But before our loss can be massed, given one face and voice, any name representation, an inviolate symbol — we’re asking you, wait up, langsam just a moment, will you, shtum: we all must stand ourselves, alive, aware, out on the far ice to reflect above the tide. Namely, that it’s the destiny of every individual, of even the symbol, even the ultimate, to think their time the end, to think their world the last — and this especially today, especially fastdeadly, with everything In the beginning again at the already begun, history eternally returning as always, as eternally as ever but rather quickly, evermore and more quickly now, with a precipitate urgency, an Apocalyptic insistence. Now the time in which you live the time to end all times and Time; now the Never again. In mourning, standing atop the furthest spur of frost above the deep, they mourn themselves, a little soon: their failure, their ill luck, the ruinous stars above with their frustrated mazel. It’s understood, which means it’s itself mourned, our knowing hope, our dreaming: how we can’t all be prophets, we can’t all be priests, we can’t all be kings; that despite what the scholars once believed, there’s only one Moses; that despite what the sages once bowed down to, there’s only our God; thinking, too, if everyone’s their own Messiah, what’s that worth, what’s in it for me. Better to unify, best to hold One indivisible. Nowadays, there’s no why to wonder who, admit it, who’ll make it, whose testimony, whose witness — that’s been long worked out and over, it’s suspected; already taken care of, chosen long before any of us were ever born to live down any death. A statement is forthcoming.
Officially, anything still undecided is beyond any notion of help, of emergency response, beyond even a call to account. Rather, it’s an attempt to define innocence, to safeguard assets from liability, to prevent position, meaning Authority, from assault, that being held responsible narrischkeit, this blood on whose hands mishegas — the Administration to vouch for the water supply, the air quality, middlemanager magi seers at the National Weather Service through an order from President Shade reporting directly to the Garden, which issues its own releases on every bandwith unsunned, givingout the assurance of what lately passes for expected: only the cold and the coldly dark, a steel frost, an iron ice; but there’s a break on the horizon, they’re sure to be assured…there’s bound to be, promised, a covenant fulfilled, just don’t ask us date or time. Nail what down — it’s excruciating, this call for exactitude, not a pleasant cross to bear. Though it’s important to remember, at least the FBs do, are reminding each other on their wandering whispering walks back from ice’s edge to the bunks of their barracks for Curfew, that of all people, organizations, or governments, Der has the most to gain from their loss, from ours of us; Garden, Inc., the very venture that ostensibly protects them, the party that would stand to make the most from their annihilation, as a total loss would make official, perpetually irrevocable, the reversion of assets, the manifold increase of the Island’s holdings in a wax: from obscurity, the mere lighting of a moon; an inheritance disinherited, to inheritance again. Not that any Authority more mortal is pleased, not at all, at least not publicly confirmed. No comment. As gossip becomes rumor becomes rule of Law, then eventually discredited, dismissed, overturned, it’s difficult to know what to do besides stand aside, sleep our dreams, wake, walk, and whisper, monger our gossip into rumors, while letting the course of events inhuman enact whatever punishment it is that might appease the anger of a God; render unto and all that — let the Lord exact the Almighty’s retribution, take enough suffering to satisfy them both, then make wing for day.
