One Man’s Song Daniel Smallegange 22 Florence St. Apt. 2 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2P 0W7 (613) 230-9991 internet: shady@sprint.ca My life began long ago, in a time where opportunity existed and the battle for equality was not yet lost. So much has happened, so many events that have lead me to these dire circumstances. I have recently undergone a massive metamorphosis. >From the day I entered this unforgiving world my outlook has always been nothing less than positive. That all has changed. The naivety of my dreams now fills me with a self loathing that plagues my every thinking moment. I am haunted. It gets the worst when I reflect back upon the dreams: those ancient, senseless goals from times of hope and prosperity. Hope has been permanently extinguished. Long dead, it shares a shallow grave with respect and loyalty. I am alone. The only salvation in my shattered existence, this lethargy that drains my every energy, is my writing. Everything else has either betrayed me or somehow been lost. That is why I have kept on with the writing. It seems to ease the pain of endurance in this facade of life. The world has moved on some say. I tend to agree. It has changed from what once was, and I have remained of old. We were all so hopeful of what was to come. No one ever saw the warning signs. No one ever said anything until, of course, it was far too late. Yes, the world has moved on, and it seems to have left those like me behind to sit and rust. There is media and there are mobs. No one knows who creates who, but the cycle seems unbreakable. The individual has long been forgotten. Once, in the beginning, there were protests and even rebellions as groups of those who feared and hated the changes fought back. But like ill-made candles they all faltered and went out, drowning in their own wax. Most were taken by the state, but many gave into despair and simply surrendered. The masses, so idle for so long, could not be stirred, could not fight back. That was then, and now, now it's worse. Like animals bred to die they drift through life, thinking of nothing more than the next moment, knowing nothing of freedom or love or truth. The people can't remember what the world once was. They don't remember elections and can't even comprehend concepts such as freedom of speech and choice. But they are happy. Now they have everything they could ever desire: romance and adventure on a twenty-four hour, five-hundred channel universe; virtual sex and a drug induced happiness they will cling to with a ferocity which claims all of their limited strength. The people are smiling and their eyes are closed. <-> As I sit and write I cannot help but look out the cracked and blistered window, at the huge grey monoliths that dwarf the ancient skeletal remains of trees. These monstrosities, they go on forever losing themselves in the unforgiving smog, enclosing me, judging me. I shutter and look away, but there is no sanctuary for my wandering gaze. My quarters are worse, bare of anything resembling value. This one room apartment, the colour of old sweat, is reproduced endlessly throughout this ashen tower. These towers, it seems, are all the city is: a new evolution. There is nothing else. My room serves only to nauseate me, reminding me of guilt and disease. The dirt is everywhere, both in the physical and spiritual sense, so I retreat. I retreat into all I have left, the far corners of my mind where dreams still live, where dreams are hunted. But even this, my last refuge, is deteriorating. When this falls and the memories disappear I suppose I will taste true despair, but by then I will have.... Ah, such thoughts that flicker across my mind these days. My friend Jenkins used to voice thoughts the like of which I dare not even think. But then they came and took him away. They took him in the night, in the darkness. He was someone to talk to, although not the most logical of souls. Since the changes people do not make friends so much any more. It’s safer to keep to one’s self. Children are taught to betray anyone, even their parents, to the state if they act strangely or differ even slightly than what they have termed the norm. I fear the children more than anyone. Like little soldiers they parade, the bright colours of their clothing making up for the deadness in their eyes. Those happy colours failing so completely to hide the warlike cruelty so evident in their stride. Poor Jenkins. He tried to give a child a carving. Such a fool, giving a child a wooden Beaver when every child knows that before they were extinct the wicked Beaver would steal the Eagle's eggs and rend her nest and smash her young. Such a fool. Ah, but at least I could talk to Jenkins. I tried to talk with someone in the elevator the other day and received only a look of abject horror. It seems I am different and have been marked as such. I think that they believe that I too will soon be taken away like Jenkins. Perhaps they are right to be afraid. To speak with me could taint and corrupt, and after all there are quite a number of recording devices ever working, hidden away among the grey walls and yellow ceilings of our collective sarcophagi. So now with no friends left and only the ashes to look upon I turn to the memories. Unfortunately they bring more sorrow than joy. But still, sorrow is far better than the emptiness I see in the blank stares all around me. The memories are all I have and I will cherish them. I will not forget and I will not be nice! <-> In my youth I was so full of hope, hope for myself as well as humanity. My life appeared so easy and straightforward. I was going to be a great success. School did not fit into my grand scheme, however, and I eagerly left it behind in my search for glory. This did not bode too well on the home front and in my rashness I left my family behind as well. Even then in that dark moment of my life I did not give into despair. In my young arrogance I still pursued dreams of fortune and wealth. I was soon on the streets with no one but myself to share the dreams with. I discovered I was a free man, no family to love, no house or institution to hold me down. I was free and the dreams lived on, only slightly different. I travelled to this terrible city, which was little better then. I came to seek my fortune and discovered the only way for a wanderer like myself to achieve the much coveted success was through crime. Drugs were the answer, and soon I had new friends and new riches. My dreams were met for a full eight months until my new friends sold me out to the authorities: authorities swelling with new power, power meant to stop young men with dreams slightly different. That was when dreams turned into nightmare. For the next fifty years I was in and out of prisons all across the country. During this time the wars started. We fell easily as our great ally turned upon us. It had become more and more frustrated with our retreat from its increasingly right-winged views. Impatient and desperate to solve its own problems of poverty, crime and the desertification of its land it realized that our resources would be a perfect solution and so took them. The rest of the world was too afraid of the great beast to come to our aid, and so we fell almost before we had a chance to rise. At the time I failed to care though. I had other more pressing concerns in my new home. Prison was where I learned the true meaning of fear, and most of all despair. It was a place of rape, torture, and lunatic glee. A place so gothic, so dark and damp and wet and cold that now my meagre quarters seem quite respectable and almost cosy. The memories of that violent existence even now make me back into a corner to sweat and shiver. When finally I quit that place I discovered I had nothing - no friends, no family, and no dreams. I became a void, a void on the brink of devastation. They had broken me in there, broken my body and blackened my soul. <-> Again I sit and stare. It takes a moment, but soon I overcome the tangled and grasping claws of memory. It seems I am forever drawn to the window and the environment so far below. As I glance downward a spring of new memories I thought long buried painfully lunges, resurfacing. I remember the wonder of colour the trees acquired every year about this time. I remember how they transformed into beacons of light and radiance. The tallest of the trees below almost looks to be a maple, but that cannot be so. No, the state came and burned all such symbols away years ago. But still it does look like it might once have been...Could they with all their might have missed something so obvious, something right in their midst? Perhaps it has been left to remind those few like me of its destruction. Who knows? How fitting that the leaves are all curled and dead too. As I watch one falls slowly in a spiral. Its blackness defies the profanity inscribed on the white walkways below. The paint is garish in red and blue and seems to me to be an invitation to jump. Oh but the windows are sealed. Those colours I remembered have long vanished, as it seems have the seasons themselves. Now the world rolls by a monotonous dull grey and rusty brown year round. Except for the occasional flash of graffiti, and the great glowing signs with their happy images, there is only the colour of decay. The brightness of the neon only seems to shed light on the ashes, the reds reminiscent of earlier fires. I derive no joy from what was as what is seems so far the worse by comparison. A silent tear rolled down my nose, just now. Funny, I didn't think a could do that anymore. Soon the tear has gone, leaving me as all else has. The cycle of my self-inflicted torment causes me to think again of my family and of the days of childhood when we played in the autumn leaves and loved one another. I wonder if they are better off than I, or even still alive. It does not matter, for what would I say to the only people who ever loved me. What could I say to the people who I rejected, who unflinchingly accepted my words of hate. I am alone. I am an old man that only survives in this hostile environment because I have nothing anyone could ever want. I wish things could have been different. I wish I had the insight and wisdom then that I have painfully learned through years of mistakes and failure. I now realize that the dreams of my youth were quite pathetic. I cared for no one, just myself and foolish ambition. What good is wealth if you have no family or friends to share it with. It has taken the greater part of my life to come to this realization. It seems I have matured late in life, far too late. I would kill myself, but something in me, something rooted deep in my being will have nothing of that sort of cowardice. So I am trapped in this private hell, a hell of my own making. Forever remembering the naivety and selfishness of my dreams until whatever powers that be call me unto them. When death comes, I shall welcome her with outstretched arms. For surely even hell would be better than this. <-> It is another day. The tea leaves I steep have been used once before and they are my last. The state has been late yet again with rations. I drink my tea today and watch the trees. Not knowing about the Maple disturbs me. I stare and stare, but still am unsure. The walls of my tiny room seem to constantly work the scabs of my wounds. The more I fix my gaze upon its faded yellow the greater my claustrophobia grows. It has given me nightmares the likes of which I shall not relate. With the absence of any companion I have begun talking with myself. At first this disturbed me, especially with the recording devices to worry about, but now it seems the only relief to the daily monotony. I smile, thinking it ironic how alone I am in a place so tightly packed. But we have been through this before. The other day I actually went outside and took a walk. I don't know what I was thinking, but I knew I could not stay in that room any longer. Perhaps I have gone mad, I thought, but nevertheless found my feet taking me all the way to the lift and down. Nowadays only the truly mad or truly vicious venture beyond the safety of the towers and hazard the outside. The creatures that brave the haunts below, both the soldiers and the gangs they hunt, are easily entertained by fools such as I. The sun was barely visible through the greyish haze, but still it stung my eyes as I gazed upon it. It hung there like a great ball of ice, and to me it seemed somehow swollen and strange. I felt no warmth from its rays and even its colour seemed faded and weak, but this seemed not to matter. It made me happy just to be out in the air and looking at that pale oval in all its limited glory. Perhaps it was the fear which gave my legs vigour as quickly I walked to the remnants of trees I had so often watched from above, an excitement I had forgotten existed prodding me forward. The tree was what I had come to see. If it could exist under their feet than perhaps I might as well. But from the vantage point of the ground it simply appeared as any other tree. The three who clutched one another like lost souls were all black and long dead. From where I looked their limbs seemed like misshapen claws imploring the clouds above for mercy. Silently I stared for perhaps a minute knowing I should get inside before the sun set, but something in me would not relent. Instead I sat on a grey rock that might once have been a bench and looked at the dusty star above. With a groan of protest the rock suddenly toppled, and I fell. Brushing the dirt from my trousers I stood and was about to retreat inside when something caught my eye. Casting a furtive look about me I saw that still no one had come. The garbage the rock had imprisoned was happily playing in the wind. And then I saw it again. It was so small and green and perfect. I closed my eyes and opened them again before approaching the place where the rock had been. Underneath in a tiny niche it struggled. The slender yellow stem was twisted and pained. It seemed the tiny plant had put all of its energies into the production of one perfect leaf. Its green was so brilliant it seemed to shed a faint light. The leaf's edges were sharp as was every crease and vein. I had not believed such beauty could exist. Carefully, and with great reverence I plucked the perfect little leaf and rose to my feet. Without it the rest of the plant seemed dead and pathetic and this pained me, but only a little. My tears fell unchecked as I crushed it under my boot and returned the rock to its place. In my room I stared at the leaf for what seemed to be hours. I placed it upon a piece of paper by my desk and as I watched it I cried and of course, I wrote. The leaf, so perfect is in my mind constantly. I never dreamed to find such beauty. This talisman has given me hope. If such a tiny delicate organism could exist than perhaps more can. Perhaps it is a sign that things great and small will heal, that things will get better. <-> I have been going out more and more despite the dangers. I like feeling the sun’s rays upon me, and oddly enough I have been left alone. I keep thinking it must be my new talisman I keep always in my coat's inner pocket. Or perhaps it’s the slightly crazed grin that seems imprinted upon me whenever I catch my reflection in a broken piece of glass. Whatever the cause I am unmolested. The outside has sparked more and more of memories. I see the world as it used to be, and I now smile through the pain. I am writing what I remember and the pages have grown thick. For some reason, although it has been two days, the leaf has failed to wither. I still just sit and stare at it. No doubt you think me mad but I now treasure this leaf more than anything in the world. The nightmares I used to be plagued with have stopped and I sleep well. Hope is reborn, but I must be cautious. I have not seen one of my co-habitants in the past three days. Perhaps their fear has escalated. I must be cautious. <-> They have come. My papers are scattered now, all over the floor. The pounding on the door sent them scurrying there, and there is no time for a return to their hiding place under the floor. The pounding is loud and incessant and is accompanied by a voice. "213300, this is the authorities. Please open the door. You are suspected of criminal infringements under the state moral codes. Please open the door. We are here to help you." It is the first voice aside from my own I have heard in weeks. As the door begins to collapse under outside pressure I find myself in a fetal little ball, my papers all around me in a loose cocoon. Clutched to my breast is the tiny perfect Maple-Leaf that I found so many days ago - the leaf that will not wither and die. In my panic I have crushed it, but even so its essence is sweet and fills the air. Strangely the tears do not come, and it is more relief than fear that now enshrouds me. The crashing becomes more and more insistent, and then they are through. The anthem I hum was banned long ago. Pity I've forgotten the words. The End.