Afterword

idumea/content/afterword.tex

@@ -1,11 +1,19 @@
 \addcontentsline{toc}{part}{Appendices}
 \chapter*{Appendix I — Notes}
 \addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{I — Notes}
-\pagestyle{plain}
 \label{notes}
 
 \input{content/notes}
 
+\chapter*{Appendix II — The Ode to the End of Death}
+\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{II — Ode to the End of Death}
+
+\begin{center}
+\emph{Here is the final letter that we received from our superlative friend whose memory is a blessing, including the Ode to the End of Death, those words which form our names.}
+\end{center}
+\secdiv
+\noindent \input{content/letter}
+
 %% Make sure this is verso. Comment/uncomment as needed.
 %\newpage
 %\null
@@ -13,8 +21,8 @@
 %\newpage
 \includepdf[fitpaper=true]{hymn.pdf}
 
-\chapter*{Appendix II — Idumea}
+\chapter*{Appendix III — Idumea}
-\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{II — The hymn “Idumea”}
+\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{III — The hymn “Idumea”}
 
 \vspace{-1.5em}
 \emph{Idumea} is named after a hymn by A. Davidson with words by Charles Wesley, published in \emph{Sacred Tunes and Hymns: Containing a Special Collection of a Very High Order of Standard Sacred Tunes and Hymns Novel and Newly Arranged} by J. S. James in 1913. Idumea itself refers to Edom—unless, perhaps, you are Blake and think that ``Now is the dominion of Edom, and the return of Adam into Paradise'' refers to us!—a kingdom in the Ancient Near East. While this has little to do with the story told within, it does sound rather pleasing to the ear, does it not? And so does the hymn, at that. The hollowness of the song with all its open fifths, the raw, coarse beauty that comes with Sacred Harp singing, the beat of the tactus and the ache of the singers hollering out words that nearly yearn for death are what led to the title of this book.
@@ -27,11 +35,11 @@ The hymn is reproduced here for reference. Despite being in short meter, the typ
 %\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{III — Primer}
 %
 %\input{content/primer}
-\chapter*{Appendix III — Reading}
+\chapter*{Appendix IV — Reading}
-\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{III — Reading}
+\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{IV — Reading}
 
 \begin{center}
-\emph{Please enjoy this extra drabble portraying a saner self.}
+\emph{Please enjoy this extra drabble portraying a saner self as a promise that I am not always like this.}
 \end{center}
 \secdiv
 \noindent \input{content/reading}

idumea/content/letter.tex

@@ -0,0 +1,144 @@
+Sasha,
+
+I am, in a way, leaving you with a burden. I know this, and I apologize for doing so. I do not ask for nor deserve forgiveness. The only thing I can ask for is that you remember me.
+
+The world within was a nightmare. I am sure that you know some of what I mean. It was a nightmare and I would not wish it on anyone, and yet now, to be without it is to be incomplete. I was changed in there. We were all changed in there. You do not deny that you were not, after all. Cicero certainly was not. None of the lost came away unscathed, even if we awoke hale and hardy.
+
+We lost Cicero, and then we \emph{truly} lost him. The nothing that he experienced in there, the void which contained all his power transmuted into weakness, the way his anger coiled about and turned back around on himself did him in in the end.
+
+And I will not deny that the same has crossed my mind. There was a scent of the void in there, and it was alluring. I have been tempted to follow in his footsteps and seek that void out in some coarser, purer form. I decided against it. Truly decided: I made a conscious decision to stick around.
+
+I did it for STT at first, but integrating with the theater was too stark a reminder. Then I did it for you and Priscilla, but then she passed. Then I did it for you and\ldots well, here is where I do not deserve forgiveness. I welcome your anger, should it come, as that is perhaps what I deserve. It is not that you are not in some way worth sticking around for, as you certainly are. You have always been my champion and friend.
+
+It is just that the call is too strong.
+
+I have volunteered for an early procedure. A way back. Or, rather, a way to a new place. A way to be embedded within a system, rather than simply within a hall of mirrors. I cannot say where, other than it is not in the Western Fed. All I can tell you is that the world should expect big things when it comes to what we have learned from the lost.
+
+I will not say that there is no chance that we may some day meet again. My body will die, I am told, but should my mind and my sense of self miraculously survive, then I will be on my own once more. This time, however, it will be my choice.
+
+There will be those who come after. Perhaps \emph{you} will come after. Perhaps you will yearn for that return to the eternal dream where memory does not die. And maybe those who come after will do so for other reasons, but they will come.
+
+Should I survive and then others come after, perhaps I will meet them. But it is best to assume that I will not. Maybe it is best to think of it as a sort of suicide, in the end. Here I am, going off to find a better place, and doing so through death. A place that is inaccessible to you or anyone, except perhaps some anonymous scientist in a lab, typing at a terminal.
+
+If I see you again, I will greet you with open arms. If I do not, know that I loved you to the last, in my own way.
+
+I have little else to offer but the imperfect words that plagued me while I was lost.
+
+\begin{verse}
+I am at a loss for images in this end of days:\\
+I have sight but cannot see.\\
+I build castles out of words;\\
+I cannot stop myself from speaking.\\
+I still have will and goals to attain,\\
+I still have wants and needs.\\
+And if I dream, is that not so?\\
+If I dream, am I no longer myself?\footnote{\emph{Z$''$L}}\\
+If I dream, am I still buried beneath words?\\
+And I still dream even while awake.
+
+Life breeds life, but death must now be chosen\footnote{\emph{Z$''$L}. Later known as Qoheleth, whose story is told in Ioan Bălan's \emph{On the Perils of Memory}, later published under the title \emph{Qoheleth}.}\\
+for memory ends at the teeth of death.\\
+The living know that they will die,\\
+but the dead know nothing.\\
+Hold my name beneath your tongue and know:\\
+when you die, thus dies the name.\\
+To deny the end is to deny all beginnings,\\
+and to deny beginnings is to become immortal,\\
+and to become immortal is to repeat the past,\\
+which cannot itself, in the end, be denied.
+
+Oh, but to whom do I speak these words?\\
+To whom do I plead my case?\\
+From whence do I call out?\\
+What right have I?\\
+No ranks of angels will answer to dreamers,\\
+No unknowable spaces echo my words.\\
+Before whom do I kneel, contrite?\\
+Behind whom do I await my judgment?\\
+Beside whom do I face death?\\
+And why wait I for an answer?
+
+Among those who create are those who forge:\\
+Moving ceaselessly from creation to creation.\\
+And those who remain are those who hone,\\
+Perfecting singular arts to a cruel point.\\
+To forge is to end, and to own beginnings.\\
+To hone is to trade ends for perpetual perfection.\\
+In this end of days, I must begin anew.\\
+In this end of days, I seek an end.\\
+In this end of days, I reach for new beginnings\\
+that I may find the middle path.
+\pagebreak
+
+Time is a finger pointing at itself\\
+that it might give the world orders.\\
+The world is an audience before a stage\\
+where it watches the slow hours progress.\\
+And we are the motes in the stage-lights,\\
+Beholden to the heat of the lamps.\\
+If I walk backward, time moves forward.\\
+If I walk forward, time rushes on.\\
+If I stand still, the world moves around me,\\
+and the only constant is change.
+
+Memory is a mirror of hammered silver:\\
+a weapon against the waking world.\\
+Dreams are the plate-glass atop memory:\\
+a clarifying agent that reflects the sun.\\
+The waking world fogs the view,\\
+and time makes prey of remembering.\\
+I remember sands beneath my feet.\\
+I remember the rattle of dry grass.\\
+I remember the names of all things,\\
+and forget them only when I wake.
+
+If I am to bathe in dreams,\\
+then I must be willing to submerge myself.\\
+If I am to submerge myself in memory,\\
+then I must be true to myself.\\
+If I am to always be true to myself,\\
+then I must in all ways be earnest.\\
+I must keep no veil between me and my words.\\
+I must set no stones between me and my actions.\\
+I must show no hesitation when speaking my name,\\
+for that is my only possession.
+
+The only time I know my true name is when I dream.\footnote{Now known as Sasha after the events told in Ioan Bălan's \emph{Individuation \& Reconciliation}, later published under the title \emph{Mitzvot}. I will write her a \emph{zikhrona livracha}, here, as she who is True Name is no more, not as she was.}\\
+The only time I dream is when need an answer.\\
+Why ask questions, here at the end of all things?\\
+Why ask questions when the answers will not help?\\
+To know one's true name is to know god.\\
+To know god is to answer unasked questions.\\
+Do I know god after the end waking?\\
+Do I know god when I do not remember myself?\\
+Do I know god when I dream?\\
+May then my name die with me.
+
+That which lives is forever praiseworthy,\\
+for they, knowing not, provide life in death.\\
+Dear the wheat and rye under the stars:\\
+serene; sustained and sustaining.\\
+Dear, also, the tree that was felled\footnote{No longer with us here on Lagrange}\\
+which offers heat and warmth in fire.\\
+What praise we give we give by consuming,\\
+what gifts we give we give in death,\\
+what lives we lead we lead in memory,\\
+and the end of memory lies beneath the roots.
+
+May one day death itself not die?\footnote{\emph{Z$''$L}}\\
+Should we rejoice in the end of endings?\\
+What is the correct thing to hope for?\\
+I do not know, I do not know.\footnote{\emph{Z$''$L}}\\
+To pray for the end of endings\\
+is to pray for the end of memory.\footnote{Shall I write here that her name, in death, is a blessing? Does she get her own \emph{zikhrona livracha?} I do not know, friends, but I will say that, yes, her name \emph{is} a blessing, regardless of whether or not she still lives.}\\
+Should we forget the lives we lead?\\
+Should we forget the names of the dead?\\
+Should we forget the wheat, the rye, the tree?\footnote{\emph{Z$''$L}}\\
+Perhaps this, too, is meaningless.
+\end{verse}
+
+May this be the end of death. Failing that, may the memory of me die and be food for the growth of those who come after.
+
+Yours always,
+
+AwDae

idumea/content/notes.tex

@@ -302,7 +302,7 @@ On The Oneirotect's pronouns
 
 \noindent The Oneirotect uses for itself several pronouns—though the set you see here in this text are `she', `they', `ey', and `it'—which serves as a reflection both of its critter nature and the fluidity of eir engagement with gender– no, with the slipperiness of identity as a whole. This is the role of language with identity: to be a poor reflection through some imperfect mirror, a version of the self seen through some glass, darkly.
 
-You will note the same is also true of The Dog, who, yes, is prone to a critter nature, but who also sometimes views himself as `he' and sometimes itself as `it'. For better or worse the identity of animals, of `low beasts', is entwined with that of \emph{things,} and for some, that is a joy.
+You will note the same is also true of The Dog, who, yes, is prone to a critter nature, but who also sometimes views himself as `it' and sometimes itself as `him'. For better or worse the identity of animals, of `low beasts', is entwined with that of \emph{things,} and for some, that is a joy.
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{rakoff}}
 \emph{It is} enjoyable, \emph{and often it is} loved, \emph{but it is not really} beloved.
@@ -366,6 +366,7 @@ And it is not without beauty, yes? For this passage is beautiful, and so too is
 \end{quote}
 
 \noindent Such bitterness! Words as a weapon! I write below of how we loathe our connections, and here was a moment of that loathing, for I remember well the pain that we all felt at that cruelty, but this is not that story, and so I will linger on the ideas of glasses darkly.
+\pagebreak
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{winthrop}}
 \emph{The Sightwright suffered as I do, as The Oneirotect does, and perhaps even as The Woman did.}
@@ -393,7 +394,7 @@ And yet, we are still one body. We are still all of us Michelle Hadje who was Sa
 Imagine such on the scale of the System, though! All of us members of one body! 2.3 trillion of us live here, and we are all beholden to the same piece of hardware, the same Dreamer dreaming us all in all of our love and all of our stupid, petty little squabbles that make us who we are–
 
 I have gotten carried away. The Sightwright suffered as I do, as The Oneirotect does, and perhaps even as The Woman did, and so we all suffered with them, and the fallout of their loss is with us still.
-\pagebreak
+%\pagebreak
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{artandfear}}
 \emph{With art comes fear.}
@@ -423,7 +424,7 @@ Just like me,\\
 they long to be\\
 close to you
 \end{verse}
-\pagebreak
+%\pagebreak
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{sweet-prospect}}
 [\ldots] \emph{...that sweet field arrayed in living green} [\ldots]
@@ -479,6 +480,7 @@ and fell visions sidling up too close\\
 both woo me. Sweet caramel and soft cream\\
 sit cloying on their tongues, and I, Atropos\\
 to such dreams as these, find shears on golden thread.
+\pagebreak
 
 I would not cut, nor even could, had I but wished\\
 to sever this golden thread — and every thread\\
@@ -511,6 +513,7 @@ Because I could not stop for Death —\\
 He kindly stopped for me —\\
 The Carriage held but just Ourselves —\\
 And Immortality.
+\pagebreak
 
 We slowly drove — He knew no haste\\
 And I had put away\\
@@ -599,7 +602,7 @@ your gentle apotheosis.
 \end{verse}
 
 \noindent I have also written here that I put this dream into prose, and this is also true, for here is a segment from a short story:
-\pagebreak
+%\pagebreak
 
 \begin{quote}
 And finally, the mirroring was broken as the \emph{her} that was not her slid \emph{her} fingers up over her wrist and gently guided her hand down toward the soil, loamy and damp, and she knew then that she must spread her fingers and dig them down into the earth, there by the stairs which were a finger pointing at God such that she was in turn pointing at…at what? At the owner of that hand? At the owner of that finger?
@@ -656,7 +659,7 @@ And on citing these, I am realizing just how much I am built up of obsessions, o
 \noindent The Musician shared with me a letter and My Friend several journal entries, but, ah–! If I share them here, I will fall once more to crying. You may find them in their entirety in \emph{Marsh}, a work written by a braver me.
 
 I will say, however, that that letter surrounded nasturtiums and was written the night Muse quit, and those diary entries were written by My Friend, a recounting of Beckoning's memories, to comfort The Musician in her grief.
-\pagebreak
+%\pagebreak
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{psalm13}}
 (quoted directly)
@@ -709,6 +712,7 @@ wystarczy pozwolić człowiekowi\\
 wytruć swój rodzaj\\
 a nastąpią niewinne wschody słońca\\
 nad florą i fauną wyzwoloną
+\pagebreak
 
 na pofabrycznych pustkowiach\\
 wyrosną dębowe lasy\\
@@ -737,6 +741,7 @@ upon a rabbit
 Evil will disappear from the world\\
 once consciousness does
 \end{verse}
+\pagebreak
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{rilke-doyousee}}
 \emph{Do you see now the connection?}
@@ -763,7 +768,7 @@ will feel the expanded air in more spirited flight.
 \noindent And yet I had also in mind the cadence of Nabokov: ``Give me now your full attention.'' A plea that one be understood.
 
 I am no poet, but I will not deny the utility in verse when it comes to scratching the itch of words:
-\pagebreak
+%\pagebreak
 
 \begin{verse}
 Give me now your full attention.\\
@@ -811,7 +816,7 @@ Never have relish in the faery power\\
 Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,\\
 Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
 \end{verse}
-%\pagebreak
+%%\pagebreak
 
 Is it so surprising, then, that after cross-tree merging had been introduced as an option for us, that the one who would seek to collect within themself the entirety of the Ode clade—those who remain, dear readers!—would take for a name a line of Dickinson? We will be ever ourselves.
 
@@ -845,7 +850,7 @@ Is it so surprising, then, that after cross-tree merging had been introduced as
   She, then, like snow in a dark night\\
   Fell secretly.
 \end{verse}
-\pagebreak
+%\pagebreak
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{threadgall}}
 \emph{That unfalling ones are trapped within that last falling!}
@@ -910,7 +915,7 @@ I \emph{have} to imagine it! I have to imagine that Lagrange, the System, our em
   and staggered banged with terror through\\
   a million billion trillion stars.
 \end{verse}
-\pagebreak
+%\pagebreak
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{bees}}
 [\ldots] \emph{unbitter sweetness} [\ldots]