The Mythology Of Robert

December 20, 2008 at 5:27 pm | Posted in memoirs, writing | 9 Comments
Tags: australian sentences, memoirs, writing, writing as time travel

The great achievements of the modern age, post-Pharoahs, were rarely singular. Generally they were bought with the sweat and blood and lives of ordinary men and women, driven more by need than desire for immortality. You expect me to tell you there was some nobility in their honest poverty but that is a myth designed to comfort you and keep you silent.

There were lamed wufnicks, of course. A beautiful image of the wandering innocents, a handful of redeemers with no thought for themselves, unaware of their purpose. Should one realise their state they would die and be replaced.

And the star vampires of H. P. Lovecraft who consumed not only your life but all trace of your being, memories, mistakes, til the world becomes just as it would have been if you had never existed.

I told her on the telephone that Andrew found him blue. She said I’m sure you did all that you could do, please never contact me again.

I lived by the ocean in a wide bay of mangroves and at low tide vast mud flats stretching off to two horizons, one the line of the shore and one the line of the sky and in between the vast welcoming silence of the sea with ospreys for companions and my shock.

(The story behind the second last paragraph can be found here. A True Story.)

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