LETTERS 

In the late afternoon the writer decided that he had in him what the late novelists had called 'the parvenu.' He hated to admit something like this because he was proud of his feeling of comradeship with the people. The fundament of story resided with the people. Many times he felt privileged that he could see life in a kind of larval stage where life resolved itself as a series of poetic gestures. But he started to admit to himself that, of late, he needed to experience some return of energy that equaled what he gave out. He began to divide people into three basic types.

The predominant type he termed the hunter since they went out with millions of others to feed off what appeared to be an enormous, inexhaustible animal. He couldn't decide whether it was a dinosaur or whale. He couldn't see the head and tail at the same time. He knew the hunters fed for eight hours at some portion of the animal. There was restless boredom but, also, the pleasure of being full. And in the restless vortex of abandonment created by the onslaught excessive thought and emotion were created. It floated like clouds and, after awhile, took on definite shape. In fact, many believed the cloud figures spoke and shaped themselves for the hunters. It represented their truth, their culture, their existence.

The second type he termed the farmer. This type cultivated history and was determined to develop some continuity away from the carcass of the animal. They were, in fact, appalled and ashamed of the smell of the carcass and believed it had been ruined by what it had covered by its fall. The farmer gained authority by the concentration of his thought and emotion but, even here, excess was created by desperation. Magical incantations in the form of ideology came into being.

The third type came directly from the clouds and bits of desperate ideologies and fell to earth into the mud of it. They kept on going to hell to converse with those who had fallen with them. And in this hell the third type was given stark, vivid information to take with them to try and save the others. They made a mad dash to the surface to save the hunters and farmers who were ignorant of hell. They only knew the odor of the carcass and the shape of its gray, bulging surface pressed against their windows. After awhile they had to return to the clouds. But now it was with the bitter knowledge of how to shape and make the clouds speak.

David Eide
August 9, 1999
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