NARCISSUS from me me to ennui

Written many years ago

NARCISSUS TURNS FIFTY

from me me to ennui

So I’m not a flower. I knew that all along. I’ve begun to

realize that I have been sitting here a long time. How? I

think it was the thunder. I think it was the lightening. I

think I was struck or the water was struck or my image was

struck. I think my image was hit with one hell of a jolt.

When I first stopped to look, time meant nothing. I

mean it simply meant nothing. Not just the sitting or

wandering through the forest. Time is for hope. I was

beyond hope. No, not hopeless. When you are the center,

the all, what’s the need to hope? When you don’t know

there is more, what’s the need for hope? Well, maybe I

didn’t have it all. Maybe I didn’t want to know there was

more. So for me there was no time. So that is the way it

was. Then.

Why did I stop and look in the first place? You might

think it’s because I thought I was beautiful. That I was so

important. I don’t think I was important. I think the idea of

me was important. But I only exist as someone else’s idea.

And that idea wasn’t me and I couldn’t be that idea. Back

then I was frozen in the idea. I had to stop. There was no

where else to go.

Of course my story was so simple. How beautiful, how

charming, how wonderful I was that was the story. And how

I saw myself in this pool and became entranced. (Forget the

flower part.) Do know about my parents or my ancestry or

my home. Hello, who are Narcissus’s parents? Do I really

know who my parents are?

I didn’t know anybody was trying to talk to me either. I

mean when you have to believe you are beautiful, charming

and wonderful shouldn’t you be heard not talked to. So

Echo who if you ask me has her own problems was yelling

out to me, “I’m here, it’s me,” all I heard was “me, me, me.”

So what do you expect? I mean if I was a flower I couldn’t

hear anyway could I?

Does it seems like I have a lot of questions? I mean there

is one. Well, you would have questions too if you just sort

of woke up after a long period of no time to find out it was

a hell of a long time. Of course when I was stuck in that no

time thing I thought I was the only one. Let me tell you

there are a lot of us around this pool. And lord knows how

many pools there are. That’s sort of disappointing. If I

spend all this time here (not knowing it until now as I said)

then the least of it I could be special.

The story goes that I got stuck here looking at my

reflection and turned into a flower. Well forget the flower

thing. Forget the reflection too. I wasn’t looking down at

me. I wasn’t of course looking back at me, that’s too deep.

I was just that surface. I was stuck right on that surface.

You know what that’s like? The slightest breeze can

ripple me. Someone pointing a finger can distort me all to

hell. Currents rising up from below cause real havoc. It

isn’t easy being on surface like that. Of course, I almost

didn’t know that.

And it isn’t just that I got stuck on the surface. No, I got

stuck just the way I was the moment it happened. Can you

imagine (guess you can) what it is like to wake up and see

this image that might as well be three years old and me

really showing the wear of time. Quite a shock, whoa,

wrinkles and gray.

And lost options and opportunities which is another

matter all together. No, I’m not feeling sorry for myself.

Well maybe a little. But let me tell, while sitting here trying

to figure what to do, I’ve seen others. One guy’s part of the

pool just dried up, don’t even know where he went. Then

there was this woman the shore slip right into the pool.

Don’t know where she went either. And another a tree fell

in a huge storm, poof gone. So at least I’m here.

Okay about that flower thing. This part is secret okay.

I’m mean I was a weed. Just useless. Maybe pretty because

someone wanted me to be pretty. Or maybe important

because of their need. It was all their lie, I was a weed.

That’s why I don’t like even mentioning the flower part.

Pure bull, pure wishful thinking, pure illusion.

Okay even that’s not true. All the while some part of me

has been stuck here at this damn pool the rest of me (no I

don’t know what I mean) has been out there playing like I’m

all grown up. Doing my productive thing. So I’m not a weed

either. I’m not a flower either. I’m just me. Now what?