A September Song
'These precious days I'll spend with you'
They say "Drink and be merry, | Take the bull by the horns." | I keep seeing visions of you, a lily among thorns | Everything looks a little far away to me
Bob Dylan | Someone's Got a Hold of My Heart
Hope is one of the last things to die. When all else fails, backfires, dissolves, does not happen, collapses, wastes away, goes wrong, or breaks, hope sustains us. It is a remarkable attribute or property, mutating through optimism, anticipation and other forms. When the going gets rough, it manifests as blind faith.
It's a waste of time.
It is to despair that hope owes its resilience. Despair is hope's traveling companion. When hope fades into the dark spaces of our souls, despair willingly takes its place. Despair is deceptive, playing the role of hope's mortician. I don't buy despair's twisted logic. It might wear a top hat and morning coat but, generally, it does a pretty poor job of convincing me of hope's demise.
Then again, sometimes it performs well, playing hope to hell and gone as it swamps my being with its leaden message, "There is no hope." At times, I believe it. And that's where I've been these past few weeks; arguing with despair or, as its travelling companion likes to call it, "no hope".
I had watched, waited, ignored, endured, hidden, manipulated, bent, clicked, right-clicked, patched, scrolled up and down, and even rebooted. It had had no effect. Hope had, to put it colloquially, had enough.
It died.
Gettin' harder and harder to recognize the trap | Too much information about nothin' | Too much educated rap | It's just like you told me, just like you said it would be
At some time between the last theft, outburst, depravity, assault, or scream-rage-anger-fear-frustration kick [or perhaps it was the overdose or the carving of the leg], hope quietly packed its bags and left.
Blood chokes hope. Too much blood drowns it.
Just got back from a city of powder blue skies | Everybody thinks with their stomach | There's plenty of spies | Every street is crooked, they just wind around till they disappear
But it’s a long, long while from May to December | And the days grow short when you reach September. | The autumn weather turns the leaves to flame | And I haven’t got the time for the waiting game.
I checked out too [although, obviously, here I am, back where I belong]. I went down to the siding and waited for a train that never came. I could hear the music of its wheels fading along distant tracks.
It grew dark.
Later, I was sitting in a pub drinking blood when despair walked in and sat down opposite me. It removed its hat and ordered a cup of blood. Its eyes were empty and it smelt of the incense they used to bless my aunt's coffin at her funeral last week.
Despair's skin was grey, its face studious but skeletal, and it had no teeth. It drank its blood.
"You're screwed," it said. Flatly.
I was too depressed to answer.
"You never ask for advice. Why don't you write to somebody?"
I stared at the void of meaning.
"I don't feel like it."
"Why not? It'll cheer you up."
"How'd you know?"
"I'm hope's travelling companion. Sorry. I was hope's travelling companion. Hope's dead, you know."
"I'm beginning to accept that."
I hear the hot-blooded singer | On the bandstand croon | September Song, Memphis in June | While they're beating the devil out of a guy who's wearing a flaming red wig
When we commit someone to God's care, the priest walks around the coffin, sprinkling it with Holy Water. It signifies a circle made complete. I saw no circle. Despair ordered more blood.
"There was nothing you could do, you know?"
Its voice was not flat; it was without substance. It reminded me of nothing, a disembodied emptiness.
"Look, if we all felt that way, we wouldn't get very far. We try..."
"...and fail."
"Yes, but so what?"
"You end up drinking with me. It's inevitable, I swear. Want another? It's on the house."
"No thanks, I'm driving."
I sniggered.
"Mr. Funny Guy. Always Mr. Funny Guy." There was an unpleasant edge creeping into the voice of despair. It ordered two more doubles. Blood covered the table.
"Somebody has to lighten things up," I said, adopting despair's flat monotone. "Hoagy Carmichael says '...there’s nothing like old Memphis in June'.
"That's crap and you know it."
"Yeah, I do but..."
I felt an argument coming on. It was a good feeling, a sign of life at the fringe of my self. As she had always been. Well, most of the time...
Oh, the days dwindle down to precious few; | September, November. | And these few precious days I’ll spend with you. | These precious days I’ll spend with you.
Peter, Paul & Mary | September Song
Despair wasn't falling for it.
"Yeah, but no matter how much you joke about it, I get to have the final say."
I straightened up, leant forward, put my elbows in the blood and glared at it. "So? Are you proud of that?"
"No."
Despair sounded ashamed, human, almost like a little kid. My anger dissipated immediately. My question did not. I pointed to the graphic at the top of this post.
"So tell me. What could I have done? I clicked, filed, saved, resized, tried all the effects on the menu and combinations of all of them. Nothing. She still looks drab and she still stares out of the same bloody window."
The pub's decor was 'medieval cheap'. Wooden tables, straw on the floor, banners, flags and old weapons on the stone walls. I saw a halyard and thought of the Happy Tutor. He'd appreciate one of those, I thought. I made a note to pinch it and send it to him for Christmas.
I added, "Persephone sleeps... sort of. Well, if she doesn't, at least I have some clue. I know what she's up to. She's balanced."
Madame Butterfly, she lulls me to sleep | Like an ancient river | So wide and deep | She said, "Be easy, baby, ain't nothin' worth stealin' here"
Despair sighed. It seemed old, tired. It knocked back the blood in his cup and motioned to the poster above.
"There was nothing you could do. The girl in the first picture's a painting. So's Butterfly. She's fixed. She was as she is, is as she is, and will be as she now is. Persephone's something else and you know what pressure you put on women when you set them up like that. It's tough, but that's life. The light in the picture and poster? Well..."
Its voice trailed off. It looked around the dark room. The pub was full of people but nobody was there. Despair looked me in the eye.
"You'll have to ask Persephone about the light. Look, I'll tell you something. I'm not meant to tell people this. It's not part of the script but you seem a nice enough dope to me."
"What?"
Despair leant forward. Its breath smelt like death. Its whisper was a rattle. It rasped.
"Nothing lasts forever. Not even godesses."
I been to Babylon | I gotta confess | I can still hear that voice crying in the wilderness | What looks large from a distance, close up is never that big
Despair stood up as though aware it had admitted to something awful, wrapped its cloak around its gaunt frame and strode out of the room, through the door and into the night.
It started to rain. The barman cranked up the radio and Lord Randall floated through old swing doors, across the slick road and rose to an empty sky.
A thin scarlet mist began to fall.
Never could learn to drink that blood and call it wine | Never could learn to look at your face and call it mine.
Bob Dylan | Someone's Got a Hold of My Heart
