Alone

                        To anyone who is lonely.


                            Roses are red, 
                            Violets are blue, 
                            Sugar is sweet, 
                            And so are you.  .  .  

        Potentiality to exist.  Time dependent potentiality.  Looking
along that narrow plateau on which he would play out his life, I
can say with certainty that he did not exist but in the mind of
an artist, some entity sitting far away, more than a year ago
with pencil in hand.  I say plateau, for though he would be
conscious, that is, aware of his own existence, his perceptual
field was to be somewhat more restricted (some might add, more
pure in intention) than that of the average person.  
        The process of character transmission is common in everyday
thinking, encompassing the range from an architect's building to
a musician's composition.  However, I believe the full
ramifications of the propagation of the originator's inherence
(to at least some degree) to the created have not been
considered in such a context as mine.  Certain peoples have
upheld a degree of transmission possibly even exceeding those
which I propose, but they have not seen our modern ways of mass
production, which I am proposing as a valid transmitter,
possibly without diminution from the original.  
        So the artist finished his work, and off went his creation, to
the propagator.  Now, one could regard the word propagator (in
an exclusivist sense) as a misnomer, for is not our fine nation
a more fundamental propagator, nay even the cosmic order itself?
 Was not this written word seen from day primeval?  But let us
examine only the microcosmic propagator, which for efficiency I
shall term "Factory." 
        The workings of Factory are repetitive.  The 13,786th
transmission occurred, and potentiality smoothly transited that
fine line...  to reality.

        Overload -- bright, loud, vibrate.  Forces, frightening forces,
all angles, magnitudes.  Ordered meshwork with externality
unthinkable.  Feel the grab for order, reach it for an instant,
feel the torque.  Now having sensed the fleeting order, FEAR! 
Terror for a soft blanket, to swaddle, muffle the savagery.  The
cogwheel of confusion spins fiercely, teeth torn round and
round.  Suddenly, amid the roar, the torrent of sensory input,
the wheel catches a groove.  
        Ah, yes!  Yes.  Breathing deeply, the heart slowed.  Swimming
images straightened.  Colors and textures were intelligible,
defining boundaries, contours.  His eyes blinked.  They darted
to catch gleams of direct light.  The light reached him in
occasional pencils, sweeping over him.  Sound too was tamed.  He
recognized generalities.  Though division was difficult, he knew
rumblings, the resonant murmur of weighted shafts spinning
beneath him, clanking of metal on metal as the forces turned him
in quarter circles.  As he thought back, all had begun with a
terrific THUD, followed by the ascent of a sharply angled
surface, allowing the flood of light.  He wondered circularly
and slowly on this matter as he moved to new scenery.

        The confusion continued for some time.  Modes changed,
sometimes even communicating the change to one another, until,
one day, a brilliant orb sent light across his body, and he felt
stationary.  Soundless atmosphere enveloped him.  As the slicing
light cooled from lemon to orange, he experienced enlightenment.
 As he turned his head and body about for the first time, he saw
the lush garden which nestled him.  He saw hands, feet.  Motion
was oiled across a bed of fragrant petals.  A crystal pool lay
below.  Lenses focused, and he saw... himself.  Memories
tickled, tugged at his feet, while beyond the oasis, a plain of
speckled white stretched far and wide.  He felt tired.  The
light ceased, and he experienced antithought.

        He felt as part of the garden.  The pool -- folds moved across
it, coaxed by the wind.  These moved across his body as he
breathed in fragrance.  His emotion of simple union with the
garden was threaded from the past.  
        When he looked out from the garden, the white plateau stretched
far and wide.  He turned the perceptual beam to the curved, red
velvet.  A banded droplet of fur hummed amid other velvets.  The
morning progressed.  He was lulled by the peacefulness.  As he
looked about, he saw plurality in everything but his own face. 
Curiosity and at least a little loneliness.  
        This sensation was short-lived, however, as he experienced a
second disorientation rivaling that of his creation.  A great
creature appeared beyond the plain.  He stepped back with a
start.  So monumental.  Similarities recognized immediately. 
Like him, yet, even to his poorly trained eye, unlike him.  A
new perfume moved across the desert, permeating the garden.  The
heart beat loudly as he gazed in wonder.  Flashing ovals of
white, framing symmetric sapphires.  The vast, smooth contours
of flesh, rotated, hovered.  Pillars of white showed themselves
from parted pink buttresses.  He backed again.  An arm, much
larger than himself, the pool, the entire garden, moved close,
bracing a shaft of metal within supple fingers, The shaft,
tipped with a shallow bowl, moved above him, shading out the
light.  A jungle of hair showered about the shoulders, strands
soft in his eyes.  
        As the newcomer disappeared from view, he stood watching the
desert, now empty, now void of the beauty which haunted his mind
and his heart.  From thence onward, he awaited her return.

        Time moved as a snail.  He sat in the garden, gazing at his
reflection in the pool.  Her face stood unshaken in his memory. 
Despite her immensity, she appeared softer than the grass,
warmer than the morning sun which peeked between the waving
leaves of the trees.  Had she been aware of him?  Such questions
moved through his mind like waves in the sea, until she
unexpectedly appeared again.  
        He had just overcome morning lethargy.  Droplets fell from his
hair, radiating energy through the pool in circular patterns.  A
prodigious shadow engulfed the garden, and, as he spun around,
she was there.  
        His heart was in his throat.  She extended the metal shaft
overhead as before, and, as she withdrew it, he saw the mound of
white granules tumble from the bowl into a stone cylinder. 
Billows of steam rose from the cylinder.  He thought of mist
rising off the pool in the morning.  
        The metal shaft moved about the cylinder's interior, emitting a
tinkling sound.  Was this music the overture or the finale?  She
turned towards him.  He charged from the pool, flailing his arms
and jumping from the chlorophyll springs.  
        To no avail.  Her hand moved and swept the smoldering cylinder
from the visual field.  As her body began to move, he watched
two great mounds with curiosity.  Though beneath folds of
colorful fabric, they were strangely alluring.  She was gone.

        And so, with each passing day, he watched her appear and
disappear.  Sometimes her hair fell about her shoulders --
others it was pulled neatly back, while strange gleaming
ornaments dangled from the sides of her head.  But he always
failed to gain her notice, despite his attempts from across the
desert.  
        She would move so close to him, yet they lived in two different
worlds.  His whole being rejoiced in her presence.  He desired
her alone, for warmth filled his body and his simple thoughts. 
Her presence rose with the sun, but his fantasies continued
beyond twilight.  In them they were together, walking together,
playing in the garden, swimming in the pond.  At times, however,
the fantasy proved insufficient, and he sank into the void, the
void that he alone occupied.  

        He awoke to see her standing.  Sitting up, he thought about
three dozen failed attempts.  She moved about as usual.  He knew
finally that he made no difference for her.  

        As the reality of his insignificance became apparent, he felt a
tightening of the throat.  Muscle tension mounted, until he felt
a flood of warm liquid, spilling from his eyes, sliding down his
cheeks.  

        She stirred the liquid.  Lifting the mug to her lips, she
sensed the sweetness of the coffee.  She set the teaspoon onto
the counter.  Several swallows warmed her throat.  She glanced
down at the paper sugar bag.  On the crinkled face was a
tropical garden, complete with red and purple flowers, a pond,
and a busy bee.  
        A native sat near the pond, gazing out into the world.  She
thought of the wonder in his expression.  It was then that she
noticed a droplet of moisture, trailing along the bag.  As water
permeated the paper, the surface darkened.  She saw the trail --
following from the eyes of the man, dropping to the lucid pond
below.  

        She turned and left for work.  

                          Roses are red, 
                          Violets are blue, 
                          Sugar is sweet, 
                          And so are you .  .  .