Idumea

idumea/content/006.tex

@@ -134,7 +134,7 @@ And so now we may only guess at the dreams of one such as her, one who lives wit
 
 Here is my supposition:
 
-The Woman went walking. In her dream, she went walking, though it was not out on her field, the one we have seen so often. No, instead she went walking out her bedroom and through her secret door, out through the door and onto the street of the city that had become so familiar to her over the years, that city with the brick pavers and the fallen leaves which skittered so anxiously around her feet. She went walking in her dream and made her way through unnervingly empty city streets, walking and walking and walking. She passed the trolley stops. She passed the coffee shops. She passed, perhaps, the setting sun.\emph{stop-for-death}
+The Woman went walking. In her dream, she went walking, though it was not out on her field, the one we have seen so often. No, instead she went walking out her bedroom and through her secret door, out through the door and onto the street of the city that had become so familiar to her over the years, that city with the brick pavers and the fallen leaves which skittered so anxiously around her feet. She went walking in her dream and made her way through unnervingly empty city streets, walking and walking and walking. She passed the trolley stops. She passed the coffee shops. She passed, perhaps, the setting sun.\label{stop-for-death}
 
 And at some final point—final!—she came across a square set within the cement of the sidewalk perhaps two meters on a side where the concrete gave way to a metal grate in the form of a sunburst, and in the middle there was a circle of soil, good and clean.
 

idumea/content/afterword.tex

@@ -21,10 +21,10 @@
 %\newpage
 \includepdf[fitpaper=true]{hymn.pdf}
 
-\chapter*{Appendix III — Idumea}
+\chapter*{Appendix III — The hymn “Idumea”}
 \addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{III — The hymn “Idumea”}
 
-\vspace{-1.5em}
+\vspace{-2.5em}
 \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.
 
 Or, as a friend said upon learning of this project, ````Main character escaping suffering while the narrator stays stuck in it'' is somewhat analogous to living singers singing songs almost exclusively about how great it will be to die and escape from suffering''—which, as a quote, is quite painful to go back and read for your humble narrator, as I am sure you can imagine.
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ The hymn is reproduced here for reference. Despite being in short meter, the typ
 \addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{IV — Reading}
 
 \begin{center}
-\emph{Please enjoy this extra drabble portraying a saner self as a promise that I am not always like this.}
+\emph{Please enjoy this extra drabble portraying a saner self as a promise that I am not always as I have presented myself here.}
 \end{center}
 \secdiv
 \noindent \input{content/reading}

idumea/content/letter.tex

@@ -103,7 +103,7 @@ 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 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, and to her, to so many of us, this, too, is a death.}\\
 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?\\
@@ -118,10 +118,10 @@ 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}\\
+Dear, also, the tree that was felled\footnote{No longer with us here on Lagrange. A loss is a loss is a loss; may its memory be a blessing.}\\
 which offers heat and warmth in fire.\\
 What praise we give we give by consuming,\\
-what gifts we give we give in death,\\
+what gifts we give we give in death,\\\pagebreak
 what lives we lead we lead in memory,\\
 and the end of memory lies beneath the roots.
 
@@ -130,7 +130,7 @@ 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\textquotedbl 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.}\\
+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 memory \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\textquotedbl L}}\\

idumea/content/notes.tex

@@ -221,16 +221,6 @@ The writer, as ever, is a character in their own works, no matter the role they
 \noindent Cf. Echo:
 
 \begin{verse}
-My wileling is not the sort of woman you spend a diamond on —\\
-And I don't just mean to allude to her anti-capitalist streak —\\
-No, she is the sort you paint in gold and scarlet,\\
-The only colors befitting a minx such as she,\\
-A cat-eyed woman, the sort who speaks in tongues;\\
-That which men with pitchforks called the Devil's tongue\\
-As she burned at the stake.
-
-Blood and electrum for my wileling;\\
-Only the best for her.\\
 She is to me a cherished thing,\\
 A queen to a throne, with the wit to reign regent.\\
 So, to say that she is mine is indeed a crime.\\
@@ -284,7 +274,7 @@ And I am raw, far too raw, to tell it.
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{motes}}
 I have written extensively on these hyper-black shapes that The Child paints and more about her besides in \emph{Motes Played}. A little book for little skunks, yes? For she deserves her story told—and just so! Just like this! A tale written in a style befitting her—as much as does The Woman.
-\pagebreak
+%\pagebreak
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{keatsheight}}
 \emph{Miss Michelle Hadje, five foot four.}
@@ -321,13 +311,14 @@ The distinction between a thing that is \emph{loved} and a thing that is \emph{b
 
 One must never ask an author their desires on where their work ought lie on the loved-beloved scale.
 
+\vspace{-0.5em}
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{shakespeare}}
 [\ldots] \emph{all the world's a horror.}
 
-\vspace{1em}
-
+\vspace{0.2em}
 \noindent Cf. Shakespeare
 
+\vspace{-0.5em}
 \begin{verse}
 All the world's a stage,\\
 And all the men and women merely players;\\
@@ -368,7 +359,7 @@ 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
+%\pagebreak
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{winthrop}}
 \emph{The Sightwright suffered as I do, as The Oneirotect does, and perhaps even as The Woman did.}
@@ -482,7 +473,7 @@ 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
+%\pagebreak
 
 I would not cut, nor even could, had I but wished\\
 to sever this golden thread — and every thread\\
@@ -495,6 +486,7 @@ such love as this cease. I yearn to say that she returned\\
 to me, became a part of me, but a tally notched\\
 among the lost was all that stayed when life was spurned\\
 by the call of death — supposedly ended.
+\pagebreak
 
 So, she is gone and now our lives are darker for it,\\
 and now this world is where the shadows lie,\\
@@ -515,7 +507,7 @@ Because I could not stop for Death —\\
 He kindly stopped for me —\\
 The Carriage held but just Ourselves —\\
 And Immortality.
-\pagebreak
+%\pagebreak
 
 We slowly drove — He knew no haste\\
 And I had put away\\
@@ -531,6 +523,7 @@ Or rather — He passed Us —\\
 The Dews drew quivering and Chill —\\
 For only Gossamer, my Gown —\\
 My Tippet — only Tulle —
+\pagebreak
 
 We paused before a House that seemed\\
 A Swelling of the Ground —\\
@@ -695,6 +688,7 @@ And I set my heart to know wisdom and to know revelry and folly, for this, too,
 \begin{quote}
 What gain is there for man in all his toil that he toils under the sun?
 \end{quote}
+\pagebreak
 
 \noindent From Qohelet 3:20:
 
@@ -714,7 +708,7 @@ wystarczy pozwolić człowiekowi\\
 wytruć swój rodzaj\\
 a nastąpią niewinne wschody słońca\\
 nad florą i fauną wyzwoloną
-\pagebreak
+%\pagebreak
 
 na pofabrycznych pustkowiach\\
 wyrosną dębowe lasy\\
@@ -743,7 +737,7 @@ upon a rabbit
 Evil will disappear from the world\\
 once consciousness does
 \end{verse}
-\pagebreak
+%\pagebreak
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{rilke-doyousee}}
 \emph{Do you see now the connection?}
@@ -891,6 +885,7 @@ zahlenlos aufgeht.
 
 \secdiv
 
+\vspace{-1em}
 And suddenly in this toilsome nowhere, suddenly\\
 the unutterable place where the merely too little\\
 inscrutably mutates—, swings round\\