The Passing Image of a Panic Attack

Preface

A Prelude

By way of preparatory exercises

Notes from the Corner of a Euclidean Space

The Mirror

(In various postures)

Reclining

Look there. Where? There. But it is nowhere. No, not nowhere. Nay, that is reflection. Which reflection? Where? There. Straight ahead. Simply, though, how can a reflection be there?

Sitting

Look up. Look straight. Rather, don’t look at all, don’t even shut your eyes, for you would still be looking. Rather, just not. Notting is incredibly tough. To spring out of the void, in instantaneous ill-continuity. Not, will you? Surely.

Standing

Look pointed. Look weeping. But don’t weep, because the other will laugh. Who is the other? The other is that in the reflection. Though, as we already agreed, reflection is not a place, but the celebration of placeness. It laughs in the face of any Euclidean or Archimedic mediocrity who dares slap his thumb on place. Did you catch it, fool? No, you didn’t, you only cut your thumb because place was a sharp, fidgeting non-placeness.

Brisk walk

If you look, well, you only shoot light. Whose light? Your light. That is what the reflection does. And that one, there, before you; He is utterly un-you. He is your perfect opposite. He is inverted totally, flipped opposite and upside down in infinitude winding inversions, so inverted is he that he strikes a cunning and insurmountable likeness. In fact, there couldn’t be a bigger difference between you and that form gliding in front of you. So, why do you mistake him to be you?

Abrupt stop after brisk walk

A horrible imitator. When I laugh he weeps. When I weep he laughs. When I go he flees. When I hasten he stumbles. When I quicken to catch him in a sidelong glance, well, he is already where I last left him.

Scene I, Act 'Final'

Panic

(the extensive form),

Or,

Anxiety

(the intensive form)

Or,

Dread

(the ethical form)

THE PASSING IMAGE OF A PANIC ATTACK

(written during a panic attack)

Pacing back and forth. Literally pacing, in space. Man on two legs, pacing back and forth. Pacing, pacing, pacing. Scratches head. Mutters to self. Scratches head. Wonders if he is crazy. Scratches head. Has a headache, though not from maniacal head scratching but from internal pounding. Scratches head. No, yes. Yes, no. No, no. Yes, yes. “Will it happen?” “Will it not happen?”. Reflective sorrow. [A FISSURE] - Dread in untimely association with sorrow. [BIFERCATION] - Reflective sorrow. What is reflective sorrow? Sorrow without the deadbolt of certainty. Certainty transforms into pointed trajectory; Straight, linear, tending to an object → [END BIFERCATION] [END FISSURE]. Right, an object. Reflective sorrow has no object, because it revolves about a dizzy axis of uncertainty. The dizzy axis keeps its movements cyclical, revolving, timid, hesitating; Man, hear ye! The prince of devils is one fidgeting and hesitant. The blunt reality slips between his trembling (red) fingers, though his trembling fingers, by way of magical appeal, can delineate “one, two, three, four.....”

(lost the way)

Scratches head, mutters to self. Fears that he is mad. No, worse, fears the possibility of madness. “How did this happen?” Mutters to self. Face is ugly. Dread makes the face ugly. Idleness. Idle! A painful word. Hard to even think about. Not idle, bored. Bored. “Boredom is demoniac pantheism” (Kierkegaard). Paces back and forth. Goes to mirror. Analyzes frightful face.

“Yesterday I was pretty. Today I am a damned monster.”

“Better to kill myself”.

A lie. He knows he will not kill himself. Though, in a way, much worse that he dare not kill himself. Much worse because the pleasure in the knowledge of a self-determined annihilation is crippled by the black infinity that is his life. His life is an inverse infinity. What? An inverse infinity fails to eternalize the eternal moment. So, lives life as the ceaseless passing-by of the eternal present. Each moment is life onto an aborted reality. He projects the dread of himself onto that aborted present. Each moment becomes a vehicle for a dread which is infinite but is constantly being aborted and replaced by a new dread. Though, this dread is not new at all, only the repetition of the old dread that was, all in that moment (between realization and annihilation) recollected and forgotten in elliptical temporal orbits. The old dread is presented as the new dread because the old dread was recollected as the new dread though positively forgotten by the same power that recollected it, so that the old dread is falsely presented as the new dread though the old dread is only the old dread.

Scratches head. Scratches face. “What brought me here?’ Whispers to self. “How to fix, how to fix, how to fix.” Doesn’t fix, only worries about fixing, though in reality is worrying about worrying about fixing instead of actually fixing.

“I’m not praying enough”

Wrong.

“God hates me”

Wrong.

“Everyone hates me”

Silence.

“Everyone hates me”

Silence.

“Everyone hates me”

Silence.

“Everyone hates me”

Silence.

“Everyone hates me”

Exaggerated sigh.

“?”

No.

“Wrong”

Ok.

Reflective sorrow. Sorrow keeps spinning back upon itself because it is always debating the reality of the object of its sorrow. Better to have immediate sorrow than reflective sorrow. Better to be shot outright than to have the gun pointed towards one in silence and indefiniteness.

“Will I be shot?”

“Will I be shot!”

“Will he put the gun down?”

“Will he not put the gun down?”

No. Now the gun waves this way, now the gun waves that way. Each movement of the hand, each step forward, each step backward, each shuffle and each hesitation, even when the gunman raises his hand to his mouth to yawn, sends the condemned man into convulsions of terror and stifles him in a stupor of trembling and involuntary flinching, as the spirit of dread all the whiles screams within himself in peals of echoless laughter, though his face is silent and stone as a rock. The pacing man does not know that the spirit of dread is none other than himself, in the mirror, and his pointed gun is only the glass panel and a coordinated series of light beams and Newtonian dance tricks.