Here I am, in Adelaide, going to cut my long, long hair in the city. I'd heard there was a great hairdresser saloon just along King William Street, which cuts through the city.
I get into the saloon. It's just me at the moment. I wait a while, looking around. It's a small square shaped store, with mirrors on all four walls - a bit unusual - and pretty little vases with sweet flowers in them.
There are four black chairs as well. The floor and parts of the walls have jagged grey stones, and look quite stylish.
Presently the hairdresser walks in, a kindly lady perhaps in her sixties. She smiles in a most friendly manner to me. "Hi, how are you?" She asks pleasantly.
"I'm good, yourself?"
"Wonderful," she replies. She is dressed in a white shirt, black overcoat, and a green skirt with faint yellow flowers.
"Could I have my hair cut very short?" I ask.
"Sure I can," she says cheerfully, and turns around to her table, where she has kept her scissors and brushes.
I wait a while, perhaps for a few minutes. She is still at the table, doing something. I am getting a bit impatient. "Excuse me," I begin.
She suddenly whirls around to face me.
Her face is now entirely different.
Her eyes now are glistening with dancing flames,
And are staring at me with a startling intensity.
In her hands are a pair of scissors and a hairbrush.
"What do you dare ask me?" She roars. Her voice is now a lion's roar, and it deafens my ears. The mirrors around me crack. A thousand different reflections are now an infinity of jarred, broken reflections. Terrified, I fall back into the chair, pale with fright.
"I'm sorry," I stammer.
"You will be!" She bellows, and all the mirrors crack and fall onto the ground, a thousand shards of glistening glass, each one reflecting the world in ways so painfully different.
The scissors in her hands becomes a sword forged of candleflame.
The hairbrush becomes a shield. I look at the hairdresser, aghast.
She is now an angry agèd Queen with a sword and shield.
"You selective lover of words, what were you doing last afternoon?" She roars at me, brandishing her sword.
"I was only writing down a few flimsy verses of poetry," I say, petrified.
"And what did you write therein?"
"I wrote about the English language,
And how beautiful a language it was," I reply. "Aha!" She exclaims, snorting. "Pathetic!" She scoffs, she sniggers. And she reprimands me:
"What are spoken words, are they all not the same human breath?
And what are written words, are they all not the same man-made ink?
What are words, mere words, mere words of mortal men,
But human breath and man-made ink?"
I don't know what to say, and I start sweating before this wrathful Queen, who I most randomly think to myself, comes across as an angry scolding mother as well. I deserve this reprimand, I think bitterly to myself. She continues her vitriolic tirade:
"And no, you would think I am denouncing all words,
But in truth, I am only unmasking your attitude
To make you see what I have always seen:
The universal grammarhood of the mortal word!
For there is some aspect that is common to all mortal language,
Some mysteriously unifying dimension -
And you needs must understand this before you pen another word,
You pathetic travesty of a graphomaniac!
We are all citizens of the same world,
Whichever part of the globe we were born in does not matter,
For we are all born into this pale blue dot of Earth
And we are in this together,
One band of brothers and sisters.
Language and geography must not divide!
We must be one, and only one Word can hold us up,
Uniting us together forever,
And that is not of man."
"Okay," I whimper back, trying not to feel too sorry for myself. She roars again, louder than ever, and fire spits out from her mouth, burning the wall next to me to rubble and ash. I sob pitifully.
"Who are you, anyway?" I ask, trying to be angry and failing. "Who I am does not matter as much," She replies, cackling.
"I am only a character,
Not a symbol, nor a type.
I am only here to shock, to stun,
And to finally force you to reality."
She then calms down, and smiles at me most kindly. She continues, in a sweet, gentle voice:
"I am only a figment
Of your own haphazard imagination, my child..."
She then steps forward and towers above me, flames in her eyes again.
"But what a mighty figment am I!" She bellows, and all the four walls of the saloon explode to smithereens, and she strikes me with her sword, and I am thrown flying into the air, landing on the other side of King William Street, gasping for precious breath. This old lady has literally beat the living daylights out of me.
The lady has begun an entire storm. The clouds above darken and swirl round the city. Mighty gusts of winds bellow on every side. All of the city, all the skyscrapers, buildings, cars, the lot, are thrown into the air, swirling. I am in the air now as well, whirling in the sudden tornado.
Everything rises up into the skies,
All languages, words, letters, meanings,
Twisting and turning.
At the very bottom, though,
At the very center of it all,
Holding it all up,
Maintaining existence,
Is what is.
A single Word.
In principio erat Verbum.
I behold the sight
Of the city transcending itself.
Beyond cement, glass, and cars.
Light beyond light.
The eye sees merely the tip, the soul feels the iceberg.
And the Word, at the center, of everything
The Word, the center, the everything.
The Word then speaks to me
And I listen, listening to gentle fire.
Light from Light.
The musical and healing fire of the Word
Heals me, heals all,
And unites us who are so tragically
Distanced from each other,
Despite our multitudinous perceptions,
To be one huge, everlasting family.
The storm quiets down, and everything slowly settles back onto level ground. I am back at the hairdresser's saloon. The kindly lady smiles at me. I scream. She tells me off again, gently this time, and reprimands me for my shortcomings. I sort of deserve it, I feel - all she's telling me is get up and live, face reality.
All the more reason to write,
For words may transcend
When they speak of the Word.
She then cuts my hair, taking her own sweet time. I pay her when she's done (Fifty dollars for a haircut, a bit expensive I reckon, what with her service). I thank her though, and leave for home, grateful because she had cut both my hair and my pride.
And now was I ready
To seek out the
Word
