TCOTNK 2.2 Letters 7 and 8
If you haven’t read the first season of TCOTNK the following writings will not make much sense. I suggest you read those fifteen chapters first….
Season 1 is also available as an e-pub (compatible with most readers) for paying subscribers.
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The 7th Letter
Hey Charlotte,
Sometimes I think I am writing to an imaginary person. And by sometimes I mean now. Yet I keep writing. Telling you what is happening to me is kind of a necessity. No, not kind of, I am completely depending on them to keep functioning. These letters are my lifeline. A fragile last thread. Thin like a fiber optic hair through which light travels, energy is transferred in both directions. If you don't like my drivel (oeh old-fashioned word) you can light the pizza oven with these papery postings (my silly attempt at how you would put it) but I can’t help but hold on to this connection. Even if it is not real. Conversely, I would like to hear from you. Which adventures are coming your way? What angel are you struggling with?
Remember that upcoming event? (the viking thing without the horned helmets) Barin has put in a good word for me at the organisation (he rather oversold me actually, anyway, fingers crossed)
Interesting times. I am getting more and more insight into how strange the world is currently functioning and why I participate less and less in that unhealthy circus. Which almost goes without saying because the contrivance spits you out when you drop out of the production lines. The artificial organism repels you as a foreign element. Looking from the outside in, I am appalled by what I experience. It is like the filter is peeled off layer after layer. And what remains is a hurtful sensitivity. Unbearable clarity. It seems entrusting my secrets to paper is the safest form at present. No one writes letters with pen and paper anymore, and maybe no one reads them either. I don't make copies but just fold them to fit the envelope. A couple of fallen leaves rustling through the universe. Virtually invisible to the eyes and ears of this world. Protected by nothing more than gummed vellum. Isn't it strange that both the paper memory and my personal grey cells hardly matter anymore? We rely heavily on virtual memory. Which has lost its physical roots. Picked flowers they are. We have moved from stone to parchment and paper to a weightless nothingness inaccessible without the mountain of machinery that holds them. Why does no one see how radical that change of direction is? The best invention of all, paper and pencil, is discarded as outdated and insufficient.
Civilization is memory. That's all we have. Even money is nothing but memory. And pretty soon we can no longer touch that. Pocket money. Paper money. Before long coins and bills disappear altogether, sneaked out unannounced through the backdoor. Memory is what makes us and we are the memory. I am yours and you are mine. And we depend on direct interaction. Immediate exchange. Is this philosophical babble of mine gibberish to you? I hope not. We are in the rapids, in the last stretch of river before the waterfall, before the great forgetting. Or am I becoming a prophet of doom? Do I just see my own struggle reflected in the world?
Five days ago the doorbell rang. I was home alone. Halfway in the morning that loud farmers hooter pierced the house and the yard. I’d never heard that sound before. Nobody bothers to buzz at Barin's. People and fools barge in, linger and leave recharged. So when I heard the alarming sound, I hid. Through the small bathroom window in the turret I could see two men in suits scurrying about. I was just out of the shower, dripping with fear. You should know, the Barin family is normally never away. At least one of them stays home at any time. For the animals, for the garden, for suckers like me and for the homeschool they run together. They were gone for a few days and promptly that shiny car appeared in the yard. They came for me. I just knew. It was time.
Still, the car left empty-handed (I had heard one stumble in the kitchen, the goats responded to the other visiting their barn, whatever they did seemed to take them forever). After they drove off (almost silent) with those ominous dark glassed windows, I paced from room to room for ages to weigh up the decision. Nothing had changed and everything was different now. What were the chances they would come back? Couldn't I just hide for a while and then pick up the thread again? Did I misread the situation? Did it have nothing to do with me at all? Or would I endanger this beautiful place by remaining in hiding even longer?
Late afternoon, while I was doing my exercises (I still have my right shoulder frozen from the disuse and the badly fractured collar bone) I decided it was time. I counted the money I had left, (pocket change, a paltry one hundred and thirty-four euros, mainly from little jobs I did —for which Barin insisted on paying me— then made my rounds past the animals giving them a bit more than usual. They would be left to their own devices for little over 24 hours. I guessed that wouldn't be too much of a problem. I took provisions for a few weeks (stuff I would otherwise also have used up, but the looting made me feel awful anyway) and covered my tracks as best I could except for one. By the way, leaving no trace is a depressing way to be in the world. On the refrigerator of the milking machine I hung a new drawing of a ship with a rune sign underneath it. Barin will understand. Probably the only one in the world who will.
That same evening, after dark, I walked to the big hangar of 'the friend'. Packing up the camper at midnight. It took three trips back and forth. Then I tried to sleep. In the room that had felt like home for a short while. At four in the morning I gave up, made myself some strong coffee (a good new bad habit) and walked through the fields with a fluttering heart. Scared and excited. A multitude of bird’s’ morning prayers loud and alive and bright. That’s how I felt. A chaotic bundle of messed up melodies. I cried, driving the car out of its hiding place. On my way again. Keeping the sun to my right. Rising.
—-
I'm completely off-line, but you may have realised that, just out of necessity, I avoid screens, cameras and any connection that leaves digital traces. I pay and get paid cash sometimes, but mostly with real things; labor, gratitude and edibles. I no longer have a bank account or phone. I'm an outlaw. No more no less. An outcast on the run. Why? Remember when we talked about your decision? Well, a long time ago I made the decision to follow my own path. Listening to my inner self. I don't believe you can give yourself a greater adventure than being genuinely stubborn. Following your own lead. The consequences are far-reaching. Weeds are stubborn. Some things prevail despite all the efforts to eliminate them. Labeling them as bad or good is futile.
Enough, my letters will become illegible to you.
I stop using the previous name, from now on I am, your devotee,
R
8th letter
Dear Charlotte,
High summer and as cold as autumn. Being on the road this way is exciting. I am a night traveler. Except at the weekend, then I pick the early morning because that's when there's the least chance of checks.
I was running out of fuel again and have stopped for a period at the quay of a scrap metal processor. It is closed for the summer holidays. My wheeled heap of rust does not stand out next to the huge mountain range of metal bits. It seems to be alive. Millions of parts that click and rattle and sing with the summer winds. They seem to enjoy conjuring up the polyphonic whistles. Wind is not a single creature, but comes down in small gangs. A gang of winds. They love playing rough. Stirring, pushing over, smashing what is not securely tied down.
I can fish in the canal (but I didn’t yet catch anything) and down the road is a farm shop that could use some help in exchange for food. I just say that I am a nomadic writer. That seems to be accepted. A notebook, a pen and glasses are the props. The long beard also helps.
Actually, I feel quite good. Despite the lurking question of how I'm going to keep this up, I live by the day and it makes me intensely happy.
It leaked near the kitchen, right where most of the books are, you know the spot? I removed everything, climbed the roof to look for a puncture (didn't find it) and then put a washing-up bowl underneath. Some books were wet but nothing too dramatic. Have you ever noticed how some books come into your life long before you are ready for them? In a boring book about esotericism there is a large chunk about runes that has me captured. And I have a massive book that is now hanging to dry about the low middle ages. Boring, I hear you think, but the funny thing is that my dreams seem to be about that period. Even more boring, someone who talks about his dreams. Anyway, I'm starting to feel like a pretty solid writer now that I'm doing 'research'. That memory meditation from the other day is starting to ferment in me. No idea yet how I can do something with that, but that 'collective forgetting' is holding me captive for the time being. Arrogant profession, writer. What do they say?
To be one, behave like one.
Love,
R
PS just came across that fantastic picture book of yours again. How strange that I had completely forgotten about that gem. You know that there are still all kinds of things of yours in the camper? I keep them well for you, who knows…