Lower Topia • Chapter 1

Episode 5
In my soul is rage

In my soul is finality. In my soul is disharmony.
In my soul is sadness. In my soul is rage.

I am a living doctrine of rules and pretty songs of lament.
Sacred and revered

.Awareness of what is right and of what belong.
Laws that govern waves that drown you, drawn.
Sacral and respected

Regulated and directed, a rigid frame that holds hymns and psalms to task.
Spiritual and reverenced.

I didn’t create it nor do I direct it, in its unbending requited caress.
Formality and rigidness, are my upbringing, bracing boughs express.
Sanctify and renowned.

Holding to ceremonies and process.
Without regard of choice, of desire, nor of propriety.
Respite in a forest, covered in a peaceful shady caress,
Wishing eternal loneliness of solemnity .
Sublime and ritualized.

In my soul is rage.
Anger for its emptiness of hope. Inherited.
Wrath and regret being equal partners.
Avoiding corners of entrapment.

A young boy…

…travels a path to see what the world has to offer him. Maybe he is in a dream. He’s not sure if it is a real dream. Maybe it’s a daydream. He looks. He wonders. He asks for direction. But this world is far more complicated than it had appeared at the distance from which he was first standing. For those that live there, it’s a simple process. You simply perform as they have done so before this time. You are not allowed to regret antiquity, as they have always been that way in the past. Ending up only wishing, but getting empty delusions that offer no hope, only unfulfilled promises.

They did listen to his reading.  They did receive his request.  But they do not really understand him. They only have their own paths. They figured that if he doesn’t like their direction, then maybe he isn’t worth the effort.

He carefully tried to write everything that he just witnessed, his memory was his writing pad. He tried to remember all the images, what will never belong to him. But he figured that in the end, he must not have any ties nor any sense of responsibility to any of those things that were not his from the start.  He determined that if his future was to belong to him alone than he must believe, “I just want to be me” he laments, as each word becomes its own sentence; to. be. me. There will be an event. He hid from it for so long that he almost forgot about it.  He remembers now; something triggered him to remember.  He hopes you will not judge him too harshly for his actions, transgressions.

A Confession

1958 – Saturday [Shabbat]

It was a typical Saturday morning.  Their Shabbat. Their day of solemn prayer.  As he does every Saturday morning that he attends their services, at a predetermined moment when he could be called upon to perform, he walks out.  He’s not surprised that they call him to the pulpit.  His father is a very respected member of their Shul; the honor must be passed on to the next generation. He will avoid any semblance of responsibility to the process, and quietly he leaves the room. He was completely uncomfortable with what they would charge him to do. He told them that. He never lied to them. But they had their way, and it was unwavering and resolute.  So, he roamed the hallways outside the main room where the prayers filled the air they breathed, and into that same air in which their repent was exhaled. He counted the minutes that this façade, his journey with no purpose nor specific direction, would finally end, so he can return. “Don’t lie to yourself” demanding that he face up to his dereliction of religious duty . “You’re hiding.  You’re just running away. Simple. Plain” He was angry at himself.  Angry for allowing this to happen to him.  Angry for not fulfilling his given role. Frustrated that he allowed himself to be trapped like this. “How long can this charade go on? Do they even care I’m not in that room with them? Has anyone even noticed. Were they so lured into their world of beseeching for the smallest, insignificant, paltry blessing, that they literally forgot to count heads before and after to realize someone was missing. “Last week, when I finally returned to the main sanctuary, when it was safe to do so, they treated me like I never left.  Am I even real to them?”  He asked himself.

He never lied to anyone about his desire not participate with the prayers. But the decision had already been finalized by his ancestors a thousand or so years ago.  “How can you not follow your dynasty, and not pray with us,” was their answer.  “But if you’re not here then we will continue as we have done so with the millennium of former sages who have passed before us,” they warned him with as little regard to his significance as possible; showing him no remorse nor consideration. “I just don’t like to be the center of your attention. To be judged by you and your rules. I don’t care to know the words, songs, prayers, or my role that will be used to critique me,” he replied to anyone who would listen. But no one did.

This fateful morning, from the hallway that he had just roamed through twice within the last few minutes while the prayers rose to their highest level from within the sanctuary, he stood in front of an opened door to an empty classroom. No classes were held on this day when prayer was the paramount commitment. This classroom, and the others, were built almost a decade earlier with the help of his father who had volunteered to lay the cinder blocks that were to become the walls of this educational wing of their Synagogue. He still has the New York Times article that proclaimed his father’s offered handiwork. He stood there in the door’s archway and gazed into the room, mesmerized by its order and sense of purpose. It was not his classroom. His room was in another hallway. He had mindlessly wandered farther from where he belonged that morning. This room was at the most remote end of the dark vacant hallway, near an exit of the educational wing.  This room was used during the week by a group of older students; seniors to his sophomoric level of post religious education. Apparently, these students were assured of their return; no one else will use this room other than this privileged level of student. Their textbooks and other learning paraphernalia laid on the desks where they were left timelessly suspended for the weekend.  The textbook’s pages were open and comfortably resting on their covers, a slight curl starting at the binding, in the middle of the book, kept the book opened and would mark where they were to pick up the lesson upon their return. The notebooks also remained opened to the page on which the last note was written, evident by the position of the pen that was left on top of the page. This pen was like the pointer used in reading the Torah, seemingly pointing to the word that was last scribed by the student. This pen appeared mystically ready to finish the swipe of the next letter when the student returned. All was in order.  Ritualized by the typed lesson on the pages of the textbook, spiritualized by the place in which this room was located, sanctified by the words inscribed on the chalkboard,  revered by the trust shown as this room was left open, unguarded, with an unsecured abandonment, and, romanticized as if it were a part of a scene from a Rod Sterling tale.  His frustration grew, and, thus so did his anger. At first its foundation was his sense of defeat. Why couldn’t he take all this learning and the love of its teachings to heart like these students?  But his angst grew exponentially into displacement, into despair, into mental phrenzy, and finally nested neatly onto rage. All the things he had to know, do, learn without regard to whether or not he wanted this knowledge or its responsibilities, built up like a flooded river pushing against the arches of a century old bridge that stood the time of erosion will now bear the weight of the roar of an angry river. He stood there, at the entry of this trove of learning and respect for this religion, and he just simply hated his life, his expectations, the rules governing what he can eat, when he can eat it, and what holiday he can celebrate. The daily reminder that his own father had betrayed him, by expressing a greater love for his more skillful, knowledgeable, older son, whose voice and religious tenacity excelled him, which please the father, and thus, successfully reaching for the respect of those revered ancestors.  His mind was processing everything he saw into speeds he couldn’t control.  The impulses rushed through his brain, synapse to synapse, with no control of direction; even with its high banks, this electrifying flow of urges couldn’t be contained, nor it’s direction, nor its force. His mind was on fire with determined destruction, to put an end to this mind-numbing unbridled control over his life.  He soon felt that he was no longer a part of his body. He felt physically detached from his reality; watching from a higher point in the room.  His body wasn’t his for what appeared to be an eternity of time, but what was probably no more than a minute of his life.

He saw, from the advantage of his higher level of perception, that the desks are all aligned; an order that represented someone else’s opinion of purpose.  But to him, it represented selfishness, and single mindedness, a lack of regard to his feelings, emotions, and needs. “Enough!  It cannot be, it must not be, it’s only their point of view.”  He shouted internally. “Do it.  Get it over with.  Put an end to this unacceptable control over my life. Exhale your anger and hate. Do it GODDAMN IT!!!”  He heard that demand reverberate within his skull. “JUST DO IT!!!  DO IT!!!”  He was again commanded to obey. Through his outer body he saw himself systematically walking up and down each isle of the room, reach out and whip his right arm, then left arm, so as to mechanically destroy this room’s order, rigidity, and end this intrusion into his world.  He didn’t feel the pressure of the books and other stuff he touched as he pushed them off on the desks.  He didn’t even feel the desks as he swiped across their surface with his windmilling arms; he whacked at the desk’s possessions, sending the articles of his origin and control in many different directions. His mind was so self-absorbed in the process of destruction, he didn’t even hear the noise that must have been produced by these projectiles when they made contact with the floor and wall and other desks.  He felt absolutely no satisfaction since he was emotionally detached from this mayhem.

He was exhausted by the attack’s end.  Numbed by his fervor, he couldn’t hear his own rapid breathing. But he saw his chest expanding and contracting with each sucking and expulsion of the air around.  Somehow he knew his heart was beating fast, but he didn’t feel it. For that moment in time, he was not contained in his body, but rather was a third-party witness of his actions. He had no opinion, just observations.  He had walked each of the classroom’s isles blindly, but never pushed one desk out of its assigned place. Aimlessly moving up and down each lane between where the students would have sat, he never looked at his handy work until he was to reenter the threshold of the room and turned around.  His mind was ablaze with freight on how long could this rampage have continued before someone would walk in on his act of devastation. He realized, in his fury, he forgot to close the door to the room; it was never a private performance.  Did he even think of making it private, he thought.  When he started throwing everything off the desks, did he even think of hiding from hallway observers.  And when he realized the door had always opened, he never bothered to correct that error. Was it his purpose not to hide?   His body was utterly spent of all its energy; he wasn’t at all sure if he was still angry any more. Did that fury leave his body as if he casually exhaled it with his heightened breath. When he stood in the room’s entrance, turned around and looked, he was finally able to confirmed the rampage was certain.  Everywhere where there was order before, there was chaos now.  Textbooks, notebooks, pens, pencils, and assorted learning tools covering the floor, leaving no tile untouched by this storm. But what he noticed, surprisingly and hauntingly confusing to him was, amidst this mess, the student desks remained unmoved, still in their prescribed place.  He tried to understand why, in his attack, he also left the teacher’s desk spared.

He looked into the dark empty hall, turned his head left and then right.  No one.  Empty. He was still alone.  Even this act of extreme hate and frustration went unnoticed by anyone. Even this horribly outrageous, disgraceful act gave him no comfort nor satisfaction without someone’s acknowledgment. He was still alone even after this. He waited for what felt like an eternity; still no one.  Although the room was war weary, it did returned, later that day, to its former quiet, peaceful place; matching its silence only to that of the corridor of this wing of the building that his father helped to build decades ago.  Did he compliment his father’s fulfillment with his own interpretation of self-realization? Or was this a previewof his future?

He needs to leave now.  Own this forever in his memory.  “Leave,”  he commands his legs to obey. They obeyed,

“Charles,”  Charlie whispered. 

“Yes Charlie?”  I replied. Trying to reach him with my smile.

“Charles, I’m sorry.  I am so very sorry for this legacy.”

“I understand, Charlie.  I do.  It will be our cross to bear.”