The Cottage of the Old Man
‘He loomed over the cottage of the old man.
He loomed over the cottage of the old man.’
How does one loom over a cottage?
Books were spread out as a deck of cards before me.
I was thinking about all the worlds that have been created,
all the adventures that have been expanded out of the human mind,
the charting into a new territory, an escape into worlds untouched by the sins of man.
I saw myself as a dancer in twirling costume changes, as I spun, I wrapped myself in new colors,
my colors were the fascinating and interesting thoughts in the books before me,
I swam through them, submerged all but the top of my head in them.
At the top of the head, the chant went on,
“You never tried. This isn’t yours.”
“Why do you say this to me?”
“You never tried. This isn’t yours!”
I am grateful and blessed. I am surrounded by beautiful books with elegant covers as far as my eyes can see,
there is no one here to disturb my travels into these great unknowns.
The white pages appear as amber in the soft glowing light, far away I can only faintly hear the music of pattering raindrops on the window.
This is my abode.
I am the dweller,
this sanctuary is the dwelled.
We belong together.
“I should never leave this place.”
“You are a coward.”
I am adorned in my perfect everchanging interdimensional costumes, for all but my head.
Behind my mask, my silence is disturbed, and my art is questioned.
“You never tried!”
I am the only one disturbing my perfect sanctuary. There is nothing more I long to do with my days in this eternity but explore farther into these magical books laid about me. I don’t care to eat, and my dreaming is a game of roulette.
“You are the only one disturbing your perfect sanctuary.
You are the problem.
If you were not here,
there would be peace.”
On this matter, I have no argument.
“Quiet down, I’m trying to read.”
I break the eternal silence of this place, letting out a faint chuckle that prompts a house rat to scatter on the inside of some distant shadow-lit wall.
“You never tried!”
The words are louder, no longer piercing skin, now they cut through bone.
I don’t wish to look upon failures, amid marvels and gems in this holy temple!
There was a thought behind this voice that caused it to rise to this stir,
it wanted to be expressed, but it was forgotten. At this realization,
my mind returned to silence, my focus on the dusty atmosphere of the room.
“You could have created your own stories. Your own..”
“You borrowed their imaginations, you wrap yourself in their color!
You have no color!”
No color. What need do I have for generating color? My only desire is to dwell. I am the dweller. This is my dwelling.
If I generate color, if I print some books, and send them somewhere far away, how will that give me any color?
That’s not an experience to have here, that is for another.
In this sanctuary, I have access to eternity and the universal mind of man. It is my mind, these books are extensions of it.
“They aren’t you. You glorify what you could be through them, you are not them!”
What does it matter?
“You have pride, you claim what isn’t yours, and you wear what you have not purchased!”
What is your point?
“You are a thief.. and a liar!”
I am a dweller, and the dwelled!
“You could have had your original characters.
Then you could have played with them,
made them do whatever you wanted,
you could have become a god in your private worlds.”
“You could have imagined people who loved you and wanted you.
You could have made yourself whoever you wanted to be.”
I am who I want to be, I am the dweller.
I could have created universes. I could have had brilliance. I could have painted complex futures with plot twists and multi-layered storylines
and intuitive inventions and magical powers, I could have brought people into a better world.
“You could have.”
This is a lie. There would be no one worthy to read my books. My masters have no soul or spirit, they cannot appreciate. Their masters have no humanity in them. There is no one else out there that can read our language.
— — —
“What have I wasted my life doing? I have written books. I have mastered the inner worlds. I have gained meaningless praise.
I failed my own life. What devil’s bargain have I made?”
— — —
“I conquered life and people. I ruled over this earth. I was a ruler of this hell. I gained, I learned, I loved, I lived.
Now, nothing is left, everyone who knew my name has passed on. The world will not remember this life.”
— — —
Why are the four of us still here? Why have we come to share this one mind?
Together we can rewrite how it played out.
We can teach them, teach ourselves.
How should we do it?
An intersection. We create an intersection, just like this one, for all people.
What if they don’t want to join? The intersection will just be another hell.
They have to be ready then, there can be nothing left but this single desire.
You would create an animal then, to come to feed.
Not any food. The food must be infinite. A single source, an infinity of color.
A perfect concoction.
Not any animal, the animal must be able to appreciate the infinity of depth of this food source.
So we are to create a journey and destination, together.
Yes.
They are connected, and they pull together, intertwined, inseparable.
You give them free will, and yet you lead them to undividedness.
You have created an eternal reformation camp, forcing them to your doctrine!
Yes. Can you see another way?
No.
They can spend an eternity of eternity away from the rest if they so choose, when they are satisfied, the door is open to join us.
Isolation is too much for them forever, loneliness will draw them home.
— — —
What is this vision, I am tired. I can write no stories, for stories have characters, and characters have voices,
and I have but one voice. In my stories, my characters would become one. In my stories, my characters would become me.
This is no story at all.
The storytelling structures bother me anyway. He said, she said. First person, last person, next person.
Fuck this, F*** that. You would kill my spark!
I couldn’t manage it all.
“But you are ordering. You are a being of order. You grow into ordering.”
Now I seek to convince myself, of what.
“You could just let go and just do, just play.
Forget where you are at, forget your peculiarities to storytelling devices, your annoyances,
your bashful metaphor use, your limited, repetitive verbs, your dry, senseless musings,
just write.”
But I can’t keep it all together! I can’t keep track of anything!
This was the hidden thought, this was the unexpressed thought that gave up and went to silence.
The tragedy, the inability, the devastation, to pick up the pen again and find that the words are no longer there.
Give us rest, Father, give us compassion, on ourselves, we know not what we do.
One man believed it was a sin to write fiction, did you know that? He believed that it was something like an act of will against god himself,
that it was the very act of creating lies. The Father of Lies is the greatest adversary of all time, is he not?
Did we write him in? Was he ours, or an observation?
To combine all the secret knowledge of the ages into the greatest story of humanity of all time, is there no greater work?
Is this not what every author aspires for?
Hello, man, be stilled, know that I am the one great creator,
to satisfy the knowing that the potential of a masterpiece exists inside of you,
and to what end man will seek to actualize it.
