The Abstract Man
The Abstract Man
He walked home from his piano gig one evening, but couldn’t find his house, even though he had lived there all of his life. He had thoughts in his head that still took him to somewhere in outer space where his house became an abstraction, a medieval sailing vessel, amid a sea of heaven’s tears, skirting around his familiarity.
Reality with its rational connections to life and its intermittent pain, escaped into a world of perpetual well-being. His smiles surpassed all other smiles that still feel the wrath of life as it is.
Sorrow is an inverted smile. Pain is a romance with the future, when pain was an association with the past. Misery is a funny story to tell when it gets too unbearable. It tickles the ribs and makes us laugh.
A hand is a hand. It is an extremity of the arm. It is an extension of charity, reaching out to lighten a burden. It is the embodiment of grace, as the flamenco dancer caresses the air
above her. It is the clapping of sound that embellishes and beautifies the rhythm and makes it more exciting and alluring. The sound draws us to its altar to worship. It is life reaching out for life.
It is not things the way they are. It is reality sugar coated to make it livable. It is a chain that holds reality together, but has nothing to fasten it onto. It is laughter watching it come apart. It is life making fun of its own imperfections. Abstraction is a romance with reality, not connected but on the outside looking in.
