I greatly desired some olives

 Posted by at 5:13 pm  Holy Fool/Hero  Comments Off
May 192013
 

 

Undead121

But on the margins of the market Pedro Paramo skulked, half hidden by a fly-blown full length mirror propped against some cardboard boxes that bulged with an assortment of old clothes, hippy cast-offs from 1971, that time when we had begun to realise something: the writing was on the wall, the die cast, the runes scratched on rocks scattered across the more desolate parts of Dartmoor. The only problem was that few of us could discern these signs, unpack them, interpret the tea leaves. Those who could kept quiet and prepared for what they knew was coming. Most of us, of course, were held by the sharp claws of our illusions, our hopes dated 1966. And this was prior to these helpful little labels that informed us as to when we should throw the contents away. Best before 1970.

What was he doing there? Hoping that nobody would recognise him? ‘Like Orpheus, he too had descended to the land of the shades, and then done what no beast has until now had the permission to do: return to the living present.’ (Don Paterson – Orpheus). I spoke quietly, corner of the mouth job, I know you . . . the air thickened around him, edges blurred. I wondered about the sort of violence that could be perpetrated by ghosts. The difference between him and Orpheus was that he was dead and Orpheus was very much alive, singing and his fingers skimming across the strings of his lyre at full speed. Did Paramo know that he was dead? But then do any of us know? There is that old conundrum that slips like silk across our minds after a few drinks in the evening sitting slumped in front of a dying fire: what if I’m already dead? In need of a steadying hand as we wobble in the thickening darkness, the maudlin becomes deep and meaningful. What is that shadow that comes to sit beside us. Paramo’s mind is all that’s left, but there remains a certain potentiality that at times can actually attain form and we remember him as he was in his prime: the arrogant bastard, fond of his minions giving his enemies a kicking, as he took what he wanted of land and money and women.

What do you mean, interested in death, interested in dying. There will be time for that in due course. Paramo will be there to give you a lesson in the art of dying. Though, maybe you are right: there are some details we need to get sorted out, practical things, order the coffin, get the will sorted out. The shock of the decades passing, the shock of still being alive. How does it all work? Paramo’s been dead for a century or more and his anger has not diminished, his fingers claw at my heart, I laugh in his face, but I must admit the laugh sounds a bit hollow to me. He eyes me, drooling, loops of blood tangled mucous trail from his blackened lips.