The Last Journals Of Klip The Seagull

Graham Rapier,
Death

I meet a lot of people. Sometimes their faces blur one after another, but on my best days, they all stick with me. All of them are beautiful. The horror is in how I meet them. Walking them down my spiraling garden corridor, my butterflies' flutters are an ambient song ending on the other side of the white curtain. I hate how the dead look at me first, don’t they know I have no choice in my role in this sorted cycle? I hope they tend to look at me differently by the end of our conversations. Sometimes fear lay spread thickly upon their faces, or sadness comforts them like a lipless kiss. Others just look back hung longingly. Sometimes they're happy, but that's the saddest feeling because how could they be happy? Right off the bat, I guess you could call it a gift, I feel how they felt in their last moments. I get a little piece of them. I get to keep that feeling with me and whatever I get from the conversation we have together. On the last walk I took down to the curtain, I met a little bird, and she gave me her journal. I thought I would send it back to the world of the living. So here is the journal of Klip the seagull.

Until we finally meet, G.R.

9/7/2007

Hi Mr. Journal, it's nice to meet you. You seem like I can maybe talk to you, so here I go. I'm not really much of a journaler, but I feel like talking and I feel like being alone.

I live on the beach with my friends, but I don't really know why anymore. I like to sleep in. I used to get up to greet the sunrise, but I haven't felt like it in a while. I made a new friend the other day, I do that a lot. I like new people. I like new things. I used to never think about where they come from - that's their biz to work out. I'm just tired of how all my friends are alone when I meet them, and I don't know, I guess I never paid much attention to that before meeting the Gulled One, who's asleep while I write this. I mean, he was just left there. He was...sad, how many of my friends have been abandoned? How many of my friends are sad? Am I sad? What does sad feel like?

After Francis fixed him, up he lost his expression of sadness and anger, he just looks: full. I wonder where his expression went. I checked above him. I even dug through the sand under him, but I couldn't find it. Where did the feelings go? He just looks peaceful. His eyes are open, but he's dreaming. I wonder if the feelings followed him here or I wonder if they just found their new home in me.

Francis looks so proud of her healing work. She really isn't the warmest, but she helps these people, although I don't think she really thinks of them as people, more so just like hunks of rock for sculpture. She's not uncaring; she's just a cold kind of caring, like a crab. I couldn't get the Gulled One's face out of my head. Even though Francis is not really the type, I felt like I needed to ask somebody, "You ever wonder where they come from? All these friends I find, like none of them are young, so what were they doing before we met them, doesn't anybody miss them?"

"It's not my place to wonder. It's not in my nature, Klip, and I didn't think it was in yours either. And my nature's all I've got. How do you think I've lasted all these tides? If I didn't stick to my resolve, I would have never survived the ice breaks of '06. Have you listened to anything I was teaching you?

I don't listen very good. Francis was strong in body and heart both. She's like a rock, but I'm like the breeze, but more lately I've been a mellow breeze, but I don't let that show that's my biz to deal with. I stopped listening to what she was saying. I just kind of shrugged and said "okay."

Eventually, the Gulled One awoke. I tried to perk up. Maybe talking to him would help me feel better, I don't know. I guess there's a Klip in my private time and another one when I'm with my friends. "See, you're all better, bet you're glad I found you?" I ask him.

"I guess I am, maybe I can stick around a bit, just to make sure? ''

He didn't have any other place to go, plus in the couple of minutes he was awake I was starting to feel better, so out comes the Klip I wear for my friends, "Oh really, that'd be the best. We can scavenge in the morning then, play till night...oh Do you like games?" I asked, "I used to like games more, I guess I still do with the right person if I'm in the right mood which hasn't been a lot lately."

"I do, I love games." Gulled One said. "I haven’t played one in a while though, that'd be cool. But what do you mean exactly by scavenge?"

"Oh you know, shark around the beach, seeing what come across, all breeze like and stuff. We could have some real fun. I like your vibe, makes me feel...better"

"I'd like that, it does feel right. I'd like to join you, you know, to find people who are lost like I was."

"Well, I don't really think about it like that. I just like the hunt ya know, I guess. I get in the dumps when I think about where we all come from, I was just talking to Francis about that…"

I thought talking to him would make me feel better, and I guess it does in the moment, but the wake left from the ups from when I'm around him leave me feeling so down when I'm alone. I'm ashamed to feel it, but I wish I didn't ask him to stay. He just kind of fills me up with life, and makes me want to grab the sun, but I don't ever feel like I'm holding anything. I like to wander just to wander, just to feel the moment, but he wanders to find something. And at the moment that night when the three of us danced to the sunset, it was nice, but at the end of the day I'm left soggy and cold while falling asleep. It just takes so much energy to do something good, I miss just doing "something" and now I feel all opened up and mushy in a silly journal. I'm tired of this. I just want to flap my wings until I get tired, and for no other reason but to feel the breeze.

Until next time Mr. journal Your friend, Klip

For more articles by Graham Rapier, click here. To get in touch with this writer, email rapier.graham@surrealtimes.net.

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