TR

The Abyss - the great hole that sucks in all of life

“Thinking can be critical if by critical we mean the active, affirmative invention of new images of thought. Thinking is life lived at the highest possible power, both creative and critical, enfleshed, erotic, and pleasure-driven. It is essentially about change and transformations and is a perversion of sorts, like an unprogrammed mutation.”

Braidotti, Rosi1

Some say water bends sound. Within water, a certain mastery is required in order to understand who or what that scream of pleasure, moaning or laughter belongs to. Not just a master ear; an artfulness that can twist time, that is fluid, that fearlessly licks what is spread to understand its nature then distinguish its taste from the ocean salt. Each detail of water and the Swimming Ones carries a beckoning for an-other unification and convergence. And it is that moment which triggers the excitement of the limbs that cannot stop their bends dreaming of leaving the other breathless, where breathing is not even necessarily needed.

Cephalopods, who have witnessed the ancient days of the world, can sometimes convey all the information they carry by just touching it (water): by adding legs to their tentacles and opening their transistors to share. Dark waters might be a reminder of hell to some, yet this deep hole under their rule, in fact, is just the door of perception of another, peculiar world. For this very reason, one must consult the unknown only to the ones who flows thr ough the unknown.

They almost carry the colour palettes and aesthetics of the post-apocalyptic world of Rita2 . Still they only fancy the colours of the glass lantern reflected onto the water, not the panic of extinction. They can easily change their shape, colour and sound. As they go deeper for further intimacies, they also change the color of the water from blue to navy, from navy to red. All these details give us the impression of a dream, a reminiscence or a fantasy. The illusion of time has disappeared, giving usual reassurance to those wandering in the open, unstoppable water. Maybe, from/for this reason, water can be readable. By rulers of memory, or so all the oceans can be enchanted for the desire of different intimacies. Perhaps it is them, those posthuman creatures who are freely curled and r eunited in boiling waters.

In summary, Abyss’ children are those who make love at the bottom while the sky is cracking.

In Night Rehearsal, the Swimming Ones are the ones who hear the sounds of the Flying, Walking and Crawling Ones, and yet go deeper into the Abyss. Pitchdark makes it challenging to find them, so they live unamenable. Perhaps it may not even be convincing to say that they live in the same world, as it seems that the same world can accommodate thousands of others. That desire they hold on to go deeper with the insatiability of reddish-black and be satisfied with this eternity. The bottom of the water can be deeper than the point where the sky ends; it is only another arrogant chess master who misses his home, as usual, thinks that the people living, and the things happening down there are not layered and could easily be grasped.

Living in water is a spatial experience; the main reason why humans worship is due to the fact that, even though one cannot fly, one can still swim. It is a familiar matter, to be able to float in water. Therefore, deep-water creatures are admired, and thus they are feared. Fear the giant limbs that swallow ships o…! The Swimming Ones do not promise a new place to those who leave their homes behind; on the contrary, they are the living creatures that call the rest into the deep, allowing a transformation, a coexistence, and behaving modestly in relation to this new dialogue. They are almost like a unique example of the posthuman synthesis and togetherness. They are focused on other intimacies, not reproduction. They recall the need for another type of communication. Since they are in a continuous mutation and flow, they show a slippery, wet, elusive convergence.

They travel to the root of the human-animal distinction created by cultures throughout history, entangled with pleasure, and turn those distinctions into a unity. It remains unknown where they came from or where they will travel to next - just living in the water, fecklessly and alone. This makes them the only rulers of the deep world; they do not need to go to the surface and breath. They can only breathe effortlessly while diving into the deep. With an endless openness, they curl up into the Abyss that can suck in all of life. They do not only swim, but they also twine, stick and enjoy using their new limbs. They endeavour to remould the forgotten fundamental knowledge and teachings, pushing all those disappearing into the depths, against the surface. By keeping that information as a reminder to all those who dare to flow with them, they simply demand all intimacies, togetherness and unities be remained - again and again by just whispering to the water.

And the water can be read only by the animals and living creatures that are inside of and part of the water. When Circe3 emerges from the end of the ocean again, she curses her enemies by turning them into animals; not to punish them, but to make them understand.

1Braidotti, Rosi. ‘Animals, Anomalies and Inorganic Others’, PMLA 124, No:2 (2009): 526-32

2Tentacle by Rita Indiana (Author), Achy Obejas (Translator), Publisher: And Other Stories (7 Nov. 2018)

3Circe, (Kírkē pronounced) is a goddess of magic or sometimes a nymph, enchantress or sorceress in Greek mythology. She is a daughter of the god Helios and either the Oceanid nymph Perse or the goddess Hecate. Circe was renowned for her vast knowledge of potions and herbs.