It started with a very simple knock made many years ago. He came to my house having seen my work in other places and then finding my address through an internet search. He knocked on the door, and I thought it was the mailwoman. He came to ask me about my work and how I had created it so innovatively. He wasn't the first person to show up at my door, but he was the first that knew a lot about me and asked insightful questions. He made me want to talk to him and tell him everything, even against my own instincts.
Well, at the end of that conversation, he leaned in close to the point where I could smell the stale caffeine on his breath and asked to see something new, something others hadn't seen yet. I was flattered. I needed that stroke to my ego having toiled so hard to create my masterwork and having felt no appreciation from anyone else.
Let me digress for a moment. When you do the work I do, you can sometimes get so cut off from others that you just create in a bubble and hope to god that it will be loved. Yes, you can invite your friends, family and colleagues over and get their feedback, but that is not the same as having created around others and having gotten that tiny piece of criticism that changes design and scope instantaneously. When you always have to search out critique versus it spontaneously being give yo you you lose some of the creativity and conflict that is essential for a better product.
He came at the right moment: that time when I wasn't looking for feedback or critique. I immediately seized the opportunity hoping it would help me find that spark that would push a breakthrough. I knew he had to have shown up for a reason other than just showering me with compliments and gushing about my brilliance.
I took him to my large white work room filled with gadgets and machines and showed him my new work. He was awed. It was such an honest reaction he couldn't even feign restraint. I immediately lost any respect I had for him. Where were the comments: "This is a piece of shit!" "I mean really you thought this was good work?" "I would have done it this way." I wanted him to be hard and unyielding in his critique of me and my creation.
Instead, it was all: "This is marvelous." "I could never have done anything like this." "It is just brilliant." "I'm sure it will be a big success." Yes! All of my work is a big success. So fuck you! I don't need you to point out the obvious. I need you to tear it apart, tell me what's wrong with it, be fucking critical. I need you to have a thought other than praise and compliments.
While staring at the new work, he asked how I made it. I told him in broad brush strokes the meticulous process used to create it. I told him about the hours toiling on my hands and knees, the straining of my eyes, and my aching back. I showed him the tools I used to create my work. I displayed my materials. I was fucking bored, and I wanted nothing to more than to get him out of my house. He just kept blathering on and on.
Finally, I told him I had to get back to work and "Would you kindly leave?" He obliged and started walking with me to the front door, but before I was able to push him out and slam the door shut, he asked "Would you mind if I took a piece of your creation with me? I would be honored to have a piece of your work."
I just wanted him our. I wanted to be left alone now that I was in a piss-bitter mood. I wanted to harness this idiot's complete lack of originality into something new, but he needed to get out before I could begin. So I said, "Sure. But it is in my work room. Would you kindly step outside, and I'll bring it to you." I had every intention of slamming the door behind me, locking it, and calling the police.
But instead, he said, "Don't worry. I grabbed a piece on our way out. I had no intention of taking it without permission. I just wanted to feel it in my hand for as long as possible. I mean you are a genius, and I wanted that genius to rub off on me."
Once again against my best intuition, I said, "Fine. Take it, and please leave. I must get back to work."
He left, and I went back to my work room and stared blankly at my creation frustrated that he liked it and angry at myself for having entertained him for so long. I immediately destroyed my work and started over.
I was fucking shocked when he showed up in the local paper a week later. He gave an interview to a reporter that had been following my work for many years. The article did nothing for my reputation of being difficult or, as many like to call me, a "character". In fact, much of the article painted me as someone who was ungrateful and inhospitable, an asshole who has let his ego get to his head.
These are comments I am not unused to. It goes with the territory when you are creative or innovative or push the boundaries of what is "normal" or acceptable". My work has always evoked very strong reactions from others, and I have accepted that there is always someone that thinks you are a piece of shit. I just say "Yup" and move on. What pissed me off about this article was that I thought he loved my work and was a fan. I did not expect him, of all people, to sell me out to a reporter.
After reading the article and letting its filthy message ferment in cycles of depression and anger, I called the reporter to tell my side of the story. She agreed to come to my home and do an entire piece on my life and work. This provided the motivation I needed to create something new, something that would be unveiled to the world and awe them link nothing else had.
I set to work creating, building, constructing, planning. I wanted to visually represent my thesis: complexity is simply simplicity repeated repeatedly. I wanted to find a way to harness that structure and take it further. I wanted to repeatedly repeat complexity. And I wanted to do so using the topic of identity.
It was a difficult undertaking, but I knew no one else was doing this work. It was going to be glorious. And I would convince the reporter that I was original and unique, a true innovator.
The reporter knocked exactly as the clock struck noon, and I opened the door after her second knock. I brought her to my living room to begin the interview and tell her about my new work. I wanted to build up her anticipation, so when I revealed my work she would be speechless. I knew it would be a hard task to leave a reporter speechless, but I stove for nothing less.
We sat on my orange and red plaid couch sipping tea and eating cucumber sandwiches I prepared. She asked questions like: "How do you start?" "What are your influences?" "What do you say to those people that call you pompous?" "Why do you think he dislikes you so much?" And with each question I found a way to bring it back to my new work.
I said, "I don't think he dislikes me. Actually, I think he sees a lot of himself in me and my new work. He has found things about himself he doesn't like. As you know, I have always dealt in complexity, simplicity, and identity. My new work is all about reflecting that which one does not see about one's self. It is about seeing the complexity within and beyond our selves."
We kept this banter up for almost an hour until I finally said, "So, do you want to see this new work? But I must warn you, you might not like what you see."
And she refused!
I was outraged. Why in the fucking hell would she come all this way to interview me and not see my work? She had been covering me for eight years, and she had always wanted a sneak peek so that she could scoop all of the other papers and reporters. I had always been loyal to her and granted her exclusive access. Now that there is some other fucktard that has a story to tell about me, she doesn't even want to see my work. What? Does interest in me and my work so easily fade? Am I just a fad?
She placed her hand on my shoulder and said, "I hope you enjoy the article. I know I'll enjoy writing it. Ciao." She was in her Mazda 3 and off my property in less than a minute. I slammed the door, walked to my work room, and destroyed the new work once again, screaming the entire time.
The article in the paper was promoted as a scathing expose of my fucking ego. I included this:
"__________ thinks his work is more original than anything anyone is working on, but I could only remember the call from his previous visitor and these word of caution his visitor gave me, 'He is a drone. Nothing he does is original. It is all stolen from others.' So when he asked me to see his work, I politely declined because everything he told me about it I had already heard from his previous visitor. And I had no desire to stroke his ego any further. I knew that if I saw his work I would be forced to tell him how utterly dull it was and how it was a ripoff of someone else's work."
She trahsed me and my work, and in doing so she threw my career and life in the gutter. How could I ever respond to her dribble? If she is already claiming how utterly unoriginal my work was without ever seeing it, what could I do to prove her wrong?
I decided to create something completely new and then host a reception at my house.
I will not bore you with any of the details or even any of the stories about the reception. It was all a fucking failure. It didn't happen because no one was going to show up. He stole all of my glory when he hosted an opening at his home and unveiled a work almost exactly like mine a week before my reception was even announced.
Had I known about his opening, I would have attended and showed how big of a fucking fraud he was. I would have brough my work and called him a thief and a liar in front of everyone. I would have destroyed his career the way he was destroying mine.
Unfortunately, I found out about his opening through an article in the paper by that damned reporter after the event. She called him "brilliant", a "one of a kind thinker and tinkerer", "someone that pushes the limits of originality, complexity, and identity", and wrote "His work forces the viewer to see themselves differently. It is about reflecting that which one does not see about one's self. It is about seeinf the complexity within and beyond our selves."
What? She described his work exactly as I described mine. I immediately called the reporter and demanded she print a correction that she attribute the concepts of his work to me. I clearly was working on this before he was. Didn't she remember our conversation only a few months ago? But since I did not get her personally, I had to leave this all as a message on her voicemail. I ended my message with a demand she call me back.
I got no response, and, as I was so despondent b this point, I didn't even bother to call her agina. I resigned to just push on and create something that was so outstanding I would be in the limelight once more. I destroyed my work, yet again, and started over.
Over the next three years, this same cycle continues. I created something in solitude telling no one of my work for fear that someone would steal it. And right before I was about to show it to the world he would throw a party or a street fair or a concert in a bar and would reveal something almost exactly like mine. Then, I would destroy my work and start all over again just ot have him best me every time.
I became a recluse. I no longer went to the grocery store for fear of hearing gossip about him and how marvelous and intellectual he was. I stopped reading the local paper because every now and then there was an article about him and I couldn't bare the thought of seeing his name in print. I talked to no one, not ever family, for fear that any word I uttered to anyone else could be gleaned for brilliance and originality and be used against me ot used to create something similar to my creations. I was completely alone, and I hoped that this absolute isolation would ensure my success.
Three years of repeated creation and destruction took its toll on me leaving a shell of bitterness and anger with no energy to do anything but wallow in memories of my former glorious work. I lived in a world of nostalgia constantly rereading press clippings, reviewing drafts of old concepts, touching the exteriors of things. Some days I would lie in bed all day with the journals of my life spread in all directions just thumbing the pages too exhausted to even look at them let alone read them.
I carried on in this self-pitying state for almost a year letting it seep into the spaces unseen in my reflection creating a void. Nostalgia unlocked a new image of myself one that was stripped of ego and left me lighter and thinner. I covered all mirrors and locked away all of my cameras fearing a sudden glance at my reflection would break my egoless self and that the camera's lens would unwittingly capture a moment that was meant to pass. I removed everything from my work room, painted its interiors black, and only returned items of simple linear design that were also black. I was constructing an external void to my internal one, a room of no distractions or originality, a space where nothering entered or escaped, a place where my new work would emerge free from constraints.
Once these tasks were completed, I was ready to begin.
I worked in a blackness darker than midnight completely reliant on mu intuition to guide my work. I had become accustomed to bright florescent light and white walls with hours of plotting and planning. I had always been surrounded by diagrams, models, contraptions, tools, and machines. My previous work was created in clutter, weighed down by structure. And in the expanse that only pitch black can bring, I found it.
I am not exactly sure what it was, but, as I was fumbling around trying to fin a chair in which to rest, my linky brushed something slimy and spongy. I jumped and pulled back my hand suddenly afraid of what else was in my void. But my hnd reached out of its own accord. I tried stopping it, I didn't want to feel that mucous like thing again, but my brain and hand weren't communicating. Simultaneously, a dull orange glow started permeating the room. It took my eyes a long time to comprehend that it was getting lighter in my work room, and it seemed sudden when I was able to make out corners and edges. The room also started willing with the scent of manure and raw earth. It tickled my nose and a sneeze violently escaped. The sneeze's spray covered the thing I touched which, until that point, was still unseen, and the chuncks of snot and saliva glistened in the dull orange glow revealing an amorphous glob.
My hand still reached towards it and it reach back until it completely filled the room, and I was covered in a fibrous slime. You would think and expect that as one is covered your breathing would become laborious and quick because panic sets in. My reaction was completely the opposite. I relaxed and let iy consume me. I mean nother that was not an extention of me was within this room. I had made sure of it when constructing my void, so sure this was to be my next great work. What harm could come from release of self to one's creation?
As I breathed deeply, the damply cool and warmly heavy air filled my lungs, and carried on the tiny oxygen molecules were miniscule fibers of the glob. I was completely immersed in my creation insude and out. I could even eel the fibers replicating in my body. It made my muscles spasm and twitch.
The glob kissed my neck and brushed my lips. It carressed me and loving filled me. I was overcome with emotion. I wanted to kiss it, love it, consume it because I didn't want any of it to stop. The flood of emotions ripped me away from nostalgia. It provided a spark and rekindled something deep in the recesses of my reflection. Just like it emerged from the blackness of my work room, and new identity grew from the void in my shadow. It threated to destroy what once as, and I was too unaware of its emergence, too preoccuppied experienceing all of my emotions and senses that I didn't pay any mind to the small physical changes.
Then, there cam a knock. It was far away, and I couldn't exactly tell what it was. The glob dampened the air and the humidity silenced noises, so it is any wonder that I actually heard it. Then another, louder knock. The glob recessed and the dull orange glow dimmed. And as suddenly as the glob appeared, it disappeared, and I was left cold and wet with only the memory of the glob and a loud knocking coming from outside.
I must digress again because it is important you truly understand my state of mind. I was dazed, confounded, and exhilerated. Whatever that glob was, it changed me fundamentally and, I can say with almost complete certainty, genetically. The many that emerged from that room was not the same as the man who entered. My mind was spinning, swirling, with the kind of dizziness you get from either vertigo or riding the Tilt-A-Whirl at the State Fair. It was heavenly. I can't remember ever feelin this way. I had been locked in a pattern, a repeated rhythm, for so long that it was linke I had finally moved on to my song's bridge and was entering an entirely new key. Sure, I could recognize the chorus and verse, but now that it was played in C# instead of G(flat) it was a completely different song. I was that new song, and I wanted to hear it fully.
But the knocking kept on, and I was forced to finally leave my work room and see what produced it. It came from the other side of my front door begging me to open it, so I did. Fuck! He was on the other side with her. They both were back to torment me and steal my ideas. It wasn't enough that they had already destroyed me and left me to wallow in my own nostalgia and pity. No. They were back to ruin me again. Yet those initial thoughts were but a reflection of something I had thought. It was not what I was thinking at the exact moment I saw them. And so I welcomed them in and offered them tea.
"Welcome. Welcome. Sorry, I am in the midst of something the world will be talking about, so I am little preoccupied. Sorry if I am not making the most sense at this moment. I am distracted. I am lost in my own thoughts. Yes, it really is nice to see you both again. Yes, it is. Have I said welcome? Yes? Really? No. Really, welcome. It is wonderful that I can entertain you as I am so close to a revelation. It is right there. I am on the verge. Yes. Welcome. Tea? Yes. We must have some tea. You really look like you could use some. You're looking a little tired. Tea will wake you right up. Come in. Have a seat. Yes. Welcome. Welcome Welcome. "
I ran to the kitchen to put the kettle on, but when I got there the tea was poured and cups were already set on the black plastic tray. of course, I know, had known, that they were coming, and so I prepared it before going in to my work room that morning. Yes. I must be confused. I must've just momentarily forgotten, so I piucked up the tray and walked back to the living room readying myself to talk and entertain.
They sat motionless and silent on my plaid couch. I set the tray on the cherry coffee table and poured their tea into the white porcelin cups.
"Milk? Sugar? I like mine black with only one cube of sugar. It is just slightly sweet and licks the taste buds nicely. It removes that bitterness that lingers. You know what I am talking about? That bitterness? Yes. I am sure you do. We all know about bitterness."
Still they sat there. Neither picked up their tea. Neither said a word. I was left to ramble, and I was growing quite annoyed by their lack of response. Why were the here? What brought them to my doorstep on the day of my discovery? Was this really a coincidence? I could hardly think it was. The last time he visited it was on the same day as a discovery. When she visited, I was going to unveil my new work. Now they were both here when the glob appeared. Yes. They were here because they knew something.
"I beg your pardon, but what has brought you here today? You see, I am working on something new, and I just so happened to be making excellent progress on it when you showed up. Yes. Yes. That's right. You interrupted me. But that is quite alright. We are enjoying this tea. Or at least I am. You haven't even touched it. Wouldd you like something else? I mean I have other things to offer if you don't like tea. Really I do. My fridge is full. Would you care for juice? A glass of cold milk? I have some soda. Coke? RC? Pepsi? I love cola. All of them. I even have Tab. I bet you haven't seen that in a while. Shasta?"
I just kept on mindlessly. I wandered from topic to topic not linfering for too long on any one subject, and they did nothing other than sit on my couch. It was like they had become manequins devoid of emotion, completely blank, ready to be sculpted into the creation of some designer or window dresser. There was a basic form and function to them, but beyond that nothing. They were a human void. Anything said to them was completely lost never tyo be retrieved or responded to.
"You know, I never heard back from you about the article you wrote about me. You said some fairly scathing and unfounded things. I mean you didn't even look at my work, and, yet, you had many opinions about it. How is that even possible? And you... You stole my ideas. You took that piece of my work and then created things exactly as I did. How did you do that? At first, I was angry. Fuck, I wanted to come over and destroy your work. But it provided the kick in the ass I needed, and I have discovered a breakthrough. It is unprecidented. It is utterly fantastic. And I know there is no way you would come up with somthing like this."
Still silence. I decided to try another tactic. I shut up. I sat on that couch quietly observing them hoping they would initiate some sort of conversation. I noticed the lines around his eyes. They weren't in my memory of him, but they were now a prominent feature of his face. They stretched outward towards the sides of his face and were deep and permanent. They were not the links you get from smiling. Rather, they were the lines of age. She had similar lines around her hazel eyes. In fact, I found myself counting the number of lines around each eye and discovered that they both had exactly twelve line around each eye. As I looked deeper, I also noticed that their color was unusually similar including a speck of blue in the right eye in the exact same spot.
I became uncomfortable. There was something uniquely familiar about their eyes, and it creeped me the fuck out. I touched the sides of mine and felt wrinkles, deeply etched wrinkles from the stress of the last many years. Their ridges vibrated against the lines of my fingerprints producing a resonant bass ringing in my head which produced the beginning of a migraine.
I excused myself from my company, although I doubt they even realized I left, and went to the bathroom. I opened the medicine cabinet and took four Excedrin hoping it would lessen the oncoming headache. I turned on the faucet. Cold water flowed. I cupped my hand and splashed it on my face letting my hands continue up to my forehead, fingers then running through my hair, and finally resting on the back of my neck. I repeated this gesture again. And again. And again. And again. It slowed the looming migraine.
I looked at myself in the mirro, and for the first time really looked at my eyes. One. Two. Three. Four. ... Ten. Eleven. Twelve? This can't be. And there! There was that blue speck in my right eye. No. No. No. Something was wrong.
A loud knock echoed through the house. It as a sound like two giant metal pots being thrown together. It was hollow and metalic and beckoned me.
I rushed out of the bathroom towards the sitting room I had left my vacant guests in. They were gone. I frantically searched the house. First the kitchen. No. The bedroom? No. Closets? No. the yard? No. The dining room? No. With each room search my migraine worsened.
The last room left to search was my work room. By this point my migraine was pulsing behing my eyes. Occasional specks of bright white light flashed obstructing my vision. I placed my hand on the silver doorknob and slowly turned. Flash of white. A low rhythmic knock. Another turn. Another flash. A louder knock. When the door swung open, the light of the hallway spilled in. I fell to the ground, and for a brief second, right before everything turned white, I saw her and him and my glob repeated repeatedly. Thousands if not millions of them crammed in to my tiny work room. All of them reflections of each other.
And I knew that we all were the same. He was me. I was her. She was he. And the glob? It is waht we all are: amorphous, indistinuishable, identical.
As the white washed over me, I finally surrendered. Then, there was a knock at my door.
Labels: complexity, fiction, identity, knock, repetition, simplicity
