A Modern Day Cain
Most of the time, the creation of a narrative for me begins with a single, solid conception of a character or a powerful, climactic scene that plays out like a movie clip in front of my eyes. Certain lines, certain actions stand apart from the rest and evoke a kind of raw emotion alone, sealing their place in whichever fiction they happen to spring from within my head. Only later does the plot, setting, history coalesce - the beginning is always marked by an intense, solitary image.
However, this particular night, inspiration was sparked by something a little different. Checking through my news feeds, I came upon this unusual story about a man who was struck suddenly by amnesia and wandered the streets of Dallas for several days, before happy coincidence led to him being identified by a friend of his near the site where he was having his house built. What is more intriguing is that this was no ordinary amnesia - it is a rare condition called psychogenic fugue, which is a mysterious psychiatric illness that causes victims to abruptly lose all memory of themselves and their pasts. Sufferers are often afflicted with an urge to wander from place to place during the fugue state, lasting upwards of several days; their memory during their travels is, from what I gather, extremely hazy after they recover. Current medical science has little to say on it except that it is a very rare condition.
Now, things might end well and enough here, if it weren't for an unusual connection I made with another ancient narrative - helped along by two movies I remember quite vividly from the past. One is Pi, which stars a tormented mathematical genius who is afflicted with Trigeminal Autonomic Cephalgias, or cluster headaches, in his quest for the ultimate universal number. The other is Collateral, about a cynical LA hitman who exemplifies the cold and distant life of the post-modern cityscape. I had initially thought Memento was present here as well, but upon reflection, believe that I made the connection from psychogenic fugue to anterograde amnesia separately, and without much thought (though it will affect my storyline theory later, as you'll see). Regardless, the former two share a single setting within a scene that stood out immediately in my mind. Both characters found themselves, at some point, sitting in a desolate subway train in the middle of the night. Max's was wrapped up in a headache-induced hallucination of his, scratched out in harsh black-and-white, while Vincent's reflected a more philosophical bent...or rather...socio-psychological. Early in the movie, he tells a taxi driver (also named Max, and the title protagonist of the movie) an anecdote about a man who passes away quietly on the subways of LA, and isn't discovered dead for nearly six hours. He rode that train around and around, beside fully living people, coming and going from their daily lives, too distant to even notice the corpse beside them. The line is worth quoting.
At the end of Collateral, we see Vincent shot dead in a standoff on that same bleak subway train he described...sitting there alone...as the tracks pass on beneath him.
Where does this lead us, you ask? Well, in an unusual twist of mental connection, I thought how appropriate the image of the aimlessly drifting amnesiac would be for a modern day Cain, banished from Eden to wander for all eternity in the land of Nod. In the traditional Biblical story, God banishes Cain to the Land of Nod after confronting him over the murder of his brother, Abel.
Various interpretations of this statement exist, one of which was first used by Jonathan Swift in his A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation to associate Nod with sleep - that is, Cain was banished to eternal rest. A perhaps restless purgatory of the mind. Now then, putting all of this together, I ask a simple question:
What if Cain woke up?
And with that, the story's premise seems to coalesce. For if Cain awoke, gained self-awareness, much as the psychogenic fugue patient did after days of wandering, he could very well serve as a symbol of both the victim and the victimizer in present day society. It is as if an epilogue to Collateral, beginning with Cain regaining consciousness in the desolate, skeletal interior of an anonymous city metro. Here begins the character's personal journey through a disaffected, almost post-apocalyptic landscape - his own internal emptiness (for he does not remember the circumstances which led him to sleep) mirroring that of the modern-day spirit. Religious symbology would be crucial in painting a bright picture of the corruption today. One image that pops to mind is a contrast between the cheap, neon glow of a plastic cross in a store window at night, and the face of a televangelist broadcast again and again on all the available video monitors on the street. Both are artificial constructs, but the former perhaps holds a special significance for the family who owns it.
Details of his travels elude me as of yet, although the possibility of murder, even fratricide, being a central turning point would be appropriate. The mark that God placed on him (something I need to give more thought to in a modern context) is also an important recurring image. Cain watches his own sin being committed over and over in the streets of the city; his conscience revolts, but his memory refuses to cave. Similarly, a meeting with "Eve" might draw some clues to his reason for existence...I even ponder the inclusion of Ishmael as an influencing force, with its interpretation of the story of Genesis within a sociological context. Nevertheless, at the end, I see Cain coming full circle, lying on an abandoned playground's merry-go-round (that circular thing with metal bars as handholds shooting from the center) staring at the heavens which forsook him, with the realization of his true identity...and upon coming to terms, closes his eyes for one final, eternal sleep.
However, this particular night, inspiration was sparked by something a little different. Checking through my news feeds, I came upon this unusual story about a man who was struck suddenly by amnesia and wandered the streets of Dallas for several days, before happy coincidence led to him being identified by a friend of his near the site where he was having his house built. What is more intriguing is that this was no ordinary amnesia - it is a rare condition called psychogenic fugue, which is a mysterious psychiatric illness that causes victims to abruptly lose all memory of themselves and their pasts. Sufferers are often afflicted with an urge to wander from place to place during the fugue state, lasting upwards of several days; their memory during their travels is, from what I gather, extremely hazy after they recover. Current medical science has little to say on it except that it is a very rare condition.
Now, things might end well and enough here, if it weren't for an unusual connection I made with another ancient narrative - helped along by two movies I remember quite vividly from the past. One is Pi, which stars a tormented mathematical genius who is afflicted with Trigeminal Autonomic Cephalgias, or cluster headaches, in his quest for the ultimate universal number. The other is Collateral, about a cynical LA hitman who exemplifies the cold and distant life of the post-modern cityscape. I had initially thought Memento was present here as well, but upon reflection, believe that I made the connection from psychogenic fugue to anterograde amnesia separately, and without much thought (though it will affect my storyline theory later, as you'll see). Regardless, the former two share a single setting within a scene that stood out immediately in my mind. Both characters found themselves, at some point, sitting in a desolate subway train in the middle of the night. Max's was wrapped up in a headache-induced hallucination of his, scratched out in harsh black-and-white, while Vincent's reflected a more philosophical bent...or rather...socio-psychological. Early in the movie, he tells a taxi driver (also named Max, and the title protagonist of the movie) an anecdote about a man who passes away quietly on the subways of LA, and isn't discovered dead for nearly six hours. He rode that train around and around, beside fully living people, coming and going from their daily lives, too distant to even notice the corpse beside them. The line is worth quoting.
17 million people. This was a country, it would be the fifth biggest economy in the world. But nobody knows each other. Too impersonal. But that's just me...you know...(pause) I read about this guy. Gets on the MTA, here, and dies. Six hours he's riding the subway before anybody notices. This corpse doing laps around LA, people on and off, sitting next to him, nobody notices.Source: IMSDB Collateral script
At the end of Collateral, we see Vincent shot dead in a standoff on that same bleak subway train he described...sitting there alone...as the tracks pass on beneath him.
Where does this lead us, you ask? Well, in an unusual twist of mental connection, I thought how appropriate the image of the aimlessly drifting amnesiac would be for a modern day Cain, banished from Eden to wander for all eternity in the land of Nod. In the traditional Biblical story, God banishes Cain to the Land of Nod after confronting him over the murder of his brother, Abel.
And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. (Genesis 4:16, King James Version)
Various interpretations of this statement exist, one of which was first used by Jonathan Swift in his A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation to associate Nod with sleep - that is, Cain was banished to eternal rest. A perhaps restless purgatory of the mind. Now then, putting all of this together, I ask a simple question:
What if Cain woke up?
And with that, the story's premise seems to coalesce. For if Cain awoke, gained self-awareness, much as the psychogenic fugue patient did after days of wandering, he could very well serve as a symbol of both the victim and the victimizer in present day society. It is as if an epilogue to Collateral, beginning with Cain regaining consciousness in the desolate, skeletal interior of an anonymous city metro. Here begins the character's personal journey through a disaffected, almost post-apocalyptic landscape - his own internal emptiness (for he does not remember the circumstances which led him to sleep) mirroring that of the modern-day spirit. Religious symbology would be crucial in painting a bright picture of the corruption today. One image that pops to mind is a contrast between the cheap, neon glow of a plastic cross in a store window at night, and the face of a televangelist broadcast again and again on all the available video monitors on the street. Both are artificial constructs, but the former perhaps holds a special significance for the family who owns it.
Details of his travels elude me as of yet, although the possibility of murder, even fratricide, being a central turning point would be appropriate. The mark that God placed on him (something I need to give more thought to in a modern context) is also an important recurring image. Cain watches his own sin being committed over and over in the streets of the city; his conscience revolts, but his memory refuses to cave. Similarly, a meeting with "Eve" might draw some clues to his reason for existence...I even ponder the inclusion of Ishmael as an influencing force, with its interpretation of the story of Genesis within a sociological context. Nevertheless, at the end, I see Cain coming full circle, lying on an abandoned playground's merry-go-round (that circular thing with metal bars as handholds shooting from the center) staring at the heavens which forsook him, with the realization of his true identity...and upon coming to terms, closes his eyes for one final, eternal sleep.
Labels: fiction
posted by Anqi | 12:58 PM
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