I’m just gonna leave this here.
I sometimes say Dar has never spoken. I say it here. I say it to family. I say it to strangers. But it’s not exactly true.
Dar speaks all the time. ALL. THE. TIME. But we can’t understand him, because all he says is gibberish.
Loud gibberish. Gibberish at 5:30 every morning that could wake the dead. Gibberish during afternoons and evenings that makes it almost impossible for us to watch TV at anything approaching a normal human volume. Gibberish at night.
But you know, it’s not all gibberish. Sometimes he breaks that up with much, much louder screaming for no reason. Last-ten-minutes-of-the-horror-movie screaming.
So I haven’t really been honest with you. I shouldn’t say Dar never speaks. I should say he always speaks, but I can never understand him. We’re surrounded by his speech and can’t comprehend it. And always want to.
It’s kind of like…
…wait for it…
…being surrounded by water and never being able to drink it. And always wanting to.
And now we go to Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” from 1798:
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.The very deep did rot – Oh Christ!
That ever this should be.
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs,
Upon the slimy sea.
I dare not extend the Life-of-Pi-level analogies any further. Let’s just leave it at that.
In fact, that imaginary ocean is enough for one post. As this metaphor stretches out to the horizon, I see my self-imposed thousand weekly words transforming into a thousand wappling waves. Enough for now. And have a lovely Christmas.
