Samjna, Sankhara and Syrup
by Drew DeVine - First Place Winner
If you told me one week ago that soon I would be writing a lengthy, philosophical tale of hallucination and metaphysics with a disillusioned, lapsed-Buddhist Asian-American writer (me) as its protagonist, I would have told you to shut up. Even now my better nature begs me to leave this page bare, asking: Why clog what precious lucidity you have left after you’ve been waiting for it all these years? Just my nature, it seems. I can’t stop it.
Anyway, I was sitting on a cold, downtown bench when it came to me. "It"... I knew immediately “it” was not the sort of thing they were "kindly" and "softly" preaching about back home, because those sorts of revelations were beautiful, and to receive them you either have to (a) work for it, (b) kiss the tootsie-toesies of the Buddhist proletariat, or, at the very least, (c) be a good person. But my revelation was not beautiful. (Nothing that morning was. My beard—bristles of dukkha—being of the non-Brad-Pitt-sort unsuited to the big screen, came closest to inspiring soggy undies only when a stream of unfortunate urine trickled down a pale young child's pants as he clutched his mother's elbow and, with all the frightened might of his blooming lungs, yelled: "Mommy, that man's looking at us!") And yet, regardless of the pitfalls of my appearance and spirit, it was on that unlikeliest of days that "the spirit" deigned come down from who-knows-where to yank my brain out of the delirium eating it alive.To understand this story, it is essential that you know I am a writer. Ah, I hear the groans already. You fret: yet another writer's written a story about writing! When oh when will this stream of horrendous, thinly-veiled autobiography finally come to an end? Since my earliest sprouting days of youth through to my high-school career, when asked my career path I would always say, "I will be, I am, a Writer." In fairness, no one—except of course those ridiculous Bhiksus my parents insisted I see in my adolescence—ever asked me anything of the sort. The point is, even if asked this a few days ago, in many ways, this title..."Writer"...would have been seen by most reasonable people (reasonable people who had a glimpse of what I did with my time, and therefore no one) as a sick self-delusion, especially considering my livelihood was frankly made selling cold hotcakes to silly university kids; those children who, in their first few years, somehow convince themselves that their particular brand of robust despondency is either some sort of collegiate right-of passage, or worse, their own private, personal experience of bad hallucination masquerading as divine inspiration. Serving these pretentious fools (always in a state of method acting: lookit me imma bohemian!) one more-or-less tedious morning, I suddenly realized—(this being the first and lesser realization, not the epiphany this story's taken as its center)—that I, in fact, was not a writer. An explosion in my skull! I now understood the cruel fact that these soggy hotcakes (which had hardly anything to do with my person, I thought) were precisely what paid my rent.
Karma... you can't run away from it. We really are responsible for our actions. But in what way are my transgressions vile enough to earn me those? Those hotcakes? Those slimy, sickening things were my utmost Contribution-To and Capitalization-Upon that same American Idea I so lusted for when I, at 18, first read of its awesome powers in the foreign exchange student’s Atlantic Monthly. God... that American Idea. It ripped me from the arms of the East and set me down on that plane to Atlanta, sat me down in the seat next to that refugee-hippie tourist, he being finished with his anarchic Asian-island "finding himself" (pot-smoking) debauchery, he now running back to the security of Lockeian ideals, and I, even there in the seat next to him (even after I saw the back of his knowingly unwashed mop swaying suave down the terminal) even THEN, I loved the Idea and thanked the Idea and to it even burned the stinking incense my mother snuck into my bag. But, fifteen years in, where our story begins, I realized that my words, my beautiful, writerly words, were—to Uncle Sam's discriminating, greedy old eyes—no more than the expendable frivolities of a deluded migrant soul; naive caricatures of youthful puppy dog eyes, hopeful and watery. Then those eyes had to stare at hotcakes. Hotcakes that quickly became the enemy. Hot cakes! Get yer hot cakes! Right here: yer evil, capitalist hot cakes! How'dya like everything that's wrong with
It didn't come immediately...in that way it was akin to the usual spiritual revelations we had back home...but this time I had to sit a few hours. Thinking nothing, seeing nothing, till the slow, sloppy culmination of all those factors stewed out the scent that would lure that blessed devil into my formerly spiritless brain. It fell into place like children in the classroom who, done with their test, want to talk: it starts with a whisper, and, sensing their murmurs aren't causing the teacher any grief, slowly gain confidence and their voices grow, soon to whoops and hollers, until, to the last test taker's great relief, the teacher finally explodes in a request for silence. And so they quiet down, and so another whisper, and on and on through the stringent eternity of school bells. Ring-ring: such is, such was my mind. So, I warn you, what I am about to tell seems unreal, waxes impossible, and builds implausible, but I assure you, I do, that it happened, and the way I've put it down, I think, is the only way I can...
...there I sat, sat on that bench and waited, feeling the sooty hands of the city's breezes blow down from the clouds—like ice water pouring accidentally from a faulty showerhead—felt it spiral and snake down the skyscrapers, saw it wash through the leaves and the mesh-bins, curve around the sidewalks, in search of whores on the corners...and when it finds them, it grabs, heightens and levels the goose bumps on their showy breasts...o, it must have been these same perverted breezes (or their cousins tagging behind) that brought me, gust by gust, The Chill...the chill that entered through my ears into the blackness of my skull and, after knocking me sufficiently out, whispered: Eyez got ya now, bustah...****
Black nothingness. We see a ghostlike apparition with eyes and other spooky all-too-human features. We are to understand that this is The Chill. There is a brain. We are to understand this is the protagonist's brain. The Chill considers the brain. He snaps his fingers and a photocopier appears. The Chill picks up the brain, and, using the machine, makes a perfect copy of it. The photocopier fades into the blackness, and out of the blackness, an auditorium and stage fade in. On the stage is a podium, with a sharpie set in its center. The Chill picks it up and marks an X on the copy brain. On the original brain, The Chill marks a Y. The Chill then surrounds and permeates the X brain. The X brain slowly takes on the characteristics of The Chill, until we are to understand that the Chill essentially possesses the X brain much the same way an evil spirit possesses a bad actress. I know it sounds weird. Just suspend disbelief, okay?BRAIN X (to BRAIN Y): Get in that chair, the marked one, front and center.
Brain Y descends the stairs and takes his seat. Brain X, haughty, strolls to the podium and considers the ceiling a few moments, before turning to Brain Y. He clears his throat, and then--BRAIN X: You are doing this ALL WRONG!
Pause.BRAIN X: Before I get into the really important stuff, we need to clear something up. You and this moving to
BRAIN X: Well NOTHING. You listen to me. I know a bit more than you, see? I came to YOU. You listen to ME. RIGHT?
Pause.BRAIN X: Okay. So we're clear. I'll proceed.
Pause.BRAIN X: Do you know what you ARE, man? You are a brain. You are a pink mass in a skull. You think you are superior to the body...and you ARE, but you don't know your place, man! Tell me, if you're so smart: what is your place? Do you know what your function IS?
Brain Y, horrified, only trembles.BRAIN X: ANSWER ME, YOU FILTHY COCKROACH!
BRAIN Y: [trembling] I--, I--, I think? Think thoughts?BRAIN X: And just what does this thinking entail?
BRAIN Y: [stuttering] I... create...thoughts?BRAIN X shudders, grows red, rises a foot in the air and slams to his podium.
BRAIN X: WRONG! That is NOT what you do! And you know what makes all of this worse? You know what makes this so bad? It's the fact that you consider yourself, not just a BRAIN—and that's bad enough—but the brain of an ARTIST. A special brain. An ARTIST's special brain. And you sneer at the materialists, at the imperialists, at the capitalists, and all the other what-have-you-ists because they remind you of that black and white cartoon on the front of Monopoly boxes; those people who see in black and white and function in black and white that you sneer at because YOU are a tidly-doodle sensitive artist and you see in tidly-doodle GRAY—DON'T YOU, you roach?! You're better because you see in GRAY, AREN'T YOU?! THAT'S WHAT YOU THINK! ISN'T IT!? TELL ME, ADMIT IT! I KNOW!BRAIN Y: Y-y-yu...
BRAIN X: God, you just don't understand, do you? Before we get into why you think you're so much better than the other brains, let's first figure out why you think you're so much better than the other organs in your own shared body, huh? Tell me, you little boar-pig, what exactly is it that makes you so much better than the other organs, huh? Can you tell me that?Brain Y cannot blink.
BRAIN X: I'll TELL you what makes you better, you stupid, stupid little dumb malt-worm. [Now whispering:] Consider the hand. You know how beautiful the hand is? Did you know that, either through years and years of evolution, or through a half second of divine brilliance—whichever theory you subscribe to; for our purposes it matters naught—the human hand is perhaps the most effective machinery ever contrived? [His voice slowly rising:] But not only that, did you know that a million guts-gripping neurons or whatever the scat they're called, are scrambling under your skin like jolted clay-brained sperm-worms, and all they do ALL GLEEKING DAY is take down information like: "ooh that feels good" or "ooh doesn't that hurt" and relay it to you—ALL DAY LONG—to you, the brain, [now yelling:] so you can bleeding well DO something about it?! Did you know that, you terrible joithead? Did you know that your nose and your EYES and your TONGUE and every other motley-minded organ does the same hell-hated thing? And you know that information, you know what it IS? I'll tell you what it is, I'll spleeny well describe it to you, you stupid scut: that information, that information you RUN on, it's black and white.Brain Y slips out of his seat in a puddle of sweat and quickly crawls back up.
BRAIN X: When your ears hear something, they write down what they've heard in a code you can understand. They write it down on a little piece of paper, and it consists of zeroes and ones. Black zeroes and black ones, written onto this white piece of paper and that white piece of paper, and these papers are then fed to you, the brain. Your eyes see something, they do the same thing. The same language, the same black symbols, the same black characters, on the same white pieces of paper. You follow me?Brain Y nods the way only a brain can.
BRAIN X: So... in fact... you DON'T see things in gray, you boob-less, bowel-less, harpy. When you see a dog running, you see a dog running, and when this black and white information is relayed to your brain, THEN and ONLY THEN does the light bulb in your mind—the one YOU have and no one else has—with its WHITE LIGHT, BRIGHTEN those BLACK WORDS until those words are GRAY, and THEN there is the gray. YOU DON'T SEE IN GRAY, YOU IDIOT! You see in black and white and your light bulb TURNS it into gray. Now tell me, why—how, are you an artist?BRAIN Y: B-bah-because of my light bulb?
BRAIN X: WRONG AGAIN! Having a bunch of gray SKID in your brain does not an artist make! Tell me, you fishy-fleshed artist, just what kind of artist are you—a writer? Tell me then about the physical nature of writing. How is it done?BRAIN Y: Well, I think something, and then I get a pen or pencil and write it down on something.
BRAIN X: And how do you pick up a pen or pencil and write it down?BRAIN Y: With my hand.
BRAIN X: HOW?!BRAIN Y: By telling it to—
BRAIN X: HOW, YOU SON OF A SALMON?Pause.
BRAIN X: IN WHAT COLORS DO THE HANDS FUNCTION?!Pause.
BRAIN Y: In black and...white?BRAIN X: RIGHT! Now, if the physical act of creating art is facilitated through the exchange between the organs of black and white information, and if the artistic goodness stems from the brain's grayness, what is it that makes one an artist?
BRAIN Y: The ability to express the gray ideas into black and white concretes?BRAIN X: Good GOD that took you long enough! Now, what do you think of the black and white men that run the world?
BRAIN Y: They're jerks. They should disappear.BRAIN X: They WON'T disappear, and you know it. Now why is that?
BRAIN Y: Because they are obstinate.Pause.
BRAIN Y: Because they have minds like brick walls.Pause.
BRAIN Y: [knowing] Because they... because they...BRAIN X: Say it...
BRAIN Y: Because they...BRAIN X: Say it...
BRAIN Y: B-B-because they GET things DONE! Because they give me my money that I need but-of-course-the-money-isn't-important-it's-not-about-the-money the—BRAIN X: What about the money?
BRAIN Y: It isn't important.BRAIN X: WHAT about the money?
BRAIN Y: IT ISN'T IMPORTANT!BRAIN X: SAYS WHOM?!
BRAIN Y: SAYS ME!BRAIN X: SAYS WHOM?!
BRAIN Y: SAYS ME! I SAY IT! I SAY MONEY ISN'T IMPORTANT! I SAY IT!BRAIN X: [Quietly:] Who are you to say money isn't important?
BRAIN Y: I, I, I, I, I... I... I'm an artist...?BRAIN X: ...again with the artist...
BRAIN Y: I have values... I have...BRAIN X: BILLS! You have bills! Bills are what you have. You have bills to pay to keep you in your house so you can have somewhere quiet to drink the coffee that you buy—that you pay for with your money (which may not be number one, but you still need)—so you can stay up late writing and making your art.
BRAIN Y: But – but – but –BRAIN X: But nothing. You won't do anything till you realize how life works. Sometimes, if you're a lucky little lute, it'll fall into your lap, the good stuff. But apparently you aren't all that lucky cause the only things falling into your lap lately are those infectious little HOTCAKES. And you know what, until you realize how smack works, you're going to need those Hades-rejected HOTCAKES. Because the HOTCAKES are black and white, and the HOTCAKES will give you money, and look: here's your first assignment. You know what you should DO with those poisonous, sickening hotcakes? You should SELL them, and you should remember them and you should go home and WRITE about them; because that light in your brain, THAT will make the warped hotcakes GRAY, okay? And none of this, ooh: the West is the Best, the West is the Best bull, you understand?
BRAIN Y: I understand... I understand...Brain X steps away from the podium. The Chill exits his being, lifts up, and floats away through backstage. Brain X immediately decomposes. Brain Y begins to weep. The stage, the podium, the seats: everything in the auditorium fades to black, and Brain Y is alone in the darkness, his cries reverberating through the nothingness.
****Obviously this revelation did not manifest exactly as reads above, within any sort of tangible, dramatic control. I employed the quasi-Socratic technique merely to make clear the message. Experientially my revelation was of quality more like the outer rings of a lucid daydream, unsure of where it begins or ends. But the message, the revelation’s meaning, was unambiguous: I knew what I had to do.
Walking home was wonderful. Despite the Dickensian bleakness that defined the city at this story’s beginning, it’s worth noting that even the most dreadful of cities, even after their most monotonous mornings, have flashes of charm, often lent by a certain, perfect sort of weather. I'm inclined even to believe that my vision could have happened anywhere. It didn't have to beFinally I sat in front of the computer screen. After becoming one with nature, after throwing grins at my confused neighbors, after showering and feeling clean spiritually, mentally, and physically, after all the inspiring wonder of a turned-around day, I had no characters. I had no plot, I had no theme. I had nothing worth saying except, like Brain X said, my life with the hotcakes. And then, before writing the story that sits in front of you now, I got a scrap sheet of paper, taped it to the wall beside the computer screen, and wrote:
GETTING GRAY TO BLACKGETTING GRAY TO WHITE
REQUIRES A HANDREQUIRES A BRAIN
EQUAL PARTS SAMJNASANKHARA
AND SYRUP
And there, next to my screen, it will stay. An inspirational message: on the covers of my notebooks, on custom-made mugs I couldn't afford, on the poster I hang above my bed, the first thing I see in the morning, it will always be. When I tour universities, and I walk down the halls, and I glance in the classrooms, and I see through the windows of the labs, and brains marked X and Y, I will remember why I am there. They can evict me from my room, they can fire me from my job, they can even burn my books if I were to be so honored, but they can't make me forget. If I do forget, and I hope I don't, it will be done anyway, something will have been produced. This story at least. At least.3rd Place Winner - Katie Jones for Amelea's Rosa
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