Loading by M D Meeks...

                Act one: The prodigy

The screen is black, all but for the turning spiral of a loading icon.

The words "Loading" Appear in bold black letters under the spiral.

Black continues to consume our screen as slowly we pan toward a distant object (Being a chair) Getting closer, illuminated only by it's silhouette from a TV shinning in-front of it. Plumes of cigarette smoke rise from the silhouette of a human form.

MY

I've heard it said- "You know you are too old when you must remind yourself of how to think"- Or at least remember to do so when thinking must provide a thought. Sounds like a Catch 22, if not, one must have already thought of what he is to think of before he attempted to think about thinking of it. Confused? I'd certainly expect so; the truth is, some ideas, memories, thoughts, aren't as permanent as you'd expect them to be. I'm kept, at present, by a single illuminated spot, sequestered to a point of temperate life-light, at times kaleidoscopic in optical blues like rays beneath the ocean. This light holds the last of what I remember, the last of me; At first, you see, I thought I'd contracted some rare form of Ebola or west-Indian neuro virus and slowly I'd begin to question my habits, common sense, logic. Is it correct to put ones trousers on via the arms and head? they certainly don't fit over my boots. "Dementia"- said the doctor as I slide my wallet down my naked leg and on to the floor. The diagnosis couldn't determine a beginning, yet predetermined its end. I'm 62 years old, I think.... My brain at times, resembles that of a loading icon chasing its fading hand around the same circle, never quite catching up with itself.

Our camera pans round to a shot of an old man, void of describable expression smoking a cigarette.

A spot light flicks on above him, illuminating a ten foot radius that draws a definitive line between itself and total blackness.

MY

(Stands, walks to the edge of the circle and looks out cautiously)

This is it. This is all I have left, the edges of which are so sharply defined I dare not step over for fear of losing that step forever.

(Staring into the void)

Age is a curious malignance, so strange in its preoccupied absence that there is literally nothing to battle with at all, like an immersible myth, a gradual delete by the finger of intention.  A memories light will dwindle then collapse under fathoms of- apparently, nothing. Yet, in the howling void I see a light "ánimam meam aeternam" my eternal soul, like a vein or a main artery, impervious to attack, yet more ethereal than the constraints of skin, the essence of, me. I speak now from that line, as if it were not to exist I'd have probably deciphered these mouth noises as incoherent gibberish; Perhaps my brain would have mistaken my tongue for food.


Lights a cigarette.

MY

(Returns to his seat)

The proper thing to do, would be, an introduction, I guess; However, I'm in a state of uncertainty as to who I really am. Is a name sufficient, that is, to gain your trust and expound to you the complexity of my nature? Are all Davids of the good variety? Are Annabelle's a little heavy of heart? And by the very nature that birthed us all, can James, from first breath, be a murdering son of a bitch? My name- is irrelevant to who I really am. I am- Energy, carrying around a corpse, who's limbs refuse to be listless by the simple motivation that to be alive, one must move.

(Analyzing his hands)

It requires feeding, watering, and by night, guiding to a spot of hospitable fleecing where-upon it will repose in a death-like stillness; Surely everybody must question this skin, or every mind for that matter. My father named it Frank.

(Runs a finger down the central crease of his left palm)

So- perhaps you know me now; Yet I must say, by the minimal fractions that set us a million miles apart: what does a Frank look like? Are we all stamped at birth with a prominent brow that can only lead our parent to believe they've birthed a member of the Frank society? I always proffered the name, Me, My or I; It seems more- fitting, more, me. I am however, happy to have escaped a christian branding; yet the likelihood of ever being named after an apostle births the inherent cackle uncanny to my fathers. I remember his words-

"We should give no credence to a Gods compassion or wisdom when the baptism of pain is not enough for him. For he is a false profit; ignorant to reason, logic and most of all- nature"

Faith in the divinity of numerous gods were not his favored of subjects. He often referred to such choices as "A wine list" for those who drown their logic in myth. "Grab a menu" he'd say "And choose your god". He spoke of Christianity like that of a mythological relic and those who blamed the world were those who shattered against its surface; as if faith should only allow gravity to lift one up then to let one fall.

And why shouldn't we fall? I've fallen by the hand of my father; and might I say, it was expertly delivered, his palms deeply callused from the duty of work like a cobbled brick road and not a single vein amid the weave of his arm were swung in anger. It was the earth that showed me little mercy as I crashed against its surface. When I awoke, the picket fence of our neighbors house that I'd needlessly destroyed had been erected and my fathers spade rested in a wedge of dirt like a proud inanimate warrior who'd served its captain well. Do the gods of other men cradle their mistakes? Is it only a sin to blaspheme?

I was to be a prodigy you see, heir to an estate of values; Yet proceedings do tell that no lesson on this un-godly and questionable earth could provoke a power in man capable of denying his inherent vice, it is a truth indeed that Man has inside himself a parasitic being acting not at all to his advantage....



    ACT 2: The unity bill


I distinctly remember back in my early teens a discussion being held in the school yard; The head speaker- some spotty post graduate student bleeting on about the definition of greed and how the intricacies of communism, though flawed, would better suite our current system. His unchallenged opinion, as with many, deceived him into believing anyone or anything anti establishment were virtuous, and like most anti establishment renegades will grow to fight wars in the fields of piece under the misguided perception of virtue, tricked by his vanity, cursed by his ego.

His argument condemned all greed as bad. I studied his proclamations, the clarity in his well rehearsed lines, then decided not to argue and began to walk away.

Upon my departure from the crowd, A voice called out-

-"Brian Hensley, you're little more than a house brick!"

The crowd turned; as did I, to a young lady, blank face, fists clenched and ready to argue with a valiant moral wit so sharply tuned it would split a tidal wave in a steady stride.

"A house brick?" Replied the speaker, bemused, yet subtly rattled.

"A house brick Mr Hensley! Earless, eyeless and completely void of any sense worthy of the word sense!"

Brian Hensley was considered somewhat of a scholar among those of little voice, and belligerently choked where all other whispers by the guttered throat of his frothing plagiarisms.

"What is greed?" She asked calmly.

"To deny those in need through a possessive urge to need more than we require!" He replied. 

"A need above the means of basic food and water to sustain your life is greed Mr Hensley. A need but a fraction above what you require for pleasure is greed. If need is the word you are so fond of using, why not cycle to work when your car could feed a small village for a month? Why not tell the profiteers of the world to give away their profit after paying your fathers wages? That in-tern will purchase things above your need! If greed in every sense is bad, why not ban the reward of success that each man of production requires to continue producing? Should his only reward be charity? should he live only for life of others?"

All a-Fluster by the stifling heat of this challenge Mr Hensley now expounded his proclamations by the un-educated passion of anger.

"There's nothing wrong with that!" He cried "It's called sacrifice!"

"It's called Martyrdom" She calmly uttered "And that Brian Hensley is why you are a brick!"

Her name was Rita Benson, and from that happening I objected to be anything less than one single part of her existence. My father during this time seemed to be preoccupied with a new occupation of politics and some global unity program that sparked great concern within him. I knew little of it's substance at the time as all great matters were stolen by the scent of Rita's perfume. To me, the world couldn't have been better. Then, one early january morning my fathers preocupation bloomed into a worry, a worry that grew so thick it strangled his heart, which in the frantic panic of mothers screams, beat only assisted by the pounding of her fists upon his chest and her final kisses blowing air through his cold blue lips. He was 52 years old, strong and healthy, but as human as everybody to the consequence of worry. Attack of the heart seems so unfitting to the body it inhabits. Why should the heart attack itself or its body? My mother spoke of some invisible force that he seemed to grab at whilst falling as if desperately clinging to the escaping energy while his teeth shattered under the pressure of tightening pains. Yet I remember his words

"Pain is a temporary occurrence. Ceasing to exist is an impossibility, and nature above all is the least of our worries"

There are many reasons for keeping these words, yet it's a feeling which stirs the memory, there's little point adding a memory to stir such a feeling.

The light above Frank grows a shade dim and the circle that keeps him draws closer.

Amid all things left to me by will of his final departure, one thing among the bounty meant more than all else; as morbid as it may sound to others, It was a letter addressed to me requesting I fulfill the duty to bury him. With little in the way of punctuation his earthly fingers penned a beautiful masterpiece. With his spade I turned up 6 feet of earth by an oak tree in the sable yards then lowered every gentle ounce of him into the ground. Above the final signature of his piece was a humble request to be obeyed. With as forceful a strike as I could muster his spade were thrust into the dirt and would suffice, by request, as his gravestone.

After two years had passed, so did the global unity bill that stopped beat of my fathers heart. I was once part of a collective: Globally separated sectors called "Countries" My sector "Sector B3-11-19" Was named "Great Britain" Eradicated were religion, dictatorship and war; common ground built a yellow brick road which inevitably led to the united Nations; Then, the birth of "The United global senate" For one beautiful night each year, the world would unite, drop their hope in to a ballot box and elect their next global director. Africa, France, Russia, America, Germany, China; All now codes dotted on a spinning sphere were linking arms across the boarder of every country reveling in the credence and sense of worth that being global, that being a citizen of the world was a mightier fist. That mythical improbability had come to fruition....World peace. Yet two question remained;- What relevance does peace have to a mighty fist? And what peace is capable of stopping the beat of a mans heart?


act 3: A dying bloom


But a pause in breath is that fleeting hyphen between ones affection and ones dependence that in-fact it simply leaves no choice at all to give your love, we fall with velocity into the intricate tangle of emotions; Let know one lie that to give their heart is to offer any less than a fleshy limb that will inevitably bleed upon detachment. I think now of how my mother bled.

Days became months, all passing in a haze of slow acceleration and caught in an ocean of thickening amber. Seemingly held by the slowest undercurrent I watched as the world raced by in kaleidoscopic neon flashes, with the stale sense of hope that duration would be the waters of salvation, yet no breaking wave was strong enough to clear his prints from the shores of my memory, the tide would simply roll back and leave its promises for another day. Such hope seemed a pursuit for fools, existing in a realm neither seen nor understood and needless to say, its logic evaded me on each of Rita's poetic sympathies; yet my only solace, it seemed, had been the company we'd shared.


Each silence we'd kept; profoundly comfortable, the rhythm, paced and settling, so settling that I'd study how the deepest of worry could float off with each calming sigh she'd routinely practice. I remember a day we'd spent sitting together on the bank of Brooklands pond, a place we'd frequented in a time of silent contemplation. The afternoon was still and the sun hung weary in the air as we lay on the grass watching pillow white clouds against the most splendid blue. Such moments were rare, moments with nothing to think of but the ability of our lungs to do what they must in the pattern they must do it. In such times, the greatest thing to do was simply- to exist; Dying were the days of blooming youth, the days I could gaze upward and feel it sure in my heart that the soft blue of morning held an infinity of clouds that meandered lazily like grazing cattle between the stars. I remember sinking, sinking so deep into myself that I hadn't felt Rita's grip upon my arm, as she withdrew I watched as slowly the fleshy pink impression of her fingers fell into the sallow pale of my skin, as if soaking her up, I was... impressed as though pushing a penny to your skin, or leaving your print in the sand. I believe it was that point when the tide kept its promise and the pain of my father was carried out to sea, and this hope, this great affliction.... patted itself on the back and strode off into the sunset like a mystical specter. How insignificant a happening to lose him....

Frank pauses; Lost in a moment.

Where was I?........

The light draws tighter upon his spot, closing the circumference a little more.

Did I ever tell you the story of the sage who traveled to the first infinite number where god grew tired and fell?

When he arrived, he found his god laying limp abreast an unfinished solar system, arms thin as breath weary upon their space and fingers like spines in vacillating form. He watches this apparition with sadness in his eyes as it rusts the last of its tired self from the turbulence of needless creation. With tears rolling down his cheeks he asks "Be you my lord?" to no avail and to no conclusion, yet the answer he imparted upon his own consciousness gave him more. "Your god is dying brother, and with that, his divine right to lord that which exceeds him; all that's left is but a lingering scent of divinity; man must now take his place, as one day, mans creations will exceed him"

I can't remember who told me that story, maybe a grandfather, maybe an uncle...and, I'll try not remind myself to remember; something like that will draw out of me like yarn on a spindle until there's nothing left but my eyeballs spinning upon a stack of teeth. So long as I know what it means...To me.



part 4: Pasting the gap.


The following years ticked by at a steady pace. I educated myself sufficiently through university then rode the qualification into a job as a lab technician synthesizing preservatives and such for military rations; base level scientifics you might say. The job was a low blow, as most were, to the education we held, yet there were no private pharmaceutical companies left and a government pay check could little afford you an apartment on the east side of Aston where impulse robbed and molested the wretched of morals; instead myself and Rita found sanctuary in a small building complex on the south side in what can only be described as some form of hedonistic partnership, the whole idea of my relationship with Rita, if you can call it that, convulsively ejaculated my mind with images of heaving skin, formless but for the occasional twisted limb caressing the spinal column of one huge back that joined everything. At times it seemed my soul was unfeeling unless subjected to disturbance, and that of disturbance was slowly becoming an impulse somewhat compelling.


I waited; patiently meandering through the monotony of each sunrise and each sunset. Upon leaving the lab each day I'd toss a coin to an un-thankful beggar who'd camp by a piling on the quayside of the east river; since I'd started work at the lab he'd be there on odd occasions until he caught on to my daily generosity; after all, what was I going to spend it on? Even Rita grew weary of my good favor, for a time, even her attire magazines were disregarded, which in-tern became an unhealthy pursuit, for my eyes became entangled in the skin of those entrancing young starlets and their porcelain smiles. I often thought of that beggar when I got home. How does one become lost? I disregarded my pity for him and relished in the idea that to give was a good thing in the sense of egotistical sustenance; I'd never deny what most would: that to give a penny to a beggar, is in fact, to give a penny to yourself.

Around a year or so later I was accosted by a young lady, skinny little thing, who insisted, upon leaving work, I entertain a meeting with her at a local bar in regards to a project she called "Social science" for which she needed a qualified "Chemical dude" as she put it. I asked her why she chose me and upon further investigation I found out she'd mistaken the CEO for a "Chemical dude" and was subsequently chased from the premises; Yet despite my better judgment on bohemian hippies recruiting outside of work I allowed her to vocalize me for the duration of a single drink, if only to laugh at a daring pipe dream; so there I sat amidst a buffet of drunk meat, marinating their organs in potent spirits and quaffing belly fulls of golden ale while she happily ranted between each long crackling draw of her cigarette. My mind wondered to the office and what my colleagues would think of such a meeting, or the CEO for that matter! undoubtedly a sacking would be it's indisputable conclusion, yet I gave their status little credence in the matter and despite what the bohemian hipster would pronounce it would be an agreeable departure from my mundane life. Her name was Clarissa McAlister, a rugged little brunette trendsetter from out of town, and I found her sense of freedom- fascinating!


Her plan was simple enough; to culture the potency of heroin then add a bulking agent to the concentrate, it was my job, in essence, to turn one kilo of junk into 3 kilos of junk, for which, by proxy, could performed by a 10 year old; the only difference is, I'd kill fewer junkies and further our profit for habitual users. I didn't like the idea and often thought of producing some grandiose form of vitamin C where filthy pushers would sell good health in chiseled little rocks for an extortionate price. The flipped side of the coin was to produce a living nightmare potent enough to scare a junkie into rehabilitation. All the same, it was her show, I read my lines and took my place among the cast; the part, it seemed, paid rather well, and that beggar by the quayside, well, he went and bought himself a new moleskin jacket for the coming winter, until one day, in the cold sweat of a feverish compassion I dropped by with a filthy wad of cash, and that beggar was gone.


act 5: cauldron bubble.


In 2038 the global senate split like an un-tampered blister when a mysterious shadow quietly punctured an official breach that bled a torrent of documents into the public sector. These documents would soon be called "The Castelow Memorandum" and upon clearing up the mess our world recoiled in horror to see that all this gallant shadow had left behind were his name to a document that required no less remedy than uprising. The brave Castelow had disappeared and into obscurity did to befall the unfortunate fate of any eye that fed itself upon those pages. Undeterred, the conceited powers did race, and two candidates battled for supremacy all under the shudder and expected inevitability that he who earned it least would ride our objection to victory like a bucking bronco; his name, Victor Ramirez, a Spanish ex consulate from Constantina, and upon his victory we endured each weekly speech translated in dull listless monotones. In the timely fashion of tyrannical rule the world slowly felt the grip of authority around it's shivering little throat, and slowly, oh so slowly, we began to learn of the original pen-man of the memorandum.


It was around this time when the moral structure of B3-11-19 started to collapse and the composure of its in-patients became somewhat erratic; the world now looked to the citizens of a former united kingdom fearfully gazing into their own future. For fear of losing grip Ramirez tightened his hold around the throat of our small island. Capitalist traders gave up hope, unemployment reached an all time high and our population controlled with the flooding tap of life wrenched to a steady drip. Was this the world young Brian Hensley had wished for? Or was he now cowering under the menacing knuckles of its mighty fist? We knew, every one of us, that things would get much worse and very few would survive. Yet, as always, mankind had sparks of that prevailing force, and the more restriction they put him under the more license they give him to break free. Deprive him if you will, each little you take is as little as he'll train himself to require for the want of freedom; take all away, and each pearly tooth of his bite will be into the oak of the earth for his needs, yet some men, the weak hearted, the timid, were nothing but hollow feet and listless steps, so empty of fight that they were but a light gust away from being nothing at all; For the drop of their skin will be the final sound they hear upon this earth. Such a man were dangerous to the senates brittle facade of compassion, and ever so neatly they'd swoop down to gather up those of the non cooperative nature to face the very same fate as Castelow himself, one by one the brothers and sisters of uprising were met by the barrels of men who upon death would cry for Ramirez more than for the mercy of god. My mind wonders back to my un-thankful friend on the quayside. Was he one of the first?


Things were changing; people became blind and the blind themselves drew a slow eternal blink over a world they once longed so dearly to see.  I too drew that blink on March the 22nd 2042 on the afternoon of Clarissa's fate amid a freedom march by the gates of the conseil. Finally the skin of me broke to the pressure of all I'd held inside and out spilled a flood of red macabre; elevating intoxication like rising water; untainted alabaster skin, whipped and tarnished amid the moans of carnel meetings that began to blur into a river of skin from one nights stands and lurid whorehouses. In time the great river surged into an ocean and began to swell in huge breathless waves from here to the end of the needle. And upon the needles deepest bite, a reoccurring psychosis gripped; with feverish fingers I'd slip, and from my own sweaty palms, descend into that pit of twisted limbs. So sweetly I drew darkness from the needle of my own drug and sweeter still, I blinked myself far far away into a nightmare I'd sorely mistaken for a dream.


act 6: Forget me not.


I believe it was William S Burroughs who said “Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage.” In this modern age of access all area's and hedonistic needle bitten liberalism; that parasite is currency with plenty to feed on.

By the time I'd finished my run I'd consumed enough chemical elements to dissolve each of my biological organs a thousand times over, killed a herd of buffalo or anesthetized a small town; Yet my body, tired, worn and utterly used...remained, but my soul had gradually drained off like a precious liquid; and on the inside I could feel the dry water marks where it had evaporated piece at a time; I could feel wet grass between my toes, the gentle heaving of lungs remembering their function and this quizzical fog of how I happened upon my location. From the deathly silence I could almost hear the crimson side of my skin shaking over the sinew of muscle, I was- Old, My hands, weak, skin like- paper barely containing my insides, my tired eyes braking open the seal of many years to the image of a cold misty field.

Then- It happened, as if answering a call I'd placed many years ago yet had taken centuries to arrive through the many fragile slipstreams of time. The call was for guidance; The answer?....A spade; Or should I say, a storm of them; clouds dark and brooding, thick with heavy steel and hard pine handles began to thunder down with angular intricacy.

After my frantic departure from the field I dodged the rocket of each keen blade that soared from the heavens cutting splinters through great oaks as if they were little more than silk thread. Amidst the almighty splitting of hard timbre I realized the dense thicket of forest was little match for the triptych psychosis forcing my arthritic limbs to outpace the frantic scatter of dear that would calm upon my passing to watch quizzically as a half naked old man sprinted through the forest, ducking an unseen force and screaming in terror. In time I reached a road, my psychosis had calmed, yet through the overhang of trees splitting streams of light into the ground behind me I could see a thousand spades punched into the dirt with such velocity that each handle would welcome ten strong hands and never budge.


So there I stood, by a deserted road, half naked, knees burning, arms needle bitten and my age....God I didn't know how old I was! How much time had passed? Had my veins ever cleared amid the poison to see that frail skin behind the syringe? I stayed there for some time, past the duty of thought into the abyss where discarded memories float an infinity apart. It was- calming.

I remember the journey home; images in vertical skew thrashing past the window that rattled clusterously inside Rita's old Morris Oxford. Perhaps the world were spun beneath its aging mass, vigorously revolving it's surface to turn the wheels of that which refuses to rust. For a time, it seemed, we turned on the same spherical point, trapped in a blink of space and running on perpetual exhaust. The sounds I heard over the radio were new, they were of uprising in harmonious chords singing the senates fall from grace in a jubilant party I'd long since missed; a wave like many that finally broke on the shore of uprising, rolled back, and sank, powerless to the might of moral gravity; Rita's eyes were compassionate upon me, like beholding an animal in distress and for the first time in many years I saw the perfect self assured girl I knew before my father passed; for a moment she gripped my hand, when she pulled away I watched as the fleshy pink impression of her fingers slowly disappeared into the sallow pale of my skin.


Frank pauses, lost in a thought.


Where was I?.....


The circle that holds him draws closer.


A strange sensation creeps up my spine, as if being born again; I know that despite my agitated health the needle had served to incubate me and now its womb had birthed me to a time where once again man could find his independence; were he believed he was so much much than an over-stocked shoal of fry sleeping lazily amid the jaws of one inescapable swallow.


I felt, enchanted, After a long spell of self destruction the parasite of impulse had fed and gorged itself to death. By night I'd turn about my eyes to their comforting skull and gaze into the Pitt of me; by the light of my heart I see where the Leviathan had grew. Should I not have broken free I would surely have de-evolved like a vacuum down the ladder of my spine until all there was were a single impotent vertebrae, void of sense and given motion only by the grave-diggers spade and the earth upon it. My name is Frank Solomon Dietrich Jr now carrying the Dietrich's into the 12th generation of disbanded fathers, sons, brothers and sisters, each time by the single thread of a single child; I, like them, have known loss so that I can know favor, Known ugliness, so I can see beauty, and by the pain which baptized me into this life I have known pleasure. I battled with myself no more for an answer involving my entry to this great raffle, for if such an answer to life were within mans limited comprehension it would be little more than a comprehensible anti climax. I knew that one add one could shine no brighter than its inevitable two?

And that was the crux, the core of scalding liquescence spitting vitriol, all unsettled in the gut of me. I was just a boy when father died and so all I needed to be hadn't set, my morals un-questioned, my character.... un-solidified; and in fact I'd become what all fathers fear for their son's, I'd became a man built upon mistakes and in essence, the same fire that forged our fathers and their fathers before them.

I see the creases in my hands, Have I not worked? the scars upon my knees, for which I'm sure I have bled. I see the lines above my mouth; have I not smiled? The memories may be gone, yet what's left behind, I feel, are the weathered features of a man who's laughed and cried, like rain that cuts great rivers through the valley.

(Gently runs a finger under his left eye and out along the crows feet)

These eye's have looked into the sun in days where there was nothing but light, I'm sure of it.

(Smiles softly)

I don't fear that darkness anymore "Ceasing to exist is an impossibility" no matter how much I dilute, and dilute I will, to greater eminence or triviality, across platonian vortices I'll fly, through the very atmosphere that gave life to the gods of old, Venus, Neptune and the farther of Zeus, lord Cronus with his majestic spinning crown of Saturns surface. In some mystical sense, a vivid day-dream I have, I float by as the planets align, easing back the strangle of space to bloom a soft green moss before incubating to birth a sight fantastical, something we'd never understand.

Humble I am indeed for upon all that turns I have this one spot of existence, and in the abundance of questions that will never be answered it will not cease to be anything less than fascinating!

(Gazing upward)

Anyway.....where was I? Somewhere in the middle, I think....Did I ever tell you about the most beautiful girl I ever met? Her name was Rita, my childhood sweetheart. We married each other- I think... The last time I saw her, she held my hand, when she moved it away, I watched as the fleshy pink impression of her fingers slowly disappeared into the sallow pale of my skin.....


Frank pauses, his eyes lost in a sadness he can't define.


I believe I'm a little lost... You'll have to excuse me; my memory at times is much like a loading icon, chasing its fading hand around the same circle and never quite catching up with itself.


A slight smile edges a gentle crease upon Franks cheek; He stares into the dark as the light that once held him so softly closes in, then extinguishes.



The end