Duration and the Drumset
If I use the drumset to chop time correctly, I'll be able to escape wherever it is I am.
It resembles a house slanted two degrees to the side, but it is not a house slanted two degrees to the side. I know that it is obscured by a painted screen pulled taught in front of my retinae, adorned with absinthe bottles, one-eared cats, wobbling ceiling fans, abstract expressionist prints, jalopies passing outside of cracked windows. The screen has a painter—a woman, I think—who reaches into my head with brushes while I'm asleep, adding, subtracting, blurring, recoloring as she sees fit. The painter doesn't know that she is a painter, and I can't find the right combination of words to tell her. If I were to upset her, the jar that she uses to hold her tears would overflow and spread salt residue and mold. The painter lies next to me at night, her face pixelated and shifting.
The painter added a drumset a little while ago, tucked away in the upper righthand corner of the screen. It rattles every time the floor slides deeper into the sinkhole that sits under the foundation.
All rhythms exist at once, floating in one undelineated mass called Duration; it's a matter of using the drumset to chip the right one out, isolate it, and ride it to the other side of the screen, to see wherever it is I am. I spend time familiarizing myself with the touch of the sticks on the snare drum and hi-hat, training my muscles to twitch and chain off of each other in intricate patterns.
At my pounding and prompting, Duration has begun to splinter into fractals of sound. I'll use them to build a key, which I'll slip in between the painter's brushes when she isn't looking. One night, soon, when she reaches into my head to sketch a bird skeleton or a loose coffee bean, she'll nudge the key into the lock of the mechanism that holds the screen in place, causing it to snap and roll itself up. Once I can see wherever it is I am, I'll be able to escape.
When I go, I want the painter to come with me. After the sinkhole has swallowed everything, we’ll lie side by side in the dark, light a candle, and unroll the screen again.
The drum beats on: baDOObadee BAH t badDOObadee CH t baDOObadee BAH t baDOObadee baDAbada
