Fireworking

It begins with a faint scent of narcotic on the breeze.

I marvel at the number of people flowing toward the park. They are indifferent to the function of the street, making it difficult for the cars. But we remain attached to the conventions of our existence, even in the face of the event that is to come, pacing slowly together down the crowded sidewalk.

Some of the townspeople remain on their porches, or cluster together on lawns, forming infinitely varied concentrations. Their conversation is what one would expect of those who have not met for a long period of time, punctuated with shrill laughter. Yet as we pass, they are the ones who react.

"Look at the Cat..." someone murmurs. But the Cat merely continues to recline heavily across my shoulders, unwilling to notice.

Weeks before, caravans of beast-drawn wagons had entered the city, carrying many undifferentiated dark cloaked men. Their banners had proclaimed in many tangled colors the imminence of the show, but the rumors had preceeded these visible signs, as is often the case.

I am certain I appear unusual against the flickering robes and ornamented tunics and cloaks, but it was not without reason that I selected denim. This vest, battered pants, and the tall leather boots represent an anachronism from a fictional time, whose accuracy Eisenberg would have acknowledged, if he had been aware of its concealed history.

I shift the Cat from my shoulders and juggle him, searching for a comfortable grasp. After a minimal struggle, he becomes resigned to his new position and lies quiescent in my arms as we continue through the stone gate.

The hillside is crowded. We push slowly through the throng, seeking any clearing. There were the five of us together - E---- (our grey associate, the Cat), M. Lessard, M. Jung, Mme Pineau, and myself. Messrs. Jung and Lessard were distracted by the advent of old friends. But, since those were people of whom I felt not the slightest kinship or interest, Mme Pineau, myself, and E---- continue. I am disappointed at their superficiality, but I do not allow this to interfere with my anticipation.

The crowd lines the bowl of the depression that contains the flattened staging platform. A low fence at the base of the slope separates the crowd from the danger of the work to be performed.

There are Aficionados standing on their small, high platforms surrounded by scaffolding. Spatial capture Solos surrounded by nutrition and control equipment are placed to the traditional right side of the platforms; the perceptual receptors are beginning to take flight, marked against the overcast by their tiny colored lights.

One of these devotees stands atop a platform near our line of sight. I take the opportunity to observe as we pass.

I can see his hands moving in swift, delicate gestures, calibrating his Solo. A breeze stirs his long hair, which is brown, despite the growing cloudcast of grey. His sharp glance strikes across the staging from behind slightly opaqued glasses; his eyes are curves of metal. His expression shifts rapidly from interest to a frown of displeasure at some recalcitrant setting, the muscles in his face shifting tension with every upward look. Lightly tanned skin is tight across high cheekbones, shading into the particulate darkness of his jawline. All too soon, we are past, and the dark-cloaked figure receeds from thought.

Careful movement through the shifting and stationary facets of the crowd brings us to an auspicious spot for viewing. We take our place on the patchy grass of the slope with little difficulty. Below us, in the center rear of the staging, we see a wagon with wheels of quartz. Its draft animals were not visible. I pictured their padded feet and dark nails, paying particular attention to the dichotomy of soft dove-grey flesh, and polished umber nails.

Two hooded men stand conversing beside the wagon, equipment laid out before them at the center of a symbol chalked on the grass. They seem somehow familiar, but the faces were indistinct with a distance that masks the quality of simultaneity.

Our first seat is somewhat blocked by trees. We spy a better location somewhat down the slope, and make our way to it. Mme. Pineau relieves me of the Cat and settles it with some difficulty into her lap. Of all our companions, E----, manifested as the Cat, was the one we could least afford to lose.

Balloon sway slightly above the crowd.

"Ah," I whispered, "at the fence; someone is doing the ritual of Light." The source smokes and glitters in their fingers as they pass it through the pattern of the circle. Hand to hand it moves. The dimness is growing around it, and as it does, so does the sound of the voices around us.

"Can I see the Cat?" asks the little girl. Although I am seated, she does not quite stand as high as my shoulder. Her voice communicates innocence and awe. There is a small abrasion at each of the high points of her cheeks. As with the eyes of most children, the brown eyes seem flat, but they are curiously expressive (as are E----'s eyes, which, despite their alien shape, communicate much of his curious personality).

Mme. Pineau (Mme from respect, and other atemporal reasons) answers this girl, whom I will call H., with equal gravity, allowing her to touch our companion, and to stroke his fur. E---- indicated to me that certain rituals were necessary, and that although he did not know know them, precisely because they were necessary, they would occur, and that this was the first of these. I responded (subverbally) that I was disturbed by his reluctance to be calm in the present situation, but that I, in my turn, was certain that this child might well be the vehicle of the absolution he sought, and, if not, then the show about to begin might indicate at least the being whom he was required to propitiate.

The sky has nearly completed its darkening. Already there are scattered explosions down near the fence; tiny flashes of light and short staccato reports. Each minor spectator display brings a small burst of applause, carefully metered to match the size of the display. Though loudness and size are important factors, we also look for duration - the longer, the more time we are allowed to use to make our judgement.

The voices are still louder as their number increases. We are now closely packed. E---- is apparently beginning a relationship with H., which will be very rewarding for H., at least, to tell by her happy glances and shyly awed smiles. E---- appears to have a slightly different opinion about the matter, but I might construe it as indifference, if I were so inclined.

Darkness is now complete. Moving figures are limned with the red flames of flares which they bring to outline the apparatus which has taken shape on the staging. These are the assistants to the artist aField, who is a Flame Master of great repute, though he has never been seen, and his existence is only projected. The applause and cheering rises to a crescendo as the hooded artist steps forward to take a flaming wand from an assistant. He takes no notice of our jubilance. The appreciation is important, of course, but more important is the appearance that we take no awareness from without our art. He steps to the launcher, while the others gather about to watch his feline and masterful motions. There is a popping sound, magnified in a sudden silence. Then an explosion, radiant with tone, shatters a hemisphere of stars across the stage. A brilliant display - it awakens our enthusiasm as none other. We cheer with abandon; even E---- is attentive.

The work begins with separate tones in smaller displays. Gradually, the harmonics and visual syntheses become stronger and more complex. I find that he places much reliance on low-level bursts as counterpoints to the more complex remote symbols. Each rocket lifts with a cloud of smoke outlined in reddish sparks that cling to the expanding and diffusing tubes and clouds. A matrix of complex symbols begins to be able to be dimly seen on the ground. All of this I can only watch with childlike and staring eyes. The reality of the composition supersedes any of our own personal worlds and constructions.

E---- begins to tremble. I attempt to soothe him, but there can be no consolation. His perspective on the piece is far different from mine and more intimately involved with the possibility of the experiential artist. Mme Pineau can see the reality adjacent to mine, but I must say that not until now will she reach more deeply into my variant than she did then.

A pause.

"The ground! Look - oh my God!" someone is crying. The symbols graven there are flaming, accompanied by a deep thrumming transmitted through the earth. Then rockets, following one another with great rapidity. Intense bursts of light, sound in complex rills battering the senses with volume / concussions that push and pull at my body like structures and pockets vacated by air / even the ground vibrates.

The work is complete. It surrounds, encloses, and penetrates for what seems to be aeons of geologic ecstasy. Then it is domne in one final low burst whose tone runs from super to sub sonic. The response from the crowd is almost as intense as the final movement, but it too ends.

We are drained - all of us, but we clamber up the slope toward home. I wonder what happened to our companions, until I see them approach in cloaks rendolent of gunpowder. Their hoods are up, but some quality of simultaneity allows me to see them as they are, and I am glad we are reuinited. In the darkness, mist pierced by harsh lights, the last I know is the scent of musk filling my nostrils.

7/9/77