| Trellis of the Mind Chapter 1 A New Wound �Does a man touch himself to bring pleasure to others? Does he make love to his mistress to please his wife? Does he talk so that his words will fall upon deaf ears...? Ouch!� �I�m sorry, did you say something?� �No, never mind.� �Is that gauge big enough or did you want us to stretch it for you,� asked the piercing attendant. �No thank you, I will stretch it myself, just like I did all of the others.� �Say guy, how old are you?� questioned the attendant. �What business is my elderliness to you? Your business is body modification, so do stick to it.� �Sorry, I just wanted to know because I can tell by looking at ya that you�re not of our usual clientele.� �Well, if you must know, I have 37 years to my name, no more,� replied Peace. After paying the man, Peace left the establishment with a quickness, as to not be drawn into getting anymore work done today, for he was the Obsessive Compulsive type and wanted to finish his masterpiece of gauges now, but he knew full well that such things would not go over good with his body, nor his wife, which were indeed one in the same. Stepping out of the door, he noticed how cold the weather had gotten while he was getting his piece done. The piercing shop was fogged from the outside and he could barley see the man collecting his money the he had just earned from one hand to the other. Tip-toeing down the sidewalk, he jumped around the cracks and avoided the lines in the concrete. Walking toward home was not always an interesting journey for him, but he planned to make it worth his while. Getting onto the bus, he saw the streets pass by like lightning in the wind when there is no rain to stop it. The motorized vehicle moved with speed and agility that frightened Peace. Why could he not move through life with the same agile feeling or look to himself? That would show everyone that his life wasn�t that difficult? �Maybe,� he thought �if others believed such things it would make it easier for him to do so as well.� He never did understand why his life had to be so challenging. His stop was up and the man next to him tapped his shoulder. He had to do it a few times to lure Peace back into reality. Peace looked up to the man and automatically noticed the man as someone who frequently rides his bus. He looked to the front of the bus, to Fanton, the bus driver, who reassured the claim that his stop was near. Peace wallowed off of the bus in an uneager motion to get home, for he knew that know one would be there. Meandering down the sidewalk, he paused for a moment and took notice of the beautiful sun fading into the sky, with its yellows and reds glowing past the blues and greens that he knew were there. He walked to the door and proceeded to retrieve a set of keys from his front pant pocket. He placed the key into the socket and turned it. He pushed on the door while turning the knob, but it seemed that it did not want to open. This door was always hard for him to go through. After he released the key from the hole, he tried to open the door once more, no with more force, and this time it opened. Stepping into the house he noticed a light on in the reading room. As he approached the room with caution, he discovered his wife sitting in her chair over a book. He was just relieved that it was not Them. He didn�t really feel like dealing with Them right now. Although They had never pulled something quite this drastic in nature, he would not put anything passed Them. �Salutations dear,� said Peace to his wife. �Another one,� she replied, without even looking up from her book to observe his lip and its new orifice. �You said that you would not get anymore,� she continued. �Now Hope, you know that that is not true. I said that I did not know and that I was not sure, but I never said for certain what my future plans were going to be regarding my Spiritual Growth. He went over to her and kneeled down to her level to love her. Pushing his face forward, he attempted to touch his nose to her cheek, but she retracted her face. He looked at her with a confused expression as if he didn�t understand the situation. �Kiss me,� Hope said. He attempted again to nuzzle her with his nose, but she again drew back her face from the react of his affection. ��With your mouth to mine.� �You know that I can not do such a thing,� Peace replied. �I am aware,� she said. �For it is just that which possessed me to request such a thing.� �I do not understand,� said Peace in a monotone voice. �When, Peace was the last time that you kissed me with your mouth mine?� questioned Hope. She struggled with this trauma everyday and it seemed to her that all he could do about it was ignore it. �My memory can not recall, but I believe it was before I received my second gauge, previous to stretching the first; it hurt to kiss you.� �So it hurt to love me?� �To kiss you it did, but that is not all of my love. It also hurt to eat food for the former part of the time that followed the piercing. What of that?� �Loving me is more important that eating,� Hope replied. �I love you enough not to eat, if you wish. I would refute my soul nourishment if you so desired me to. I would do all that you asked of me in the Name of Love, but you draw anger over a kiss!� �Your love for me can contain all of these bodily deprivations, but your love does not contain such little things as a kiss?� she replied angrily at his blindness. �And what about all of the other ways I express myself and my love to you? Do those mean nothing in your eyes?� �What other ways!?� she shouted. �Tell me! Tell me Peace, what was your first self-inflicted orifice!? Was it your lip! or you ear!� �Well...� �No!� she cuts him off. �No! It was your gender. When we wed you told me of your wished growth, but you contained the details of how it would effect me, and after you achieved you growth upon you gender you did not make love to me anymore.� �I have made love to you plenty since then!� Peace exclaimed. �It has been ten years since I received that hole.� �Yet every time you stretch it you do not love me for, at the least, two months.� �Two months is the least me dear,� Peace replied, �For it would behoove me to prolong my wait. I cause myself much pain loving you too soon.� �Do you think that your gauge does not hurt me as well?� she replied. �You have a two in now, do you not?� �I do, but perhapenstance I will remove it, for to keep it would be at the expense of you genitalia rather than in the growth of my spirituality!� he screamed at as he marched out of the door in a condescending attitude that made Hope regretted even questioning his novel piercing. |
| Chapter 2 Trudging up the hill just outside the boarder of their property, Peace lodged himself in a quiet riot of anger and frustration inside of himself. His wife made him so upset sometimes, but he loved her with all of his heart. Why couldn�t she see that? Why couldn�t Hope accept his love for what it is and not despise it for what it�s not? He never could find the answer by himself so he decided to consult a close friend. Nearing the place where they always conversed, Peace waved to greet his long-time friend and to hospitably welcome him into this hell of a situation. �Hello friend,� said Peace, glad to see his friend after many days of absence from his presents. Without letting his friend reply in a like fashion, Peace continued on with his conversation, knowing that his friend wound not mind him droning on in the light of impoliteness. �My wife has beheaded my dreams again. The moment I walked into the house, she began to become cross with me about my new gauge. She becomes so hostile without I even doing anything wrong. You have seen the way she can get, right?� Without even giving him a chance to respond, Peace continued. �Why do I even try? I want her to know my love, but it is difficult to love someone who does not understand your methods. What is your opinion Tree?� Peace glanced at his friend and waited this time for his input. �Well, I am not too sure what to say to that situation my friend. Have you tried talking to her sensibly about your Growth?� �She hardly presents me with such opportunities anymore,� Peace replied. �It sounds as if you do not offer her much of a chance.� �Let us go to your home and consult Joice about this. What say you?� �Stupendous idea my fellow,� Tree replied, and at that they were off toward home; well, Tree�s home anyway. Walking through the open field and over the plain hills, Peace noticed the sunset and decided to stay and watch the duration of the display. �Let us sit and watch Father Sun take His turn into to rest as Mother Moon rises in the distance to replace the His watch over the Sister Earth, shall we?� �Certainly,� said Tree as they reached for a seat on a lowest part of the hill formations. The sky was radiating of Orange and Blues and Pinks, swirled with Yellows and Reds. The clouds rose over the horizon and touched the tip of the ever-rising Moon. The grassy hill, with no flowers on which they laid, and the clouds of white and pale white and pasty white at which they stared, and the river below with its running liquids of Blue and eroded stone and sedimentary rock the which they listened, brought them into the harmonious vibe of radiating Love that surround that hill and sky and river. They could feel the Earth opening Herself up and inviting them into Her. She was reaching out with Her loving and longing hands, one emotion for each, to offer solace to Peace. The rise of love was so ever-present that Peace soon drifted off into a deep slumber of love and respite. His dreams were filled with harmony and tranquility. All that appeared before him and his eyes was that of Love. What else could a man like himself see? Surely not dreams of hate and war. He was much too good for that sort of thing. His mind was not plagued by these things that haunted the consciousness of so many others. His thoughts were clear and well understood, to him in the least. Did it really matter if someone else understood him and his one of so many thoughts? Of course not; why would that matter? A rush of emotion that Peace could not describe came over him and he felt as though he had never before in his life. Not his Hope nor his Tree could ever make him feel in such a way as he did right now. Pushed beside himself with ecstasy, he allowed it to flow through him without resistance or refrain. He wanted to experience the fullest potential of whatever this may be, taking into consideration the shallowness of his present living situation. Pushed and pulled by these feelings, he let it into the hands of the creator, and that would be his foul. He was then thrust into another world of feeling which he also lacked to describe but this one he fancied not so much as the former. BAM! consciousness hit him over the head like the back-handed pelt of a displeased mother. He was lying in a bed in Tree�s house. He rose in the bed, having to think for a minute what had just occurred, when, after about time span of an instinctively-absent butterfly did he realize what the currently past situation had consisted of. Noticing something flicker in the corner of his vision, Peace plopped back down on the bed to investigate from a peripheral view. A red dot had appeared on the ceiling of the room. The dots, as Peace noticed after observing it for a moment, was becoming more. Peace was not sure weather the dot was getting clearer, or large, or both, but it was starting to create heat against his cold, sweat-drenched face, perspiratingly wet from the previous dream. The dot became so, that with the vividness of his eyes, he could make out a face hiding in the shrubs of the light. The surface of the face was pure. Crevices where the eyes were; indentions to ht curves of the nose; slits where the lips parted, and then, suddenly, as the horror rose on Peace�s face and all of the blood rushed to his head, the matter began to speak! �Is what you have love,� the matter belted out with a deep groan of an inner voice. �Pardon,� replied Peace in a quivering voice, astonished at the speech that this being possessed. �Is what you have with your wife love,� repeated the being in a different tone as to keep Peace�s attention, but not to frighten him into submission, for the being wanted honesty from Peace, which was difficult enough, coming from Peace and all. �I would rather not discuss it with some unknown deity,� replied Peace, startling himself with the amount of confidence and ease that his voice possessed but yet his mind and heart lacked. �If you do not want to talk about it, then it is not love,� the deity shot back at Peace, who was shocked by the forceful attitude that it presented itself with, and he was still over coming the matter of its speech. �No spirit, it is anything but like that. I only hold my marriage sacred, clutching it to my heart,� Peace replied. �So anger not over my lack of communication.� �Lack of communication indeed,� replied the spirit, without missing a step in the flow of words. �What would you wife say to that �lack of communication�?� �What are you stabbing at?� �Do you believe that your wife thinks of half of the things that you do for her as love?� �Does she not? Your inquiring has pulled my heart into a frenzy of concern. Sweet spirit, show me the way to my wife�s heart so that she may understand my love for her.� �Your confusing antics and mannerisms throw everyone into bewilderment and you are hardly understood by you fellow man, however do you expect you wife to understand you?� replied the deity. �Because she loves me and will always understand me, no matter of the excessiveness of my confusion,� replied Peace confidently, making it known that there is someone in the world that understands him. He was always trying to convince everyone around him of this so that maybe he would believe it someday. �And what if she does not love you in return?� questioned the spirit in a tone that Peace could not help but take seriously. �But kind spirit, of course she loves me. Why should she not?� �Why should she?!� replied the spirit, now angry from Peace�s blindness. �She does not see the love that you portray for her because you methods of loving her are crude and twisted from her understanding. Therefore, since she can not understand you, she can not love you. What reason have you given her to love you? Loom at the way that she is treated by you. In her eyes, she is not even sure if you love her, and this struggle for an answer of weather she loves you or you her has caused her much plague and suffering.� �She suffers?� asked Peace with surprised in his voice at the statement that had just been heard to portray a sense of falsification, but inside he knew it to be true. �Indeed,� replied the spirit �And the only way to stop this suffering is to break your bond of spirituality. You must go to her and convince her that they only relief from the pain is separation. She will not want to on the outside, but on the inside she beckons for her freedom. This will be for hers and yours own well being.� �False testimony,� Peace cried out at the top of his voice, pulling at his vocal cords in order to loudlier affirm his wrath and irritation for what was just said. �The goodness of a holy deity would not offer such blasphemous solutions to non-existent problems. These things that you have mentioned of breaking of spiritual bond are not of good intentions. There is no longer the question of weather evil writhes through your heart of not. These words that you have spoken are those of the Morning Star. I know this in my heart and my mind and I refuse to listen any longer to what you may have to tell me, for you words are not welcomed here.� �So be your foolishness,� said the spirit as it disappeared without a trace of smoke or fog or rancid smell that stereotypically follows the presents of the Morning Star. He was gone now and Peace did not know what to do. His body was stunned by the presents of the Morning Star and his mind quivered with the words that he had spoken. �Does she suffer?� Peace kept asking himself. The question went over again and again in his mind until he could not think of anything but those words and the potential consequences of them. He decided to get out of the bed and go into the sitting room where Tree and his wife Joice would be. Getting out of bed he noticed that he did not have to wake-up from sleep. This brought on his first inclination that what had just accord with the Morning Star may have not been a dream. Startled by this, he left the room and continued down the hall into the sitting room where, just as he had suspected, sat Tree and Joice In their individual chairs. Stuck like zombies with their faces in a certain position, they sat with their expressions glued to the television. �Tree,� Peace called out to his friend, but he did not respond. �Tree,� Peace pleaded again, but a little bit louder this time so that maybe he would be heard; but alas, no response from Tree or Joice. Peace just decided that maybe he should be kind and wait until they acknowledged him. After sitting there in the chair in the far end of the room for a span of about four hundred-twenty seconds, Peace tired of waiting and tried to think of a polite way to approach Tree and Joice in their current involvement, but the television surround sound pounded into his brain and he couldn�t help but not think. He walked over to the television with a large stick that he retrieved from his side of the room and approached the box and stood close to all the way in front of it so that maybe Tree and Joice would acknowledge him, but they failed to do so. Lifting the stick to up, over his head, he began to bring in down upon the television with mass force. Over and over again he brought the stick up and pushed it back down upon the box. After breaking every piece of glass ten fold and shattering the plastic casing beyond recognition, he put down the stick and stepped back from the heaping pile of fried tubes and electrical wiring and trampled glass and plastic. Joice and Tree were so lost in their booming illumination that they had no idea what had just happened until after it was already done. �Why do you taunt yourselves with such hostile surroundings?� asked Peace. �Can you not see what this media does to you?� �What is wrong with your synapses?� asked Tree in confusion to the situation. �Are you outside your mind? Why did you do that?� �It is alright,� Joice chimed in. �You know how he gets sometimes. We will just get a new one. We have the assets.� �That is not the principle,� Tree argued. �Principle?!� Peace shouted. �I hand you salvation in a pile of broken glass and plastic, amongst wires and tubes, but without even thinking you opt to sacrifice your capital to renew the damage, and you argue your breath of principles?!� �What are all of these matters with you?� cried Tree. �My heart is the broken glass you see before you, but all you can do is sweep it aside and dispose of it.� Peace replied as he stepped toward the door and left before his first tear could hit the ground. |