By Prospero Dae
He killed his mother. Then, as an afterthought, he killed his father.
He once read about the banality of evil, but you know how it is—you read stuff.
He holed up in an abandoned church complex, but was tracked down. He killed a cop and wounded another.
In prison he was interviewed by a greenhorn—so young. Her narcotic perfume assaulted him like a savage beating, the type he used to get when his eyes puffed up with blood.
A day later a colorless clarity came upon him, and by hanging himself he rounded his little life with a sleep.
I love this kind of writing; it says so much for what it doesn’t state, like a poem, and in perfectly ordinary declarative sentences. No strained metaphors or purple over-wrought description, but instead, meta-metaphor….”colorless clarity” is an example; it zings back and forth between abstract and sensual. In a small space we have murder, religious sanctuary, cop-killing, insufferable interrogation, hints of psychological cause and effect, inspiration to funereality by maybe a floral smell, and, the cherry on top, Shakespeare! (whose eyes are also pearls by now, I think). It’s simply magic!
I have nothing to say, as you have said so much.
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Regarding the last line: I think Shakespeare had in mind another theater. But the senseless killings are theater, just not the same kind. But eternal sleep, whether after good deeds or bad, is the still eternal sleep. Isn’t it?
I love this kind of writing too. I’d say more but Cynthia has said it all and far better than I could have. Nice work Prospero.
Thank you, Luis.
I guess when he rounded his little life with a sleep he was in fact killing time…
Yes, that’s exactly what I meant. You know me, always vacuously funny.
You certainly have a knack for turning the macabre into funny, Prospero. I can’t say I’m sorry he’s gone to sleep and I don’t think he’ll be having any dreams, sweet or otherwise. It’s amazing what a bit of ‘colorless clarity’ can do for a man (or woman). All’s Well That Ends Well, perhaps – from my perspective, at any rate.
This scenario is all too common: a desperate gunman enters a school or place of worship and guns people down before turning the gun on himself.