“The Succession.”
Below is a piece I wrote for John Pierson and Eric Roth’s ongoing timed-art project, a monthly podcast entitled The Whole in 30 Days. It was written, quite literally, within the two-hour window between Dana going into labor and the two of us heading off to the hospital.
You can hear me performing the piece in context, with a pair of creative updates leading up to the final piece, by downloading Episode 1: Rebellion.
The Succession
It is not real and could never be real, for if it were real it would kill him outright. But there is a chamber in the man’s heart that is not one of the standard four chambers, a chamber made not of muscle but of stone and timbers, a chamber that does not pulse and throb but holds steady, and within that impossible chamber is a throne, and in front of that throne right now is a gathering of the man’s identifying characteristics.
There has been a succession, you see. A true succession, not without blood but without hostility, although as with all successions it carries with it an aftertaste of edges and forking roads. And it is an unusual succession, for the throne has been abdicated to a single word, rather than the triumvirates or committees that had sat there before.
The word on the throne is Father. And in the chamber right now there are grumbles and heavy silences coming from the words that ruled this heart before. Artist is there, as is Lover, as are the fiery-tempered twins of Politician and Truth-Seeker. They are all demanding assurances from Father, that the kingdom to come will still have room for each of them.
Will this man still be us, they inquire, or will he only be you? There is a threat in such a question, that between the lot of them, they will rise up and overthrow the strange dauphin in front of them, turn the man’s heart deadbeat and horrible, send him fleeing from his newfound responsibilities for the sake of their own desires.
So the word, Father, looks down at each of them, and says: “There will be place for all of you here. You will, in fact, be richer, be more yourselves than you have ever been. You will love more deeply than you imagined, you will create with more passion than you believed, you will fight harder than ever for the being that brought my ascension.”
The other adjectives look to each other. They recognize the wisdom of the declaration. And as one, they turn to the throne, to the word that sits upon it, they raise their swords and their voices and they hail. They hail. They hail.
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