aphasia complex
ray Ogar copyright 1994


(telegraph fugue)

	should i question?  myself that is.
	i am a monster.  rather am i a monster ,,le tout autre,, (altogether
different) or ,,le pres que semblable,, (almost identical)?  except, i 
seclude myself from those that can answer this for me, the public.  i've 
encrypted myself.  hidden.  a room.  a basement apartment, living off a
sympathy inheritance and more.
	i've met those that have been harmed by spillage from the blast 
furnace, limbless, human wreckage, timeless freaks.  those whose arms were
caught in a spinning engine; holed flesh from punchcard looms.  hearing those
screaming down the hall from me as i had lain in the ward.  another amputation:
a man restructured--deconstructed because of the bessemer process' latest
failure.
	i spent godless time smelling the chemicals of supposed antisepticism,
watched from unfocusing eyes the remains of wiry flesh--forced flesh, stumble
beyond what seemed my own private experiment in communism.  catching such
images as these from the hall as a nurse, opening and closing the door to my 
hospital room, checked that my bandages were wrapped more for secureness than
cleanliness.  her face expressionless, surveying me as if both an analytic
and symbolic piece of art.  i truly rode the fringes of the mechanical
revolution.

(memory)

	as if a bone-dice toss of ill luck from the foreman's hand, i was 
chosen to travel to the Northern province.  when the union workhouse messenger
stood beside me, to my back right, i paused in mid-stencil; picked my pencil
up from the colour map.  did not turn my head.  yes, in a question, is the only
word i spoke.  the messenger informed me to see the head foreman after shift
change.  easily said and done.
	i was given a slim package.  why not let a courier deliver it?  no
questions was i asked; simply handed the package and a train ticket leaving 
at half past four.
	february and exceptionally frozen in the Northern mechanical wasteland.
i packed heavy.  sitting bored to the trance motion of the train, on the gold
and red paisley seats, trying not to let the recent cheapening of literature
affect my information fetish.  with the excess of propagandist religions
having crept about before the turn of the century, i could only wonder why
i was singled out for this courier job.  i feared at each stop the boarding
of some funeral society or owen's socialist convert.  feared that such a 
person would sit by my side, soon to stuff my surroundings with the non-
essentials of his or her particular denomination.  i was taught to solve
my problems with a simple formula, in this case escape.  so i continued
to cheapen myself with literature.
	what am i delivering?
	fits of sleep and food-gorging wakefulness stayed with me till my
destination.  other passengers, new and old, noted my self isolation, i was
easily left alone.  the ride ended ten miles from the border.  out of the
train, my luggage beside me.
	i waited at the station, down from the green barred ticket window;
the heat from my breath punching the air like a nasmyth steam hammer.  my
body motion under longcoat and dingy wool cap, shifted.  my eyes lit as the
occasional incendiary school boy passed.

(fugue)

	harshwhisper.  a man speaks beside me.  on the second pass of the 
phrase my ear realizes.  i stare into his blue eyes, maroon tatter scarf
about his mouth, 'the world wearies of undigested facts.'  i reply, 'h.
g. wells.'  his eyes crinkle in knowledge, quality information.  i know
that wells has only recently been commissioned to write the book that that
phrase would appear, his comment on current education-retardation.  but that
doesn't matter to this one.  he walks me, leaving my bags, to a truck.  
explains that we'll cross the province border in twenty minutes; he helps me
into the rig's canvas covered bed, sitting with what looks to be rusted
miners.  the smell of unpurified salts and the stench of dead fish and cloves
pricks my numbing nose.  i try not to stare, the temptation great, into 
any eyes; sacred darkness closes after the driver lowers the canvas backing.
only the sleek ribbed package against my breast, the last sensation before 
i doze into sleep from the jolt and sweat of the enclosure.

(fugue)

	the man in the brown starch shirt tries to explain.  his tired eyes
and wool capped head the only focus in my mind other than his words.  i'm not
interested in the why's and how's of 'mere size' progress.  how the deeper
and more intricate the mine, the increase in cost effectiveness labor-hiring
is.

(memory)

	the driver led me away from the truck bed, away from the line of 
workers as they headed to the snow crust filth of the mine shaft.  my self
deposited at the interim office of the man in the brown starch shirt; coat and
 package immediately taken from me, as if routine, by a jacketed receptionist
a surprising sight in the Northern wastelands.  the receptionist's ungloved
hand buzzed the rear office of the shack.  i heard the low hum-jolt from 
behind wood-layered-glass.  the receptionist lowering her face to the meshbox,
'joseph m is here.'  a hint of the previous dead fish smell blurred around
her.  it was after that i was introduced to the illicit use and activities of 
this border operation.  the man in the brown starch shirt felt it necessary to
explain to me the cohesion-of-the-present in the miners, all taken from a
failed ford communism experiment, the small town where i was last deposited.
	after an aesthetic tour of the strip mining facility area and brief
purges int the edge of the mine shafts, he sat me down with tea and opened the
package.  paper covering paper, thrown to the side of the oak desk.  the 
climate-interrupted static of an irish radio behind him.  he unfolded a map.
a reduced colour map.  glances of the hand-drawn style lit immediately; pieces
of my own work from the union workhouse.  told never to speak to others about
our maps or the documents copied.  those of us never giving reason for 
reprimand or conveniently lost in the daily shuffle of cleaning the dye
separator engine, feared our telegraph's being double wired or the phrase
catchers in the bathroom, all of which kept us chaste of mouth.  but the man
showed me.  how each map piece that had been copied or extrapolated by
hand had been reduced, chemically stapled together and completed.  i didn't
understand.  he didn't expect me to, but the attempt was made.  words about
the mapping of the deeper portions of the mine, beating the chinese, why
the need to lay a cable from the North to russian soil first, strategic points
of faulting, plate shift, and the precise placement of detonators in these
spots that the compiled map indicates is the chinese locations to layer cable.
this all because the transatlantic cable is too susceptible to pirate taps
or severing; a breach in worldwide telegraph communication was too probable
with such a physically accessible structure.  to prevent something similar 
like the english channel bombing in 1907 by anti-socialists.  he spoke on 
how it would be if the global economy forewent an information shortage.  
rather perceived an information shortage.  and how a new link to the east 
could be leased like a commodity; information scarce produces sacred nature.
similar to assembly line products. it is important control not fall into 
foreign hands.  that was before screams and gunfire echoed from the meshbox
and the outer office.

(fugue)

	the man in the brown starch shirt pulls a telegraph wire from the 
desk drawer and clips it to his ear.  he speaks two words, 'metal thieves.'
i hear the telegraph stutterclick from inside the wood drawer.  echoing 
clicks to the gunfire.  the glass cracks on the door.  holds.  i hit the floor
watching the man fold the map and hold a small charge in the other.  the click
click of the telegraph.  the door opens against my legs.  men in worn brown
leather, jackets, bubbled snow goggles, machine scarves, glovedhands grip guns.
point.  i turn back to the man as his hand releases the sulfur charge. ignites.
the room aflash.  my face numbs in the cool pain.  the left half of my body, no
sensation.
	shouts and the cold.  i open my eyes, forced sight through cracked
blood.  vision, darkleathered men in goggles each skiing on what appears
a single large board.  carving lines in the snow.  trailing away from dark 
tractor trucks and gunweilding miners.  myself encased in a net on someone's
back, perhaps a dogless sled.  the wind red near my ears, the low purr of a
mechanism underneath.

(telegraph fugue)

	i bid the boy leave.  very much a mechanical ritual; coinage and 
paper left on the whiteoak chest.  the little entrepereneur smiles as he
closes the bedroom door behind himself.  i rest in the bed under the flannel
sheets.  cloth over my face, waiting for the last sound.  the door from the 
front room apartment locks automatically.  i stand from the sweat-cum
soaked sheets.  leaving my skin to dry, i walk out into the front room.
pulling the black cloth bag off my head, feeling the winter coolness creeping
from the atrium.  my hand taps the wiremesh window, my mind envisioning the
hustler as one of the incendiary shcool boys so many days ago near the train
station.  except, i only remember the letter.  dropped off at my hotel 
apartment; the cane under my weight, long coat protecting me from what cold
was about as i walked from the hospital.  my face wrapped more to stay the
criticism and stares than for protection or practicality.  paid for the week
at the desk.  deferred any questions from the clerk, the bank of new york
account number i scrawled did service enough to provide me with a new key
to my room.  stepping from the caged elevator into a baroque smelling hallway.
lights more in accent than use.  limping to the door, key in, slight force of 
the new key.  immediately over to the pneumatic.  the clerk said i'd had a 
tube but they'd not retrieved it from my room.
	open tube.
	brown bagged envelope.  only the words 'john m' on the outside.  no
return.  no stamp.  i pause for some reason; open and a reading of the
parchment.

(letter to john m)

		similar to opium--a structure from the east  skin contact
		produces a limited facility to verbalize, rather truncates
		the ability to speak in broadening terms  affects the mind
		by layering memories of the recent present very much in the
		vein of a fugue or reenactment  this description of rust as
		it has been labeled by miners in the Northern province finds
		itself widely used by such working class men to release daily
		fatigue  extreme use causes, as stated, limitation of verbal
		ability though it appears the mind has complete retention of
		information  the centers which conduct speech have been blind
		spotted  wider word usage leveled either because of memory
		layering i.e. past language usage is only used or the drug
		itself truncates knowledge  further testing is needed though
		at times this condition has been compared to aphasia yet the
		term aphasia complex is deemed more appropriate due to the
		drug's exagerated form of aphasia  the rust chemical is highly
		addictive

(telegraph fugue)

	a slight grit smears from my hands as i set the letter on the red 
armchair.  i only think, why now.  the smell of dead fish and cloves hints
the room.

(telegraph fugue)

	i turn the telegraph off and unclip the wire from my right ear.  the
mechanism's stutters subside to static irritation.  disconnection of the 
double wire rig from the victrola and a letting of the wire fall to the floor;
no longer am i interested in the illicit structures of telegraph interpreted
debussy.  his sound folded, siphoned, and integrated into compact formulae
by the mechanism then forced over skin, mediated via the earlobe.  
a meditative whine that wanes from gentility to haute ambiance.  the needle-
electric charges prick along the lobe, tickling the acupuncture points, 
stimulating more than just dot-dash symbols for the mind to interpret.  inner
eye stimulus.  this seems to be one of the few remaining things i can enjoy.
i've tried to write by hand but the left one's damage is too great.  my 
attempts at ambidextry fail every time.  i've tried to push my words onto 
tube form, reeling them into an edison dictaphone.  that only lasts for 
a short period.  the rust weighs on me.  the odd smell nauseates me, more
prevalent.  my left side always seems heavy, my writing hand falling into 
disuse.  the more i try to speak aloud, the greater my desire for the drug,
even more then my speech cripples.  all these thoughts racing in my mind, times
before now, pleasures overlayering, moments with the young hustler.  time before
he left forever; before he vomited, his hands knocking the delicate cardboard
model, the gossamer buttresses crumbling, folding.  the cellophane windows
of the miniature church wheezing like a lung expired.  it was only an accident
he saw my face.  i turn to the telegraph.  clipping the wire to my ear.  
letting outside communiques pull in.  trying to tap into any information.
hours spent tapped.  i fall into a trance.

(telefuge)

	waves of dashes and dots crisscross my mind.  shortening time spans
for collating information.  reacting to my intimate nature with the telegraph,
over-familiarizing myself with the device.  frustrating myself with the
inadequacy of only my right hand to make modifications.  adjust the mechanism, 
open the gate of information just slightly more.  someone has tapped my line.

(telefuge)

	each day i find the pneumatic filled with an envelope.  only a 
fragment of my name scribed upon it, 'john m'.  only a brush of the finger
across the envelope's inside to satiate my fix.  the rust.  i've found
a depository.  a receptacle for my thoughts; a mental prostitute if you will.
i can no longer speak into the edison, visions of childhood and words 
of imbecility carve from my mouth when speaking aloud.  hours of graph-tapping
secure me a ritual, a mundanity if anything.  like the monster that i am, i
have become, i tackle the monster of information and discover the mystery
of the beyond.  as i've heard, the monster partakes of the sacred nature.
so having tasted information meant only for the president, having spoken it
seems to the actress bernhardt, my self encryption only remains physical in
its prison-like nature.  hourly i push my thoughts, these thoughts into the
telegraph's well.  somewhere to be collected.  a void, a low concentration
of ideas collecting from my high; a collective of my own mental cult.  it is
my information purge for the mere bulk, for the mere loss. only my loss.

(telefuge)
	
	i've come across hidden transmissions, clicks and dashes about the 
union workhouse.  about a joseph m, about how his termination was undetermined,
how metal thieves penetrated a Northern mining facility, how all ends need
to be tied up.  more dots, faster interpretations of compact words.  the 
telegraph cannot feed me fast enough for every phrase i receive i crave more.
the data self-organizing; surely my mind suggesting so.  its feeble state
only creating shadows of euphamisms and equivocations to wholly unattainable
truths.

(telefuge)

	the monster is alone.  altogether different.  almost identical.  the
dotdash void recedes.  more or less.  i perceive a waning desire to fill it.
i fear.  the rust is hindering my senses.  i fear.
	i hear the clink-and-air-fill-nothingness shed as the pneumatic hits.
leaving the clipped telegraph wire attached to my ear, i check the recepticle.
taking the tube with my right hand, placing it as i have under my left arm.
open the canister top, pulling out the letter.  unexpected letter.  excitement
pushes into my foremind.  the tube drops to the floor as i move the letter to
the table.  i place the envelope face-down, weighting it with the heavy steel
embosser on the corner.  i rip open the envelope with my only good hand.  the
letter out.

(letter to john m)

		john m - in concern with the recent faulty telegraph
		transmissions our company has been receiving and stockpiling,
		we have appropriated what our technicians term a jerusalem-
		sickness.  this mechanical outcropping is used to purge 
		faulty telegraph taps.  the jerusalem-sickness effects the
		telegraph in such a manner as to overburden the mechanism
		with information;  rather, accumulated backlogs of
		nonessential information our technicians have casually
		passed over in the past are now being re-evaluated and
		re-distributed.  this purge will continue until all 
		unnecessary mechanical transmissions from your tap silence.
		we apologize for forwarding this notice at such a late
		date. - bell laboratories.

(extrapolation)

	m's body shudders.  his hands shake in a post mediated fashion.  he
drops the letter, sitting on the floor, legs crossed.  he removes the 
telegraph wire from his ear.  realizes the probelm, how he has fooled himself.
how he built a relationship, a dependence on a mechanism.  m tries to cry
only able though to set his head down on the paneled floor.  shuddering, 
not moving when he hears the pneumatic clink; guessing it's a rust envelope
this time.  not caring.  lying down.  realizing.  hands on the wood floor.
realizing.  desiring.  thinking the monster is alone.  realizes the 
cheapening of his information.
	m's eyes do not open, the jerusalem-sickness saturating his mental
capacity to organize, over-compensating at too quick a pace.  his breathing
stops.


						end.