Our hermetic alchemist; A flattened cardboard box

He would retreat outside the stone wall of the village into a world of his own devising. Like arms in deep river sleeves withdrawn to luminous caverns of glowing mind matter. Bearded, hooded, veiled in darkness. Our hermetic alchemist. Mixing minerals to alleviate the death pangs of a suffering world. A world of his own devising. Mountains from molehills and breath from clay; a universe of particularly subjective order. Lead did not transform into gold. No. In our alchemist’s laboratory lead was gold. For reality is language is reality. He who can shape definition has dominion over all. No longer is there any need for gold to remain static, unattainable, exotic; for our alchemist has no need to change the form of the object if he can change the form of the language, the form of the world in which the object is defined.

•

I have a bed now, of sorts. The kind Japanese woman at the store didn’t stock any three inch futon mats, but I could not imagine sleeping upon anything thicker. Four inches, good, she said. But in my gut a voice without lips or lungs insisted again, three. Even this depth seems a luxury reserved for the reclined, the worshiping narcoleptics dozing prostrate before the alter of life, the eternal slumberers. Perhaps, I fear beds. Symbols, as they are, of commitment, location, permanence. I have nightmares of bed posts. They are fence posts, no, twisting black iron columns supporting a wrought iron gate towering over me. Thunderclouds and claps of bright blue light above. When the downpour is too heavy and the wolves are snapping at my heels I will test the grounds within, and warm myself at the hearth in that enchanted castle of the beast. I’ve had beneath my body while it dreams these last three months of daily nights, a three quarter inch blue foam camping pad and a flattened cardboard box.

“I’m always ready,” he said, in a voice caked in the residue of his birthplace in exile. The glint in his eyes peaking through a hedge of thick facial fur the color of autumn tree bark, was somewhere between flames, tears, and hope. He nodded. And nodded again to be sure. “Everything I need is here.” He gestured towards his rucksack. Already packed, always awaiting dilegintly the secret word, the emergency code, the thick welder’s hands to grab hold and hurl it atop that two legged vehicle. He unzipped it and pulled out two metal rods and began to assemble a dual paddled oar. He showed me how a folded mass of black plastic could transform into a kayak in moments. “How long? Ten minutes tops. Yes. Ten minutes tops.” Smiling, he patted his faithful canvas companion. I began to cry because I loved him very much and I knew that as long as that rucksack was packed, he could never escape