The Descent to the Top

The descent downwards and into the bottom can be, at the best of times, incredulously difficult. For once one has seen the top, seen the wisdom of it all, they can never again be convinced of the bottom. To go back they must be taken back by trick or by force. This is not negotiable. This is absolute.

Toni Morrison once wrote that, “Fiction is not random.” Why, one would ask, would she write such a thing? Perhaps it is because non-fiction, or memoir, is a true telling of events. And whereas the truth is random and in no way planned, fiction is articulate and on purpose. Rather, fiction is of the imagination; at least, this is what Toni Morrison would have us believe. This seems to be an intriguing deposition. Fiction is in no way random. That means something.

A man and a woman and a child were entered into life to accomplish something. The man became a father; the woman became a mother; the child became a son. It was in this way that the three lived out their immediate goal. Here is where they escaped their fate, for they had accomplished it. Now, left to their own acquisitions, they abandoned all hope. Without direction, they saw no reason to pursue ambition. And so they lived their lives under life; and so they were never able to see the wisdom; and so the darkness did not appear to be dark.

Writing, to me, demonstrates humanity. Such a commodity crafts life out of its own image. In writing we see it all painted before us; the canvas a bigger thing than we can name; the brush an intellect that seems to understand its vast multitudes of subtlety. And we invest within it our own emotion, for we recognize that it is important. This is because human nature makes its daring escape in writing. And we can only bow to the thing that we revere and respect, for it is simply that powerful. It is the thing we can not name but can not stop naming. It is emotion.

A man and a woman and a child were entered into life to accomplish something. And they did that. And then they kept on accomplishing something. And they never seemed to stop. And they never seemed to question their purpose. For they had the faith required to attain their own purpose. And they saw such a beautiful display. And the lights danced on their skin. And they were each and every one content. For they had journeyed above it all, to the absolute, to the nonnegotiable. And that is where they stayed, forever and never more.

A guy