Leland Quarterly | Summer 2020
palindromic time: Interrogating Melancholy, Ancient Neuroscience
Karen Ge
Last night I faltered in my dream as a hint of poison started to race in mocking circles, flaring into a mitosis of carbon monoxide, asphyxiating the air. I dreamed you, while they said listen, said you make certain, terrifying, choices about your life. Smiling benignly, they rip away your will to live Wrap it, cold like rewashed silverware and emboss it on the menu, etching a gold filigree of choice: Would you like the remission today or a month ago? The disease medium rare? Spritz sandalwood incense, seduce the rotting into a sinister black. They have a map of the world, of the brain, of my brain and my body, and there is the equator, and there is where you’re going, along the optimal path to falling off the edge of the world. There, there. Speechless in the dream, I strain to ask why it so shameful to be too weak to stand, to take a sabre for a staff? Because when I try to startle awake, it feels like stumbling, wild, through toxic air, my arms heaving and swinging at massive ghosts, Sprinting away from candlelit banquet illusions. 16
