My roommate spoke in tongues. When he moved in, he just sang hymns at night. Loud though. Same guy who whispered when handling the business of the house chanted while alone in a resolute bass: Lord of hosts help us to sing. Help us to sing. Then the words ramified, into syllables branching. Who is the lord of glory a-legedegedege-babababa-ba? The lord of hosts is king of glory a-legedegedege-babababa-boo. It wasn’t nonsense. Nonsense has no pattern; that passage had a tune. So did these. Lift up your gates a-lege-dege-boh to everlasting glory daba-daba-da. The gates of our hearts will be lifted up laba-baba-baba-ba: gates of Allah, gates of Allah. Sometimes he stood behind me at the kitchen counter whispering dekedekedekedekedeke. Jesus Jesus: Uh! Dekedekedekedekedeke. Sometimes, he shouted. Oly oly: MONDO! Papa-papa-pa. Roared that like the voice on Killer Instinct. IN THE NAME OF JESUS. There was an arc to it: his voice rose, climaxed, and fell. King of glory have your way within us, have your way within us, so there will be waaaaar within us. When a session ended he’d leave his room, subdued or even chastened, and spent: Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus. The longer he stayed, the longer he spoke: after two years he started at six every morning and bellowed till midnight, and I had ground my teeth so long I pulled the muscles in my tongue. His words carried. They carried through the peeling wall. They carried through my earplugs. Restore us oh Lord: remove the grates a-mama-mama-ma of denigraaaaation a-papa-papa-pa. They carried through our apartment and seeped into this page. Every man has an enemy inside him; he struggles with it as he can. But my roommate’s words multiplied until they infiltrated this text entirely, sifting into the language that constructed our VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE: Visi-visi! VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE!
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Bio: Lucian Staiano-Daniels has a PhD in history from UCLA. He is a postdoctoral researcher somewhere.
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Image: “Mum’s living room 2003” by CjR
Rejection Letters 