Apotheosis: by Nathaniel James Hood

Author:Nathaniel James Hood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-04-21T17:44:08+00:00

Chapter 16:

Damien Thinks

through Things

Damien stepped out of his apartment and instinctively removed a light-blue packet of American Spirit cigarettes from his jacket pocket. He pulled one of the remaining cigarettes from the pack and placed it between his lips. From the same pocket he removed a lighter that had a pickle on it and lit the cigarette. It was travel time.

He started walking toward the CVS on the corner three blocks south of his apartment and felt relaxed. He and his friends were a part of the biggest event in human history, to his knowledge, and they were not doing too badly of a job. They were being careful, intentional, and smart about the whole affair. A betting man would have probably placed his money on them all spiraling into panic by now and jumping out a window.

No one had ever had power like this before as far as he knew, except God, if God ever existed. There was no way to be sure that God existed. He was sure that Damien existed though. Actually, he was pretty sure that he existed. Actually, he could not be sure that he existed at all. He continued to walk down the street confidently unsure that he was there at all, believing it wise to always doubt himself. So he went down the street contradicting every thought that sprang to mind, making progress geographically, running circles philosophically. He diagnosed foolishness on the theists and solipsists alike and continued on his merry way.

One, two, three

Keep your mind from certainty

Those concrete shoes will carry you

To bed in a cerebral sea

Four, five, six

No thought will ever stick

Best let them slide and then subside

And form a new one quick

Seven, eight, nine

It all will fade in time

It starts to fade the day it’s made

So let your darlings die

How boring he found it to define anything at all in those days. Definition was limitation. To define something would be to limit its growth and, in turn, limit the growth of the observer who no longer had anything to learn about the thing observed. Once something was prescribed to be something, it could no longer act outside its description or it would cease to be. How boring it was to define his own being. How boring it was to define God. How boring it was to define poetry, politics, and maps filled with magic.

Damien walked past a group of middle schoolers in puffy jackets who seemed to be on a field trip. He assumed they were going to the theatre around the corner to see a troupe of middle-aged, hobbyist actors put on a lackluster rendition of Romeo and Juliet, leaving completed lines and accurate accents to the professionals. He remembered a similar field trip that he went on to that same theatre when he was in eighth grade. He saw Hamlet.

He wondered if any of the students walking past him had even the foggiest idea of who he was or what he possessed. He wondered if they thought of him at all.

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