Haunting

by Gail Riordan

Archive: Master/Apprentice, anywhere else, please ask first

Category: Poetry, Angst

Rating: PG/PG-13

Warning: There are no spoilers for either The Haunting or TPM in this - it was inspired by, not written about either film. There are more notes after the piece.

Summary: The Haunting meets Star Wars (serious)

Feedback: Please do! to: wander@dnai.com

Disclaimer: I really don't think anything in this is so specific as to need a disclaimer, but: The Haunting belongs to Dreamworks and The Estate of Shirley Jackson, and the Boys belong to Lucas. The poem, however, belongs to me but I ain't makin' no money off it. (c) July 27, 1999

Notes: There are notes after the piece.

Haunting

I am not afraid.
What then, O student, is terror?
The body knows two terrors, quick and still
   The mind and heart and spirit know numberless,
     Each unique and all the same
     To dumb and sensate flesh.
       
I am not afraid.
What is there, then, to be afraid of?
The seduction of the mind into madness?
   Knowing that what you see
     Cannot be, yet is?
   Knowing that what you hear
     Not what you fear, is
       Ordinary noises, & not
I am not afraid.
It's all a mass psychosis
   Directed from the screen
   Were you sucked in?
     Shadows sticking softly
       In the corner of your eye
     Voices in the corner of your ear
   Did you hear them?
I am not afraid.
Perception slides and shifts
   Seeming insignificant
   Now here, nowhere, here now
     Where? No? Here?
       The sounds of seeming unraveling
   A part, now, not apart,
   Participates in presence
     And the watcher leaves
       The sunlit lands behind--
I am not afraid.
One step, another, faster
   and faster, and faster
   and the breath catches in the throat
   sawing quick, ragged and dry
   squeezing the heart, pummelling the lungs
   and the skin clutches tightly to bone
     Are you running?
     Are you dreaming?
     Both?
       Did you know eyes could scream?

I am not afraid.
   You will be.
   You will be.
   

Gail Riordan
27 July, 1999

Notes:

This is what happens when I think too much -- The Haunting meets Star Wars and long thought on the nature of not only Jedi training and master/apprentice relationships, but also any kind of personal & spiritual discipline, particularly as demonstrated on-screen by Liam Neeson both in person & in character (*both* characters in this case). And there's a little bit of B5 Ranger stuff mixed in as well. I'm nothing if not eclectic.

For the curious, there are some specific references:

"Now here, nowhere, here now" is a ref to Diana Wynne Jones' _Fire and Hemlock_.

"leaves/The sunlit lands behind" is a ref to CSLewis' _The Silver Chair_.

"Did you know eyes could scream?" The staircase sequence. Now that takes courage. Brrrr.

And anyone who doesn't hear Yoda saying the last two lines hasn't been paying attention :-).

Let me know if you liked it :-)
Jennifer