without yawl nor list, safe from intake of water, thrashed in disrepair, bashed upon shoals and slashed by the very same barnacle-thick, jagged rocks?
Harmony: Whoa.
Discord: What?
Harmony: Someone’s getting…thoughtful???
Discord: Chyeah. Right. So?? What then?
Harmony: Please. Proceed. I’m all ears.
Discord: The proud traveler now rogue. Stranded. Penniless. In a distant, foreign land so very far from home. Summer faded and the World, once at his command, by the turn of an Autumnal Equinox long since passed.
What then?
Harmony: What then, indeed.
Discord: Hope.
Harmony: You don’t say!
Discord: I don’t. What else remains but hope to harvest an autumn crop that will keep through winter, perhaps enough to nourish, even to right what was wrong?
Harmony: Well look at You, all grown up.
Discord: Not me. Never. How dare you??
Harmony: What are the tradeoffs in the yearning?
Discord: You’re watching it all collide right before our eyes. It’s all gonna implode, dreams with no action meeting doomsdayers —
Harmony: —Like You.
Discord: Nooice!
Harmony: Why you gotta be noiicin’ my nooice? Why can’t you simply let shit pass?
Discord: I’m not a nice person. Plus, I’m a little crazy.
Harmony: So you say.
Discord: Believe it.
Harmony: I believe. Well, anyway. They may surely not know what they’re going for it but you gotta hand it to em’. I mean we didn’t even teach them or inject ‘em with this thing.
Discord: What?
Harmony: Persistence. They’re gonna go for it for sure. Even if they blow up the damn planet.
Discord: You’re high AF. Aren’t you?
Harmony: Pour another goblet and help yourself to some —
Discord: Please don’t sa —
Harmony: —just desserts.
(Beat)
Harmony: Nooice!
((They both laugh as plates are cleared and last course is served. Down below, humanity — unawares of the gods’ amusement and disengagement, cycle through their rituals of wake and sleep, work and play, paying the rent and breaking bread, tryin’ to make it one more day.))