We fight amongst ourselves because there is no one else to fight, though we believe there must be…others. Our footsteps, indeterminate, conflicting rhythms, as if we are cockroaches running towards transformation, a change, of no presence, no reality. As if it is locked away in a room one wished existed. Still, we hear a song seeping through that room’s walls. 

It’s her song, the singer who disappeared long ago, and it is a bitter elixir for our pang. We investigate its lingering melody and words like hunting dogs, but we can’t keep up with the number of wounds she sings into us, and our doctors can’t cure us of its beauty.  

And now through our longing, she reveals herself or we conjure her, a semblance of her body, made up of spirit. We can see her open her mouth as if to sing but there is no sound. So, we put on the recording, and she sings along with herself, a self that was once alive… enough to place vibrations upon a static piece of media. She looks sad as her spirit mouth moves in sync with a mere copy. 

This didn’t stop us from crowding ‘round her. We’re sorry but we can’t be destitute, can’t pretend, even if that would make her words materialize into harmony. Our crowd becomes thick, and her image disappears somewhere inside our throng. It’s too easy to forget to look for her, but we still hear the song.  

We must have its sound and we don’t know whether it’s the song that inspires us to fight or our reaction to it. Perhaps it’s both that creates a hum in our ears. There’s no such thing as silence, no simplicity of solitude, no singular thought. We fight as a group. We fight amongst ourselves because there is no one else to fight, though we believe there must be… 

(This piece is in response to Burke and Kant’s theories pertaining to the sublime.)