THE LIBATION BEARERS
… AT HUMPTY'S WALL
ACT IV, SCENE X
THE MASTER OF DEMON VALLEY. Humpty’s repertoire? Elementary: protons and electrons. Protons push things around and pack explosive constituents together nice and tight. Hair-trigger explosives, pyro-mechanics. And electrons – tortured high energy bonds waiting to be defabricated into simpler, less excited forms. One in each hand, this guy. Everything else seems to be derivative, molecular foreplay to the ordered detonation of atomic fragments held for the moment in destabilized terror. Come no nearer, hardly. Humpty gives his undetonated fragments away in all directions. He basks in undetonated fury. Not one word, all you get is the smile. Every electron and every proton endowed with the potential to harbor a modicum of energy to be used to construct the order Humpty foresaw from his birth in the corona of a dying star. Humpty is the ultimate fixer. He intends to fix creation by subjugating it to the memory of what the red giant really wanted to do. Put the pieces together again? Humpty’s off the scale by that metric. Just sitting there his thoughts cannot be measured. Words come apart in his hands. Protons, high energy electrons, who would attempt to shepherd chaos in these forms to the ordered glorification of his dying star? Humpty intends to give creation a good burial. Never thought he had it in him. Misunderstood from the beginning. If Humpty ever had an idea we would have to tear it to shreds and give it a countdown instead of a cleanup. Humpty’s thoughts define the wind driving through creation. Where he’s going only angels know. Beyond creation, obviously. Humpty prays and people call the police. He sets creation in motion and cannot be stopped. “And all the king’s horses.” That’s Humpty’s wry smile. Make it rhyme then. Why not? A storm of ungovernable protons and electrons sent directly into the abyss. Humpty’s one idea.
THE LIBATION BEARERS AT HUMPTY'S WALL © Copyright 2018 by Frank P. Langley III