Madmen Know These Things

Hollow sticks of smoke in a world of weight

Oct 08, 2024

The first morning breaks open between smacks on his freshborn backside and dissonant diesel coughs outside the window. The room focused, focuses. Somewhere, a garroted bird sings. Or sang.

Where?

He doesn’t know, didn’t know. Had never awoken before. Time a dark door.

To get dressed he got dressed. An anonymous past warned him not to look back.

But he looks back to blank. Nothing. Today’s the first day of ever.

He wonders which first day of ever and how far to the sidewalk?

Not far. The sidewalk is filled with the present moment and pedestrians. They move easy to appointments to wait as they may have once waited. Meetings of minds surrender, soft and sponged in convulsions of newness.

All fits comfortably into itself. Angles suggest they grow from a mathematics yet to be seeded. Cars pass. Lights beckon in sounds seen. Red, yellow, and green voices. People pause with their ears to watch and listen.

The street hums. He has no name.

A woman approaches. Her crosscut shadow runs against the grain. She holds seven coins in her hand.

Take one, she says or said. He does or did.

Now you are Benjamin, she says. And the world steps from the haze.

Benjamin trades his coin for a hot dog and sits on the edge of a concrete bunker until a cop stops and asks if he is new.

Yes, says Benjamin.

Come with me then.

They walk to another street where angles clash with colors, and voices of the lights merely mutter. The cop says: education and expectations.

No thank you, says Benjamin.

We won’t hurt you much, says the cop. As had said, and will again.

They pass buildings that droop and flowers that strain for the sky. The heavy.

Wait here, says the cop, then spins random orbits until he catches up with his breath which runs in ever widening circles back to the precinct.

Lightness lingers on Benjamin. He brushes cop commands from his ear and rises in newness to explore the steel numbered streets. They illuminate in variety from red to blue wavelengths and hold sights to smell and industrial sounds to see. He wanders, eating from pizza boxes and innocent ambits of tuna cans. All the world drowns down, but Benjamin sustains his grace.

In a doorway on 47^th Street, he meets a madman with a beard who tells Benjamin the world will float if you let it, and that all weight is voluntary.

How do you know this? asks Benjamin.

Madmen know these things, says the madman. Hollow sticks of smoke in a world of weight.

* * *

That’s all I remember, said Benjamin.

And the madman?

He stayed in the doorway.

* * *

From a doorway on 47^th Street, the bearded madman watches Benjamin on the corner counting his fingers as traffic lights in fluency speak. The madman carries no basket for his worries. No need. He has none. In a world of weight, he is light. If strong buildings of the city should tumble, they only reach for a simpler sky.

The madman keeps a rough drawing he had sketched before he was mad. Before he grew empty. Past is present without a future. And the future illusion. Madmen know these things.

The drawing depicts a boy fresh fallen from nothingness into a weightless world. The penciled lines resemble the boy or the boy man who stands on the corner and counts. They may be connected, the madman in silence shouts. When a son sprouts, leaves the protective arm around his shoulder, a sane man loses all burden and chooses madness. Lightness is an unmapped path. Buoyancy an acquittal. Madmen know these things.

Madmen know that threats and accusations of the world crawl barren of power from their wombs and warrens. Madmen know that judgments have no authority.

The madman walked or walks from the doorway on 47^th Street and follows the sidewalk cracks while his beard amuses his chin. Commitments have no calendar, agreements no understanding, a world no load. Madmen love these things.

A woman approaches. Her crosscut shadow runs against the grain. She holds seven stones in her hand.

Take one, she says.

* * *

Did you?

Did I what? asked the madman.

Take one?

That’s all I remember.

And your son?

Was he my son?

Yes.

They must have slapped his backside.

* * *

The first morning breaks open. The room focuses. From the street window, an opera sings freshsong.

Where?

He doesn’t know, didn’t know. Maybe knew. Had he before awoken?

He dresses, dressed. A past warns him not to look back.

On the sidewalk, lights stir the day. A woman approaches.

It’s me again, she says.

Yes.

You’re not surprised.

Everything is new, he says.

Yes child, new.

And yet known. A child is a man is a woman is a madman who flows through the avenues of life, hears the colors, sees the sounds. Somehow it’s all connected. Colors speak in tones of convergent truth. All the melodies harmonize.

What do we do now? asks the child.

Take my hand. And listen to the light.

They walk the streetside in silence and let their out of step footfalls on the concrete make a syncopated song. They keep their eyes in tune and they listen.

And when they listen they hear. When they hear they understand what it means to be human. A great vine of fruitful days. Pluck them. The weight of the world slides away if you let it. Life is more than death at the tomb door knocking.

How simple it may be. How understood. Such flexible wisdom.

A child knows these things. Women know these things.

Madmen sure know these things too.

— — —

Another madmen story from Dynamic Creed. Who would have thought? Thanks for checking it out, friends. Let me know what you think. Victor David