2π700,000
The horizon is
yellow, something like 2π700,000
km away, probably a bit farther. Atmospheric pressure buzzes and pounds, tense as a swollen tire. Toward the east, and
toward the west are faint lines radiating right to left, parallel
with each other, opaque, questionable. These lines hum like the
hydraulic system of a small plane, dog-whistle high, brushed-metal
shrill, yet warm, shaped in the way that rust bleeds from one part of
an old object onto another, in the way that paint creeps under tape.
The ground I stand
on gives to the touch, it bows outward, in toward the crust of the
earth, away from the fingers, neither hot nor cold, the temperature
of a massive, cosmic room. Dust bursts from cylindrical scorings in
the earth—is it earth? What does it mean to be earth? These
hairbreadth etchings darken momentarily and then release thin veils
of dust, and I touch the ground feeling ungrounded. I stand on my
hands and dust bisects the plane of my body, creating for a moment a
four-bladed cardinal star, pinned down in a state of kinetic
immobility.
Looking once again
toward the horizon, I am below the earth or the ground, a permeable
and impermeable surface, the bare air supports my feet, my head
supporting the ceiling shedding dust cylinders. To the south and to
the north are dual horizons, yellow paling to white, no closer than
2π700,000
km and rapidly receding. The sound
of the horizon receding away from itself is a trifle pitchier than a
compression brake releasing, or a pressure cooker spitting. A hair
harsher than the sound of the last fibers of wood splitting. On
either side faint lines radiate left to right in infinite array,
stacked one on top of the other. Objects seem to swim amongst the lines,
crossing and moving within them, forming new, momentary planes,
dimensional hinting. Vapor exits the earth ceiling and evaporates
into bottomlessness.
Ringlets of yellow
dust hover around me and drop, disperse, with the last moment of
clarity shoot toward the horizon, merge with objects swimming in a
sea of shimmering lines, burst with visual tentacles, reverberate with the tiny echoes of the shell of a seed cracking. A sudden
scent of pine, more lemon than the yellow of a fading horizon,
sharper than the crackle of flames in a de-pressurized cabin,
brighter than a burst of silent light. Other smells as well, as the
lines to west and east become more haphazard, as these lines veer
suddenly toward each other in steep and sharp angles toward minute
infinities held between fingertips that will never touch. The smell of
water evaporating on dirt, a breath of Eucalyptus in boiling water,
the buoyant, citrusy essence of high toxin permeating cranial walls.
Now I walk on my
hands, my hands guide me toward the northern horizon, the floor-roof
moves me into a grand arena where parallel lines approach
intersection points, where shadowy objects orbit in tense,
coordinated dances, revolving bee-like in ever tightening spheres,
gaining momentum, pulling the horizon back to yellow, back to roughly
2π700,000
km give or take. My ears pop and jaw
slackens as the pressure reduces, a faint crack pierces the
now-visible atmospheric barrier, bubbly ions squirting through the
pin prick spraying iridescent ink, bleeding and rising toward me, a
hint of copper, the taste of ammonia thick on my tongue, ghostly
spirals of lime rind circling around my head, rotating me around
them, polarities shifting.
The yellow horizon
pulsates and expands like a boil, perfect lines thinly gild shallow pools of water at the edge of each of my
extremities. I am on my back, shoeless, shivering, covered in fine,
grey dust, a kind of geometric star crushing my palm, searing and
steaming. Small biting insects orbit my face and fall upon
me in a mist. All around me razor thin currents of dust guard the still water. I blink at the slow sound of giant
fanblades beating, cleaving the invisible into pieces. No wind, no tenses, no words. An aroma of maple and peroxide lifts itself off of the land,
attaching to objects in flight. All of this I glimpse in an
instant, in the periphery, before the yellow horizons close like
clamps and raw speed consumes all notions and impressions. There is
nothing now but force, gorging itself inside out..
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