Read Online Persistence of Vision by John Varley - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Varley
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unavoidable, something that would happen to me without much effort at all.
I almost believed her. But she betrayed herself. No, no, no. Not that, but the things in her concerning * * * ing convinced me that if I went through this I would only. bang my head hard against the next step up the ladder.
***
I had a little better definition now. Not one that I can easily translate into English, and even that attempt will only convey my hazy concept of what it was.
file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt (20 of 24) Page 25
[2/17/2004 11:43:30 AM]
file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt
"It is the mode of touching without touching," Pink said, her body going like crazy in an attempt to reach me with her own imperfect concept of what it was, handicapped by my illiteracy. Her body denied the truth of her shorthand definition, and at the same time admitted to me that she did not know what it wee herself.
"It is the gift whereby one can expand oneself from the eternal quiet and dark into something else." And again her body denied it. She beat on the floor in exasperation.
"It is en attribute of being in the quiet and dark all the time, touching others. All I know for sure is that vision and hearing preclude it or obscure it. I can make it as quiet and dark as I possibly can and be aware of the edges of it, but the visual orientation of the mind persists.
That door is closed to me, and to all the children."
Her verb "to touch" in the first part of that was a Touch amalgam, one that reached back into her memorise of me and what I had told her of my experiences. It implied and called up the smell and feel of broken mushrooms in soft earth under the barn with Tall-one-with-green-eyes, she who taught me to feel the essence of an object. It also contained references to our bodytalking while I was penetrating into the dark and wet of her, end her running account to me of what it was like to receive me into herself. This was ell one word.
I brooded on that for a long time. What was the point of suffering through the nakedness of Touch, only to reach the level of frustrated blindness enjoyed by Pink?
What was it that kept pushing me away from the one place in my life where I had been happiest?
One thing was the realization, quite late in coming, that can be summed up as "What the hell am I doing here?" The question that should have answered that question was "What the hell would I do if I left?"
I was the only visitor, the only one in seven years to stay at Kelley for longer than a few days. I brooded on that. I was not strong enough or confident enough in my opinion of myself to see it as anything but a flaw in me, not in those others. I was obviously too easily satisfied, too complacent to see the flaws that those others had seen.
It didn't have to be flaws in the people of Kelley, or in their system. No, I loved and respected them too much to think that. What they had going certainly came as near as anyone ever has in this imperfect world to a sane, rational way for people to exist without warfare and with a minimum of politics. In the end, those two old dinosaurs ere the only ways humans have yet discovered to be social animals. Yes, I do see war as a way of living with another; by imposing your will on another in terms so unmistakable that the opponent has to either knuckle under to you, die, or beat your brains out. And if that's a solution to anything, I'd rather live without solutions. Politics is not much better. The only thing going for it is that it occasionally succeeds in substituting talk for fists. , Kelley was an organism. It was a new way of relating, and it seemed to work. I'm not pushing it as a solution for the world's problems. It's possible that it could only work for a group with a common self-interest as binding and rare as deafness and blindness. I can't think of another group whose needs are so interdependent.
The cells of the organism cooperated
I almost believed her. But she betrayed herself. No, no, no. Not that, but the things in her concerning * * * ing convinced me that if I went through this I would only. bang my head hard against the next step up the ladder.
***
I had a little better definition now. Not one that I can easily translate into English, and even that attempt will only convey my hazy concept of what it was.
file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt (20 of 24) Page 25
[2/17/2004 11:43:30 AM]
file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt
"It is the mode of touching without touching," Pink said, her body going like crazy in an attempt to reach me with her own imperfect concept of what it was, handicapped by my illiteracy. Her body denied the truth of her shorthand definition, and at the same time admitted to me that she did not know what it wee herself.
"It is the gift whereby one can expand oneself from the eternal quiet and dark into something else." And again her body denied it. She beat on the floor in exasperation.
"It is en attribute of being in the quiet and dark all the time, touching others. All I know for sure is that vision and hearing preclude it or obscure it. I can make it as quiet and dark as I possibly can and be aware of the edges of it, but the visual orientation of the mind persists.
That door is closed to me, and to all the children."
Her verb "to touch" in the first part of that was a Touch amalgam, one that reached back into her memorise of me and what I had told her of my experiences. It implied and called up the smell and feel of broken mushrooms in soft earth under the barn with Tall-one-with-green-eyes, she who taught me to feel the essence of an object. It also contained references to our bodytalking while I was penetrating into the dark and wet of her, end her running account to me of what it was like to receive me into herself. This was ell one word.
I brooded on that for a long time. What was the point of suffering through the nakedness of Touch, only to reach the level of frustrated blindness enjoyed by Pink?
What was it that kept pushing me away from the one place in my life where I had been happiest?
One thing was the realization, quite late in coming, that can be summed up as "What the hell am I doing here?" The question that should have answered that question was "What the hell would I do if I left?"
I was the only visitor, the only one in seven years to stay at Kelley for longer than a few days. I brooded on that. I was not strong enough or confident enough in my opinion of myself to see it as anything but a flaw in me, not in those others. I was obviously too easily satisfied, too complacent to see the flaws that those others had seen.
It didn't have to be flaws in the people of Kelley, or in their system. No, I loved and respected them too much to think that. What they had going certainly came as near as anyone ever has in this imperfect world to a sane, rational way for people to exist without warfare and with a minimum of politics. In the end, those two old dinosaurs ere the only ways humans have yet discovered to be social animals. Yes, I do see war as a way of living with another; by imposing your will on another in terms so unmistakable that the opponent has to either knuckle under to you, die, or beat your brains out. And if that's a solution to anything, I'd rather live without solutions. Politics is not much better. The only thing going for it is that it occasionally succeeds in substituting talk for fists. , Kelley was an organism. It was a new way of relating, and it seemed to work. I'm not pushing it as a solution for the world's problems. It's possible that it could only work for a group with a common self-interest as binding and rare as deafness and blindness. I can't think of another group whose needs are so interdependent.
The cells of the organism cooperated
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