BY LEWIS GRANT
Note: This is built as a homage to the passage that made me fall in love with Hunter when I was in high-school, and led me going to University to study him. Those words about the watermark of a generation still ring true today; and I will keep them close as we come to a head with this viral menace. (editor’s note: Thank you Lewis Grant!)
Strange memories howl at you on these nervous days and nights. More than a year has passed since that menace revealed his iodine eyes and shape to us. Once In a lifetime our world is stolen by some damn devil; and it circles patiently likeahyena, gnawing on misfortune, waiting for you to lower your guard.
Life during lock-down seems strange and wrong, like a record played too fast or too slow, not in sync with what the musicians of life had meant. Dancing is out of the question, and you’d be a fool to try. Our days were filled with generous chances to play our tune, and sing our songs through the wonderful percussion of life. Now, life is some birdcage, and we are flightless and without song; andall we can do is hum to ourselves those half-familiar tunes long forgotten, melodies that seem out of place in a world of mute men and worried women.
But I say to hell with it!
Damned dismal devils be warned, we will dance in protest! Heave yourself to bars of the cage, those men in suits and in white walls of white houses placed around you. It’s not the bird song, nor the hymn, but the sound of nature that lays out the morning. Don’t be the mockingbird, take out your own melody; be like a peacock and dazzle with radiance and call out with strange unyielding energy that makes your family say Jesus Christ! and leap from their chairs.
If history has taught us anything, it’s that tough times break us, but it’s those impossible fractures in our glass hearts that spill out the light. We can’t know the future; like light on the surface of an emerald pool it twinkles radiantly like the eye of a madman, spilling out between your fingers when you grab it. So don’t go to meet it on the highway set out by others – instead unzip the spine of the countryside with the wheels of your ambitions.
Be loud! Be sure! Stare at the red ink that viral menace is waving in your face- the blood and the heart-ache and the crude crimson craze he’s waving at you, nothing more than a sheet waved to distract you from his stalky charcoal frame. You can demolish that bastard with one punch. But like a matador, kicking dust and waving blood and terror, the red that steals your gaze is there to distract you- and we are the bulls.
I’m not one to profess optimism, but wear those rose-tinted glasses. Behind Shades and shifting hues of a crazy rose-tinted world, the taunting red tapestry will just seem black and white. This will pass. And when it does, we will triumph.
So what should we do?
Go to bars. Drink your whiskey, wines, and listen to wise old men. Steal time from the lock-down clocks. Hum the blues on the bluest days, and listen to jazz in the sun. Watch golden glitters on your ice, and in the lakes, before you drink and before you dive. Demand nothing of yourself, and then deliver more. Alife lived full during a half-life is a life lived twice over – and you’ll beat him that way. Spoil your skin with sand and soil and peel flakes off in the basin until your wrists are cold, then place your hands against your scarlet cheeks and feel the heat of your being, and cry out ‘my body is warm, and you are a coward! You will not win!’
Because the truth is, he can’t. Beyond the news and woeful writings, he’s nothing more than a sinister shadow. He has no way to live without us, and like Icarus is doomed to plummet down to oblivion with those wacky wings sculpted off the backs of our good times.
Life before lock-down was special; but it was not final. Those sparks we made and embers we showered in the care-free breeze exploded into something else- a smouldering fire that’ll burn brighter after the darkness lifts. Hell it’s tough. But
what sort of animal would we be to give up and bear ourselves to the sun surrender?
It’s always been like this. Even before this viral menace. For as long as we can remember, we have looked to colour our lives with those around us. Human Beings are made to love, to touch, to feel and engage and pour out their hearts ina kaleidoscope of feeling, to paint the lives of others in such brilliant hues that we forget who we are and what we want, but instead try to wash our fellow men with kindness and care.
The true menace is the way in which we must retreat, to not feel touch, to not feel love. Grief and loneliness cling on like some hell hot piranha with only speedin its system, and the unnerving urge to chew flesh in its mind. Now More than ever we need to add colour to others. Pick up the phone. Talk to your neighbours- no matter how much of an ass he is.
Life is not the flower, nor the stalk, but the petals that give colour. Impossibly Small moments that make you wonder how it is you can feel so much, insuchlittle stolen time.
You see, evil is always there, lurking in the hearts of men and nature; yet just a breeze is hidden until it strikes, so are the dark times. Only once the wind stirs a tree branch, or evil touches the world, do we realise it was there all along and by then it’s too late; yet screaming into the storm is not the answer. The damned thing will drown out your voice. And it is not enough to simply ignore the winds of evil, and raise our sails. Turn your back on it, and it will rumble through your window late at night, I promise. We must dress for the storm.
Brave the winds of evil, that blustery Basilisk. Let the storm push you to action. Learn to use the winds to your advantage. When that inevitable evil strikes the world and turns itself loose like a black-hole to swallow the stars, do more than complain. Accept its part in the world. Make it anger you, to inspire you to push good deeds into the hearts of many. That is our only chance against evil. Outnumber the sucker.
Then, one day soon, I’m sure…we will win the good fight! – Lewis J. Grant
