The Bodiless Man

         Anton Lantz was stirred from a multi-sensual escapade within his mind, by a small spark of energized, tangerine light which had quite suddenly appeared within a crack on his bedroom window. The reflected light shone, unwavering, near the center of the back wall, to which his eyes had been fixed throughout the night. His gargantuan silhouette sat over the bed and turned its head this way and that; frantically at first, then later more calmly and steadily. It was dawn already, yet that night his eyelids had not shut, let aside an occasional blinking. This deprivation of sleep dulled Anton’s senses even further than they had been the previous day. Progressively, he was becoming numb in every regard. As a cutlass, his blade had been so overused and neglected throughout time, that he was quickly becoming less of a useful tool with every effort to remain one. His surroundings didn’t help much to externally stimulate him, either. Anton lived in a small, wooden two story house, standing within a small neighborhood in the middle of the country. Even further, Anton rarely ever left the area of his own property. He had everything that he needed to survive right within the borders of his own, personal land.


         In a seeming defense against this knowledge of his own progressive sensual deterioration, Anton had become a bodiless man. He existed only through his mind; and his mind, the womb of his perceptions, he believed, encased his entire being. Though an attached physical form would occasionally appear to him, in rather unpredictable fashions, it was a completely different being in itself, and not much of a being at that. In this way, Anton was a camera, or more specifically, a lens; completely unaware of himself, yet fully existent through his perceptions and his ability to process each of them.

         Lantz floated dreamily through his dimly lit bedroom, out the door, and into a hardly better lit hallway. From there, he made his way into his shower stall and stood there momentarily, anticipating with a subtle excitement, the liquid droplets which were soon, surely, to fall to the floor of the tub below him and set the pace for the next chapter of his existence. Just as he had assured himself, the droplets began falling; their steady and dependable pace creating a mesmerizing rhythm which echoed between the walls of the stall.


         Although Anton was not completely sure, himself, on which cue the droplets had known to fall, nor on which cue their falling would discontinue, he was near positive that he had and would play a large role in each of these events. Soon before Anton exited the shower, returning to the significantly wider space of his bathroom, the droplets ceased to fall. The bathroom into which he spilled seemed a different one than that which he had entered. Hanging from the wall before him was now an opaque, reflective glass sheet; a mirror. From the instant he noticed it, his eyes could not be averted from its responsive glare. Anton watched as the drenched figure in the mirror drew a towel off of the hook to his right and began brushing it all across his body, thus cleansing himself of the unwanted water droplets with which he was covered. Soon, he came to realize that as the mirrored figure did this, he as well was dried.


         The mirror on the wall had much to offer him, he felt. It held traits which he had long ago lost, or possibly never had, and may have been willing to share them with him. Perhaps it already was sharing itself by simply being there, in front of him and within his eyes’ grasp. It wouldn’t have mattered either way. In Anton’s view, the only way to gain something which another individual held, was to eliminate that individual altogether and then pry the object out of their lifeless fingers. With that belief in mind, and a purposeful concealing of any effort or remorse, Lantz struck the mirror; focusing all the energy within his body into the back of his fist. Reflective glass showered the bathroom floor in a sharp and threatening, yet oddly delicate manner. The crystalline pieces lay united on the surface, in a shimmering puddle of dancing lights, which slowly died down into nothing more than a small pile of scattered histories. This, in Anton’s mind, signified the reward for his victory over the mirror. He had sucked the life and energy out of the expiring mirror and in effect, obtained each of the mirror’s highly enviable traits; the most predominant of which being its incredibly consistent state of self awareness.


         Anton’s body had suddenly become much more than the simple attachment which it had been moments ago. It was now more an extension of his being, directly connected to his mind. A link had been made; the puzzlement to which he had become so accustomed, taken apart, scattered momentarily, then placed back together in a much more balanced form. For the first time in his life, or at least his life as he had perceived it previously, Anton Lantz knew where he stood. For that matter, it was also the first time he knew of having been so conscious of standing.


         “I stand within a tree”, he thought aloud and then drifted off, taken aback by the voice which had passed through his lips.


         He and the voice had never been formally introduced, and so it seemed very alien, almost frightening, to him as it intruded him in his most private and important of times. He supposed that he had been made, now, a more public being, though; and as such he knew he would need to accept his refurbished self. Anton repeated himself once again, so as to hopefully speak to his mind, this time without interruption of any sort.


         “I stand within a long dead tree. It has been adjusted, just like I have. But it is a dead tree that’s truly still alive, since it stands upright and holds its structure, its branches as firm as can be, with leaves growing ever more abundant, and slowly but surely consuming the tree from the bottom up”.
         For the first time that his memories could tell, Anton let out a small smile. Anton never smiled, as he simply couldn’t spot the relationship between a joyful emotion and such a contorted facial expression. This time, however, he couldn’t help but smile in response to the blend of relief and renewal which he felt so intensely at that moment, and the feeling of enlightenment he felt, as his numbed curiosity was stimulated back into existence, and quickly fed with a flood of delectable information.


         Anton’s lens, which were, at this point, only a small portion of his entirety, swallowed each of the words produced by his mouth. His mind processed it, and the end-product was, this time, circulated throughout his entire form, returning to his mind after a single lap. He responded by walking, not floating, downward to the lower level of his home; his level of consciousness increasing by massive quantities with each step. Anton marched out of the main doorway of his house and found himself standing upon a thin, flat, paved extension of the front side of his home, with vast areas of green growing from either of its sides. This, Lantz knew, was the highest branch of the tree. The scarcity of the leaves assured it.


         He made his way to the tip of the branch and scanned the area with a new clarity of vision like he had never known before. Across from his tree was a different tree, which mirrored his; the tip of its branch extending toward that of his own. Diagonal in either direction and to both of his sides, were other trees, aligned in a very similar pattern. Anton was in the middle of a forest, standing at the highest branch of his tree; at the canopy. Far below would be his roots, the company of which he very much longed for. To find them would be very difficult, he knew, for they had, over a long period, been gradually covered by the product of decay; the process at last coming to an end when little life remained to continue it. Forming an even connection between the top branches was a dirt path. A road, for travel, although it never had and never would be used.


         Anton cautiously crept back along the branch, returning to the front of his home. He managed to rip apart from its surface, a large piece, which he brought back along the branch to the dirt road. With this plank of wood in hand, he began tearing away at the soil below him. It would be a long-lasting excavation; burrowing through his entire history. He had lived his days perceiving and processing for a long enough time. Now, what he needed most was the company of the knowledge and the purpose and fulfillment, the longing for whom his mind had neglected for far too long. As he shoveled deeper and deeper into the dirt, a suffocated dandelion bud tore its head free from the thick, moist soil, and gasped for light. It poured heavily that night, and Anton shoveled to the rhythm of the raindrops.