I. HERON

The world is dark and without form.

Not without sensation. There is 

a constant whirring noise, low, as 

though there is a distant storm.

There is the sensation of black and 

dark blue. The ocean at night.

It might be healed by the orange of 

the sun, but not yet. 

And the world was without form,

and darkness was on the face of

what was yet without form. 

In the deep. Black and dark blue.

4am. 

I can't keep describing the

lack of things forever. At some point

something has to happen. At some point

I notice that the tide has gone out

slightly and there is a visible rock

that was not there before. Not that

rocks are easy to distinguish from

everything else that's black and blue

but it's visibly black and a slippery

thing, covered in seaweed and pools of

a viscous substance known as water.

Maybe there is sand in the pools too.

The wind is cold. The sky is dark.

4am.

Something comes along. There is a 

figure on the rock. At this distance

it's impossible to identify what bird 

it is. It's large, and whitish, with

a long neck and some other long features.

It is probably a heron by the looks of

it but maybe the rock is closer than we

think and it's actually a very small bird.

Though the long neck seems to indicate heron.

This is the dark; this is the place where

all of the seaweed has gone to die and nothing

nothing nothing serves to change or to provide

an example to anyone or anything. Nothing

can be known and nothing can be worth knowing.

These are the tides of the river Lethe, 

the water one drinks to be scraped clean on the inside

4am.

The tide recedes. The heron speaks.

(singing)

"This is the song that covers the world. This 

is the song that has been chosen to link things

with things. When the song is sung the first time,

the composite sensorium that is seen and felt 

by the listener at the time of hearing the song 

is recorded, as it were, to be played back when

the song is heard again, or sung again, sung 

probably being the better word.

Through the song things are linked

to other things, future to past, traditions of thought,

an idea of our collective sensation and attention,

our bodies, our memories. We exist in collective memory;

without others to describe our experiences to 

we would be unable to form convincing explanations for these

experiences. Or at least none that would convince me.

And every day the song is renewed in the collective work

of our attempts to describe experiences to one another.

We all know that we have had certain experiences and we try

to link these experiences to things that are happening in the

song. Not entirely successfully; no song can ever describe

all the things you need to be thinking about. Your situation

may never have previously occurred and so there may be many

notions where their absence in your calculation might

mean you draw the wrong conclusion. But whatever. 

The song is renewed as we continue to sing it and as we
 
remember our souls when we first heard the song."

*

Well said. And you can get -all that- from the squawking noise

the heron makes, if you listen carefully. It's not even sped up.

That's just the sort of thing they have words for in heron-language.

The tide recedes, the darkness softens as the heron says its word again.

This is the second part of part one. (SLOW DOWN)

I want to move the camera now,

to a view of salt and silt.

The difficulty is in describing the picture.

It's not what you would think about it.

The impossibility of identifying him is important.

When you look at him, he turns into a series of unrelated objects. 

Or else gets culled from view.

But he's still detectable by the sound he makes.

Nonetheless there's a place I'd like you to see.

Tidal River in the south and twenty years ago,

transported to the time of Pepi two one eighty BC.

They looked at him back then and they said:

Here is the bird identifiable by behaviour.

He walks into the mouth and cleans it, freely.

Just like the one who wears away the mountaintop at the end of time.

Sharpen your beak on the residue or the pain of others.

She meanwhile is the recipient of this behaviour.

Pain is one way of remembering who you are. 

Unacceptable to her, of course. 

When she is visible, the tide has come down far enough to see.

I thought it was a log, floating in the water.

Open her mouth and see the broken rocks.

Is a roar a threat or an expression of pain?

\\ If there were the sound of water only

\\ Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop

HE SAYS:
I have to be here.

SHE SAYS:
You do not.

HE SAYS:
Mountains of rock without water.

II - DIALOGUE

SHE SAYS:
RRRRRRRR.

HE SAYS:
Well I'm sorry you feel that way.
I don't get angry in my mouth.
Or, should I say,
when I get something in my mouth
I swallow it.
There are no teeth in my mouth.
There are
no grinding portions there.
There are
stones below that in the gizzard.
And that's where all the dirt goes.
And in fact it's a good thing
if it's hard as a stone and keeps
rattling around in there.
'cause,
it'll grind up everything else
and then I can just hork up the stones later!
They are beautiful and polished.
I know how the oyster feels.

SHE SAYS:
Well that's very nice for you
but
you can't like having these things in your mouth
can you?
The issue I have
is one of resentment.
That what I swallow includes all these stones
that get in the way
the breath of the stone
the smell of the air
I'm always getting broken teeth, that
I spit out the stone and the teeth
I have strong teeth but
A strong tooth can only take so many stones.
And I don't like the feeling of horking them up as you say.
The things which you take in,
isn't that rubbing off on your body?
Aren't you accumulating heavy metals?
And now your eggshells will be brittle,
your children all sickly.
You are going to die.

HE SAYS:
Well I don't think that's happening.
They got rid of DDT.
It's not the best that it's ever been but it's not the worst either.
There's less lead in the air now than there used to be,
though it's still pretty bad in the city.

SHE SAYS:
We're talking about a different thing.

HE SAYS:
Oh right.
Fair point about the words then.
But I don't know.
I feel fine.

SHE SAYS:
Do you?

HE SAYS:
Not really but I've never met anyone better.
I think we're all trapped in samsara,
or whatever you might wanna call it.
I don't know what I'm
saying when I'm using -that- word.
But I think it's a nice word.
It is one of the three precious jewels.
that I was telling you about.
I think there's more than three.
I think once again I am saying the wrong thing but
It doesn't matter
or if it does
noone will hear it anyway.
I don't speak to be heard
I speak to not be heard.
Not be heard by you, that
if I were listening
or if I were saying something to you
then I would expect you to be listening 
but I don't expect that!
I don't expect you to be listening
you can sort of tune in occasionally
I do it for the fun of it
and I do it to communicate
with people that I know really well
and who can hear me
and who know what I'm saying.
If you don't know what I'm saying
that's fine it doesn't really matter anyway.
If you do know what I'm saying great
do you wanna listen?
Oh you say something as well that's great.
I don't really care what it is in fact
I don't want to even know what it is beforehand.
Because if I know what it is beforehand
I probably know what you're going to say
and that's pretty boring.

The novelty as they say comes from
not knowing what the subject is going to be about.

Because if I know what the subject is going to be about in advance
then I already know what it is. Or if
somebody sometimes gives a really good phrase
and you're like oh I didn't know what that was and now I do
or you think you do

but I think there are a lot of poor-quality presentations
made by fifth-graders
who are trying to research the rocks
because there's lots of money in the rocks.
and when we know which rock is like
that one or that one
then
you can make some money off of it.

So I think even if you do the job badly,
but you're interested in the subject,
you can make a lot of money.
Because you know which gems are the opals
and which gems are the rubies.
You know that rubies have to be red
and that opals aren't like that
and in fact contain every colour.
And that distinction gets you two thousand dollars.
Two thousand dollars worth of rubies
or opals.

SHE SAYS:
Mm.

HE SAYS:
Well I don't really know how to convince you.

SHE SAYS:
Well what makes you think I want to convince me?
I would rather lay down here
in the mud
and not talk to you and not get up.
There is no reason to
get up, as they say,
get up out of bed
no I'm not doing it
I'm not getting out of bed
I'm not getting out of the mud
The fish will come to me
I do not need to move from the mud
or if I do I will move in one dramatic motion
when I see a fish come by
and I will take and eat the fish but
beyond that, and I think you can relate to the fish
(not in the fish itself but in wanting to eat the fish)

HE SAYS:
Yeah?

SHE SAYS:
We gotta wait for that fish to come by
We can't just go out and eat it
We can't just go out and find it
It may not be there
Maybe there are no fish in the world anymore.
Maybe they have all been taken from the oceans
and taken to markets elsewhere.
But for the meantime there is sometimes fish
and when you see one you know it's probably a fish.
You don't know that for sure.
A fish is not well defined.
If it swims in the ocean it's a fish
that's good enough for me.
Doesn't that mean some fish are very large?
Yes, and I don't eat those ones.
There's really no reason
to worry about classification.
We could just take things as they are
We could say oh look at that and you would see it.
We don't need words for things at all.
You can just say look at that
And then you look at that for a while
And then you see what it is
And that's good enough
And any name on top of that would just be excessive.
That if you wanted to refer to it you should go and see it
Go visit!
Do it this weekend!
Go and see the moss that lives on the boulders
high in the Hollywood Hills.
You know,
I don't think it was even Hollywood
I think they just called them that.
It was like an import from America
He tried to make the Hollywood Hills down in Sorrento
and he failed
and now there's moss there.
You can go there anytime you like
and look at it.
It's free for you to view.
And I think they should continue to make it free
and that's really what's important,
looking at what's on the rocks.
What was there a million years ago? I don't know.
I think it was some gravy or a kind of mud.
And that's where I am now, in the mud.
This mud was here a million years ago.
Can you feel the history of the mud?
If you could feel the history of the mud
you'd know why the mud is not worth talking about.
That in order to understand the mud
you have to sit in the mud
and you have to stick your hand in it.
And once you do that
you will understand that to say
the sensation is not possible.
That if you stick your hand in the mud
then the sensation cannot be named
because nobody is having the same sensation as you!
Because you stuck your hand in the mud
and that portion of mud may be quite warm or quite cold
depending on where you got the mud from!
I've seen some very hot mud.
They heated it up, they superheated it.
It's too hot to hold.
You wouldn't think there could be nature
that could endanger you like that.
But yes, they exist.
And it's very strange.
Anyway, the mud.
I think I've talked of mine.
That I don't think we can identify
ourselves to ourselves or ourselves to others.
That all we have is the moment of the sensation.
And that's why I'm staying in the mud.
Because that moment can be prolonged.
And if you prolong that moment until you die
then you'll have definitely experienced it.
Maybe that's the only moment worth experiencing,
being in the mud.
I think there are probably other moments.
People have tried to convince me.
I think so! I agree!
But I'm still not getting up.

HE SAYS:
So you're saying you'll be in the mud forever?

SHE SAYS:
Yes.
I wish to be down here.
I think it's comfortable.
I've tried being in the sunlight and picking at things.
But it didn't work.

HE SAYS:
Well you could still come -into- the sunlight.

SHE SAYS:
No I've made up my mind.

HE SAYS:
Alright.
But what if I want to come visit you?
Do I have to come down here every time?

SHE SAYS:
Yes, probably.
Maybe you could write?
[transition problem here]
HE SAYS:
I get bored.
Can't you just say he went here and she went here and then they went there and there and there
and he went there and there and there and that's the end of the story?
But no, you have to draw it out.

She says, do you believe you could write without doing such things?
He says, yes. I believe it's possible.
She says, well what about the suffering?
He says, I don't know yet.
There may be methods to alter ourselves that we do not know.
How can the feeling of the waves be described?
Except having been in the waves and then above the waves,
the smell of salt.
There is a beach you can land on.
When I was half the age I am now,
I couldn't explain these sensations.
Every word is a picture.
But some pictures have no words.
And as you get older and wiser,
like the man fixing my car used to say,
in the space of a year
you can undertake to find some new words.
Then the words can be used regularly,
if that's what concerns you.
Everything inside us is not unlimited.
I've only been here for so long.
There was a beginning.
And before that point I don't remember anything.
Suspension in the egg.
She says, that's why it's important to hold on to my old memories.
He says, like the mud?
She says...
Yes.
He says, well...
She says...
Okay, but hear me out.
He says, got you speaking.
She says, shut up.
uh, the...
The mud.
See, I almost lost it.
He says, I apologize.
She says, the mud.
The mud which surrounds us is the mud of things.
And the things create association.
And the things associated therefore
prevent us from losing ourselves.
Association is difficult,
that to associate with something
means that you have to take it on as it were.
The thing shapes you.
The things you have
restrict the nature of the person you can be.
The nature of the person you can be is
determined by the shape of the things that surround you.
And this is why it's important not to have too many things.
But! if you don't want to lose your shape,
(which is important in some circumstances)
then you have the option to surround yourself,
and the things will tie you up in that shape.
The shape of the mud that cakes around you.
This was described in Lanark, when the protagonist, 
whose name I cannot remember
surrounds himself in the mud.
Or the shape of the things that came before the life he had before this one.
The shape of the things hardens and creates a shell.
The shell is unpleasant, and as the pressure builds,
will eventually explode.
The process seems to be irreversible once it begins.
But I don't remember how the movie ended.
Did he explode?
I don't think so.
I got bored about halfway through
and saw that I had to go be somewhere else.
Where? There is nowhere.
He says, yeah, I'm sorry, that's my problem.
She says, so I don't remember how the book ended.
But the shape of the things - 
I'm not making a good case for it, am I?
I'm saying this is how things are.
That I want to be smothered in the things,
the physical part of the world.
He says, yeah.
She says, in the mental part of the world,
you have the constant possibility of things deserting you or changing.
And I don't like that.
And I know you do, but the things, uh, changing,
is a great pain to the physical securities of the world.
Regular showers,
hot breakfast two days a week.
To have these things taken away...
The physical self exists.
You cannot say it does not,
you think it exists more than the mental self does.
It must be respected.
And that is the pain I feel
when I have to talk to you on the phone.
\\ It was hard to start.
\\ And I have to work through this machine.
\\ So this machine is important to me in a way you can understand.
\\ Anyway, where were we?
The shape of the things,
and the shape of the mud,
and the physical embodiment of the shape of the mud was,
...
it's hard to lose these things.

III. IMAGES

He says: I think you're stuck.

When a woman finds herself in a shape
\\ she didn't used to be in,
it's a lot of work to get the muscles moving.

Did you follow a green light here?
Buried in the dark earth.

If I could touch you with a brush and chisel -
but those aren't suitable for working on supple flesh.

When I reached into the dirt,
what I found was nothing like the worms
that grow in summer's garden.

A place for seeds and new beginnings.

Instead I was a blind man.
Touching the elephant's tail and wondering
whether these palm fronds would shade me from the sun.

I began my work the only way I know how.

Putting my beak in the tiger's enclosure.
Or should I say:
You.
Working on the basis that your outline feels like teeth,
Which are something I know how to work with.

Do you think you can move a muscle?
Do you think you can move the weight of spending a year dead?
Do you think at all?
Or is it entirely action?
Just electricity.
Frog's legs and a burning smell.
Do you think there is a whirlpool deep enough to hold you
that won't just push you up to the surface again?
What do you plan to speak of?
Talk to me, why don't you?

She says: Problems are very old.
When I was down in the mud
I saw the skulls of the dead
and their problems looked exactly like ours did.

When you scratch an image into the wood
the important thing
is not the accuracy of the image.
The important thing is what
that line looks like.

Draw a single curve
and see what images come out of you
to reside in a line
that looks like nothing
to those who have no images.

He says: And this comes before the words?

She says: It comes before anything.

IV. SPEECH

He says:
Once upon a time our lives were longer than there were words.
You might have seventy years and fifty words  
And so by age fifty you would've said all of them. 
There would be nothing left but silence. 
For some this would be a boon; 
They would have their words, and repeat them. 
But for many it was intolerable. The people sought relief. 
Books were invented and were distributed among us.
So why don't you want me to clean your teeth?

She says:
The pain is in the monotony of repetition.

He says:
But every tooth is different and can be 
registered uniquely every time.

She says: 
Sure, if you're awake.
But so much of our time is spent in dreams.
An old dream, repeating, of my teeth falling out.
Not that they actually do but my mouth holds
a crescent of pain, emanating outward, in
purple, representing the fear of the dream.
The crescent leaks out into everyday life.
Like a phantom limb, hovering.
Any toothbrush must move through the crescent.
Pain is not in the body but surrounds the body.
Like a theremin when you get too close.
All the body does is pick up what's already there.
The mud blocks these signals.

He says:
The speech act is divided into three parts.
One is forming the intention to make the sound.
One is making the sound itself.
One is continuing to act in accordance with the sound.
Each of these can go wrong.
If one does not form the intention correctly,
sound can still be produced, but it will be
at the whims of whatever speech one has already heard.
This may fail to lead to right action.
If one does not make the sound, one will not be heard.
This is the simplest form of failure.
Caution should be taken in developing one's intention
before one has the ability to speak.
Ideally they should grow together.
If one does not act in accordance with the sound,
that makes the sound meaningless and 
does not further what little culture we have.

She says:
I disagree.
As in, yes, those are three necessary parts,
but if all three are done correctly it can still go wrong.
For instance, RRRRRRR.
There was an intent to make the sound, one.
The sound was successfully made, two.
I continue to hurt in accordance with the sound, three.
But it is not accepted as valid.
I cannot say RRRRRR when playing Scrabble.
And if I persist in using it,
people will think I'm unwell.
Which would be fine if they'd use my words for it.
But one mistakes the dictionary for real life,
if that's the only book you have.

V: THE SONG

HE SAYS:
Well I have an idea.

She says:
Mmm?

He says:
If what's inside your mouth is so uncomfortable,

an expression that requires something for the pain,

I've been in there and it doesn't worry me.

She says:

Easy for you to say.

He says:

Exactly.

The mouth is a resonant chamber that shapes emotion.

If I climb in there like so,

not speaking for you, but as a translator,

She says:

Translated into what?

He says:

The song that underlies everything.

Memory is an instance of the song.

To sing is to remember the red string

that trails behind us from our birthplace.

She says:

I think I lost the string in the water.

He says: (singing here)
 
Nothing is lost that easily.

The song follows us from our old lives.

The song determines the rightness of our actions.

The song persists beyond death if learned correctly.

(Which is why it's so important to learn.)

// The song can be sung in any language.

// The song cannot be misunderstood.

And if no-one else will,

I will sing the song for you.

Open your mouth.

Hold it right there.

The song comes from the throat and resonates in the skull

(but there is more than that).

The song comes from what we have seen

and if the skull is the seat of the mind

then the song in the skull is where the body and soul work together.

DEEP BREATH!

He climbs in.

A halo of light is briefly seen.

And they sing together:

WASO OSI EN AKESI ELSIE.

WASO OSI INSA AKESI ELSIE UTA.

AKESI ELSIE LI PILIN TOKI.

KON KALAMA MUSI LI TOKI.

TOKI LI KON KALAMA MUSI.

WASO EN AKESI LI WAN.

MI TOKI PI MI.

KALAMA MU LI KALAMA TOKI.

ALI NIMI LI KALAMA TOKI.

WASO EN AKESI LI MI.

MI TOKI ALA MI KALAMA MUSI.

ALI KUTE KALAMA TOKI.

ALI LI KALAMA TOKI.

ALI LI MU.

KALAMA MUSI LA WAN.