Written By: Clayton Little

        Basilisk part one: "Shattered Visions of the Basilisk"

     As I have grown up, I look upon people who turn to stone ... and watch
my mind become shattered with seeds of progress, seeds of evolution, seeds of
love and seeds of death.  I am the Basilisk... and what I see excites me
enough to look deep into their eyes, whether the eyes be of paper or living
tissue ... I look into them, and they turn to stone.  A stone brittle to the
touch, impregnable to my mind... but I watch nonetheless.  I write in
present-tense... ignoring that which has left my fingers to the plastic keys
of this device before me ... ignoring if it makes sense to you, or to me ...
and that is why I'm the Basilisk, as the beast gazes upon its victim... it
turns to stone, and then the beast moves on in search of more... I consume
knowledge, some fades... some impregnates my mind... and the rest is before
me, or behind me in the past... but I have not seen it yet.  So I continue...

     I remember a moment in my life, not too long ago when I was working at
my local neighbourhood Video Store.  It was dull... but the movies around me
acted like pillars of entertainment lining the vast Great Hall which is my
world.  I view most of my life like an episode of "Dream On" but instead of
showing my life as it goes, and the movies which I recollect... I include
myself in those movies, wondering what was happening and why.  I see myself
now... standing on sore feet, pondering what was to happen next in my
subconscience, and I... being ignorant to its heed, but I remember at
least... that is enough for you to know of what took place.  It was about 5
in the morning, a little cold outside... but my clashing with its chill made
a neutral calm to my body.  It was breakfast.  The sun was rising.  Another
day was coming to an end.  As I returned from buying a Coke and some apple
fritters, I turned towards the south as I heard a car alarm go off... and
found nothing in sight except the long street... leaving my vision as gravity
took its toll on the earth.  I reached into my pocket to retrieve my keys,
and what should I sense... a yearning to look up.

     Why I looked up... my mind is the keeper of secrets, dangling the keys
in front of my face and laughing, but memories like this make my life grand,
and rich ... but, they mask my thoughts for the future.  The sun was not in
view, a few clouds were floating in the sky... background music to my eyes,
and the sky was a richness of blue unlike any I could ever recall in my short
20-year-old life.  At that point in my life, everything seemed clear... clear
as crystal water showering forth from a mountain cliff, clear as the first
day when you had your first kiss, clear as your mind is listening to your
favourite music ... but what my eyes showed me was so limited.

     The infra-red spectrum... how small it is in scale to what else exists
in our small universe... all of it out there, and so little we know.  I would
imagine what a gamma ray would look like, but in the book I was reading... it
came up as strange, encryptic symbols ... that only a human mind could
decipher... "Gamma Rays are..." and it went on like some insane raccoon that
could talk, and was insistently telling you that everything had to be
clean... spotless clean, and I think to myself now... "If only this raccoon
knew what Mr. Clean was..."  I wonder what x-rays look like, but all I ever
see is visions of myself which my mind cannot understand ... they say it's
our body, but is it really our body ... or a vision that we as humans have
not obtained.  Yin Yang, left right, top bottom, blind seeing, deaf hearing,
stupid genius ... dichotomies all of them, and our mind is one huge intricate
pattern of dichotomies ... but X-rays, well... they are a force of nature of
which we can only put "pictures" and "letters" and "noises" to... to define
its nature, that is what we do.  I think of what the stars would look like if
you were inside of one, would everything be really bright and the stars...
would they be black as pinholes in the searing light ahead of us.  So many
millions of colours in this world that we perceive, and yet... the other
spectrums ... they remain as "limbo" or a "parallel universe" that only the
spectrums themselves have knowledge of... like elder entities in a pantheon
of which only they can see.  We as humans can gain knowledge from further
studying of these spectrums, but what are we learning ... are we only
teaching ourselves that we will never be able to see that of which we
learn... are we teaching ourselves how to see like this, and if so ... why?
Is knowledge a stepping stone for evolution, or a skipping stone across a
vast virtual-reality universe which picks up only that which we want to
know, and leaves the rest like unwanted trash.  Alone... that blue sky made
me wonder.

     Admittedly, I cannot write poetry... it seems to simple and useless to
contain such controlled thoughts.  Poetry is like one of those Coles' Notes on
some great masterpiece of our past that someone wrote in vain so that you, the
reader, could fully understand that which is being told.  I read now some
poetry, a small blurb of lettering from the Coles' Notebook for "The Rape of
the Lock"...

     "Sol through white curtains shot a timorous ray,"
     "And open those eyes that must eclipse the day"

     Sure, true wisdom indeed... but could not a novel be written about such
experiences, or have we evolved to the point where the meaning is meant, but
not seen ... the vision perceived, but the meaning lost ... have we found
sanctity in the knowledge that are minds are novels unwritten... a vast
novel, and when a Coles' Note memory comes along... more of our great novel
is written.  And if so, when do we sell the novel ... when we have killed
ourselves off, and aliens find us... or the day when we have evolved so much,
that we forget what to name the novel.

     In my room sits a lot of "poetry" in the sense of above, I see it... and
a novel forms around the image, or the word... or the sensation. Pictures
fuel my fire, words spark my mind and the emotions... ohh, the emotions... I
see many Encyclopediae being written in the wake of the great novel.  What is
the true nature of humans, we ask ... some say nothing, some cannot speak so
they say nothing, and those who speak but truly wonder if they are still
adding to the great novel.

     Maybe that is what heaven is... a huge library, each of us a great novel
waiting to be read by a higher spiritual medium that is using as in their
great novel and so on and so forth.  If so, do they have a Dewey Decimal
system...

     Hell intrigues me because it is to heaven as black is to white, female
is to male, sun is to moon, sex is to celibacy ... is this the true great
dichotomy that stands before our spiritual minds, or another chapter to
either add to, and the editor says "Nah, rewrite that..." or he approves of
it, and you continue on with your novel.  They say Hell hath no name, no
imagination... only pain and suffering, but do not pain and suffering have
imagination.  We can perceive degrees of pain and suffering, or can we?
Remembering the movie, Apocalypse Now... I saw so many faces that portrayed
"hell is here", but what is hell ... is Hell the waste basket for the writer
of the novel... a giant bin of waste and destruction the likes of which we
cannot add because it would not be right, or is hell an individual basis for
that which we cannot perceive.  I am not afraid of hell since I have not
experienced it, but to experience would be the end of my novel ... or would
it.

     As I stroke the knife in my hand, I looked around... look at the desert
bushes which flew past in the dry wind which hugged me like its mother.  The
air was dry, no smell except what my mind was playing for me ... and the land
was flat, endless ... endless in my eyes because I perceive that the ground
eventually turns blue, or whatever shade of colour the sky is in... and heads
out for an infinite amount of time and space, the likes of which still remain
as an epilogue to my great novel... not written until I'm finished.  I'm
leaning on my car... it's an older Mustang, candy apple red... polished, and
I care more for it than life.  I glance in the back seat and see what is
remaining of my life...

     Slumped in the corner of the back seat, like a sack of potatoes, is a
dead child... I killed her, or so I think.  She was someone my knife found
along the way, talked with her... enjoyed her company, but wanted to learn
more ... wanted to take the stone away from her, break it down to its raw
power... and own it.  My knife is the key to the battery.  I strapped a
seatbelt around her... it seemed fitting since I didn't really want her to
get thrown about if my life was somehow fleeting, or I was being chased. Next
to her are three books... "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", "The
Autobiography of Malcolm X" and a Marvel graphic novel with the silver-inked
words "The Infinity Gauntlet" ... that is my core, my big bang of
imagination... my key to heaven.  So simple is the paper to hold so much
chapters for me... and yet, after reading them so many times... they seem
like faded dreams now, maybe they grew over the years into that tree that
would never die... but would be choked by vines.  One is to wonder...

     All three of the books are blood-splattered... complex chemicals
splattered over my back seat.  I call them complex chemicals because they are
exactly that... metal is a complex chemical, air is a complex chemical ...
everything is a complex chemical in my eyes.  You see spilt milk on the floor,
she wept, and so shall she now as her daughter is dead in my car... by my
hands... by my mind... I own her.

     I toss the knife into the front seat... casually, and it lands like a
cat... unharmed, and still ready for action, and I jump up on the roof of my
Mustang... and I ponder...  "Fiction is great..." and I shut the book now,
taking the dog-ear off the final page because I know his fate.  He is nothing
in this world... feared by thousands, or blessed by the heavens ... one is to
wonder, I am to wonder.

     As I was growing up... I began to take into view the world around me,
and the greater scope of things in this realm that I call my own ... I say
that because that which affects me is not controlled, so I might as well have
misguided delusions than have the reality of the world before me... where I
die, so I ignore the future ... and see in my palms the skin that keeps my
sanity warm and cozy at night.  I perceive now, in a "poetry" form kind of
thinking that our culture... that which we embrace, nurture, change, evolve,
dislike and revolt against is a man... no ordinary man, but a man who has
great power over the other men, and holds a gun to their heads.  But, it is a
flawed man... with a dichotomy within himself which only parts of his mind
are starting to learn and figure out.  You see, the man is bad vision... both
of his coloured eyes; one black and one white that look out over all he owns,
or thinks he owns.  The Black eye represents the other men, and the white eye
is his own portal to ecstasy, a gateway to knowledge, the infinite domain of
our culture and the end all, be all of our existance.  This man has a monocle
eye-piece that he wears sometimes, but only over his white eye.  Why...
simple.

     The sun reflects off the white eye, and blocks the heat ... more of a
metaphor for the "bad stuff" in this case, and keeps it all focused back on
itself.  You look up at the sun, and you see yourself ... a bright light,
awesome and unconquerable ... but do you see the entire picture.  The monocle
eyepiece acts as a mirror for our indulgence.  You wake up... you look at
yourself, you see something wrong ... you fix it, and then something else ...
and so on and so forth, but in the end you know that you cannot fix
everything so you come to an agreement with yourself, for some odd reason,
that everything is fine ... and you turn off the light, the mirror
disappears.

     Now, the black eye looks upon the other men... but they are blurred at
the seams, they look kind of funny and we judge them by what we see.  Since
we cannot see that one of those men, say that one over there... has such a
diverse order and overall appearance to our man ... the likes of which we
will never gather because we have a bad eye, but only one monocle... so,
where should we put it?

     I see life on this planet from the moment that we were born, our fathers
were born, our forefathers... oh hell, right back to the first day when an
ape picked up a stick and wanted to do something else with it besides sniff
it, see if it was food... and then put it down.

     Life is that simple for me... but as we perceive our evolution, we are
finding that it's getting cheaper to buy a pair of glasses for yourself. As
time goes by, the man will break up... go insane, maybe fall in upon itself
and destroy itself... or maybe, just maybe we will join hands... all of us
with glasses, and unite together ... and what of the other men, you ask ...
well, buy some glasses and find out. <smile>

     The Great Depression... words in a book for me.

     The Hippies... words in a book for me, but social strands lie dormant
within me from my parents ... some have connected with my own social strands
and have become vibrant, refreshed with energy.

     The Baby-Boomers... more words, but half of my strands lie within this
social era ... some do, some don't ... mine is to care which lie where, but
since I have so many ... I focus on those that impress me.

     Generation X ... the generation of unlimited insight, X... the value of
infinite ... but are we really?  But hey, maybe this is true... I said "we",
but the sights and sounds about me show the "I" instead of the "we" ... maybe
this is what Generation X is... the knowledge of one.  This is my present...
and it is hazy at the moment, but I continue to dip my quill everyday in an
effort to write maybe another page, but somedays... the editor just faxes me
a note that says, "Sorry... not good enough".  The seeds of progress are too
many... do I have enough water to feed them all, but alas... the great
question remains...

     When does the water stop?

     It will stop... but until then, I will frolic in the waters of time ...
bath to my hearts content ... swallow amounts of it, with but a care as to
what lies before me, because in the end... and with realization the likes of
which defy human comprehension... the water will end one day.

     Will the great novel be finished that day when the water has gone to the
Four Winds?  Will others continue my novel for me in my absence, and
understand new "poetry" or write more poetry for it.  Will I re-write the
prologue to make it a new start, grab the Thesaurus and begin anew, rewriting
the words... or will a bookmark be placed in the novel, at some point, so
that I can resume it at a later date?

     One is to wonder about these questions, and I'm sure the Basilisk will
remain... walking the endless limits of my perception in search of the stones
of which he is to conquer, the paper which is to became his nature for being,
or the flesh that will make him want to own it ... and will this Basilisk
ever find the water...

     In my mind now... when the times has come, and the water is dripping
away slowly... inevitable exhaustion of moist is near... I will creep out of
my death bed, and look into the mirror...

     ...and I shall turn to stone.
SAUCE00Shattered Visions of the Basilisk  Gangreen            MiSTiGRiS           199710 61>