Everything Falls Apart

Blogger fails me this morning. I brew up my coffee, log on, and heavens no, blogger is 'under repair.' Early morning lesson learned: everything fails. Not a major problem, I know it will be back in working order sometime, but a reminder that there's no certainty in anything, the planet wobbles slightly, gee, will it spin out of orbit? So, anyway...I jot my thoughts into a draft e-mail, which I will later cut and post.

Yesterday was one of those days where I was basically asleep, I went through the motions, a sleep-walker, everything unreal, slow motion, dream-like. The less I cared, the less I tried, the less I moved, the more I accomplished. So strange, a productive lethargy.

Sleeping and waking switched around for me. Sleeping on the air mattress the night before (see previous post) was all activity: tossing, turning, rolling, tumbling; waking was a zombified state of insubstantiality (is that really a word?) Late in the afternoon I was a mummy on the couch, not awake, not asleep, just a body taking up space. Amazingly, it was a good work day.

In the evening, I finished 'A Dead Man in Deptford.' At the end of the novel, Anthony Burgess emerges from behind his mask (Burgess pretends to be writing as a contemporary of Marlowe's so he can freely use the strange, archaic, language of Elizabethan England) and he mourns the great poet/playwright/spy. The last few pages, we know Marlowe is 'gonna get it,' we mourn, just as Burgess mourns, a light snuffed out early, overcome by a 'secret theater.' Later, we are told, Sir Walter Raliegh and Lord Essex (Lordly Rivals) will also be executed (murdered) by Elizabeth's terror state. A great book, where a great poet (Marlowe) and a great writer (Burgess) converge.

I see a story in the New York Times: torture at Guantanamo. How far are we from Elizabeth's world of rack, thumb-screw, gallows, axe? What is in a man's soul? (Catholic, Protestant, Atheist, Terrorist). How much torture is necessary to find the 'truth'?