2064. METAPHYSICS ANTI-TERRESTRIAL

METAPHYSICS

ANTI-TERRESTRIAL

I am going blind. It's fairly simple. An effect

of overuse, visionary over-reach, what you will.

I can still see horizons, and the ends of big things,

mind you, but the fine print, the small things,

the substance of what passes for detail...no.

It's all over, diminished, occluded and accompanied -

as this Dr. Mariento says - by clouds of effusion

amid notions of doubt. Whatever. I asked him,

'can I still see Reading?', meaning, of course, the

Pennsylvania town, and he answered (like a jerk)

'Reading? No, it's the reading that's done this!'

No sense going any further than roadblock #1,

I thought to myself. And anyway, if I'm blind,

he's obviously his own Helen Keller already.

-

You see, the trick of vision is the visionary life.

None of this idle bullshit back and forth for me,

no grave matters about finding fault and who's at

wrong or right. I live cleanly and pure - straight

ahead, telling the truth and seeing the truth the

same. Which it all is, after all. No shadings of

matter to color what is. That's where the blindness

comes in. Staggeringly dense and stupid, what is

after all, darkness but a stubbornness of not finding

truth in all matters. We should cut the trim of

that fabric with a very sharp knife.

-

Anyway, Mariento says it's soon over for me -

all those lights and the glee and the fun. Maybe

so, but...ah...who really cares? Not me. I've

seen the future, and I'm not in it.