Getting Better: The Shrill Cacophony

You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon. Shine on you crazy diamond.
-Pink Floyd


Making his way to the kitchen App caught sight of Dio working on her paintings. She'd usually be asleep at this hour but, by the look of the transformation of what had been a blank canvass last night, she'd been painting all night. Oblivious to his presence, she was putting the final touches on the eyes of a desperately sad Daedalus, cradling on his knees the head of his drowned son. His beloved Icarus. The utter despondency on that face filled his mind with empathetic sorrow and a sense of admiration of Dio for being able to instill such emotion into her images.

Though you'd never see it painted on her face, despondency was a feeling she must know intimately. The easiness with which smiles came to her face jarred with the desperate sadness she now imbued onto her canvass. He wondered which one was real: the cheer she so naturally evoked or the solitude he imagined she must feel. Looking into the wounded eyes of Daedalus, he could not help but want to reach out to her, to tell her it was over, that she was going to be fine now - everything was going to be fine. Still, he couldn't help but wonder: Did the art have to contain the artist? Perhaps the sadness he often saw behind her smiles was merely him seeing what he expected to see. Could it be that he was doing her a terrible injustice? That she was unable to escape her past because of steel bars put there by his expectations?

How would a hunter know if the very act of hunting created his prey?

Softly inching forward, so as to remain unnoticed, App noticed something in the painting he hadn't seen before. The drowned face of Icarus featured the barest hint of a smile, but nonetheless unmistakably a smile. But... why? Curiosity getting the best of him, he spoke up "Why is Icarus smiling? He just fell to his death."

Dio didn't flinch, clearly having been aware of his presence from the beginning, "He lived the dream." Hearing this, App was driven to interject "No he didn't, he tried to live the dream. He was this close to freedom and he fucked up. Flew too high, had his wings melted. He killed his dream." "No, he killed his father's dream. Flying low they they were headed for safety, not freedom. Icarus reached for the sky." "And it burned him." App replied. Dio paused, as people giving careful consideration to their next words often do. "Well, I'd say it burned Daedalus more. Icarus reached for the sky, and it destroyed him. We hear the story from the perspective of Daedalus, lost in grief after losing a son. The lesson we're told we're supposed to pull from the story is 'Don't fly too high'. After all, keeping to that would have saved Icarus, right? But what of Icarus? Who's to say he had no regrets? That he came closer to the radiance of the sun than any other... and thought of his fall as just payment? My sadness isn't for Icarus. I've been told to be sad for him, but I wont. I won't because I won't let myself see him as a fool. I'm sad for Daedalus. I'm sad that he doesn't understand... and I hope, I hope so desperately, that one day he will."

"The Surreal Boom of the Budokan Stadium"

The sun had fought a fierce struggle that day but now lay deceased and conquered.
There were madmen everywhere. This was a time of celebration. "Rejoice! The sun lies dead!" the madmen sang and shouted. Underneath their feet, the grass shimmered with tears of dew. One of the madmen approached and said to me "You know how they say that you can't truly be mad if you know yourself to be mad? That is not true. That is NOT true. Madness... Madness is knowing you're mad and not wanting to have it any other way." Mulling his words, I could help but point out: "But that's circular..." Alas, the madman was mad, and had already wandered off, suddenly preoccupied with devising way to shoot fire into the sky. "Rejoice! The sun lies dead! And what better blasphemy than to make our own sun?"

Onstage, the madmen's priests preached their gospel. The guitarist painted the sky with bright blues and reds, the bassist denied the existence of contradictions, and the singer spoke of blindmen in the new dark. Those who before we had thought crippled would now become shepherds. The blindmen who had long navigated the seas of dark had been busy making maps. Making maps for those of us who would later come. For those of us who still played in the sun's playpen. Those of us who had not yet seen that the playpen was a prison.