ARRHYTHMIA: A Plague of Helicopters for Kathleen Eastwood by Angelo Colavita When it happened, she’d come on like angels through a tunnel. Buried and floating over London in the morning, beneath his feet and through the soul of a man running. Legs become a penniless bargain with Mr. Brownstone on the worst of the drynights, in circles, beating the air until the blood in the elevator returns to his penthouse in the city. Submarine voices pilot jet-engines at eyelevel without a weldingmask, snowblind, deaf to all but his heartbeat. When your diamond lips melt, finally, and the frost is shaken from curly locks of hair (you devil), you will take to your feet and you will head for the hills and you will hide among the trees, you will. They will never find you in the trees. They would hover above until just enough fuel to get back, they would. Be patient. Hold tight until they’re gone. When they were far enough to be gone, his sight would return and he’d stare through the forest as the sounds of wind and animals play rasp-and-chisel to his delusive visions of redwoods and redheads and red waxed bags intended for coincollecting. Half-red ribbon left the other half black, with his hat and slacks and specs and matching leathers. Heart and soul, sold separately, complete the set together, for afterall, accessories do truly make the attire. Lord knows one wouldn’t be caught dead with small holes in slacklaps or white rings around the brim. Lord knows it’s sure cold out there. When he least expects it, or when he most; when it goes undetected, or when it boasts; when it coasts at fiftyfour, sure, you better bet your money he’ll’ve dropped to his knees before twohundred-and-twenty. He comes-to with his head to the ground, brought to reverence like a pilgrim on the path of gnosis from Knossos to Jerusalem. Axe in hand, he swung for steel vultures and bought himself another day. But the day would come when, broke and dying, he’d watch
the birds be torn to shreds by their own propellers. Until that day, may he be plagued by helicopters. When the concrete has abandoned you in empty wilderness, his lungs will collapse. When his cochlea betray him for the wind of ghosts, you will lapse into neuralgia. On the eve of transmission, may you wake together and breathe eachother’s exhaled exaltations of life and of love and of living love until it eventually kills you. He feels her breath in his mouth, in his throat. When she wakes, may she continue from where she left off. On a tangent for several score when he ran in the middle on running from the helicopters. With or without her, they will come looking. He will be found running, or hiding, with his arms on the ground and his head at his stomach. When she is here, he is in the clear, until she sleeps. She sleeps until he is vulnerable. When he is vulnerable, a signal is sent. With the signal sent, the ants make fallen branches of his fallen arms and he falls into the arms of a lover; a pure heart, the purest heroine to save and destroy him. The air is made of glass. Against the glass tap the blades beat against the air inside his chest among the trees, both above and below. What cyclical plot has developed. My, how the propellers spin ‘round. How the hawks rise like a breathing chest, heart beating.
Response 1: “Thine Own Self” or “Portrait of a Shit Heart” by Kyle Shuebrook I first met Angelo Colavita about ten years ago at the home of a mutual friend. He was sitting on a couch and scribbling into a black notebook when I entered the room. At the time, I had my own aspirations of being a writer; aspirations
which faded as I became more and more interested in pursuing other careers. While my interests were fluctuating, Angelo was writing. When I was first becoming obsessed with Psychology, especially Jung, Angelo was writing. When I was reading Oliver Sacks and beginning to gain an interest in neuroscience, Angelo was writing. When I was just beginning to explore my fascination with religion, Angelo was writing. And now, as I’m working towards a career which will hopefully encompass all three of my scattered interests, Angelo continues to write. Over the years I have met many people who write, and who speak of writing, but Angelo Colavita is one of the very few true “Writers” that I have ever known. Under normal circumstances, most people take very little notice of the many complex processes which are continually at work all around them. When we check our email, we rarely take pause or find ourselves in awe of the countless invisible operations necessary in order to open that email. We pay little attention to the inner workings of our phones when we place a call. When we flip a light switch, we are not surprised by the near instantaneous illumination, nor are we fascinated by the ability of our own eyes to perceive objects within the well-lit room. However, we do tend to take notice of these processes when they fail to work as expected. “Fifty dollars a month and the shit doesn’t even work?” we mumble to ourselves when a video won’t buffer, or when a call is dropped. Inconveniences such as these are annoying, but we tend to get over them quickly. Bodily functions however, are different. If you awoke one morning and found yourself to be intermittently blind in one eye, it’s unlikely that you’d say “Meh, it’s just one of those things, I’m sure my vision will come back on later”. And then if after seeing a doctor, we you were told that your vision would be intermittent and unpredictable from now on, how do you think you would be affected? Would your perception of familiar surroundings change? Would your appreciation of, and subjective associations to the sense of sight change? Would you change? These are just a few of the questions raised in Colavita’s “ARRHYTHMIA: A Plague of Helicopters”, a work which deals with the experience of not only living with a serious heart condition, but also of being healed and learning to live without a serious heart condition. Living with any disease or affliction is not simply about dealing with the physical symptoms. There are also the psychological effects of prolonged illness. After a while, the sufferer no longer perceives their affliction as simply being some transitory external force. When we
catch a cold, we say, “I have a cold”. If after a few years, that cold did not go away, we might eventually start referring to it as this cold, and eventually, my cold, instead of just a cold. The sufferer’s perceptions of an illness can often evolve to a point where the sufferer actually identifies his or herself with the illness. Not only is the illness theirs “to be carried with them” (as in “my cold”), but it also becomes theirs in the sense that it becomes a “part” of them, similar to the way that their arms, legs, or even their personalities are a part of them. The variability of differing perceptions of long term afflictions is likely infinite, with each sufferer having their own unique experience. This notion is clearly illustrated in ARRHYTHMIA. His illness, a sinus arrhythmia, is manifested in a number of different ways. Describing the onset of an attack, his arrhythmia is likened to the speed and grace of an angel. The heart palpitations become the harrowing sound of helicopter propellers, an auditory reminder of the body’s fragility. The last paragraph of his story seems to depict a process of healing (heart surgery), while at the same time depicting loss ( the loss of the arrhythmia). The notion of this type of loss is one I can readily relate to. I have been a stutterer for most of my life. So when I speak of identification with an affliction, I speak from experience. As a child, I would have done anything to be rid of my speech impediment. I would routinely have these little hypothetical bargaining sessions with God, where I would offer my hand or some other limb as payment for a miraculous cure. That desperation did not last for long however, and I have largely accepted by disability. My stutter is a part of me, it has shaped me in countless different ways. And if a cure were to come along, I would surely not hesitate to take advantage. Yet, I must wonder how I would deal with the loss of something which has become such a big part of me, my stutter, my own helicopter.
Response 2: Negative Space by Anastasia Renzetti
There is something sacred about the written word. Paragraphs contain multitudes and even the single sentence can endure, carving itself into the mind and remaining forever. Great writing can make you feel like you know a secret, like you are the only witness to a mysterious world. That being said, a great author often acts as our guide, ushering us through the microcosm they have created. Swept up in the majesty of a story, we often forget that the world we are marveling at is in fact our own- that there is no secret society, that in truth, there is no special world being revealed to us, but rather we are being reminded of ourselves. Angelo Colavita makes an immediate connection through his title ‘Arrhythmia’ by infusing a connection with the reader through a physical problem. He is instantly creating an experience to unite the audience with the story itself rather than strengthen the author/reader relationship. He writes in a way that constantly grounds you back into the story: each paragraph opens with the same word, creating a swooping propeller effect that gives the narrative a palpable sense of urgency while maintaining the infrastructure of the story. Colavita uses symbols that are not present in the story but are alluded to or described: elevators, jet engines, London, typewriters, someone is talking. Who is talking? Maybe you are talking. He uses “negative space” associations – feelings evoked by imagery belie any surface ambiguity. The obtuse physical and sensory disturbances suggest drug use and a physical heart problem but these are not singular suggestions: they are meant to construct the feeling of panic. The story has an ending without any reconciliation, and the reader is faced with yet another impending swoop. The author is exploring fear and despair, two themes that are often ignored in our society which is so focused on itself. There is no societal mirror in this work of art but instead the specificity of pain, panic, and anxiety. This story is the stuff of raw emotion and the themes that are explored therein are not metaphors for any societal polemic (as the locus of contemporary art often is) but rather expose human suffering in a profoundly personal, yet universal way.