O looks around the white room in which he finds himself
again, after finally saying goodbye to the dusty books, the elders, the sacred
circle and the fire - which had promised much; and delivered nothing; nothing,
that is, except the gnawing pain of hope for something better – he remembers the starman somewhere over the rainbow, and the boy who is
nothing - and his white room, the
gradual slipping away of colour, as the days pass by in dread procession, or are stylishly dragged like bloody furs down a white catwalk; as jagged red lightening crosses his body of wax, boom boom boom spake Zarathustra; and David, pierced by a lance, long ago falls earthwards, hooded, and scissors down grey shale to die among strangers in alien fields; and he is gone; and the horror of the final pop as the cosmos folds in on itself - in neat, sharp painted squares; and he is gone; and he remembers the hectic celluloid flicker of the flames,
the crackling, silver voices of the elders; long dead, all dead (they're all dead) - and please hold the line, caller - wheezes loose
swells of drowned concertinas and furrowed, melting wax of yellow holograms; stretched
white balloon face shimmers and calls all indistinct, temporarily out of order, from beyond the grave,
as the discs spin for Wells' time traveler, as the delicate Eloi, Weena – dare to gently kiss her tiny, fairy foxglove, achingly pouting hummingbird mouth -
waits impatiently by the stage door, frets in the dark, and yearns for blessed release of childish play; and the steely spiders of memory spin threads all eerie beside the dusty books in
the secret library; and brittle voices crackle, calling from afar: 'hello?…hello, can you hear me?’; worm white and metallic through dead air, heave through heavy earth, pulse, and push a white hand through, stretch and surge, emerge, shake off the dust of grave clothes [...]
...and the
wireless crunches between stations [...]
...'mayday mayday...needle's spinning...can't tell which way is up' [...]
...’I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe…attack
ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion…I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate…all those moments will be lost in time…like tears in rain’ […]
...‘and
we’re open ‘til six on Sathurday' [...]
...'wei…?…wei?’ [...]
...'time to die' [...]
...but he has long hung up, and
gone outside to whiter white; and may be gone some time [...]
