xkcd: continuing to nail Internet art

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WRETCHED ARTIST

We went to the new Woody Allen today. It was great.

You’re an Angel

There was a time when it was all black and warm; the void was a fluid, rhythmic caress. It was heavy — no, it wasn’t heavy at all. The push from the outside matched the inside pushing and I floated in something that was made of me and that I was made of. The first thing I thought was that I could feel, could move. Then I thought, “I thought,” and so I was given a past, a history.

Shortly after, I began to feel crowded. The surface around me held me and kept holding tighter. Then all at once, the atmosphere fell away, and I was being forced. Twisted and crushed into somewhere where everything was far away and I learned what it meant to hurt and be cold.

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Before what happens next, there is more learning; there is failure and waiting. A lot of stumbling around and casting about. There are trips into private pits and dives off jagged cliffs. There are moments in tangerine sunshine and blueberry rain. A series of almost. Time spent carefully creating an in-between.

One thing is certain: Love doesn’t care if it looks or sounds silly. It’s immune to false gravity. It’s smitten with…

Wait a minute…

We found each other and the sky exploded in a billion religions and we felt like the gods of every one. The world was a radio station singing in our ears at a delicious frequency that only we were receiving. We fought about everything and made up and made out everywhere. We were strong and weak and we knew it all.

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There are a man and a woman. Before they know any better, they start out like persons…

He’s got a ‘61 Falcon and a wallet on a chain. He’s a figure in the middle distance — a guy in a straw cowboy hat, some schmuck. 

He pulls a bent portfolio out of his trunk. He trips on the second step up to the house. He’s closer, now. He has curly hair and his teeth are too big — like Teddy Roosevelt, like a beaver. He walks in a slow-rolling swagger. Now he has a Miller Genuine Draft in his hand.

(He could have a different car and be in AA. He could play golf on the weekends and have a child from a previous marriage.)

His name is man. He name is Adam or XY. It doesn’t matter what his name is because you’ll never care. That’s absolutely what doesn’t matter.

He’s broad-shouldered and strong. He’s clever. He’s brave. He’s an angel.

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She’s got a ‘70 Le Mans and a pair of high square-toed boots. She’s wearing a ratty orange sweater and a purse hangs across her chest like a bandolier — like some beauty pageant ribbon.

She pulls a faded guitar case out of her trunk as she smiles at the rosebushes in the neighbor’s yard. She’s walking this way. Her long, slick hair takes the emphasis away from a nose much too large for her face. She pulls a stringy tress behind her ear with a pinky. Then she clinks her teeth on her glass of wine.

(She could be sandaled and crewcut. She could be a champion chess player and listing toward the chubby side.)

She’s named woman or Eve or XX. Whatever you want to call her. She’ll answer as long as it’s you calling.

She’s a fire-engine hourglass. She’s warm. She’s wise. She’s an angel.

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There were a man and a woman. (Later, there are more.) A ball dropped and was set upon by tiny tails and the race continued. The man and woman created a world in their image. (The children have big noses and funny teeth and are loved. The children play golf on weekends and chess during the week. They also play bridge.) And they came to pass.

In between there are cars and cables, bridges and beds. In between there are in-betweens and insteads.

We gave each other everything and we never would have run out of things to give. All we needed to believe in we found in each other. We lived on faith. Times doesn’t care, though. (Love doesn’t care if you’re silly; time just doesn’t care.) It’s no comfort at all to know that you’re lucky to go through it…

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The bed is anywhere but it smells like dying. (It doesn’t even have to be a bed.) A person is alone — I’m alone, you’re alone — with mangled wet sheets and a series of reveries getting foggier by the minute. Newer memories are disappearing and being replaced by earlier and earlier ones — till finally, it’s the same dark-tunnel-with-the-light-at-the-end that was the first thing any of us ever saw. It’s sublime in the old sense: beautiful and terrifying as a Gothic cathedral. And it’s worth it because we say so. It was worth it because it had to be worth it.

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