Postcards From Texas #7
by david moses fruchter
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 23:12:35 -0500

one side of the postcard bears what is unmistakably a
15th-century Celtic woodcut, depicting a crudely rendered lunar
landing pod surrounded by dancing wood sprites with maniacal
faces.  the postmark reads, "Anachropolis, Texas".  the other
side reads, in tiny, spiderwebbed script:

  a city of slivers in the midst of the decidedly soupy
Valley of Regards.  i come upon it by night, wide pupils
dazzled: bursts of bright color flicker and flash from
windows scattered around the perimeter.  random pattern and
unpredictable order, and other beams from deeper urban
recess.  my engines of extrapolation rev, a search through
possibility itself is conducted; i scan for an angle from
which these rays of light could be viewed to produce
something recognizable as form.  within the dimensions i have
access to, this proves impossible.

  i absorb into nearby woods and wait for morning, in
hopes that the city will gain structure by day.  the faint
rhythm of unreflective matter protesting each photon's escape
summons me to sleep.  when i awake, i find myself in the very
heart of town.  every sense tells me i have not moved.

  apparently i am now in charge.  in some respects, i
even seem to have become the city.  the rundown sections of
town fill with my ghosts and failures.  in more prosperous
residential areas, a song i hummed through brightest
yesterdays seems to hover in the air.  the scattering of
industry and tract housing on the outskirts of town pushes
outward, as my present pushes into the future.  i wonder what
will happen when the walls of the valley are reached by the
city limits.  i fear that day.

  it is lonely to be a city.  i grow more and more
desperate in attempts to entertain myself, use the hidden
parts of me as surrogates for peers, friends, Others.  the
inhabitants of the city cannot help; every one of their backs
is turned to me, by nature itself.  even so, days are made
tolerable by watching them scurry, an escape into monotone
trance.  nights are worse.  i grow angry, confused, wildly
miserable and finally insane: i find myself howling into the
black sky, hurling my energies outward in fits of pain, rage,
mad joy.  perhaps one of these bursts will be bright enough
to pierce the walls of this valley.  perhaps one will be
bright enough to reach all the way to you.

  until then, i wait for my own arrival.  i wait...for
relief.