The Blankness of the Hummingbird

The fog of both sky and sound fills my eyes and ears seeping in to the crevices of my skull. Its presence clouds memories both far and near obstructing time as I scribble and draw. I need to capture it as I try to capture all things: with open palms. It is almost more of a swat, a clap, a loud disturbance that catches most off guard. I like being caught off guard. It is called art.

He waits for me simply over there against the white wall his naked body covered by a white sheet erect. Solid, sturdy, with hard skin and soft fingernails he is my possession. He wanted to be mine, and I wanted him too. Only, I never wanted him to be mine. I only wanted to taste his sodium as it was expelled through pores. He wanted more. So much more. I don't have that capacity. I only have space in this four walled room for my own thoughts, my art, my presence. He wanted to become all things possible. He was inspired by paintings of lines, squiggly lines, overlapping confusing perception until images imagined emerged from the small patches of white canvas unpainted. He wanted to be that space. I wrapped him in a sheet, put him against the wall, and he has stood there ever since. It has been almost two weeks.

The open glass door lets in the fog and threatens to damage my canvas. He shudders a shiver of the wed cold spasming down his body until he is erect once more. He loves that wall more than me. He loves it because I've placed him there, but I think it it turning into his obsession. Shaking muscles have given way to stiff, unbending rigor mortis. He isn't dead technically. His heart still beats, and I hear his thoughts. All else is dead or dying. You can tell by the loose skin from starvation. Like I said, he has been standing there almost two weeks. He is free to leave. Only he doesn't. He is obsessed with that wall almost as much as I am obsessed with witnessing his death. I love it when characters die.

I've invited others to witness this art. Everyone has said no. They don't like the confrontation of mortality or boundaries. They believe their existence is eternal and unique. As an artist, I see nothing unique. Everything is repetition. Death is the ultimate repetition; it happens every second or fraction thereof. There is nothing original. We are all just copies of what came before, and I find that incredibly boring, mundane, almost as if it were just another speck of dirt that should be discarded rather than examined. I am doing this only because he wanted it. I am laying my squiggles over him.

This page I am looking at is filling with imaginings. The carelessness I use to create these lines is matched by his rigidity. I don't know how he stands there, and I am afraid to pull the sheet off him and examine him closely. I only know his flabby skin because he whispers his pain silently, and I hear it as I dream. He is a bird -- a smallish hummingbird -- who drinks nectar from my ears. He flits and darts in a manner similar to his decay. And then we have our conversation; our conversion. He tells me of the future when the landscape matches my paintings and colors; when everything lays on top of everyhing; when all finally intersects and becomes a single, straight line stretching infinitely in all directions. This is the future I paint. These are the memories most clear.

Then, I wake, and he is unmoved. We offer each other our elegiac lamentations in tears, and I watch as the sheet wets. The small ovals are the only sign of his life. He asked me last night to caress him, to touch him so he can remember feeling. The sheet has dulled touch. I can't oblige. I, too, am afraid of death. I don't want to feel it between my fingers, and I disappoint.

Instead, I paint what I think is touch. The ridges of paint are like mountains to my fingerprints. I can feel the peaks -- they scrape at dead skin -- and again I  am fearful. What am I creating? who is this man underneath this sheet that I haven't looked at since his arrival? I don't even remember his face;. He is a hummingbird and squiggly lines. That is the only form I know. Revealing his self is too much; it overwhelms all fibers and organic and synthesized. And this fog must part. It is suppressing memory, and I need clarity. Yet it fills this room casting white on all. The sound of its presence mutes all else. Even my thoughts are obscured.

This page that houses borders is blank. The fog erased the lines, and my model is unseen. My hand as it draws cannot be seen. All is wet. We all cry at future death and mourn the loss of our history. I can feel these collective tears. I can hear the collective cries. All is blank. All.

The warmth of possibility and sun are evaporating this fog. Each particle of water disappears, and with each disappearance a new shade of blankness revealed. I can no longer distinguish any thing. I feel heat. But from where is it emanating? And on what piece of self do I feel it? Is that my hand or his? Is that my voice or is it the explosion of a molecule? Am I still in my studio or am I flying in the sky? I cannot tell. All are possible.

Then, as if in a dream, a hummingbird materializes. It sings its clicks. And I know, "This is my art."

And I am no longer. Only a hummingbird remains. And blankness. Eternal and unending blankness.

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