Part Won-Tree

It’s raining and I’m walking down the streets of Antwerp. I’m wearing a long coat, stuffed with stuff -i like saying stuffed with stuff- my wallet, a bottle of rum, my get-out-of-jail-free card, a picture of Madame Blavatsky, a pack of disposable razors, a Raageshwari album and keys to a house I’ve seen in my dreams. The Phantom Ape is sitting on my shoulder, whispering to me while I cross yet another street.

I ask: “What gives coffee it’s kick?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “Caffeine, of course. Caffeine is trimethylxanthine. It’s an addictive stimulant drug that operates in the brain the same way amphetamines, cocaine and heroin do.”

I ask: “Turn left?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “No, turn right. Trust me.”

I ask: “What’s a metaphysical conceit?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “The metaphysical poets liked to challenge conventional imagery and their tool for doing this was the metaphysical conceit. A conceit is a poetic idea, usually a metaphor. Metaphysical conceits are noteworthy specifically for their lack of conventionality. In general, the metaphysical conceit will use some sort of shocking or unusual comparison as the basis for the metaphor. When it works, a metaphysical conceit has a startling appropriateness that makes us look at something in an entirely new way.”

I ask: “For example?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “Such as Donne's comparison of the union between two lovers to the two legs of a compass in A Valediction Forbidding Mourning. Do you remember?"
I answer him: “If they be two, they are two so as stiff twin compasses are two. Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show to move, but doth if the other do.”

He laughs and I turn right.

I ask: “Shouldn’t I be home?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “Why go to a place you’re not welcome? The street is where you belong, the street will understand.”

I ask: “But where am I going?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “You go to where I tell you to go.”

I ask: “What would have happened if I turned left?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “You never turn left.”

An old lady makes a cross when I pass her by. I’m soaking wet but I refuse to find shelter.

The Phantom Ape says: “We’re close.”

And I startle when I see the house I’ve seen in my dreams.

The Phantom Ape says: “Take out your keys, we’re going in.”

- to be continued-