The story of the guy continues.
Drumbeat Shorts VIII - The Kingdom of Childhood
"Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies."
I longed for the Drumbeat.
It felt like I had heard it forever ago, but once in a while, when I'm at peace, it rings like an alarm loud in my mind, but not like when I was out there. It was more me humming it than hearing it. Weeks had passed; almost a month had come before I heard it again. And this time, it was not by expectance. In fact; it was one of the most pleasant surprises I've ever had, if not the number one.
I was not in the field. I had traveled back to visit some old friends of mine in Minnesota, and one of the nights I suddenly felt the urge to wander about, and see if maybe this place was not tainted, unlike the previous; everybody else was playing and reliving childhood in the backyard, in which tall grass separated the back of their yard; a hill, from a trail. Close to that trail were woods. I look back, only to realize that I don't care if they know where I am, I had my phone, if they noticed. Pulling my hood up, and wishing I had my walking stick, I began to walk to the trail.
As I walked there, I thought about how nice it was to be away from my home; if you want to make the word 'home' a technical term. My 'home', the town I currently live in, is dreadfully boring. Painfully, I would say. Plus of course, the friends I made there would probably never be as close to me, as the ones I grew up with here. There were always be that someone, the person I am fond of, but unfortunately the chances surrounding that happening are dim indeed. Even though I didn't think of any friends from my 'home', while I was with my real friends, I still thought of that someone. That's something I'm not going to be able to help. I didn't, really; I thought about much of the time I had spent there.
We don't need to talk about drama; because in the kingdom of childhood, drama does not exist. Sure, there would be the occasional crying or something of the sort, but never near the scale that exists among those who have lost their innocence. I didn't need to worry about being smooth around anyone, or polite around anyone, because with these people we already got the whole thing down, so we can bring up just about anything we want; Scrubs? Sure, why not; the Office? Preferably not, but that's no big deal. Feel free. It was something unspoken; the bond of innocence that had been formed; and that's one of the most powerful bonds that can exist between people. It was the reason I had come back. It was the reason; that I walk now, not needing to tell them where I'm going, or worrying about what they'll think of me for randomly wandering off. And that is why I was walking looking for that drumbeat.
Coming out of the woods, which didn't take long, I go around the edge and find the trail; in which I would travel to find the Drumbeat. It was cold outside. It was cold inside.
I was cold in more ways than one.
I carried on, my desperation for that sound growing by the minute.
I walked on the trail, past the woods, looking up at the tall grass and the hill everybody else was still on. I paused, feeling my phone in my pocket just to make sure, and continued on, looking at how the trail extended far past what my eye could see. This place was much better than the little slab of artificial light and grass, that I had back 'home'.
I walked for just a minute or two, along this trail of sand and grass, before one of them called me. I answer to find out its Chris; my oldest friend's younger brother. He asks where I am, I answer truthfully, and apparently they were coming for me. Ha ha ha, the bond…so, since this was a night spent in the Kingdom of Childhood, I sprinted, playing a little joke on them, seeing if I could jump out and do the old scare tactic. I heard no drumbeat yet, but it felt like the first night; running with the imaginary roadblocks cleared by my own mind. I wondered why I hadn't run before, with the wind in my hair, I didn't stop for two minutes. I heard nothing yet.
He called me again; I laugh a little, saying again that yeah, I'm along the trail. They were having fun too; I could hear it in the background. Two of them had followed me out. Childhood was nice to relive, beginning to run along the path once again. I was having so much fun, fooling around like this. The path long, the stars light reaching out, and my grey jacket whipping out in the wind.
Then came a sound.
I flinch. Had it come back?
It had come back. Even if it was just for a few seconds, it was back. The drumbeat was not dead in the Kingdom of Childhood. I dashed for it even faster; hoping to catch up to it, trying to relive the past. For what felt like an hour, I ran down on farther, hearing traces of it here and there, focusing my thoughts on childhood, because I thought that's what had brought it back.
It was getting weaker.
A single tear dripped down my cheek, as I furiously attempt to catch up with once I once had; to catch up to, return to, to relive, the past. Approaching a soccer field, and more houses, I began to walk very slowly. No sound was there.
It had left me again.
I paused for what again, felt like an hour, pondering as to why it left. Clearly I was wrong; this drumbeat had not died. It was not physical, but that does not mean it's not real. It was spiritual; maybe even metaphysical, a sound that is exaggerated in my own mind. But again, clearly, it could be brought back; but not in the way I tried. It could not be back from the past; it could only be brought forth from the moment you are in.
In the last entry when the piano played instead of a drumbeat, it was because I had allowed my three selves to argue with each other. Soon enough, they had swallowed up the sound from me. Yet I heard it again, why?
Because in that moment; both my first self, and my second self, did not exist.
I can't return to the past.
I can't try to relive my childhood.
This is not where the drumbeat comes from.
But it did come during that time, so what could it be? The source was something else entirely; a state of peace, maybe; a state of spiritual rest? It's open to interpretation, but the end result is the same. Then again, I had heard a piano when the drumbeat disappeared, what was that, and where is it now? I can't answer that question entirely, but I already know my answer.
Do you?
I can hear my sister and Chris walking up along the trail, they had caught up to me, but hadn't seen me yet. I wiped the tear from my cheek, and grinned, as I hid myself in some nearby trees. I play dead on the ground, blending in with the night, and I see them walking past me, wondering where I am. Being sly about it, I jump out at my sister. She didn't flinch one inch. I was like "…Boo?" Ha ha. Oh well, it was fun. We laughed. Tonight wasn't a night to think about my selves, or to think about what I had lost, and may someday find again. It was a night of what I need & had; and everything I need. Though the one I am fond may not be here, in which if they were it would be even better, I can't help that. It was then that I didn't think about them for a while, and not a single time as we walked back.
Walking back Chris nearly spoke my own thoughts out loud: "I miss being a kid. We didn't have to worry about school, or what people thought of us, or do anything intentionally hurtful. I miss those days." He went further on, expanding on the subject more, as I agree with everything he said completely. My sister did too; we all contributed memories, longing more and more for the days and innocence that we had lost. We said we should walk along here later at night, after midnight maybe, and just talk about stuff, walking around for hours. That wouldn't happen; we ended up getting more people and going to a movie instead. But that's alright; I didn't need to worry about it anymore. I didn't want to worry about it for the rest of the time I was here.
And I didn't.
Whatever the drumbeat was, I knew that I could call upon it anytime, I just need to find the way too. I know that my selves would scare if off, and chasing it after it, as if I was a kid, would only make it seem farther and farther away. There was some way though, and I was going to find it; and figure out what it was, along with that piano.
For this was the night of the living pulse, life, it had been reborn in my own mind.
Am I the only one that can hear it?
Is this the pulse of the Earth, or something in my own mind?
That's something that only you can tell me. When you have time, I ask of you, after providing you with what I'm sure are just thrilling stories, to wander about in woods or along a trail, and think of the things that I did in the first couple entries. Do not demand of it as if you were still in childhood, running after it like a crybaby. And don't let your selves take it away from you. I am not impatient to hear it again, because I am writing two weeks later, knowing I can try to hear it again anytime I want. I don't have to return to my real home to hear it; I don't have to relive my childhood.
Childhood is not a time from when a youngling grows into an older person; but instead, it is a place where nobody dies; a state of mind that encourages your creative senses, your freedom; a state of innocence that many people can never tap into again after losing it. Was this drumbeat, a form of innocence? Again, this is not something I can fully answer, but it is indeed a possibility.
In that moment of time, an eternity spanning across the stars of itself, reaching out with the Starlight, the drumbeat continued to play. But I had passed that moment, only to maybe someday, tap into it once again, to hear the eternal pulse that I longed for.
But to me; I think maybe, it is Starlight in its purest form; in its innocence.
Innocence is what can save the world, yet look at the world of itself today. It has broken its, and is losing itself further and further in the darkness. Innocence can heal the world; are you just going to stand by and watch?
Drumbeat Shorts IX - Santa's Many Shades of Red
Christmas Eve. Huh. I chose this night for my next visit.
It had been nearly a month since the last time, but I thought it was important... that out of all nights, I chose to visit on this one. Walking out the front door, the cold whipped in my face as expected; the scarf I had was tiny and worthless, but it was the only one I could find. I was expecting also, to hear it for a while, I waited for this night still. Of course, even if it was still alive, if I did manage to tap into it again... it may, or may not, be because of the one they call Santa Clause.
I'm not sure why I bothered wearing the scarf, it was my moms and for some reason she had bought it, even though it's like not even two inches wide. Oh well. I try to turn my face a little to avoid it, as I begin my ninth visit out away, on the brink of modern suburbia. Tonight of course, was definitely the coldest out of all nights. There was now snow, it was a raining Christmas. Earlier, it was; not anymore, but I would have gone anyway. This is what it's like in Carmel, snow melts instantly. So plain, so flat, so resistant to change. So resistant to be different for long. I thought how much I'm like this place; maybe I do deserve to be here. But that's not what I was thinking about on that night.
Everything comes down to love. You know what you want, you know who you are, love, you have power. Don't think about what you have and what you've lost, but instead where you are, who you are. Apart from absolutely everything else. I did so. I did so in the earlier entries as well, thinking about those two monsters, who I am & who I am not. How much I sulk over things, how much I can't seem to do anything right... knowing that my thoughts aren't so far off. But as I did so, thinking about where I am in my life, who I am... I thought again, about how much I don't deserve any of this. How I don't deserve, anything that I have; anything for Christmas. How I don't deserve anything from the one they call Santa Claus.
I have no scarf to wrap around my pill eating mouth.
I step out onto the changeless field.
At first, for a good long while; I heard nothing. I feel horrible, knowing that even now, on the most cheerful of all days; I can't escape my two monsters. I walk out further, dragging my feet with my plagued mind. A note plays, I follow further.
It was there, like a present sprawled out under a tree.
I have a real smile for the first time in a while. I stop, thinking; why do I deserve this? I shouldn't be able to hear it anymore, look at me. There are so many people in the world that need what I have, and all I can do is sink further and further into a depression. So many war zoned countries, food shortages, disease, overpopulation... and here I stood, my only notable accomplishment draining resources from my already resource hog country. Why should I be able to hear it, while no one else can? I don't agree with it. This is not the way things were supposed to happen; I wasn't supposed to be given it back. When I stepped out, I wasn't even trying to escape my two monsters; I was being depressed like I always am. I wasn't tapped in, I wasn't meditating (as a friend suggested), nor was I really WANTING to hear it at all. But then it pulled a jack in the box; popping out of nowhere. Why would Santa Claus give this to me?
The Santa Clause is real. Not in a material sense, but in the way he's affected the world. Both good and bad. To some; he represented an incarnation of generosity, a simple man with a big heart. But sadly, most children look at him as someone who throws crap at them. He's become both a near Jesus icon, and a Materialist icon in it's darkest. We have him being a simple man; a man of pure innocence. Completely selfless with no attachments. But then we see that he can be taken as a materialist; or at the least, someone whom the materialists look to. This all depends on the child. As I said, most look at Christmas and think of gifts, rather than good times and love. Issa shame.
I didn't want anything for Christmas.
I didn't want the drumbeat.
I detested myself so.
I see Santa as the one close to whom we want to be in the end. Not exactly, but pretty friggin' close. People like him are hopeless romantics, like me. The difference being that they have the strength to see their romanticism through. As an icon and not an actual person, people have breathed into him, with their traditions and tales, the strength to carry their romantic take of Christmas through; as if by acting out his role, that their children will aspire to be better people; to be more like him. Times have really changed. Industry, sales, turning this time, into a time, of giving and receiving. And that's not a bad thing, it's certainly good. Except when you realize how most don't get to give. How they don't care to give.
And even when they fake act to get what they want; or they get what they want regardless, the role of Santa can be taken as a materialist; painted in so very many shades of red.
I really didn't want anything.
I did end up getting quite the good bit though. But as I said, I didn't deserve any of it. Though I may see Santa as what he was meant to be, instead of what he's become... I don't act on it. So why, now, should I be given something so magical? I do not understand. Who knows, it really may just be a common geologic phenomenon; me taking it as my own interpretation. But I'm choosing to believe it's something else. There was a reason I've been given it. Was it to tell these stories that you read, to maybe enlighten people, to inspire them to act on their insecurities... to change the world?
I do not understand.
I intend to walk away from my gift, not unappreciative; but instead, overwhelmed. Yet Santa Clause was insistent, making the sound louder, as I walked towards the Road of Dust. It's been a while since I last treaded on it, and I still had some time before I had to be back. The sound grows louder the more I push it back; why? This gift, this simple sound; how am I supposed to use it? It can't make a difference as I see, it can't change anything. I was still cold; I still longed to being a certain someone out there with me. Though they hate the cold, as I know; and it's not like I'd ever have the strength to ask. This sound, this gift; what is it supposed to be for? Is it something that I'm destined to find the answer to, or shall I take my own interpretation of it? Santa thinks I deserve it, that I will do something with it. I thought more, walking along, about what this might lead to.
The sky glowed a melancholy green.
Writing stories about it certainly have helped me sharpen my skill. If you look back at the first one, I've very much improved compared to the style I currently use. Is it meant to better my skills, so that I may one day tell the fantastical stories that exist in my head? To aid me, in realizing a way to make my stories become real?
Perhaps is it supposed to inspire me, give me the strength to use all my other gifts, so that I may make a difference? To support me, as I may go out and really try to be with a certain someone? To change me, to change the pulse, the beat, the music; that I hear in the world?
Or maybe it's all meant for you. That I may be a medium, someone for you to learn from; someone for whom you can learn from because of the insight I have in my mistakes. That these stories may change you in the slightest way, to be better people. To have the power to change yourself, something I have not yet achieved.
Or it's just some geologic phenomenon.
That it's existence has no purpose.
Of course, that's not true. It would not exist if it was pointless.
In the final view; perhaps it is meant, as many things are, to be open to interpretation, so that it may affect all areas of my life. Something that I can always remember, look back to, and say; "There was something that happened to me before, that nobody else has ever done; has ever experienced, and may never do so.". To remind me, to constantly yell at my monsters, to slay them with it's bare hands, muttering in the voice of my Blue Hero; "You are worthy of existing. You are worthy of being here. You are worthy of the Drumbeat that you hear.". That's what Santa Clause must have been thinking, when he gave me back the magic that night. Or maybe it was me alone; and I played the role of Santa, surprising myself in the end. Something that can never be answered, something that's open to interpretation.
I reach the end of the road, noticing that far off in the distance; the sky was glowing with the strangest lime light. I realize my time tonight is almost up, turning back and running a little along the way; feeling those imaginary roadblocks fall beneath my feet. I slow down at one point, playing with my walking stick. Whipping it around in the silliest way, tracing it along the ground; only to have it snap. It cracked in half, and it's something that I have to fix now. I love the little twig, I would always lean on is as I walk along under the Starlight. Gaining and losing; maybe that was the karmic price the universe was demanding of me. Do you think I'm looking too deep into it? Not at all; everything happens for a reason.
I was tired, and I needed to get out of there, away from that sound. Even if it may be a gift, I don't feel ready to wield it it; I still feel unworthy. But it would always be out there whenever I mustered up the courage. If I did so, but that's just me being a Negative Nancy.
It was time to get out of my head.
Walking back along, holding my karmic debt payer; I looked out at the field, thanking Santa Clause; whether he be real material or not, realized through human potential or greed, whatever shade of red he may wear.
I myself, chose to see him in it's brightest.