Twin Peaks – Side A

I could stand still for the rest of my life.

Think about how little difference it would make: I’m a speck of spittle, blowing my chunks around like I could ever be more than a fleeting thought (I’m not). I’m an anemone, blowing about a sea of slime and debris (I am). One day the weight of the world will cave your skull in. There comes a time for everyone. It’s only natural. And the only song you’ll hear then will be the sounds of buzzards.

I can hear them now.

When the world became just too much to handle.

I just stopped. Right in my tracks. Wrong everywhere else. It was so easy to become waste. I didn’t move, I didn’t blink; I only breathed and pissed. Pissed and breathed. Seconds, minutes, days. A month, two. Somewhere, someone made a thing of it (as someone does). People began to admire my willingness for catatonia. They showed up in droves. Ma sold tickets. We were able to hire a John to put droplets in my eyes on the half of every minute. A line through the house; people imposing their will on the first inanimate subject. They came from all over the country, soon the world. Though when they finally came face to sullen face, every single soul could only be brought to the same begging question. It didn’t matter what their story was, or why they’d come all this way to see me. It didn’t matter if they had this long, beautiful sentiment that they’d gone over in their heads over and over again. It didn’t matter if they came in veins a-poppin’, red and ready to tell off the broken mirror boy. It didn’t matter, every one of them could only say the same thing when the time came:

“What’s the matter with you?”

And a flute flutters about.

Maybe it’s because we’re all fucking silly. Or perhaps there was a brash draft I was unaware of. Either way, so it went. After a while – not too long, mind you – the buzz died, and the bees with it. The hive mind hath moved on, prevailing until the next soapbox dignity. I without it, still still. I didn’t break off for the people, I broke off because of them. They are the result of all results, to and fro, from this land here to that. And I am left to my hand.

It’s just another wrinkle in the cloud/ What a world, what a world

And a saxophone plays me out.

We’re not all bad, though. There was one who stuck around.

Her name was Desirée.

I’d like to get this out of the way now to avoid any further confusion: I don’t know what love is. Maybe it’s in some Doobie Brothers song that just missed me. Maybe Cher is the only one who knows and she’s not budging. Either way it’s all over my head, but goddamn, was she a sight. She never asked what the matter was. She’d meet my gaze, and we could have entire exchanges through that alone. Talk became something for whores and junkies. That drunk Shakespeare or that chauvinist pig Hemingway could describe it better than I, but I felt truly wanted by someone who wasn’t flesh and blood. Needed by someone who didn’t have to. Free from obligation. Free to care about anything else, or nothing at all. Yet, she cared about me: a fickle speckle, a sad sack. I couldn’t for the life of me tell why, and I fear if I wondered too long, it’d scare her off.

Though nothing ever did.

She became inescapable. The only thought my simple mind could hold; all it wanted to. She’d come into the room every day and we’d watch the world through the other. In it, a not-so-bad place, somewhere I didn’t mind being. The feeling grew more and more powerful, though it was never tense. It was like a realization of wisdom came with every plane, and I could breathe underwater. I swam that great lake. I could never drown, and if I ever did, I’d choke happily, knowing that the last breath would be hers.

I wanted to convey this in writing this time.

I thought about it real hard, so hard that it would come to her in a telegraph telepathy. The words came easy, because they’d been written a thousand times before. The transition of thought from me to her came easy, because we’d thunk a thousand times before. It reads like it always has and always will.

It read:

Desirée, I’ll be gone today/ But I don’t know if I’ll be back again/ Tired face has kept me up for days/ It’s within you to uncover what’s in your head/ But first we gotta find you a bed

And a single tear is shed.

It was then that we took from the same breath. The air was surefire. We weren’t supposed to live like this. It was as if we couldn’t die, and even if we did, we wouldn’t go nowhere, and even if we did, we’d go together.

As it would happen, we didn’t go nowhere.

Everyone else did.

Somewhere, the final stone is skipped.

The whole fucking world blew up. Just went right up in flames, all at once. Though it was relatively quick, less than a minute can feel like eternity before your nerves melt. But when they finally do, there’s those few seconds (the Catholics call it limbo) where you watch the world singe, yet you feel absolutely nothing. The victims of guillotine regicide felt the same way. Looking up at a bright blue sky, eight seconds feel like eternity when you’re just a fucking head. Blink away.

We were entirely unscathed, and we watched the world go up in smoke, and we felt absolutely nothing, because, finally, we weren’t alone.

Ego screaming above and below/ Which is real?

And two choir ladies sing us dead.

Rejoined with life’s sweet release.

And that,

ladies,

gentlemen,

so on,

so forth,

is Twin Peaks’ Side A.

Twin Peaks
Side A
[Grand Jury]