Lighthouse for the Blind Because he believes that God is an idol to our fears, which are voluminous and about Nothing, after all, the Knight in The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman sets up his chessboard on the rocks at water’s edge. Death isn’t God, but it’s close. And they hang out. Having planned for this, the Knight challenges him. Death looks into his face as if the living are again something on the sole of his shoe. An annoyance. Operating as some kind of lighthouse for the blind, he warns that not much of the terrain is trustworthy. Everything is motion. The pounding surf, the waves, a wheeling shorebird with its one good eye on a meal. And then the Knight says: As long as I resist you, I live. Death is tired of hearing about the happiness of merely being alive and so points to the Knight’s hand. Selects black. Says, “The color suits me.” He’s too friendly, and in a hurry to dispense with the theological part, the part where all humans are stupid to everything. Not to idealize the end of life, least of all a knight with the blood of believers on the blade at his side, a veteran of knowing what is, and isn’t, beautiful— face it, thieving breath from another is about being still unslaughtered and watching a shorebird wheel. This isn’t a pretty sight, but Death bears it all, the constant wagering for other time in the light, perpetual struggles with the body to have its way despite innumerable incapacities, notwithstanding afflictions to the spirit—the air may be leaf-mold and wood-rot, the nightmare comes down to not being in the godawful world to catch the scent. Copyright (c) 2013 by Roy Bentley. All rights reserved.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Jun 2013 16:19:07 +0000
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