Rotten Mail in Denmark

Dear Q.,

How quickly you lurch into hurt! And at the same moment you have begun to share my penchant for solipsism and the integrity of doom. I would have thought Mesmer to get along with Sancho, if not yourself, much in the same way you thought, some weeks ago, Sancho might get along with me. But I am glad you have seen the swords that guide this game of ours. You are in the desert. Your throat must be parched. Let the storms of betrayal restore you to things you knew all along - men operate on interest alone. Be that interest of the self or the interest of others. It happens, not unlike the way shortcuts form along paths. I must not let your exaggerated disappointment entagle me for long. I submit my apology here and now, but surrender my quill to the same excitement with which my eyes originally approached your daunting letter. I get the sense that you no longer take any satisfaction from our game, but are unwilling to let things go based on an older, romantic notion you hold of me. I shall not let this spoil my fondness for you. However, nor shall I restrict or protect you from 'M' - as you call him. Nor 'M' from you - Mesmer speaks for Mesmer and will admit no control from the likes of you or me!

I am the spirit of my father. I realized this after Mesmer placed me in a deep reflective state. In exploring the substantive encounter I made with his ghost. I relived the scene. I wished for night. Time out of joint, seated in Mesmer's chair, I watched the changing of the guard, and filled with tension, twitched with the nervous energy of the familar military routine. Horatio, Barnardo and Marcellus, not at all in the mood for this, stand on the periphery while I encounter the ghost. Snowing, and he moved and spoke uninhibited. The focus! The deliberation! O Q! I'm beginning to see that Father is more than a name! It's a verb! He whispers, sings, and I know now that my destiny is his becoming!

But let me return to this supposed slight. Although I swore against it bothering me only a paragraph below, the thought of your discomfort gnaws at me. There is a mad river, barely hemmed in by the Purple Hills of Mulmur. It burns through me now as a result of this mistake. But it is not a mistake. In this classroom and stage we are students making ourselves up, changing gears into different levels of performance. We are simply continuing as learners, though occasionally we find ourselves, unwittingly, working as actors. … Even more discomfiting - all are players and audience simultaneously. There will be as many Hamlets and Don Qs as there are participants on this stage of our own (un)maing. We are essentially producing the text for our own edification and delight, as individuals and as a group, not performing it for the approval of others. There is no one beyond. Not even Mesmer!

That said, I must return for another session, return to the ramparts. Only be revisiting the site of previous performance can I possibly understand the evolving collection of texts, images, and film relevant to my first encounter with the Ghost. Can you hear the hypnotist? Like the linguist, he spews the keywords I'll latch onto, the rock that flew through the window I'll transform into street, season, and pattern of brick ...


corrupt
help
save
destroy
induct
seduce
empower
infect
tempt
enslave
inspire
transform
ensnare
invade
use
guide

farther father & sooner son

H

P.S. Mesmer says:


Grow up (forgive my honesty, old friend. I only feel that your rights are further violated if I restrict you from language that has been spilled about you).