Read Online Landscape: Memory by Matthew Stadler, Columbia University. Writing Division - Free Book Online Page B
Book: Landscape: Memory by Matthew Stadler, Columbia University. Writing Division
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before me and the details of our lunch playing back in my mind. Of course I thought of things I should've said or done. I should've grabbed my father and shaken him, for one. I should've screamed, "Don't call me pumpkin!" or "Mr. Taqdir is a boring creep!" Especially, I thought, I should've cried. But I didn't, and hadn't, and these were only thoughts.
I walked west through the dirty streets, moving as though in my sleep, and found my way onto the Presidio and back into the woods above the golf course. The hillside was steep and I scrambled up through a thick grove of eucalyptus, grabbing on to bushes and low scrub for handholds. There was a hidden clearing ahead through the trees and I was moving toward it. There, on the western slope of this high hill, the trees opened up around a small hollow tucked into the lip of the hillside. Nurselogs, grown thick with motherfern and saplings, bordered the little clearing. A carpet of moss covered the soft contours of the ground. The trees grew tall and thick around all sides, save a small opening to the north and west where I could look out over the rocky cliffs and into the gray-green sea. Sea birds were calling high in the branches above me and I lay back, my head propped on a pillow of moss, and watched the distant treetops swaying in the wind. It was a shelter, and a much-needed one.
I felt myself sinking back into the ground, drawn down by weariness and gravity. I felt wedded to the weight of the earth, turning on its inevitable course, its face stretching out from the tips of my fingers and toes. I drifted away, exhausted, and dreamed.
I am sick in bed with a fever. I'm just in my nightshirt and all wet from sweating. My throat is sweet and sore and I can barely breathe. My breath is shallow and slow because a lush, heavy orchid is growing in my lung. Mother puts me in an ambulance. She sits beside me and feels my heartbeat with her cool hand. She rubs me on the chest to keep me calm and stop me from breathing too deeply. I'm feeling so sweet and fragile. I can feel the flower growing, its stem pushing down deep into my belly.
The ambulance runs along the railroad tracks, over the muddy grounds of the Fair, and delivers me into the bright white operating room of the Sculpture Factory. A team of doctors or sculptors, it isn't clear which, is waiting, ready to remove the orchid from inside me. I'm placed upon a vertical rack and positioned by the workmen. I'm much bigger than before. The workmen manipulate several mechanical arms that play across me drawing lines and angles against my skin, as though measuring and marking me for the operation. They've undressed me and I'm feeling very sensitive all over. My skin feels sweet and tender and my head is going to burst from the flower pushing its petals up inside me.
The mechanical arms are peeling my skin away. They pinch at the points where the lines intersect on my body and then peel my skin back. I look down across my body at the loose skin hanging down off my abdomen like a skirt. Inside, beneath the skin, I see that I'm simply a tangled mass of metal parts, leftover beams and spikes, wire mesh, all pushed and shaped to form a body. The cool air rushes through me, fluttering the red petals of the orchid, there in my very center. It isn't painful but it makes me worry about what's inside my head. If the arm reached up and pulled the flap of my face away, would it simply uncover a mass of metal garbage? Would it just be empty air blowing through the bits and pieces, the petals of the orchid pushing up amongst them? If it was, would I see it?
The arms never reach for my face. The workmen stop and leave. I'm left aloft, still shackled to the machine.
10 APRIL 1915
A well-to-do man called Weston Brown killed himself at the California Electric Crematorium by a shotgun blast to the head. He left a note.
Dear Sir: I wish to have my body cremated and I enclose thirty-two dollars to pay for the incineration. Thirty dollars
I walked west through the dirty streets, moving as though in my sleep, and found my way onto the Presidio and back into the woods above the golf course. The hillside was steep and I scrambled up through a thick grove of eucalyptus, grabbing on to bushes and low scrub for handholds. There was a hidden clearing ahead through the trees and I was moving toward it. There, on the western slope of this high hill, the trees opened up around a small hollow tucked into the lip of the hillside. Nurselogs, grown thick with motherfern and saplings, bordered the little clearing. A carpet of moss covered the soft contours of the ground. The trees grew tall and thick around all sides, save a small opening to the north and west where I could look out over the rocky cliffs and into the gray-green sea. Sea birds were calling high in the branches above me and I lay back, my head propped on a pillow of moss, and watched the distant treetops swaying in the wind. It was a shelter, and a much-needed one.
I felt myself sinking back into the ground, drawn down by weariness and gravity. I felt wedded to the weight of the earth, turning on its inevitable course, its face stretching out from the tips of my fingers and toes. I drifted away, exhausted, and dreamed.
I am sick in bed with a fever. I'm just in my nightshirt and all wet from sweating. My throat is sweet and sore and I can barely breathe. My breath is shallow and slow because a lush, heavy orchid is growing in my lung. Mother puts me in an ambulance. She sits beside me and feels my heartbeat with her cool hand. She rubs me on the chest to keep me calm and stop me from breathing too deeply. I'm feeling so sweet and fragile. I can feel the flower growing, its stem pushing down deep into my belly.
The ambulance runs along the railroad tracks, over the muddy grounds of the Fair, and delivers me into the bright white operating room of the Sculpture Factory. A team of doctors or sculptors, it isn't clear which, is waiting, ready to remove the orchid from inside me. I'm placed upon a vertical rack and positioned by the workmen. I'm much bigger than before. The workmen manipulate several mechanical arms that play across me drawing lines and angles against my skin, as though measuring and marking me for the operation. They've undressed me and I'm feeling very sensitive all over. My skin feels sweet and tender and my head is going to burst from the flower pushing its petals up inside me.
The mechanical arms are peeling my skin away. They pinch at the points where the lines intersect on my body and then peel my skin back. I look down across my body at the loose skin hanging down off my abdomen like a skirt. Inside, beneath the skin, I see that I'm simply a tangled mass of metal parts, leftover beams and spikes, wire mesh, all pushed and shaped to form a body. The cool air rushes through me, fluttering the red petals of the orchid, there in my very center. It isn't painful but it makes me worry about what's inside my head. If the arm reached up and pulled the flap of my face away, would it simply uncover a mass of metal garbage? Would it just be empty air blowing through the bits and pieces, the petals of the orchid pushing up amongst them? If it was, would I see it?
The arms never reach for my face. The workmen stop and leave. I'm left aloft, still shackled to the machine.
10 APRIL 1915
A well-to-do man called Weston Brown killed himself at the California Electric Crematorium by a shotgun blast to the head. He left a note.
Dear Sir: I wish to have my body cremated and I enclose thirty-two dollars to pay for the incineration. Thirty dollars
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