The guy who lived here? No, we never met. Reckon he was a type who kept to himself. Lotsa people are like that, they mind their own business and don’t like no contact, I s’pose. Yeah, he lived alone. No, he did get no visitors very often as far as I know, but I never paid much attention, really. What, did he kill somebody? Are you wit’ the police or sumthin’? Well, y’never know. You live in the big city, you don’t get to always know your neighbor. Nah, I don’t think any of us knew him properly. If you don’t mind my asking, why are you looking for him?

Sure, I can spare two minutes. What’s it about? The man who used to live upstairs? I don’t think I’ll be any help, we barely knew each other. Exchanged “good mornings” on the stairs, and that’s about it. He’d been living here for quite a while when I moved in. And he seemed nice, I guess, but you know how these things are, life downtown. I don’t know half the people in the building by their names… including him, now that I mention it. Wait, I'll remember... God, what was his name again?

Sir Alexander in 12 Images

I - The Gargoyle

He was once human, or at least he thinks he was, but ever since he can remember he’s been standing on the castle keep overlooking the ocean, rock-still and noiseless. Only his eyes move, and he sees it all – the stirring waters, the soaring birds, the chattering people beyond the curtain walls – a whole world oblivious of his scrutiny. Beneath the stony skin, however, his thoughts are very much alive. The seeming lifelessness of his carcass is but a clever ruse – or an accidental armor – which conceals an overabundance of reflections on the external world, perused in the candlelight of memory. The eyes of the gargoyle move, search and capture. And the animate statue thinks – ever quietly, with a certain bittersweet longing – of the things he sees.

II - The Sea

The sea is deep, crimson and unkind. It smites the land, reaching for the impossible heavens, stirring futilely in lawless revulsion. It cannot speak its suffering. It swallows the vessels whole and laughs resentfully, swaying the white bodies of the drowned in its depths.

The sea is deep, green and mysterious, and the waves are my sheep. Through the jade fields of the night, I call them by their names, I shepherd them and – together – we follow. The sea is everything you cannot see and I cannot show. The sea has everything I do not want you to know.

III - The Haunting

I am very afraid of this aimless anger that boils beneath the crust of my heart, for it is a sentient vestige – not of what I am, but of some ancient and fluid resentment with a life of its own, running deep and corroding my humanity. It inhales life, and exhales a storm of noxious fumes, eager to see me drown in them. The riotous hosts ride within these clouds, snarling and searching. During the outbreaks I may look like myself on the outside, but it is really that something else in my veins, blotting out my true conscience and bringing me a step closer to that conclusion beyond which no further conclusions lay.

IV - The Hourglass

In the nightmare, I am a frozen shade - slow and helpless as everyone passes me by and through. The old friends and acquaintances parade their achievements, flaunting their successful choices. I try to follow the trails of spilled happiness left in their wake, but too soon they are vanished, or flow through crevices, bars and keyholes, to where I cannot see. "What has happened?" – I mutter, in a moment of bewilderment. There is a small, everlasting ember in my throat. Finally, everyone is gone; I am bound in the foggy backstages of life, having missed all the last opportunities. Only an ominous quietness remains. I hurry, and I run, leaving bits of myself here and there.

V - The Gate

I was always the last one to leave. Out of loyalty, out of love.

The giant grinding stone within my head churns, fed by the wind that rages outside. I close the trembling windows of the windmill. I tread carefully down the wooden stairs, as the whole edifice shivers with the cyclic tension of the furious mill. What oppressing force compels the sails of this old edifice? What must one do to constrict its perpetual whirl, I ask the storm. Alas, no answer. Now the Mechanism - unattended and unconstricted - is free to gather momentum until its dark wheels and coils are strained beyond the point of shattering. All is wagered on the outside chance that the faulty parts will collapse first, restoring the remaining ones back to their dynamic balance.

"I am still here, while the day goes up and down.
Spare as the moon up there I walk to town.
The barns are gone, the woods, the yellow deer,
The roaring church is gone, but I am here.

Today the sun was walking in the rain,
As if the rain were words; I am the same; (...)"

--- Sarah Ruden

Happy birthday to me.