The Adventures of Pascal Wanderlust


Book 2


1.

Through darklight, through vaporous clouds,
to the aether, Pascal Wanderlust ascends.
Darklighter, self-appointed demiurge, Pascal
scatters seeds, microbial offshoots, organic
sparks. Soul-seeker, soul-maker, resoled
Wanderlust, tendrils of hair creeping from
beneath the damp hood. What was seen
in the depths, what was done there? Exploits,
exploited for myths, expropriated by myth-makers
of uncertain date. Dateless time, thrown hopelessly
against history, against that obdurate wall. 
Heeded. Seeded. Watch how this grows.




2.

Pascal and the Other: anti-archetype, lost
and found companion, alter-ego altered
and brought up from the abyss. Orphic
lover, Orphic alternative, Orphic mystery
seemingly solved. This is the good mirror,
thinks Pascal, this is the mirrored meeting,
these are the two that are one, singing
of love. So it seems, comes the echo, so
it always seems. When you wandered up,
flowered boots among the flowers, were you
dreaming of happy endings, were you
dreaming of love at all? And are you now?






3.

There were puppets and puppet masters. There were
armies of trolls. There were clubs and foundations,
associations and parties, in living rooms and backyards.
There was history, and there were history’s losses,
history’s erasures, histories of inevitability stretching
backward and forward, eternity glowing or glowering
in streets and darkened hallways. There were borders.
And there was Pascal Wanderlust, writing in a room,
writing in the past, writing in the present. Here is
Pascal Wanderlust, in the present and of the present,
witness and actor, acting as witness, Pascal
the historian, Pascal the agent, claiming agency.




4.

All the elegant instruments are cast aside.
In the stadium the anthems ring out, and in
the dive bar the drunks are singing. Pascal’s
Other, anti-Wanderer, seeker sent forth, attends.
To whom? Someone in the crowd, at the rally,
at the all you can eat buffet, hungry soul talking
to himself while shouting with the others, or in
the bathroom with a needle in her vein. Vain
anti-hero, to think a presence could make
a difference. Come back, reads Pascal’s text,
come back and tell me what we need to know.
Come back and tell us about the pain.




5.

Wanderlust awakens; the Other sleeps on. At dawn,
the wise and ancient insects begin to creak and chitter,
singing tragic songs. Lost lovers, lost children, harsh
realities leaching into dreams. This must be what
they mean by oneiric infection, a condition I was
never taught to prevent. No hope of a cure, shamanic
or otherwise. I was never properly schooled, but it
didn’t seem to matter up till now. Now and in the
“foreseeable future” (head shaking under the hood),
the nightmares of the waking world are more than any
sleeping soul can bear. Pascal’s Other turns and makes
sweet moan. A gentle kiss, and quietly, Pascal slips out.





6.

Pascal wanders up the little street, finds the
house number, reads the sign in the window:
“Dr. Augustus Sprechenbaum, Psy.D. Member
in Good Standing, Third Eye. Long & Short Term
Treatments Available. Psychic Wisdom On a Need
to Know Basis.” Draws a deep breath. Knocks.
A young woman, scarcely out of her teens.
A corridor leading to a stuffy waiting room.
Tweed suit. Short white beard. A Siamese cat
yawns, stretches, settles back on the couch.
Master, I have come…begins Pascal, but
the old man raises his hand, shakes his head.





7.

“From Alexandria I went to Giza. No one knew the School
was still in operation. I don’t know why they let me stay.
Stargazing, mostly. Some ventriloquism. Eventually I was
named an Adept. From there I set up shop in Prague.
Florence had little to offer, but Paris, and Vienna of course
—and Zürich! You’d be surprised. But about your problem
—what can I tell you that you don’t already know? You see
a man indignant, hostile, enraged, but I see an infant crying out
in need. He hurls his misery at you. Can you contain it?
You grow miserable yourself. There are potions, incantations,
songs of experience. You know all the tunes. My dear, look
at those boots. This newest avatar suits you. Now go home.”





8.

Obsessive Pascal, alone or in company, writes letters
that remain unsent, speechifies to imaginary audiences.
Take the old man’s advice—if it is advice. Pascal,
prone to panic, prone to pursuing phantoms, spooked
by phantasms floating in the dark, collects traumas
as if they were souvenirs. Memories flood the soul:
the smoldering ashes of the great estate, the sky above
full of bright wings falling. What do they screen?
Betrayals. Accusations. Desires summoning desires,
the endless deferral of gratification. Pascal calls out
to that questing Band, that ecstatic Company, hears
them call back the name that names the task: Darklighter.





9.

Pascal studies the harsh argot of crows,
the jabbering jargon of jays, the oral law
of owls. Fluent in the Esperanto of gulls,
raised hearing the mothering coos of doves,
Wanderlust wonders why the blackbird’s
melodies, the lark’s light airs, have yet
to find their way into the codex. Upper limit
music, lower limit speech: Wanderlust
wants none of it. No range or sliding scale,
an infinite interdimensionality constitutes
the nested totality. Out of the marsh of a
lonely mind, a red-winged blackbird sings.





10.

In a dream, Pascal searches down a maze
of corridors, through randomly opening doors.
A friend imprisoned, a favorite jacket missing,
spectral breath, slow-motion panic. Pascal
wakes: fallen world, mediated world, peopled
by hungry ghosts, populated by robot voices,
endless boasts, endless lamentation. Pascal
wakes: speaking Hypnos, speaking Oneiric,
casts spells in ancient tongues, plays the long
game because there is no choice. Ghostly
laughter: what are you doing, what are those
words you mumble? Time bombs, says Pascal.





11.

The occult explosion changes everything.
It releases fantasmic energy, and all that dwells
in overheated imaginations comes alive
in the material world. The magicians dabbling
in nuclear science, the physicists practicing
the necromantic arts, the poets and painters
providing templates and archetypes, updated
in an instant, caught in a temporal loop.
An alternate reality. Ever dissatisfied, Pascal
considers the well appointed cell, looks out
the window to the street below. No monstrous
hybrids, no barricades. No wizards. No





12.

revolutionaries? There is a fire that burns
in everything: so teaches the hermit in
his cell, the wandering scholar beneath
the trees. Depart from yourself and you
will know it in every molecule of your
being. It is always the telling of the telling,
song sung in a hereafter that always lies ahead.
I don’t believe it, says Pascal, at a desk
in the study or following the ley lines in
the meadow. Hears thunder on the ridge,
shots in the street. Tightens the laces of 
flowered Docs, pulls the hood down low.