She Walked In, Ordered, Sat Down a While, and Left by Kyle Williams

6 —What’ll it be? —Just coffee. —Drip? —Yes. —Milk and sugar? —One sugar. —You got it. Placement knock carousal round porcelain grained to solid surface faux marble. White ceramic reflecting white fluorescent lines ignorant of material edge carrying over to white-veined countertop. White: perception of the presence of every wavelength of visible light; black: perception of the absence of every visible wavelength. Reflection presents white; absorption presents black; black then is the extreme presence of every color presented as its absence; white follows. Everything is everything else if the changing of contextual terms is abated. Whether white or black is absorbed depends upon the material of the object in question and environmental factors—all falls to subjective perception of objective immaterial. Of:

Ebony and ivory encased in black mahogany wood hiding other-colors in conte(n/x)t, none worth mention; tuxedo black suit (alternatively: absorbed presence inducing absence); greased black hair slicked to shine white (alt: absence reflecting presence); waxed black facial hair to swirl (alt: etc). Actions absented: opening of perceptory orbs. Actions presented: bow, seat, song; pour, scald, drown. Immaterial sound tuned to key and scale, last note droned to drowning then—. Immaterial every color presence veins and cracks presentiment every color porcelain presentiment every color striate presentiment crowd presented pianist; latter then drowned by absence of color, former then filled by absence of color. Heave of chest, seize of physical body, human noises to inhuman absence of sound felt as weight. Death; Corpse: soaked in absencesoaked absence perceived as an absence of another kind (human duality has drowned; we have drowned it) so becoming nothing at all. Floating absence in sea of absence, absorption of color and animate. —That’ll be four thirty-five. —Yes. Here. —Your change’ll be sixty-five cents. —Appreciated. —Enjoy your coffee. —You too. A pedestalled moment, defined as immaterial section of time that changes length in accordance with convenience, thematic concerns, framing. A moment of attempted ignorance of social norms. A moment, lasting no longer than a moment.

Heated gaseous presence of every color floating from heated liquid absence of every color: one births the other and vice versa, ever existing only in dichotomy, defined by separation. If X is only ever defined relative to Y, do either exist without the other, and why? Ponder a question to get through the moment. The moment is all.

The absence of presence is the presence of absence making whole the landscape outside translucent panes. Translucence: the absence of reflective/absorptive substance—if extended over the edges of a frame, effectively the absence of any viewable substance, as seen in Stanley Kubrick’s floating pen in 2001 or [other example] or [other example]. (The best arguments come with three examples, don’t ask why.)

There, still, a corpse floating in coffee, past the moment. A longer frame may be necessary.

Opening—translucent panes viewing the void aside frame, held within opaque frames painted absence standing without regard to context—open. Presentiment child: small(er) active presence, later stripling—if a moment is a container of time and time is assumed in flux does order then matter in which inner-moments are presented (probably). Dressed monolith in black coattails, holding stems of green leading up blooms of purple (stems of envy leading up blooms of royalty?). Presentiment of an event in failure; ensue drama. Monolith knocking its wade across vinyl flooring made up of every color: (wear/ where) opaque (every/no)thing.

—Excuse me, have you seen my father? Absence defined as absence (life, definition TBD), floating in absence defined as absence (cold, solidity, color, etc.), held within presence (color) defined by ability of presentiment, held up by presence (color) defined by etc. etc. Linguists in part define language for its ability to express recursion; other things can also be defined in this way (life, time, humans) with varying degrees of (e/a)ffectiveness. Still: carr(i/y)on.

—He had a performance tonight; have you seen him?

7 Still: everything, suspended. Tense—another linguistic property on some level but here an emotive one. Eyes like oceans. Everything is relative. —What’ll it be? Stuck; gears clogged. The alternation of a particle’s trajectory between fixed points is seen as index, evidence; the attempt to observe a particle’s multiple trajectories fixes it to a single point. Is observation then trustworthy, and where? If in observation judgment must be cast for the purpose of understanding, what good is evidence alone? A depression in the ground in a shape infers the passing by of something that made such a shape unless it doesn’t. It doesn’t.

—You must have seen him; I know you did. Every-color half-sphere presenting no-color halfsphere presenting no-color no-man, lifted above monolith brought some distance (measured like a moment) away and set down with an uneven double ceramic tap (tap-/ta-/t- tap) on another even plane of presence, lower. A difference presence than previous than previous than previous, but still the presence of every color—if only such presences presented with one another but this is not a film reel despite its construction on a frame held in by presence and defined by absence. —Enjoy your coffee. Our everyman has drowned; we drowned him and now we show our mourning persons. Poor Dignam. Patsy Dignam, monolith, following, knockling linoleum loud louder (ti-/nu-)ll. Eyes like the edge of the world: all falls. All Falls. An exchange of power dynamics as displayed through the exchange of verticality; one willing subjugation to the forces of gravity, atmospheric pressure, the weight of the world and universe within finite spaces; one static, ignorance due to accustom—bliss, whatnot. Monolith towers; viewfinder angled to look up. —Where is he? Absence of color floating absence of color. All Falls felled to blind. Stripling arm-in-arm led across a way, blind to any bloom of absence (color, life) or presence (absorption—can death be the complete absorption of life?). All is present regardless of presence, perceived or no. All Falls, eyes like falling. Green bleeding through tightened skin, tp tp to every-color lowest-level plane, color straining from pets all’s mute to tp tp. No timekeeper but tp tp, no t(i/o)ck. Out the translucent pane still void: if darkness is the absence of light/color then what is the color of the absence of substance; why is absence of color opaque when the absence of substance is clarity? Green fades to white; purple fades to black: more/less colors presence where once defined.

—You must have seen him; I know you did. Pause, pause; pause. Pause. Tension: monolith affront composed of absence (color; perception, forced). Time is relative, too; it can reverse—it is a lie that the universe tends toward entropy, that assumes a specific frame. The absence of sound is the creation of negative atmosphere. Will tilted up/down color: Green up crackling to every presence; Purple down to impoverished rich of absence of. Latter now absence; Former now presence: everything exists in dichotomy, even with puddles of color on the floor.

—He had a performance tonight; have you seen him?

Yes. The tape is turned back, disincluding any pt pt, one well dried but still all falls. Still: absence of color floating in absence of color held in presence atop presence atop presence atop. Still—not still not standing but playing: carry on. Mono(duo?)lith knocking backwards across its wade; stripling shaken off of guide of time. All Falls all fell in clarity.

—Excuse me, have you seen my father? If only. A polite refusal, abstinence from forward (from one point of view, anyway) momentum. Soon it will be morning but now it is night and night can extend in front and behind. Absence of substance of a kind still (not standing, rather flosting) substantial—all that lacks substance, all the ether floating within substance. Absence, presence, substance, ether, void: synonyms, probably. Everything (mis)understood; everything broken; look closer. Lith’s last moment knocking out of scene; exit frame right.

—What’ll it be? Nothing is certain; perception is one more subjective frame; memory is an artist. Time is perceived as linear and progressive but that could just be a trick of the light. Order is imagined, requisite substance and viewpoint. Insert a differing angle and everything breaks. Substance is insubstantial: contained within vast expanses of negative substance—void, absence, presence even, what-have. Rejection of substantial reality is easy: look closer.

—Enjoy your coffee? Yes will yes. Lifted to frame eclipsing presence until drained. Still: absence. Still: carr(y/i)on. Still: the remnants. Re-angled reinterpreted all presences now shorter. Soon sink to null. Nothing to be done. So it goes. [Existential/Absurdist cliché.]

—What’ll it be? Who knows? The profundity of questioning everything held up to standards or truth is false—relative to one another, relative to everything else. It would be just as well not to attempt to understand anything at all. The absence of an answer is a better representation of an answer than an answer could be. Do you love me? The frame pans forward into maw until framed by frame until without frame in void. A pedestalled moment.

Nothing exists in dichotomy; more variables than could ever be realized (even within/beyond ess to zed) will refuse realization. Like a shore, it is best to be washed over, and over, eroded until human duality (if present) is realized first-hand, or else absorption into the currents ever present—time, everything. A pedestalled moment. The buzzing of a fly. Then— 1

1 She Never Drank Her Coffee, Though. Usually Doesn’t. That’ll Be One Thirty-Five.

Sarah Allam

The hills; were really just sleeping Giants under Mossy blankets and the Sun shown down on their rising Bellies. Blades of grass breathing in the passing lives and lifetimes.

If it could talk it might be laughing. The walls, the couch, the drapes, the rug. The portraits, the photos,the bed, the dog. The candles burn the time away First to fade; the memory, our memory unnecessary details the most important Choose. The same Flowers will bloom and their petals willSlowly, slowly fall into into You. Rats will eat Trash Dog will wag Their Tales