The Drowning of Adolf Bliss (excerpt)

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The Drowning of Adolf Bliss
I



The drowning started long ago. Perhaps not a specific number of days or months, not even years, but lifetimes. Lives which would come and go through his: some as tangible as the concept of air while others as non-inhalating as the distance betwixt stars. These lives which enhanced or detracted from his were strange indeed. Some lifted his head from the waterline, some even listed him buoyant, while most often he himself was the anchor to which he had fastened his faith, and of which was the weight dragging him under. The passion that was visceral was ever-present for him to stay above the waters. To tread water, if the reader will visualize. His heart knew how to swim, even how to leave the water entirely for dry secure safe sacred ground. It was his mind, or more to be certain, his thoughts that renewed oft with a vengeance his ability to coordinate the function of his arms and legs with dire consequence. Picture sub 60-degree water; for about 15 minutes a man can tread respectably, thereafter it is all downhill. One looses all ability to work the limbs cohesively, most recognition of swimming is certainly lost.

This is roughly the point we find Mr. Bliss. Almost a rag-doll caught in the surf. Tossed pell-mell, but not quite a lost soul: a quite discombobulated and otherwise incapable of motion, but not a lost. That is too strong a word to describe this plight, although maybe an easier word to use. For all intents-and-purposes he does appear to be lost, adrift, an insufferable atoll of humankind. One with no trees, no blossoms, no shelter from sunlight. A shattered visage of an island. Land where birds would not fly to, would not land on, wouldn’t even shit upon.

He awoke to the song of strange birds.

These are the days that die in men’s souls.

He sits and hears nothing. Ponders but no whim to steer him. Conceives the day’s hours and listless the morning grieves. He hikes up his sleeves. The blanket of hope, a piece for the - nancy…drew - out the ace of spades.

If only he’d delved deeper, you know dug to the heart of the beast. Then the feast for most ways would at least agree just to disagree. He’s lost in the hemline. Is it hi? Is it yours? Is it undressing the women that men-pigs call whores?
He’s befuddled and frayed he thinks the last sex he had was paid. But no it was not, his sheer bashfulness is larger than g-spot. Good ol’ X marks it. Or 3 if you call the strikes. Do you remember triple-wheeled bikes? His ears are ringing. The eunuchs are singing, "We three kings from orient are, tried to covet your ways and your car. The flash and pain a lonesome refrain. Self in blunder fell in fright."

His sheets are not clean. Never are they changed. He lives in a world.

Without much preparation the hero stumbles from the cliff’s highest point to the lowest ravine before the mountain. He had brought no repelling equipment to even consider a descent. So from the summit of joy that so infrequently lit his surroundings he hastily crashed headlong, down into despair. This was normal however? This is what life is?
The incessant climbing and the forever falling. If only we had wings the eternal ascent/descent would be an easy one. For at a whim’s blink of the eye and a metaphysical flap of the wings, the eagle that we would be could turn even circles upside-down. Thus began another lonely day of pondering motion, considering circumstances, thinking of from how high he has fallen.

Sunken eyes and shallow orbs he sees this world with. Fixing his gaze on the apex of where soul, mind, body and cosmos converge. But he sees nothing. He thinks that everything is equal. That everything is choice. To live. To die. All seems unmistakably the same.

Cheerful the heart feels when a lady would lower herself beneath herself and open herself up for his open but limited love. For beauty is something he does enjoy. But it is the inner beauty that he craves. The mis-mangled dis-jangled communication that comes from different languages or from even just the same. He enjoys the hunt to the core and the striving for more, at the ever-fevered pitch. Just yesterday he had wondered full-stride into such an event. He had made passionate love with a girl and worshipped at the feet of her body.
Not the prettiest girl in the world but one of the eternal souls of the inner beauty. They had met at the gates of animism and coalesced into the heart of the face of religion less god. This might read as too strong or too exceptional, but this, upon his reflection, was but a time in the many places of such a ceremony. So this day alone and heart gray he remembers the cost for the search for love he has had to pay.

He thinks about people whom he has loved and almost finds that it has been too many. But can that be? When one opens oneself up fully, to the stark light of revealed truth and embraces the self inside the other, can this ever happen enough? It is probably vanity to think in one night or a few or even months on end this can happen. But isn’t this what we humans seek? Isn’t this what we mistakenly kill over? Isn’t this what from human conceived time we have given birth for, begot war for, sated our tongues and traveled the far-flung oceans for? Mr. Bliss believes that it is and has been and will be. He may have no god but the energy found in everyone else. It may be lost to him.




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