Michael Scott Hand

Category: Mondays

• 18012021

  Posted at 8:08 am by Michael, on January 18, 2021

  The sun rises in the East and sets in the West.

  Yet we all know–though we don’t think about it much–that each setting is another rising and each rising a setting and so on and so on and so on.

  For a time we linger in the Twilight, a period of diffuse shadows that lengthen like yawning jaws.

  Then it is night. Then it is day again.

  What an absurd notion is this little spinning rock? What an absurd notion is this diurnal cycle?

  Plants inhale the light and, at night, we may hear their breathy exhalations. Stars twinkle, briefly, but they are always there. But they are not there any more.

  Stars are like old photographs, already fading. Grab a star down from the sky, wedge it in an album. Keep it safe. But in the end even the photographs in an album will fade.

  Sunlight. Star bright. The moon stares down at us and yet it does not see–for the moon has only craters where it’s eyes are supposed to be.

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• 11012021

  Posted at 8:06 am by Michael, on January 11, 2021

  A man shouts and nobody hears him, so he raises his voice; a bird alights from a tree in a distant forest and the trees rustle and sway.

  A tree rustles and sways and nobody hears it, for a tree cannot raise its voice; a fireman in a distant city attaches a hose to a hydrant and releases the valve.

  A fireman sprays the crowd with water, heavy droplets splatter on the asphalt; adults and children jump and laugh through the spray.

  Adults and children jump and laugh through the spray, for it is a reprieve from the heat; in a distant desert a scorpion burrows into the sand.

  A scorpion burrows into the sand and it makes no sound that we can hear; in a distant ocean a whale sings and we don’t know what it means.

  In a distant ocean a whale sings and they hear it in their submarines; in a distant office somebody reads a print-out about unrelated things.

  As someone reads a print-out about unrelated things, a telephone rings; in a distant jungle monkeys chew on fruit and throw fruit at one another.

  In a distant jungle, the seeds from thrown fruit fall to become trees; in distant space planets orbit around stars because of gravity.

  In the past, a man watches on a telescope; his name is Galileo Galilei.

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• 04012021

  Posted at 7:42 am by Michael, on January 4, 2021

  A waterfall pours into a still pool.

  Everything that is contained within the water–all minerals and bubbles and dirt particles; all hopes and wishes and dreams; all discarded pennies; all that is upstream–falls with the water.

  It plunges in dagger-like droplets. It crackles with the living everything-ness of white noise. It clings and breaks and shatters and reforms in swirls and eddies, it is separate and it is one–like the atom and the nucleus.

  It is a never-ending sentence without punctuation. There are no commas to disrupt the flow. The cascade is eternal and it pours and foams. It collects all things whereupon they are brought together and dashed against the pool at the base of the falls; a carcass, a blade of grass, a stick.

  A child’s toy, an old newspaper, a new newspaper, a mobile phone, a child’s toy, a foil crisps packet, a plastic bottle, a carcass, a blade of grass, a child’s toy, a stick. A stick, a wish, a dream, a hope, a penny, an old newspaper, a carcass, a glass bottle, a memory. A pair of pants, a child’s toy, a stick, a stick, a bone, a carcass, a feather. A feather, a new newspaper, the pit of a fruit, a foil crisps packet, a dream.

  Stop.

  Now we will do something special. See how time has frozen and the water no longer falls. See how the static is hushed. There is no movement unless you move, there is no sound unless you speak. The water falls. The water falls. The waterfalls.

  But today, we defy gravity.

  Today… the water rises.

  Water spouts out of a still pool.

  Everything that is contained within the water–all minerals and bubbles and dirt particles; all hopes and wishes and dreams; all discarded pennies; all that is downstream–rises with the water.

  It ascends in dagger-like droplets. It crackles with the living everything-ness of white noise. It clings and breaks and shatters and reforms in swirls and eddies, it is separate and it is one–like the atom and the nucleus.

  Punctuation without sentence never-ending a is it. Foams and pours it and eternal is cascade the. Stick a, grass of blade a, carcass a; falls the of base the at pool the against dashed and together brought are they whereupon things all collects it.

  A dream, a child’s toy, a newspaper. Watch as all things rise on this column of water, surging on the column of time. Watch as all things lost are returned. Hear the roar of the reverse cascade, indistinguishable from the roar of the fall.

  Behold, for I have shown you the cosmic wellspring of creation.

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• 28122020

  Posted at 7:49 am by Michael, on December 28, 2020

  Betwixt, between I drift and lean.

  Betwixt, between the sheets I dream.

  Betwixt, between the years I’ve seen…

  The year is stretched, it’s almost over, but like the tortoise inching closer to the finish line it still feels so far away. If the hare and the tortoise raced to a rainbow, neither of them would win. And if they ran for long enough they’d end up where they begin (begun).

  So we begin to run towards the next year. January 1st. January 1st. Sheets fly off an imaginary calendar. Boxes marked with red Xs. Where did this year go?

  Where did this year go? We’ll wake up soon and it will all be over. Like a fever dream that tangles us, sweat-dripping, between the sheets. But what’s in a year? A clock ticks and December becomes January, transfigured. A day becomes another day. Yet in the West it’s still last year a while longer.

  A while longer. So we wait and we hope that as each year ends we pass through some mystical barrier that separates us from the past, like a car wash, scrubbing us clean, suds in our eyes so we can’t see.

  And yet the past remains, like a blight (or bite), infected and coursing through the veins of time. Time surges downhill like a mudslide after a flood. The water is dirty and filled with rocks and snakes. Here now, give me your hand, I’ll help you up and we can both stand here on the tin roof of a rickety shed and wave our hands and scream at the rescue helicopter.

  On its side the helicopter says the word NEWS and they are not here to help, they’re only here to watch as the water surges past us and the village is washed away.

  And, eventually, perhaps the water will recede and only then will we see the true damage that was wrought. Beneath that dirty water lay the remnants of what was and, perhaps, what will be again. Among the ruins there are still sharp rocks and even sharper snakes.

  With bare feet and wet clothes and the weight of a village on our shoulders we pad through empty streets as the sun rises. A new day. A new year. Somebody hands us a broom and asks us to help them sweep the mess away.

  And so, we sweep.

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• 21122020

  Posted at 7:21 am by Michael, on December 21, 2020

  The red bauble hangs from the tree branch. We can see a young family in the reflection of the bauble; a family inverted and flickering. The bauble catches the light from a nearby fire, crackling in the hearth. The family are shadows sitting down together between the fire and the tree.

  The girl unwraps a present and clutches it excitedly to her chest–it is exactly what she asked for. The boy plays with his wooden car, rolling it back and forth upon the rug. Mother and father laugh as they exchange gifts with each other.

  The camera pans away from the tree. No longer are the family a mere reflection in flame, but solid colour. Warmth floods the room: warm tones, warm feelings. Discarded wrapping paper litters the floor. Reflective surfaces–drinking glasses, seeing glasses, eyes–catch the light of the flame.

  Still further away and we are standing outside. Something could touches us. It is a snowflake. They are striking the window of this cabin where it is forever Christmas and they are melting against the glass. Outside, standing in the snow, a man in heavy black boots is watching them. His clothes are all red, except for his sleeves with are edged with thick, white wool. He has a thick and a moustache and eyes that twinkle as he watches the family. He smiles.

  The camera pans back further and everything is lost in the snow. There is the sound of jingling bells. A sudden flash of light. Bulbs hum as they are switched on, blazing through the snow. The sign reads: Merry Christmas.

  It is an advertisement.

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• 14122020

  Posted at 8:08 am by Michael, on December 14, 2020

  I fade.

  Edaf I. Shot of coffee brings me back. Through countless millennia the mind races and that whoosh is the sound of time. Who will I be? Who will I be?

  The answer, of course, is: me. Yet still I fade.

  There is no cause for alarm. I cross the room and adjust an aerial. I come into focus. I try to pick something up but my hand passes through it; I am not here, this is a memory.

  Whoosh again. I am here now. I am sat before a scream and I am typing. The scream was blank but I fill it with words. I give voice and volume to the scream before I loose it across the horizon.

  Nobody will call the police. It’s not that they are used to people screaming, but they’re used to not caring. They’re used to shunting thoughts into that part of the brain that tells them it has nothing to do with them. It is right alongside damn fool, kids and what-was-that-I-thought-I-heard-something-but-now-it’s-quiet-it-must-have-been-my-imagination.

  But it’s nothing, of course. It wasn’t even a real scream. I just made it up with words. I doubt the neighbours even heard it. Originally it was supposed to be the word “screen”. It was a typo. A misfire of neurons.

  I fade.

  Edaf I. In and out of reality I step; between rooms of memory and illusion. And then I am Here Again and I am typing as I try to convey these sensations: words on a scream.

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• 07122020

  Posted at 9:34 am by Michael, on December 7, 2020

  A thin line of light appears on the horizon. It reaches halfway up the sky. It is like the light that seeps through the edge of a door not set flush with the doorway. It is like some celestial mistake; off by millimetres.

  Everyone can see it. A man stands in the Outback looking for gold and he finds it, not beneath his feet but in the sky. Workers on a freight vessel crowd along the railings, pointing and shouting; and even the dolphins see it where they surge ahead before the ship. People in cities see it, except for when their view is obscured by a billboard or a sky-scraper. Poor people see it; rich people see it. What is it?

  It is a thin line of light upon the horizon. Like a crack in the sky except it is perfectly straight. Like a perfectly straight crack in the sky, like a seam. And the citizens evaluate it. Some say it is aliens, others say it is God. People on different sides of the planet compare photographs and try to triangulate its position.

  It is moving, they say, there is more than one beam of light, the say. There is not; but we will let them hold onto this comforting belief a while longer.

  It is not visible from space, they say. It is caused by a particular type of particle they say. An as-yet-undiscovered cloud of somethings in the upper atmosphere. It is a refraction of the light of the sun. It is like a rainbow. It is nothing that we understand, but we will. We’ve got our best men (and some women too) devoted to figuring it out.

  One country thinks they’ve found it and they send fighter jets that spiral into the ocean. What was the last thing they saw as they approached that beam of light in the sky? Nothing. Suddenly: it was behind them. They send research boats into the ocean. They perform all types of radio-spectroscopy. They align aerials and antennae and point them at the thing.

  It gives off no readings and no radiation. They cannot reach it. They cannot hear it. But they can see it and worse–so can Everyone. And Everyone wants answers. What is the light in the sky? Where did it come from? The sky is falling, some believe. This is only the first crack: soon there will be others.

  A church begins to worship the line. A mad man leads the church and makes up almost everything he says. The line is the face of God, he tells his worshippers. The line is a sign. That part, at least, he is correct about.

  And then? There is some international incident. A bomb goes off. There is an election. Another election. A political controversy. There is riots on the streets and the entire time the line is visible upon the horizon; but they are not fighting about the line, they have–in this moment–forgotten it.

  And so too does the rest of the world become accustomed to just having it there. Another thing we are yet to understand. It is just like a rainbow, they decide. And we all listen because it’s the closest thing we have to an explanation that makes sense. Sometimes there is a news story about it, but they become oddities and jokes.

  Human history continues to unfold, with that mysterious line on the horizon. People shop, people fight, the Church of the Line fractures and three others spring up, each more obscure in their beliefs than the first. They do not receive so many new members any more. The line, it seems, has lost its allure.

  And yet, the line remains.

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• 30112020

  Posted at 9:05 am by Michael, on November 30, 2020

  Once I was finished, I put the pen-scribbled pages away. I arranged my pens in a cracked mug that I don’t want to throw away. I collected up the cables that seemed to have bred around my computer like snakes.

  Clean space.

  I pushed things back and forth and placed loose objects in boxes and loose boxes in yet larger boxes. I pushed the boxes flush against one another, or stacked them where needs be. I dusted and I polished everything until it gleamed.

  Clean place.

  I placed a mascot on one side of me and a God upon the other. The faces of necessity watching over me. But otherwise this place is clean, the space is clean just like tabula rasa.

  Clean grace.

  In the death throes of its freedom an old project slips away from me. But henceforth I am unchained without needing a lobotomy. And the blankness is appealing, in its way.

  I think… I’ll stay. I’m sure I’ll find a way to fill more pages with the things I have to say. And as shadows shrink away from me I’m content in my own way.

  But there is no place that’s truly clean: except where astronauts float between the stars. My thoughts like liquid filtered through a cheesecloth into old, repurposed jars.

  Already things encroach upon this space: a phone, sunglasses, a steaming cup of joe. And already things encroach upon my mind: string-puppets lurch and dance as they perform an old, familiar show. And as the earth turns round the sun, those shrunken shadows loom and grow.

  The cursor blinks: the blank page is a garden waiting for the seeds I’m yet to sow.

  And so, this is a beginning–not the first and not the last. A beginning captured through a pane of deeply-polished glass. So brilliant is the window that you yet can’t see inside.

  Instead, you see your own face staring back at you and from yourself you cannot hide. Believe me… I have tried. The oceans ebb and flow with the tears that I have cried.

  A fish inhales molecules rejected by my eyes. And upon a distant ocean a sea-captain surveys the skies. What day is this? What ocean? What fish?

  A hope, a wish, a spinning reel. When the machine announces JACKPOT tell me then: how will you feel?

  Is this about you, or me, or the fish? I cannot tell.

  Oh well.

  A well: a bucket on a rope descends into the darkness. For the bucket life is nothing more than un-ending katabasis. But each time it is dragged up familiar reflections yet return, a face upon the water. Is it mine, or is it yours?

  No matter; the water from the bucket feeds the garden and the seeds that we have sown.

  Let’s return to this place later to see what plants have grown.

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• 23112020

  Posted at 7:41 am by Michael, on November 23, 2020

  It’s all about perspective.

  Consider: a cookie jar left unattended on top of a bench. A stool is dragged over. A small figure climbs atop it and reaches for the jar. They grapple with the lid, they open the lid, they steal a cookie.

  Hurrah for the child who stole the cookie, we might say. Hurrah.

  But to the parent who enters the room to behold their eldest teetering precipitously on the edge of a stool and reaching for a cookie–a cookie–the situation may appear different.

  It’s all about perspective.

  Snatch the cookie and run, little one. And of course that’s what happens. Dextrous as a monkey the child steals the cookie, leaps away before the stool falls and scampers away from the yelling parent.

  Hurrah, we say. Hurrah. Nobody was hurt and a cookie was obtained.

  But what if the cookie jar had fallen? Shattered glass and crumbled biscuits. Now there is no cookies for anyone.

  It’s all about perspective.

  What if the child had fallen? A sob, an embrace a lesson learned?

  What if the child had fallen badly? A young bone snaps. The parent does not just see it happen but they hear it. Now we’re in a horror. The parent bundles up the wailing child and takes them to the hospital; the cookie jar is forgotten.

  It’s all about perspective.

  When the child who stole the cookie sits outside to eat it and sneers at the kid next door who doesn’t get to eat cookies much. Villain! We cry. Oh, villainous child.

  But what if the cookie was shared? Broken into two at least roughly equal pieces and eaten together in secret? What a bond these children have, we’d say. What purity of spirit.

  It’s all about perspective.

  An ant navigates a maze of broken glass and cookie crumbs; a parent enters into a room; a kitchen stool teeters against gravity, frozen suddenly in time and used as an example in a physics textbook.

  The students mull it over: how heavy is the child? How heavy is the stool? What level of surface tension does the linoleum provide? The cookie jar is forgotten. The cookie jar is not important. Is the cookie jar important?

  It’s all about perspective.

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• 16112020

  Posted at 8:37 am by Michael, on November 16, 2020

  He seeks allegory in every twisting shape and form. A ballerina becomes a tightrope walker; a tightrope walker becomes a dark silhouette against the circus lights; a dark silhouette becomes a gigantic shadow on the wall of the circus tent.

  He can smell popcorn and sawdust and melting ice-cream. He can smell manure. He can smell the terror that the crowd feels as they watch the ballerina on the rope: will she fall?

  Terror and popcorn and melted ice-cream and a net that doesn’t look strong enough to catch a person but probably is. Probably.

  Steadily she crosses, her sequins sparkle. She is hope and she is finely balanced on a rope stretched taught. And the crowd below eat popcorn. They eat popcorn and hope she doesn’t fall. Maybe, somewhere in the crowd, there is a person who hopes that she does.

  One foot slips off the string and it vibrates. The tent gasps, collectively. A kernel of popcorn gets stuck in somebody’s throat.

  Heimlich, Heimlich. The popcorn is dislodged and the ballerina does not fall. Perhaps, we ponder, it was all part of the show. She smiles and the entire crowd can see it. They smile back because she is safe.

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