THIRSTY
Jumping is the natural condition in which all things exist. Days jumping over days, hours jumping over hours, seconds jumping in front of one another, only to jump over the next second. Things jumping over things, events jumping over events, people jumping over people trying to outjump one another, people competing with things in jumping, people jumping over things, things jumping over people, things jumping over themselves, people jumping over nothingness, nothingness jumping over people. Just the way of things . . .
- Welcome to the challenging center of my head. Its circumference is a bit confining, but I hope you'll find it comfortable. It is a place which I dream about, it's a place where I reside, it is my home, it is my church, it is my temple. It is your responsibility to care for it in such a way that would make me pleased, and make me feel as though I'd done the job myself. It is a solemn room, yet it is inspiring, for it is there that my thoughts originate.
- So, can I bring drinks?
- As long as you don't spill them, for the fabric that lines the walls is sacred.
- But isn't our life itself a spilling of a disgusting pitiful material upon the surfaces of the soul of this Universe?
- Perhaps even worse than that would be the stain created by the spill. The spill still moves, although its progression is undesirable, whereas a stain is forever.
- How do you know that it is the spill that created the stain, and not the other way around? Isn't it equally easy to imagine an enormous stain creating a spill, a spill of the matter that originally formed the stain through an act of divine will, as a joke of some supernatural forces that are so tired of their major Universal games, that the small game of staining and spilling is entertaining to them for a short instant. So, the stain bursts off the surface it was on, and creates a fat, hideous acidic spill that devours all in its flow . . .
- Maybe both are controlled by nothing but themselves, and in a hedonistic manner work together to achieve the orgasmic sensation of their own creation. Maybe it's the most supreme form of brotherhood, the understanding of each other's desire to exist, and so to meld together . . .
- Couldn't it be that the very instant of the spill touching the surface, forming the stain, is the instant of Creation of the Universe? Because that's when it all starts: the Universe of the stain is about to commence developing, the Universe of the spill is transforming its essence into the stain, the stain acquires life. Welcome!
- If you define the words "stain" and "spill" in the strictest of manners, one would then begin to see that everything is a spill, and everything is a stain, for it is the quality of the image that makes it striking. Its colors are spilled onto its beholder and stained by some cosmic force. Even the Universe, in its eternal darkness, is just a stain, like a canvass, waiting to be spilled on.
- So, can I bring drinks?
- Yes.
- So, what kind of drinks.
- A drink that would leave you clear of mind, that would stabilize you in such a way as to originate from the right spot and to continue onward, until it reaches its own destination, and transmits its thoughts.
- Onwards and backwards . . . Is there any difference between the two?
- Not at all, because they both meet and trade places. Onward becomes backward, backward becomes onward. And then they do it again, and then they do it again, until they've been each other so many times, that they lose the concept of their own being; and onward and backward becomes forever.
- Forever . . . Is there any difference between an instant and forever?
- No. An instant is forever, because forever is always happening, each instant is forever, if only for an instant.
- The instant of the forever is the forever of an instant.
- Or almost forever.
- Or a little more than an instant.
- Slightly.
- Just a little bit. Or a little less than forever?
- More or less.
- More less than more.
- Certainly.
- So, can I bring drinks?
- What kind of drink would you like?
- The kind of drink that would let your imagination go astray; to make it leave your body, travel around the town, walk the streets, enter the stores, talk to people, insinuate unusual occurrences, play with people's minds, and then finally get tired and return into your body.
- So, can I bring drinks?
- What kind of drinks?
- The kind of drinks that coat your soul in such a manner as to protect its very fragile structure, absorbing all of the obstructions on its path, consuming it as one would consume a drink.
- What kind of drink?
- Anything you want.
- I'd like the kind of drink that would contain the poison of the illusion of understanding between people, the poison to which we resort in our suicidal hour, when we rely on it as an imaginary cure.
- So where would you like to visit today?
- I want to visit the challenging center of your head. Can I bring drinks?
- You could bring drinks, as long as you bring one for me.
- What kind of drink would you like?
- The kind of drink that nobody's ever tasted before, the one that if anyone had their choice, they would avoid, thus making the drink so unique as to make me the only person who has ever tried the substance.
- So, can I bring drinks?
- How are you going to get there?
- I'll bring drinks. Can I bring drinks?
- On what day do you wish to arrive?
- Yesterday?
- I have to see what's going on yesterday.
- Do you have any plans for yesterday?
- Usually I have a tight schedule. Yesterday is always my busiest day. I get the most work done yesterday. So . . .
- So, what are you planning to do yesterday?
- I'm going to spend this money yesterday. (Produces several bank notes.) I have to purchase some things. But I imagine, before that you could come buy.
- I'm not quite sure yet what I'm doing yesterday, but I think I'll probably be able to . . .
- Well, if it helps, what are you doing the day before yesterday, or even last week sometime?
- That could be better, you know . . .
- I would do my best to accommodate you in setting up some type of schedule.
- So, what do you say about last Wednesday?
- I don't think I'm busy last Wednesday.
- I'm not doing anything either.
- What time would you like to arrive?
- Well, what time is the challenging center of your head open?
- On last Wednesday, I believe, it opens ten minutes before it shuts, and then, I understand, it will open again fifteen minutes later.
- Okay. As a matter of fact, last year do you want to go for a trip?
- Well, I have time off last May 14th to May 28th. You know, unfortunately, I've been so busy next year, that I can't afford to take so much time off, but I'll set aside those two weeks last May. Where would you like to go? I understand, Winnipeg is beautiful . . . Or Surinam?
- Okay, let's go to Pompeii, and the year before we'll go to Atlantis.
- I think I would enjoy that.
- Anyway, do you want to know what happened to me tomorrow?
- Yes.
- Tomorrow was a really shitty day for me.
- What happened?
- Oh, Jesus . . . I was thinking about the day after tomorrow, when I met this woman that tomorrow I was thinking about all day, you know . . . And I don't know if yesterday I'll be thinking the same way.
- Did I tell you that next week I quit my job?
- Oh, really?
- Yeah, but I start another one three weeks ago. In fact, I got the call about the job . . . maybe . . . next week. I think it was next week. Six days from now. So, I was excited.
- The excitement of next week . . . I know this excitement. My next week was pretty good too.
- It was warm. Made it really nice. I understand it's going to get warm three days ago, and the sun will come out.
- So, can I bring drinks?
- What kind of drinks would you like?
- The kind of drinks that make you forget things that you don't know yet, and finally remember things that you've always known; to imagine things that everybody else has always imagined, and that no one could ever imagine themselves being able to imagine. And also I would like to subscribe to all the magazines that examine the matters, which occur in the challenging center of your head. Anyway, can I bring drinks?
- Yes.
Improvised and videotaped: Summer 1995.
