The Context of Infinity

Before I met August Dew, and before she took my five year old hand and introduced me to myself, I was somewhat of a insouciant dreamer, a renegade cipher, an insubstantial wraith shimmering on the horizon like an oasis in a lost, thirsty world. I didn’t exist in any meaningful way to myself, so that was amply reflected in the way others saw me. I drifted like a hungry ghost, from job to job, lover to lover, sifting up from the desiccated soil any measure of sweet water I could find. I existed as reams of dark, complex code in numerous crypts of bureaucratic soul-fuck, imprisoned and hiding in data banks like a thief waiting to be caught. I joined gyms, paid the bills, invested in crypto, made all the palliative moves and noises of societal contrition. I had friends who I rarely saw, and when I did it was in disorientating clumps during school or old work place reunions. I drifted slowly away in earth cracking tears like a continent chunk uprooting from its mass, and inching towards isolation amongst vast, silent seas and endless, shifting skies. You can see why I felt most comfortable secreted away in noisy, neon lit bars. I found I could get my social needs met just by hunkering down in these dreary speakeasies hustling self medication and anesthesia. My bodies mirror neurons fired just the same via passive observation, as if I was the one hugging an old friend, or among those huddled in drunken clusters, engaged in laughing sprees amidst intimate, uproarious conversations. As if I was the one on the dance floor, whirling about and, amidst the delicious mayhem, flashing my beautiful girl secret looks of love and desire.

I first spied August across one such crowded bar. Classic cute meet, I know. It was a Friday night and the bar was pumping with its usual cosmo vibe. A cover band was playing Springsteen’s ‘Dancing in the Dark’ and doing a damn fine job of it. I was sitting alone as usual in a booth, rattling the ice in my glass and observing people as they went this way and that. ‘Funny little fuggers, these hoomans’ I muttered. 'Always slinking around, slapping backs and laughing it up, so restless in their affected, boho ways - forever seeking somewhere warm and safe to dock and perhaps glean an ounce of simple, sweet pleasure before it was time to fall down, roll over and quietly disassemble back into dear old, mother earth.' It was a game I liked to play, where I assumed the role of an exoplanet life form, the sole survivor of a crash landing in a desert somewhere close by. I was humanoid enough to get by undetected in crowds - I had acquired a long grey coat, green hoody and trousers from an expired man of indeterminable lodgings. It smelled good enough to me, though I did notice some reactions wildly contrary to that. It was easy enough to blend in, even though I was quite tall and had a bald, dome shaped head. My native language was expressed as a melodic series of clicks and whistles, like something that might be vocalised by a six three canary. I had, however, gleaned enough of the going lingo to get by, enough to order a beer, some peanuts or a whiskey soda; and so it was in this spirit I enjoyed the booths - a cosy haven where I could drink and observe the locals and their darkly, comedic satire of grift and con. Mostly I spied on the woman. I say spied, because I knew how shifty I must have looked to an observer, one who bothered to clock my sad ass all alone in a dark booth, and so often peering up from his glass to follow the chewy walk of any girl who passed by. And it’s true, the thoughts that scuttled around did so in lusty, sliding masses like a cockroach orgy within a mouldy, kitchen sink cupboard. Over time I became way too fond of whiskey with a soda and lime dash. I sipped and rattled the ice as the local species quaffed one destabilising liquid after another, before lurching about making clumsy, last minute attempts at securing a procreative partner for the night.

But hey, enough about me! August was on the dance floor, like I said, when I first saw her. She and a friend were in the throes of an inventive and gymnastic version of jive dancing. They held hands and took turns twirling around in a manic, yet balletic display of outrageous joy. I was stunned, entranced and immediately transformed. It was August’s first benediction upon me, and just one of many that she bestowed in the years that followed. She was a revelation worthy of the bard, or a passage in a sacred text that seeks to glorify an experience so sublime that tears falling wet to the page is barely…It was as if this was the first beautiful thing I had ever seen, this gorgeous girl poured into a spangly blue dress, her long, black hair and porcelain skin illumined by swirling, disco ball lights. As if I'd never sat on a dusky beach and witnessed the sun’s seamless drift from burgundy to misty pink, and its fiery culmination in a fingernail of gold, God infused Light. As if I had never knelt at dawn before a lush, mountain stream to scoop from the bright water a cup of liquid manna. As if I had never been in love before, as I peered out into the bright lights and marvelled at this wild, butt-shaking Angel.

To call it love at first sight would be an inadequate describion of the chest ripping rush of awe, lust and longing I felt for her…this sparking fuse of tantric flesh, this whirl of Golden, Sufi Light upon the pulsing, patchwork floor. But of course, it always begins like this, doesn’t it? I'm sure you have been here, looking at her or him or they…and feeling this cluster of bright ribbons waving in celebration of something only partially seen and understood. A face peering from out of the shadows, a festival of dance and joy shape shifting under kaleidoscopic Lights.

“This isn’t what I signed up for!” I heard someone say. I looked for the voices origin before realising this quiet, prophetic understatement had come out of my own, whiskey sodden mouth. “This isn’t…what…I fucking… signed…UP FOR!!” I skulled the drink, then pushed myself across the seat and balanced on its edge like it were a huge cliff face and below sharp, flesh tearing rocks. On the dance floor Bruce had given way to ‘Blame Brett’ by The Beaches.

“I'm only gonna treat you bad…I'm probably gonna let you down…I’m probably gonna sleep around…”

Have you ever been a detached observer of yourself, as you notice that you are suddenly and inexplicably walking towards something you had long feared? Your feet ploop and shlupp along on suction cups as your brain screams, ‘What…the actual fuck…are you doing?’

Well, this was one of those moments. This wild, gypsy Princess; this primal, Shakti Goddess came into view as I floated, helpless and mesmerised towards her.

“Before you take off your pants…I wouldn’t let me near your friends…I wouldn’t let me near your dad…”

What happened next was that she saw me coming and graciously slowed down, smiled and put her arms out towards me. She said later this gesture was all a part of an inscrutible, holistic flow - like my wobbly legs moving towards her without any obvious instructions to do so. Like my being there in the bar at the exact moment she caught fire, on the dance floor singing along with The Beaches. Yes, I swear, she erupted into a flickering mass of blue-tinged flames, and I instantly knew I had to pass through them to meet her where she lived - bright and beautiful and patiently waiting.

I took a few…deep…breaths.

“But don’t blame me, blame Brett…blame my ex, blame my ex, blame my ex…”

I exhaled and walked through the fire. There was a smell of burning flesh and hair, as my alien suit slid in molten cascades to the floor. On the other side she was so cool, and soft, and she took my head slowly, gently to her breast and wiped the tears away as they dripped from my closed, oh so open eyes.