Memoria House / Huset Memoria - haibun

Memoria House

”It's raining hammers, it's raining nails, it's true there's nothing left for you down here.” You add yours to a song about time as you ring the bell of the Memoria House. Asylum, rather. Refuge or Retreat if you buy into the lingo of the their journal. It's a place for people buried in their past, reluctant to deal with the present. It's an anonymous structure. A little fog and you would have missed it all together. For a long time nothing happens but then you hear soft steps approaching. A narrow slot in the door opens and you're handed the proofing print for the next issue of the journal. People in this house only writes down what they remember, or what they think they remember, from times long gone. It's occupational therapy but the inhabitants don't know that. They're writing down induced memories, not their own. They think they're storytellers, historians, novelists and what have you. But you cannot tell them they're not and why would you? They're happy that way and it's none of your business anyway.

below the new white the old black

Your job is to take that print to some editor across town. You haven't met him either but rumour has it that he's almost as far gone as the inhabitant of Memoria House. Not quite, but almost. “Bring what you receive at Memoria House to this address and take the rest of the day off,” was the message. No more, no less. The rain keeps up its vigour and you imagine it building a structure reaching above the smog, a structure that would support a brand new city shiny and flawless … but Buster Keaton enters the scene and nothing gets completed.

at the end of the string the idea of a kite

Huset Memoria

”It's raining hammers, it's raining nails, it's true there's nothing left for you down here.” Du lægger lidt af dit eget til en sang om tid, mens du ringer på hos Huset Memoria. Asylhjemmet, er måske mere passende. Refugium eller Retrætehus, hvis du køber sproget i deres tidsskrift. Det er et sted for mennesker begravede i deres fortid og modvillige med hensyn til at forholde sig til nutiden. Det er en anonym bygning. En smule tåge og du ville være gået forbi den. I lang tid sker der ikke noget, men så hører du bløde skridt nærme sig. En smal låge i døren åbnes, og du får rakt korrekturtrykket for det næste nummer af tidsskriftet. Menneskene i dette hus skriver kun, hvad de kan huske, eller det de tror, de kan huske fra tider, der for længst er borte. Det er beskæftigelsesterapi, men det véd beboerne ikke. De nedfælder plantede erindringer, ikke deres egne. De tror, de er historiefortællere, romanforfattere, historikere og hvad véd jeg. Men du kan ikke fortælle dem, at det ikke er sandt, og hvorfor skulle du? De er glade for det, de gør, og de rager i det hele taget ikke dig.

under det nye hvide det gamle sorte

Dit job er at bringe det dér tryk til en eller anden redaktør i den anden ende af byen. Ham har du heller ikke mødt, men rygtet siger, at han er næsten ligeså langt ude, som beboerne i Huset Memoria. Ikke helt, men næsten. ”Tag imod, hvad du får overrakt ved Huset Memoria og aflevér det på denne adresse,” var beskeden. Hverken mere eller mindre. Regnen er i fuld vigør, og du forestiller dig, at den bygger en konstruktion, der kunne holde til en helt ny by over smoggen, ren og fejlfri … men Buster Keaton træder ind på scenen og ingenting bliver fuldført.

for enden af snoren ideen om en drage

back into the silence / tilbage ind i stilheden - prose poem

“It's free to die in Poland so I'll go back there,” he said while walking a disused rail-road track in a largely disused part of a country largely populated by people no one had any use for. She said his eyes were dark green when he was sad and bright green when he saw a piano and almost black and inquisitive when he was dying. “But who can you ask?” she asked rhetorically. The dried out little fig tree in the corner stayed silent as did the umbrella and the worn boots. She drew a sad face in the dust between the cups, books, bottles and ashtrays and whistled one of his unwhistleable melodies. “He always said that his music wouldn't work without the images.”

“Det er gratis at dø i Polen, så jeg tager tilbage dertil,” sagde han, mens han gik langs et nedlagt jernbanespor i et en stort set nedlagt del af et land, der hovedsageligt var befolket af mennesker, ingen havde brug for. Hun sagde, at hans øjne var mørkegrønne, når han var ked af det og lysegrønne, når han så et flygel og næsten sorte og spørgende, da han var ved at dø. ”Men hvem kan man spørge?” spurgte hun retorisk. Det tørre lille figentræ i hjørnet forblev tavst, ligesom paraplyen og de udtrådte støvler. Hun tegnede et trist ansigt i støvet mellem kopperne, bøgerne, flaskerne og askebægerne og fløjtede én af hans ufløjtelige melodier. ”Han sagde altid, at hans musik ikke ville fungere uden billederne.

The Following Day / Den følgende dag

The Following Day

About detours in all things

      The following day - and there will always be one of those (inasmuch as such a term makes sense) as long as the Sun exists and the Earth orbits around it and keeps rotating around itself, and there is some kind of consciousness (human or non-human) that finds it useful and is able to name the difference between the lit and the darkened half of the globe - we chose the street to the left. The previous days or eternities, it seems to me, but that part is a bit hazy, we had chosen the street to the right. It didn't take us to the desired goal of our quest (likewise unclear) but had always, as far as I remember, ended up in to cul-de-sacs, barbed wire fences, pitfalls, mine fields, canon emplacements or snake pits, where we lost consciousness and by uncertain roads and means were taken back to our point of departure: a sleazy and lousy room in an otherwise luxurious lavishly equipped hotel. Or was it just a guest house; or a B and B? Or maybe a shelter in a more humble part of the city. Whatever the case, it was from here we each day began our search for that which we now had no idea of what was, or any recollection of why we wanted to find it. I can see that now, as I think back and now that I have the time to contemplate the past as the sun burns out. Back then it was like starting afresh each morning without any noteworthy memories of the failed excursions of the past and passed days. They - the memories or rather: the snatches, fragments, thereof - only began popping up along the way and then only as mirages or vague deja-vus, which only helped to make our bewilderment greater. Maybe we had gotten used to the repeated black-outs between cul-de-sacs, barbed wire fences, pitfalls, mine fields, canon emplacements or snake pits and the in an unconscious state un-sensed home-bringing that our brains registered something anyway and saved those impressions somewhere in Amygdala or Hippocampus, where they over time accumulated into data huge enough for the thought process to handle … and then the guessing could begin.

      Anyway, we chose the street to the left instead of that to the right. Or was it the other way round? The street we walked was one built in the middle-ages, paved with cobbled stones, moist and dark. It smelled from garbage, human waste products - just as we sensed the urine from cats, dogs and rats - and didn't at all fill us with excitement and encouragement in as much as it (perhaps) was that street which was supposed to take us to what we have to assume we imagined we wanted to find. Such a search is often accompanied with the thrill of anticipation as you - and I'm speaking in general terms - expect reality, life, death, everything will change for the better once you have found what you are looking for. I sensed a tiny bit of discontent with my winged companion, but he stayed silent. It sort of was in the air, where a lot of other things already floated, that we shouldn't call down Hybris to this endeavour, this exception from what we assumed was our previous exertions - always choosing the street to the right or left (or however it was) by the corroded bronze statue of a young prince who supposedly were killed in a battle that had never taken place - the lad had died from a fistula that caused gangrene in his intestines, but that wasn't considered a heroic death and a people need heroes - but was invented for the occasion. Allegedly he had slaughtered 475 enemy soldiers and mercenaries before he was killed in ambush of the most cowardly kind. She, Hybris, we vaguely assumed, wouldn't be a nice presence. She can be a “bitch”, as the young say these days, and we didn't have the strength to battle that as well. You have to understand that the many excursions day and night (or eternity after eternity), the repeated episodes of being unconscious and the incipient despondency caused by the likewise incipient awareness of the Sisyphus-like in our undertaking had worn away on our strength. Neither did it help that the only thing we had to eat in our tiny room was a thin water-like soup of unknown origin. The food we came across in the city fell apart between our hands and lips as soon as we touched it, why I assume that we were practically a little more than skin and bones and very soon would be as transparent as poor parchment. Considering everything (and that's quite a lot) and none the wiser we moved forward down the street partly intoxicated by excitement, partly dazed by fatigue. A faint mist filled the street and it was impossible to see where it ended; if it indeed did have an end. By then it came about that my companion froze and began to shine and said: “I truly am sorry. We've finally gotten this far and I'm sure this walk down this street would solve the matter for us, but I'm being called back to HQ to ...” He didn't have time to finish his sentence and that was all I could hear before he ascended in a column of light.

     I'm still walking down the street with no (as far as I know at the present) end in an eerie twilight waiting for something to appear in the mist.

Den følgende dag

Om omveje i alle ting

      Den følgende dag - og sådan én vil der altid (for så vidt dette begreb giver mening) være, så længe Solen består og en Jorden kredser derom og sig selv, og der er en form for bevidsthed (menneskelig eller u-menneskelig), der finder det hensigtsmæssigt og er istand til af navngive forskellen mellem klodens belyste og mørklagte side - tog vi gaden til venstre. De foregående dage eller evigheder, forekommer det mig, men står lidt uklart, havde vi valgt gaden, der drejede til højre. Det havde ikke ført til det ønskede mål for vor søgen (ligeledes uklart) men havde, så vidt hukommelsen rækker, altid endt i blindgyder, pigtråd, faldgruber, minefelter, kanonstillinger eller ormegruber, hvor vi mistede bevidstheden og ad uvisse veje og ved uvisse midler var blevet ført tilbage til vort udgangspunkt: et sølle og beskidt kammer i et ellers overdådigt udstyret hotel. Eller var det blot et gæstgiveri; eller et B and B, som man siger nu om dage. Måske et herberg et sted i et af byens mere ydmyge kvarterer. Hvorom alting er, var det herfra vi hver eneste dag drog ud for at finde det, som vi nu ingen erindring havde om, eller nogen erindring om hvorfor vi ønskede at finde. Det kan jeg se nu, hvor jeg tænker tilbage og hvor jeg har tiden til at grunde over det forgangne, mens solen brænder op. Dengang var det som at starte på en frisk hver morgen uden nævneværdig erindring om foregående dages mislykkede ekskursioner. De - erindringerne eller rettere: brudstykker, fragmenter, deraf - begyndte først at dukke op hen ad vejen, som man siger, antager jeg, og da kun som synsforstyrrelser eller deja-vu'er, som kun forvirrede os. Måske var vi blevet vænnet til de gentagne black-outs mellem blindgyder, pigtråd, faldgruber, minefelter, kanonstillinger eller ormegruber og den i bevidstløs tilstand usansede hjemførelse, så vore hjerner alligevel opfattede et eller andet og sparede indtrykkene op et sted i Amygdala eller Hippocamus, hvor det med tiden akkumuleredes til helheder så store, at tankevirksomheden kunne håndtere dem og dermed begynde sine gisninger.

      I hvert fald drejede vi til venstre i stedet for til højre. Eller hvordan det nu var. Gaden vi kom ned ad var en i middelalderen anlagt gade med brosten, fugt og skygge. Der lugtede af skrald, menneskelige affaldsprodukter - vi sansede også hunde, katte og rotters urin - og var i det hele taget ikke særligt opmuntrende for så vidt det (måske) var den gade, der skulle føre os til det, vi må forestille os, at vi ønskede, så frem til at finde. En sådan søgning ledsages ofte af en forventningens glæde eller spænding, idet man - og nu taler jeg helt generelt - forventer, at virkeligheden, livet, døden, tilværelsen vil ændre sig til det bedre efter, at man har fundet det, man leder efter. Jeg fornemmede en smule mismod hos min bevingede følgesvend, men han sagde ingenting. Det lå ligesom i luften, hvor der i forvejen lå så meget andet, at vi ikke måtte nedkalde Hybris over dette forehavende, denne afvigelse fra hvad vi formodede vore tidligere bestræbelser - altid at vælge gaden, der gik til venstre eller højre hvordan det nu var, ved den irrede bronzestatue af en ung prins, der vistnok var omkommet i et slag, der aldrig havde fundet sted knøsen var omkommet ved en ubehandlet fistel, der gav koldbrand i tarm- og maveregionen, men det var ikke særlig heroisk og et folk har brug for helte - men som man havde opfundet til lejligheden. Her skulle han være omkommet efter at have nedlagt 475 fjendtlige soldater og lejesvende og efter at være faldet i et grueligt fejt baghold. Hun, Hybris, havde vi en vag formodning om, ville ikke være en behagelig tilstedeværelse. Hun kan være en 'bitch', som de unge siger nutildags, og det havde vi ikke kræfter til at slås med. Man må forstå, at de mange togter dag efter dag (eller evighed efter evighed), de gentagne episoder af bevidstløshed samt den gryende modløshed afstedkommet af den ligeledes gryende bevidsthed om det Sisyfos-agtige i vort forehavende havde tæret på vore kræfter. Det hjalp sikkert heller ikke, at det eneste vi fik at spise på vort kammer, var en tynd suppe af ubestemmelig herkomst. Den mad, der var tilgængelig for os i byen, smuldrede mellem vore hænder og læber så snart den kom i berøring med os, hvorfor jeg formoder, at vi ikke var meget andet end skind og ben og temmelig sikkert snart ville være gennemsigtige som dårlig pergament. Hvorom alting (og det er ikke så lidt) er, bevægede vi os ned ad gaden halvt i forventningens rus, halvt i en døs af udmattelse. En svag dis lå i gaden og det var ikke til at se, hvor eller hvis den endte. Så var det, at min bevingede fælle stivnede og begyndte at lyse og sagde: ”Jeg er altså ked af. Nu er vi nået så langt og jeg er vis på, at dette, denne tur ned ad denne gade, ville løse sagen for os, men jeg er blevet kaldt hjem til hovedkvarteret for at ...” Mere nåede han ikke at sige, mere fik jeg ikke fat i, før han fór til himmels i en søjle af lys.

     Jeg går stadig ned ad gaden uden ende (såvidt jeg véd lige nu) i halvmørke og venter på, at noget dukker frem af disen.

alone / alene sci-fi haibun/prose poem

A note of yellow in the first light; it's either the sun or the fluorescent phosphorus desert of Nayapal. You watch a hair move in the wind from the open window. It's hanging down in front of your left eye too close to see clearly and you rub your forehead just to witness bits of it falling into the can. You flush and praise The Constructor for creating floors. And gravity. At least they're a kind of stability in this fleeting stream of 1s and 0s. Temporary, but what isn't?

from who knows where

“In and Out of

the Red Balloon”

:::

There's a message on the phone. You avoid putting on your glasses. Might be urgent but you can't deal with 'urgent' right now. The dust from Nayapal adds an eerie aura to the stuff in your room. You're alone and you roll a smoke and turn on the tv and there's nothing on it; nothing but with a smiling face. You're alone and the building sings its own mad tunes as it sways in the storm from the desert.

curved bananas

did Oppenheimer stop

seeing atoms?

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

En tone af gule i dagens første lys; det er enten solen eller Nayapals selvlysende fosforørken. Du betragter et hår, der bevæger sig i vinden fra det åbne vindue. De hænger ned foran dit venstre øje, for tæt på til at kunne ses tydeligt, og du gnider din pande blot for at se stykker af den falde ned i lokumstønden. Du skyller ud og priser Konstruktøren for at have skabt gulve. Og tyngdekraft. De giver i det mindste en slags stabilitet i denne flygtige strøm af 1-taller og 0'er. Midlertidigt, men hvad er ikke dét?

fra hvem ved hvor

”In and Out of

the Red Balloon”

:::

Der er en besked på telefonen. Du undlader at tage dine briller på. Måske er den vigtig, men du kan ikke håndtere 'vigtigt' lige nu. Støvet fra Nayapal forsyner tingene i din stue med en uhyggelig aura. Du er alene, og du ruller en smøg og tænder for fjernsynet, og der er ingenting på det; ingenting med et smilende ansigt. Du er alene og bygningen synger sine egne vanvittige sange, som den svajer i stormen fra ørkenen.

krumme bananer

holdt Oppenheimer op

med at se atomer?