Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, And Despair
Jan 15, 2015 13:12:46 GMT -5
Post by Vinny on Jan 15, 2015 13:12:46 GMT -5
Dorchester, MA.
A snow falls, small and delicate. It's not much to behold; generally only visible in the glaring white of headlights or soft yellow of the streetlamps. It is a cold snow, the kind of snowfall that feels as if the air itself is freezing into tiny crystallized pieces and falling to the Earth to lay a white shroud.
The snow coats the mint-green double-decker on Deer Street. It covers the dark green awning over the front door and traces water-lines across the newly applied plywood boards over the first and second floor windows. It does not stick to the duct tape covering the cracks in the vinyl siding, but nestles in the delicate nooks where the paint is peeling. It covers the cement steps, and the tiny fenced-in lawn that has been liberated from the refuse that it used to harbor.
When we were last here the house looked as if it was erect under the force of its own will to remain standing; now it looks as if there is at least one other entity that wants to keep it from crumbling.
The front doorway - no longer blockaded - houses a paint-stripped, weather-beaten door with a slab of plywood covering a hole in the middle, and another covering the shattered glass at the top. Ugly but functional. The first floor is empty save for the ghosts and memories that linger in its shadows, and each stair still creaks on the way to the second floor. It is from the second floor that an abnormal warmth emanates. The first room to the right at the top of the stairs - once painted a pale blue - has been repainted. Its holes plastered over and its shattered, solitary window replaced. On the floor is a small rotating space heater; a shade-less lamp with only bulb and shaft; a twin-sized mattress covered in jeans, T-shirts, hoodies, and jackets that serve as a blanket for the sleeping puppy underneath them; an orange dog dish empty of food and half-full of water; a stacked pile of various books and notebooks; and beside them, the splayed figure of Malcolm Drake.
Drake – his usual combat boots resting off to the side, exposing his dirt-covered white socks with his big toe poking through the left one – sits with his back against the wall, legs splayed, and dirty-blonde hair pulled back off his scruff-covered face. In his lap he cradles a black-and-white notebook. The kind they sold at school bookstores for a dollar. On the front cover, in red Sharpie, the words “Selected Poems” are written.
Drake thumbs through the pages, grinning to himself as his eyes glance over different handwritten entries; the copied works of masters, cribbed from textbooks and overdue library collections.
“The question, O me,” Drake recites, “so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer.” he looks up from the page, recalling from memory, “That you are here—that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”
Drake smirks.
“Walt Whitman. A fitting passage for the new year; 2015 is full of questions. What will I do? Who will I be? What can I accomplish? Questions that people spend their years trying to... resolve. Resolve to do good, to be better, to accomplish... more. Noble, I suppose. And as the clock struck midnight I asked myself those same questions, and one more pointed one: what's next for Malcolm Drake?”
“What's left? As the years and seasons pass, I endure. I move like the wind through the passing of days, and all that wishes me to cease or to halt me gives way inevitably. Forgive the pun, but it is... poetic. So what is left? I suppose I could join the chase for Jimmy Page's World Championship; there was a time when I coveted it more than any other trinket. I could rekindle my... love affair... with Ms. Laurel. Anne. Hardy,” Drake's lip curls in a hybrid smirk-cum-scowl. Then his face drops slightly, “I could retire. Walk off into the sunset as a conquering hero. Wouldn't that be the undeservedly saccharine-sweet Hollywood ending? No. Men like me don't die as heroes. Men like me... don't die.”
Drake's words trail off on that odd sentiment, as he thumbs through a few more pages of his notebook.
“And then there it is,” he says, lifting his eyes from the page, “the answer. The powers that be here in Frontier Grappling Arts have a way of... making use of me in this manner. Like a smoke-jumper. A fixer. An... exterminator. An agent of chaos. I was a lot better at it before I... “lost my edge,” but I reckon there's enough of that darkness still buried in this vessel.”
“Aidan Collins... Infinite. Empire. It's a cute name. I'm sure your infinity-sign merch is selling well. Now, it'd be easy for me to sit here and call your little group “The Murder Jr.,” “Murder Lite,” “The Poor Man's Murder,” or “I Can't Believe It's Not The Murder.” That'd be easy, but it would also be disingenuous. It would be disingenuous because – frankly – you haven't EARNED that. You're a copy of a copy, and I've been moving through these Xerox's like the office paper shredder since what seems like time immemorial. And the further you get from the source the more diluted the product becomes.”
Drake smirks, his head tilting back and his eyes moving to the ceiling in recollection.
“I remember those good ol' bad times. We went after champions. The biggest dogs in the yard. We went after power and prestige. We had a plan. We executed it flawless. We toppled giants and killed gods. You... Infinite Empire... you went after announcers and inanimate objects. Excuse me while I PISS myself in fear. Ahh but you're the newcomer here, aren't you, Mr. Collins? With a laundry list of accomplishments I'm sure are impressive to the type of people who care about those things. I am not one of those people. And as far as I'm concerned none of that is particularly relevant now that you and your... Empire... are here.”
Drake thumbs over one page in his notebook and grins.
“If you'll indulge me,” he says before reciting, “I met a traveler from an antique land, who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, tell that its sculptor well those passions read which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.” Percy Shelley's Ozymandias. A favorite of mine. But... I'm sure you're wondering why exactly this bedraggled beast – best known for pummeling people's faces beyond recognition with his bare hands and scarred knuckles – is taking the time to read you sonnets...”
Drake shrugs.
“I'm fond of saying “memento mori” as a means of signing off. It's a Latin idiom whose meaning roughly translates to “remember your mortality” or “remember that you will die.” Death, the inevitable conqueror. It's why we seek to build legacies, to build families, to build... empires. You, Mr. Collins, you and your cohorts are the great and powerful Ozymandias. King of kings! We are meant to look upon your works here in FGA and despair. That is your... Infinite... Empire. To join the ranks of the Mongols, the Byzantines, the Romans, the Holy Romans, the British, and on and on... If you'll indulge me just once more...”
Drake flips back a few pages, then forward one, his eyes searching the page before resting on another passage.
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” A famous quote from J. Robert Oppenheimer, whom you may know better as the 'father of the atomic bomb.' The quote followed the successful Trinity Test which would lead to eventual bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only use of atomic weaponry against humanity in our9 long and sordid history. Also, not coincidentally, the fall of the Greater Japanese Empire. And THAT is my point in all this poetry and history; a truth that I've known since my macabre phase in high school,” Drake taps the cover of the notebook, closing it, “that I guess I never really grew out of. That truth is this...”
“Empires, by their nature, are finite... regardless of their adorable names,” Drake smirks, his eyes narrowing.
“And now I am become Death, the destroyer of YOUR world. Of YOUR empire. I am the grains of sand, innumerable, that scrape the detail from your temples and monuments, leaving them unrecognizable and buried. I am the wind that cuts through men and topples mighty works. I am the water that erodes both stone and earth, leaving nothing. This is who I am and it is who I have always been. An agent of chaos. A vessel for entropy. A means of destruction. It's what I do. I break men. I slay gods. I topple empires. Yours will not be my first, and most likely, it will not be my last. There are, I'm sure, plenty who will tell you that Malcolm Drake has lost his edge. I am NOT the monster I once was... but a dull blade still cuts. The bleeding just takes longer.”
“So enjoy the sonnets and saying now while I am in the mood for them, because Saturday night in Poughkeepsie, Mr. Collins, the mood... will change. You may be a well-traveled veteran of this sport, but rest assured that I am unlike anything you've seen before or will again. My empire-building days are behind me. My questions about what's next are resolved. All things are finite... and Death comes for us all.”
“I'd say “memento mori,” but I think I've made my point.”
With that, Drake tosses the notebook onto the pile of books, closes his eyes and rests his head against the wall behind him.
A snow falls, small and delicate. It's not much to behold; generally only visible in the glaring white of headlights or soft yellow of the streetlamps. It is a cold snow, the kind of snowfall that feels as if the air itself is freezing into tiny crystallized pieces and falling to the Earth to lay a white shroud.
The snow coats the mint-green double-decker on Deer Street. It covers the dark green awning over the front door and traces water-lines across the newly applied plywood boards over the first and second floor windows. It does not stick to the duct tape covering the cracks in the vinyl siding, but nestles in the delicate nooks where the paint is peeling. It covers the cement steps, and the tiny fenced-in lawn that has been liberated from the refuse that it used to harbor.
When we were last here the house looked as if it was erect under the force of its own will to remain standing; now it looks as if there is at least one other entity that wants to keep it from crumbling.
The front doorway - no longer blockaded - houses a paint-stripped, weather-beaten door with a slab of plywood covering a hole in the middle, and another covering the shattered glass at the top. Ugly but functional. The first floor is empty save for the ghosts and memories that linger in its shadows, and each stair still creaks on the way to the second floor. It is from the second floor that an abnormal warmth emanates. The first room to the right at the top of the stairs - once painted a pale blue - has been repainted. Its holes plastered over and its shattered, solitary window replaced. On the floor is a small rotating space heater; a shade-less lamp with only bulb and shaft; a twin-sized mattress covered in jeans, T-shirts, hoodies, and jackets that serve as a blanket for the sleeping puppy underneath them; an orange dog dish empty of food and half-full of water; a stacked pile of various books and notebooks; and beside them, the splayed figure of Malcolm Drake.
Drake – his usual combat boots resting off to the side, exposing his dirt-covered white socks with his big toe poking through the left one – sits with his back against the wall, legs splayed, and dirty-blonde hair pulled back off his scruff-covered face. In his lap he cradles a black-and-white notebook. The kind they sold at school bookstores for a dollar. On the front cover, in red Sharpie, the words “Selected Poems” are written.
Drake thumbs through the pages, grinning to himself as his eyes glance over different handwritten entries; the copied works of masters, cribbed from textbooks and overdue library collections.
“The question, O me,” Drake recites, “so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer.” he looks up from the page, recalling from memory, “That you are here—that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”
Drake smirks.
“Walt Whitman. A fitting passage for the new year; 2015 is full of questions. What will I do? Who will I be? What can I accomplish? Questions that people spend their years trying to... resolve. Resolve to do good, to be better, to accomplish... more. Noble, I suppose. And as the clock struck midnight I asked myself those same questions, and one more pointed one: what's next for Malcolm Drake?”
“What's left? As the years and seasons pass, I endure. I move like the wind through the passing of days, and all that wishes me to cease or to halt me gives way inevitably. Forgive the pun, but it is... poetic. So what is left? I suppose I could join the chase for Jimmy Page's World Championship; there was a time when I coveted it more than any other trinket. I could rekindle my... love affair... with Ms. Laurel. Anne. Hardy,” Drake's lip curls in a hybrid smirk-cum-scowl. Then his face drops slightly, “I could retire. Walk off into the sunset as a conquering hero. Wouldn't that be the undeservedly saccharine-sweet Hollywood ending? No. Men like me don't die as heroes. Men like me... don't die.”
Drake's words trail off on that odd sentiment, as he thumbs through a few more pages of his notebook.
“And then there it is,” he says, lifting his eyes from the page, “the answer. The powers that be here in Frontier Grappling Arts have a way of... making use of me in this manner. Like a smoke-jumper. A fixer. An... exterminator. An agent of chaos. I was a lot better at it before I... “lost my edge,” but I reckon there's enough of that darkness still buried in this vessel.”
“Aidan Collins... Infinite. Empire. It's a cute name. I'm sure your infinity-sign merch is selling well. Now, it'd be easy for me to sit here and call your little group “The Murder Jr.,” “Murder Lite,” “The Poor Man's Murder,” or “I Can't Believe It's Not The Murder.” That'd be easy, but it would also be disingenuous. It would be disingenuous because – frankly – you haven't EARNED that. You're a copy of a copy, and I've been moving through these Xerox's like the office paper shredder since what seems like time immemorial. And the further you get from the source the more diluted the product becomes.”
Drake smirks, his head tilting back and his eyes moving to the ceiling in recollection.
“I remember those good ol' bad times. We went after champions. The biggest dogs in the yard. We went after power and prestige. We had a plan. We executed it flawless. We toppled giants and killed gods. You... Infinite Empire... you went after announcers and inanimate objects. Excuse me while I PISS myself in fear. Ahh but you're the newcomer here, aren't you, Mr. Collins? With a laundry list of accomplishments I'm sure are impressive to the type of people who care about those things. I am not one of those people. And as far as I'm concerned none of that is particularly relevant now that you and your... Empire... are here.”
Drake thumbs over one page in his notebook and grins.
“If you'll indulge me,” he says before reciting, “I met a traveler from an antique land, who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, tell that its sculptor well those passions read which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.” Percy Shelley's Ozymandias. A favorite of mine. But... I'm sure you're wondering why exactly this bedraggled beast – best known for pummeling people's faces beyond recognition with his bare hands and scarred knuckles – is taking the time to read you sonnets...”
Drake shrugs.
“I'm fond of saying “memento mori” as a means of signing off. It's a Latin idiom whose meaning roughly translates to “remember your mortality” or “remember that you will die.” Death, the inevitable conqueror. It's why we seek to build legacies, to build families, to build... empires. You, Mr. Collins, you and your cohorts are the great and powerful Ozymandias. King of kings! We are meant to look upon your works here in FGA and despair. That is your... Infinite... Empire. To join the ranks of the Mongols, the Byzantines, the Romans, the Holy Romans, the British, and on and on... If you'll indulge me just once more...”
Drake flips back a few pages, then forward one, his eyes searching the page before resting on another passage.
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” A famous quote from J. Robert Oppenheimer, whom you may know better as the 'father of the atomic bomb.' The quote followed the successful Trinity Test which would lead to eventual bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only use of atomic weaponry against humanity in our9 long and sordid history. Also, not coincidentally, the fall of the Greater Japanese Empire. And THAT is my point in all this poetry and history; a truth that I've known since my macabre phase in high school,” Drake taps the cover of the notebook, closing it, “that I guess I never really grew out of. That truth is this...”
“Empires, by their nature, are finite... regardless of their adorable names,” Drake smirks, his eyes narrowing.
“And now I am become Death, the destroyer of YOUR world. Of YOUR empire. I am the grains of sand, innumerable, that scrape the detail from your temples and monuments, leaving them unrecognizable and buried. I am the wind that cuts through men and topples mighty works. I am the water that erodes both stone and earth, leaving nothing. This is who I am and it is who I have always been. An agent of chaos. A vessel for entropy. A means of destruction. It's what I do. I break men. I slay gods. I topple empires. Yours will not be my first, and most likely, it will not be my last. There are, I'm sure, plenty who will tell you that Malcolm Drake has lost his edge. I am NOT the monster I once was... but a dull blade still cuts. The bleeding just takes longer.”
“So enjoy the sonnets and saying now while I am in the mood for them, because Saturday night in Poughkeepsie, Mr. Collins, the mood... will change. You may be a well-traveled veteran of this sport, but rest assured that I am unlike anything you've seen before or will again. My empire-building days are behind me. My questions about what's next are resolved. All things are finite... and Death comes for us all.”
“I'd say “memento mori,” but I think I've made my point.”
With that, Drake tosses the notebook onto the pile of books, closes his eyes and rests his head against the wall behind him.