And the Body Dies

One-at-a-time. one. at. a. time.  And then there were none.  Lines around the block reduced to so much ash, so much unforgiven ash and that man.  That man in his grin and alien clothes.  Had he worn a suit they would’ve known, but pajamas are so passive.  I almost believed him because of the slight arch in his back.  I’m sure others saw beneficence in the bald patch or love in the wrinkles around the mouth, but no!  It was deadly hunger.  How he’d gotten the machine I don’t know.  How he hungered I hope never to.  How they all died, I’m well aware.  Burned.  Burned alive.
         
         Could you not be so full of weight as to be dead already?  Do you not feel left alone by your fellow man to toil in darkness under the heave of these atoms, these forces, they’ve made for you?  It is not your fault, it is not their fault, it is the fault of the atoms the forces; the very matter and its rules has made you sick.

         He’s over there now, crouching in the rubble.  Oh, the mess of him!  Even the white fringe of haloing hair is smeared grey with grease and mud and these robes!  I can’t look at him too much now or he’ll get me.  He’ll get me with his machine, his world-burning revelation machine.
         
         Step right up, ye of little faith and let the bigger ones watch you be brave.  Let the great men see the weight you’ve been carrying.  Let them at last understand who you are when the weight of the world is lifted, evaporated; all finally equaled by the fire of the spirit.  All are as one in the eyes of my machine.
         It didn’t take long for volunteers.  There were many poor and destitute, with diseases you could see and innocense you could feel.  A man was aided from his wheelchair through the huge doors and when that smokey specter shot straight up out of the machine, waved for effect, and swam skyward with a smile on it’s face it just seemed so easy, so divine.  It just seemed so right for the lines of people to appear and stretch for days.  Can we be liberated from our bodies?  Of course you can my children. 

And.  Then. There.  Were.  None.  He’s right behind me now.  Those eyes.  Those teeth.  He must have teeth so terrifying, terrifying as teeth I’ve never seen.  I don’t believe these dentures.  These dentures that won’t stay in for mass anymore.  The mass that won’t stay for mass anymore.  Rushing out after communion like they have something other than doughnuts, football, and fornication on their minds!  He must have his robes clean before next Sunday.  But the mass, who will go?  There will be no sneezing.  There will be no leaving.  Is everyone ash?  Am I left alone?  So hungry.  Might have to move on to the next city.  To the last city.  He’ll be there, hiding in the rubble.  Why is there so much rubble?  What has his machine been doing?  He’s always there with his machine.  Why can’t I get clean?  The machine?  His machine? 

         The miracle was so evident, so intuitively true.  Of course the soul could be freed from it’s body!  How?  With a machine!  Of course, a purgatorium!  To fly is to be free.  To ascend continually without limit or acceleration is the highest, the most meaningful desire.  Escape upward.  Of course their is not really this matter.  Not really really.  This dirt is dirt, not truth.  The fundamental substance is energy, aether, apeiron, void in apparent relative motion.  Science had killed itself with that one.  And the robe knew it.  The book knew it.  The machine knew it.  The ashes just had to be swept to the side, so much irreligious ash and grease, left by the dirty science of my machine.  But the robes stayed so white.  How did he do it?

         Maybe this is the last city, the last stop.  He’s definitely watching me now.  I can definitely smell his holy hunger, the truth of his machine and his plan, the grace of it.  He is so good to be doing this and this machine is so easy to use.  Walk through the beautiful wooden doors, commissioned to a thousand thousand of the best artist to ever live in Europe, how cosmopolitan, ecumenical even.  Let the secular build the Babel, let Us ascend it, how wise of him!  Just step inside, right?  Relax, breath.  Smell the incense and candles.  The ash will come off, the grease will come off these white robes.  The music composed by the greatest, the most single minded visionary visionaries hearing the highest most invisible impracticable spheres rubbing together, cosmic spherical vibrating crickets that never annoy you.  Oh, music is not ash, nor are We.  Give away these teeth, these eyes, these wrinkles.  Give away this mind as it tries to escape me, tries to confuse me; We need it only to give way.  Give it a shove as it cops out on me.  My machine won’t fail.  My automatic confessional, my unrelenting purgatorium.  It’s only left for me now to be what I am.  It’ll do all the work.  I just give way.  I just give away these feet, this skin, this ash.  It fails me now anyway of no use to me as it was of no use to them.  Thats the machine at work.  The curing purge.  They were sick.  He watches me through a screen as I burn and asks me questions about myself.  He seems interested, it's nice to be asked, for someone to be interested again, not like on Sundays.  He tells me I don’t need to answer or sing or even pray anymore, it’ll be alright, it'll all go away.  Sure is kind of Him to ask.  His smiling eyes are mine, I can see through the screen now.  There's only a little irritation, can't be helped, it's for the best anyway.  Could it be more simple to live than to die?  The warm of the machine hums away the urge to answer; the compulsion to answer to myself.  I don't need to answer to anyone but Him and he doesn't mind if I don't answer, He already knows.  So warm.  I hope to feel the flight.  Hope to feel the soul I am, I know I am; what’s left from the ash.  The escaping energy is me.  I am its feeling.  The burning is me, not that which is burned.  The rising specter is me, glimpsed by no one.  There is no one left to glimpse or be glimpsed. 
And the body dies.