The Ghost of Hamlet's Father
Jul. 6th, 2005 01:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalonI was only 12 years old when I learned who the ghost in the window was. On cold nights he would appear; a strangely familiar man crouching on the roof outside my window, peering in with mad eyes, wide with horror or pain. I would hide under the sheets petrified, clutching my poohbear tightly to my chest, my last and only line of defense. I could hear him tapping on the pane for me, he would demand I open the window to let him in. Some nights I could hear him calling my name over & over again, beckoning me to give in and flip the latch that would allow him in. "Rah-bert open up! It's me!". There were nights I was so scared I would wet my bed and lay in my own filth too frieghtend to move, waiting for the sun to come, which I knew dispeled him for some reason. I would never be the same again.
In the last 12 years 've picked up a few tricks in obtaining a transtemporal trance state. Naked in the mirror. Dragon Asana. A slice across my palm forms the pallete with which I have painted my blood sigil over the mirrors surface, directly covering my face like a mask. Three days fast. Fat hangs off the belly unfed. I've been staring at my reflection for the last three hours. I chant:
"This is me... that's me... This is me... that's me...." over and over again, triggering the necessary disassociation to let me out.. to let me in. The colors in the room are flickering, the lone white candle between me and the mirror starts flaring. Shadows become cave paintings but I can't stop and look at the pretty pictures. I'm outside and under a moonless sky. A sharp cold bathes my body, the mirror shimmers, it widens into a window. I maintain & quicken the chant:"This is me/That's me!"
Under the cave of my blankets and sheets. The smell of urine stinging my eyes. The tapping on the window getting quicker and quicker and louder too. Any second the glass will crack and shatter and it will be in. But then it suddenly stops. I wait. I don't know how long I wait but eventually I lift the corner from the sheets to sneak a quick peek. Outside the window there's nothing but the branches swaying in the wind and an empty rooftop. I can see across the street and somewhere out in VanCourtland park I can see the headlights flow off SawMill Parkway from here. Mom & Dad were right. Too much sugar & comicbooks before bed.
"Rah-bert!"
I spin around and there crouched at the end of the bed is the man from outside the window. I want to scream but i'm frozen. It has me now. It's too late to hide under the sheets. I manage to whimper.
My chant has taken on a life of it's own. My voice, hell my entire body, is on autopilot now and my consciousness is just in it for the ride. Blobs of sepia & ochre swirl around me, purple & light green dots strobe in front of me. The mirror is opening up now. I can hear a small animal whining, whimpering, the room around me is constricting, shifting into something oddly familiar. I think my name unable to stop the chant: "Robert... listen to me."
"lishun o E" the thing at the foot of bed says. It starts to crawl forward across the sheets. I try to move but am frozen. I try to close my eyes but I can't.
I can see a phosphorescent outline of a person, a girl or a child maybe. Seven circles are swirling with different colors. Smell of burnt hair, blue orgone and... urine. It's gotta be him. It's gotta be me. I only have this one chance to tell him.... please Rob listen to me....
10 Things I wish I could tell my 12-year-old self...
Carjacked from the lovelygirlsonfilm
1. Study man. Do better in school. Your a lot brighter than you think you are. Your just lazy and it will cost greatly in the next twenty years.
2.Don't quit with your art. You'll meet other people that paint & draw better than you and this causes you to give up. Just because your not the best does'nt mean its not worth doing. At the same time start writting now. You'll discover a new world of expression.
3. I know your lonely and everyone thinks your a borderline retard but hang in there. There are times when this will crush you but if you perservere you'll meet some of most wonderful & diverse people you'll ever hope to know.
4.It's not all comicbooks & action figures. Take your parents advise and read a book or two.
5.I can't say you get better looking kid, sorry, and this awkward nature of yours stays and will cost you many a party and a many a date. But for what it's worth you'll know the love of women so spectacular as to humble your wildest dreams. Your imagination is a weapon Robert and with it you can reinvent yourself anytime you want. You'll be funny and you'll be strong. You'll be clever and those that know you will never know anyone like you.
6. Yonkers is not the world.
7. Be patient with your folks. They're young and they've screwed some shit up but forgive them. Try to see how much they love you. Cherish your family. They won't be here forever.
8. The Navy will be scary at first. Be patient, be brave and when someone asks you to smuggle something on board tell them "NO!"
9. In ten years the women you love will ask you to move to Seattle with you. You turn her down because you don't want to leave your friends behind in Atlanta: Say 'Yes' damn it.
10. Your on your own! Do your best and when you fail try again and do better than that. I love you, it does'nt seem like it kid but all we have is each other in the end.
I open my eyes suddenly and leap back frieghtend by own reflection. My voice is dry and cracked from chanting and my legs gone to sleep. I clap:3-5-3 and put a lone finger to my lips. Seal it up and banish it back. I turn on the lights and slip on my boxers. I look around and see that nothings changed. My first instinct is that I failed. I'm still me. Trapped in my own mediocrity. I have only one hope. Maybe it worked but just not in this universe. I remember reading about John Wheeler, the quantum physicist who coined the term 'Black Hole'. He said something about the past being mutable. I select the book i'm thinking of off the shelf:
....to quote noted physicist John Wheeler “Useful as it is under everyday circumstances to say that the world exists ‘out there,’ independent of us, that view can no longer be upheld. There is a strange sense in which this is a participatory universe.”. In a variation of the classic “two-slit experiment,” which is the cornerstone of quantum physics, Wheeler has demonstrated in the “delayed choice experiment” that not only does our act of observation in this present moment effect the way the universe manifests in this present moment, but that the act of observation in this present moment actually has an effect on the past."*
Heh. Schroedinger's cat is alive & dead at the same time. Exsistence splits, branches off, one slight shift in the factors and ... who knows. Maybe I could'nt change my past, but I could change his. Somewhere outthere in a parallel universe I heard the words the ghost in the window spoke. Somewhere out there I made the right choices.
Morning comes. Dad knocks on the door to wake me up for school. He finds me in the corner of the bed, curled up and clutching Poohbear.
"Robby what's wrong" He says racing over to me.
"I'm fine... jes a bad dream."
"Well alright then. Get dressed and you can tell me about it over breakfast Ok?"
I nod and when he leaves the room. I get dressed. I know who the ghost in the window is. It's me. Something goes wrong in the future, in my life. In the corner of the room is my math text book. I have'nt opened it in a month. I unpack the comic books out of my bookback and slip it in.
"I'm on my own..." I remind myself. Dad's calling me from downstairs. I nod to myself and race down the stairs. I've been given something better than a second chance. I've been given a new start. I won't waste it.
*From 'Quantum Physics Looks At The 2004 Election'
by Paul Levy
In the last 12 years 've picked up a few tricks in obtaining a transtemporal trance state. Naked in the mirror. Dragon Asana. A slice across my palm forms the pallete with which I have painted my blood sigil over the mirrors surface, directly covering my face like a mask. Three days fast. Fat hangs off the belly unfed. I've been staring at my reflection for the last three hours. I chant:
"This is me... that's me... This is me... that's me...." over and over again, triggering the necessary disassociation to let me out.. to let me in. The colors in the room are flickering, the lone white candle between me and the mirror starts flaring. Shadows become cave paintings but I can't stop and look at the pretty pictures. I'm outside and under a moonless sky. A sharp cold bathes my body, the mirror shimmers, it widens into a window. I maintain & quicken the chant:"This is me/That's me!"
Under the cave of my blankets and sheets. The smell of urine stinging my eyes. The tapping on the window getting quicker and quicker and louder too. Any second the glass will crack and shatter and it will be in. But then it suddenly stops. I wait. I don't know how long I wait but eventually I lift the corner from the sheets to sneak a quick peek. Outside the window there's nothing but the branches swaying in the wind and an empty rooftop. I can see across the street and somewhere out in VanCourtland park I can see the headlights flow off SawMill Parkway from here. Mom & Dad were right. Too much sugar & comicbooks before bed.
"Rah-bert!"
I spin around and there crouched at the end of the bed is the man from outside the window. I want to scream but i'm frozen. It has me now. It's too late to hide under the sheets. I manage to whimper.
My chant has taken on a life of it's own. My voice, hell my entire body, is on autopilot now and my consciousness is just in it for the ride. Blobs of sepia & ochre swirl around me, purple & light green dots strobe in front of me. The mirror is opening up now. I can hear a small animal whining, whimpering, the room around me is constricting, shifting into something oddly familiar. I think my name unable to stop the chant: "Robert... listen to me."
"lishun o E" the thing at the foot of bed says. It starts to crawl forward across the sheets. I try to move but am frozen. I try to close my eyes but I can't.
I can see a phosphorescent outline of a person, a girl or a child maybe. Seven circles are swirling with different colors. Smell of burnt hair, blue orgone and... urine. It's gotta be him. It's gotta be me. I only have this one chance to tell him.... please Rob listen to me....
10 Things I wish I could tell my 12-year-old self...
Carjacked from the lovely
girlsonfilm1. Study man. Do better in school. Your a lot brighter than you think you are. Your just lazy and it will cost greatly in the next twenty years.
2.Don't quit with your art. You'll meet other people that paint & draw better than you and this causes you to give up. Just because your not the best does'nt mean its not worth doing. At the same time start writting now. You'll discover a new world of expression.
3. I know your lonely and everyone thinks your a borderline retard but hang in there. There are times when this will crush you but if you perservere you'll meet some of most wonderful & diverse people you'll ever hope to know.
4.It's not all comicbooks & action figures. Take your parents advise and read a book or two.
5.I can't say you get better looking kid, sorry, and this awkward nature of yours stays and will cost you many a party and a many a date. But for what it's worth you'll know the love of women so spectacular as to humble your wildest dreams. Your imagination is a weapon Robert and with it you can reinvent yourself anytime you want. You'll be funny and you'll be strong. You'll be clever and those that know you will never know anyone like you.
6. Yonkers is not the world.
7. Be patient with your folks. They're young and they've screwed some shit up but forgive them. Try to see how much they love you. Cherish your family. They won't be here forever.
8. The Navy will be scary at first. Be patient, be brave and when someone asks you to smuggle something on board tell them "NO!"
9. In ten years the women you love will ask you to move to Seattle with you. You turn her down because you don't want to leave your friends behind in Atlanta: Say 'Yes' damn it.
10. Your on your own! Do your best and when you fail try again and do better than that. I love you, it does'nt seem like it kid but all we have is each other in the end.
I open my eyes suddenly and leap back frieghtend by own reflection. My voice is dry and cracked from chanting and my legs gone to sleep. I clap:3-5-3 and put a lone finger to my lips. Seal it up and banish it back. I turn on the lights and slip on my boxers. I look around and see that nothings changed. My first instinct is that I failed. I'm still me. Trapped in my own mediocrity. I have only one hope. Maybe it worked but just not in this universe. I remember reading about John Wheeler, the quantum physicist who coined the term 'Black Hole'. He said something about the past being mutable. I select the book i'm thinking of off the shelf:
....to quote noted physicist John Wheeler “Useful as it is under everyday circumstances to say that the world exists ‘out there,’ independent of us, that view can no longer be upheld. There is a strange sense in which this is a participatory universe.”. In a variation of the classic “two-slit experiment,” which is the cornerstone of quantum physics, Wheeler has demonstrated in the “delayed choice experiment” that not only does our act of observation in this present moment effect the way the universe manifests in this present moment, but that the act of observation in this present moment actually has an effect on the past."*
Heh. Schroedinger's cat is alive & dead at the same time. Exsistence splits, branches off, one slight shift in the factors and ... who knows. Maybe I could'nt change my past, but I could change his. Somewhere outthere in a parallel universe I heard the words the ghost in the window spoke. Somewhere out there I made the right choices.
Morning comes. Dad knocks on the door to wake me up for school. He finds me in the corner of the bed, curled up and clutching Poohbear.
"Robby what's wrong" He says racing over to me.
"I'm fine... jes a bad dream."
"Well alright then. Get dressed and you can tell me about it over breakfast Ok?"
I nod and when he leaves the room. I get dressed. I know who the ghost in the window is. It's me. Something goes wrong in the future, in my life. In the corner of the room is my math text book. I have'nt opened it in a month. I unpack the comic books out of my bookback and slip it in.
"I'm on my own..." I remind myself. Dad's calling me from downstairs. I nod to myself and race down the stairs. I've been given something better than a second chance. I've been given a new start. I won't waste it.
*From 'Quantum Physics Looks At The 2004 Election'
by Paul Levy