Eventually, eternally – it seems like an
eternity but, in fact, is only the smallest fraction – Sisyphus reaches the
top. For a moment of eternity, stretched seemingly but a smaller fraction still,
he stands in stasis, balanced on not-being. Time stops, compromising rock on the
fine edge of its last up roll, lipping the first back roll. Feet plant hard
against the hard, instinctively, bootless toes trying hard to root themselves bootlessly
in the unwelcoming hard earth.
Pause. Breathe. A moment of pure peace, non-being-just-being-itself-a-moment.
Before, inevitably, eternally, eternity returns
in time and the balance breathes out, unrolls; bootless toes uproot, unbooted, and
rough rock roughly shoulders Sisyphus aside, unrolling bolderly back down a
track to its resting place at the restart.
Sisyphus, still standing, stretches
soundlessly and unsoundlessly: arching aching back his back. Exhaling, clasped hands
above his head, he makes the stretching noise. Then, deep breathing, goes jogging
down-a-down the hill, following the unrolling, to the place where his rough
rock, Michael, waits beardlessly to begin again.
Breathing, back in place, Sisyphus,
unsinagain, stretches once again: hip-twisting, ham-stringing and re-stringing,
tiptoe touching, shoulder-rolling, neck re-rolling; three by three, east to
west, sun by stars; then puffpuff and shake out. Hands to the rough rock-Michael’s
face, cool under the white sun, he blows bilabially, bracing for the strain. Rock-Michael,
bracing, steady strong and Robert-ready to push and pull together in common
cause of common destiny, Bruce-fully back to the stop of the hill, slowly
slowly.
Nearby, tantalisingly close, a bather watches
from his bowery bath, the run of eternal return and rerun. He watches the rock
roll for the umpteenth time while, trip-trotting comes Sisyphus, humming,
tum-tumming, to himself behind. By the light of the silvery sun, the bath man makes
waves, splashing a greeting as the pair rumble-trumble-never-stumble-trip-trot
back to their start-spot.
---
Morning.
---
Morning Tantalus. Sisyphus rolls a wave back, slaps rock-Michael’s rocky flank.
Rock-Michael, otherwise unresponsive, rolls, rocking, to a customary halt. What’s
the best news?
---
Throwaway for the Gold is the word I hear. Tantalus tapped the side of
his knowing nose.
---
Oh very good. And how’s the diet? Is it the keto you’re at? Sisyphus,
stretching, rolling, hips and hams, shoulder, neck, sholling, nolling.
---
‘Tis, ah ‘tis. It’s not so bad, thanks.
He gestured vaguely at the plump fruit above
and watched as it recoiled sluggishly from feeling fingertips. And you? He
asked, how are you liking the music biz?
---
Ah now, well it’s only rock ‘n’ roll, said Sisyphus, wagging his arms and legs.
---
As long as you like it.
Oh
how they laughed.
Routine round-ended, dryly, daily, from
uncountable aeons to uncountable aeons; mullocking chums chuckle and chortle;
rock-Michael says nothing, moss-lessly maintaining stony silence. With a soft
sigh and a tear in his eye, Tantalus lay back in his bath while Sisyphus and
his rock brace themselves for another hill run.
---
Now tell me this and tell me more—
Sisyphus
raised his index finger.
---
One moment, he said, timelessly, and began heave-ho-ing at the rock again.
Tantalus
sloshed water and gazed up at the rich, ripe fruit sweetly swinging in branches
overhead. He did not, he decided, like fruit very much. Cupping empty air from
bath below, he turned his trudging thoughts to steak and kidney pie with
butteryellow mashed potatoes.
Eternity overflows,
spilling time across the plain, rilling riverruning spill along a foot-trod footsore
path, flowing, following, along apace behind and up a-hill, longing and longing
for the moment when it. Stops. Breathing, feels the curve of consciousness in
and out of motion, breathes, sighing, swishing timelessly back down the rock road
returning all steeped in time unseized. ---
Now what it is that I can tell you, Tantalus? Said Sisyphus, jogging alongside
his returning rock back to the beginning blocks. Tantalus abandoned the examination
of his water-wrinkled toes and leaned against the bank of his bath.
---
Well now, it’s like this, he said, crease-beetling brows. It’s the ‘why’ of it
that puzzles me, with you.
---
The ‘why’? Says now scowling Sisyphus, The why the what? Stretch, bend back,
and sides slide down each one leg, fingers to toes twotoestips, other hand up
reach up and stretch skyward, steering sun by stars.
---
The ‘why’ of why you do it, do you see? That’s what I was wondering.
---
What, this you mean? And Sisyphus pressed his hands to the impassive rock-physog,
sombre, stony, rough and rocky, bends to his burden once again.
Eternity
unfolds, foreknowing, foliating in wide, wild leaves, lief-strewing time revealing
leaves along the rock-rolled path, respiring in only only only to out release
out last, long last, re-leaving, unfoliating, returning eternally to the first
step.
--- I
do, said Tantalus, cupped hands squeezed to squirt water, brown studiously,
over the side of his bath. I do mean that.
---
Why, said stretching Sisyphus, do I push this rock up that hill? Left leg,
right leg, heel to cheek to cheek to heel, then high reach and swan-dive to the
toes.
---
The very question, nodded Tantalus. Why do you push that rock up that hill?
More to the point, after a forever of pushing that rock up that hill, why do
you still push that rock up that hill?
Sisyphus
shaking arms and legs out, back twist, neck rolling, shoulder rolling, ready.
--- Ah,
now there’s a question, he said and began rock rolling.
Eternity
unwinds, widely wide-eyed, waking, sweeping stretches sighing timelessly, in
sweeping time-stretched time-trod unswept tracks towards the top of high hill,
inhale, hold, exhale, exit top hill high, returning, trod-time track unswept to
start again again.
---
So? asked Tantalus, stretching in Sisyphus time to softly finger unreaching peaches.
---
So what? Said hip-swivelling Sisyphus and seeing Tantalus’ expression. Oh the
rock. Oh well, he shrugged shoulder stretching, fate isn’t it? Same as you with
the reach-away bath and buffet.
---
Ah, fate. That lad. Flicking water in the direction of bath-wrinkled Tantalus-toes.
Punishment, as I recall? Can you remember what for?
--- They
usually are.
--- Quite
so. But the point of it, that’s what I want to know. What’s the point of any of
it?
Answerless,
eternity uncoils, curl, twirl and sternabout strides out, rock-rolling ahead
apace, roll on and rock, on over round and up and up and up, then slowing,
stopping, rolling till-terrupted. Standstill. Then rolling again in return,
down to space of start and shrug and stretch and twist and toetouch.
--- The point of it? Well, it’s punishment,
as you say.
--- Yes, but what’s the purpose of it as
a punishment? What’ll it achieve? What’ll it ever achieve?
--- Nothing, I’d say. I think it’s not meant
to achieve anything. That’s sort of the point, it’s pointless. You might say, absurd
even.
--- Don’t think I’d say ‘absurd’. ‘Bloody irritating,
I’d say that, for sure.
--- That too. But I shouldn’t worry about it.
--- I’m not worried, I’m irritated. I’m
irritated at a destiny which consists of doing Sweet Jemima Crankshaft
for
eternity.
--- I’m not doing Sweet Jemima Whatchamacallit.
I’ve got my rock and I’ve got my hill. I’m busy enough, thank you, huffed Sisyphus,
unchuffed but unhuffily. Unhuffy hands flat to uphill fate unyielding, Sisyphus
and rock-Michael push up and push varder toward tophill headquarters. Tantalus
watches, wondering, was it waterflows year?
Unfolding,
overflowing, unwaterwinding and uncoiling, eternity relentlessly repeats its
reeling rigmarole, along a dry and dusty driven track, muscle-moved upheadquarters
hill before back-rolling, baconlike heat-curling and recurling rock-recursively
not cursing on itself returning.
---
But what’s the point? Why bother?
---
No alternative, is there.
---
We could just stop.
---
Nope, we could just hide and that won’t change anything in the end. There is no
stopping. There’s no appeal. You know that. This the only way to live, if we
can find a way to live with it.---
‘Cept we’re dead. We’re in Tartarus, the underworld, land of the dead.
---
Oh, shut up and drink your bath water.
Above
and a-sudden, the sky filled with feather-flapping blackwing blows upon the
slap-cracking air, whirling wings soaring and screech-reaching down with long
thin talon legs and bone break fingers, clawing cthonically, cawing rookishly.
Thus, noisily, cthonically, the Erinyes, garbed in mourning drapery, dropped inelegantly
to the ground around the talkers.
Three maids in an Arc slyly six-eyed Sisyphus
then turned two and two more Tantalus-wise and twitch a wiry eyebrow each.
---
You Atys again? They croaked, recyclingly. Quit flappin’ yer gums and get on
wi’ it! They screech and flap and caw.
With a cheery Sisyphean shrug,
accepting not resigned, alive to the abyss without appeal, one turns to rock
and rock rolls on to well-worn trail, while Tantalus, ‘teuf teuf’, mutters
moodily the words of Wooster-Wodehouse-words, ‘teuf teuf’ and reaches
unenthusiastically for ripe retreating peach. Eternity breathes in and,
thinking fondly of private priceless pallypeachum, does what it does best.
