Omnicide, 207–244

Chapter

Kinetomania (Continual Movement)

EXCERPT

And of the two of us
the one who passed across the turbulent waters of the ocean
was not he
but I.
And at this point I resembled a boat with disconnected
   anchor
      conscious
of its own eternal wandering,
once again of such horrifying truth that consciousness
as a term
means the same thing as neck-offering submission
and consent.

—Ahmad Shamlu

We encounter our seventh kinetomaniac through the following triangulation of subject, object, and space: the lifeboat; the waters; the ocean. We can imagine the charting of a rare relation between conceptual figures usually kept at odds—the martyr (the neck, the blindfold) and the traitor (the back, the dagger)—as they conjoin in the deathly metaphorical resemblance to an unanchored ark