The Isle of the Dead

The Isle of the Dead
By L. Dykeman

I am fascinated by Alexander the Great. Just to envision him, the magnificence said to accompany his essence, the look that fills his murderous eyes, to see the soul of a conqueror! I despise war, finding it so appalling that sometimes my stomach clenches itself into violent dry heaves just at the thought. And yet I would give anything to ride beside him, hear his voice screaming those ancient battle cries in a language I will never understand. To ask of him, “What peace do you search for, that you would wage a war? Why choose power, glory, honor? Those things die, my dear Alexander. You don’t take them with you to The Isle. Or so they’ve told me.” At times, I have wondered what he would think of this, or say to that, and I asked but never received a reply. I only heard the distant sound of men loosing their lives, echoes of the past and some historical lies.

The most spectacular time is at daybreak. The shapes of the clouds, the scattering rays of sun, both exist in perfect unity with time and a certain inevitability that they will descend upon my nighttime world. This entire scheme once almost tempted me to hold out my hands to the sky and scream to the Great Divine Nothing that I wish to clasp Dawn in my hands and keep her there forever. I felt a drop of sweat running down my spine, a flash of coppery red startled my walk along the busy street, and I flinched violently out of my fantasies. It was only a lock of my hair, glistening in the newborn sun. Not fire, not a revelation, but supposedly a simple strand of dead cells growing out of my head, reflecting light.

When I think about my body’s cells, I invariably remember its mortality. If I am going to die, why can’t I stay in bed? Why not feel the soft cotton blanket pressing against the skin of my arms, a ceiling fan tickling my toes and calves? “It’s a waste of your life,” my voice told me. “Isn’t it?” I counted my responsibilities, considered the sorrows or annoyances I would cause if I ignored them, and suddenly I couldn’t sleep anymore. I’ve had mental insomnia for years; no matter how long I sleep, I’m always horribly tired.

To wake up, sometimes I think of this boy who has the funniest laugh. He told me once, that his real laugh is much louder but he suppresses it, for obvious reasons. It made me miserable when he said that, but I didn’t show it. I said something about how it was amazing because ‘his laugh was already so loud’ and that was all. I’d like to hear his real laugh though. It won’t annoy me, I’ve decided, because it’s just a sound, waves of sound vibrating something in my ear. It upsets me to think that not everyone feels the same way, to think of what they miss in life, because they hanker over the sound of a laugh. I wanted to watch the sunrise with Alexander and ask him about it, perhaps even hoping that he’ll answer me. But, should I listen to the advice of a murderer?

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I am fascinated by Edgar Allan Poe. Once I imagined him standing in a bookstore, his dark hair unbrushed and greasy, the white cuffs that stuck out from his jacket wrinkled and stained. He smelled a little like liquor and looked pale and sick with his limp bowtie and jacket covered in footprints of light colored dirt. It reminds me of the line, “Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe.” He looked up at me with a sarcastic smirk, and then sighed. His eyes were dark, gleaming with a certain sadness, a strange insanity I’ve scene so many times. He put his hands in his pockets and began to wander, flipping through the bargain books, opening one of his own and reading a poem. He laughed and shook his head, putting the book back in the wrong place before going on to the bookmarks. The revolving shelves turned round and round, and I could hear a soft, carnival like music playing over loud speaker. This grew louder and louder as I watched the shelves spin in a rainbow collage, Poe’s deathly white fingers pushing it along in a never-ending cycle. Colors, colors, hint of gold, colors, colors, rise, fall, blend, mix, all to the rhythm of that imaginary circus.

“Life, is a merry-go-round, and none of us…” he paused and looked at me. I liked the sound of his voice as it echoed within my own breast. “Can be wholly sound.” Then he pulled out a silver pocket watch, noted the time, began winding it, and left the store.

I used to play kick ball as a smaller child. Having asthma and unable to run, I only tried to play when tired of walking around alone. I remember this boy; he was poor with old clothes, messy hair, not much different from myself at all, except he never stopped talking and used to eat various school supplies. Out of revenge for not being invited to play the game, or god only knows why, he used to catch the ball in mid air and then lay on the ground, curling himself around it like a protective shell. The definite, alpha-male children gathered around him with curses and threats, and then they kicked him. He wrapped his thin frame tighter around the ball, the monkeys still continuing to kick and scream, one or two scratching and ripping at the carefully protected prize of red rubber. But I did nothing. I just stood against that old fence, thinking how much the cold burned with every breath and how much the scene made me want to throw up, just like a war. Both made me want to clasp my hands over my ears and crouch down, screaming at the top of my weak lungs for all of it to stop. But it doesn’t stop, because I do nothing. They finally freed the ball, and the boy curled up in the middle of the base line between second and third, runners just stepping on him as they came around or stopping to give him a swift kick or push. I don’t know what I’d have done if I ever made it that far; I like to believe I wouldn’t have done that. Today I would still not let myself scream, but I’d like to walk up to him, maybe touch him gently on the side of his head, brushing away his greasy hair. I could have comforted him, made him stand up from that frozen concrete, and maybe watch him dry his tears, standing tall and Proud. And then we could have just walked away from them. Walked away from the Great War, and become just that much more sound. Children are the cruelest warriors in this game, and out number the adults a billion to one.

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I am fascinated by the samurai. The idea of them is just so entirely romantic, an obsession with death and honor. Lives lived in a blush of pink, the manner of their fall the most beautiful moment of their life, they are so much like a cherry blossom. In The Catcher in the Rye a man says something about the mark of an immature man is one who wants to die nobly for a cause and the mark of a mature man is the one who wishes to live humbly for one. I would rather sleep peacefully, then rebel and riot. However, sometimes, I think I’d die to be able to keep that peace. So what am I? The simplicity of that statement, makes me think, perhaps, it is immature in itsself, or a bit unfinished. Maybe it’s only context. Thoreau said it better as, “Be faithfully and resolutely what you are, be humbly what you aspire to be.” The game is like connect the dots, the picture lies only in connection, and because it has no numbers, it looks different to everyone.

I had a very interesting dream once, quite a while ago. I knocked on a hotel room door; I remember clearly that it said room twenty-three. A lot of noise came from the inside, and I opened to the door to find a crowd of people I know, showing up in those strangely foggy impressions dreams will often give you. I could feel a pink dress rubbing against my legs, silk like but softer and more fragile. I went into the celebration with a strange feeling in the back of my mind that it was my going away party, and yet it really wasn’t for me at all. Slipping out a pair of sliding glass doors, I came to an overflowing balcony where the sun was very intense and white. A few clouds came by, softening the glare, and I relaxed a little but found great relief. Waiting for my eyes to focus, I looked around a few moments, finally locating the one I had been looking for after my fourth or fifth sweep of the area.

He was in an isolated corner of the crowd, and leaning forward on the railing, eyes unfocused and staring out at the vast city below. He looked familiar, but it really didn’t matter so much as his permanent radiance of innocence, without ignorance. I’ve always called that the ‘most beautiful expression in the world.’ I mocked his position and swallowed roughly before turning to look at him. I said his name and he sort of said, “Hmmm?” but didn’t look at me. This moment was why the party wasn’t mine, but no one expected what I did next, not even myself.
“Do you want to go to Japan with me?” I asked him, and he looked at my face. He still wore the expression, only it was magnified to something much more whimsical. I’d been told not to do it, but I had, both of us knowing it would mean the end. Neither of us, however, asked me to take it back.

“Yes,” he said quietly, continuing it. We exchanged smiles before looking back to the city. I saw a small sparkle fall to the center and asked what he thought it was. “I don’t know,” he replied sweetly. He didn’t care, and neither did I. A wall of fire suddenly enveloped the world with a moment of severe, burning pain. However, it ended quickly and I was floating in a black void, a few Cherry Blossoms fluttering by with only an emotional explanation. My first thought, was that the boy would miss me, but at least I had asked him to go, even if had meant our death, at least he had smiled at me. I relaxed into acceptance of my fate, but it didn’t come. My body flinched violently and woke up, but I’d have given anything for that dream to be my reality.

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I am fascinated by Sergei Rachmaninoff’s, Isle of the Dead; it was the most beautiful song I have ever heard. It’s very tragic and yet at the same time powerful with its inspiring rises and falls in not only speed but intensity. The first time I heard it, I was scrubbing my kitchen counter, listening to a public music channel on a very old radio. The reception was a little fuzzy and the pitch a bit too low for classical music, but the sound still caused me to slowly drift into a stationary stance. The foreboding message of the instruments, of each chosen note and expression, seemed to pulsate with my pounding headache and sooth it into fantastic state of momentary serenity. When the song ended, I could feel that my rag had gotten cold, and my dampened spots of dirt were dry again and had to be soaked all over. The first thing I thought was that twenty minutes had just been wasted listening to that song, and then I finished scrubbing the kitchen that would be dirty again by the following weekend. I listen to the song often now, but it’s never been as pleasing as the first time I heard it, on that old radio, when I was supposed to be cleaning. I wish it were possible for me to ask Rachmaninoff how he could create such a thing. “Talent,” I answer. But, it’s more than that. I know it, and I can admit it.

A few days ago was dress up like a ‘geek’ day at my high school, and I found it a little offensive, as I dress like that every day. In talking to one of my teachers, I thought her response to my complaints more than a little surprising. It took a long time for her to say, but her basic response was that I should ignore it. That if I make myself a ‘certain thing’, I have to accept the consequences. But, why should there be consequences at all? I accept that I am. It's not about what I am, and I will not accept being a toy for the rest of the society to mock. So, I will leave the Great War to fight in the Battle of Oppression, when all I really want to do is sleep. Won’t I?

I think of the boy’s laugh, the other’s torture, my dream’s expression, and love, and hate, and tyranny, and life, and death, and my own individual peace, the trials of the masses, the benevolence of some, and the crashing cruelty of others. I consider gods, I consider science, murder, redemption, purity, and the weight of millions of differing destinies trying to pull me into their path. I am like a grotesque combination of love and war, so desperately seeking personal peace while I drive myself into futile battles. As if riding on an out of control piece of confetti in the world’s circus, I know only that I am a human, not my function in someone else’s philosophical machine. I don’t care about the children running in the rye because I only want to be the cherry blossoms.

And ‘My destiny’ is exactly what it implies; it is mine.

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I asked him what he thought of my story and he handed me back the pages saying “It’s a little depressing, isn’t it, L____?” In exasperation, I told him that it had to be that way. “Why?” I asked him why not with a laugh. “Because it’s terrible, for Christ’s sake. Why not change the end a little? Give the reader at least more definition. No one wants to finish a story feeling that way; it gives off a very immature… feeling. And the title is terrible. Isle of the Dead? I see its point, but it sounds like a horror movie. No one will want to read it. ”
“Oh well, I’m not concerned,” I laughed and flipped through a few pages. “ If I was, wouldn’t that make me a big hypocrite, a liar?” He made a very silly face, scrunching up his eyes while furrowing his brow and pouting his lips. I shook my head with a twirl on the slippery tiles and tipped my hat in his direction. And left with his puzzling eyes piercing into my back. I want to sleep in warm, soft grass, listen placidly to the dead, and ignore everything they have to say.

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I will impale the stars.