Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Archive Fever


This morning I am waiting. Waiting for a call. Waiting for an email. If I had a cellphone I'd be waiting for a text. If I had a beeper I'd be waiting for an annoying sound to terminate as quickly as I could. If I twittered I'd be waiting for a tweet, whatever the fuck that is.

I am waiting. I've got the Archive Fever. Real bad. I can't stop scratching it. It won't come off in the shower. There is no salve, no lotion. It scars the body. It scars the memory. As if I didn't have enough of each of those. I'm hot-blooded, check it and see. Got the double vision too. That's right, Radio on the TV is on. I'm at Charlo's place, eating a Jos Louis, the eight-track cranked up, throwing away doubles of Wayne Gretzky rookie cards.

Before undertaking another fool's errand to the Archive, I'm waiting for a sign. A puff of smoke. A gesture.

I'm an asset, waiting to be activated. To be called up. To be sent for. To be made. To get made.

I'm waiting for something toxic to run its cycle, knowing that it never will. I'm reeling in the years, stowing away the time. The things that pass for knowledge, I can't understand.

I'm waiting to solve the aporia of completing two fulltime jobs simultaneously. One job, the universal dream. When there will be World Enough and Time.

To prepare for hockey. For football. To enjoy music again. To begin the biblophagistic project, the fool's errand that will occupy the red zone of my life. Like all its predecessors, it too will likely fall still-born from my imagination.

I'm waiting to follow the worms. All you need to do is follow the worms.

For now, I've got the Archive Fever. When I'm called back, will I be able to make sense of it? Probably not, but Government wants it. It is important. It's the Information. Doesn't matter what else it may be.



5 comments:

  1. Your best post yet. It goes along like prose laced with poetic verse. I write this, you should know, from the Archives--your promised land.

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  2. This fever is bad - the archives will ensnare you.

    Old Ollie

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  3. They better activate you soon - a soldier goes crazy without a mission. Suffice it to say, at the end of the day, we are all errand boys, sent by a grocery clerk, to collect a bill.

    hp

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  4. "I don't seem to be able... (long hesitation) to depart."
    - Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

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