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the pleasure maze (page 1.)
by Mark Moore
you wake up in the pleasure maze. your curiosity is heightened because in every direction you look something interesting and delightful beckons. I remember my awakening in the maze, and what I saw first was a young woman smiling as if she were happy to see me. and it was a familiar smile, and it seemed that she was happy because she missed me, and although I had no memory of her I began to walk toward her, briefly glancing around, noticing that the maze continued and in many other directions.
upon your awakening in the pleasure maze you realize that it is your favorite time of day; for me it was just before sunset. As I drew near her, the sun appeared to be setting and taking the rippled shape of a softly radiant orange circle reflected in water which I could see through the tingling leaves of eucalyptus trees whose whitest bark also bristled. all of this and an extraordinary loft of pink and purple hued mountain of clouds rose above the wall of the maze behind her.
she waited gracefully as I approached, standing in elegance beside a small table upon which a bucket of iced champagne sought consciously to quench my thirst, and two crystal glasses caught the last rays the day's sun and bent them into tiny rainbows on the maze walls, and on my face and upon a handsome suit of clothes I wore, which recalled old movies and complemented her gown, but which felt as light upon me as the cool Pacific sea breeze which searched through the eucalyptus bringing their scent.
within a few paces of her I realized that she was familiar to me but I could not recall our ever meeting. if I were away sailing at sea for 10 years with amnesia and the vision of her brought back the years of missing like a wave which my sloop could not escape I felt suddenly relieved in this reunion, and so much that my skin tingled as if all the leaves of the eucalyptus reached in and scattered me with goosebumps.
one more step and I would drift into her opening arms, and our favorite song began to play. I stepped forward and felt her hands touch perfectly places inside me that craved feeling and change each one to a source of strength. I became the wind. we swirled into a dance, our eyes embracing each light glimpse a new treasured memory, our smiles only an impulse apart. our music brought us by the little ice bucket and we took in a good splash of bubbly champagne that lifted our feet above the blades of grass.
"see how your daughter is a kind girl with a heart bigger than the sun in the eucalyptus. " and she gestured with her eyes but I could not look away. she turned my shoulders so that I looked down another hall of the maze. there on a blanket in the long shade of a cherry tree, a tiny girl played with a puppy. they rolled back and forth almost the same size.
"go and see her pink cheeks before the sun sets." but I was become air and must want the wind to carry me there. "I am fine right here." her hands again comforting upon my shoulders then thrust me gently aloft, "I will be here awaiting your return," and she took my coat and laid it upon the small table by the bucket of ice and champagne. she squeezed my hand lovingly and with her other hand on my chest, sent me along to meet my little girl who caught my eye and already waved to me and summoned me to play.
you wake up in the pleasure maze. I say so, but I'm only guessing, because I don't really know. memory, history, fantasy, reality are all indistinguishable to me. I found these words in a book called a dictionary, which I found on a shelf somewhere in the maze; I don't even know how or why I can read! there are words in this book which I don't understand, possibly because there are things in the world which I have never held in my hand, experiences which are unknown to me.
I began my story in a way somewhat misleading, i need it appealing, but only because I need to start somewhere when writing - a story - although according to the dictionary mine is not really a story. a word to describe it is far beyond me. the best word I can find in this big book about everything and nothing is "maze," amazingly.
for you see, the sunset never ended and the sun never set that day. as I walked to my daughter I glanced backward from whence I came, and saw my wife there, beckoning to me in exactly the same way. but my little girl called to me and her voice in my ears was a myriad of sweet pleasures more delightful them than my lovely wife's beckoning gestures. and besides I had her promise still fresh in my heart, that she would be there forever for me, that we never need part.
My girl, I had no memory of her, but I knew her to be my daughter. she ran to me with opening arms and pink rosie cheeks as her mother had sworn. she rode upon my shoulders and we ran around the cherry tree, and it was such a pleasure to hold her that I forgot everything. I forgot that I had no memory. none of her, none of me. well, that was not exactly true by then, because I remembered the situation that I had awakened in. I remember the things that I had seen before when, I saw my exquisite wife, other places I might have been in the maze, other directions I might have taken in another life.
I set my daughter down to rest and SAT upon the dappled grass. she looked at me so cherishingly that I wondered how all of this could be and not be in my memory. from where we Sat and played I could see down along other avenues stretching far and near away from me. and though they all contained pleasures very clearly, the pleasure I enjoyed in the moment and which I cherished so very dearly, held me fast and true. those other avenues, such as one leading to a jolly crew of lads playing water Polo in a shady pond, another to a dazzling juggler, still another to a pithy fairy making butterflies with her tiny magic wand. so mesmerized was I in the moment that I got into a groove. I didn't notice, if the sun was trying to set, it never set, it didn't move. and my daughter who drew the love from my spirit as a mountain spring might do the same, I'd never seen her face before and I didn't know her name.
I did not reflect then as I do now, where now I stand somewhere in the maze; I didn't knoW how, I wish I didn't know now, I prefer that earlier phase of the maze. then suddenly my daughter called out to me sweetly to run and fetch her puppy who had run away randomly, and her plea contained urgency. feeling needed by another is a measure of a quantity I know only as pleasure. and so for the first time another person chose my path instead of me. and the choice coming from another ignited an inquisitive reality. one which perhaps initiated this sort of poetry about my coming to be.
so I followed a puppy about like a lost puppy who scarcely knew where he wanted to go and who lumbered to and fro, so I did go along behind her too and lo, bro! the strength of the passion which drew me toward my wife and the strength of my desire which was the source of my life, began to dissipate when i pursued the puppy through Meadows and valleys unknown to me. it was then, during the infinite sunset that it dawned upon me, that making decisions, the chore i vehemently abhor, was missing without being missed, and like the clothes I wore blythely, and the tender necessity of chasing after a wayward puppy, and anything else likely to spawn derision, but especially the act of making a decision, was a shattered matter or the utter dissolution of any subject lacking obvious and immediate resolution. I found in that instant I was in a maze but absolutely free, and then even this idea evaporated in a gust from the sea.
when I approached my girl but glanced back and forth, the sunset behind my wife appeared in the north. I'm not the navigator I was in younger days, but I still know the compass rose notwithstanding mental disease. how could my precocious sun slide 90 degrees? as I recall that was the pivotal moment when I stood in bewilderment for a brief foment. I'm no adversary, no advocate of contrarian analysis, I remain accessible to all points of view even those I can't describe for you.
but having swept up the puppy in my arms I stood at a novel intersection in the pleasure maze and paused for a moment of reflection. there in a cozy corner laying between the quilts of her bed was my girl not yet asleep, waiting for me to arrive with her puppy, her constant companion, her soul to keep, with whom she forever will sleep. and i watched as she drifted away to her dreams and felt her mother's hands again on my shoulders which lifted me in a new direction toward which I flew without hesitation. I was not alone with gentle hands to guide me. I would never again travel alone, she would always stay beside me.
was I actually flying or was she, like an angel, carrying me? Neither of us had wings. But we drifted blythely to the next awaitings. our stepping stones were the Pacific breeze, which only tickled our feet, and we could already see who we were about to meet, a lot of little golden brown-skinned girls emerging from their hiding places behind the trees, dragging their little brothers and hauling sacks of books and fruit, and spreading out picnic mats in the shade of the trees. here was a grove very familiar and interesting, and I did not know where or who, and I did not know what to do. and my wife kissed my head and in her gentle voice soothingly said, "here are your students now remember to patient," and she went off to the market.
and all my kids gathered up around me and asked me to begin the lesson by singing songs, and they paid me with fruit and water from the spring because they had no money, and then it occurred to me that I had none to and so I was very happy to have the fruit. And we sang for an hour or perhaps 100, I had no concept of time, we might have sung a whole year long.
when we were all tired from singing and happy as could be, I asked them what they wanted to learn from me. for I had no idea what I could possibly teach them, since I had only one book, a dictionary, about everything and nothing, and hardly any memory.and then it struck me as only the maze would allow, that there was no time, that there was only now. no past no future, no memory no plans, nothing to think about except what at this moment I hold in my hands. the kids already knew this and lived accordingly, but they expected me to at least pretend to be the teacher I was supposed to be.
"forget it it I said, " which is easy for some one with no memory. "let's play games instead, till time for your dinner and bed. " but they looked concerned and replied that their parents were going to ask them what they had learned. so obligingly, I said repeat after me, "if A equals B and B equals C, then A big B will C only honey. and that should confuse your parents enough that they should believe you have learned some stuff." and they laughed and laughed for an hour and a half. or no time at all.
as we stood up to go home, the kids all went toward a circle of grass huts, and I watched them go knowing that I could not follow but curiously satisfied, and completely without any concept of tomorrow.
I may have mentioned before, and you may already know, that I have no experience of pain or sorrow. except what apparently is necessary, an abstraction obtained from the dictionary. and I can't help thinking that all of this was specifically designed especially for me. when my kids stood in the left something strange new happened in the maze. I had no idea what to do next. all I could do was stand and gaze.
the dictionary tells me what the word "sunset" means, but what it does not say is that it must happen and it must happen every day. and so my journey continued in this way.
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siem reap cambodia, March 2015
This section contains curious writing. It is intended for enjoyment and to make people feel a sense of deep confusion. I hope you will experience at least one of these.