as is
The Meeting Place. THIRTY-FOUR
I shall write a new myth that will be known the world over. Its translations will exceed those of the bible and its printings exceed those of Stephen King. Its impact will be felt in the poetry of children and the elegies of heroes. Its cadences will inspire art from Japan to AI. Its metaphors will reach to the moon and its partner the sun, not just in the Earth’s galaxy but in the galaxy that will never be known, not even by the most daring imagination, the most astute mathematicians. This myth will take the boulder of Sisyphus and pronounce it obsolete.
No longer will stories be burdened by the weight of compulsion for the uphill climb of solitary longing. No longer will remnants of the ancients exist only in the paintings of renaissance masters who palaver with the stakeholders of how best to contain the energies of man. Give them koans that pull them toward the redundant, unending feats with sketchy origins. Let them slip into trance before knowing the power of the true. Do the whack-a-mole of another day, another dollar? Not in this new myth that takes Sisyphus and puts him on an island with a tiki torch and a lifetime supply of whatever his earnings can afford him to rest those old, weary shoulders.
This new myth shall be of an ocean, not a mountain. It shall be of a woman and a man and many more like them and unlike them. It shall be imagined by Titian with the artfulness of creatures who squander nothing, who are never inclined to reach for the unreachable with greedy arms and weapons that insure only destruction. This new myth shall be of boats and bridges and sea creatures who send and receive messages that all is well in this world of belonging, in this myth of risk and adventure and, yes, even death.
And within the story shall be a stunning secret, that what is known is merely a facade for what is not, that fear is merely a facade for not seeing the endless connectedness of that which appears, that the mountain is figment as is the boulder as is the longing as is the ocean as is the myth-maker as is the myth.
— found by Liz among her grandmother’s things
The Meeting Place is a jigsaw of fictional vignettes hosting several female characters destined to cross paths. The pieces work separately as contemplative offerings. The series began with The Meeting Place. ONE. (May 12, 2022)
