Tuesday, May 26, 2009

The Presets

Every once in a while there is a band that comes along and completely floors me with the entirety of the music that they put out. The Presets are, by far, one of the best bands currently creating music. They are slightly reminescent of the Pet Shop Boys, but with more current techno and electronica influences, deep bass lines, tragic vocals and emotionally charged lyrics. 

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Dreams in the Tunnel

I was born within these very walls. I awoke to life, a shuddering mass of flesh, bleeding and gelatinous in the excruciating pain of my coming forth. For a great span of time, there was nothing but the feeling of sorrow from the vague remembrance of a lost sense of ultimate well-being.
  The surface of the walls was polished and smooth, but rigid. There was no way for me to go but forward and even that at the cost of great efforts. My eyes were not yet accustomed to the arduous task of seeing, or understanding vision. It was the basic awareness of a soul that searches to learn and to evolve into a greater being.
  I could not say that any of these thoughts had coherence but they were forming as embryos of what would later be my convictions.
  I observed silently, wanting something more crucial that I could not define. As my senses were sharpening, more acute ideas were
forming in my mind, along with scraps of sensations from an earlier
existence I was vaguely conscious of.
  The birth of each sense was a marvelous experience and I can still recall each of them in chronological sequence. First, my eyes. Vision in a silent world. Colors and dimensions. The concavity of the walls, their gold and brown tint and the diffuse brightness that would illuminate them at times or disappear, to leave me in complete darkness. The height and vastness of the place I was in. And the first confusing emotion that I existed, though soon after, accompanied by the
realization that I was alone.
  I cannot be sure of when the saddening feeling first overwhelmed me, but suddenly I was encountering a vague fear. I suppose it was necessary for me to completely be conscious that I was, and also to know what I perceived with my evolving senses.
  I cannot say much about touch, for the walls and floor surfaces were evenly polished and soft and that was the only thing I could come in contact with.
  After many episodes of brightness followed by darkness, my body started to feel incomplete, as if a tiny part of it was becoming vacant and longing. It was very unclear, but I started to be weaker and less willing to even think.
  Yet, at the back of my mind there was an insidious desire and I
slowly turned over myself and looked behind me. On the floor, in front of what was the end cavity of the tunnel, there lay a small pile of whitish matter. Broken fragments of an unknown object. The first other entity I had come to face besides the shaft itself.
  The implication dawned on me: This was food and I was hungry. I ate the whole thing, down to the smallest speck. The void inside me
disappeared. I was content and sleepy.
  Slumber overtook me.

  Eons passed and I awoke in the warmth of the walls, pondering my existence. Ignorant as to the meaning of it but wishful of a coming enlightenment. I was feeling stronger and the walls appeared to be getting smaller. In some queer way, I did not feel threatened but rather expectant. I was still unaware of my purpose but that was no longer my main concern. I learned, I observed, collecting all sensations and ideas to form a memory, a complex accumulation of data encompassing the smallest and most insignificant details. Deeper conclusions could be drawn from the
stillness that surrounded me and I neglected nothing.
  Soon after my vision had sharpened to clarity, I started hearing. A wonderful attribute it was, as if I was being introduced to yet another world. Something extraordinary for me to experience.
  It started out as a vague uproar, the indication of either an immense being or a great multitude of small ones moving altogether. Then I was able to distinguish my own sound: a soft, shuffling movement, accompanied by an occasional clicking.
  From what I now believed to be the world outside of my dwelling came a variety of noises. Sometimes piercing as if they were issued from the belly of living creatures like myself and sometimes inhuman, like the tossing and turning of the universe itself. And I would remain still, attentive to the tiniest report, associating it with a visual perception I imagined. Because I had no actual knowledge or pictorial notion of the cause of it, I could fantasize and populate the outside with what I thought to be the most beautiful beasts.
  I knew many shapes and forms from my slumbering moments when I would explore other dimensions free of the wall’s limits. Wondrous beings and plants, in motion, animated by an all-powerful life. And I, the onlooker, surveying the many chores they attended to.
  Those instants were like escaping, evading the narrow perception of my real life. Structures populated by lanky entities, four-limbed and standing upright on their hind legs, in a constant state of movement. Jerky and graceless but purposeful. Water pouring from the white inhabitants of a darkened sky, flashes of blinding light and
mindless, moving, glistening beasts, utterly controlled by those beings
who used them to perform diverse tasks, the meaning of which I could not grasp.
  I was constantly puzzled by the ambiguity of their behavior and sometimes envied the fullness and relentlessness of their existence.
Even in what I considered its apparent absurdity.
  The dreams were at times in color but mostly monochromatic. And when I awoke, I found it painful not to be able to maintain a grip on this reality. To be returned by an omnipotent power to my confined
environment without even the slightest knowledge of why I was there.
  I suspected a greater purpose that would be revealed to me in the future. And that thought was inexorably becoming my strongest desire. Yet, there was a sum of things I instinctively knew, some wisdom issued to me in the anterior incarnation of my being, or to whatever I might have been. Or perhaps it was the knowledge inherent to my spirit before it had become limited to my body.
  For instance, I could in no way confuse dreams with my awoken
state. And though I could not say that I had any reasoning about it, I
knew they were telling me the truth about all those beings and the life I saw while sleeping. So strongly I yearned to be in closer contact with it.
  Sadly enough, I was also becoming aware that my reserves of
strength were not inexhaustible. Quite the contrary, actually. And the
idea had already formed itself in my mind that I must follow the tunnel to whatever destination it might take me. My inscrutable fate.
  But I was hungry again. And the white substance I had previously eaten was entirely gone. Still, rather than perish of hunger without any attempt at action, I set myself in the only possible direction that was open to me.
  I was making excruciatingly slow progress, but there was nothing else I could do. And that singleness of purpose gave me a renewed sense of energy. I kept going and had almost reached the gentle curve that would hide my point of origin, when something so overwhelming and wonderful happened that for a long while afterwards I had to retire in the memory of the event.
  A great dark mass of living entity appeared at the end of the tunnel. It was enormous and awesome, surpassing my size in all possible dimensions. It was preceded by a thundering noise of sliding and pounding and it came at me so fast, I had no time to even be fully conscious of my fear. Strangely enough, I felt akin to the amazing creature, and the fear was only for the vastness of its power.
  The beast slowed its approach as it came close to me. I remained immobile, awaiting whatever fate would befall me. Its tremendous body was almost touching mine and I was faced with two huge eyes
that looked upon me with a certain kindness. It gently dropped a piece of what I instinctively recognized as food in front of me. Then,
without further delay, it withdrew and rapidly disappeared from my sight.
  I was stunned as if struck by paralysis. Yet, inside, I longed to follow it, to be fast and great, But I already knew my strength.
  I ate the food, fell into another slumber full of flying creatures and colorful landscapes, where unceasing animation and ever changing elements created a beautiful background for a different kind of life.
  I awoke again to my own boundaries and resumed my journey.
  Once I had gone beyond the first curve, the tunnel became larger and higher. My progress was now accompanied by a louder sound and
that somehow reassured me.
  The creature did not reappear but now, at various intervals, I would find nourishment laid out for me on the floor. I felt as though it wanted to lure me toward itself and that my purpose was to comply with it. Loneliness was once again assaulting me and at times, I found it quite unbearable. After awhile, I knew that it was a necessity for me to come in contact with someone, just for the sake of proving my worth, or even my very existence.
  It seemed that the tunnel was turning around, coiling its path unto itself, becoming in my mind an uncanny maze, leading me to an
unknown destination.
  In the dreams, I was starting to understand what that other world was about. The pattern of those beings was finally making sense. They attended to various tasks, ate, slept, reproduced and amused themselves. I envied the complexity of possibilities they possessed to
occupy themselves with. And also the fact that there were so many of
them, altogether.
  My size was increasing and the proportions of the tunnel were no longer so impressive nor frightening. Steadily, I advanced, sharing my time between moving ahead, occasionally eating and my much awaited span of rest. My body was feeling more powerful and resilient and those sleeping periods were decreasing.
  In many ways, I was almost happy, for now I had a goal. I desired. And wanting and wishing was wonderful.
  Often, I would pause and consider the design of the distance I had already covered and I found it very mysterious. Nowhere in my dream-world had I witnessed such a structure. It was very different and beautiful. The translucence of the walls allowed a filtered, pinkish
light to shine through and I basked in that soft illumination which, I
supposed, provided for the warmth in the tunnel. It was always perfectly comfortable.
  I had grown to feel a kind of happiness because my dwelling was a
sanctuary where I evolved, protected from whatever possible danger
existed outside. My quest was losing its original impetus and I was not always sure I still wanted to reach any sort of destination.
  I was constantly supplied with food by the huge creature and I had my other life in imagination. Though I could not participate in it, I was satisfied as an onlooker.
  Perhaps it was cowardice that kept me from wanting to be a part of it, the fear of discovering what I was, what I represented to these beings. A confrontation of some sort, leading to an unknown outcome, possibly negative. It was not that I feared being displeasing to them. However, I had learned within myself that I possessed a strong instinct of self-preservation.
  I wanted to live.
  It was an illogical and unreasonable impulse, independent of whether I felt joy or satisfaction. It lay at the deepest core of my being and I never wished to contest it. And as the scale of the tunnel
became greater, I felt more exhilarated by this sense of existing, of living something that validated all the earlier pain and even the pain to come.
  The clearer my vision became, the more I began noticing uncanny tracks on the ground. It was a mixture of water and a glossy substance. I always drank the water but felt strangely repelled by
the rest. It became hard and was endowed with an unusual odor. I somehow knew that it came from the one who fed me, and each time I found clues of its coming, a sweet sadness overtook me. But I guessed that it did not wish to encounter me face to face any longer.
  The air was getting cooler now and I was able to feel a strong draft. It brought with it a variety of smells that I hadn’t experienced
before. I believed I could associate them with things and living creatures from my dream-world. It was also harder for me to keep warm but the answer to that question kept eluding me. I knew it lay somewhere in my mind like a buried secret that a part of me refused to acknowledge. Possibly because it would uncover a greater truth that I was not yet ready to accept.
  The luminosity of the walls was becoming brighter and I could tell that I was now reaching the outer coil of my labyrinthine habitat. I was torn between excitement and anxiety as I realized that all my questions would soon be answered.
  Another slumber to oblivion.

  I wanted to approach the strange beings, be with them. Possibly be one of them. I felt kinship enough to let them welcome me into their life. I was not sure which particular type of them I could identify with. If I was tall or small, male or female. They communicated amongst themselves with musical sounds that expressed diverse emotions. I could not exactly understand how it was done but I wanted to learn.
  Back in my conscious state, in the tunnel, I conjectured that to reach the end of it was to enter their world. I started moving faster, ignoring the pain in my body, the intense desire to lie down and sleep. Then, at the corner of a final coil, the tunnel opened.
  It was a huge gap, the entire width and length of it. A gust of cold wind blew from it and the landscape beyond was nothing like what I had imagined. A blinding light was bringing alien colors to life. Browns and greens mostly, thin and sharp blades of vegetation shooting out of a thickly crusted ground. Giant flowers unfolding silken, opalescent petals and sword-like pistils to a dooming overcast sky. Clusters of mountainous rocks, barring the way in all directions. And the noise, deafening, aggressive and frightening.
  A whole world, entirely alive, breathing, moving, screaming its every sensation.
  I was stunned by the greatness of it all, the gigantic scale of everything that surrounded me. Nothing was as I thought it would be.
Right then, I had the painful realization that perhaps my dreams had been just that: dreams. My imagination creating a land of distorted realities that had no place within the truth.
  My disappointment was immense. As if a terrifying doom had come crashing down on me, shattering my heart and identity at once. Something was wrong, something had been wrong all along. I was not what I had thought I was and I had extended that lie to my perception of the outside world. I did not belong to that race of beings I had dreamed of.
  I was different, something else.
  For instance, I had always refused to think of myself or my body and synthesize the knowledge of those different parts that I knew,
into a full picture. I looked back now, even unsure that the tunnel had
ever existed. Another shock awaited me. From the outside, the maze was simply, a shell. A huge cracked shell, empty and cold, barren of any inhabitant, forgotten and discarded by its former resident.
  And at that instant I knew. I knew but I could not accept, and
everything suddenly seemed unfair.
  Immobile, letting this new and most agonizing awareness penetrate me, I was at a loss. Yet, a great noise was defining itself in
my head, of something approaching. Something vast and indelicate, its
movements striking the ground like a gigantic anger to make it repent
from existing. I could not think but only be.
  In a flash, it appeared.
  The man, one of the bipeds of my slumber world. But not of my
scale. Gigantic, filling my sky and my world with its silhouette, surpassing the size of the shell hundreds of times. Surely, oblivious
to my very existence, as it pursued its course to one of those locations where I had seen many of them regroup.
  I knew I stood in his path and that escape was impossible, so I slowly turned and looked at my own back. Taking in the vision of that
identical shell to the one I had inhabited, stuck in the mid-length of my slug-like body.
  And at the very instant when inner-peace finally overcame me, the
gargantuan foot stepped on me.
  Thunder, shattering, pain ... oblivion...