Certainly Heroes Must Exist
by David Arthur Walters
Saturday, March 21, 2009

Ripped from an convicted existentialist's memoir....

CERTAINLY HEROES MUST EXIST who do their utmost, even in a state of quiet desperation, to search out and destroy the monstrous deceits that mislead hapless clods along the well-beaten paths to the graveyard. Surely a strenuous effort must always be made by some fervent revolutionary to, somehow, for the time being, conquer the illusory world that confronts the Task with insidious deceptions. And this even believing the Task is futile, hence absurd, and paradoxically,suicidal, because the self is of the illusion to be dispelled, a witch to be cremated on the stake erected for vanity.   If only I too might be a hero, and put aside the flask with its bewitching potion of non-alcoholic self-delusion. If only I might recover from self-intoxicated drunkenness in time to bloom belatedly. If only I might be the Joker or Hamlet in the Deck, rolled over at the last moment to fulfill the heroic examples of the illustrious noble lords and ladies who were from birth fully committed to the Task.   If only this fond wish might serve as my successful entreaty to my Muse to bestow upon my genius enough madness to faithfully embark on the most fantastic adventure of all, and to relish the Grand Project of my life no matter how futile, unrealistic, and impossible the Task may seem. For here I am yet again under the crushing weight of my insignificance, the unutterable heaviness of being that affirms everything I am not. The preponderance of the evidence against me magnifies my worthlessness to the degree that I am truly astonished by the grandeur of my insignificance. Yet I fear falling back asleep; for this almost unbearable weighty feeling is just a shade of the terror from which I awoke.   Surely there can be no greater horror on Earth than a ride on that pallid Nightmare stepping out slowly but surely along the black bridleless paths to nowhere. Nevertheless, if Sleep, Death's twin,seizes me again, I shall try to bring my Nightmare to a halt, in Catatonia if need be, to forestall the impending doom. I would linger statuesquely in Lunar Limbo as long as I can, lest I come under the full influence of Night. Although she hides the innocent, shields loversand conceals fortunes from thieves, I have an instinctive fear of her other wing, which hides the guilty. Most of all I fear her third, most fateful daughter, Atropos, who would fain sever the unraveling string of my kite with her shears - my atrophying body provides me with due cause to suspect she lurks in the shadows. somewhere, perhaps near Dreams.   But why do I want to keep this often-miserable log rolling? Why do I fear the final blessing, of Death, during sleep, a quiet departure, into the Night? Tertullian's argument , "No death is so easy as not to be in some sense violent," is unconvincing. I must clutch at this straw because of the prejudicial predilection that I entertain: that I must have some magnificent purpose here given the stupendous odds against my ever being here in the first place.  Wherefore I heave my waterlogged body out of its Procrustean bed of discontent, and light another candle, this candle, for what may be my final lucubration on the fundamental question, supposing that it is the fundamental question.