Back into the World of Jaggedness
Chandni Rana
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Author’s Note:
Today you will go on a journey. A journey through time.
Time is measured in memories; bits and pieces of floating wisps you can’t seem to catch – each one changing and shifting the more you focus, and sometimes straying farther the closer you get.
In the end it is never the ‘when’ that matters but the ‘what’ of all the moments lived. So, if the passing of time is irrelevant and memory sacred, why is the past recalled as long gone. If memory never dies, then the past never ceases to exist, but rather lives and breathes as we within it.
Today, I ask you to get lost in the world of memory and forget when you are.
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Our lives are composed of fragments. Fragments of memory that linger in the air of our minds, like ghosts in castles.
History is the ghost caught between the castle stones. As each one calls you to it, you must listen and learn their stories to set them free. But, before all else, you must complete the puzzle of time to solve the mystery that is history.
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ACT 3 RIGHT PLACE, WRONG MOMENT ACT 1 DESTROY ACT 6 YOU WILL NEVER KNOW ACT 4 DOUBLE EDGED ACT 2 FOLLOW ME ACT 5 YOU WILL DISAPPEAR HERE
The Book: Read me in order. [Reader follows]
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“[A]s much as my rational mind rebelled against the idea, I knew in my heart that I was no longer in the 20th century.”
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ACT 3
RIGHT PLACE, WRONG MOMENT
Sites or scenes always remains consistent, but the stories within them shift. One moment you can go anywhere do anything and the next you can’t.
This act is stable, but the memories within it aren’t. We are simply stumbling upon an unfortunate time.
LATRINE
[Laugh, gasp for air as you talk]
Imagine [laugh] you’re pooping, [laugh] and the toilet, just [laugh] slides down the hill, [laugh harder] and then there’s poop everywhere! [Laugh hysterically]
“Why would they lock up this portion, you can’t even see the top half.”
“Because you can die...”
NOWHERE
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ACT 1 DESTROY
In quantum entanglement, two particles, through a channel will communicate with each other regardless of location.
As the iron melts and becomes a tool, then melts again and gets reshaped… those memories of being do not cease, they continue to communicate and are embedded in the very essence that constitutes its purpose.
To exist in one reality is to break from another, but not completely disappear.
BURN
What for d’you yearn? It’s the point of no return
After everything we did, we saw You turned your back on me
What for d’you yearn?
Watch that butcher burn
At the end of my days when I’m through No word that I’ve written will ring quite as true as “burn!”
Burn, butcher, burn Burn, butcher, burn Burn, burn, burn, burn, burn, burn, burn, burn
Watch me burn all the memories of you
to see
AGAIN
I still need the isles.
“Can you just tell me what to do?
Where should I look? ...
POSE
Fuck! I got hair in my eye - wait.”
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ACT 6
YOU WILL NEVER KNOW
The architecture of the brain is intriguing. Small cues in the world around us spark vivid memories with senses that recall the smallest detail in about half a second.
But the brain is also easily manipulated, formulating its own sequence of events that often get distorted. As we recall, I wonder if we have ever thought about this minute distortion and whether the memory has been perfectly archived or not.
Perhaps we will never know… will there always be these multiple faces to a single moment?
Walls have ears, Doors have eyes. Trees have voices, Beasts tell lies.
Beware the rain, Beware the snow,
Beware the man you think you know.
HIDE
Ask, and it shall be given you; Seek, and ye shall find;
Knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh.
SEARCH
D: I taught you this game, lad!
J: Aye, ye did.
C: That didn’t look very fair.
SKIRMISH
“Did it work because of the spell? Or was it just plain stupidity...?”
“Maybe both, who knows...”
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. Cool it with a baboon’s blood, Then the charm is firm and good.
TOIL
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ACT 4
DOUBLE EDGED
Is it not ironic, that a memory is from the past, but when recalled it is the present and happens once more. Seems self-contradicting if one really thinks about it.
THE ROUND TABLE MINUS KING ARTHUR
“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! THIS IS THE WAR ROOM!”
CONFESS, SIN, REPEAT
Yeah.
Do you know what they did back in the day? [Exclaim, excitedly]
For confessions?
Well, let me tell you. [Giggle, as if you can’t contain yourself]
They got the whole town together and they stoned the guy to death
[Laugh, struggle to breath, laugh again before continuing]
Can you imagine confessing and then they stone you?
[Laugh, hysterically]
So, then they had to do something about it and this conversation was recorded in letters.
You might want to look into that. The recording aspect at least.
Did you know I had access to the Vatican Archives... [Wistfully]
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ACT 2 FOLLOW ME
All this while, you have been reading and hearing me, and I have taken you on a journey.
Each image, each line, and each page a portal to a multitude of memories and moments from the distant and ‘near’ past, as well as the present.
Through each you have followed me, and in some way, we have entangled ourselves together through this performance…
PORTALS
“I’ve never met another traveler. Only you. We share a bond...”
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ACT 5
YOU WILL DISAPPEAR HERE
… In this act, I am leaving you to get lost in these coming images as well as those before it.
You can go into the future from this moment and take the living past with you. But you can also go anywhere you want.
Remember that time you just walked into the field of cows and started mooing.
CATTLE
Can you actually feel anything, or sense something.
It just seems like you’re fucking around.
GHOSTS
Perhaps it is unreal, The way time will conceal, The death of a mere seal.
“I didn’t even know it was there, I literally turned around and ran back - ‘Let’s go to Aberdeenshire’.”
DEAD SEAL
“This is like the weirdest thing; you can’t even see anything. There’s only grass everywhere.”
“They used to be here, at some point… just not anymore.”
SHEEP
“Back then it wasn’t a historical site. And... We used to romp around there.
I didn’t realize till I went there the last time, how massive the drop would’ve been, if we had jumped off the cliffs. Because you know… its precariously perched there on top of craigs of real rocks sticking out to the sea.”
DEATH
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