textfiles/magazines/HOE/hoe-0700.txt

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 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ "GNOSIS: THIRD INSTALLMENT"  $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$          by: Kreid           $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$      HOE #700 - 7/1/99       $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
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                    [Continued from HOE #501 & 641.]

 - Chapter 21

        Thinking about Katherine's death, I concluded that the most
 important thing for me was to not be too dramatic about it.  These things
 happen all the time, after all.  I should mourn her no more than I mourned
 the last thing I owned <20> that is, my car.  That car and I had a lot of
 potential together.  Had I not destroyed it so early in this span of memory
 I've been having, it could have changed my life completely.  With that car,
 I could be living in New York right now, if I could ever find it.  Not that
 I'd ever want to, of course, but it would be a possibility.  I'm just not
 sure if there are enough possibilities in my life right now.

        I felt really dirty, from god knows how many days without bathing or
 changing my clothes.  There wasn't much to do about it, though; for obvious
 reasons I didn't feel like going back to the laundromat.  I regretted not
 having taken advantage of Katherine's shower; that is, if she had one.

 [-----]

 - Chapter 22

        It occurred to me at that time that I would almost certainly never
 see my old home, my writer's laptop, my music, or anything resembling my
 former life, ever again.  I had become almost certain in my own mind that
 Elizabeth Moon's apartment would contain these long-lost parts of my self,
 but I knew with even more certainty that I could never return there.  It
 would be too risky; I had to avoid an encounter with the police.  I know
 that I have committed no crimes, but I seem to have intimate connections
 to several; therefore I must stay away from the law at all costs.  In fact,
 I must disappear from this town entirely.  Of all the things I knew, I was
 completely doubtless of that, and only that.

        I thought back to the first time I was jailed, or at least the first
 time that I can (almost) place in my memory.  The police in this town would
 recognize my face.  They certainly knew me as a criminal, although I can't
 remember what crime it was that caused me to wake up in jail that morning.
 Probably nothing too serious, considering they released me so quickly<6C> that
 is, assuming it was only one night that I had blacked out for.  But, what
 the hell, anyway? It was pointless to try and pursue these thoughts.  I
 wasn't even the slightest bit curious.

        Wherever I was when I had stopped thinking about the police, I
 decided to sit down on the sidewalk and rest for a while.  I leaned up
 against a strong brick wall, closed my eyes, and listened to footsteps
 passing by me.  As I sat there, I envisioned that apartment, the one to
 which I would never return.  I saw a television, a VCR, a stereo, a sea of
 wires.  The laptop was there, on the floor, the vessel that bore me as a
 writer.  It was like a womb in which the mind I live in today had grown.
 The womb was empty now, except for old scraps, short stories, traces of
 what I had become; or could have become, had I not been aborted from it
 so coldly... Regardless, I still felt sick knowing that I would never
 return to it.

        Elizabeth was there.  She was with another man; someone she
 perceived to be a slightly better version of myself, I'm sure.  They were
 in bed together, a soft cloth blanket resting at their hips, their naked
 chests lined up next to each other.  The room glowed from the television's
 light, and it hummed from the presence of so many other things, producing
 so much electricity.  Their faces were made up inside my mind,
 half-summoned from my memory, I suppose.  Only half-real.  In reality, the
 three of us would never meet.  Or, at least not in this town.

        I opened my eyes.  They were wet, but yielded no tears.  I saw the
 sun in the sky, getting ready to set.  I stood up and followed it.
 Vaguely, I had begun to find a sense of what I needed to do; or maybe, all
 that was left that I could do.

 [-----]

 - Chapter 23

        I wish there were more to say about my departure from that town,
 but I'm afraid I can't come up with anything.  I guess I just wasn't paying
 enough attention to the life in that evening, because I lack the ability
 to retell any of it here.  I didn't see much of anything on my way out,
 except for maybe the sun.

        After walking a while, the sidewalk ended and turned to patches of
 grass by a curb, and then the curb ended, and grass turned to dirt and
 trees.  I found myself in a forest not unlike the one I found myself in on
 the first night of this tale, and I thought at the time that maybe I would
 pass by my old grave, but that never happened.  It was a big forest.  That
 would have been an unlikely coincidence.

        I remember thinking that I really should have been tired from all
 the walking I had been doing, and then not really knowing if I was tired
 or not.  I didn't stop walking, though, until the dirt and trees turned
 into plain dirt, and then the lonely dirt turned into a river.  About
 thirty feet across, and I still don't know quite how deep.  Deep enough,
 it seemed.

        The sun had almost set, and then I had nowhere to go, so I finally
 sat down in the dirt.  Like some sort of reflex, some childhood memory
 forcing me along, I started to untie my boots and lie them down in the
 dirt next to me.  They were caked with dirt and faded from so much exposure
 to the sun, but they really didn't seem very worn.  The life of those boots
 had been unique, definitely, but they really didn't do much more walking
 than the average pair.  They were still healthy.

        My eyes passed away from the boots and back at the river.  I decided
 to dip my feet in it.  It was really an ecstatic feeling; at least, for a
 small part of me, it was.  I had not felt water like that, or even
 encountered water at all, in a very long time.  The feeling was so great,
 and so exotic, that I was paralyzed by it for quite a while.  I sat blankly
 in the dirt, and in the water up to my knees, for a good while, and I felt
 very good about it.  Satisfied.  Quenched.  Eventually, the sun set, and it
 was dark, and I came to my senses, wondering what my next action would be.

        It seemed perfectly natural what I should do.  Something so natural,
 it needed no justification to happen, it just did.  Like the sun setting.
 Every part of me knew exactly what to do.  And so, I acted, with my body,
 my mind, and my soul.

        I jumped into the river.

        And it carried me in its arms, so quick I couldn't have thought
 about it if I tried.  The river had mastered me with the speed and strength
 of its current.  I went completely limp, and I believe I had one thought,
 one ecstatic conclusion, as I smiled and closed my eyes.  Gnosis.  Another
 blackout.

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 [ (c) !LA HOE REVOLUCION PRESS!      HOE #700 - WRITTEN BY: KREID - 7/1/99 ]