Metaphors to Live With, Chap 1

METAPHORS TO LIVE WITH

Chapter 1:  MALONE DOES NOT DIE

            Here I am.

            Because what else am I supposed to say?  Because what else is there?  The three little words of Here and I and Am just about say it all.

            I would prefer to not complicate the issue.

            It would be easier and preferable to state simply that I am not here and be done with it.  I am not at all sure how to define the it referenced in the previous statement.

            However, in spite of my stated preference regarding complication and something that is stated as being or becoming the issue, and something left undefined that might or might not contain elements of it, and certainly despite the concurrent knowledge that the apparent I speaking in this instance has the ability to prefer, the three little words of Here and I and Am also obviously or perhaps not so bring about their own troubles. 

            Am.  Here.  I.  Word is one of those words, isn’t it, that if you’re not careful you can mispronounce or mis-mean:  wood, say, or would, or wound.

            I.  Am.  Here.  It begs only the addition of the adposition:  here I am upon, say, or here I am beyond, or here I am between, maybe, or here I am in, or out, or behind.  Or but perhaps you get the idea.

            Here I am of, which doesn’t really work, but is another example, nonetheless.  Here I am to, being another example of the non-working variety.  Because the simple adposition would here be designed to designate my relation to the am-ness of here. 

            As in, I am of here. 

            Or, I am to here. 

            Even if I use a complex adposition, I am in spite of here, say, or, I am next to here, which almost by the way works, if you know the here and the I, or even if I replace the preposition for a circumposition – I am by here dint of – the difference, except in the repetition of the nonsensical, isn’t easily grasped.

            I. Am. Here.  It pretty obviously doesn’t necessarily beg the adposition, as I may have previously stated; it might instead pretty obviously beg something else, say, for instance, an adjective:  here I am sequestered, or here I am onomatopoetic, or here I am shattered, or here I am broken, or here I am mythic, or here I am tragic, or here I am compulsive or and this could go on and on until the I and the am come to agreement with the what if not the where.

            None, by the way, of which I would imagine to be very interesting.

            But I want to, want not really being the right word, exactly, get at least this part right.  I want, see previous comment, to begin with the basics of what is happening before I attempt the various others:  happened, happens, or will happen.

            Because if not here, then where?

            As a side-note, I would propose that want is, apropos of nothing, not a word like word that can easily be mispronounced or mis-meant into something similar:  it is rare, I would presume, that, say, wand or wane is confused for want.

            The adverb exactly definitely causes a problem.  Is it want exactly, or exactly get or exactly begin.  Placement, or so it turns out, means something to meaning, or so it turns out, exactly.

            When I say I would imagine to be very interesting I recognize that I am ascribing my feelings to an unnamed but obviously hoped-for other, hoping, I mean, that there exists an unnamed other that I imagine to maybe find this preamble to not be very interesting. 

            Which is, of course, I know, preposterous of me:  if it’s my unnamed imagined other, it would find whatever interesting that I so deem necessary for the sake of interest’s sake.  When I say et cetera (see above), I recognize, without the helpful comments, that I am again doing the very thing that placed me here where I am before this now began. 

            That might be now with a capital N, as in Now.

            I am aware that the previous statements present a problem.  Before implies, and more than implies, designates a pre-time to what I am accidentally terming Now. 

            Not really.  Accidentally, I mean.

            And but I am aware, too, that Here I Am most likely begins to at least read Here I Am Now, as if, in the before, I Was Not Here, unless, I Have Always Been Here. 

            I, by the way, have not.  Always been here, I mean. 

            Always been, probably yes; always been here, no.

            Which complicates the issue mightily.  Perhaps, irrevocably.

            Which, for complication, see previous.  Which for why the previous, I choose (see previous) to want an unnamed other to like me.

            Which but again, the all sorts of complications and issues and questions, even more now with this than prior with the suddenly-in-the-face-of-everything-that-has-followed-simple Here I Am.

            Because always been somewhere, yes, when not here.  Always being sort of awkward in that, obviously, not always always.

            It might assist to know that I am seated.  What this might assist, or why this might assist, and hopefully obviously who this might assist I do not know. 

            Whom, instead of who.  Aid, probably, instead of assist. 

            Which is practically, by which I mean practical-ly, painful to hear, or worse, to read:  it might aid to know that I am et cetera the whole way through.

            Obviously, whom.

            And I have not yet even broached the subject – as such a subject, by the way, does physically exist – of they.

            There is a they.  A they bigger than an unnamed other, imagined or no.

            Not that this is intended as a provocation.

            Nor, of course, as should be understood, should this in any way be interpreted as a provocative intention.  I am not clear on how a they could be interpreted as an intention, but I’ve, of late, seen stranger things happen.

            I am not always clear, as may be clear by now, what I intend to mean by what I say.  As in now, where for by, please read with.  The by before the what I say, not the by before the now.  As may be clear with now not actually being a very clear statement.

            Here. I. Am.  Everything, here, is not new.  Here, everything is not new.  Everything here is not new. 

            No matter how I say it.

            New, as you will no doubt note, implies that there is or could be an old.

            An old.  And a they.  Here has, to the best of knowledge, still not been adequately, if at all, defined.

            If not old, then, at the least, the possibility of used.  As a possible definition of what everything might here be, if it is not new.  Old, or used.  Not the same thing.

            I certainly know that if the here has not been adequately, if at all, defined, then the everything that here has been declared not new is a complete indefinite. 

            And but oh, the possibilities that indefinite allow are multitudinous.  In-definite.  In-de-finite.  Other than finite.  Outside the finite.  The finite of everything that has been declared.  Not new.  Maybe old, maybe used. 

            The possibility, all too real, of both.  Not or, but and.  Old and used.

            I almost accidentally used irrevocably again.  After both.  I almost accidentally used irrevocably again after the use prior of both.  I was discerning the use of multiple irrevocably’s in such a short period of time, short in the grander scheme of things, naturally, when the thought occurred that I had strayed far away from the use of complete sentences, and that I had strayed, with a measurable equidistance, from the plot.

            Oh, as hopefully understood to be a shortened version of Oh my.  Which itself is also hopefully understood to be a shortened version of Oh my stars and garters. 

            Or some such similar exclamatory comment.

© 2012 – Mark A. Douglas